Self Evaluation #1

Overall, I think the main point in my speech was communicated clearly to my audience. I feel that they understood what I was saying and could follow my form of organization. My points were linear. I did however do, some unnecessary movements when I was in front of my audience that may have served to distracted them, such as pacing. I did notice that I was able to maintain eye contact pretty constantly. It was one of my goals going into the speech. 

My confidence level for this speech was not as high as my first speech, but I was still ready. I believe any fear I had, wasn’t completely from the audience. I was discussing with some of the strangers I was practicing in front of before the speech, that I wasn’t nervous in front of them and that my anxiety may stem from the possibility of a bad grade. The other thing that I noticed about my speech is that sometimes using things, like notecards seem strange and make me nervous. Almost like using them is bad and distracting, even though the are necessary for my statistics and quotes. However, when I do the demo, I can almost expel my excess energy into the process that I am showing and I become less nervous.

If I had to do my speech over again, I would definitely look for more support. Although, I found a lot about the history of my topic, I didn’t have as much credible sources. Even though I gave 4 references and 4 oral citations, they weren’t from people who are experts in their field. However, in such a field as cooking, it is hard to determine what makes a person an expert. Does everyone have to be a chef to make good food? I also, didn’t pick a topic that I had any credible experience in. 

I think for my next speech I will want to have more evidence. I think I will also, want to break my main ideas down into simpler, smaller chunks of information, given the time constants of the speech. This is due to the fact that I feel I am not giving a lot of in depth information, just generic info that is superficial. I also, want to project more confidence, I feel that even though I make eye contact with my audience, I probable pace, which makes it appear as if I don’t have confidence. I want to be able to root myself in front of my audience and make meaningful movements.

I believe I did a good job on the delivery of my speech, and was able to do a decent demonstration. I stayed close to the time limit. I would, give my self a 87.5 to 90 for the delivery.

For the preparation of the speech, I believe that one of my bid downfalls was that my sources were not the greatest, they gave good information, but they weren’t as credible as they should have been. I’d give my self a 85 for the preparation.

Speech Buddies Videos aka The Lazy Title

What did I learn that was useful in the speech buddies video? I learned how to support my speech to make it seem credible. How to use good examples or how to stretch my point when I am trying to persuade people. For example, if I was trying to convince people to drop out of college, there is no good logical reason to do this, but I could use the example in the speech buddies video, and generalize it. Is it ethical, probable not, but I would accomplish my goal. It also, showed me how I could use narratives and testimonials to play on people emotions. Likewise, I also learned how to balance the evidence I need to support my claim, not get the point diluted, and keep it easy to comprehend. Overall, the general theme I guess was how to be efficient and ethical, or on the flip side, manipulative.

Then there was something about organization, it was pretty cool. Basically how to organize your speech based on the type of speech, and how you wanted it presented.

That's a fact!

Giving facts or statistics in a speech can be really helpful. They are super effective at getting some points across, help validate you, and can capture a persons interest. If you start out a speech with a shocking fact, like 50 in 100 people who get cancer x die, it can scare people into curiosity. If you are addressing one of your main points and you follow it up with a few facts, it is validated. People have logical reason to believe it. However, facts can be used too much, like a crutch. If you didn't do research or logically string your speech together, a good alternative may seem to be, throwing out facts. This can get to the point were you aren't actually talking about a topic, but giving out random unrelated statistics. These will only serve to make you seem glib on the subject matter. You could look unprepared, as well. So all in all, it is great to get a wide variety of facts, but only choose ones that can be placed effectively.

Figuratively speaking...

I was in a club meeting today, it was for religion and the bible. The basic idea was that they were reading, studying, interpreting, and generally analyzing the bible. Over and over again, they group leaders would bring in a story or an example to use as an analogy for a specific part of the bible. It worked quite well. Even though I did not agree with the person particular view or interpretation, I understood it better. I could grasp what he was saying, it came across clear. This I believe goes back to speaking to a diverse audience. Even though the stories had nothing to do with the bible. I as a person who never read the bible understood the thinking. I thought at the time of this realization, that I could use this technique to explain scientific processes to non-science majors. Just like an Art major could try to explain art techniques to me. They are an aid to a language barrier.

Please drink responsibly.

Well, I was watching the Drinking speech, I thought that the guy was a bad speaker. This was because he was stumbling over his words and wasn't the greatest with his visual aid. However, he did have good credibility, using multiple statistics, and other citations. These statistics are used in such a way that they have shock value, he puts them into a more comprehendible way. Rather than saying there are 120,000 deaths from drunken related accidents, he breaks it down to, four people will die by the end of the class.  He interprets them, which is good to get his point across and bad, because he could interpret them wrong or use this type of technique maliciously. So overall, he wasn't the greatest speaker, but he used his citation well.

Psycho

Psychographics information is something that I feel is very useful. Not only for speeches, but for any form of communication. No matter how good of a point you make, all your effort will be wasted if you audience is not receptive to it, doesn't understand it, or you convey the idea in a poor way. I have much experience talking to other across forums and other online communication, where I will write an amazing argument, making good logical sense, and having good examples. Then, having people responding back, without either understanding the idea, or not wanting to accept the idea. Having had this happen to me a few times I asked myself, why don't they understand or why won't they accept this idea. 

This is when I realized that I was trying to change something drastically to that person. Otherwise, I was expecting that they know or believe something that I did. I began to ask myself before communicating, will this person be open to this idea. Will they have prior background that will help them understand this idea. I found that I was able to take their attitude, beliefs, and values into consideration and make a more compelling argument, tailored to them. My ideas where then better received.

Analyzing The Audience

Audience analysis, also know as reading he audience. Is important for a speech because it allows for you to convey your idea the most effectively to your target audience.  A good example of this would be when you are discussing a complex idea to a group of people who are not familiar with your field of study. You might start talking about an idea that doesn't seem too complex, but after seeing some confusion on peoples faces you could adapt your explanation to be more simplistic. 

Other reasons for audience adaptation is for when you have a group of people who come in with bias, social, or cultural differences. They might not be as malleable to fringe ideas surrounding their beliefs. It would be important to introduce these ideas gently and know when to refrain from saying something that could be inflammatory.

The book gives several good examples as well, one being about a speech for introducing a school, this school just being recently hit with a bacterial outbreak. The speaker started with her usually outline of the school, but quickly determines that the audience was not interested in the school, but with bacterial outbreaks and the well being of the students. Knowing this she was able to shift her focus to the more important issue, and win her audience over.

Preparation is the key to success!

3). Pick one concept from the reading this week and discuss it in detail.

I wanted to continue on from my other blog post on interviews. As these were the most useful for researching my culture speech topic. I was particularly interested in the preparation, as that seems to be the key to a good interview. First I will go over some of the main points from the book and then I will add some more of the things I encountered when conducting my interviews. 

The process looks like:

-Determine the purpose of the interview

The books says that you should look to see if this is one of the most usefully ways to get your information and how will you use this information in your speech. 

I think it would also be important to consider how your audience will receive these information. It is important to have credibility, so if you are talking about say Fast food restaurants it could be beneficially to have quotes from workers. However, if you are talking about more complex sciences, people will be more receptive to the facts.

- Selecting interviewees

This is about selecting a interviewee based on their credibility and willingness to participate. When I was looking for participants, I found a group that was very obviously part of the gamer culture, however, not all of them were willing to participate or were unwilling to have their full names used. 

-Pre-research and Questions

Having a wide variety of questions is good. They allow for you to easily navigate through an interview and hit on the points that are relevant. Also, if the particular person you are interviewing is uncomfortable with a certain set of questions. Then, it is good to have back-up questions. The other issue is you need to know a bit of the basics for the topic you are interview the person on. If you try to interview a gamer and you don’t know some common terminology or what you should be asking, it will be easy to come up empty handed.

Librarians

I learned how to prepare to research a topic. Often I get an assignment and I rush right off looking up generally information about the topic. However, I never asked myself what do I know about the topic or what I want to know about the topic. These videos helped me realize that research is about more that just searching up information using books, media, and expert reports. Research involves preparation and planning.

The other thing that the video help me with is utilization of all resources available. In this I mean, asking the library for help. Sometimes I am shy and do not want to ask strangers questions. I believe I am not alone in this, but it is important to note that librarians are there to help others and that it is part of their job.

Talk to The Experts

For my culture speech I interview several different gamers from different places. This was one of the first times I really did an interview for anything. I found that it was very helpful and gave me good credible quotes that helped support my topic. I can’t say for certain if an interview would be as beneficial for a scientific report, but on something like culture, where it is more opinion based, it was useful.

I went in with a serious of basic questions and I found that I needed to make up more questions as I got deeper in to the interviews. In the future, it would most likely be better to think broader when making the questions. It is always possible to pair down the questions later, you don’t have to use them all.

Another thing I found interesting about the interview, is that by taking people who were “experts” on the topic, I was able to get more ideas for my speech. Certain areas that were not as substantial content wise or weakly supported I was either able to modify, replace, or fully support. Overall, I had fun conducting the interviews and found that people like to talk about areas they are interested in.

Breathing techniques?

When watching the first video 2.1, I couldn't help thinking. I will never use any of the information they are giving to me. Breathing techniques? I would feel like too much of an idiot, sitting around doing these. However, as I got to the second video some interesting stuff cropped up. Like how people prepare for their speech. Using visualization as you practice your speech and pretending that you are in the classroom. It gave me a few ideas like finding an empty classroom, and practicing my speech there because if I can't do my speech there, I won't be able to do it anywhere else. The other idea was, going into classrooms before the beginning of a class and hanging out up front. I had to do this while I waited for my instructor once and at first it felt odd, but eventually I was able to look around the classroom at all the people without minding them.

Another thing that I felt was pertinent in the videos was how to select topics. To research and pick something that is familiar to you. Something that I already was going to do, but makes me that much more reassured.