Visual Aid Speech Reflection

I definitely struggled again with narrowing down my topic. However, my biggest takeaway in preparing for this speech is understanding and even more so, accepting that in focusing on a specific area for  any topic, I will always have information that will be left out. I had initially really wanted to provide commentary and in many ways, a solution to the social comparison phenomenon because this is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, but because social comparison itself is so broad and everyone engages in it differently than others, in trying to provide one concrete solution would have not been effective. I also drove myself crazy in trying to figure out how to frame my argument. While the outcome of the speech diverted from my original intent, I am happy and relieved that I eventually was able to frame my argument  around Facebook. Hopefully, in the future I will have the chance to expand more on the subject of social comparison and how it relates to identity and happiness. 

In terms of the actual speech and delivery of the speech, I had thought that the Youtube video was slightly too long. I had considered showing only a part of it, but then I felt as though the overall message would not have been as clear. Now that I think about it, I could have even narrowed my argument and framed it around the short film. There was a lot to the video clip that I wasn't able to discuss, and so there might have been a slight disconnect to my speech and the clip itself. I also could have provided more concrete examples to make the speech even more personable. I also caught myself looking up at the ceiling several times. This speech was not my best, and I definitely know I could have performed better if it were not for the struggle in the beginning. But this is not to say I did not learn from the process of overcoming the obstacle. 

Frack

For me visual aids are tricky. Visuals are always tricky. A computer screen bursting with graphics throws my head into an ADHD induced panic. It is safe to say I get distracted very easily; however, this speech gave me the opportunity to try to conquer these-- oh look Facebook-- distractions.

My first visual aid was a short video. Between my friends and I, the video was hilarious. We made it in the New North bathroom, and I got socked with about 20 water bottles. However, watching the video in a classroom setting was a different experience. The video was not received as well, as I would have liked. In addition, the video might have lead to confusion on the purpose of the topic. Was the video meant to swap perspectives to that of an aquatic animal? Or was the video meant to show the perspective of how water bottles do effect human's health and cleanliness as well? However, I tried to alleviate the confusion by introducing the video with a story. The story was about my father's trip to the Cayman islands, and the thousands of water bottles he saw one particular remote island.

Since visuals general keep me in a dizzy, I wanted to keep the pictures to a minimum and the words to a few per slide. This allowed the audience and I to create a visual road map of where the conversation was headed. In addition, I wanted to keep only three bullets on each page. This would allow me to explain each process, rather than read them off the board. In this regard, I believe my visuals were effective, short, simple, and poignant.

However, near the end I was rushed on time. I said a fact incorrectly, and cited my source inaccurately. This comes down to my time management and the time allotted for working with the visuals. I didn't realize that transitioning between visuals would eat up 30 seconds of my overall time. But, it did not mess up the whole speech :). In the end I though it was a pretty good knack at my first real visual aided speech!

California Drought Visual Aid Speech

After a speech intensive semester (I'm in a business public speaking class as well), I have learned so much when it comes to speaking in front of an audience. I'm still working on controlling my nerves, but I think that will come with being fully prepared and confident. For this speech in particular, I did not feel as prepared as my previous speeches because I felt that there were so many facts to keep track of and I kind of freaked myself out, but I think that having a visual aid definitely made it more interesting for the audience to follow my topic. I like to pick topics that are relevant and relatable, and the California Drought is something that I think a lot of us don't know too much about. We might acknowledge that it's a serious problem, but maybe not the details of what is contributing to our water shortage.
Researching this topic was interesting because I was surprised to find that a lot of the food I eat used so much water. I tried to incorporate charts and pictures to illustrate this fact, and I think my powerpoint overall was fairly engaging and straight-forward. For my speech, I think I did a decent job of organizing my message, but at times I struggled to articulate certain points and I had a tendency to look down at my notecards or at the screen. Compared to the beginning of the semester, I think my tone and pace have improved, but I'm still working on being more relaxed with my gestures.
Overall, I thought all of the speeches went really well and it's pretty awesome to see how much everyone has grown since the beginning of the semester. I definitely feel so much better going into speeches (I used to be beyond terrified) and I have a more positive mindset when it comes to speaking in front of people.

Visual Aid Speech Reflection: High heels as the modern day foot binding?

I have had a pleasure presenting and learning with this class. Before taking this class, presentations were something I dreaded (which I mentioned in my introductory speech), but not something that was new to me. I had presented at conferences, but that didn't take away the fear every time I had to present. Out of all the speeches, I struggled with this one the most. It was not because I was not prepared with enough research or that I wasn't interested in the topic. The problem was with what I needed for this speech, my visual aid. I did not use a powerpoint in my previous speeches and that worked out well for me because it made it feel as if I was just conversing with the class, a way of presenting that I was more comfortable with. For this speech, the power point was something extra that I had to think about and since it was behind me, I forgot about it at some point during my presentation. This was evident when I went to show the class some images but forgot about some that I was supposed to show earlier. Thinking back, I should've made a note on my speaking notes about when I was planning on showing an image on the slides so I would remember about it. I could've also opted for an alternative, which was bringing in a physical object for my visual aid (something I could keep an eye on in front of me so I could be reminded of it). I became flustered after that mistake and it made me a bit nervous throughout the rest of the speech. But overall, the mistakes I make during my speeches allow me to reflect on what went wrong and how I can improve in the future. 

I definitely gained more confidence for presenting in front of an audience. Through the feedback after each speech and from the readings, I was able to learn how to better prepare my speeches to be more relevant to the audience. Although I definitely need to work on improving my presentation with a visual aid, overall, I feel like I have made many improvements. Watching everyone else give their presentations with their own unique style was also very helpful in seeing the different ways speeches can be successful. Everyone made improvements and it was a very rewarding and fun class! Thanks, Cynthia, for making this class feel more like a learning environment instead of a lecture class!

eSports Visual Aid Reflection

To start, I struggled a lot with solidifying this topic because of two things.  eSports is not very interesting to many people and even to myself the whole concept is a bit interesting but not that eye opening.  The reason I believe this is the case however maybe due to my constant exposure to the eSports community.  The second reason I found solidifying this topic to be difficult was because I felt compelled to do dance as a visual aid.  I had decided not to use dance as a visual aid in the end because of my confusion of the fine line of speech and performance.

Now the reason I had initially decided to do a speech on eSports is because in my life I am committed to only three things: school, dance, and games.  Being that my past two speeches covered a bit on business and dance, the appropriate thing was to go with my last passion.  Besides my dancing speech I have had to do lots of preparations for my other speeches, but because eSports was something I had a genuine interest and involvement in I felt much of the information I had decided to share was mainly knowledge from what I had picked up.

In terms of the delivery of the speech, a comment that had always come up was that I was too reliant on my speaking notes.  I tend to find it difficult to give a speech when I had already written out how I would want it to come out therefore memorization came into play.  For this speech I tried to write a lot less in the speaking notes and let myself do an extemporaneous speech.  For the most part I was happy with the results and am glad I never felt too stuck anywhere.  Although I did not feel very stuck, there were times such as trying to describe the game in laymen’s that I found very difficult.  League of Legends is such a complicated game and unless you take the time to learn it, it will always be complicated.  I personally felt there is no way to quickly explain the game while doing justice.  Even so, I believe it was the right thing to do, opposed to going through the whole speech with the audience ignorant of the whole topic.

Lastly, what I want to touch upon in this reflection are the visual aids.  To be honest, busy/creative work is oddly fun for me.  I also was finally able to practice creating good slides by using techniques such as dark background white font, no bullet points, only using pictures/charts if it had a comparison, and adding short statements with charts quickly interprets my point.  In addition to these techniques, I tried to have the information on the slides to be understandable within ten seconds maximum and at the same time comfortable to consume.  The mentality I had going into making the slides was, "I'll do the presentation, not the PowerPoint", and I believe this mentality helped my create slides that did a good job accenting my speech rather than competing with me to give the speech.

U.S. territories and the right to vote

          I chose to speak about U.S. territories and the right to vote because I wanted to talk about a topic that would be better understood with the help of visuals. It was important for me to use Guam as an example because I wanted to show the class pictures of where I grew up. Although I wasn't born on Guam, I have two younger siblings who were and, as a result, are unable to run for presidency. As long as you reside on Guam, you have a voice that will not be heard. It's unfair and the citizens of U.S. territories should not be stripped of their basic rights. 

          The preparation process was a little uncomfortable and I believe it's because I found it difficult rehearsing in front of a mirror. I decided to try this method because close friends recommended it and said that it would help me get used to being watched. And they were right, to a certain extent, but it didn't really feel the same when it came down to actually giving the speech. As far as the actual presentation, I wasn't too pleased with my performance. I was proud of my content but I wasn't satisfied with how I presented it because I fumbled with some of my thoughts (due to nervousness). In preparation for my next two speeches, I'm going to just remember to keep the speech natural and casual as if I'm having an educating conversation. 

Visual Aid Speech Self-Reflection

The readings, assignments and class discussions that we have engaged in over the course of the semester have allowed me to considerably improve my public speaking skills. Before taking this class, I was apprehensive about public speaking as an activity, but taking this class has helped me to eliminate this fear. Now I see public speaking as an exciting and engaging activity that is essential to life in the professional world. Watching all the speeches given in class introduced me to a variety of different styles and approaches. It also showed me the immense potential of imparting information and arguments through well organized and delivered speeches. The readings helped me understand the theoretical foundations behind public speaking.

As I was walking over to the front of the class to deliver my visual aid speech, I had already learned a great deal from our class activities over the semester. One of the most important things that I have gained is confidence. This, as I see it, is a very important factor when it comes to delivering speeches in public. My initial apprehension towards speaking in public was my biggest handicap in the way of delivering effective speeches. A great deal of this confidence comes from good research and thoughtful organization. Once you have thoroughly researched the topic and have planned out the manner in which you are going to deliver the speech, it becomes easier to deliver the speech with confidence.

I am very happy with how my visual aid speech went, which stands as testament to the progress I have made over the semester. In my first few speeches, I tended to hesitate a great deal while speaking. This was not the case for the visual aid speech, which I managed to deliver with clarity. In my persuasive speech, I used more text than is advisable on my visual aid. This time, I was particular about making an effective visual aid. Also, I went a bit over time and did not provide adequate context for the video I played. These were both things I was careful not to repeat this time around. Although this can be claimed to an extent about my previous speeches as well, the biggest reason why my speech succeeded was because I was talking about something that is really close to my heart; namely, sufi music.

Progress Made

I can't believe we finally completed our last speech. This semester went by extremely fast, but I can say that I learned a lot about public speaking and now feel very comfortable standing in front of a group of people and speaking to them about topics that are dear to my heart.

For my last speech, I decided to speak about dogs. I am a big animal lover and thought my passion would show when I delivered my speech. To make it meaningful to my audience, I spoke about the health problems that many purebred dogs go through. Although I had to conduct a lot of research, I truly enjoyed doing it. I organized my time very efficiently that way the day before the speech, all I would need to do was practice delivering it. I believe this helped me immensely because by the time I had to deliver my speech, I was so familiar with the information and the authors that I felt like I just had to speak to my peers about what I learned. I had no difficulty memorizing which authors conducted which research. When I deliver my next presentation, I will make sure to organize my time as I did with my final speech that way it comes off natural. I was certainly nervous in the beginning, but I do feel I made progress feeling confident in front of the class.

I am very content with the delivery of my speech. However, I have reflected upon things that I could have done better. I thought my visual aid was excellent. I really liked the graphics, but I wonder if they were distracting to my audience. I had A LOT of graphics, so I hope they were not overwhelming to my peers. Likewise, I wish I would have engaged with the slides more. For one of the slides, I had to explain how the dog was domesticated. Although the information made sense to me, I wish I would have broken it down more so that it was more comprehensive to my peers. I am also not sure, if my explanation of genetics made sense. Perhaps I should have narrowed down the content that I delivered.

Overall, I am happy about my final speech and I hope my classmates learned more about purebred dogs and the factors they should take in consideration when they adopt their next dog. Thinking about my first speech and my last one, I believe I have made progress. I can't wait to see how I rise up to my next speech outside of COMM 204.

Eric Pinashin: Craigslist Sensory Aid Speech

Good Afternoon Students and Cynthia of Comm 204,

Well, I guess this was a bittersweet ending of my speech days in Comm 204, but I'm glad that I went out and did my speech in a way which I enjoyed. I definitely enjoyed this speech out of all my speeches, and I hope that you felt the same way too.

At first, I wanted to present my entrepreneurial hobby in a PowerPoint format, but was then later inspired to not have a single PowerPoint slide, and wanted to get the audience in the driver seat on how I actually buy and sell cars. The 2 vehicles which I found on Craigslist and on CarMax were not found beforehand, and were found on the moment of my presentation. The reason why I had included CarMax in my presentation, was because I wanted to have it as a comparison to Craigslist prices, which  I think ended up working nicely in the end. I think I was able to grab the audiences attention by shifting away from a traditional PowerPoint, and by addressing my first hand experience and knowledge of the topic. Asides from presenting an informative topic, I wanted to throw in some facts for the audience to be able to digest and appreciate along with my topic. Even though our speeches are supposed to be narrow on a particular topic, I felt that this slight deviations brought an extra touch to my speech which hopefully made it more memorable.

I think that this speech had a few more negatives than positives, so I will try to keep it short and to the point. First, I completely forgot the order and facts that I wanted to present to the audience, but hopefully after I regained composure, that the audience was still able to appreciate the facts I presented, even though they were not in the order that I had anticipated. Second, I had my back turned to the audience a few times when I was engaged in my searches on Craigslist, which could have probably disengaged the audience, and could have easily been fixed with me wearing my glasses so I could've saw the screen being illuminated by the projector. Third, I felt that that my order of presentation was a bit off, and threw the audience off a bit, especially with my presentation of the pink slip and CarFax in the hyperlink. And finally, I should have probably showed images of some of the vehicles I sold, and should've shared a few personal stories when I sold my vehicles, but once again, I ran out of time and was not able to get around to the slightly more interesting parts of my speech that I wanted to get to.

I hope that everyone in the class was able to enjoy my speech, because I sure was able to enjoy everyone's awesome speeches :). Everybody did an amazing job, and I was able to see the progress since the beginning of the semester (not that anyone did bad on their first speeches :) ).

Thank you everyone for an awesome semester of speeches, and thank you Cynthia for an awesome semester of mentorship and for your awesome speeches that you delivered to us :)

Thanks,

Eric Pinashin

#AskMeAboutMySpeech

         This speech went infinitely better than I expected. I was unable to make it to class the day of peer edits and I believe that this may have hurt my speech content. In the past, I have always praised the speech outline as I feel that they are extremely helpful in constructing the speech and strengthening one’s arguments. Each time so far, I have appreciated and valued the constructive criticisms from my peer evaluations as this process improves my speech structure, content, and overall effectiveness. Regardless, I tried my best to mimic my last speech outline as I felt that it was very strong and well drafted. Although I was unable to have a classmate review my draft, I looked over past suggestions I had received and applied them to my rough drafts. In terms of content, I found it rather difficult to find academic sources as the #AskHerMore campaign began less than four months ago. Because of this, I used resources from a communication class in which I am currently enrolled as well as a film class I took last semester. The research portion of this project was my greatest challenge, yet it helped my think critically and apply other coursework to the world around me.

         In the delivery of my speech, I felt quite relaxed, as I was confident in my knowledge of the subject. I really enjoyed using a visual aid and videos to better convey my message and I believe that the clips I selected were effective. At first, I embedded the videos into the PowerPoint to minimize time wasted fumbling between tabs. This, however, created an issue: my file was much too large to be emailed. Luckily, I was able to remove them from the presentation and emailed the edited file and video links, which solved the dilemma.

         In conclusion, this sensory aid speech taught me the importance of having a back-up plan or two in case something go awry. Also, I have realized how crucial peer editing is when constructing an argument for your peers. This process is essential in crafting a strong presentation. In my Final speech, I hope to receive feedback before completing my project.  

Baby Steps!

         Out of any speech I have ever given, I would say that I was the most prepared for this persuasive speech. In my initial outline, I failed to prepare a thesis statement and an adequate conclusion, something that my peer editors noted. They also provided a great amount of constructive criticism that was extremely useful in finalizing my outline and resulted in a better finished product. I used these critiques to craft my best COMM 204 speech yet. I believe I used the prefect amount of research: just enough to support my claims, but not too much that it may drown them out. Furthermore, I had more time to prepare and practice my delivery than I did for my Informative speech.

         My delivery significantly improved from the informative speech as well. I wrote less on my cards as I relied heavily on them for the first speech and did not want to allow myself to use them as a crutch. For this speech, I only wrote the order of the speech, transitions, quotes, and my thesis statement. Although I did not use the cards as frequently as I did before, I would like to continue to improve on my usage. In addition, I finally understood how important it is to rehearse your speech in advance. In my first run-through I realized that my speech was well over the time limit and seemed to be choppy. With each practice, I noticed the delivery felt more smooth and natural and fit the time requirement. Another important lesson I gathered from this experience is that speaking about a topic you are interested or passionate about makes the speech more interesting. I stumbled upon my topic of “Celebrity Privacy Rights” after Googling a list of persuasive speech topics. It peaked my interest making finding research more exciting and hopefully my excitement made the speech more stimulating.      

         In my next speech, I would like to refrain from using notecards at all. I have been using them as a crutch. Even though I feel confident and prepared, I have noticed that the presence of the cards causes me to rely them. As for the next speech, I am excited to incorporate a visual aid. Many of my classmates have used them in the first two speeches and they have been extremely effective. I hope to refrain from using too many picture or words as some of my classmates’ presentations have presented an overwhelming amount of information at once. Hopefully, in my class discussion presentation, I can present the “Don’ts” of PowerPoint from the article, “How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint.”

         Overall, I am pleased with how this speech turned out and I look forward to continuing to improve for my Visual Aid Speech!

KarpasD Sensory Aid Reflection

Well, once again all went well with my speech. This was my favorite project yet. At the start I was excited to share with the audience my one true passion. Being that way made discussing it much easier. I’ve also enjoyed seeing everyone else’s speeches improve. In the end, everybody had their own unique way of getting their point across. There were improvements, though, that were noticeable with all. In all, over this term I have become a much better public speaker. Now, I can go on and use my new skills in meaningful ways.

Well, this course sped by. Only thing there is to do now is to do this final project. I know that my project will be relevant to movie making and film. I had a lot of fun sharing my moviemaking knowledge with everyone, so lets repeat that. The great part about doing that was that I not only taught, but I also learned. Even talking about stuff I already knew took lots of research to back it up. For example, I was pretty confident at the start that Stanley Kubrick made the “steadicam” famous. In was not until I did further research, though, where I found out that he did.
The idea will come to me. In the meantime I’ve got another paper due. Being in the library thinking about something else will help me think of ideas for this final project. For now I am just happy that I completed most of this course with some great success. Thanks, Cynthia!

Sensory Aid Speech: Twitter #Hashtags

I just gave my sensory aid, or visual aid, speech on Twitter hashtags! I definitely came out of it feeling really good and this is probably the first time after a speech where I felt a sense of true confidence in my delivery and topic. I think it has to do with the fact that social media is literally a huge aspect of my professional career and so therefore this is a topic that I am actively engaged. Creating the three types of hashtags, in-group, sudden large-scale world impact, and reoccurring hashtag to talk about made it a lot easier to not only follow but teach to the class. I really enjoyed using Twitter to accompany my speech because the interaction would make the class more familiar with the platform and it was a lot easier to show real life examples instead of just having screenshots of the hashtags and search engine. I also really enjoyed having to pivot or improvise with the currently trending hashtags when showing examples since I did not know #FridayFeeling with the photo of the cute pig would be the one that I end up using as an example for replying, retweeting, and favoriting.
In terms of constructive criticism for myself, I do wish that I could have looked at the screen less because that takes away from the eye contact and engagement that I could have with the audience. When giving visual aid speeches with a live platform, like Twitter, I think it would nice to have a smaller screen in front of me so that I can know what I am doing when I am typing and clicking on things but still ensure that I am facing the audience and not just turning back and forth.
Making and presenting this speech was such a positive experience for me and it really helped me realize that it is so important to be excited about what you are presenting and to have passion for what you talk about. This leads me to think that it is extremely important on a larger scale with my job and what I do because in order for me to be enthusiastic and do a great job, I have to enjoy and believe in what I am doing.

"Why Isn't it called ludicrous speed" Tesla P85D reflection

It's not called ludicrous speed, probably because Elon would get sued by Mel Brooks. Out of all the speeches, this was by far my favorite to do. The amazement on your faces when I showed the second video is why I (and the class) chose this topic; Not only do I find it personally interesting, but I knew that you would also find it interesting. It's a revolutionary car as I mentioned, all wrapped up in a beautiful package.

What I think I did good on this project is my visual aids. Many hours spent sitting behind my computer slaving on Premiere Pro paid off, me thinks. Furthermore I picked a topic the class had wanted me to talk about, so there's that too.

The worst thing about my project? Timing. I went over. Also I stuttered and forgot to add one extra bit information. The acceleration on the Tesla hits over 1.3G from 0-24 mph. That's more G's than freefall, to you skydivers.

What I learned while making this project is that just a few years ago, before the Model S and supercharging, the future of the electric car was bleak. And it still is unless you have a Model S. (Trust me, I'd never buy any other electric car because they can't supercharge).

Oh, and if you read my last blog, where I said "This wasn't what I had originally intended to be my topic for the persuasive speech. That topic, however is going to be my visual speech (I wasn't able to get the visual aids on time). ", Sorry. That wasn't actually what I had intended to do, as I had to delay it. But it will be my Final project, because it's the most important one of all.

Is being persuasive being passionate?

If there is a single realization I had about preparing and delivering a persuasive speech, it is that there must be a passion for the topic or issue. For instance, I am passionate about immigration issues with especially when it comes to educational opportunities for undocumented students. This is why I decided to prep a persuasive speech on the benefits of the DREAM Act. In doing so, I was hoping to inform my audience about the DREAM Act and how it can help undocumented students improve their quality of life and as a result improve the nation. Because I have a passion for the topic, I was able to craft an argument in a way that refuted all the opposition arguments towards the DREAM Act. I directly assessed concerns and provided evidence supporting the benefits of the DREAM Act.

At the same time, being a firm supporter of the act allowed me to employ logos, ethos and pathos in my arguments. I would employ my facts and statistics to illustrate my points. My points would be based on ethics and civil rights, and they were presented in a way meant to appeal to the emotions of the audience. That is when my passion for the topic influenced my delivery- it was in my appeal to the pathos. I have no evidence that the members of my audience were moved or impacted but that was my intention. That brings me to the actual delivery of my speech.

Compared to the informational speech, the persuasive speech was a stronger speech. A common issue I had in both was the timing, which comes down to not dividing my time equally on my points. My points for this speech were more concise and had parallel structure compared to the lengthy and complex points I had in my informational speech. When it comes to actually speaking, I controlled my voice level and tempo more including control over inflections. I felt confident and comfortable speaking to the audience about a topic I stand strongly behind and know plenty of. My visual PowerPoint slides had more content than what they should have, but it is definitely something to fix for my visual aid speech. I want to step it up for the last speech and deliver effectively and on time. I have made enough mistakes in my past speeches to conceptualize what I need to modify.