Speaker Critique

I have watched many speakers while in the military. There are many times that I come out of the room and I don’t remember the things that they had talked about because of the way they had put it out. It was 1 o’clock in the afternoon at the Sky Warrior Theatre where the audience was all military. It was a mandatory training that we have called Sexual Assault Prevention Response. The speaker was a spokesperson from The Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It was a big crowd and there was a microphone that was set up. I noticed that even though there was a microphone in place that he did not use it to his advantage. The theatre was packed and the speaker did not go on the stage. He stayed in one spot at the bottom left part of the theatre, where it was really hard for people in the back to see him.
The speaker talked about avoiding dangerous situations, being aware of your surroundings and trusting your instincts. He needed to work on his opening because he just introduced himself and went straight to the points. He didn’t really add anything interesting on the introduction, so I knew it was going to be a long boring afternoon. He talked about how sexual assault is never accepted anywhere and that offenders are held accountable. He talked about one of the common factors dealing with sexual assault is alcohol.
He used a PowerPoint to show the information, which was very detailed and didn’t have that much pictures. He was also just reading off the slides, but explains the details thoroughly. The information that was put out was repetitive but at the same time I think was a technique to ensure that the audience will remember what was important. He was very conversational, but the tone of his voice made it sound like he was too firm or harsh. I think the tone of his voice made sure that we are taking this kind of situations seriously.
Overall, the way that he was giving the speech was fair because his opening needed more of an attention getter. His main ideas were