I apologize for my congestion and lack of energy – unfortunately, I haven’t been feeling my best over the past couple of days. Nonetheless, I’m ready to hear some feedback!
I wish I could say what was effective and what wasn’t effective, but I can’t really give good insight because giving a speech in front of the class is much different than giving a practice speech via Zoom. I think the outline is effective though because I feel like my thoughts are generally organized (I just need to worry about what I specifically say).
I do have a lot of questions for you guys, so I’d appreciate it if you took the time to answer some or all of them (of course if you see someone who’s already answered one question, you could try to answer a different one).
- How was my content (the confirmation)? Was it easy/hard to follow? Did I talk too much about one topic and make it too confusing? Is there anything that I should talk about that could replace something else in my speech?
- Did I hit all of the components of the speech (noticeable, I might add)? Is there anything I missed? Is there anything I should add?
- I realize that I probably didn’t give my best performance because it was over Zoom and I feel a little under the weather. Nonetheless, do you have any suggestions to improve my delivery?
- Anything suggestions you’d like to make in general?
Hi Matt! I will address your question of if you hit every component of your speech. I think your speech is structured in a way where it is easy to follow and I could probably identify where everything belongs. I could tell it was your introduction with the question posed to the audience and the way you tied that question with your political cartoon. Your background information was the point where you were explaining the Dewey-Truman election. The confirmatio was when you were explaining voter apathy and the expert opinions. The refutation came when you were talking about whether the political cartoon was actually expressing the ideas you were referring to, instead of a more simple message. Your conclusion was signaled by a call to action, telling us to use our voice. I don’t know if this was helpful or not, but maybe seeing how an audience member interprets the organization of your speech will help see if you need to make something more clearly part of one section rather than another. I think the delivery is difficult to address over Zoom, but I think you put good emphasis on what you wanted us to pay attention to, especially at the end with the call to action.
Hi Matt! Overall, your speech was easy to follow and made sense. Giving your background information when you did provided good context for your argument. I was also easily able to tell when you stated your thesis/partitio, as you mentioned the commonplaces behind the cartoon that you wanted to discuss.
One thing I’d like to suggest adding is a mention of the importance of the rhetorical situation/kairos of the cartoon in your thesis, along with the commonplaces you’ll be discussing, since you do discuss the timing of the cartoon a lot throughout your speech. I like your ending; it is strong and to the point. Good luck on your presentation!
Hi Matt,
I too found your speech easy to follow along, you made each point of your topic clear and articulated your thoughts well throughout your speech. I will speak in terms of your presentation, of course this may not fully apply as it is very different giving a speech over zoom (whilst feeling under the weather) to giving a speech in person. I feel as though you could make your pauses slightly more dramatic by making them slightly larger before saying points like “however…” as this will add emphasis to your points. I found your conclusion very effective with a call to action. Good luck with your speech!