Here are a few examples of the kinds of graphic visual aids that students often employ in classroom speeches and a few critical comments about each. You may assume for the sake of discussion that the frame itself is big enough to be seen by the entire audience and that the student brought his or her own masking tape.
This graph--derived from a Claris spreadsheet program--is official looking, but it has a couple of serious flaws.
Again, nice, colorful, orderly, but without a clue of what it is supposed to represent. It presents pie chart breakdowns of student grades on various assignments, but there is not a hint of that here. For one thing, the format is wrong. Why would anyone pick pie charts to record grades. Pie charts are for ratios. To use them here creates the need for more explanation than not using them at all.
Visual Aid Three improves dramatically on Visual Aids One and Two. It simply and clearly lays out all of its information. It clearly labels all of its parts. It stands alone. It may not be as flashy and colorful as the other two. But it Aids Visually, which is why it is there. Never let the style of the presentation detract from the information.
This is a clever idea for an argument, and the content available would be of great service to the speaker, but it is so hopelessly surrounded by useless information as to utterly doom the effort. The speaker is obviously trying to be responsible by presenting the quotations in context, but the speaker needs to be more self-assured. None of these quotes is altered by removal from its context. As Visual Aid Five demonstrates, isolating the key excerpts is a much better strategic choice for illustrating the point. If the speaker is concerned about content, he or she can refer the audience members to the specific passages in the text of the speech.
Here only the specific excerpts that are actually mentioned in the text are displayed. This gives the speaker the opportunity to make line by line comparisons without all of the "noise" created by the extra verbiage in Visual Aid Four. This is clearly the better of the two. It could be improved by simply adding titles to indicate the sources of the information listed to make it more independent a source of information.
Let's see how good you are at critiquing these things
yourself.
Put your comments in the text-box or just think about them, then
check your opinions against mine.
This is a picture employed by the Sonesta Resorts in Aruba. It works really well for them, but it would offer nothing to a student who taped it to the blackboard during a speech. It has no information. We all know what a beach looks like. It would more likely be a distraction than an aid (who wouldn't rather be there than in the audience?). It is better off avoided in favor of more information bearing visual aids.
This Visual Aid is fine (depending on the subject of the speech). Its parts are clearly labeled, and ittle information is wasted. I would feel comfortable employing this Visual Aid in a speech to entertain.
I'm not going to say. Trust the force, Luke; you're on your own.