Concept that was Helpful

The concept I thought was most helpful in preparing for my speech was how to manage my voice during my speech. When I’m nervous I speak very fast, which I did in my first speech presentation. After reading the helpful concept, I did a lot better with the second and third speech. There were four points for managing your voice which were speaking loudly enough, varying your rate, pitch, and volume, avoiding vocalized pauses, and articulating your words clearly and pronounce them correctly. A speaker has to remember to have their audience able to hear them so they don’t have to strain themselves. Having different levels in your voice makes you stand out and keeps the audience interested too. Monotone is no good for a speech, along with vocalized pauses.

Future Endeavors

There are numerous things I can take from this class that will be helpful for me in future endeavors. Since I am a business major, I really need to make my speech skills better. I learned many things as projection of voice, voice variety, eye contact, technology use, and much more. The most important thing I learned was relaxation techniques, which I need to, use more often since I get so nervous when presenting a speech. I can also use the different speech outlines if I ever have a speech to present during a business presentation. That really comes into help and very organizational.

Favorite Speech and Why

The speech that was my favorite was the last one which was about vegetarianism. I first started off telling my audience about what’s behind the meat industry so they know what’s happening to the meat their eating. I told them the health effects and environmental effects that come with eating meat as well. After, I went off into the advantages of being vegetarian or even vegan along with getting politically involved. Since I am a vegetarian and made this commitment to help stop animal cruelty, I would like to have everyone know the truth of the meat industry. I won’t push people to change their eating habits, but as long as they gained information they can make their decision from there. Also, I found this speech to be the most interesting out of all the speeches which adds to why it’s my favorite.

Self-Evaluation #3

The last and final speech for the semester! I found this speech to be actually the most difficult since the time span was longer and a different organizational pattern. I believe I did pretty well achieving the purpose of my speech, which was by letting my audience know the horrid truth behind the meat industry. I notice people’s faces were shocked, probably from the images provided from the PowerPoint. I felt somewhat comfortable and confident when I was giving my speech because I already knew about my topic from being a vegetarian for three years. Problem was I did let my nerves get to me, worst out of all the speeches, because I noticed there was more people this time to watch what I had to say. So I did look to my note cards a lot, but did my best to give eye contact. If I only wasn’t so intimidated I would have done so much better!

If I had to do it over again, there are many changes I would make in preparation, support, organization, and delivery. For preparation, I would have worked on memorizing more of my speech, especially the main points. For support, I probably could have used more resources to better convince my audience what’s going on behind the meat industry. For organization, I don’t thing there were much changes needed. For delivery, definitely better eye contact with the audience and more energy in my speech. What was specifically different from my last speech that was good was in the last speech, I didn’t feel as nervous and for bad I got the nerves really get to me. I messed up plenty of times by jumbling my words or mispronouncing something.

I think the most distracting thing I could have done was apologize or do hand gestures when I made a mistake when presenting my speech. If I had to rate my eye contact on scale from 1-10, I would give myself a 6. I believe I looked to my note cards this time out of all the speeches, which is a big no-no! On a scale from A to F, the grade I would give myself based on my performance would be a B- because of the verbal mistakes and lack of eye contact. No, I don’t believe this speech was better than my last speech. Due to the same reasons, verbal mistakes and lack of eye contact, as well as letting my nerves get the best of me. The amount of source citations I mentioned during the course of my speech was four, two being books, one being internet, and one being a magazine.

Based on my review of ALL three speeches, the one I think I performed the best was the second speech. I think I performed the best with this one because since it was a make-up, there weren’t that many people there. I didn’t feel like all these eyes were just staring at me and felt calmer. I only wish I had a better memory of my speech in my head and I would of definitely have chosen my last speech to be the best one.

Chapter 15 Concept

One concept from the assigned reading that I found useful/interesting was using reasoning effectively. There are four types of reasoning such as deductive, inductive, causal, and analogical. Deductive reasoning is from general principle to specific case. The strength is that it relies on established formal logic, but the weakness is invalid premises leading to false conclusions. Inductive reasoning is from specific examples to general principle. The strength is that you visualize and personalize the argument, but the weakness is the lack of representation, sufficiency, and relevance. Causal reasoning is one event causes another. The strength is it’s useful for explanation and prediction, but the weakness is the incorrect cause-effect link. Lastly, there’s analogical reasoning which draws similarities between two distinct cases. The strength is that it links the unfamiliar with the familiar, but the weakness is the key differences are ignored.

Persaude Others to Accept My Point

A recent discussion I had in which I tried to persuade others to accept my point of view was vegetarianism. Since I am a vegetarian, it’s ALWAYS brought up that I should eat meat, or I convince others not to eat the animals. The most recent discussion was for lent where my roommate had to decide what to give up. I convinced her to give up meat by telling her the ugly truth behind the cruel meat industry and the healthy aspects of living without meat. She decided to give it a try, and ever since lint has been over, she has still not eaten meat! So I believed my reasoning worked really well =]! GO VEGETARIAN PEOPLE!!

Speech Buddies Videos

In the video “Schooling: Pro” shows Dixie giving a speech about the pros of home schooling. The types of appeals used were the attention getter and clearly stating the main points. She also uses the three elements of claims, evidence, and reasoning. She speaks at a steady pace and clearly for the audience to hear in order to connect with them. In the video “Schooling: Con” shows Robert doing the con side of home schooling. Robert uses evidence to justify his position on the topic and every speaker needs to strong supporting material in order to be helpful in their presentation.