Public Speech Critique

Critique of a Public Speech In the speech, "How to Spot a Liar," Pamela Meyer discusses how people lie and what we can do to help spot lies easily. Overall this is a very strong speech. It has a few weaknesses, like average visual aids, but for the most part, the speech is very intriguing. This is a very well given speech, due to the speakers knowledge of the subject, her ability to keep the audience's attention, and her use of humor. The Speech took place at a Ted talk convention in an auditorium. The Speaker begins with a very attention grabbing statement. " Did you know that the person sitting to your left is a liar?" Immediately the audience is curious to hear what the speaker has to say. The speaker uses a wide range of smooth transitions …show more content…
The speaker is very appropriately dressed. She doesn't have on any brands or distracting types of clothing. The speech was in topical order. The speaker listed the ways people lie and how to detect them. It was organized in a very logical order. Throughout the speech the speaker did an excellent job of varying her eye contact to the audience. Her movements were kept to a minimal, however she wasn't so still that she looked like a statue. Meyer walks across the stage at a steady rate, but it isn't to the point that it is distracting to the audience. The speaker has very good posture. She keeps her back very straight and she keeps her head up high. Her gestures were a weaker point of her speech. It seemed that she was constantly making the same hand gestures. However, it wasn't out of control, because she kept the movements very small. Her facial expressions were used well. She helped the audience know when a key point was coming up by making certain facial expressions. Her vocal variety was pretty good. She wasn't monotone and had a very intelligent sounding voice. She spoke at a slower than average pace, but this actually helped the speech, because the information she was giving was sometimes difficult to understand without a little bit of extra thinking. Her volume was at a very good level, however, it helped that she had a microphone to use during the speech. She made sure to keep the microphone away