Evaluation

My demonstration speech I feel was well thought out and when I practiced it in my home and in my car went perfectly, however in class I feel completely different. The purpose of my speech was to show the class an easy alternative to cooking a healthy meal while saving time and not eating T.V diners. I stated that purpose but did not execute my demonstration well at all. I found it frustrating because I practiced my speech and went over all the components of giving my main points and fully demonstrating the process in making a meal. While presenting the speech however I became overwhelmingly nervous and was more concerned with giving all of the information I could while staying within the time restraints. 

Because the time restrains made me so nervous I feel that next time I will try to practice my speech while using an actual stop watch and maybe focus on timing each point so that I am not rushing through my conclusion and in this case my demonstration. When I practiced my speech I did time myself and I timed myself going over my demonstration but did not actually execute my demonstration while practicing. Practicing my speech with all components will improve how comfortable I am in presenting my speech and in turn I hope that I will be able to present more content as well. Even though we have only given two speeches so far in the class I feel that the one thing that is getting better for me is my note cards. With my first speech I barely wrote anything on the note cards and with this speech I had more content and quotes, but delivering this information is something I have to work on. I had so much information on my note cards that I didn't mention because I didn't want to be reading them the whole time so I over compensated by not really looking at them. Because I was looking at my note cards I missed a great deal of information that I had prepared for the class. Being more prepared and using my note cards more effectively will only help to improve my delivery. Instead of saying "ummm" while I try to remember what I have written down I can just look down in the same second and get the information I need to continue with my speech and the point I am trying to make. 

The most distracting thing that I do is saying "ummm" when I am trying to think about what it is that I had planned to say. I know that is distracts me while I am giving my speech so I can only imagine what people think when I do it multiple times. While I may say "umm" or "like" a lot I feel that the one thing I am confident in is my eye contact. Eye contact actually makes me feel a little more comfortable when I am giving a speech because I can kind of judge how people are responding to my presentations. Although it can be a little distracting when I notice that someone is not paying attention to me at all, but in that case I just look around for others that are engaging in what I am saying and showing interest in what I am saying. 

One of the reason's people may not be listening to me is because I did not cite more then one source. I froze and forgot what my sources were and was over confident in myself and did not write that anywhere on my note cards. It is the one thing I should have wrote down and highlighted, because like the book said to be a successful speaker one needs to be credible and to be credible one needs to cite their sources. After all is said and done and with all the things I can say that I did wrong, I know that I am my biggest enemy and my biggest critic. I was shocked at the grade I received and now that there is so much room for improvement and would have given myself a C to a low B. I put a lot of effort into this speech but just came up short on my presentation and hope to fix these errors for the next assignment.

Outlines

I chose to write this blog about outlines because I feel it is something that I need to work on and that if I can get better at writing outlines my speeches will only get better. The book goes into great detail about transitions which is something that will help my speech flow better and with strong transitions I will be able to keep my speech more organized and not loose track of what I am talking about. The outlines are great at getting all thoughts on paper and help in seeing where to go as far as what to edit out and what needs more support. A well organized outline can also help to show when visuals are needed and what points need to be emphasized. Organization is key to giving a good speech because it makes the speech giver more credible, when a person is talking and they are all over the place they start to look like they do not know what they are talking about. Speeches are meant to be informative and if the speech presenter is confused then the audience is sure to be confused as well. The book does a great job at breaking down all the parts of the outline and what the main focus of each part should be. The break down is a great beginning to preparing for a speech and the way the book breaks down each section makes me feel like it should be a little easier to remember my speech and keep my thoughts focused. Now that I feel I have a good understanding of the breakdown of the outline, the book then goes into detail about how to keep the outline balanced, relevant and various forms of how to organize the outline, (chronologically, spatial...). I feel that all of the sub points are great and after reading the chapter I feel that if I can stick with this format and keep all these key points in mind it will not only improve my topic but also how I give and remember my speech.

Facts And Statistics

I feel that facts and statistics can be very useful in speech that is meant to be informative or persuasive. If one can find the right statistics to support their point of view then those facts may be able to persuade others to feel the same way. A lot of times statistics can be useful when wanting to use fear to persuade people to change their point of view. Like when people talk about teenage sex and use statistics of pregnancy and STD's to convince teens of all the horrible things that can happen when engaging in sexual activity. However statistics and facts may not be a useful when giving a speech that is meant to be more personal or a speech that is being presented in a story fashion. I feel like statistics are great but take the personal attributes of a event out of the equation. Statistics and facts can sound cold and harsh at times and unless these facts are things that people really are concerned with they can sound boring and dry. If the presenter isn't sure about statistics and is spouting out facts that are not properly researched then the speaker looses all credibility, and therefore the audience is not going to value anything the presenter has to say. In addition if a speech is nothing but facts and statistics then the audience could become bored or overwhelmed by all of the information and therefore will stop listening. Facts and statistics are a great way to add validity to a speech and demonstrate to an audience that one knows what they are talking about and took the time to research a topic, but not presented correctly I feel that facts can hurt just as much as they can help a speech.

Audience Diversity

I feel like the toughest part about this whole adapting to your audience section is going to be adapting to the diversity of the class or any situation. We live in a country where there is not one situation where everyone is from the same place, has the same life experiences, and may understand the same jokes and phrases. After reading the chapter I feel like making sure that no one person is offended or left not understanding is going to be difficult. Sometimes I feel like the more I read the book that more nervous I am getting about future speeches because the book is pointing out scenarios that I have never even thought of. Making sure that my speech relates to all people in the class in a way that keeps them interested definitely adds some pressure. For the most part when I get up in front of a class I am more concerned with just saying what I need to say so that I can sit down as soon as possible. Obviously this is not going to help my speeches get any better and if I can find a way to use the tips that are mentioned throughout the book in a way that doesn't make me more nervous then I should do well. Right now however I am feeling just slightly overwhelmed with all of this information. But I feel like noticing and adapting to the diversity in everyday situations is a helpful tip and something that I am going to try and work on throughout the duration of this class.

Analyzing and Adapting

Analyzing an audience is an important aspect of giving a speech. Knowing the needs and interests of one's attended audience can help to attract an active listening audience that will engage in thoughtful questions and interest in one's speech. It is important to know how an audience may feel about certain topics so that no one listening is offended by what is said in the speech. Once a person is offended it can cause confrontation which will only make giving a speech that much more nerve racking. When giving a speech it can be incredibly helpful to find out what the audience has in common with the topic of the speech and relate the topic more specifically to the audience which in turn will grasp their attention making the speech giving process a little easier. Adapting to an audience goes hand in hand with analyzing an audience. After one has analyzed the audience it is then up to the speech giver to adapt their speech to fit their audience and tailor their delivery in a way that will relate to the people listening without offending anyone. I hope to use this information in my next speech in the hopes that it will make me a little more comfortable. By knowing how my audience feels about a topic or knowing that we all have a commonality then maybe I can be less nervous about what everyone is thinking and just worry about my delivery and make sure I am making all the points that I had planned on making.

Speech Buddies #6

The speech buddy videos this week were very informative and restated once again the reading from chapter 6. The videos showed the different processes in which to conduct the research part of a speech, phase 1 is preparation, phase two is gathering information and phase three is evaluating information. All of this information however was in the first part of chapter 6 so I didn't feel like I learned that much from that video.
I took a class last semester in critical thinking and we spent most of our time researching and presenting argumentative essay's. I have to say that these were my favorite kind of papers to write and so I hope that in this speech class I enjoy presenting this type of discussion in front of a class. The video on the slugs was a great representation of a persuasive speech and by the end of the video I really felt bad for all the slugs I had abused over the years for pure enjoyment.
The video about the girls family I felt was a very touching story of how our youth shouldn't take our older family members for granted and that when the time comes I am sure that I too will take care of my father.

Chapter 6

After reading chapter six I felt that I got the most out of the research tips. The three steps mentioned in the chapter help to explain a little about how to break up the process of researching a topic. For me researching a topic is the hardest part. I finish up major research projects hoping that the required amount of sources are correct and that they are valid sources. The Internet can be a very complicated place to search for information and there is always more then one answer available and determining which answer is correct is a scary thing sometimes. The first of the three steps is "preparing for the search," knowing what you are looking for and making a list of questions you want answered can help in the process. The second tip was "gathering information," for me I think this is the part that is so exhausting because there can sometimes be too much information and then  I am left wondering where to start, what to use and what to loose. The third step is "evaluation the information found", I think this is key and a helpful way to weed out too much information. If I can prove that the information is incorrect then I would know not to use that particular source. Starting a research paper or project can be an exhausting task but with the proper organization and thought out questions I feel the process is more manageable.

Research Interviews

Research Interviews are something that I am not all that familiar with. So far in the classes that I have taken both at Sierra and in High School have not really required that I do my own interviews. Two semesters ago however I did take a critical thinking English class where we were put into groups of four and were required to ask our peers three questions. We were allowed to do this on any forum we chose. For me I thought well Face Book is the easiest and best way to reach out to as many people as possible. After having my questions up on my page for five days I received very few responses. I think only six of my contacts actually gave me any usable responses. When our group came together to discuss our findings I realized we all had the same kind of problem with our contacts just ignoring our posts. The process was frustrating to say the least and we ended up having to use statistics and interviews that we found on the Internet. Towards the end of the project my entire group felt the same about the research we had and wished that our peers had taken it more seriously so that we could know how people we know and live around us felt about the issue. I think that the next time I do any kind of interview research I will be more diligent about asking people in person the questions I have as well as posting on my Face Book. I feel that social media is a great way to get opinions from people and it is the best way to reach out to many people in a very short about of time, just next time I will have to actually ask people to comment and maybe post specifically on people's pages.

Video Blog

After watching the videos and doing the reading I feel like have a good grasp on what I can do to make my future speeches better. In the videos there are the three techniques, that are also discussed in the book, to help with speech delivery. Visualizing one's speech is a great way to get prepared for a speech and until now I never realized it was a technical term. I remember in dance and cheer leading I frequently would run over my routine's before a performance so that mentally I was prepared for the steps I needed to execute. When it came to speeches however I would visualize all the negative things that could happen. This is obviously not a good way to psych yourself up. Relabeling I think would be quit useful for me since I always stress my most negative feelings. Relabeling stress and using different wording can really take the edge off giving an oral presentation, going in for a job interview, or just communicating with peers. Relabeling makes me think of a saying my dad said often, "there is a lot of power of positive thinking". And then there is just relaxing which uses various breathing techniques. For me personally breathing has never really worked because once my brain gets going I can not turn it off. I have tried yoga and the concept I feel just goes over my head.