Self Evaluation #3

Our last speech was a very productive one, and I am glad that it was persuasive. I believe that persuasive speeches are simple and fun because you get to let people know the speaker’s opinions and try to convince people to implement a solution. During this speech, I was surprised that I felt content in front of the audience because I usually get unbelievable stage fright. I put in more practicing time for this speech, so I suppose that’s what made me feel more comfortable. In the beginning, however, it was obvious that I was nervous. I took in a few breaths like our professor mentioned and that really helped my delivery. Because of my comfortableness, my confidence was also boosted. Giving myself extra time to practice allowed me to memorize some of my main points. Although I still had to look at my note cards for several sub points and references, I felt that my confidence was good and the audience noticed that.

I believe I achieved the purpose of my speech very well. In fact, I thought it was better than my other two speeches. My purpose was clear and simple, and I believe the solutions that I made available truly supported my overall purpose of this speech. My purpose was also supported by the five citations that I included. I am glad that I got to incorporate the three informational books that I found from the library into my speech.

I felt that there were a lot of different things that I improved on in this speech. In my last two speeches, I found myself shuffling around because I was overcome with nervousness. However, I was stationary in my last speech, and I only moved when I needed to switch slides. I also noticed that my eye contact was much better, and I received good comments about it from my peers. I would rate my eye contact as a nine in this speech because I only looked at my note cards for references or when I lost my train of thought for a split second. I believe stuttering was not a good thing, especially when I started this habit in the beginning of the speech and near the end. I felt like it was ineffective and the audience might have thought that I was extremely nervous. I think that stuttering near the end of the speech made it seem like I was in a rush to finish.

While watching the video of my last speech, I felt like my facial expressions were a bit distracting. I noticed that I wrinkled my forehead when I wanted people to know that I am truly stressing something, but I believe I could have toned that down. People might have thought it was overly dramatic. I also felt that I had held on to my note cards strongly, which could have detracted from my overall delivery. The audience probably thought that I was extremely nervous because of this “death grip”.

On a scale from A-F, I would give myself an A because I was confident of my solutions. I felt like I thought it through and did extensive research. I also felt like my eye contact was great, and I was not afraid to look at people in the eye. I was able to not look back at my Power Point, so I think that should have boosted my grade. I believe this speech was better than my last speeches because I knew what to expect. I knew exactly what to do and what not to do. Instead of forgetting my visual aid, which was what I did in my first speech, I actually remembered it this time thanks to the convenience of email. Overall, I just felt good about this speech because I gave myself enough time to work on it, which made this one the best one. Although I felt nervous at first, I knew that this was going to be my best speech because I took in the time to practice and do research. If I had to do this speech over again, I would probably change some of my solutions. I felt like most of my solutions were over done for the prevention of teenage pregnancy, and I could have thought of more eccentric solutions. However, these were the solutions that the books provided me with, and I was determined to refer to the books as much as possible to support my claim.

Comm 20 and Future Endeavors

This class has been extremely beneficial because I can speak in front of a classroom with confidence. I realize that the audience is not there to judge me, rather, they want me to succeed as much as I would like for everyone to overcome their endeavors as well. I am going to remember the organizational skills, ethical facts, and confidence that I have gained while taking part in this class. This class has kept me organized because I have never kept up with such a strict schedule about homework. I reminded myself to do weekly postings and kept myself organized in many of my speeches. I know how important it is to be ethical in any class. Being truthful and providing the best evidence is significant to succeeding in any course. Lastly, the confidence that I have gained in Comm 20 is something that I will always carry on with my future endeavors. If you can’t be confident with yourself, how do you expect to achieve?

Favorite Speech

My favorite speech was the persuasive speech because it was actually a bit fun to do research on my topic. The prevention of teenage pregnancy has always been a fascinating topic discussed through out my education. When I started watching the second season of “The Secret Life of The American teenager”, which began in the start of second semester, I really grew an interest in knowing what it would be like to be pregnant at such a young age. It was very interesting to watch the turmoil that the main character had to endure, and I am glad that I had the chance to speak out about this topic. I enjoyed doing the persuasive speech as well because I knew exactly how to prepare and deliver my speech. I believe my first two speeches prepared me for the final speech because they taught me the mistakes that I made before and what I can do to fix them. I believe my mistakes rarely showed up in the persuasive speech, which is what made me proud of my last speech.

Most Helpful Concept

I believe learning how to do the actual outline of a speech along with its different organizational patterns was very helpful. The outline of a speech is the beginning structure for a speaker’s overall delivery. Without the outline, there is no speech. When I did speeches in high school, I never developed an outline. Although my speeches were still very effective and successful, they did not have any structure. Learning how to do a simple outline is very beneficial when creating a speech. When I learned about transitions, my speeches were enhanced because I did not skip around from one random main point to the next. Incorporating transitions into my speech allowed for smooth progress. The different organizational patterns were beneficial as well. My favorite organizational pattern was topical because many of my speech topics fit into this format very well. Our last speech fit into Monroe’s motivated sequence and it was quite simple to use this organizational pattern.

Chapter 15 Videos

The Chapter 15 videos presented a speech on a very controversial topic: home schooling. The first speaker discussed the pros of home schooling by providing plenty of convincing reasoning. I believe her most convincing reasoning was that students who are involved with home schooling are more prepared for college. She claimed that by doing home schooling, students will come to realize that family is very important and they should always keep that in mind while attending college. This is an act of casual reasoning. The second speaker discussed the cons of home schooling, and he also provided plenty of convincing evidence. I believe his strongest reasoning was by saying that parents need to support their children, not be their teachers. I think this was a very sentimental phrase that he incorporated into his speech. I learned that using reasoning is, of course, very significant for the success of a speech and being able to connect with the audience on some sort of emotional level is useful in persuasive speeches.

A Moment Where I Used Persuasion

My friend was conducting a survey on whether or not child labor should be abolished in Africa. She specifically focused on children who worked in unhealthy facilities to collect cocoa beans. I said no to stopping child labor for cocoa by using casual reasoning. I told her that because of child labor, these children are able to support themselves, even if it is inhuman. I also told her to realize what kind of economic situation we are in. Because of the job cuts, people are going to be even stingier and less likely to contribute enough money to charitable organizations. Although people say that they want to stop child labor, it is unlikely that a majority of these people will commit to this because of financial issues. However, I did agree that no one should go through this kind of inhuman labor, but the consequences of stopping child labor would cause a more unstable economy in Africa.

Chapter 15 Topic of Interest

I thought the topic on fallacies in claims was interesting. There are four different types of fallacies in claims, but I thought “begging the question” and “ad ignorantiam” were the most intriguing. Begging the question means something is true because it simply is. When a claim is asserted, the speaker must back it up with reasoning. However, simply saying that it is true without any given reasoning or evidence is unethical. The concept of begging the question reminded me of children arguing. They will usually back up their claims with begging the question type answers because they are more concerned with having their argument being correct rather than logical. Ad ignorantiam means a claim is true because it hasn’t been disproved. I thought that this was very close-minded and no speaker should use this as his or her reason for a claim. It is also unethical and does not let other possibilities be the reasoning for a claim.