In reviewing my speech and comparing it to some others that I saw, it’s clear there are certain things I did really well as well as a lot of things I can still work on.
Strengths:
- I feel that my introduction is very successful in getting the viewer to see the moral issue at the heart of African Exploitation. Many people wouldn’t see the artifact in the same way if I didn’t use a relatable and universal lens of comparing the situation.
- My delivery for a lot of things felt pretty good. This isn’t something I was worried about, since public speaking and performance is very comfortable for me at this point.
- Overall, my conception and arrangement flowed well, given that I took on a subject that’s relatively different than what most people focused on. That’s just to say that I had somewhat of a hard time getting this deeply-rooted and uncommonly accepted civic issue to a place of comprehension and understanding for viewers.
Weaknesses:
- I’ll go ahead and admit that my preparation could’ve been better. I procrastinated developing the speech as much because I was focusing on the essay and other things, so I had to do a lot of on-the-spot tweaking when I was recording, which kept me up late.
- I kept changing the ending of the speech up to the final time I recorded it because I just couldn’t find a conclusion that felt like it wrapped up my points, reinstated the thesis, and presented an idea for moving forward with the issue in the time I had left. My ending wasn’t bad, but I’d probably go back and rearrange it if I could.
- Memorization. I think if I spent a bit more time memorizing the wording of my speech and the arrangement of topics, I wouldn’t have had to look at my notes as much. Watching Chris’ speech, he’s completely memorized, and that gives him the freedom to explore intonation, style, gesture, and other aspects of delivery. As an actor, I know how important it is to be off-book when it comes to delivering material effectively.
Overall, I’m happy that I got the speech recorded and submitted, but I will remember for the future that it takes more time commitment to do the best work I can.
~Asim
I also have a habit of procrastination so I totally understand that. It is never bad to go back and tweak things I think that is a good way to improve a speech so do not stress about that!