Preparation for my TED talk began with watching examples of TED talks. I have not really watched them until this year, so I wanted to familiarize myself with them. When watching these I noticed the conversational attitude they had and wanted to replicate it because it seemed to make the topic a lot more interesting. And I wanted my topic to be something that the audience could really connect with, so that is why I chose the topic of nostalgia because it is a feeling we all have that influences us.

I tried to make it a point to connect with the audience by using the pictures of childhood toys and shows that most of the audience would have been familiar with from when they were kids. I also used main topic points like the Penn State throwback game and Beauty and the Beast because they are things that the audience would be familiar with, so my speech would better resonate with them. Pathos was a large part of my TED talk because I was talking about an emotion that influences them in their day to day life and in proving this I used products and other things that they most likely felt nostalgia for. I think I executed audience engagement well because in the beginning a lot of them did react to the images I showed because it did evoke nostalgia. Things I could do better is add ethos to help strengthen the argument to show it is not all conjecture. Also I could have added a few more points to talk about and I could have elaborated more on the topic points that I did have.

While presenting my speech I did try to make eye contact with the audience. I did well particularly in the beginning, but I did falter towards the end when I realized there was still a lot of time left. I also did tend to look back at the screen to make sure the remote was working. In the future I could improve by looking at the camera behind the audience, so I do not look as obvious. I also forgot my speech altogether when I realized the time. I did regain composure, so there is not much I could have done other than become better at thinking on my feet. I would have prepared more topics if I knew I was going to almost run out of time, but when I was practicing my speech I was over five and a half minutes. When looking back at my speech I noticed I forgot some of the elaboration for each point. So for next time I am going to have to remember to elaborate for a longer amount of time. I think my tone worked well, I tried to maintain a more conversational style. I did this best particularly at the beginning with the introduction and then with the Beauty and the Beast topic when I likened the movies gross profit to out of state tuition.