Assignment Instructions
1. Prepare a 6–7 minute PERSUASIVE oral presentation on an issue (political, social, environmental
and so on).
2. Identify an audience. For example, if you were going to speak about a local government issue, your audience could be residents from a particular suburb who may be concerned about the issue. Your introduction should acknowledge a specific audience and your role in presenting the speech. This is to help the marker determine whether the content and style of delivery is appropriate. The primary purpose will be to persuade the audience to your point of view about the issue. In addition, you may also inform or entertain to make the speech more interesting.
3. Include a reference list of at least three academic sources.
4. Because visuals are an important part of oral presentations, we have allocated 15 marks for this, so you will need to use visuals throughout.
5. Pay particular attention to the marking criteria sheet. Note the marks for structure. Many students ignore the structure and lose valuable marks.
6. You will find more information on this assignment in the section ‘Guidelines for assignment preparation’.
NOTE: 10 marks will be deducted for speeches that go substantially BEYOND 8 minutes or
BELOW 5 minutes.
1. TOPIC CHOICE
• Firstly, choose a topic that is about an “issue”, which means it has consequence and is important for your chosen audience.
• Your topic should have a strong persuasive angle. The point of your oral is to argue in favour or against something and then convince your audience with relevant research and clear arguments.
• Avoid choosing a descriptive topic which is primarily explanatory in nature, i.e. talking about something, but not arguing for/against something. This means you need to do more than just inform your audience -­- you should also be persuading them towards a specific point of view.
• Examples of topics that would not be suitable are: The History of Spanish Dance, The
Popularity of Martial Arts, DC Comics are Better than Marvel Comics, U2 is the Greatest Band in the World, Why Courtney Love Killed Kurt Cobain. Topics such as these are problematic for a couple of reasons; either there is no academic support for the claims, or there is no “issue” involved that has consequence for the audience.
• One way to check if your topic is good is to consider whether it has two opposing sides. If it does, then that means you can take a stance (choose one side) and then argue in that direction.
• Avoid using an assignment or content from another course to base your speech on. The speech you present should be new and original.
• If you’re not sure if your topic will suit this assignment, please email your lecturer for advice.
2. RESEARCH
• Your key arguments need to be based on academic research. If you can't find any research for your topic then that means you'll need to find a new topic. Don’t become too committed to a topic unless you can first locate at least three academic sources. These should be journal articles, textbooks, etc.
• Don’t use information from blogs, websites or non-­-academic books. Go to EBSCOHost and Google Scholar!
• You need to include oral and written citations so the audience knows what research is supporting your main arguments. This can be done in two ways: Put written citations on your PowerPoint slide (using the usual formatting for citations) or include a verbal citation in your narration. An example of the latter option: “In 2006, Smith and Jones conducted research into vaccination in third world countries and found that …”. Therefore, a verbal citation is less formal than a written one, but it still contains the relevant information. However, don’t worry about saying page numbers when doing it this way – the author(s) and date will be fine.
• Use a combination of written and verbal citations throughout, so one citation might be on your slide, while the next one might be spoken aloud. You don’t need to have a written AND verbal citation for each source – just choose one option.
• Any information you provide that is not considered common knowledge should have a citation.
• Include a reference list at the end, on your final PowerPoint slide. This should be correctly formatted in either APA or Harvard style, but it doesn’t need to be spoken aloud by you.
3. AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
• You need to select a specific audience for your speech and then tailor the information and visuals for that group. Therefore, pretend you really are speaking to this group rather than CMS1000 students!
• Avoid having an overly generalised target audience. For example, “school students” is too broad because their ages could range from 6-­-18 and topics suitable for those in Year 1 might not be relevant for those in Year 12. Instead, narrow it down as much as possible, such as
“Year 8 students at Toowoomba Grammar School”. Also, an audience such as “teachers” or “parents” or “the community” is too broad.
• Consider your potential audience while you are still formulating your topic. If you can’t think of a specific group who would come together to hear this information, then that might be a sign you need to change your topic.
• The best way to narrow down your audience is to think of a real-­-life scenario in which you might present your speech, and then consider where you would present it and who would turn up.
• If you wish, you can choose to have a fictional role such as a scientist, spokesperson, welfare advocate, dietician, etc. That may help you to be more specific about your audience.
• You should outline the title of your topic, your chosen audience and the purpose of your talk on your first slide, BUT also incorporate this into your spoken introduction.
4. STRUCTURE
• You should have a clear introduction, body and conclusion, and the marker will be looking for specific inclusions in these three sections. Please refer to the marking criteria sheet under the assessment instructions to see what is required.
• Think about how much time you will dedicate to each of these three sections so that you can adequately cover each one. Common problems include an overly long introduction and
taking too long to get into the body of the speech and/or having a conclusion that is far too brief and doesn’t fully reiterate the main points from the body of the speech.
• At the end (during your conclusion), there should be a specific “call to action” for your audience. For example, what was your goal in speaking about the topic and what can the audience do now after hearing your information?
5. PRESENTATION STYLE
• You should not read your speech from a written script. The aim of this presentation is to speak “off the cuff” and give a natural delivery style. If you are familiar with your content and have well-­-constructed PPT slides then this shouldn’t be a problem!
• Also avoid trying to memorise your whole speech, because this alters your tone, pitch and pace. Trying to memorise every word of your presentation also leads to additional nerves.
• The best option is to have comprehensive PowerPoint slides with bullet points on them (as well as images), and these will provide a prompt for you. However, avoid reading all the content on your PPT word for word. Instead, elaborate on the points you have provided and explain them in your own words.
• Remember, the aim of using PowerPoint is that it replaces the need for a script or palm cards. Trying to juggle a PPT with other written content can increase nerves and lead to a less cohesive presentation.
• Do not submit a script with your presentation, because you will be marked only on your in-­class presentation (and we don’t think you should have a script anyway!)
6. VISUALS
• While you need to include at least two visuals, we recommend using as many as you wish to retain the audience’s interest throughout your speech. This means there is no upper limit on the number of visual elements so be as creative as you like!
• Visuals could include photos, drawings, graphs, tables, etc.
• Any visual element that you have sourced online should have an accompanying citation. For guidelines on the content and formatting for these citations, please refer to the USQ Library referencing guide (http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing) then click on either APA or Harvard. Each of these two referencing guides contains specific information about citing images.
• The theme or style of your PowerPoint slides is also important so choose one of the templates available in PowerPoint to avoid having bland or plain slides.
7. PRESENTATION FORMAT
• Most students use PowerPoint for this assignment because it’s easy to include text and visuals all in one file. Many professions also use PowerPoint due to its simplicity so it can be a good idea to learn this skill now in case you need to create a PowerPoint later in your career.
• However, you don’t need to use PowerPoint if you don’t want to, and there are many other options. You might like to have posters, as long as everyone at the back can see the content on them. You can also have handouts, but make sure this doesn’t distract the audience from your speech. If you do have handouts, these should be ones you have created yourself. You could also demonstrate something for the class, and this would be considered a visual element.
AND FINALLY…
Have fun with this assignment! This is your opportunity to be creative and most prior students have said this was their favourite assessment piece (and much nicer than writing an essay!)