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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.

The most recent example I can think of that someone used presentation media was orientation for a new job. The speaker who was leading the orientation used PowerPoint slides. She used them mostly effectively, except for she had a few technological issues and could not get the remote to work when she was trying to move back to a previous slide. That part was the only distracting part to the presentation. Other than that, she used the PowerPoint very effectively in my opinion. Odds are, she had probably given the same presentation dozens of time to other new hires, so she did a really good job of making the presentation flow nicely. The media added to the speech by providing a visual to all the points she was trying to get across. It was mostly just reiterating what she was saying, but it's a lot easier to take it all in when you can see it and listen to it. Bulleted points can really help get across all of the things from a presentation you're supposed to be taking in and retaining, so that you don't hold on to useless information while forgetting the main points of the speech entirely!

introduction and conclusion

The whole purpose of an introduction is to state the purpose of a speech. Also included in the introduction is a good hook to get the audience interested, a statement to establish credibility and the main points of the speech. The main point of the conclusion is to review all the points you have made and also to provide closure. For my informative speech about octopuses, I could start out with some kind of interesting fact about them that may grab the attention of the audience. This would be the attention getter. As opposed to a fact, you could also use some kind of quote or interesting statement to get the attention of your audience and ensure they are interested in your speech. An example of an interesting fact I could say about my topic is "Did you know octopuses have three hearts and are the smartest invertebrates?" overall this videos and reading provided a good review d the importance of a conclusion and introduction.

speech buddy videos

this weeks speech buddy videos, we learned a lot of review material on introductions and conclusions. The most valuable thing I learned was how important a good conclusion is, even if the audience is not convinced by your speech. I feel like an overall theme of this is is that the quality of a speech should be good even if the audience will not agree with your point of view. Another thing I thought was valuable, especially for our speeches coming up, was watching the videos of informative speeches, like the one about techno. For me, it is always helpful to see someone do the kind of speech that I am supposed to be doing because it gives me a better idea of my objectives and how I can execute them properly. This will really help me with my speech preparation. The other videos going into extreme detail about conclusions and introductions will be very helpful for me as well as I start to develop those parts of my speech.

Evaluation

I was surprisingly impressed with my performance as far as our speeches went. I fully intended to do a terrible job(unintentionally, I just did not have very high hopes for the experience) but after we were through and the anxiety was gone I felt like everything went much more smoothly than I anticipated. .I think I got the whole point of my speech across very clearly, and I also felt much more confident than I had felt during our last speech.
In retrospect, I do wish I had practiced orally citing my sources a little more, because when it came down to it I just presented my topic instead of remembering to mention what my sources were. I will work to avoid this in future speeches. I would also like to work on my nerves, as I distract myself with my own hands shaking so much. In my next speech I think I will try to make more eye contact with the audience. To improve the content in any speech, the best thing to do is more research. The more informed a person is about their topic, the better and more fluid the speech will be.
Like I mentioned, I am not sure if the audience noticed, but my hands were shaking a lot through the duration of my speech. I would like to rectify that in the future. I felt like the more my hands would shake the more nervous I would start making myself. I would also like to try to eliminate the use of 'umm' and 'uhhhh'. This will be my main goal in my next speech. Even if the content of the speech is good, the presentation must also be good and done with confidence for the audience to respond well!
 As I also mentioned earlier, my source citations were not what they should have been. I unfortunately only mentioned one source during my entire speech.. I got too nervous and anxious about my speech and had a momentary lapse of proper brain function. My eye contact could definitely be improved upon. For this speech specifically, I feel like this was a bit of a difficult subject to judge because some people, the actual demonstration of what they were teaching would get in the way. For me, I know I was looking at my demonstration way more than I was connecting with and focusing on the audience, which is what I should have been doing during my speech. The only part of my speech that should have been performed better was the oral citation. I do wish I had cited all of my sources.  The fact that the rest of is went so fluidly made me only wish that the rest of it would go as smoothly as the start of it did. Overall I earned a grade of a 'B' which was what I got. I did a reasonably good job but there was still a lot of room to improve for next time, and I plan to do just that.
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audience analysis

I found the part in the book about audience analysis particularly interesting because I had never even thought about it as a crucial part in preparing for a speech. I now know that it is so important to know who you're speaking to before hand, as it enables you to prepare a speech that is best suited to them. It can be really important to know how formal or casual a speech needs to be, and also where the speech is being presented and why. Knowing all these things ensure that the presenter can have the best speech possible. Unfortunately, an awesome speech can be prepared but if you do not prepare it with your audience in mind it might not be received very well. Speaking of the audience receiving your speech well, it is also important to gauge your audiences reaction to your speech as you are presenting it. If they look confused or bored you can use that information to change the direction of your speech and enhance it. 

speech buddy videos

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Research interviews

Although I haven't done any research interviews in recent days, I did do a few in high school for journalism purposes. The best way to interview someone properly and effectively is to have good interview questions. The kind of questions you choose can either elicit really interesting responses from the person being interviewed, or they could leave you with a one word answer that you might not even be able to use for anything. Other than having good questions, it is important and helpful to be conversational when interviewing people. If the whole interview is just the interviewer asking the question and getting just the answer specifically, it may appear more awkward than they'd like. To avoid this, it can be helpful to treat the interview as a conversation that just happens to have required questions thrown in the middle. This method could yield good material when the interviewer least expects it!

Speech buddy video

After watching the speech buddy videos, I benefited greatly from Jessica's anxiety reduction techniques. I always thought the only required pre-speech preparation was to memorize the material being presented, but these techniques to reduce anxiety seem very helpful. Thinking positive thoughts about what you are going to present can be very helpful. By thinking positive thoughts and visualizing the speech going well you can minimize the chances of messing up based on psyching yourself out and creating unnecessary anxiety. You can also practice breathing techniques to ease your anxiety when you give your speech. The tension-release breathing seems like it would be most beneficial in my opinion. I feel like it would be a good strategy to try for when I give my speech on this upcoming Thursday!

Apprehension about public speaking

The strange thing about my relationship with public speaking is that I only started getting nervous and apprehensive about it roughly a year ago. In these recent days when I speak publicly, my face gets really hot and I speak way too fast. Afterwords, I cannot recall what I actually said in my presentation and I am not able to remember if I said any of the things I intended to. In regards to what I read in the chapter, I think a big cause of my anxiety is the high level of uncertainty I have about the audience's response. It's tricky to speak in front of people who may be bored by your speaking, uninterested in the content, or in disagreement with your point of view. I feel like this public speaking course will help me become more comfortable and more skilled in public speaking and perhaps these nervous tendencies will subside.

Things about me Etcetera.

I really hate writing things for peers to read because I feel like you're all going to judge me based on how potentially poorly these blog entries are going to be written. I hate it to the point of getting really nervous whenever an English professor requires peer editing. I fall asleep during virtually every film I try to watch. My family has a dog but I have recently developed a distaste for dog owners after reading an article in which the author described in great detail how annoying she finds them. I love to read articles on The Huffington Post online and NPR online. I don't smoke but whenever I smell a cigar I always want one because I think they smell awesome. People who have the characteristic of being earnest are the best kinds of people. I think it's really sweet and sometimes funny. I was originally really scared to take public speaking for the same reasons that I don't like people reading the things I write but after having been to our first class I think it will be okay.