Persuasive Speech Blog "Eminent Domain"

This speech was a bit of a struggle for me. I feel that with my previous speeches I had an easier time because they didn't involve getting the audience to believe my views. I created both a preparative and speaking outline. I made both because the preparative helped me gather and organize my thoughts and all of the facts and the speaking outline was a great guide to what I wanted to say during the speech. The task of persuading the class seemed really scary to me so I practiced a lot with reading it to my mom. I'm not sure if this was the best choice because she is my mom so of course she agreed with me, however she offered me pretty good criticism. I also made a powerpoint to go along with my speech, this is what I thought would really help persuade the class. The problem was, I forgot to change the slides during my presentation. I didn't realize until halfway through and at that point I had to just go to the last slides. So, in the end the powerpoint wasn't really used so much, I was very disappointed about this because I had put a lot of effort into it. I think my introduction was very effective because it set up a story of what could happen and it helped lead me to my main topic. My speech I think was very well organized. My favorite part about this assignment was the fact that I got to speak about something that I feel passionate about. I just finished reading a book about Eminent Domain so this speech came with perfect timing! Also, during my speech I was very nervous and I think I unfortunately let my nerves get the best of me. I feel like I relied on my outline a lot and this made me mad when I thought back about it because on my last speech I didn't do that. I realized that I like informative speeches the best during this class because it is much easier to inform than it is to persuade! :) I tried my best to add things into the speech and talk about homes, since I had the topic of Eminent Domain. However, I don't think the class was too interested because no one asked any questions. I guess the topics of global warming and recycling were more convincing to this audience because that directly affected them or they could actually do something to fix those problems. With my topic, it was interesting but it didn't really effect their lives so much at this age. I feel that my speech was effective because I had a lot of credible information and sources and I was able to get the class to understand the troubles with my topic. I think that this speech was a good way to end off the class because persuasive speeches truly test your ability to speak to an audience. It requires a lot of skill and I hope to get better at this as I get older. I'm not so great right now, but I feel that being a Marketing major having good persuasive skills is key. P.S. I also wanted to let you know aside from this assignment, that the skills I learned to make a good outline for a speech have helped me this semester on writing papers. I thought it was pretty cool how they are basically set up the same way and the Preparative outline setup is actually a great way to organize a paper!

Informative Speech Blog

The outline is beginning to grow on me more and more. At first I didn't like it but in my informative speech it really helped me. With the topic I chose there was a lot of facts so the outline helped me to organize those ideas. I really think it made my speech sound more clear. Speaking extemporaneously is very difficult for me, but I think I'm getting better. Some benefits of speaking this way is that it makes your speech more believable to the audience. If you don't then it seems like you are simply reading a book or a passage aloud. I used a powerpoint presentation as my visual aid and I didn't overdo it. I used simple pictures that let the audience see what I was speaking about and I do believe that it was effective. I think that my introduction was very successful because I posed a question, established credibility by relating it to a personal experience, I engaged the audience to think, and I stated all my main points. My conclusion enforced the main idea very well, and I feel that it was very personal so it was definitely memorable to the class. My speech was tailored to the general knowledge of the audience because the whole thing was mainly focused on people their age and how it could affect people who they love. My speaking I feel flowed better in this speech. The topic I spoke about I was very passionate about beforehand so I also think that helped. But, my speaking has become a bit more relaxed definitely. I've noticed improvement as far as my nerves are concerned. I also felt much more prepared on my topic this time. For my next speech, I would like to rely less on my outline and really deliver a true extemporaneous speech. If I am able to do this, I would be very proud of myself.

Personal Speech Blog

In my personal speech presentation I think the best thing I did was talk about something I was fully comfortable speaking about. I chose a topic (My High School) because I believed talking about something that I was so familiar with would help to ease my nerves in presenting. Although future speeches may not be speaking about personal issues, I am going to make sure to be fully prepared so I can sound as if the topic is flowing from my mind without any struggle. While I was presenting I leaned on the table behind me the entire time, without realizing it until the end, and I really think that this is something I would choose not to do in the future. I don't want to appear uncomfortable and I think in leaning and not standing straight up does not portray the confidence I would like to show, so next time I will try my best to have better posture. I was satisfied with my vocal presentation for the most part minus the multiple times I said "Um". As for my physical delivery I think that my posture could have been improved as I said, but I was happy that I made pretty good eye contact. I tried to relate the audience to my speech although some of them didn't seem familiar with what I was saying because I guess their high school's may not have done the same things as mine. However, I got a giggle here and there and I think the audience was decently engaged in my speech. I hope to improve and improve with each speech. It is a little bit of a challenge for me because of my nerves but I hope I am able to continue overcoming them. :)