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Adjunct Lecturer at Eastern Michigan University
ajohns27@emich.edu

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Well-tailored script resources

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Quality forensics performance material is often difficult to find. SpeechGeek provides high school coaches and competitors with scripts that are not only challenging, but also of strong literary merit. Each issue of SpeechGeek contains five scripts in a variety of events: prose interpretation, poetry interpretation, hu

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Head Forensics Coach at Henry Ford II High School; Assistant Middle School Coach at Birmingham Covington Middle School

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Head Forensics Coach at Henry Ford II High School

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MSCI President-Elect; Special Lecturer at Oakland University and Director of OU Speech Team

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Grab the students when they have some undivided time during the summer to really enjoy what they are doing with forensics, without having to dash out to work, sports, homework, etc. Give them a fun experience locally, which is not just a means to an end with tournament season.

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Schedule a weekend opportunity to bring in Amy (or other pros) with a program to give you a boost and get students excited and motivated about what we do

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MICHIGAN SPEECH COACHES BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2017-2018 President - Doug Bevier (2017-2018) President Elect - Chris Kuhlman (2017-2018) Past President - Charlie Rinehart (2017-2018) Secretary...

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Assistant Forensics Coach at Walled Lake Western High School

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Finding a topic
Researching sources
Structure
Clarity of language
Language use (effect)
Tactics
What is a good fit
Working to your strengths
Managing humor
Cutting
Delivering the "arc"

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Working with students to create effective visuals is essential

Here are some helpful hints to consider when preparing visual aid/material for a presentation using either PowerPoint or Prezi:

1. Remember that you are the presenter, not Prezi or PowerPoint. Use your slides to emphasize a point, keep yourself on track, and illustrate a point with a graphic or photo. Don’t read the slides.

2. Don’t make your audience read the slides either. Keep text to a minimum (6 lines per slide, no more than 30 words per slide). The bullet points should be headlines, not news articles. Write in sentence fragments using key words, and keep your font size 24 or bigger.

a.    You may have heard of the “PowerPoint Rule of Six”’:

i.    Have only one idea/message per slide

ii.    Have, at most, six bullet points/objects per slide

iii.    Maximum six words per bullet point

3.  Make sure your presentation is easy on the eyes. Use a dark background to help the audience focus.  Stay away from weird colors and busy backgrounds. Size can also be used to steer focus and be sure all material is easy to read.  Use easy-to-read fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman for the bulk of your text, and, if you have to use a funky font, use it sparingly.

a.    Reason to use a “funky font”:

i.    Brand identity

ii.    Important point that needs to stand out

4.  Stay clear of using sound effects and only use simple animation (no boomeranging words, please).

5.  Proofread, proofread, proofread.

6.  Practice, practice, practice.

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99designs.com is an excellent source of graphic design (both basics and advanced resources)

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Everyone knows to get better at any art form, you have to first understand the particular tools and procedures that form it. Design is no different from playing an instrument or even a chef making a meal. If the elements of graphic design (line, color, texture, shape) are the ingredients laid out in front of her and the principles of design (movement, rhythm, proportion, etc) are the recipe she uses to make the meal, then think of design layout and composition as the final plating.

Cake brochure by Luz Viera

Sure, the chef could throw everything into a bowl and call it good. Or, she could arrange the ingredients in a way that highlights the individual elements inside; she can deliver a message in a beautiful package. With time and care, she can create an incredible experience for the person consuming the meal.

Read on to learn more about the many ways you can structure your design compositions to have the showstopping effect of a perfect seven-tiered cake.

The 5 rules of design composition and layout
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Grids give order to graphic design. They speed up the design process by helping designers decide where content should be placed rather than where it could be placed.

Most designers see an invisible grid running through all their designs. In modern web design, clean grid lines have become popular and almost impossible to avoid. There are a few simple reasons for this: grids make your designs cleaner, more efficient and easier to adapt.

Be My Travel Muse website design by DSKY

Grids bring organization not only to the design, but to the process of creating design. Say you want to create a poster for a lecture series. Create a strong grid and if the dates, times, images and colors all change, your basic designs will feel related. Instant consistency and less time updating and adjusting. Baseline grids also give you a great roadmap when working in a team. Every designer knows the feeling of relief that comes with opening someone else's design and seeing a clear grid to follow!

2. Emphasis and scale
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This ad uses color and scale to emphasize the cake, which is the focal point of the design. By adwindesign.

The eye generally needs a place to rest or something of interest to hold it, otherwise people will look at your design and quickly move on. Say you take a photograph of your mom at a family reunion. Your purpose is to bring attention to the moment and the joy of the gathering by making your mom the subject and focal point of your composition.

To communicate the message to the viewer that your mom is the focal point, you want to use scale and emphasis. You could place her prominently in the photograph and make sure she is the largest object in the photo. You could emphasize her by blurring the background to make her stand out or focusing her brightly colored dress.

Figuring out the focal point of the design will give your eye the guide it requires to structure the composition, as well as organically build hierarchy. In the design above the focal point is the ridiculous cake-our eyes go right to it and then read the rest for context.

What happens when you don't have any white space. Manipulation by megireid.

This web design balances different sized elements perfectly by supporting them with equal white space. By TeeBox ™.

Isn't everything in life a search for balance? Design is no different. Designers must constantly juggle different elements to find harmony in their design. Imagine an invisible set of scales in each design and make sure you don't tip the scales by cloistering elements on one side of your grid. The website design above does this cleanly by marrying large type elements ("What We Do" "Our Works") with smaller, equal-sized paragraphs of longer explanatory copy.

Keep in mind that in terms of composition, white space (or negative space) is also an element. White space gives our eyes paths to follow through the design. Give each element on the page some space to breathe and balance between positive and negative space will emerge organically. You can see how moving the elements in the web design above closer together (thus shrinking the negative space and disrupting the balance of the piece) makes the design claustrophobic and ultimately unsuccessful.

4. Rule of thirds
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A well balanced t-shirt mock-up using the Rule of Thirds. Via BATHI.

The Rule of Thirds is inescapable in design. It's a fundamental guideline that's so simple and effective, it often feels like a cheat: divide your design into three rows and three columns. The points where the vertical and horizontal lines meet form natural guidelines for where you should place your subject and supporting elements. Struggling with finding balance in your designs? The Rule of Thirds is about to become your best friend.

A perfectly balanced landscape photo. Via Andreas Wonisch.

For the most clear examples, look at photographs. In the example above, the focal points (the tree and horizon) are perfectly aligned with the grid created by the Rule of Thirds. If the tree was dead center horizontally and the mountains were directly in the vertical center, the composition would not be so pleasing.

5. Rule of odds
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A logo design that uses the Rule of Odds to draw the eye to focal point. Via Freshinnet.

The Rule of Odds says that pleasing compositions seem to often have an odd number of elements placed in the foreground, most commonly three. The two objects on the outside both balance the focal point in the center, creating a simple, natural balance. (If you're a wedding photographer this is probably the most difficult rule to follow.) This is often true in logo design, where a centered mark might be offset on either side by the company name, like in Needle Records' logo.

The power of a well-composed design

This is just an overview of the different ways a designer can shape a composition to have the greatest impact on viewers. As always, remember that rules are meant to be broken. But once you start understanding and executing these rules and structures in your own work, it will improve and strengthen your designs immeasurably.

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The 5 rules of design composition and layout - 99designs

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Design composition is how you place elements on a page. Learn how to layout a design to creating meaning and be more aesthetically pleasing.

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Students don't speak very well. Class discussions, presentations, podcasts, videos, and digital storytelling suffer.

But standards include speaking. What is your school doing to address these standards?
Resources are hard to find.
There are no classes in teacher education programs abouthow to teach speaking skills. It is never a topic on any inservice days either.
You need help to develop oral communication skills. I provide that help.

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PVLEGS - A Revolutionary Public Speaking System from Erik Palmer

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Students don't speak very well. Class discussions, presentations, podcasts, videos, and digital storytelling suffer. But standards include speaking. What is your school doing to address these standards? Resources are hard to find. There are no classes in teacher education programs abouthow to teach speaking skills. It is never a topic on any inservice days either.

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20 slides at 20 seconds per slide

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PechaKucha 20x20: Discover PechaKucha presentations, stories, ideas, examples, and videos that will inspire

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Just Because You Have a Giant Twine Ball Doesn't Make You A Maniac

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The Presentation Zen Design book has been available from online retailers for about 5-6 weeks now, and the book is just now starting to show up on the shelves of book stores. A big note of gratitude and appreciation to those of you who purchased the book, especially those of you who took the time to write a review or write me a personal note. Thank you. It's been lovely to hear from so many people around the world. I realize money is tight these days, so the fact that you would spend cash on a book that I wrote and designed is quite humbling indeed. 本当にありがとうございます! The PZD book has a few more pages than the PZ book and focuses on basic graphic design principles and techniques that students and professionals can incorporate into their own work. The context is the design of slides, but the lessons can be applied to other forms of visual communication such as web design, etc. You can see the table of contents here on the Safari site, and a free chapter is available here on the publisher's website (under "sample content").

This is a pic of the covers as prepared in InDesign before going to print. Another endorsement from a remarkable cool cat will appear on the cover (above the title) in the 2nd printing of the book.

A lot of great people made wonderful contributions to the book including and many others including the amazing pros at This video appeared about a month ago The in Russia speaks to why paper books still matter: Stephen Few, Maureen Stone, John McWade, Scott Kelby, Nancy Duarte, Peach Pit Press in Berkeley, California back in the USA. Below is a video message from my friend Nancy Duarte (who is busy at TED this week) singing the praises for the new PZD book (literally). on the Slideology blog.

Presentation Zen Design book has already been picked up for translation in eight languages other than English. The work on German, Korean, and Japanese versions is well underway. I'll let you know about other versions as details emerge.

You may ask why write books, especially traditional paper books? It's a good question. But this note I received from on Facebook from Julia Myslina

,
I've recently read Presentation Zen and would like to thank you for such a beautiful, inspiring and deep book. I used to read presentation zen blog from time to time, but the books in paper format always bring totally different experience, much more powerful. I'm very happy to know more and more like-minded people who bring beauty and meaning to this world. People like you. With big respect from snowy Russia. -

ow we can best present with visuals and various forms of multimedia and yet do so in a visceral, human, and natural way that engages people both emotionally and intellectually. (Here's a post on Your work is The Naked Presenter
I've just begun work on another book for Peach Pit Press which focuses on delivery called greatly appreciated. The Naked Presenter. The key concept in delivery is naturalness and transparency. One of the key questions I will wrestle with is h the naked idea from five years ago.)

Arigatou!
Right, that's enough talking about my books. Now I can get back to doing what I love to do most, which is researching and sharing information with you for free on presentationzen.com. My life is going to change drastically in 3-4 weeks from now (in a good way I hope), but I vow to once again share as much information as I can on a regular basis. Thanks again for all of your help and support and doing your part to change the world in your own way.

Note: I am not attending TED in Long Beach this week so that I can be closer to home here in Japan, for reasons I think Nancy alludes to in her post on the book. Looking forward to an incredible TEDxTokyo in May, however.

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The Presentation Zen Design book has been available from online retailers for about 5-6 weeks now, and the book is just now starting to show up on the shelves of book stores. A big note of gratitude and appreciation to those of you who purchased the book, especially those of you who took the time to write a review or write me a personal note.

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Take a stand - two ears/one mouth (Listen to a statement, then physically move to a different position and justify it)

We never know where people work, live, or are from until we ask them and get to know them.

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Delving into the multiple audiences in this scenario --

Procedure:

Divide the class into groups of 4-5 students.  Give each group a copy of the scenario and explain the assignment.  Finally, designate a presentation audience for each group.

The Scenario:

You are a sales representative for a mid-sized company.  You’ve borrowed your boss’s new car to take a potential client to dinner.  You have reservations for dinner at a fancy restaurant, and you think that you’ll likely finalize a large contract that is important to your company.

You are running late, so you decide to take a residential street with little traffic.  The borrowed car does not have great brakes, and you want to make up some time in an area with fewer cars.  It is almost dark and a light rain is falling.  In a 35 mph zone, you’re doing almost 50.

Approaching a stop sign, you don’t stop quickly enough to halt at the sign.  In fact, you travel about 10 feet into the intersection. You think about putting the car into reverse and backing out of the intersection, but after a quick look to the left, you think that all’s clear to proceed.  Just then, on your right, a car approaches rapidly and hits the borrowed car in the passenger side, ruining the door and denting your car.

Now you are REALLY late!

Audience Assignments:

1. The client you were to meet for dinner- who has been in 3 accidents during the past year

2. A work associate who thinks you’re always falling short and getting into trouble (who is also a little jealous of your success but is liked and listened to by your boss)

3. Your boss (the owner of the wrecked car)

4. An insurance agent who may adjust your boss’s insurance rate

5. Your lawyer who will represent you and needs to know all “the facts”

Discussion/Prompt Questions:

1. What does your audience want to know?

2. What do they need to know?

3. What expectations (if any) does the audience have toward you?

4. What attitude does the audience have toward you and your work?

5. What is the audience’s reason for listening to you?

6. What do you want your audience to do after hearing your recounting of the details?

7. How will the audience’s reaction to the incident affect you in the future?

Student Presentations: Give them 10 minutes to prepare; ask the class to note variations b/t groups

Differences in Com Purposes and Strategies:

1)      Client: Finalize or confirm sale, elicit sympathy through shared experience

2)      Jealous associate: Diffuse accusation; shift responsibility and blame

3)      Boss: Emphasize progress w/ clients, focus on benefits of contract, minimize car damage

4)      Agent: Minimize personal culpability; emphasize extenuating factors

5)      Lawyer: Provide detailed info, recite state of mind, performance pressures, extenuating circumstances while driving, etc.

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Adjunct Lecturer at Eastern Michigan University
ajohns27@emich.edu

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July 30th to August 3rd @ Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac

$275 (9 AM-3 PM, daily)

Led by Amy Johnson and her team; hosted by LeAnne Schmidt, NDPMA Speech and Debate

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Edge Summer Forensics Camp Flyer - Made with PosterMyWall.jpg

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College degree requirements are limited with regard to forensics content in order to prepare learners with methods expertise.

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The Selling Point Students & Parents Need/Want to Hear

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The Selling Point Students & Parents Need/Want to Hear

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Everyone should have this article, even though it's old

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Includes Common Core linkage with forensics

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https://sites.google.com/view/fundraisingforforensics/home