Reflective Journal #7: The Specific Purpose for an Academic Presentation.

Now we are looking forward to our final challenge of the term. Hopefully by now, we have had several opportunities to see what people do well, what makes good speeches and presentations, and reflect on our own strengths and weaknesses.

We have analyzed what makes good speakers, and what makes speeches work as either informative or persuasive. Personally speaking as one of your audience members, I am heartened by the commitment of so many of you to the course, and to your own development through each challenge, even under the difficult circumstances that we are in. Thank you sincerely for this.

As always, the first and very important step to high quality speaking is identifying our specific purpose. For this final group presentation, you have to decide on your purpose, to inform or persuade. And then clearly the next question is: Persuade Or Inform... about what?

The same considerations are at play: Who is your audience? What will be relevant for them? What do you need to do to achieve your purpose?

For this post, this is a first chance to propose a topic and purpose. With this post, you can also see what other groups are planning to do, so you want to differentiate yourselves from others to be unique and memorable. And remember the theme: Living in Uncertain Times.

Please introduce your topic idea. Generally, what is the idea? Explain it briefly, and then state your Specific Purpose: We want to inform / persuade our audience that...

Only 1 group member needs to make this post, but please include all group members' ID numbers in the post. I will be responding to each post to give preliminary feedback. Of course groups can change their minds about topic ideas after this post, but it is best to make this decision as early as possible. There is no need to respond to each other's posts for this one. Please make your post by Sunday night. Aj. M