{"id":31,"date":"2012-09-07T02:18:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T07:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ag.spurlock.cc\/?p=31"},"modified":"2012-09-07T02:18:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T07:18:14","slug":"the-mostly-open-faced-sandwich-evaluation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/?p=31","title":{"rendered":"The (Mostly) Open-Faced Sandwich Evaluation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A common form of Toastmasters speech evaluation is the &#8220;sandwich&#8221; form &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open with praise of things the speaker did well<\/li>\n<li>Add some suggestions for improvement &#8211; the &#8220;meat&#8221; of the sandwich<\/li>\n<li>Close with more praise for things you liked<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, <a title=\"Building a Better Sandwich (Evaluation) by Matthew Kleinosky\" href=\"http:\/\/umeryouknow.com\/?p=300\">sandwich evaluations are not as effective as they could be<\/a> &#8211; especially when they&#8217;re &#8220;top-heavy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>A top-heavy sandwich evaluation is one in which the evaluator opens with fulsome praise &#8211; because he&#8217;s afraid the speaker will be upset by the <s>criticism<\/s> suggestions for improvement, and wants to soften the inevitable blow.<\/p>\n<p>By the time the evaluator apologetically hems and haws his way through the (typically gentle) suggestions, he&#8217;s already shot his [praise] wad at the beginning of the evaluation, and has nothing new to add at the end (without repeating himself). And in a Toastmasters evaluation, the evaluator may be running out of time by the time the suggestions are delivered.<\/p>\n<p>The top-heavy sandwich evaluation bears a strong resemblance to the front-loaded request. You know the one &#8211; when that co-worker from another department drops by your desk, all &#8220;Hey, buddy, how&#8217;s it going? How&#8217;s the family? How about that game last night, eh?&#8221; And on, and on, and on&#8230;and you&#8217;re waiting for the request, thinking &#8220;Geez, get ON with it already!&#8221; You know a request is coming &#8211; because the guy never talks to you otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s the better way?<\/p>\n<p>Start with two facts (according to <a title=\"The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, by Nass and Yen\" href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/the-man-who-lied-to-his-laptop-clifford-nass\/1110904758\">a book by Clifford Nass and Cynthia Yen<\/a>) &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>People remember the end of a communication better than the beginning<\/li>\n<li>People remember criticism &#8211; er, &#8220;suggestions for improvement&#8221; &#8211; no matter where in a communication it appears<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So when you&#8217;re evaluating a speech, <strong>save your best praise for last<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t waste any of your &#8220;good stuff&#8221; at the beginning of your evaluation &#8211; the person you&#8217;re evaluating is probably waiting impatiently for your suggestions for improvement and thinking &#8220;Geez, get ON with it already!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Open with <strong>some<\/strong> (a little) praise &#8211; don&#8217;t jump right into your criticisms of the speech. For one thing, the person you&#8217;re evaluating may be so used to the standard top-heavy sandwich evaluation that he will think your more effective approach is rude or overly critical.<\/p>\n<p>Also, if you&#8217;re delivering an evaluation in a Toastmasters evaluation contests, some judges may have &#8220;sandwich evaluation&#8221; as part of their mental checklist when they judge a speech.<\/p>\n<p>For judges like that, no sandwich means bad contest placing &#8211; so start with some praise.<\/p>\n<p>But move it along &#8211; you want to give yourself as much time as possible for your suggestions before delivering your encouraging closing remarks.<\/p>\n<p>To be most effective as an evaluator, use the (Mostly) Open-Faced Sandwich Evaluation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open with some quick praise for the speech and its speaker<\/li>\n<li>Move into your criticisms and suggestions for improvement as soon as possible.<\/li>\n<li>Finish with most of your praise for the speech &#8211; and make it memorable, for the benefit of the speaker and anyone else in the audience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Try a (Mostly) Open-Faced Sandwich Evaluation the next time you evaluate a speech!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common form of Toastmasters speech evaluation is the &#8220;sandwich&#8221; form &#8211; Open with praise of things the speaker did well Add some suggestions for improvement &#8211; the &#8220;meat&#8221; of the sandwich Close with more praise for things you liked Unfortunately, sandwich evaluations are not as effective as they could be &#8211; especially when they&#8217;re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tm.spurlock.cc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}