The talk I selected is called “How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk” by Will Stephen. Some of you may have already seen this video before because it’s relatively popular (I know that I watched it once in class in high school). Stephen spends his talk repeatedly stating that he is saying absolutely nothing, but he still communicates his point very clearly. The main purpose of his talk is to demonstrate various skills that presenters use to make themselves sound smart, even if the content they’re discussing has absolutely no meaning. Although most of the points he brings up like gestures, inflection, and statistics are techniques that I’ve recognized in TED talks in the past, he presented them in a new way and through his humorous approach, emphasized how omnipresent these tricks to sound smarter really are. In this way, I think that the talk was really effective.

Will Stephen presents the information in an incredibly funny way, which makes it memorable. When I first read the prompt for this post, I immediately thought of this talk since it had a lasting impression on me. By using each of the techniques that he mentions rather than simply stating what they are, he demonstrates them to the audience and provides clear examples of what he’s discussing. By keeping the content strictly about “absolutely nothing,” the skills that he uses are highlighted like adjusting his glasses or the way he “builds to a moment” at the conclusion.

The speaker is delivering a speech, because he is performing and structures the information he is giving much differently than a presentation. If it were a presentation, I would imagine that he would list out ways that a speaker could make themselves appear more knowledgeable (giving brief examples or providing research), but Will Stephen delivers it as a speech, integrating his purpose into his seemingly meaningless content.