concept-ch.9

I found the "conclusion development" very useful. The book discusses that as the speaker, I should briefly mention my main points of my presention, encourage my purpose with a memorable message and give some kind of closure with a quote, dramatic statement, or refer to the introduction. The last couple of points that are mentioned in the conclusion are best remembered by the audience than in the body part of the speech, which is also known at recency effect. I found all of this very important so that for my next speech I will put just as much effort in the conclusion as the rest of the speech.

Facts and Statistics

I find facts and statistics are most effective in speeches that need them as a support to prove something like a persuasive speech. But I find that facts are always effective in any speech because they are good for supporting your purpose or main points. For statistics, like the book mentions that statistics are numerical data and too much of them can be boring. Facts and statistics are not effective when a speaker over uses them. As the speaker we have to keep the audience in mind and if it does not keep the audiences attention then that means it is not effective. So I think its important to include just enough facts and statistics to make a point clear to the audience.

Self Evaluation #1

Speaking in front of a crowd of more than five people has always made me nervous. In the past, I have always spoke softly in front of an audience because I was a afraid and never really was prepared for what I had to say. Even if I had practice, I would think negatively about what I had to say and about myself. But for this first speech in Public Speaking, I felt better prepared with all the advice from the blogs and from the book. It was interesting to see myself on the video. I was hesitant to watch it because I thought I did terrible. Before I pressed the play button to watch myself, I remember telling my friends and family a couple hours before that, watching the video of myself is compared to watching a horror movie because I am curious to see how thing turned out but am afraid of it all at the same time.

After watching the video I felt a little better about how everything went. Before going to the class I reminded myself that I should not think about anything but the purpose of why I was going to be there on that day and in that room; that purpose was to inform people about my topic of incense. I felt I achieved this purpose through emphasizing my main points and having visuals to enhancing the presentation. Considering past experiences, I was fairly comfortable and confident in how I delivered my speech. I did notice that my body was a bit tense even though I had a lot of hand movements.

There are a couple of things I would have done differently in the speech if I were to get the opportunity to do I again. First, for preparation I would practice seven times with full sentence outline, another seven times with keyword notecards, and give the speech to three different people to get feedback. Secondly, for delivery I would make sure I would not say “um” and “ugh” so often and try to make more eye contact with the audience. One of the goals I have for improving the content in my next speech and that is to mention my sources briefly when I give proof of something or refer to a point. Another goal I have for the next speech in delivering it is to not say “um” and “ugh” as much.

Some of the things I noticed after watching the video of my speech delivery was that I had a lot of hand movements that became a bit distracting. Also saying “um” and “ugh” repeatedly took a lot away from the information and presentation. Some of the positive things I saw were, I spoke clearly and I was able to touch on the main points. I also noticed that I did not mention any of my sources during the speech. This is something I must remember to do. Making eye contact was also an issue for me and if I were to rate myself on a scale of one to ten, I would have to give myself a 7.5 because I did look at a couple students in the audience, I hardly looked at my note cards, and had very little words to read from the Power Point to force me to look at the audience.

Overall, I enjoyed informing people about incense and I would give myself an A- especially because my purpose was to inform people about incense in a clear way and I feel I was successful in doing that because it was clear in stating them and with the critiques from the classmates, I found that they did understand the main points. Secondly, I put a lot of energy to my voice so that it would not be boring. I was very interested in my topic and I saw through the video that I was excited to tell everyone about it. Thirdly, the Power Point enhanced my presentation because it helped the audience see a visual of what I was speaking about.