Quick Tips for Evaluating a Speech

Evaluating a speech is really about being a good audience member, about listening carefully and simply sharing what you have seen, heard and felt. Remember that you are sharing one person's viewpoint, one audience member's response to the speech, and you are offering honest, encouraging feedback to help the speaker recognize what he/she already does well and identify how to become an even better speaker.

Here are some quick tips to help you get started:

• When taking rough notes, some Toastmasters divide their page into 4 sections:
• upper left quadrant - list the objectives in short form
• upper right - jot down examples of where the speaker met the objectives, circle the objectives that the speaker didn't meet.
• lower left - jot down your notes about what worked for you, what you particularly liked
• lower right -jot down examples of what didn't work for you (poor gestures, flat voice, closing and opening didn't work together etc). Write down any suggestions you have to help them improve next time.
• When you write in the evaluation section of the speech manual, use your rough notes to guide your answers so that they are balanced, helpful and encouraging. 
• When you deliver the evaluation:
• start with something that you really enjoyed about the speech
• tell the speaker how you are going to evaluate.
• acknowledge the strengths the speaker already has from your perspective, give examples
• give feedback on how well they met the objectives of the project
• offer examples of one or two areas for improvement with specific suggestions about what could be done next time to improve
• end with what you liked best about the speech. 
• There are many ways to organize a speech evaluation but this method, called the sandwhich method, will help get you started on the path to being a good evaluator.

When you provide honest feedback from your personal experience of the speech, you help both new and seasoned speakers by reflecting back their speech from one audience member's viewpoint. That glimpse of how an audience member responded to the speech is a valuable gift, indeed!