Self Evaluation 1

In evaluating my performance on the demonstration speech, I have identified some strengths and opportunities to help my self better my performance in the future. Overall, I think I did well at achieving the purpose of my speech which was to provide history, demonstration of technique, and my personal experiences to my audience. I felt confident during my speech because I am very familiar with the topic. I felt uncomfortable at the beginning because being on the spot I was blanking out on some of the names and sources for historical facts and found my self having to rifle through my note cards. As the speech progressed into my experiences and the demonstration portion, I began to find more at ease and comfortable speaking to the audience. If I had to deliver the speech over again I would make changes to my preparation by practicing with a timer a lot more. As for organization, having neater more organized note cards would have helped be to recall some of the facts a lot easier and would help me to relax a bit more. I don't think I would make any changes to support and delivery, except maybe pay more attention to the time keeper to stay on track. The one main goal I have for improving the content of my next speech is to really look at the information and only use what is pertinent to my topic. This way I will not get side tracked and loose track of time. The one main goal I have for improving the delivery of my next speech is to practice a whole lot more with a timer. Separating each main speaking point and assigning a time value to it will help me to not go over on my time. The first thing I noticed about my delivery was that the information I was most comfortable with flowed a lot more easily and I did not need my note cards as much. I need to spend more time memorizing names and sources to back up my information so I will not need to rely on my note cards so much. For some reason when I am on the spot in front of an audience the note cards just look like a big jumble of letters. I might have to try a color system or make better use of bullet points. The only thing distracting I noticed about myself while giving the speech is I tend to clasp my hands together when I am nervous or uncomfortable. Also, I could limit my use of ums. I mentioned all four of my sources during my speech however, I neglected to fully name one of the web sources for historical information. On a scale of A to F, I feel like I deserved a B for this speech. I think if I had better memorized the factual data and stayed on time, then it might have been an A delivery. I will work harder on the next speech to hit those marks.