I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s presentations this past week! I think that everyone did a really phenomenal job researching and exploring their topics. Even when people had the same broad topic, such as censorship, what each person chose to focus on was really unique and different.
As someone who has not yet presented, it’s been educational watching all of my classmates. Some people are really reliant on handwritten flashcards, others are a big fan of Google Slides speaker notes. Still others were so well rehearsed that they were able to present without notes. It made me really think about what it means to make a good presentation and what things I want to see from one. Something that I didn’t realize had that much of an impact was honestly the visuals. I figured that if the presentation was well done, then the aesthetics didn’t matter. But since I’ve been watching so many presentations, I’ve begun rethinking the impact of creating something visually pleasing.
I felt more invested in what people were discussing if I was drawn in with interesting graphics as well as an interesting title or hook. I’ve always heard teachers stress the importance of a hook or a compelling title but I didn’t really believe it. But I was definitely more excited when someone had a creative title with alliteration, for example, than with something more simple. Not that simple is bad, it certainly has its place, I just personally felt there was a difference.
These two things were just some observations I had about my classmates’ presentations. I think everyone really did a phenomenal job and really enjoyed hearing about the research that everyone did.
