Plato's Dialectic- Presentation Reflection

           While creating my PowerPoint presentation on Plato's Dialectic, I took my classmates, or audience, into great consideration. I took into account the amount of time I was given to present, and thought endlessly on how I could explain to the class in a few minutes something that took me several days to really understand. My classmates and I truly depended on these presentations to be able to fully grasp each concept. For those reasons, I presented Plato's Dialectic in a manner that I believed would facilitate everybody's learning.  

            I wanted to create a presentation that was easy to understand, with visuals that would appeal to my audience, yet related to what I was discussing. I chose to design my presentation with only two slides containing text. I used a simple black background and ancient looking pictures, to keep my audience's eyes on my PowerPoint. I decided not to include a lot of text because I understood that if the slides were full of endless text and no visuals, my peers might grow bored with my presentation, and stop paying attention. If they were to stop paying attention, they would not have been able to grasp the concept that I was trying to explain, and thus my purpose in presenting would not have been fulfilled. 

            Also when creating this presentation, I prepared the text that I was going to use for the class chat session. I did this because I thought my fellow classmates would appreciate some dialogue to accompany the slides being presented to them. I took their time into consideration, and thought that if I could present in just a few minutes, and drive the point home with a good example, everyone would have a better understanding of Plato’s Dialectic.

            Additionally, I chose a simple example to finalize the presentation and get my point across.  I searched for many examples to use, something that would be easy to understand. Initially, there was a third slide on my PowerPoint which included a dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro (from Euthyphro by Plato). The conversation was about Euthyphro’s definition of pious, and Socrates’ questioning him of that definition. I tried to make it easy to understand for my classmates, but after finding my own self confused with this example, I decided to remove it from my presentation only moments before turning it in. I decided to go with the example of two people looking at the same painting, one sees a tree, while the other sees a mountain, and together they discover a river. I was very happy that I decided to do this, as it was an example that everyone was able to understand. I felt it was a strong way to finalize the presentation, and really get my classmates to grasp the concept of Plato’s Dialectic.

            In conclusion, rhetoric greatly influenced how I created this presentation, specifically because the main thing that I took into account was my audience. I presented the text in a manner that would indicate that I had some knowledge about what I was discussing. I used simple colors and images to keep them focused on the presentation. And finally, I used a easy to understand example to bring it all together. I may not have realized it at the time, but through this reflection, I became explicitly aware of how much I used rhetoric when presenting Plato’s Dialectic.