Finito

I think the biggest thing that I learned this semester is that you just have to keep moving forward. Speeches are about being confident. If you are not confident and prepared you will make mistakes and you will want to fix them. Even if you are prepared you will make mistakes, but less of them. If you stop and try to fix them, you will waste time, people will get upset with you, lose interest, and doubt you. Everything you will have said is now pointless. 

If you keep pressing forward, you will appear more confident, and some people may not catch your mistakes. I always tell myself to just keep going forward, and not to stop. 

Tribute

Of all the speeches that I gave, I enjoyed the tribute speech the most. Even though it was a smaller speech, it was the most useful. There have been many points in my life when I wanted to give a tribute to someone, such as a funeral or wedding. Before, this class I was always so scared, but now if the opportunity presented itself I would have no problem giving one. 

I think that no matter why you are taking the class, this speech is the most useful for anyone. There is a possibility that I will have to give an informative speech, but I know for certain that I will have to give a tribute speech at some point in my life.

Lazy Man Title

Two things that I really learned that helped me this semester was that the audience was always to be considered. The other thing that I learned was that speeches are always changing.

The first point I mentioned was helpful, because I would always try to start my speech doing something very complicated, that I thought would be interesting. With the repeated emphasize that audiences were important, I would always retailor my speech. In some cases it was to simplify the topic, for people who weren’t familiar with the material I was presenting.

The other point was that speeches are not like papers. You can write an outline, but when you get up in front of your audience, you may change things. If you see something that is not working you can change it. You can add things if you feel it is necessary. You can take things away if you are running too long. You may also change the order.

Technically Speaking

I get into a lot of debates during an average week, sometimes I win and sometimes I loose. The problem I have usually when I loose is that I am arguing with a stupid person and that I am using a strong logos appeal, when the people I am arguing don’t care about logic. They are looking for a pathos or ethos appeal, perhaps even a mythos appeal. So even though I am giving sound evidence that most college students understand I make no ground, because I am using the wrong appeal.

So I end up having to tailor the type of approach  to my audience, which is not always easy because I am more comfortable with a logos approach most times. However, it gets me farther to make a semi-decent appeal with pathos and for the target audience to be semi-receptive, then for me to us a logos appeal and not  get anywhere.

It's appealing

When a person enters a debate, argument, or some type of persuasion they usually start with on form of appeal. Logos, pathos, mythos, or ethos. These all have their places in an argument, typically they are best used when timed right. Say you are giving a speech, to an audience of a college. You are trying to persuade them to stop their over consumption, you would most likely appeal to them with logos. They would be in that type of mindset, if they were on a college campus and showed up.

However, if you want to soften them up or seal the deal, at the beginning or the end of the speech you could use a pathos appeal. Something like dying sea birds or sick children. This would help open them up to your idea making them more receptive or help reaffirm all the evidence you presented them.

So it is good to combined different appeals, as well as, time them or pace them to maximize their effectiveness. The only downside is using to many different approaches to fast or at once. People might think you are “backpedaling.”

Apathetic

A reoccurring theme this semester, is that your speech is all about your audience. So for a persuasive speech, it should be know different. When you are delivering a persuasive speech there are several types of audiences.

The first three that are better for you, as the speech giver, are sympathetic, uninformed, and divided audiences. This way you already half support or could easily build support.

The other two are apathetic and hostile audiences. Both of these audiences are bad, however the apathetic audience could be arguably the worst. A hostile audience, already has some knowledge, that you can play on. Use it to manipulate their point of view, and instill doubt. An apathetic audience, you have to first win over to the idea of caring. Then you have to inform them, and after that win them to your side. It is a great deal more work.

Surfing the Sea of Persuasion

Humans are trying to persuade people often when they don't even realize it. If you look at the way we talk and how we act, it is very evident that we are trying to enact our will, for better or worse, on to others. If I stand in a line, I might cross my arms and take a wider stance without realizing it, just to keep people from standing too close.

So it is no surprise that on daily basis we are bombarded with hundreds of persuasive ads. They are on the radio, on the television, and even scattered around our campus. I wake up and on my drive to work or school I see billboards, I hear ads on the radios, I see people waving signs for companies (often with arrows telling you were to go).

One great example, is the vector marketing booth, that is often found around Sierra's J building. Just about once a week, they approach me, shove a business card in my hand, and tell me that I should start working for Vector. Although, they are well intended, they are very forceful. They don't give any suggestion that, I shouldn't work for them. The are almost telling me that I should, even though it is a suggestion.

Another great example is the political speeches that were being given over the past year. Many great speeches on how to fix the country and what direction we need to go. These speeches were not only a way to persuade us to vote for candidates, but also persuade us of the path our country needs to take.

Overall, persuasion is everywhere, and in almost everything.

Adapt to Survive

When I was watching the speech buddy videos, I thought, damn I could have used these last time around. I took a speech class before, and even though I did alright, I didn't do well enough. A lot of stuff I have been able to apply to this class, to do even better. One of the things that I've been doing, is just now being brought up. Such things like pacing and your wording.

When I give my speeches, they are never the same twice. I use to write the outline, then write the speech, and then try to regurgitate it verbatim. It worked 50% of the time.

Now, I make an outline and play it by ear. I add tons of detail in my outline and topics I can cover. Then, if have extra time, I may emphasize. If I run low on time, I can cut things out. Allowing for this variability, I can better adapt to the situation that I am presented with.

Mi Amego

I have a friend that is pretty intelligent, but fails to accurately communicate well. It is not so much that his ideas are hard to follow, although sometimes they are really stupid and hard to follow. Almost on a daily basis he gets in serious trouble, due to lack of communication. He always tries to make an effort. So why does he fail so miserably at communicating? It is his voice, among other things.

Nothing is physically wrong with his voice, he can speak clearly. However, he often mumbles, or doesn't enunciate. He doesn't project his voice well, Then, when he is clear, he chooses the wrong tone, often sounding mean. We always have to tell him, "It is not what you said, but how you said it."

Your voice is a valuable tool, that can be double edged. You can use it to emphasize points, or if you are mean, subtly cut people down. Like I said though, if you can't control it well, your voice can hurt you. Making people loose interest in you,

Another example of this, was one of my professors, tried reading the class Dr. Seuss. He was terrible at it. He would read at a nice steady, crystal clear pace. Then, when it came time to rhyme words, he'd emphasize the wrong ones. Trying to rhyme words that had no business together. So watch your voice, it can be a helpful tool, or kill your speech. Mostly though, just kill your speech.

Flickr and the Horror Within

A) That was the most stupid thing I was forced to read, in a while.

B) It took me up until, halfway through to understand what 'lg' meant. Why can't people just become proficient typists and type the whole thing out.

C) What  I am suppose to actually be commenting. 

When it comes to humans we are typically divided on a variety of issues, and topics. Writing this, I could expect some people to disagree on my view.  Which is alright, expected, and often encouraged. One of the reasons this comes about, is that everyone is different. This could come about from social status, cultural origins, what chromosomes you received, or how the genes for your skin are expressed. No two people will have the same experience in life. Many people attribute it to gender, skin color, and socioeconomic status, and for the most part they are right.

However, does this mean that the words that we use and were invented to describe or explain the world we live in are the root of the problem? If they are, is it all one sided?

I tend to believe that words are not the root of the problem. Especially, with their ability to change in meaning, become misused, or loose their value. I had a similar argument with my friend or 'bad words'. When most people hear the word, angry they attribute it as a negative emotion and the someone is upset. When they hear the word pissed, they may think 'what a bad word' and 'why does that person need to use that word'. When they are both considered to mean the same thing.

A word has value not from saying the word, but by the intent behind it. When people use sarcasm, they often say things, that could be taken in a nice tone, but are usually negative because of the tone of their voice. People don't mean, most of the time, to make the word girl sound degragatory. In fact, the word girl could be viewed as positive, as in the female is youthful. Which the same thing could be done, by saying young woman or youthful woman, but that is more to say, write, or type. It could also sound too proper for normal conversation.

As the book says, we should always consider our audience, making careful not to be ethnocentric, sexists, racists, or act superior to others. Which is a good idea, even if you felt that way. It would get your point across, so if you were worried about a speech and your reason for communicating, and didn't want to loose your point. Yes, it would be a great idea to be more gender neutral.

Overall, I guess I would say that the word is not responsible for sexism, but rather the person. I know that one could make an argument that the way of speaking helps attribute to a continuation of sexism, it is something that is not the root cause. I aslo, believe that people look at sexism as one sided usually, and would fail to notice that words could be sexist for men, such as the use of boy, as in "The boys"