Future Endeavors

From this class I will take a little bit of experience speech writing and talking in front of an audience, and a whole lot of confidence. I cant believe the difference in my confidence level from the beginning of class until now. I really like how we started with topics that were more comfortable to us that allowed us to work on our speaking confience. By the time we got to the informative and persuasive speeches I felt like I could tackle more complex topics. I am a talker and have learned in this class how to organize my speech to make it more effective and have time control. The outlines helped me to develop my speech pattern to deliver the most pertinent information and not get sidetracked, which could confuse my audience and cause me to run out of time. I feel that I am a better speaker, with a lot less ums and fidgeting than when I started, which will help me be successful in my future endeavors.

Concepts for preparing my speeches

The concepts I  found to be most helpful in preparing my speeches were getting to know your audience, finding a common ground, and the importance of thorough research. Knowing your audience was particularly helpful because it really makes you think about who your speaking to. By doing this I can customize my speech and the wording I use to have a more successful speech. Not everyone receives information the same so this concept was very helpful to me. Finding common ground was a very helpful concept for me that works with all types of speeches, not just persuasive. With my informative speech I also needed to establish common ground for the people who might not believe in global warming or climate change. If common ground is established then my audience might be more open to listen to the information I am speaking about. The importance of being thorough in my research, especially making sure I have the most up to date statistics, was very helpful. This is particularly true for my persuasive speech because it involved laws that change and vary from state to state, as well as numbers.

My favorite speech

My favorite speech would probably be the demo speech. Although the informational and persuasive speeches were topics I was more passionate about, I had fun with the demo speech. I like teaching people how to do things, so this was right up my alley. Additionally I have an extensive amount of personal experience with the topic I chose for the demo so I was very comfortable. I think when you really feel like the expert on the topic the comfort level increases greatly. For me, I know that I have so much knowledge and experience on my topic that it was easier to speak comfortable and fluidly. I fully researched my other topics as well but the topics were a little more on the serious side. I actually enjoyed all of the speeches once they were over. I liked researching the topics and putting together the presentations. The worst part was the anxiety at the beginning of the speeches and the pressure to stay on time with such a short time limit.