Speech Review

I feel much more confident in my speech after hearing the reviews from my peers in breakout rooms on Tuesday.  I know that I have to take everything with a grain of salt because it is a very plausible possibility that my classmates are simply too kind to provide harsh feedback on anyone’s speeches, but nevertheless, they boosted my confidence in my speech.

I had assumed that my presentation and public speaking aspect was going to be relatively strong, and my classmates confirmed that for me.  I’ve always liked public speaking and I consider it one of my strengths.  Recently, as I mentioned in one of my passion blogs, I started mock trial.  This has definitely enhanced my public speaking, ability to speak off the cuff, and body language as well.  Many closing and opening statements in trial are anywhere from 6 to 9 minutes long, a 3-5 minute speech didn’t feel very long and I was comfortable being able to speak to the camera for the entirety of the speech.

I did receive some much needed constructive criticism from my classmates on the content part of my speech.  They liked my intro and one or two of my three main points in analyzing the rhetoric, but upon closer inspection I agreed that I could’ve used some more analysis on my last point about eliciting emotion from the audience.  I came dangerously close to summarizing the ad on my last point rather than talking about the specific emotions that the advertisement drew out from the audience.  This became obvious to me after my peers pointed out how much I analyzed the first 2 points but then essentially just summarized the final point.  I am glad that we had the opportunity to view each other’s presentations and provide feedback because a different perspective on the same topic is always useful.