week 3 response 3

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading (Chapter 5) that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

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I found the section about adapting to your location the most helpful in this chapter. In most cases I have only had experience speech writing or presenting in a classroom setting, about 20-30 students. Because of this I have a certain level of informality stuck in the way I write my speeches. I also have only presented in a group where I know most if not all of the students, so they understand my level of credibility as well as making it less awkward for me to be giving my presentation, since I know my audience. This section has reminded me that even with people that you know or that you can identity with, you need to keep a certain level of formality to keep the focus on your presentation. This is very important because when you are doing a classroom presentation it can be difficult not to keep a professional tone.
Although I found this information helpful, I found some other parts of the section not so much. Where it talks about time of the presentation and how that effects the audience's alertness, it was kind of a no-brainer to me. Oh well, I guess it's not so clear to everybody!

week 3 response 2

2). Discuss the importance of audience analysis and audience adaptation in the speech development process. Also, discuss how YOU plan on using audience analysis in your speech.

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Audience analysis is one of the most important aspects of giving a speech. As I talked about briefly in my last post, knowing your audience is essential to giving a good speech. Before you give a speech, you need to brain storm about who your audience consists of, in ways like age, level of education, and the ideals or focus of a specific group that you could be presenting in front of. These fit into the demographic and pshycographic aspects of audience analysis.
As far as audience analysis goes in preparing for a speech, it outlines what is an is not appropriate to talk about, as well as what will make the speech really reach out to your audience. An example of this gone horribly wrong was in the first of the two speeches we analyzed this week. While the speaker tried to play off the age group he was talking to about drinking by leveling with them by them statistics on their age range, the vomiting noises were inappropriate regardless of the audience's maturity level.
I plan on using this to help our class understand why CPR is practical for them to know, even at our age. A lot of people think that CPR is something only life guards need to know, but it is nessecary for babysitters, camp counselors and many other child-related jobs, a majority of which are held by high school and college aged people.

week 3 response 1

1). Speech Buddy: Review Drinking and Light Pollution videos on the Interactive Video website in accordance with Chapter 5. Respond to each video. What did the speaker do well? What can you learn from watching these videos?

Drinking Video:
Imitating a vomiting noise to open a speech about drinking? Part of talking with a group of people you want to persuade is not grossing them out or insulting them, lines i think were crossed 5 seconds in to this speech. If I was sitting in class listening to a presentation about how drinking was wrong or bad for you, I would be offended when the speaker did that. Secondly, this guy seems to be drunk himself! It looks like he hardly prepared for his speech, his sentences are often disconnected. His visual aid also lacks, because it is exactly what he is saying in his speech. It's like he's reading the transparency instead of actually knowing the facts. The visual aid should be more than just sentences from the speech. With that said, he has good facts, but it jsut doesn't come across well because of how he is presenting the information.

Light Pollution Video:
Unlike the previous video, this speaker sounds sure of her information. It is obvious she knows what she is saying is true, so she says it in a more pronounced way than the last speaker. This is a good way to start a speech! She also says what she is going to cover to the listener knows the key points of the speech. I liek how she used her hands during her speech as well, instead of gripping the podium like the other guys was. She seemed more prepared and ltherefore less stressed out.

The contrast between the two videos shows you how what you are saying can be true or right, but the delivery is one of my key things to producing a good end result. Practice and be sure of your information and all will be well! :)

week 2 response 3

Update the class on your speech preparation progress. What topic have you chosen? What have you been researching? What are you main points in your speech? What do you plan on using for your visual aid?

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Luckily for me, I already know a bit about my topic! I have chosen to demonstrate how to preform CPR, which I am certified in at the moment, after taking a certification test this summer before being a camp counselor. As far as I can tell from looking around on the internet as well as in a book I already own about first aid and CPR, the steps all seem to be the same, so demonstrating it will be pretty straight forward.

main points in my speech includeeeee...
- When preforming CPR became commonly used
- Basic overview of the ideas behind using CPR (what is the purpose of it)
- When to use CPR (tell-tale signs)
- How to actually do it!
- Statistics about CPR (survival rate, how many certified in U.S., etc.)
- how to get certified

As for visual aid.... I'm not really sure yet!! I will probably show pictures of people giving CPR to dummies, since it might be awkward to show it on a person and i don't have a dummy.... hrmm... ideas?

week 2 response 2

I found the initial table in chapter 6 the most helpful. While the rest of the chapter has good overviews of how to research, I felt that it was this table that gave you specific things to do in order to properly organize your research the most helpful! I find it really helpful to have a visual list of the things that I need to do, and this outline is defiantly something I am planning on using for researching my speeches. I never quite thought of all of the things that are on this list, either! Identifying what I know usually goes along with all of the other information, not using it as a basis for getting started.
I am also super excited to start using the table on pages 138 & 139, which have great internet site resources. While it lists Yahoo! and ask.com, sites I have heard about, it also provides sites that could have more credible authors such as INFOMINE, a scholarly resources site that was created by librarians. This will be really handy and help to broaden the way that I collect information for my papers and presentations.

week 2 response 1

What experience do you have with conducting research interviews? What went well? What needed improvement? Share your advice with your class members.
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As far as interviewing people goes I don't have a very good background at all! Just like being a bit shy when it comes to public speaking, I am shy about talking with people that I don't know very well, so doing interviews as a form of research never really appealed to me.
I think the extent of my interviewing career comes from sorority recruitment, where you have a little bit of time to get to know a girl, to see why she is interested in being in a sorority. One thing that I found helpful for that was having set questions in your mind already to ask, making sure that they are questions that are the most important to get the answers to. Having planned out questions sounds like a no-brainer for doing interviews, but you have to be persistent and make sure you get the information you want, while still realizing that fitting all your questions in isn't always realistic. Conversations are hard to control, but that's okay, in almost all cases if you know your questions well enough then it isn't hard to fit them in with any subject that can come up. The trick is to be very well prepared, but keep in mind that convorsations are natural processes that can't be forced, you just have to be a good active listener! :)

Response

When reading through these chapters the one part that i found particularly helpful was the part about maintaining a positive attitude. Speeches stress me out and pretty much all I do is complaining about preparing for them as well as having to give them. Instead I should try keeping an open mind, realize that someone might find what I have to say interesting if I put the effort into it. This is something i try to do in general, stay positive, so I feel like incorporating that part of my life into writing and presenting a speech would really help me loosen up about it!

Interactive Speech thingies

I found these videos both helpful and a not so much so. In the first video, Chapter 2.1, I found it unhelpful that they suggested using diaphragmatic breathing. I associate this type of exercise with when I am in a really stressful situation, so doing the breathing makes me instantly tense up, making the situation more daunting. However, in the Chapter 2.2 video, I felt like there were some good techniques associated to giving good speeches and feeling less anxiety about them, like picking a subject you find interesting to you, and knowing the intro & conclusion very well to give you a strong beginning and ending.
Not to be a Negative Nancy today, but I also really did not like Jessica's introduction speech. I thought it had too many metephors and didn't say much of anything at all about, well, anything. I did not understand the point of the speech, was it to give inspiration, but even then for what cause? It could be a speech about how someone has influenced you, but at the end it seemed pretty preechy. And as an introduction speech? It doesn't say much about her, just what she learned form her brother's introduction into the family. That can't be everything about her, or even a good umbrella topic. I just didn't get it, I guess.