[Haphazard]

I didn't know where to put this, but I suppose it has to do with relating to other people, so I'll put it here. If this is the wrong place, I'm sorry, just move it.

So, today after a 30-minute presentation, I got some critique from my class. There were two main critiques, one that the presentation was extremely dense in its analysis and the other was that I used a lot of big words. I don't remember any big words in particular, but apparently a big one was 'hedonism.'

After explaining to some friends how my presentation went, nearly all of them said, "Well, that's just how you talk."

This may or may not be a big problem when I actually do the real presentation, because this was a panel of student judges and the actual panel will be of teachers. I can understand changing natural speech patterns to get rid of words like 'like' and 'um,' but what am I supposed to do for something like this? Have you ever been told to turn off your vocabulary? How do you do it?

[Homini Lupus]

Talking to a professor, I would keep the "big" words. They cannot admit if they don't understand them since by doing so they would say you have a better knowledge of language.

Given that I never turn off my vocabulary (it may seem poor here because i'm no native english) but sometimes take time to explain an unusual word before i get interrupted by people unlikely to know it.

[SeaCzar]

Change not who or how you are. You have a gift of intelligence. Those student judges are obviously not so gifted. Further, its not their opinion that counts. Should you get the same reaction from your teachers, transfer to another university where the teachers are intelligent.

[Haphazard]

	Originally Posted by SeaCzar To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Change not who or how you are. You have a gift of intelligence. Those student judges are obviously not so gifted. Further, its not their opinion that counts. Should you get the same reaction from your teachers, transfer to another university where the teachers are intelligent.

I go to a public high school so transferring out just because of vocabulary differences is not an option.

I wouldn't usually try to 'dumb down' my vocabulary but if my judges don't understand my vocabulary, it's going to affect my grade -- for example, last year I had judges that had signed up for a presentation on women in sports and ended up with a historical analysis of satire. That one didn't go very well...

[Uytuun]

I get that all the time...I talk in a very idiosyncratic way with a ton of big words and jargonesque language (gotta love words with Latin roots), but also with quite a lot of pauses, neologisms, nonsense words and words from foreign languages...people only tend to comment on the big words...they seem to dislike it immensely and often interpret it as an attack on their intellectual capacities. I also speak very silently. In class I can speak loudly, though. My style of communicating is mostly listening and then commenting from time to time. Monologue isn't my thing.

I don't generally change my speech pattern, but when I see that communication really fails, then I do of course. I think it's highly exhausting because I already have trouble putting into words what I mean without having to adapt the way I speak to the needs of the listeners...but I do it when it's necessary.

Hedonism...well, I can see how some highschool kids might think that too difficult a word.

I guess what you need to know is what the goal of the presentation is. Is it about making a thorough presentation on subject X or is it about teaching the kids in your class something about subject X? Considering you mentioned a panel of teacher judges, I wouldn't worry and go for the big words...

Do some background research on your judges?
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[integratedvelocity]

Hmmm, I use large words much more often when writing, though I suppose that is fairly common. Luckily, I am now in an environment where most people know as many or more large words than I do, so verbosity is not an issue.

[Haphazard]

Originally Posted by Uytuun To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Hedonism...well, I can see how some highschool kids might think that too difficult a word. I guess what you need to know is what the goal of the presentation is. Is it about making a thorough presentation on subject X or is it about teaching the kids in your class something about subject X? Considering you mentioned a panel of teacher judges, I wouldn't worry and go for the big words... Do some background research on your judges? To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

My goal is to prove a thesis, so I guess it'd be to be thorough.

I would do background research on the judges but we don't get to know who they are until they're actually judging, and they only sign up about a week in advance.

[BlueTopaz]

Too many big words??! What a sad indictment on what we have become. I say good for you Hap, for being who and what you are, and still in high school yet.
Presentations should generally be geared toward the audience, but in this case, where you are in an academic environment (yes, even high school
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) "big words" ought to be deemed appropriate.

[Zilal]

I consider it very important to use terms my audience can understand. But I don't scrap big words... instead, I'll define them in my presentation. "Earth's insolation, or the amount of solar energy it receives, is affected by the obliquity (tilt) of its axis." I think that's the best of both worlds.

[Kotetsu]

If I gave a 30 minute presentation and the only comment I received (beyond bald compliments) was "you used too many big words" I'd express my lack of confidence in the competence of the judging panel.

[Haphazard]

	Originally Posted by Kotetsu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	If I gave a 30 minute criticism and the only comment I received (beyond bald compliments) was "you used too many big words" I'd express my lack of confidence in the competence of the judging panel.

That wasn't their only criticism, but that was the only thing that I didn't notice as I was presenting -- my power point flubbed up, and I noticed that, and I noticed a lot of other things, but I wasn't even thinking about what I was saying. It's kind of worrisome.

[Santana28]

i hate to say it, but i had a similar problem when i was in high school. pretty much, i would write whatever it was i wanted to write - and then i would "proofread" my paper and go back and replace any "big" words with "small" words for the purpose of not confusing or irritating my readers. of course, if i had an intelligent teacher who i respected and appreciated my efforts, i never self-sanitized any of it. thats just the way things are, sadly.

[Uytuun]

A week should give you plenty of time to conduct some research.
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And you could always ask them.

[weird no more]

I think you should listen to your students. I don't think using easy to understand or simple language should hinder your presentation at all.

The right thing to do would be to minimise the big words but still keep in enough to wow your peers.





weird no more added to this post, 6 minutes and 36 seconds later...

I am so glad you guys exist. It has been so hard trying to communicate with people and not being able to truly do so. Seeing the blank expressions and the 'are you for real' looks when I start to drone on yet feel totally exhausted by trying to prove my communication skills has been so fricking (exsqueeze me) hard!

I could never understand why my co workers always wanted to do lunch or why they felt the need to be around all the time. Can't they see that I just want to be left alone?

[Haphazard]

	Originally Posted by weird no more To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I think you should listen to your students. I don't think using easy to understand or simple language should hinder your presentation at all. The right thing to do would be to minimise the big words but still keep in enough to wow your peers.

Well, there are two conflicting parts of this presentation -- to sound natural and to be intelligible.

My natural speech pattern involves big words, so how am I supposed to simple them up? I'm really not that great at thinking on my feet, so I know I would be able to make things simpler on notecards and powerpoints but I don't know what to do with myself. It's hard to tell what's a big word and what's not sometimes.

I was wondering if there was any advice on how to do this.

[Zilal]

	Originally Posted by Haphazard To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	It's hard to tell what's a big word and what's not sometimes. I was wondering if there was any advice on how to do this.

Good question... I'm not sure I really have any useful advice, but I did have experience... I worked for four years at an aquarium giving presentations to the public on marine life, and I suppose I have an intuitive grasp of which terms to use when, but I also picked up a lot just from doing it. If people keep saying, "What's molting?" then I figure I can assume that's too big a word. If you're going to keep giving presentations on a particular topic, you'll probably get a sense too. You can also give your presentations to friends and family first.

But I'll emphasize again my appreciation of the technique of explaining rather than scrapping many technical terms. I think people basically like learning new words, if they're presented the right way.

[Haphazard]

Originally Posted by Zilal To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Good question... I'm not sure I really have any useful advice, but I did have experience... I worked for four years at an aquarium giving presentations to the public on marine life, and I suppose I have an intuitive grasp of which terms to use when, but I also picked up a lot just from doing it. If people keep saying, "What's molting?" then I figure I can assume that's too big a word. If you're going to keep giving presentations on a particular topic, you'll probably get a sense too. You can also give your presentations to friends and family first. But I'll emphasize again my appreciation of the technique of explaining rather than scrapping many technical terms. I think people basically like learning new words, if they're presented the right way.

I know there are some literary terms that I need to define to give the presentation justice, but I don't know about everything else that just gets thrown in.

I know, personally, that I'd rather have a word or two go over my head then have every word that might be 'big' defined to me, but is that just me? I don't want to insult the judge's intelligence.

[Lucid]

I think, with regard to communication and big words, you have to ask yourself what your goal is. If your goal is to communicate something effectively to an audience then you need to tailor your methods of communication to suit that audience. You wouldn't have given your presentation in Latin just to prove that you could, right?
However, if your less worried about communicating something to your audience than you are about maybe the sound and the quality of the writing, or just pleasing yourself, then fuck 'em. Use whatever words you want.
Tailor how you communicate for the purpose.

[Haphazard]

Originally Posted by Lucid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think, with regard to communication and big words, you have to ask yourself what your goal is. If your goal is to communicate something effectively to an audience then you need to tailor your methods of communication to suit that audience. You wouldn't have given your presentation in Latin just to prove that you could, right? However, if your less worried about communicating something to your audience than you are about maybe the sound and the quality of the writing, or just pleasing yourself, then fuck 'em. Use whatever words you want. Tailor how you communicate for the purpose.

My goal is to get a good grade. That means my judges need to understand what the hell I'm saying, but that also means that I can't insult their intelligences. This is a very delicate line and I don't know how to walk it.

[robin.]

So perhaps this is just me here, but I actually think that being able to express yourself succinctly with an average vocabulary is a very good thing. No, you shouldn't sacrifice clarity, but I think that it's important for our ideas to be accessible to all people.

It's like when you ask a professor something, and this person is really brilliant, but when he goes to explain it to you he just can't bring it down to a simple level. Maybe he goes off on tangents and talks about other cool things that weren't what you were asking about. Maybe he just can't make it any simpler for you. Either way, his lofty ideas were not adequately conveyed because you couldn't understand him.

Of course a large vocabulary is great because it makes our language more interesting, and we should use these words when they are necessary. I think, however, that just sticking fancy words in here and there, while it might be fun for us, can sometimes (but not always) be inefficient when we need to get our ideas across to others. We shouldn't overlook the talent it takes to express great, complicated ideas with simple words.

[ginandsour]

You seem to be doing just fine when you write. You're not exactly throwing around those $2 words on the forum. Try pretending you're "talking" to the forum and see if that helps?

[DeadSpace]

Build a mental watcher, moniters what you're thinking of saying, adjusts vocabulary/cadence/tone to the person(s) you're saying it to. Not real difficult, becomes a habit after awhile.
You can judge someones responses pretty easily to what you say, disinterest, annoyance, puzzlement, interest...use those to adjust how you talk, what words you use. Eye movements, facial expressions...some very slight, overall body language, tones and nuances in their voice when they reply. Advantages is you can get feedback to what you say, analyze it, and adjust all in microseconds...listeners never notice. Communication is a difficult art...especially if you want to be understood...and having an unusual way of thinking makes it even harder.

[Haphazard]

	Originally Posted by ginandsour To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	You seem to be doing just fine when you write. You're not exactly throwing around those $2 words on the forum. Try pretending you're "talking" to the forum and see if that helps?

Writing for me is much, much easier than trying to express myself with words. Probably because I have so much practice.

I don't know what happened back there. I don't know how much of my presentation's 'big words' were because I knew a lot about the topic and would use the proper terminology, or that's just how I talk, or if did throw in some words that just threw some people off. I think I do have a recording, so if I can stand to watch myself do this presentation, I'll take a look and see exactly what happened, but I'm so afraid that I won't find anything wrong with my speech...

[Gabrielle]

I had that problem; whenever I did presentations random "big words" just popped out of my mouth. IE:

"In the retrospect, I must affirm the belief of x and ascertain that so and so cannot be denied; however, the belief should have been augmented by more substantial evidences, which the author failed to produce."

That sentence contained three SAT vocabulary words (and yes, I actually said that sentence during my speech). Apparently they believed that I was speaking in a foreign language. Because it was a Speech class, I got a D on it.

After learning that lesson, I decided on something - when talking to the mass populi, KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. This seems to work immensely.

[NeonTetra]

Originally Posted by Lucid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think, with regard to communication and big words, you have to ask yourself what your goal is. If your goal is to communicate something effectively to an audience then you need to tailor your methods of communication to suit that audience. You wouldn't have given your presentation in Latin just to prove that you could, right? However, if your less worried about communicating something to your audience than you are about maybe the sound and the quality of the writing, or just pleasing yourself, then fuck 'em. Use whatever words you want. Tailor how you communicate for the purpose.

	Originally Posted by Haphazard To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	My goal is to get a good grade. That means my judges need to understand what the hell I'm saying, but that also means that I can't insult their intelligences. This is a very delicate line and I don't know how to walk it.

What kind of words are you using? If you're saying "The denouement of my day was explicated to my family as we masticated our pabulum," then no one needs to have the OED to understand what you're saying! Of course that sentence was an exaggeration but you get my point. The best writing is done on an 8th grade level. Most newspapers and magazines write at that level. If you have a large vocabulary then you certainly know enough synonyms to relate to those less well read to you. It's really like Lucid explained. I have many more words in my vocabulary than I use in regular everyday speech. Think of your audience, they're high school students. What are most high schoolers reading? It's certainly not the New Yorker or anything like that. So let's take the word "pabulum." If you're using a rather high level word like that you know that related words that mean approximately same thing are "food" and "nourishment." "Denouement" equivalents are "climax" and "high point." Just search those vast stores of word webs in your brain and level down a few notches. It's not changing your essence to be able to communicate effectively with different people. Another thing is people can easily tell when you're talking down to them and you don't want to risk your grade being damaged because of a perceived superior attitude coming from you.

If it helps and if this is for presentation that you can prepare for and you have an idea that this may be a more difficult concept that requires a $10 word, see if you can take that particular concept or sentence and restate it two more ways. If you feel comfortable that the sentence can stay as is, but when you see that people aren't responding or understanding what you're saying use those alternate explanations of your idea or sentence. Personally, I've seen teachers more impressed that you can explain a concept in many different ways, but the people you deal with sound overly rigid and exacting.

And another thing: people aren't stupid. That's an arrogant INTJ belief (oops did I just say that!!!) Most people understand far more than what you give them credit for. Your audience is mostly 14-18 year olds and the teachers. The teachers of 14-18 year olds have come to expect certain behaviors from them. Sometimes the teachers themselves become so used to a valid behavioral pattern that they observe in these kids that when another kid breaks that pattern they don't know what to make of them. This doesn't mean that anyone involved is stupid or unintelligent. We are all trained to behave and expect certain behaviors from people and it's hard to break out of the attitude.

Hope that helps!
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