Communications Paper on Scott’s Speech Evaluation
The choice of the topic is one of the most relevant parts of a speech together with presentation and a comic-stand. The right topic can inspire both curiosity and enthusiasm, which in turn subjects the concerned individual to a well-presented, intelligent and more interesting speech. An analysis on the comic-stand by Sophie Scott reveals that she made the right choice of topic; Why We Laugh, finding an easy time to support her arguments. The topic has offered her with plenty of quality information, experiencing no frustration on the stage. Exploring both the literal aspects of speech and vocal behavior, she stumbled upon the unexpected second vocations, and in turn subjecting her audiences to laughter from the stand-up comic.
Immediately she gets to the stage, Scott tried to attract both attention and concentration from her audience by giving a short narration of her first time to notice “laughter.” She had repeatedly done this in other parts of the speech and pausing when addressing relatively more important matters; two acts that have seen Scott winning her audience concentration. Her approaches to getting attention from the audience has proved to be catchy and more effective, considering that they were not exaggerated with other incomprehensible aspects.
With a good start, Scott managed to preview some of her main points. The entire piece was logically structured, and hinting at what to follow. With this certainty, she managed to engage her audience in the story, all whom were eager to confirm their thoughts. This was further rejuvenated by the clear thesis, that was formulated immediately she got onto the stage, making her literary work more appealing.
She managed to support her claims through videos and sound clips, which were all played at the right time and more logical. In order to make her point clear, she used the clips in the best supportive way, all precise and clear. This is further confirmed by the different action by the audience; laughing after the presentation with others nodding. Nearly the entire claims had specifications of their sources and factors behind their occurrences. However, some parts of the presentation had abrupt transitions, especially when Scott plays a complete sound clip after the other, with each meant to address a complete different aspect of laughter. Another weakness revealed itself when Scott took total control of the stage, illustrating everything without engaging the audience in any question, making the entire speech to be “narrative” in nature.
Looking at the delivery skills, Scott emerged to be more passionate with respect to her main topic or idea of her presentation. She dressed in her usual working attire, blue-dotted dress, which doesn’t really attract attention from the audience. She made a good use of both the stage and the theatre hall, facing the entire audience, playing her video and sound clips at different corners and angles for the public to watch and listen at comfortably. However, she failed to make use of animated information in supporting her speech.
Scott managed to memorize her speech, and effectively laying it out through a narrative and reporting form. She was quite fluent throughout the comic-stand, though stumble at some point with abrupt transitions. She managed to get rid of any disfluencies that possibly came along her way, with no gestures, making her presentation difficult, both to deliver and understanding of the audience.
Work Cited
Scott, Sophie. “Why We Laugh”. Ted.Com, 2017, http://www.ted.com/talks/sophie_scott_why_we_laugh.