Persuasive Speech Self Evaluation

I presented my persuasive speech on TLC Animal Shelter.

Before presenting, I felt much more confident than I did in the last two speeches. Having the experience of already presenting two speeches and listening to many others' speeches definitely helped my confidence level. It is getting easier to get in front of a group of people and talk. Thankfully, I think these skills will carryover into my future career as a teacher, where I will need to get up in front of a classroom and talk many times every day. Now that I'm realizing it only gets easier, its certainly helping to reaffirm my decision to become a teacher. Thats one thing I didn't expect to get out of this class- but was hoping for. I'm really glad to know that I will be leaving this class with an increased confidence in public speaking. Of course, I still faced the night before nervousness- which I used as energy to just keep practicing.

During the speech, I realized that this confidence seemed to be carrying over. My voice sounded less shaky, and I was fidgeting less with my notecards. Although I stumbled over a few words, I was able to recover from it. It did make my speech a bit choppy with regards to the transitions, but I'm just happy I didn't freeze and lose my overall message! I also think that my enthusiasm for the topic carried over. Some members of the audience seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, and it was easier to emphasize the points needing emphasis (ie, "Donate! Volunteer!") since it was genuine feeling and not forced. This also helped my delivery.

After the speech, I felt confident in my presentation and relieved that I had done it. A combination of practice and past experience paid off, and I felt that I had done a good job with overall content and delivery. Unfortunately, this didn't carryover with my grade, but I was still happy with my presentation, and I plan on using the criticisms constructively towards my next and final speech.

To prepare, I first assembled the general outline of the basic topics I wanted to cover in my speech. Then, I researched animal control websites, the humane societies, and the ASPCA in addition to my organization's website to get a more well-rounded view of the information. I used these sources to formulate clearer ideas, and I then assembled the full-sentence outline. I practiced using this for a while, just to gain confidence in my delivery without worrying about remembering it all. Then, I cut that down to bullet points and my sources for the notecards. I tried practicing with these for a few days, but kept drawing blanks, forgetting where I was at, and just losing the flow of the speech. I remade my notecards with more information, and everything worked out well with practice. With a future speech, I would like to better use my notecards to have the right balance of enough information to get through the speech, without having too much that I need to rely on. The next speech, however, is a manuscript, so I will apply that to my next public speaking occasion. I will continue to practice as much as possible in front of people. It helps both my preparation and my delivery. This worked well for me on the last speech, and even better this time as I did it more- possibly too much, if you ask my family and boyfriend! They might not want to hear about TLC for a while after hearing it for about a week! :) Within the speech, I cited all four of my sources fully.

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.

Life in a Bag Speech Self Evaluation

In preparation for this speech, I first made a general outline which listed each item I wanted to use and some main topics I wanted to cover for each item. My next step was to expand that outline into a full sentence, manuscript-style speech. Once I had that done, I practiced the speech aloud, timing it and adjusting what needed to be changed. After I became confident that I could remember all the main points and the examples I would use, I broke the speech back down into a general outline on notecards, writing key ideas that I didn't want to forget, and practiced it a few more times using only the notecards, again with a timer. I feel that these were all correct steps to make myself prepared for the speech. Next time, I plan on practicing more.

Before the speech, I was very anxious and just wanted it to be over already. I was not able to sleep the night before, and was very nervous as I was driving to class. I even wrote down the wrong room number in my frantic state and ended up being a half hour late to class. This did not help calm my nerves. During the presentation, I was relieved that I seemed to remember everything I wanted to say. I hardly had to look at my notecards. However, standing in front of the room was awful. I felt everyone's eyes on me. I felt the urge to speak quickly so I could return to my seat. My entire body was shaking. I moved around a lot to try to hide it, and filled my speech with "um"s because my voice was shaking, and I was having difficulty getting the words out. Afterwards, I was anxious to see my grade, but glad that it was over. My hands were trembling until I got home, about an hour and a half later.

For the next speech, my delivery will certainly need to be improved. Since it is an informative speech, and I won't be talking about myself, hopefully I will be less nervous. I also feel that more practice would help soothe my nerves. Practicing in front of a person or group of people should help even more. For the next speech I will try to practice at least once in front of my family or my boyfriend, instead of by myself. Also, this will allow me to get their feedback on things I can improve in my speech, including both content and delivery.