Self Evaluation #3, our last one, ever.

Putting aside that this last speech evaluation is based on our last speech, I want to do an overall speech evaluation on my whole progress in the class. Coming into this class, I had expected to be scared to the point of sometimes not even coming on speech days. With putting in the back of my mind how I really need to pass this class and everyone is going to have to do a speech anyways, that gave me the confidence in going to speech days and not making myself stay home and receive no grade at all.

With my first and second speeches, I believe I didn't do fairly well as my last speech. With my first speech, I can say I did good, but when second speeches came, I felt really embarrassed I had just presented my speech that way. Getting sick the week of a speech was the worst for me. I had gotten a fever and a sore throat the week of that speech and wasn't better enough to do my speech. I had to suck it up because I know I'm ready, but my body wasn't.

This last speech we recently did, I had a tremendous time doing it. I really did. I am confident and sure that I achieved the purpose of this speech by just the audience's reactions coming back towards me. I could feel the energy of the room from the excitement and laughter that they loved from my speech. I honestly, going into the classroom on our last speech day, I was really nervous even more than my first and second speech. I don't know why but that's how I felt. I was sort of mad I got number ten on the order that I'd present, but that's okay, I got more time to prepare a little bit from waiting.
Once I got up and did my speech, I forgot all about my note cards and just started talking. I’m sure you could tell because I sort of just felt like I was talking to a big group rather than doing a speech. But, isn’t a speech supposed to be talking to a big group of people?
I felt accomplished in my last speech; I knew I had done a great job for my audience. I can honestly say if I had done it again, I don’t think it would be as good as the first time I did it. Going up for my last speech, I didn’t feel like I had the confidence in myself but once I got up there, I got this whole huge confidence boost because I knew what my topic was all about and I could relate to it so much.
From this speech compared to my other speech, my last one in my opinion was bad, I read over the note cards more than I looked up. This speech was better and good because I didn’t rely on my note cards so much, or even at all. This was definitely an improvement from my last speech and I didn’t do anything distracting. My eye contact on my last speech had to be around an eight at least. I would give myself, not being cocky, an 8. I know I did well and if I asked my classmates, they would say the same thing.
I know the source citations in my speech were from myself mostly because this speech was hard to find sources for, not like other speeches. This speech, I’ll say it again was definitely better than my other two speeches. I performed the best in this speech and I’ll miss doing speeches.

What I will take from this class.

I honestly really enjoyed this class. The last speech session really gave me the confidence boost I needed the next time I'm going to have to speak infront of people. I want to say my speech on unrelated coursework everyone enjoyed, just because I could see everyone directly looking at me and laughing with me while I gave my examples on how this is hurting me as well as how it's hurting them too. I will take the concepts I've learned from this speech class and possibly take it when or If i do take another sort of speaking class. I know that from this, I will be more prepared and less shy. Also, this class was really cool with the way we had discussions by writing blog post and commenting on each other. I really enjoyed this public speaking class and I'm sure everyone did as well! Bye! Hope to see you all again.

MY FAVORITE SPEECH

This last speech session we had as a class was the best. I can tell that everyone was very pumped up to do their last speeches and I can see the confidence we all have grown since the first speech. My favorite speech would have to be the actuative speech on teen pregnancy. Being on a more serious note, my sister recently had her child at 21. You may all think it doesn't sound as young as sixteen, but it truly feels the same for her. There use to be only four of us living in this house, my mom,dad, me, and my sister. Once she had her first child, she brought her boyfriend in. I do not like it at all considering the fact how nicely my parents just let her do all this to our family and the anger I have towards my sister and her boyfriend. Being a teen mom isn't a joke and it is a serious thing to have to deal with. Not only do they get affected, but others like me, as well. Teen Moms can be seen on a television show on mtv which show the teen moms at their lowest trying their hardest to get by. This was my favorite speech because I know how hard it is, seeing my sister go through it.

Concepts

The Concepts that I used in my speeches or helped me prepare for my speeches was putting into consideration the ideas for my topic. I usually spend a lot of time doing my outline on my main points. I don't take too much time on the introduction or conclusion. I believe that the middle part of your speech is the most important part. Putting aside everything, without great main points, your speech will fall apart and you will lose your audience's focus right when you hit your second main point, even first. With putting your audience into consideration, I believe that the concept of considering your audience for your speech is key. Knowing what kind of audience you have, you can write your speech around them. I try and choose topic speeches that can relate to the audience so that their attention will be focused on me the whole time.

Speech Buddy Interactive Videos: Schooling Pro/Con

Making a good argument is good for your speech. Arguments have four basic elements; thesis, claim, evidence, and reasoning. I learned that in the video Jessica looks very stern and has good vocalization. She is talking in a good pace. I have to support my thesis with a claim, evidence, and reasoning. I learned that you should clearly state your thesis when introducing your speech. The Hiker used statistics to claim his reasoning. He talks about how many hikers go off track and ruin trails. He then discussed how each person causes it. In the Schooling pro and con video, I learned a lot of things. In the pro video, she talks about how schooling at home is far better than going to school and that the school system is failing. It avoids the fighting in public schools. She talks about children coming home crying because of how bad school was for them. In the con video, He discusses how schooling in an actual public school benefits from being homeschooled. You get to be around a school environment, parents aren't qualified as teachers to be teaching their children, and that the home itself isn't effective for learning. What I learned from these videos are that they each state their arguments and have great reason to back them up.

Persuading others and accepting their point of view

There's always a time when you're going to have to try and argue with either your friends, family, or anyone for that matter. It is typically hard trying to persuade people to try and accept your point of view on things. There's was this one time with my friends where we were arguing about when I took my wst class and one of the proctors were sitting us all down. I told my friends that there was this one black female who I felt really bad for. The proctor had sat us all down row by row, so we weren't allowed to pick our own seats. When he sat this one particular female down, he told her "If this seat isn't comfortable enough for you, you can sit in the front". I saw the look on the girls face after and felt really hurt. This man didn't say that to anyone else but her. My friends argued that maybe she had told him something before he sat her down entering the classroom but I said no, that is just discriminating on her size or her race. I've experienced one time when eating at a restaurant filled with another race but mine and the waiters were really rude and didn't serve us as well as the other customers. I used experience and testimony as my type of reasoning. My friends later agreed with my point of view on how that man shouldn't have done that to her and that was clearly out of line!

Using Evidence Effectively : Types of Appeals

Going into this Public Speaking class, I had already familiarized myself with the types of appeals. The four different types of appeals are Logos, Ethos, Pathos, and Mythos. I am very familiar with the first three, but the last one is a little new to me. Logos is when you use logical proof to explain something. The main types of examples used to apply this appeal is of facts, statistics, and analysis. The second appeal is Ethos, which means to give speaker credibility. To use this type of appeal, try and make the listeners feel connected to you. Pathos appeals to emotion. We tend to use stories, examples, testimonies to show you feeling in our story and to make you really feel what we're talking about. Mythos appeals to cultural beliefs. Mythos is a new one to me so I might consider putting this into my persuasive/actuative speech. I might use mythos when talking in my speech about different schools around the world who do not require general ed courses.

Speech Buddy videos.

These videos really help me when preparing for my next speech. Each of these videos gives us little bits and tips of what we can do to help us in our next speech. I love how they have real speeches set up for us that we can watch and see what maybe our teacher is expecting us to do in our last actuative speech. Chapter ten videos helped me out by informing me of audience centered language. In the video, he said there are five ways to have the audience focus on you. One is having current events related to your speech. Another is to use pronouns, we, us, you, and i. Also use inclusive language so that everyone feels included. In chapter twelve videos, I learned about vocal delivery. vocal delivery is very important to delivering your speech. If the audience can't hear you, they won't get the points you're trying to say. Make sure to watch your volume, pitch, rate, variety, and articulation. I think in my speeches I have spoken at an alright volume but maybe speaking more loud and stern, my audience will get the picture more clearly.

Impromptu Speaking.

I find impromptu speaking very interesting. I find it interesting because when going into this public speaking class, I have heard from friends of how their public speaking classes would go and they had told me of doing impromptu speeches that were fun and right on the spot. What is impromptu speaking you may ask? It's speaking without preparation. It's completely flexible and spontaneous. Although it may sound like an easy task, there are disadvantages to it. Having an impromptu speech can be disorganized because of doing it on the spot, no research or preparation has been done. I honestly wanted one of our speeches to be an impromptu because for all of us going into this class and even taking it as an online class shows how much we really don't like speaking in front of the class and maybe doing it on the spot would be easier because then we would have people just speaking and having a friendly conversation, where as in a prepared speech, we are told to say this and that, but this speech can be done anyway you want it to be.

Sexist Language

To me, sexist language is pretty much associating something to one particular sex. For example, some people might say that's sexist if you're agreeing to something someone said about a certain gender and only agreeing to them without hearing the other side of it. In chapter ten, they talk about the other side of sexist language, which is NONsexist language. Nonsexist language are words that are not associated with either sex. Referring to a "Female doctor" suggests that women aren't typically physicians. Other examples of sexist words are mankind, waitress, career woman, and so on. You get the picture. From reading the comments on flickr, I believe people are not just discussing sexist language, but taking it as far as putting their nationalities into the argument. I just saw a few comments where they said they should just take out Asian or Indian when tagging photos because people may use the words wrongly and cause people to judge the language that they're saying. Another person wrote something very funny to me that maybe people shouldn't just tag photos or point things out in one word phrases and actually write complete sentences. Everything on every website now a days can be tagged. With facebook, we usually are tagging photos that we are in. Now a days, some people like to be funny and maybe add something a little funny to it. I'm sure they don't mean harm in what they're saying, but who really cares about feelings on the internet? You're not seeing them in person and probably never will. If they were to tag people in real life, like point to them and say "yellow or asian", then yeah, this tagging thing would really become a problem. Until then, people are free to say whatever they want. That's what the freedom of speech was made for wasn't it?

Choosing your own Audience.

It was a far different experience presenting down to only five people. Also, having to choose the five people you want to present to makes it pretty fun and interesting. I decided to pick a couple people that I know I could be comfortable around. I chose my boyfriend, Derek, my friend, Alex, my cousin, Joreen, my sister, Monica, and My Mother. I did this speech the same day we did our speeches on Friday and told them all to come over to my house because I needed them for one of my homework assignments. In this speech, what I did differently, was that I eliminated as much staring at my note cards and since having already performed the speech earlier in the day, I kinda had a lot of information stored that I could repeat it again without having to rely on note cards. So my note card usage went down to using only two and I made my intro a little different where I didn’t ask them if they liked video games, I just went on with my story. I believe I improved from the presentation I did on Friday because knowing that I’m already comfortable talking in front of these people gave me a boost of confidence knowing that they wouldn’t judge me so much as my peers in class. If I had done the speech differently, I would give my input more on violence and video games rather relying on other opinions I found from my source citations. The feedback I received was good. They told me that I sort of talk too fast and that I need to pace myself when I’m going from one idea to the next. They also said that I should practice a little more and maybe memorize a bit more information so that people know that I’m not just relying on my note cards and that I haven’t practiced at all. This exercise in my opinion is fun and useful because you get to have a little more fun presenting in front of people that you chose for yourself.

Self Evaluation Assignment #2

Another speech has past us by. I told myself this time around, I was going to nail it and give it all I got. I had practiced and read my material and told myself, what could go wrong? Many things actually, and things I wish I had done differently. This time around, I learned once again what could be done better in this speech and in the next one I’d be responsible for. My speech was on violence and video games. I was to explain its purpose on how it affects young children, studies that had been done, and also about the violent media.
Going into this speech, I had a lot of expectations for myself. I knew I’d be way more confident being in front of my classmates and my anxiety would no longer be there. Going up in front of everyone felt good and I knew my information. I believe that I did get to people when explaining how bad video games can be to young children as well as adults. Video games now are getting more amazing with graphics that they’re incorporating more violence and sexually explicit content in them and young teens and as well as people my age are thriving to purchase. I felt very very comfortable and confident. My only downfall was that the same week we had our speeches; I fell sick Sunday and was sick the whole week with a bad stuffy nose and sore throat. I tried my best to make it through the week and I’m proud that I did!
I know everyone has a little regret when looking back at the work they’ve done or performed. For myself, if I could go back and do it over again, I would first and foremost try and not be sick, because that really took me back a little with performing my speech the best I could, and I would concentrate more on my audience then my note cards. I was concentrating on my note cards more because with this speech, I had a lot of resources to tell the class and that’s why I had brought more note cards with me this time around because I could not memorize all of my resources. One goal I would have to improve the content of my next speech is to provide more input from myself rather than rely on my resources and what other people have said about it. One goal I have by improving the delivery in my next speech is to show more enthusiasm to the class to show that I’m having fun delivering my speech and that I do know my stuff!
With this speech and my last, there were many things that were different. For my first speech, I was more prepared and knew my information better than this one. With my second speech, I kept relying on my note cards because being sick, you lose a lot of focus and you’re tired and I just basically tried my best in delivering my speech that day. What was good with my second speech, I felt that the class enjoyed it more than I thought they hadn’t. What was bad for me was that I could feel that they knew I was relying on my note cards too much.
I’m all about distractions. I think the only distraction was looking at my note cards more than the audience. This wasn’t an improvement from my last speech because I remember from my last speech I didn’t look at my note cards as much as I did this time around. My eye contact this time around would be a five. I would grade myself with a B- because I know that I could’ve delivered this speech way better than I should have. I didn’t take the time to practice and getting sick wasn’t planned. The note cards being used frequently are a big disappointment for me. I used plenty of source citations this time around and I’m happy I didn’t leave them out this time around. I mentioned about six source citations throughout my speech. I would say, I was more happy with my last speech but this speech was better because I lost my anxiety and shyness level went away.

Chapter eleven - Understanding the Basics of Visual Design

In all of our speeches this semester, we are asked to bring something to show that ties in with our speeches. In the past two speeches that I have presented, I have used a power point to accompany my speech. Although using power point is a good way to further show the class your speech, I feel that when people have something else accompanied in their speeches, such as a poster, slides, or even people, they get really distracted and focus more on looking at the slides or poster rather than the audience in front of them. Having visual design in your speech is great, but there are advantages and disadvantages along with it. For example, having too much information on one slide can overwhelm and distract audience members. I’ll admit that sometimes I like to put attractive photos on my slides so that the audience could possibly look at that more than look at me. A good advantage in visual design is having close-up images because they often have a powerful impact because they’re perceived as personal and intimate. To balance out your speeches try using other types of visual designs, such as overhead transparency, flip chart and poster, or even a video!

Speech Buddy videos

Video 9.1 is about introductions. A good introduction goes a long way. We should get the audiences attention, preview your main points, and your purpose. We can introduce the speech by telling a story, humor, or in the video, they showed a girl talking a photo of the audience to get their attention on cameras. I will in my next speech try and make a humorous approach to my audience. Now 9.2 was about concluding your speeches. You should have a solid conclusion and leave your audience with a positive attitude. You should again review your main points and provide closure so that your audience isn't left confused or anything. Have a statement to conclude your closure. Here in video 13.1 A, Evan is presenting a speech on the universal language of techno music. Evan is great in giving eye contact and getting information out of an article. He has great transitions. He's always repeating techno in every part of his speech so that the audience knows that he isn't going off topic. In my next speech, I will try and have as much eye contact as him. In video 13.1 B, she is talking about Kodak Cameras. She has great eye movement and glances all around the audience. She isn't even using any notecards, which means she has practiced and practiced her speech very well. What's useful in her speech is that you can tell that she knows what she's talking about and in my next speech, I hope to not even use notecards anymore and just be on point in my speech. In video 13.1 Use it, she talks a little too fast for me. The lighting is really dark. She uses notecards in her speech and isn't as well prepared as the other girl in the video. She looks like she hasn't prepared a lot for her speech because it looks like shes reading off the notecards at all times.

Connecting your topic to your audience

It is great to connect your topic to your audience. Having it this way, we can get into people’s emotions and thoughts and they’ll enjoy our speech more. By using this technique, we can reduce the distance between our audiences and our audience can remember to pay attention and focus more intently on the topic. If our audience is unfamiliar with our topic, we should make a connection with them because they’ll really feel like we’re only speaking to them and that might make them more comfortable in opening up and answering questions when the speech is over. I found this useful because last time we had our speech and someone did the speech on 9/11, everyone could connect someway or somehow to it and everyone was hooked on listening to what they were talking about. I find this useful and interesting because everytime someone can relate to you in anyway, it makes the person feel more comfortable about the situation being talked about and they can give your feedback on it.

Introduce and Conclude!

There are many components that go into your introduction and as well as your conclusion. In chapter nine, it talks about the developing of your introduction and conclusion. In an introduction, you must start out by grabbing your audience’s attention. In my informative speech, which is about violence and video games, I am planning on grabbing all your attention by giving an example of how violence and video games have affected many children. I tend to make lengthy introductions, so, I’m going to try and shorten it up and use my time wisely. I’ll use my time wisely by only putting out my main purpose and points in the speech. Integrating presentation media is very good when presenting your speech. Visual materials capture the audience’s attention. I’m going to either bring video games for my visual materials or a powerpoint presentation. Also, don’t forget your main points otherwise the audience won’t understand what you’re trying to explain. In your conclusion, you must remember to review your main points, reinforce your purpose, and provide closure. The conclusion ties everything together so make sure not to include anymore-new information. To conclude your speech, end it with a quotation, or a dramatic statement.

Interactive Videos

I learned Supporting materials have advantages and disavantages. It's good to have a mix of supporting materials in your speech and try and not make them lengthy, otherwise your audience will be too distracted. Testimony can enhance credibility and work well in your speech and the source has a high degree of credibility. Examples are great to use in your speech and aren't generalizable. You can use supporting materials in your speech if they have credibility, reliability, and revelance. I also learned how to organize and put your speech together chronologically, summarizing, and concluding. Transitions are very important in your speech to stress the connection between two ideas. If we do not connect with our ideas in our speeches then everything will be jumbled up together and our audience will not enjoy our speech because of how crazy and hectic it may sound. We have to link effectively with transitions. We have to be careful when choosing our supporting materials because they may work in our speeches and they may not. Narratives only provide one view of the topic and if it's too long, it can distract our speech.

Concept - Testimony

We've all heard of testimonies somewhere. I've heard and seen a testimonial on television and also when people go door to door and want to tell you about a product they're selling and what to get your testimonial on it. They want your opinions or experiences related to the item being sold or to a particular topic. In the book, it says that usually speakers "use testimony from experts, celebrities, and laypeople. The book tells me of three different types of testimonials. The first one is called Expert Testimony. It relies or rests on the individual or group's qualifications related to that topic. The second Testimony is called Celebrity Testimony, relating to the person's fame or star power. The third is called Lay Testimony, which involves individuals who have experience with a topic but aren't experts or are well known. I found this concept useful because maybe the next time we have our speeches we can include testimonials from someone to make our speeches more interesting. In our first speeches, we could've added some testimonials from some people and that might have made our speeches more interesting and may have our audience more interested. I found it interesting because I didn't even think you could add a testimonal into our speeches. I might consider adding it in one of my speeches.

Facts and Statistics.

Facts and Statistics are highly affective in speeches to let our audience understand what we're getting at. Informative and Persuasive speeches are great to have facts and statistics in your speech. I find them most effective in a speech where if a person was to talk about a specific topic, let's say, health care, that requires a lot of facts to back up your arguments on how we can fix health care and how people are handling it in our country. Statistics comes in when we find research on how people are affected by health care and what's happening because of it. It is very affective in a persuasive speech because you're trying to prove your argument against someone and not having any facts or statistics would make your audience believe that you have nothing to back up what you're trying to say. In the first speech we did in class, statistics wasn't important because we were only informing people about our cultural artifacts and it didn't require too much facts or statistics on how many people use it or things like that. In our last two speeches, facts and statistics are going to be our number one factor in order for us to perform a well prepared, well researched speech or people will just assume that we made all this up and that we're plagiarizing.

Speech Evaluation

In life, we are always experiencing first things. That dreaded first kiss you’d always imagined to be magical or the time you’d finally be in line to take your first ever driving test. Times come at us fast, and we’re always being pressured to do our very best. When the time came to finally meet my public speaking class and my first ever speech, pressure along with a huge adrenaline rush took over my body. I was excited yet scared at the same time. “This is it”, I told myself. No turning back. The show must go on.
Before even showing up to our first speech meeting, I asked myself if I was even mentally prepared for this and if I had done enough work in order to put a speech together. I worked hard in finding research on my speech topic on the boomerang. I searched hard and far for that boomerang but could not purchase one to save my life! In my opinion, I did achieve the purpose of my speech in that the audience has a little more knowledge about the boomerang that may spark even more curiosity inside so that they may search up on the topic even more. I didn’t want my speech to not have this complicated purpose so that my audience would be so confused on what I was trying to let them understand. I kept it brief and straightforward. I specifically told them the history, as a weapon and sport, and how it’s recognized today in society. It couldn’t get any easier.
Going into the speech, I felt very confident actually. I told myself that everyone else was about to give a speech so why should I be scared? This always happens to me though. I get up, start talking, and don’t even consider that my audience may not even be hearing my clearly because I may be talking too fast for them. Watching my video, I notice that I didn’t stand at the center of the room. I was located right by the podium. This really bothers me because I had told myself before to not try and hide to feel more comfortable with myself and I totally forgot. I was comfortable but not too comfortable where I could just wing it without having any problems. If I had the chance to do it over again, I would position myself in the center of the room, keep still, have eye contact as much as possible, and maybe memorize my speech so I can eliminate having to use note cards as a safety belt.
This was my first time ever writing an outline for my speech, and I must say that it was fairly difficult for me to come up with sub points for my main points. Especially my last main point on how it’s recognized in society, I was totally blank on what to write for a while. I almost regretted even picking the topic I had chosen. My one goal on improving the content in my next speech is to compile more research in order to make my sub points more effective. The next time I deliver my speech, I will stand up straight, smile, be confident as possible, have eye contact with every single individual in the room, and clearly speak in order to get everyone’s attention in the room.
I noticed many things with my delivery. I spoke way too fast for my introduction and I know when practicing at home that I didn’t act that way. I obviously was way more confident when practicing because my audience wasn’t as big as our class size. I noticed that I was distracting just by standing too close to the podium and saying the dreaded UM, the looking up at the ceiling thing, and just not standing in the middle of the room bugs me a lot. My eye contact during the speech was probably a six in my opinion. I feel like I was looking more at the wall then actually giving eye contact to people. Watching the video and looking and hearing If I had said my sources verbally, I had only said it twice. I had more sources and I know I should’ve slowed myself down so that I could remember all the sources I had written down in my note card.
First things aren’t always going to be an easy thing. From this first speech, I have learned that I need to let down my guard of even being scared of speaking in front of people. I’m making it into this big deal that isn’t even anything. People are going to judge me when I speak but so is everyone else. If I had to give my speech a grade, I would give it a C+. I wasn’t in front of my fellow classmates; I was more to the side of the podium then anything. I also kept saying umm way too many times. I left out a lot of sources that I should’ve verbally said out loud and that makes me sound like I plagiarized or something. I admire the 9/11 speech a lot. She took her time in presenting and that’s what makes a good speech. I need to pace myself in order to deliver beautifully. I will now learn from my mistakes and try and not let my audience see the same mistakes I made last time. Practice makes perfect, and with a little more practice, I know I can do much better.

Concept: Evaluating Your Research Materials

Chapter six is mainly about researching for our speech topics. The things that we accumulate from researching our topic must be evaluated before we can even put it into our speeches. From all our sources, we have to see if their is consistency and credibility in our resources from a particular source. We have to see if it's consistent in other sources as well. Also, it is important and beneficial to have our sources to be current to now. People can relate and will be informed as well. What I found useful was the "critical questions for evaluation information" because it will help our speeches to determine how reliable, valid, and current the information we are gathering to be. Not having our information correct for our speeches would totally create a horrible speech with false information and the validity of our sources would be totally wrong. The research we find for our speeches is the playmaker for our speeches. In order for our speeches to "perform", the playmaker must write up a "script" that we can incorporate into our speeches.

Speech buddy video for Chapter Six.

I enjoy all these videos. I really like how they all stick to the point of what they're talking about. They go right into it by telling us what we should do, how to avoid mistakes and errors, and what are the best ways into getting the speech done. They are correct in that we must first prepare to do our research on what we do and what we don't know about our speech topic. We also have to evaluate the sources that we find on our speech topic. Of course MLK LIBRARY would be perfect for resources for all of us! Dory's went right on talking about her speech in a confident manner. She did though look down more than the other speeches I've seen so far in these videos. I also liked that Dory got to do an introduction speech where she got to talk about herself. I would have liked if we had to do that also. I learned that research is the most important thing to do when putting your speech together because people will and can tell if you're just talking out of your a**. (sorry for the explicit language), but it's true. I'm learning a lot so far in this class, even though I haven't met any of my fellow classmates or teacher. I feel my confidence in speaking building up and I'm learning the steps I need to take in order to perfect my upcoming and anticipated speeches.

Research Interviews

I have had experience with conducting research interviews actually. My first semester at San Jose State, last fall to be exact, I was to conduct a research interview for a mentor project we had in my meaningful life class. It was the end of the year final assignment. We were to choose someone we knew, someone who wasn't related, and someone who made a big impact in our lives, someone we looked up too. He told all of us that we must conduct an interview and meet with our mentors to ask questions in order to present our findings to the class. It went well, knowing that I knew the person, she didn't give me a hard time when I was asking questions. The questionnaire went well because I had written a list of questions beforehand so I wasn't thinking of any on the top of my head. What I think needed improvement was that I ran out of questions to say. I also need to improve in that when I was talking and asking questions, I'd interrupt my interviewee. She didn't mind ofcourse, having her as a close friend. My advice is that people should be ready beforehand when conducting an interview because it's important to not interview someone and not be more or as ready as the person being interviewed.

Building your working outline

Now that I've chosen my topics for all my speeches, I can now learn how to build my outline. In the book, it shows me that I'm in the "working" outline, where the functions are to assists initial topic development and research. I've never done an outline for a speech before, although I've done outlines for notes in class, essays,etc; this looks far different than that. To begin with my speech topic, I must brainstorm for ideas that I may want to include in my speech. I'm actually excited for the topics I've chosen, especially my persuasive speech!!! :) I hope the professor approves it, because I'm excited to begin my outline. I really want to work very hard on my persuasive speech because it is our last speech, but it's also one that I need to argue my points to the class in order for the speech to do well in itself. Also, the thesis for your speech is very important. As in essays, we're always going to need a thesis to begin our essay, without it, we are left without knowing what point you are trying to prove in your paper.

Viewing the videos.

I first viewed the "Intro to Jessica" Video first. I must say, she looked very well prepared to do her speech. She looked confident and her face wasn't "beet red". What I liked from her speech was that she incorporated great hand movements while talking. What I learned from this speech is that hand movements are great in giving your speech. Jessica pointed to different things and herself to point out things about Helen Keller. I learned that it's good not to focus all your attention on the podium. She only looked down not more than 3 seconds, actually, it looked like she didn't look down more than 2 seconds! I would love to do that when I give my speeches.

2.1 taught me on relaxation, visualization, and relabeling. I do practice visualization in that I like to be alone in order to prepare myself for things. For example, when I had to present and analyza a poem this summer in English Class, I practiced in front of my mirror without anyone in the room to see myself presenting. I learned that I need to stand up, analyze the room and use all your senses. I learn that I need to pause when I'm feeling nervous and I need to relabel.

2.2 I learned about overcoming my fears. I will not comment on my nervousness! To alleviate my fears of my audience, I need to research on my audience and how it will be graded.

Apprehensiveness.

Public Speaking could be a chore to some, but many find speaking in front of people very fun. I myself, have found that speaking in front of people build's confidence and your level of shyness slowly gets smaller and smaller. To be apprehensive means to feel anxious or fearful of getting something done, or quick to do so. Every speech or presentation I have to go through, I'm always more excited on getting the job done, rather than getting myself ready to do the best presentation I can. I believe all of us have speech anxiety, some may have more than others, but it varies on different people. My speech anxiety has gotten better because I remember in Elementary school I would get up in front of the class, start twiddling my hair, and my cheeks would turn bright red. I felt like people were watching my every move, I focused all my attention on the paper rather than my audience, and in the end felt worse than before I had gotten up in front of the class. There is a lot of uncertainty that ties in with your speech anxiety. I am more of the person who will be listening rather than being the the speaker. I'm certain of my speaking abilities, in that, I prepare myself to an extent but not to the extent where I'm more than confident to speak in front of people.

So, what makes me most apprehensive about public speaking? In my opinion, I would say just getting my speeches done as quickest as possible. The worst feeling is standing in front of a crowd all eyes gazing towards you. If it was just the teacher and myself, I probably wouldn't be as nervous or have my eyes set on getting the speech as quickly done as possible. I'm also apprehensive in getting the job done because having to stand in front of a crowd not knowing and having uncertainty with how they feel about your presentation or speech makes me feel very uneasy. I got moderate speach anxiety onn my "personal report of public speaking anxiety" quiz.
I don't get too scared to present to the point of where I'm about to faint or pee my pants. I just hate the feeling of not knowing how someone feels about your work.

It is true that starting out your speech early and planning ahead will give you more time to practice and your speech will have been more prepared. That ties in with schooling also. Plan early and get things done early, so that you're not swamped in all this schoolwork and you won't be behind. Diaphragmatic breathing is what I use to do in my choir class back in eigth grade. It is a great exercise that I haven't done in a long time! To get a better feel of my audience, It is a good thing we have these blogs to get to know one another. Sorry for the long blog, but I hope you've enjoyed my blog :)

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog. I'm really excited to take this class and even more excited that it's online. It is also my first online class and I hope it goes fairly well. I've had my troubles with standing up in front of the crowd. This Summer, I took English1b over at Mission College and one of our assignments was to recite a poem and talk about it in front of the whole class. I was surprised with myself of how well I interpreted the poem to them and how much emotion I put into the poem. I knew then that my fear of going in front of the class was no longer there. The way I see it, I'm not the only one going up there and everyone's got to present either way. I just have to suck it up and present what I've been practicing. When I present, I tend to focus all my attention on the teacher. It helps me better when presenting because when I tend to look over everyone in the classroom, I lose my train of thought. I sometimes imagine that it's only the teacher and I in the classroom to help ease my nervousness being up there. My goal in this class is to not constantly and try not to even use any kind of notecards or paper while presenting in front of a classroom. I want to conquer my fear of not ever being nervous infront of a crowd.

Some facts on myself,
I am a full time student and it's my second year here at San Jose State University.
I like hello kitty, a lot :)
I recently got a job at a very popular fashion store but am very disappointed with how they handle their employees, thus, I am quitting.
I have many goals in my life. One of them, is to pursue my bachelor's degree in accounting.
I love to talk, but have never really practiced talking in front of a big crowd.
I love cruises.

Anyway, I hope to meet all of you soon!
Goodbye. This won't be the last time you here from me :)