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Persuasion is everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. Honestly, it is way more common to encounter something that is persuasive rather than to encounter something that is trying to be impartial. Whether it is an election or an advertisement, we are always trying to be convinced of one thing or another. I currently work at Bel Air and there is a potential to strike. People on the side of the union and the opposing side of Raley’s are constantly trying to convince all of us employees to think one way or the other about whether the strike is a good idea or not. Whether it’s a manager, a union representative or a coworker, everyone has an opinion on the contract negotiations. When you’re being presented with seemingly valid arguments for either side of a problem constantly, it can be really hard to much through the propaganda and get to the core of the issue and find out what is true and what is not.

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Monroe’s motivated sequence is a way of organizing a persuasive speech. The whole idea is to basically get the audience’s attention and then let the audience know there is a problem they should care about if they do not already. The next step is then to provide a solution to the problem. After that the speaker should explain what will happen if the solution is or is not implemented, and lastly to tell the audience how to put the solution into practice. I think this way of organizing a speech would be perfect for our persuasive speeches. It is a simple and seemingly effective way to concisely present a problem and a solution to the audience. I am particularly fond of it because of how organized and simple it seems. It already has the attention getter portion at the beginning which we already do in our speeches so it would be an easy transition.

The part in the book that I found most interesting was the bit about avoiding vocalized pauses. I often think about this when I listen to professors because if they have a large amount of vocalized pauses I find that being the only thing I pay attention to. The part to remember about vocalized pauses during a speech is that if you choose to remain silent for a few seconds until you figure out what to say instead of a vocalized pause (i.e. um, yeah, you know etc.) you won’t lose credibility. In contrast, if you say um or any other vocalized pause during your speech, you will lose credibility with your audience and you will sound uninformed. Like I mentioned before, if there are too many vocalized pauses, it may be the only thing your audience finds themselves able to pay attention to. With all the content in a speech that a person is trying to get across, the last thing they want is for the audience to be counting how many times they say ‘ummm’ because it has become so distracting!

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The speech buddy videos this week were mostly about delivery of speeches. They emphasized language, practice, and clarity in presenting your speech. They talked a lot about making sure you use concise and appropriate language when delivering your speech. What I found to be most helpful were the chapter 12 videos. So far, my biggest problem with our speeches has been my delivery. These videos emphasized the importance of good eye contact (which I have been lacking!) and good gestures when presenting a speech. The other video also talked about how important it is to practice your speech. This is important because I think if I had practiced my speech more last time I would have been more comfortable and therefore would not have had a problem making good eye contact with the audience. Overall, I found these to be the most helpful videos we have watched so far, mostly because they addressed problems that I have been having.

language

As the people who were commenting were trying to explain, the terms that the original poster thought were universally offensive or sexist actually were not. As the textbook explained, language is arbitrary. Meaning, just because words could be considered offensive in a certain language, culture, or context does not necessarily mean every culture would feel that way. As someone mentioned, calling a man ‘boy’ can be considered derogatory for some people, but in England and the rest of the UK it is common practice and would never be considered derogatory or offensive. The important thing, I think, is to just be culturally aware. Not only is it important to be conscious of what words you’re using, but also to realize that because language is arbitrary, don’t jump to conclusions when someone says something that you find offensive. Maybe where they’re from that would be considered either a positive or neutral statement!

This speech went a lot better than last time! My grade was actually exactly the same, but as far as how I felt while doing the speech, I felt a lot more comfortable than I have every other time. Prior to this experience, I have spoken so fast and the every time I would finish a speech I wouldn’t even remember what had happened or if I even presented! The whole thing would just be a blur. That being said, I could have presented the topic I chose without any preparation. I already had all the knowledge about it, I just had to outline it and find references. Speaking of references, I mentioned my references orally this time, which I completely forgot to do during the demonstrative speech. That was a huge improvement and also a big reason why I lost a lot of points on the last speech we did. It is very easy to get so wrapped up in all the nerves of presenting that you end up forgetting to cite my sources orally. A big difference in this speech as well was the PowerPoint, of course! The next time we use a PowerPoint as a visual resource, I need to remember to actually change the slides accordingly! After my speech got going, I actually forgot it was there, as I think a lot of us did as well. I needed to be more aware of it and incorporate it into my presentation cohesively.

            Unfortunately, I made very little eye contact through my speech, which I could feel myself doing as I was presenting but it was all happening too fast to rectify at the time. However, I am confident I can fix this in the next speech. Overall, I would give myself a 7. Although I think the only thing I messed up was the lack of eye contact, that is a big deal when you’re trying to communicate with people and present a speech!

            The biggest strength of my speech was the content, because I was knowledgeable about the topic and I tried to present it in the most interesting way as possible. In addition, even though my slideshow was simple, I think this was to my benefit because I wanted the audience to be able to focus on what I was saying, not what they were seeing. The biggest weaknesses were, again, the lack of eye contact and probably my projection. I do not know for sure, but I do not think I really projected to the audience, or sounded confident. I would like to work on that for next time as well. I think sounding confident is important.

            Overall, the speech went well. There is always room for improvement, but for me, my biggest accomplishment was that fact that I didn’t feel like I was having a mental breakdown during me speech! Even though this didn’t change my grade, for me it means the class is already accomplishing so much of what I wanted it to. Feeling confident(or at least not feeling like you’re going to pass out from nerves) is really important when giving a speech and I’m on my way there!

When developing media for a speech, the speaker's responsibility is always to not plagiarize! The speaker must know that just because you change a photo, video or audio file a little bit here and there, that that does not mean the work now belongs to you. The owner of the original material still must get credit for their work, as they were the one who originally created it and made it possible for you to even have something to edit. In the past, many singers have gotten sued for having songs that sound similar to other artists songs. Just because the singer has taken the music and made the song their own does not mean that they do not need permissions from whoever originally made the song. The point is, unless you made it completely from scratch, it does not really belong to you even if you have altered it heavily. Citing your work and citing your sources is really important in order to avoid academic dishonesty or even legal troubles for once you're out in the real world.