My TED Talk; or, Why Not To Change Your Topic 36 Hours Before Deliviring a Speech
As you might well surmise from the title of this blog post, the preparation process for my TED Talk took something of a turn for the unconventional partway through. This in fact stems less from what I did read in preparation for my talks as much as from what I did not read.
I had prepared a talk that, due to a lack of reading of the assignment sheet and a few bad assumptions, was only tangentially related to the research that I had already conducted. Late on Tuesday evening, as I was practicing my speech, my instincts told me that my speech might not be related enough to my research to fulfill the requirements on the assignment sheet. Sure enough, it did not fit the requirements, and I wrote and practiced an entirely new speech on that day and the day after.
Beyond my correction of this oversight, the reading with the greatest influence on my final talk was certainly all of that reading that informed me to make my speech a narrative. I found that framing the growth in the anti-science movement over time as a narrative was a compelling way to talk about an admittedly somewhat dry topic.
What, then, was the result of this preparation?
(You can view that result here).
Perhaps the most unfortunate was the state of the visuals (which was, in a word, bad; in two words, very bad). I had had great difficulty finding visuals that I felt were effective, and being something of a perfectionist I made the incorrect decision to not include many visuals as opposed to including some high and some low quality visuals.
Beyond that, I feel like my talk went rather well. There were a few awkwardly long pauses, and a couple of brief slips of the tongue, but otherwise I feel like my delivery was relatively strong. I will concede, however, that there were moments in which it did not feel adequately practiced, and that it could have benefitted from additional repetition before I delivered the talk.
Moreover I feel like my content was strong and supported my thesis well. It was not perfect, and if I had had more time I would have very much like to have touched either upon additional sides of the anti-science movement or more evidence for it, but given my (evidently unwarranted, based on my precisely 4 minute speech time) fear of going over based on my practices, I decided against it.
I had prepared a talk that, due to a lack of reading of the assignment sheet and a few bad assumptions, was only tangentially related to the research that I had already conducted. Late on Tuesday evening, as I was practicing my speech, my instincts told me that my speech might not be related enough to my research to fulfill the requirements on the assignment sheet. Sure enough, it did not fit the requirements, and I wrote and practiced an entirely new speech on that day and the day after.
Beyond my correction of this oversight, the reading with the greatest influence on my final talk was certainly all of that reading that informed me to make my speech a narrative. I found that framing the growth in the anti-science movement over time as a narrative was a compelling way to talk about an admittedly somewhat dry topic.
What, then, was the result of this preparation?
(You can view that result here).
Perhaps the most unfortunate was the state of the visuals (which was, in a word, bad; in two words, very bad). I had had great difficulty finding visuals that I felt were effective, and being something of a perfectionist I made the incorrect decision to not include many visuals as opposed to including some high and some low quality visuals.
Beyond that, I feel like my talk went rather well. There were a few awkwardly long pauses, and a couple of brief slips of the tongue, but otherwise I feel like my delivery was relatively strong. I will concede, however, that there were moments in which it did not feel adequately practiced, and that it could have benefitted from additional repetition before I delivered the talk.
Moreover I feel like my content was strong and supported my thesis well. It was not perfect, and if I had had more time I would have very much like to have touched either upon additional sides of the anti-science movement or more evidence for it, but given my (evidently unwarranted, based on my precisely 4 minute speech time) fear of going over based on my practices, I decided against it.
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