LASIK Informative Speech Self-Evaluation

To prepare for this speech, I followed much of the same general pattern as I did with the Life in a Bag speech. First, I created a general outline with each of my main points, and I made note of the specific things I wanted to research to learn more about. Then, I researched the topic. I looked for credible sources, which was harder than I thought it would be. Since my speech topic was LASIK eye surgery, many of the sites that were easily found online were from people trying to sell LASIK. These sites often had biased, exaggerated statements, so I looked for objective, unbiased sites to provide more accurate information. I was able to find one done by the FDA and another done by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Both of these sites were very helpful, as well as the two medical encyclopedias I found at my local library. Unfortunately, there were still a couple points that weren't entirely clear. I was able to ask the two optometrists that I work for about these issues, since we see LASIK patients regularly, and they are very highly educated in that area. I think these researching methods were done correctly, as I only used reliable and credible sources, and I utilized all of the sources I had at my disposal. After doing much research, I was able to expand my general outline into a full-sentence outline, which is what I practiced from. Since last time I had only practiced alone for my speech, and I was very nervous, this time I practiced in front of friends and family. This experience definitely boosted my confidence and improved my delivery. I was much less nervous in front of the room, and therefore my enthusiasm for the topic was allowed room to be shown. I will definitely practice in front of people again for future speeches; it was such a great help! They were able to provide me with honest feedback about delivery and confusing content points that I needed to simplify. Lastly, I broke my speech back down into notecards. However, this is where I think I went wrong. At first, I wrote very generalized bullet points on the notecards and tried practicing from those. I was finding that I wasn't able to remember the exact wording of what I wanted to say, and it was resulting in confusing jargon without adequate explanation. Also, I noticed I was allowed to use a couple extra notecards. Therefore, I wrote out some areas completely which I felt needed precise wording. This resulted in having too much information on my notecards, which I will not be doing again for the next speech. However, taking into consideration the amount of information on the notecards, I feel that I was able to maintain good eye contact with the class, and only referred to the notecards when I forgot what came next.

Before the speech, I was very anxious yet again. This time, though, it was less about being in front of people, and more about forgetting the details of the subject matter. The last speech was about myself, so forgetting details was highly unlikely! However, when dealing with more intricate facts and new information, I felt I was very likely to forget these things. During the speech, I felt much more confident and in control than I did last time. This is probably because I was genuinely interested in the topic, and I had much more practice than last time. However, I still felt shaky and light-headed as I looked out upon the room. I was also very nervous that I would go significantly over the time constraint and be cut off. So, I had to cut out bits and pieces of my speech while I was presenting it to make sure I would have time to conclude. This resulted in a choppy flow of my speech, without adequate transitions between my subtopics. Also, during the speech, I felt that I cited all sources fully, but doing so felt very unnatural. I would want to explain a topic and maintain the flow of speech, but I had to remind myself to stop and interject a book or article title. After the speech, I was yet again relieved. I mentally went over all of the things I forgot to mention or had to intentionally leave out, and I was just hoping it remained a clear, cohesive, and understandable speech.

With regard to my delivery, my voice was still rather shaky, and I was fidgeting and moving because of nerves. However, thanks to my interest in the topic, I think (or at least hope!) that I was still able to appear enthusiastic, confident, and credible. Also, I think I did relatively well with maintaining eye contact.