Self-Evaluation 3

I think that in my persuasive speech, I got my point across. I stumbled a bit and rushed it, but I think the material I had helped me prove my point. It was kind of awkward giving my speech when there was on my one person to present to. It was hard to make eye contact with only one person and it was hard to make it a presentation, rather than just talking to someone one on one. I feel like I would have done better if there were other people in class because I was uncomfortable with only one person. It was hard to make it formal when I was only presenting to one person, so I felt like I was talking to them instead of presenting. I was confident with my material and I knew what I wanted to say, it was just awkward pretending to have an audience; it felt like a practice speech. If I had to do it over again, I definitely would not stumble and rush it as much as I did. My speech ended up being short because I skipped over some things that I wanted to say and forgot the others. I felt like my delivery wasn’t that great, but I had good content and organization. I felt like organization was my strongest point because everything led from one thing to another. I started with stating the problem, then giving a possible solution, and then showing how this affects people. I feel like at I had a lot of supporting material, because in the end I gave many statistics that related to my subject and ended it with my strongest one. I think the biggest difference was how comfortable I was with the subject. I feel like I was less comfortable about this topic because I wasn’t as passionate about it as my informative speech. Also, I needed a lot of research with my persuasive speech, as compared to my informative speech which I already knew a lot about the subject. I think the only thing distracting about this speech was the fact that there was no audience. I think it made it more difficult to just present to jus tone person, as compared to a crowd. I think I would give my eye contact a 9 because I knew my speech well and I did look up a lot, I just didn’t have anyone to look at. I think I would give myself a B because my speech was shorter than usual and I did stumble more than usual. I think I at least deserve a B because I had good eye contact, I was loud, and I had really good content and knew my topic. I don’t think this speech was as good as my informative speech because I don’t feel it was as strong. I know I got my point across, but I still don’t feel I was as confident or passionate about it as I was my informative speech. In my informative speech, I was very passionate about educating people about my culture, and although I was passionate about my persuasive topic, I wasn’t as excited for it. I mentioned four sources in my speech at the end when I gave statistics. Out of the demonstration speech, informative, and persuasive speeches, I feel like my informative speech was my strongest. In my demonstration speech, I was still getting use to public speaking and stumbled a lot and even during my persuasive speech, I stumbled. But I feel like my informative speech was almost flawless because I was so confident and educated about my topic, that it was easy to inform people about it.

What concept or concepts from the class that you thought was the most helpful in preparing your speeches?

I think the most helpful concept from this course was how to make effective media for a presentation. I learned tricks on how to make my power points effective, and learned that I was doing a lot of things wrong in my presentation. For example, I didn’t know that color schemes really mattered when using a power point and that you should barely use any writing. I found it a lot more effective to use only a sentence or two in each slide and to use bold to emphasize my main points. This makes it more clear to the audience the point I’m trying to get across. Also, I learned not to put too much on a slide because this can distract the audience from my speaking.

Which speech was your favorite and why?

My favorite speech was the informative speech. This was my favorite speech because I feel that I was most confident with this speech and I really enjoyed informing people about my topic. Persian New Year is something that’s very important to me and it was easy to inform others about it. I felt like it was the best speech I gave and I feel that the audience understood what I was trying to inform them about. Also, it was easy for me to give a speech about Persian New Year because even without looking at the slides because even if I forgot my lines, I knew the topic well and could easily make up for it.

What are you going to take from this class that you think will be helpful in future endeavors?

I think that the speech tips will be very helpful in future endeavors such as company speeches. Persuasive speaking was a very important topic that will be very useful later in life. I think everything we learned will be helpful when speaking to other people and trying to prove a point and being persuasive. It’s important to know how be professional and how to present yourself when giving a persuasive speech. When working for a company and you are trying to pitch an idea, you need to know how to go about presenting yourself. I think the class helped a lot with that. I think that knowing how to make a slide show and presentation media is also important. I learned how to make slides effective and presentable. I also learned that I shouldn’t crowd my slides with words but to show more pictures and use italicizes to make my words more dramatic and emphasized.

speech buddy!

In the 15.1 video, they explain the basics for a persuasive speech. They say the four elements are the thesis, claim, evidence and reasoning. The video describes that the thesis states the main point and your position of your speech. It is key that in your thesis you give you main points so the audience knows what you will be talking about. You support your thesis by using claims, evidence and reasoning. Claim is the position you want your audience to understand. Evidence is facts and statistics used to support your claim. The reasoning is the process you use to link your claim and evidence. In the video, they show an example of Jessica giving a speech. She states her thesis and then her position. She gives her main point then explains why she feels that way. She then uses a story and facts to support her position. In the next speech, a man uses statistics to support his claim. He did a cause and effect relation to show his point. In the Home Schooling Pro video, the girl does a good job by using an example by asking questions. She state her thesis in the beginning and engaged the audience. Her stance is that home schooling has more advantages than public schools. She used the example of Columbine to show that public schools violence is high and she used a journal to get a quote to support her main point. In the home schooling con video, the man describes that home schooling is not beneficial. He states his main points at the beginning in his thesis. He uses stories and examples to show that parents should not be teachers. He used an issue of Mclains to give a statistic and used another book to quote a man who agreed with his point of view. Both speeches were concrete and persuasive.

Types of Reasoning

There are many different types of reasoning that are effective in persuasive speeches. There is deductive reasoning which reasoning from a general condition to a specific case. The book gives an example "Granny Smith apples are tart. The apple i have is a Granny smith apple so it is tart." Deductive reasoning can have its weakness by leading to false assumptions. Another form of reasoning is inductive. This is when you use specific examples to make a general assumption. Inductive reasoning is very persuasive because you use a solid fact, which is easy to rely on and believe. The next form is causal reasoning. Causal reasoning is linking two events or actions to a claim. For example, you can study for a test on a specific chapter by studying one section in the chapter everyday leading up to the test. If you do good on the test, you will assume that because of your studying method, you did good. This is causal reasoning because one event led to another. So in the future, you will think that if you do that type of studying again, you will receive a good grade again. This can have a weakness because it can be false. The cause and effect link may be false, and it might not be that that form of studying will actually make you receive a high grade every time you use it. The last form of reasoning is analogical reasoning. Analogical reasoning is comparing two similar objects. An example can be comparing a person to an object. For example you can say "Mickey is like a rose" and "A rose smells sweet." So if you put the two together, you get that Mickey smells sweet. I think these different types of reasoning will be very usual in a persuasive speech.

Recent Discussion

A few weeks ago I had an in depth discussion with my family. We had all gathered in the family room to fill out our absentee ballots for the presidential election. We usually agree on most things in politics, but for once we had something to argue about. We had gotten around to voting on the props, and it seemed that it was me and my sister in law against my two brothers and my parents on a certain one. Prop 8 is the proposition that if passed, would ban same-sex marriage. It seemed that the only ones who were against it were my sister-in-law and me. What usually is a calm discussion turned into a heated argument when i asked my dad why he decided he would want it banned. Since I am really stubborn, i didn't understand his position on the issue, even though i still respected his opinion. I was strongly opposing this proposition because a lot of my Friends and family members are gay, and i would never want any law to be passed that would limit their rights and discriminate against them. In the discussion, I spent an hour trying to persuade my family to vote against the proposition. In attempt to persuade them, i gave them all my main points of why they shouldn't vote for it. I tried to relate it to them personally so that it would impact them. I used examples of close family members and tried to point out that if they voted for it, they would be banning rights from their own family. Regardless of their position on people being gay or lesbian, i tried to convince them that we should never discriminate or limit some one's rights. I tried to make comparisons to relate gay marriage to other things they were familiar with. I was so passionate about the topic, that i think it showed. Every point they tried to make against me was turned back around. In the end, I didn't get them to vote against the proposition, but it was mostly because my parents are old fashioned. Even though they support the gay community, they still don't believe marriage should be for them. Although i didn't think i got through to them, i feel like they understand my position on prop 8 better. Maybe eventually they will change their point of view.