Visual Aid Speech reflection

The visual aid speech topic was relatively easy to come up with which was a first for me out of the previous speech topics. I chose the topic of giving higher wages for professional cheerleaders in the NBA and NFL. It was fun for me to do research on a subject that I knew a little bit more about and also related to (like the previous Charity speech). A lot of the information that I found, I knew to be true even before the research phase but the information I gathered confirmed what I had already heard previously which still had great shock value for me. 

I struggled with what my thesis was going to be because there was a lot that I wanted to talk about and got caught up in deciding my main points. I knew there was a certain stigma when it came to the cheerleading profession that seems to be all about glamour, sex appeal, and the glitz. I wanted to unveil the fact that these women are talented, hardworking, and not compensated for the work that they put into the profession. I wanted to highlight how much they are involved in their respective programs and are taken advantage of due to the fact that they are not paid for the work they do. After discussing with Cynthia about the parameters and arbitrariness of what a "serious profession" is versus a "hobby" and me having to prove that they were not being taken seriously as working professions, I figured that it would be trying to cover too much grounds. So I stuck with just focusing on explaining why it is that the women should be receiving higher wages. 

The visual aid part of the presentation was not difficult; building a powerpoint is something I feel many students are used to and are good at. I do wish I could have done something more creative with the visual aid part of it. I could have shown video clips, added more enhancing effects or graphics, or used a different tool than powerpoint. I did make some tables and pie graphs to highlight certain points and mostly pictures to depict what I was saying. 

Overall, it was a fun presentation and prepping for the research and formal outline was not difficult because it was something I was interested in. The actual delivery of the speech was okay. I thought that I talked for a bit longer than how I practiced it. It really was a lot of material that I wanted to cover but perhaps some parts could have been taken out.