How to Give Constructive Criticism

One of the most frustrating things as a competitor in a speech and debate setup is getting ranks that are not as good as you hoped and then your feedback reads “great speech”. That’s it, no further explanation, no reasoning, nothing. But this problem goes far beyond competing. Whenever I teach public speaking I always tell people that practicing in front of other people and getting their feedback is one of the best ways to improve. However, the problem is, people often don’t know what constructive criticism actually is. So here’s three things that speakers are looking for when someone gives them feedback. The most important thing about constructive criticism is to mention the positives. The reason for this is that when you mention the positives in a performance, it not only builds confidence, but also helps the speaker identify what they should continue doing. Do not assume that anything you don't mention is automatically going to continue, tell them these are the things they should keep doing or do more of. But on the flip side of this, do not give only positive feedback as well. I like to think of it as a 60-40 split, 40% positives, 60% things to improve. Give the speaker specifics, rather than saying that they need to be more engaging, point out specific words they can emphasize or sentences where they can change their tone to make their speech more engaging. Giving them specific things to do to fix the larger problems in their speech will help them much more efficiently. And lastly, try to look for patterns. If there are things that they are doing consistently well across speeches, or consistently struggling on across speeches, make them aware that this is becoming a pattern and they should watch out for it not just now but also in the future. And these are not one time errors, these are things like speaking in a rhythm which gets boring and repetitive (also called a vocal pattern), or fidgeting with their hands in every speech, or a flat tone/monotone voice in every performance. Making them aware that these problems exist will help them notice it themselves whenever they fall into that pattern again. Of course there is more to what constructive criticism is, however these three things will completely change the way you give feedback and make it much more helpful to speakers.