Tips for Evaluation Contest

Evaluation
Making a good–a really good speech evaluation–is a very valuable life skill, but difficult to master: that is, learning how to give someone feedback to improve and phrase it in a way that leaves the person, not demoralized and criticized, but feeling excited about doing better. The evaluation contest focuses on being insightful and analytical with what you point out and what changes you recommend. You win by giving the speaker helpful feedback, not by structuring the evaluation as an entertaining or well-organized speech.
The judges grade on the following, from most heavily weighted to least:

• Analytical Quality: clear and logical comments identifying specific strengths and weaknesses of the speaker
• Recommendations: offering specific, practical, helpful and positive recommendations for improvement, so the speaker knows exactly what they can do better next time
• Technique: giving the feedback in a sensitive, sympathetic, inspiring and encouraging way, leaving the speaker excited to do better, not demoralized
• Summation: conclude the evaluation with a brief summary of the comments and suggestions, ending on a positive note

Pro tip: many people feel that since this is extemporaneous speaking, you don’t have to practice. Not true. The more speech evaluations you give (in your club or others) while bearing these guidelines in mind, the better you will get at speech evaluations. Whenever you give a speech evaluation, always get someone to fill out your Competent Leadership manual for it, and try to get specific feedback from them on how you can improve your evaluations.