Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Forums, panels, colloquiums and symposiums



Forums, panels, colloquiums and symposiums are all means for making a public presentation, but each serves a different purpose. Forums enable a group to have full audience participation and are useful for speaking and listening to a larger audience. In a forum, a group presents to the larger audience and then the audience exams what was presented. Panels consist of a small group of experts discussing an issue or decision in front of an audience. The audience doesn’t get involved except possibly in a Q & A session after the discussion. Colloquiums entail a small group of experts with different views discussing a problem in order to identify, develop and work through solutions in front of an audience. The audience participates and benefits from the discussion of possible solutions to problems. Symposiums are the format for a few brief speeches on different aspects of a generally complex and difficult problem to help the audience understand complex technical information about the problem.

I prefer colloquiums. To me, this type of public presentation combines the two things I enjoy—listening to people who know what they are talking about and having a chance to participate and benefit from a discussion; hopefully resulting in finding some viable solutions to a problem.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing all the information that you shared on; forums, panels, colloquiums and symposiums. I knew a little about a few of the types of public presentations that was discussed in this chapter; however I was glad to have read this chapter, and your blog and now be able to distinguish the difference between each public presentation type. I was glad that you chose another choice than I selected so that, I can have an alternate view on which presentation may work for best for me. Colloquiums seems like a great choice because it involves experts and their professional opinions, and the audience gets to participate. I however chose a forum because that way we can have a wide variety on suggestions and opinions, because a forum involves the full audiences participation. I found you blog very helpful and informational. I feel that you have shared accurate information, and I thank you again and appreciate to for sharing. You did a great job.

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