Week 17, Discussion 3

I can honestly say that this class has helped me improve greatly with my public speaking skills. I learned so much in this class and I am definitely going to take all the information with me in the future. I could pinpoint so many little things that we learned that I am going to take with me in the future but I could go on for days. One topic that I will definitely take with me is the speaking for different occasions. I found it interesting that there are different ways to prepare a speech for different occasions. I know that in the future I will have to give speeches for awards, or at weddings, so knowing how to correctly prepare for the speeches and present them is extremely beneficial to me.

Week 17 Disucssion 2

This class has taught me so much about public speaking; I don’t even know where to begin. A lot of concepts were used throughout the semester but one that stuck out the most to me was memorizing the introduction and conclusion when preparing to give a speech. I think we learned this before the first speech, I can’t quite remember, but I used the method for my speeches. I found it the most useful because it really helped calm my nerves while I was presenting. I usually get really bad anxiety but knowing that I had my introduction and my conclusion memorized help relieve the stress quite a bit.

Week 17, Discussion 1

Out of the three speeches that we gave, the speech that was my favorite would have to be the informative speech. I didn’t mind doing research on this topic or writing my speech for it because I thought my topic was interesting. It was by far the easiest speech for me to write. I have taken psychology before so I recognized a lot of the words and I was able to connect all of the different concepts together without thinking extremely hard about them. I also enjoyed listening to the other students give their speeches because it isn’t every day that you learn so much about the most, I guess you could say random, things.

Self-Evaluation 3

As the third speech was approaching, I felt confident. The last two speeches that I have given have gone over extremely well so I was not worried about this last speech. The topic that I chose was genocide and I think that I achieved the purpose well. I informed my audience about genocide, told them about what happens to those who genocide is being inflicted upon, and then gave solutions. Out of the fifteen feedback sheets I received, twelve said that my speech was highly persuasive.

During the speech, I feel like I was confident but not confident enough. There were some parts of my speech that I could not remember for the life of me so I was nervous about them but when it came down to it, I ended up being able to complete those parts without fumbling my words. I noticed that the time was winding down quickly so when it came to my conclusion I missed a sentence or two and stumbled a few times.

If I had to do this speech all over again, I would explain more ways for everyone to get involved. I could have done more research on it but it was hard to find solutions because it is mostly something that the government has to get involved with. In preparation, I would have studied my speech a lot more. I wanted to be able to memorize my whole speech and not use my note cards but I was unsuccessful at doing so. I think that the organization of my speech was good as well as my support, but for the delivery I think that if I had practiced more, I wouldn’t have stumbled.

Something that was different from my last speech that was good was that I didn’t say any “ums” or “likes.” This was something that I wanted to focus on with this last speech so I am glad that I accomplished it. Something that was different from my last speech that is considered bad was that I didn’t practice it as much, so I used my note cards a lot more. Like I stated before, I wanted to be able to accomplish this last speech without using any note cards but I ended up using them way more than I actually had the last two speeches.

I didn’t do anything distracting in this last speech. I stood still, made eye contact, and refrained from all of the “ums” and “likes.” I am happy to say that this was definitely an improvement from my last speech! I thought that my last speech went well but after watch the tapes again I realize how annoying filler-words are.

On a scale of 1-10, I would rate my eye contact an 8. I used my note cards but the only time I read directly off of them was from quotes. On a scale of A-F, I would give myself a “b.” If I had more of my speech memorized and I did not stumble on my words, I would have given myself an "A." I know that I can do better; I just needed to practice my speech more. However, I did accomplish the purpose of my speech and I did successfully persuade my audience to get involved!

This speech was not better than my last speech. I felt a lot more confident in my last speech because I knew every single detail and I practiced a lot more. I also didn’t use my note cards as much last time, because I had most of my quotes memorized. In my speech, I mentioned my sources six times. Based on my review of all three of my speeches, I think that I performed my second speech the best. It was the speech that I spent a lot of time on and practiced the most. I knew it better than I knew my first and third speech and I felt really confident while giving it.

Week 15, Discussion 3

In Chapter 16, I learned how to correctly create speeches of occasions. There are speeches of nomination, award presentations, acceptance speeches, after-dinner speeches, tributes and eulogies, and mediated speaking. During speeches of nomination, one must "identify the nominee, cite the best reasons for selecting the person, personalize the candidate without being too informal, express confidence in how the nominee will perform, ask for the group's support, and thank the group" (428). During award presentations, "a spotlight should be shined on the award, the recipient, and the occasion" (429). For acceptance speeches, one should be thankful and humble, succinct, and contextualize the award. After-Dinner speeches are usually part of an organizational event. One should be entertaining and lighthearted but also focus on the theme. Tributes and eulogies should emphasize emotion appropriately and provide inspiration. When giving a mediated speech, one should "dress appropriately, try to learn as much as possible about the structure and format of the event, write a brief presentation outline with keywords and phrases that can quickly be glanced at, limit physical movement, be assertive and confident, and avoid acronyms or jargon that only those who are knowledgeable of the topic would understand" (435).

Week 15, Discussion 2

Every day at work I have to persuade customers into my opinion. I work for a company that provides home furnishings and our customers rely on our knowledge of the furniture and design. Persuading them to buy our products can be extremely complicated. In order to persuade them into, I guess you could say, buying my "opinion," I tell them the benefits of the product by backing it up with evidence. For example, I refer to the kind of material the product is made out of and talk about our competitive prices that we offer. In order to persuade customers into buying something you must state your claim and then back it up with evidence.

Week 15, Discussion 1

Video 15.1 taught me about the elements of arguments. They are thesis, claims, evidence, and reasoning. A thesis is very important because it states the central idea of your speech. In order to support your thesis, you use claims, evidence, and reasoning. It is very important to link your evidence to your claims. I am going to use this in my speech by making sure I make the claim that genocide is a serious issue that should be taken control of and then give evidence as to why I am making this claim. In Schooling: pro I noticed that Dixie had very good eye contact and spoke at a constant rate. She sounds very confident about her topic as she walks around and looks towards the audience but I think that she could have talked a little louder. While watching Schooling: Con I noticed that Robert used a lot of gestures, which, to me, was really annoying. He sounds excited about the topic and spoke at a good rate with a good pitch. I think that Dixie connected to the audience better than Robert because she gave a lot of eye contact, seemed very confident, used hand gestures but not too many to be annoying, and walked around while she gave her speech. Although I have never had a problem with the rate or pitch of my voice during a speech, I am going to focus on that for my third speech.