Looking back at my TED Talk, the first thing I can say is that my performance is exactly what I was looking for. One of the things I “feared” most about doing this assignment was that it could end up being more of a speech than an actual TED Talk, so I think that I made key decisions throughout the nearly six minutes I talked for in order to make my speech stand out as a TED Talk. The most notable one was to frame the whole issue with the cigarette as a battle/war between two armies: the anti-tobacco movement and the cigarette. I feel this was efficient in both conveying the ideas I wanted, and also captivating the audience in a more casual way, which I feel is what TED Talks are all about. Another thing I feel I did strongly was providing adequate pieces of evidence at the necessary times in order to enrich my argument. Overall, the performance was solid and met my personal expectations. Something to work on for next time would be timing. Knowing which key information to talk about and which less important one to leave out. I felt that perhaps I included a little bit too much information that wasn’t vital to support my arguments.
One of the ideas that initially came to mind when thinking about a public controversy was the bizarre question of what the longest river in the world is. Or, in a similar fashion, what the longest coastline is. Focusing on the former, though, this controversy which obviously lays basis on facts is extremely interesting to explore. How can we say for certain, in mathematical and geographical standards, which is the longest river in the world? The reason why this idea came to my mind too, because, yes, it’s kind of a weird proposal, is because it really surprises me how governments fight each other for the title of having the longest river in the world. There have been many political disputes between Egypt and Brazil, which are the home countries to the Amazon and the Nile rivers, just to see who “possessed” the longest of the two. I feel it would be interesting to investigate the geopolitical advantages having the longest river in the world yields, or simply explore why would countries fight over this factual controversy.
To be honest, I didn’t even know there was a debate over the longest river in the world. It is definitely a unique topic that I would not mind looking into. When you really stop to think about it, there are a lot of questions that come up involving the nations’ respective wealth, resources, quality of life, etc. respective to having this title.
I never would have thought of the debate as to which river is longest river in the world as a topic because it is so bizarre. I do like this topic and I think it could be interesting and different from everyone else’s.