Avery's Self Critique

Avery Williamson
John Barbour
7/26/10

Self Critique

I didn’t realize how silly I actually looked while I stood up there. When I was giving my presentation to the class I felt as if I did everything to perfection. All my words seemed to come out clear and my delivery was perfect. When I looked at my video, I saw that I was wrong. I found a few good things and bad ones. When I practiced in my dorm my speech was smooth as butter, but the first thing I noticed on the video was how nervous I seemed to be. I didn’t notice myself repeating any of my material because I had it organized well on my note cards. Another huge problem was eye contact. That’s one aspect of my presentation where I thought I was the strongest. The video revealed to me how little I gazed into the audience. I could tell I was nervous the way I jumped from looking back and forth from my note cards to the picture on the projector screen. Eye contact is very critical because it engages the audience more and keeps them interested. The last negative flaw I spotted in my elf critique was extra movement. I seemed to sway back and forth an excessive amount, as if a giant fan was trying to blow me over.
Some of the positives I noticed were great word speed, clear speech, word fillers, and gestures. Word speed was a lot better than the first two presentations. I slowed down dramatically and let myself think more. I made sure I said all of my words clear so the audience could understand it all. My biggest pet peeve I improved was saying umm so much. Instead of filling the awkward silences with that phrase, I just decided to completely close my mouth and say nothing.

I feel like I improved by watching this video of myself. I would have never noticed all of my mistakes unless I watched it. The plan for my next presentation is to strictly work on all the flaws I have. They’re simple mistakes that just need a small bit of practice. Overall I thought my presentation was pretty good, and I’m anxious to see how my next one is.