Zachary R. Wood Ted Talk Analysis

As I analyzed Zachary R. Wood’s Ted Talk, “Why it’s worth listening to people you disagree with,” I noticed many things about the delivery of the speech including voice inflection, pace, the use of pauses, eye contact, voice clarity, and gestures, as well as establishment of credibility, naturalness. Zachary R. Wood has a very calm voice. He isn’t monotonous and he does vary his voice inflection, but he isn’t super exciting with his vocal tone. We talked about being enthusiastic when we gave our speeches, and I believe more enthusiasm would enhance his speech. This doesn’t mean however that the entire speech should be enthusiastic. There are many points where his calm demeanor is very effective, like the beginning, but the speech seems to

As I mentioned previously, Woods is a very calm speaker. I attribute this calmness to the slow, methodical pace of his speech. It’s not so slow as to be considered ridiculous, but slow enough to be clear and make the point that what he is saying is meaningful. Alongside this pace, he effectively uses pauses to allow his audience to think and take in the significance of specific words or phrases. I also found it interesting how well he continued to change eye contact throughout the entire speech. He was clearly comfortable, which I’m sure helped him naturally continue to address the entire audience which formed a three-quarter circle around him. I know I would be very uncomfortable with this arrangement, but it didn’t faze him what so ever. He moved and seemed to look in every area, which helped engage the audience and maintain their interest. This is integral to a good speech! Additionally, Wood has a very clear, decisive voice. I never have to question a word that he says because he enunciates each word. I have struggled to do this myself since childhood. Because I naturally speak very fast I tend to mumble over words. As logic would dictate, enunciation is also vital to a good speech, which he does very