Overall my speech was fairly successful. I accomplished what I set out to explain rhetorically. If I could go back and edit my performance beyond just “prep more” I would make sure I slowed down my speaking. While I did stay within the time limit I could have taken longer to explain my points. I wouldn’t even change the words much, I would just pause slightly longer and talk at a more conversational speed. During my practice sessions, I took almost thirty seconds longer to do my speech that my final time on stage.

One thing that I felt differentiated me from the rest of my class was my level of dress. Of all the people in the class, only I dressed up in a blazer. This was not a requirement so I didn’t really expect anyone else to, but I felt that it helped my presentation. Nothing makes me feel more confident than looking presentable in a nice suit. When giving a speech confidence is key to a good performance on stage.

The amount of preparation I underwent for this speech was adequate. From office hours to just practicing on my own all of it was necessary for a good speech, yet, even so, more could be done. Not only was my speech too fast, but more of it could have been memorized. Not the main points, but rather the thesis and transitions. The rubric said points would start to be lost with less than 80% eye contact. I felt like I met this requirement, but there is always room for improvement.

The most important part of my prep process that I feel made an impact was flipping my two main points. By talking about liberty first it allowed me to elaborate on how definitions of liberty and civic engagement can vary from person to person. If I stuck with personal definitions first and then narrowed it down to liberty my speech would have had a poorer structure and over would have been less effective.