Introduction Speech

Jacqueline Luke

Introduction Speech

Today I had my first speech in my public speaking class. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous beforehand. After doing the reading on speech making there were some takeaways that really stuck to my mind as I was constructing what my 60-90 second speech would be like. I wanted to make sure that the speech was simple and that there were a few mains points. I chose to talk about Newport Beach because it is my hometown and then about a fun fact about myself, my passion for the Lord of the Rings franchise. Using Lord of the Rings I would be able to segue into my career path and how I eventually became a Communications major which led me to taking this class. I felt that having a focus on one distinguishing factor about myself, like Lord of the Rings, would make myself more memorable than generally talking about my interests.
During the speech, I noticed that my legs were crossed and so I uncrossed it. I felt that maybe I was not as open in my posture as I could have been but I also don't really recall how I was standing. I did want to make sure that I was looking at the audience so hopefully I was successfully doing so! It was interesting because I feel as though I started off strong but I felt myself get more nervous actually as I continued talking rather than starting off nervous. I'm not sure why that was. I suppose it might be because I planned the first few words more heavily or that the speech started to change from what I had planned and I became more nervous as I was going into more "unknown" territory.
When listening to other people do their own speeches, I definitely listening and so now I can really identify who someone is in the class with these more key facts that I now know about them. I also noticed the differences between how each person talks- one person talked generally about themselves, one talked more about USC, one started off with a question, one made assumptions that we were making assumptions about him, and one shared just one moment in their life that was memorable.