Public Speaking for the 21st Century

This man is really out here like "SPEECH EVALUATION IS IMPORTANT" when I'm constantly evaluating and HATING my speeches. Like... boi. Anyways, I certainly didn't hate this week in fact I thought it was quite important and I really liked the speech rubric they made. I've already sent videos from this week to my speech coach to offer to novices as a lesson for how they should be reading ballots and watching videos of their own speeches. I also told my mom that this is how I want her to judge my speeches from here forward. I think students trying to only edit two or three things at a time is a good idea and certainly could have helped me when I was feeling really overwhelmed while first learning about speech and trying to edit speeches. My question here would be "What do you do when you find a problem that you don't know how to fix?" because a lot of the time comments that I get I don't know how to fix. EG "you're too shrill" "yo...

Speech evaluation is dreaded by nearly all public speakers. The ones who do not dread it are exceedingly odd. Speech evaluation is daunting because it feels a lot like inviting criticism for something that took a lot of effort. There are a few ways to make it as painless as possible. First, the speaker should evaluate themselves. They may do so by watching their speech in a mirror as they give it, or they may video record their speech and watch it after giving it. The speaker should be evaluated on their introduction, body, supporting materials, conclusion, language, vocal, and nonvocal delivery. While it is important to evaluate all of the categories, only one or two subcategories of the speech should be attempted to be improved at one time. If a speaker tries to improve too many different things, their focus will be split and none of the attempts will really be successful. Speech evaluation is important to Public Speaking because it is the mechanism by which speakers get better at t...

This week is about speech evaluation 1) get others to evaluate you           When you do this take either 2 or 3 of their ideas and implement only those           If you try to do more it will result in TEARS and CONSTERNATION 2) watch yourself in a mirror           This is a last ditch thing, very ineffective because it's hard to focus of speaking and evaluating                   at once 3)Video yourself            Good strat because you will be harsher to yourself than any other critic            Allows you to go over the same speech repeatedly Speech rubic RITx Speech Rubric

I really liked this week of the course. It's highly applicable to the type of public speaking I do, especially compared to the last week. When I introduce freshmen to Limited Prep 'LP' speaking (the type of speech I compete in) I tell them that it's all about learning how to bullsh*t their way through a bad speech. This week is literally a dude who has a college degree saying the same thing and then teaching how to BS your way through a speech. I especially like that so much time was spent discussing word choice because that's often what I get faulted for at tournaments. It's unfortunate that this entire class is circled around public address/preprepared speeches because much of his advice for word choice was to use outside materials like friends or thesauruses but you aren't allowed to do that in LP.  In fact doing so is cheating. I think it'd be really interesting to see what he has to say about dealing with word economy in the context of an LP speech....

A common misconception for many people is that speech delivery is an innate talent that can neither be improved nor worsened. In truth though, it's a skill that people get better at with practice. Unfortunately, the people who say they are bad public speakers often get discouraged and do not practice, making their discouragement a self fulfilling prophecy. This is especially damaging for people with communication anxiety. One way to get better at giving speeches is to be highly intentional with word choice. Using language that is not only illustrative but also inclusive and aware of the diversity of the audience is highly important. It is also important to have what public speakers refer to as "word economy". Word economy is using as few words to say as much information as possible. While using few words is important, it's even more important to use simplistic ones. The easier the words in a speech are to understand, the less likely a speaker is to lose the audience...

Choose words that: are clear, concise and that you understand call to mind ideas, pictures, or experiences for the listener are appropriate for the context of the speaking situation are inclusive of everyone in the audience Non-Verbal Communication Speak at an appropriate rate of speed Use pauses to capture audience attention and refocus listeners Be sure your pronunciation and articulation is accurate, especially for regional words Dealing with Communication Anxiety Become knowledgeable about public speaking Gain experience speaking publicly Think positively about your speech Stay focused on your topic Make use of visual aids Practice, practice, practice

On one hand, this class is lowkey below the level of public speaking/communication studies that I'm at. It's also lowkey not applicable to what I'm doing with communication in that I never get to know what physical setting I'm speaking in until I walk into the room. I never know who I'm speaking in front of and I find out what I'm speaking on about 30 minutes before I actually start speaking! Oops. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to go back to basics when it comes to writing speeches. Despite the fact  that I've won a bunch of huge forensics tournaments, I only got a B in the speech class that I took my freshman year. (Please don't tell anyone that it's my biggest shame XD) I'm definitely reestablishing my understanding of concepts that I never really internalized in that class and getting ideas for how I can teach new students in Speech and Debate how to prepare for and write speeches. I've also seen a new speech outline with parall...

Preparing to write a speech can be just as important as actually writing a speech when it comes to giving a good performance. Failure to understand the audience can lead to a speaker being impossible to connect to on a human level. It is downright awkward when somebody gives a formal speech in an informal environment (or vice versa). If a speech is being given in competition, it is a disqualification level offense to write a persuasive speech for the informative category or a informative speech for the entertainment category. Finally, even the best outlined speeches can come out sounding disjointed if the author of the speech did not have their information well organized before starting the writing process.  Understanding how to prepare for a speech is imperative to public speaking because speeches are exponentially worse the less prepared that the presenter is. Most people's communication anxiety comes from a fear of embarrassing themselves by giving a bad speech and as such, bei...

The entire following sequence of steps was taught at Florida State University Accept Assignment     Who are you speaking to     What is the Occasion     What are you supposed to speak on Analyze Audience: Demographics/Psychologics           Source: Communicating Between Cultures by Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, and Roy     Give the speech for others not for yourself     If you can see a demographic when you speak, you must think about it when preparing     Be careful to think about the audience's predispositions when writing your speech Analyze Audience: Gather Info     Consider doing a questionnaire especially when dealing with controversial topics Analyze Occasion     What time of day will the speech be?     Is it formal or informal?     How big will your audience be?     What physical setting will your speech be in? Purpose of Speech? ...