Tag Archives: Speech

Speech Reflection

For those of you who don’t remember, my speech was on study abroad (I opened with the whole “It’s Monday morning in Shanghai” bit, if that helps at all). While I was fairly satisfied with the content of my speech, I knew going up that my delivery was probably going to be slightly below what I could have done had I practiced a little more.

Maybe it would have been better if I’d never written it out in paragraph form – when I write things down, I tend to get attached to my original wording and the whole speech can feel a bit contrived.

Sticking to my original wording wouldn’t be an issue if I had completely memorized it – I write the way I speak, for the most part, so it stands to reckon that I should be able to deliver my speech naturally. However, due to the combined powers of procrastination and that annoying human need for adequate sleep, my memorization skills were by no means up to par.

So I can see how my speech may have come across as a bit scripted – at times I had to pause briefly to remember the exact wording of the thought I wanted to deliver next. It’s that perfectionism I still haven’t managed to shake off (it’s a destructive force of nature, truly).

However, I really was happy with my content and, especially, with my introduction and conclusion. I felt like I explained my point well and at least started and ended interestingly enough.

And in the end, I’m not sure it would have been any better had I tried to do my speech solely based on an outline – I liked the way I worded my points in my written speech and I don’t regret doing it the way I did at all. I only wish I’d given myself more time for memorization and practice, because the 90 minutes I took the night before left some room for improvement.