Report 3: Strengthening My Oral Presentation Skills

Introduction

Well, this is Aric Nakamura and you are reading the third and final report for this semester. For this report I will be reporting on the trials and tribulations of my oral reports, the ways I dealt with these problems, and how with what I have learned through this report, it has and will help me in future oral presentations. First of all, here is a link to the instructions so that you have an idea of how this report will be structured and what needed to be included in this report. You know, I did not realize in the past, what my body and my mind had to go through in order to prepare myself for my oral presentations. After I did some self-actualization for this report it amazed that I was able to witness all the emotions, feelings, and orientations that is probably behind all the stress and anxiety before my oral presentations. Well, let me get started on this report..

Task 6 Pre Rating Explanation

Questions	Rating
2 What kind of mood are you in?	6
3. Describe the task as you understand it.	N/A
4. How many hours do you think this task will take?	3-4
5. How important is it to you to succeed in this task?	10
6. How much difficulty do you expect in completing this task?	8
7. How upset would you be if you did not succeed at this task?	10
8. How sure are you that you will succeed at this task?	10
9. How likely is it that you will be good at this type of task?	N/A
10. What is the main reason you will probably succeed in completing this task?	N/A
11. How motivated are you to keep on trying at this particular task until you succeed?	10
12. Computers will make it easier for me to complete this task?	9
13. How much effort do you expect this task to take?	10

See Task 6 Pre Ratings

Task 6 Pre Rating Explanations

Taking a look at my pre rating table you can see that there are some questions that rated as being “not applicable”. The reason why I did this is because I felt that these were questions I could not rate. I think it would be best for me to give the explanation for these questions. Starting with question three, from what I understand, there are two presentations that I need to complete. One will require me to look for an article and present it and the other presentation will be based on a chapter from my book. Both the chapter and the article I find should coincide with each other. Next is question nine, I am not sure if I will be good at this type of task or not. It is rather hard for me look at this task in that way. Personally, I feel that you can give your presentation to the best of your abilities and whether you feel good about it or not, but there may be people in the audience that may think your presentation was not good. But that does not mean you are not good at presenting nor does it mean you are good at it. The main thing for me is that I feel good while I am completing my presentation and I feel good after I am done presenting my material. Finally there is question ten, I know I will succeed at this task because I have no choice. It is simple really. Either I complete it and get a grade for it or I do not complete it and get no grade for it, which also means that I will probably not pass this class. Therefore, I suppose my decision is made for me. As for the rest of the questions, I rated them as to how I felt at that time. At the time I did my pre ratings, I was feeling rather negative towards it because of some of the other assignments that I had completed. However, when you take a look at the post ratings you will find that I had a very different attitude towards this assignment after I was finished with it.

My Oral Presentation and My Emotions

As the time drew near for my presentation, I have to admit that I was a little uncertain at what to expect from the audience I was going to present in front of. I was not sure how they would react to my presentation and because of that it started to conjure up many “what if” questions. Another thought that causes me to feel uncertain before a presentation is the thought of making mistakes during the presentation. It does not bother me as much now as it used to, but it still causes me to feel a little uncertain and makes me feel anxious. This is what normally runs through my head before I am making a presentation. However, I do enjoy sharing knowledge that I have attained with people. So I suppose that during the actual presentation I am somewhat relaxed while presenting. For me, the uncertainty that I feel does not affect me to the point where I try to avoid the presentation nor do I have anxiety attacks before the presentation. But, it does make my mind churn with some negative thoughts.

To help me get through the negative thoughts and uncertainty, I just think that each person is an individual and that they are free to think whatever they want about my presentation. Whether they disagree or not with what I am presenting does not change how I see the person. This has helped me tremendously through the years of making oral presentations. I have also learned to not be afraid to take on the challenges of people when they ask questions and/or try to debate the topic of my presentation. It starts to get easier the more you oblige these people and you answer questions and/or debate in a civilized manner. If you have done your research correctly for your topic and you have facts to present, then there should not be a problem. Another major thing that has helped me get over the emotions of an oral presentation is accepting the fact that constructive criticism is a part of life. Without it we will never be able to become good at anything or we will never be able to become better people. I know for a fact that people will constructively criticize my presentation and I am ready to accept what they have to say. I believe this is what causes most people to show apprehension towards oral presentations. I think that when people give their constructive criticism they are only trying to help you become even better at what you are doing. In this case it was an oral presentation.

It is rather funny because I never practice giving an oral presentation before I have to actually present. This is because I have tried that in the past and it never worked for me. It made me change my presentation so many times that it only served to confuse the hell out of me. I usually just go with the flow of things and I usually present how I want to present my findings. Most of the time it comes out natural and I am happy with what I have presented. Of course, you have those times when it does not, but that cannot be helped.

Finally, the day came for the oral presentation, my name was called and I gave my presentation. At first, I admit I was a little nervous, but who isn’t right before an oral presentation. But as I got further into the presentation and I started to relax a little more I could see that the audience was very polite while I was giving my presentation. Whether they wanted to be there or not, they were very polite and listened to what I had to say. I mean I am quite sure that they could have been doing other things while I presented, but they sat there and gave me their full attention. After I was finished presenting I felt really good about my presentations. I received a lot of feedback from the other students during the discussion section of my presentation and it made me feel good that they were giving me their attention and followed what I was presenting. I received some great emails from students regarding my presentations. They were very eager to constructively criticize my presentations so that I would be able to give an even better presentation next time. All the students who emailed me also made very positive comments regarding my presentations. This always helps me to feel less and less apprehensive towards oral presentations.

I felt that this experience was quite worthwhile because doing the research and presenting your material paired with the feedback of the other students helps to teach me how to make presentations better. I always feel that doing something is worthwhile because I can always learn to become better at what it is I am doing. It was also worthwhile because I feel that presenting is something that I can only get better at by constantly presenting and I know that the more oral presentations I make, it only allows me to get better.

Errors Completing My Oral Presentation

Well, the first presentation I had to give was on an article from a certain chapter, which meant that I would have to go online and try to look for one. As you can tell, I was not really looking forward to this because of the trouble I have had in the past with my computer and the whole online thing. Nevertheless, I went to my favorite search engine and typed in the keywords to begin my search and it gave me a whole bunch of sites to look at. I looked at most of the sites and found that they did not really help me with what I was looking to present. Although my first search did not turn up any useful sites for me to use, for some odd reason I was not frustrated this time. I then remembered that the Dr. Driving site had some articles and I believe I went there to see if I could find anything useful. Once there, I typed in my key words again and almost immediately I found an article that I was able to use for my presentation. I then typed out my outline for my presentation and I was ready present. For my first presentation, the only error written in my notes was when I tried to search for an article online using my preferred search engine. I could not find anything that was useful because of the search words I was using. Like I have said in the past, I suppose that the error is because I am the one not typing in the right search words.

The second presentation I gave was based on a book chapter that coincided with the article that I used to give a presentation earlier in the semester. There was one major error that I had made while trying to get this presentation completed. The error I made was not checking my outlines before printing them out. After I printed them out I had noticed that they were completely misaligned and it looked horrible. I will definitely say that this is an error on my part because I did not check my outline before printing it. As far as errors though, I did not think I encountered any others either completing the presentation or during the presentation so I have none written down.

Task 6 Post Rating

Questions	Rating
2 What kind of mood are you in?	9
3. Describe the task as you understand it.	N/A
4. How many hours do you think this task will take?	2-3
5. How important is it to you to succeed in this task?	10
6. How much difficulty do you expect in completing this task?	6
7. How upset would you be if you did not succeed at this task?	10
8. How sure are you that you will succeed at this task?	10
9. How likely is it that you will be good at this type of task?	N/A
10. What is the main reason you will probably succeed in completing this task?	N/A
11. How motivated are you to keep on trying at this particular task until you succeed?	10
12. Computers will make it easier for me to complete this task?	9
13. How much effort do you expect this task to take?	10

See Task 6 Post Ratings

Task 6 Post Rating Explanations

As you can see, for some of my ratings it did not change, but for others it remained the same. The explanations for those questions marked “not applicable” remained the same. The ratings for questions 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13 also remained the same. To me whether it is the pre rating or post rating, I still will rate it the same. The questions that did have changes in the ratings however, were numbers 2 and 6. After completing this task I felt myself in a very positive mood because this task was not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Conclusion

Well, I have explained how I rated my task six and basically I rated it pretty bad in the pre ratings because of how I felt regarding previous tasks. I then proceeded to explain about the oral presentation and the emotions I was feeling while doing this. I felt a little uncertain at what to expect from the audience. So this in turn caused some negative thoughts to develop. However, I combated this by thinking in a more positive manner toward the audience and toward constructive criticism. I also explained why I never practice presenting before I have to present because it only confuses me more. I explained how I became more relaxed as my presentation went on further and how the students were very polite as I gave my presentation. Because the students were polite, it made it easier for me to relax during my presentation. I also explained that I thought the experience of presenting was worthwhile because, it gave me insight into becoming a better presenter. There were also errors that I talked about but, as far as I have noted I did not encounter very many, except the search words I used and not checking my outline before I started printing. Finally, I also gave insight into the task six post ratings. I felt much better after completing the last task and gave a better post rating than I did a pre rating. Well, this concludes my third and final report. I have to say that this class was quite an interesting experience. It taught me a lot about the way I am as a person and the kind of driver I am. It has given me insight as to how I can evaluate myself and gather useful data that may help me become better at whatever it is I am trying to do, whether it is driving, weight lifting, or diving. If you have the time, take a look at the website of

Dr. Leon James, he teaches a very interesting and unique course. Thank you for taking a look at my reports and I wish you all the best of luck on your finals. Have a happy and safe holiday season!