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.

Concept- Ch.5

I found the section on “developing credibility with your audience” to be very informative. I learned that what goes under a speakers credibility are competence, socialabilty, dynamism, and trustworthiness. For competence, it means to be knowledgeable about your subject. So that means that a lot of researching should go into talking about the topic. Secondly, is being trustworthy which means the audience wants to feel the sincerity of the speaker and actually cares about them. Thirdly, dynamism is being about to put on a good performance in a way. Lastly, sociability is being able to connect with audience. These are four things I will keep in mind while I practice for my speech. I find that all these dimensions to be very important for the speaker to keep in mind. I want to make sure that know as much as I can about my topic, be lively, sincere, and make people feel that they can relate to what I speak about.

Speech Buddy: Ch.6

There was a lot of useful tips in the video 6.1. I learned that preparing for research is crucial to having good content for a speech. When I start researching for my topic, I should write out what I do know the topic and what I want to know about the topic. This I find very helpful because what I do know might be what someone else knows in the audience and what I don’t know they might not know either. This gives me a chance to look up what I want to know about the topic and hopefully it appeals to the audience as well. I also learned that gathering multiple perspectives is also key in gathering information. Having valid and different opinions help balance the speech.

Conducting Research Interviews

The last time I conducted a research interview was when I was sophmore in high school and it was for a term paper on World War II. The research was on the experience of people in the United States, and what the families who had son’s in the war went through. I interviewed an old friend of my mothers. The process of getting the questions together was not that difficult. The important thing I remember was to know the purpose of the research, and having some idea of what kind of answer you are expecting. I made observations on other research interviews and used them as models to conduct my own. This was a pretty big paper so the interview took quite some time. I brought with me an audio recorder and a notepad to write with as well. I had a lot of fun doing this especially because the topic was personal to me. I would say the difficult part of this was not the interview but more after the interview and how to gather the information and put it into my research paper.

Concept- Ch.6

In chapter 6, I found the concept of “examining your own experience” very useful. It explains when choosing a topic, you can associate the topic to your own experiences. I find most times it can be hard to think of what to talk about and how to prepare for the research, so the book also suggested to jot down some words that related to the topic or to just make a list of what you do know about the topic. This will help lead me to finding better sources. From what I understood, keywords can really help my research. Also, how I learned it, so from where I learned about the topic. So its original source can assist me know where to look for more information.