Videos

The first video was about the elements of an argumentative speech. The elements of an argument are thesis, claim, evidence, and reasoning. A thesis is the argument that you are making. The claim is the position you want the audience to accept. Evidence is your support, such as facts and figures. Reasoning is how you connect your claims and your evidence. This was helpful because with these terms defined it makes it much clearer and easier to use in our speeches. If we know what the elements of our arguments are, then we can consciously think about when we use them instead of just winging it. The types of appeals used were logos, ethos, and pathos.

Chapter 15

One part of Chapter 15 that I found especially interesting and helpful was the part with the table titled “Types of Reasoning.” As usual, I like the tables the best. They relate information in a short sweet way without giving a large amount of reading of non necessary things. This table was about the types of reasoning, deductive, inductive, causal, and analogical. The table also gives a definition, strengths, and weaknesses of each type of reasoning. I especially like that they included strengths and weaknesses because it helps you know when it is best to be used. If reasoning is used correctly, it greatly increases the effectiveness of a persuasive speech.

Reflection

I believe that I try to persuade the class to accept my point of view in almost all of the posts, especially the ones about the reading. In the reading posts I am trying to get everyone to read my post to believe that the part if of the chapter that I am writing about is the most interesting and important part of the chapter. Most of the time, I believe that I used logos and ethos. I used logos because I logically explained my reasoning. Also, ethos because I tried to show my credibility by showing that I really understood the chapter. Whether those worked or not, I do not know; that is up to you guys.

Speech Progress

As some of you may know, my speech is on why we should use and continue research on GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). To be completely honest, I have not made much progress with my speech. I have been super busy with all of my other classes with midterms and papers, which I am sure you all know how that goes. I have only started researching recently. I have not even begun to really think about how I will begin my speech, let alone end it. I figure that as young people, the class will be, for the most, uninformed on this subject, so I will use the guidelines in the book to help me design my speech when I get to that point. I hope everyone else is further along than I am. Goodluck!

Reading

The most important and interesting part of chapter fourteen was the table on page 377. The table has information on the types of audiences and the persuasive strategies. The types of audience are negative, positive, divided, uninformed, and apathetic. The table shows what kinds of strategies to use when you encounter each kind of audience. This is helpful because if you use the wrong kind of strategy in a persuasive speech for the type of audience, then you could make them angry or have them totally turn against you more. You would not want to make a speech about gun control saying that gun carriers are maniacs when the audience is members of the NRA. If you know how your audience feels then use it to your advantage.

Persuasion

We are all immersed in a sea of persuasion everyday all day. Persuasion is everywhere we go and in everything you see. Persuasion can be found from ads in a magazine all the way to interactions that we have with other people. Ads are trying to get you to buy something. Your friends are trying to get you to like them or do something for them. In public speaking you do not have to look any further than a few weeks ago to the election. Every time each candidate was speaking, he was trying to persuade the listeners to vote for them. To become a better critical consumer, you can think about who is saying certain things and decide if they have anything to gain from you listening to them. Also, it is important to make sure statements that companies make are not biased because if they are biased then they have a hidden agenda.

Chapters 10 and 12

The section that I found most helpful in chapter ten was the part on audience-centered language. Audience-centered language is when you tailor make the speech to fit for your audience. This helps for the audience to connect with the speaker and make it easier for the audience to understand the whole point of the speech. Some of the suggestions to have good audience-centered language is to put your language in context, personalize your language, use inclusive and visual language, and to spark imagination. Putting you language in context is like mentioning the event you are speaking at. Personalizing language means integrating audience analysis information. Inclusive language is language that avoids discrimination and stereotypes. Visual language is using things like similes and metaphors. Sparking imagination is done with humor.

Videos

The first video is all about audience centered language. This helps the audience connect with the speaker. Some advice they gave was to refer to the event, use similes or metaphors, use inclusive language, and humor.
The second video was about language choice. The video said the speaker should use meaningful words, have a balance between clarity and ambiguity, be concise, and avoid offensive language, build in repetition, and don’t get attached to words. These help to have a speech that is clear and helps the audience connect with you.
The third video is about the voice that you use in the speech. They say to focus on volume, pitch, rate, variety, and articulation and pronunciation. These help the speaker easy to listen to and not boring.
The fourth video is about physical delivery. The important parts are eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, body movements, and appearance. These help to ensure that the speaker looks confident, and is not distracting.
The last video was about practicing your speech. They suggest using note cards, practice in sections to develop it, and practice in front of friends. These tips help reduce anxiety.

Sexist Language

After reading the posts on the discussion board about sexist language, I thought that these people were giving way too much thought to something that is not a big deal. The book says that the speaker should avoid using words with a sex bias. I think that the book and these people are reading way too much into this slight difference in language. Maybe I feel this way because I am a guy; I do not know. I do not see how anyone can get annoyed when another person uses different words. However, I definitely understand when a person is purposefully using the terms to put someone down that someone can get angry. The examples given are not a big deal to me though. I guess interpretation is very important when it comes to people’s language.

Self Evaluation #2

Overall, I think I achieved the purpose of the speech very well. I gave important information about a subject that was related to my peers. Although I accomplished the purpose of the speech, I was very nervous and I believe that it was visible to the audience. If I had to do my speech over again, I would not have changed anything concerning the content or organization. However, I would change my preparation. I unfortunately did wait for the last couple days to put my speech together. I know my audience noticed it because that was on quite a few of my improvement cards from the class. I would definitely give myself more time to rehearse my speech. If I had done that then I probably would not have been so nervous and would have done better.
One goal I have for improving the content of my next speech is to give myself more time to do the research. As I noted earlier, I did not give myself much time, so I had to rush. If I give myself more time for the next speech I will not be rushed and it will make my whole speech better. My goal to improve my delivery is to practice more. Like I said several times before, I did not rehearse enough because I waited for the last minute. For this reason I looked at my note cards quite a bit. In this speech, my delivery and grade suffered because of that. So if I can fix that then I will do much better in the next speech.
One good thing that was different from my last speech was the fact that I did not sway as much. In the demonstration speech, I swayed back and forth almost the entire time I was in front of the class and that turned out to be very distracting. This time I only swayed once or twice which is a huge improvement and was much less distracting. Another thing was that I did not look up at my slides as much. I only saw myself do it once on the tape. I did not notice anything else that was different from the last speech when I reviewed the tape. I could not hear the audio on this speech so this is only on the visual delivery. I may or may not have done things differently audibly, but I cannot tell with my tape. I did a few distracting things. First off, I tugged at my shirt a little in the beginning. I also swayed little which was less than the last speech, so that was an improvement. Lastly, I found my hand movements to be a little distracting. I did not notice that in the previous speech.
My eye contact was not good. I would probably rate it at a four or five out of ten. I think this was worse than the first speech. I read off my cards way too much. This was due to my lack of preparation. Based on my performance, I would give myself a B on the entire speech. My content was good and informative. I knew what I was talking about and my visuals were very effective. On the downside, I was ill prepared and I looked at my note cards too much. The audio on my tape did not work, so I could not count how many citations I gave, however, I felt that I did a good job of citing while I was in front of the class.
I believe that this speech was much better than the last one. I did not do as much distracting things which was a big improvement. Also, I was more comfortable talking about this subject because I enjoyed it a lot more than the first speech. I also was not as nervous because I knew the information better, but I did not practice as much as I should have.