Self-Evaluation Questions for Oral Presentations

These questions are meant to be a starting point for your oral presentations. Feel free to go much further beyond them. Remember that the goal of this self-reflection is for you to identify both your strengths and weaknesses as a speaker and to make a plan for improvement. I am expecting a response of several paragraphs, so don't scant your answers.

Feel free to address them in any order and to add other information that will help me see what you saw on the tape.

• Did you make eye and verbal contact with the whole room? Could you have done anything differently in this regard? Would you characterize yourself as left- or right-shouldered? Why?
• How would you characterize your presenter's manner--calm, confident, "prepared wing-it-ness," nervous, etc.? Did this change over the course of the presentation? If so, when and why?
• Were there any verbal or physical distractors ("uhh", rocking back and forth, hand gestures, playing with hair, etc.) that might have distracted your audience from following the presentation?
• To what extent did you complete the assignment (reviewing a current issue in your field)? How well? Did you use the terminology or strategies explained in the text? If not, why?
• How well do you feel you managed your time (pace, rate of delivery, sticking to the storyboard)? Why? What parts of the planned pacing were the most difficult for you to manage?
• What specifically do you want to change in your next presentation?