Journal #1

Chapter 1 discusses the general topics of becoming a public speaker. One of the big discussions I enjoyed reading about was advancing professional goals. This segment of the chapter talked about the skill of public speaking and what that brings to your desired profession, and how the employers insist on how important it is to be able to have good communication. Good communication skills like public speaking will open up new connections for you in all aspects of life. It’s okay to not naturally have good oral or written speech skills, but it is definitely something that you can always be improving and strive for in your career.

Another takeaway from this chapter that interested me was that public speaking is just one of four categories of human communication. This just goes to show how many different aspects human communication has and what role you may play in it. I had no idea the correct terms of the categories until after reading this chapter. Most human conversations fall under the dyadic communication category, which is a conversation between two people. The broadest category of human communication is public speaking, which is a speaker delivering a speech with a specific purpose to an audience of people who are present in the room or place. This is something that any individual may have to go through in their career and they should be prepared for this at all times of their life.

Journal #2

Comfort. Pure comfort. This object holds a special place in many people’s life. This is a place you go to each night, that guarantees relaxation. As you find yourself on this object before you completely conclude the day, this object also is something that determines the start of your next day. It has to be just right for you. You have to find the right one that benefits your body the most. If it’s not comfortable, it won’t work. Your body needs to be accompanied by this object in a positive way.

For me, this object relieves a lot of my stress at the end of my days, especially after a long day on my feet for 10 hours straight. My bed, a happy place, a place where I can just lay and shut my eyes to clear my head or process the day I may have had. My bed is an object in my household that means so much to me, as I spend 6-8 hours of my day there. I have personalized and picked one that fits me just right, comfort-wise and size-wise. I wake up each day nice and refreshed, ready to start my next day off just right.

Outline:

• Comfort
  • Relaxation
  • Stress relief
  • Warm
• Personalized
  • Softness
  • Hardness
  • Size
  • Shape
  • Colors
• Dependency
  • Always can count on it at end of the night
  • Doesn’t move

Journal #3

Chapter 11 is all about organizing a speech and how an individual should go about it. A speech should be well organized into three parts according to the context, an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. When giving a speech, you don’t want to read off from something word for word or not know what you’re going to say next. You want to be able to have your speech flow from sentence to sentence, and this can be done by doing a brief outline of the speech prior to giving it if possible. The introduction should be an explanation of who you are and what you are going to be talking about in your speech, then a strong body of a few supporting points to defend or describe what you mean, and finally a good conclusion that can wrap everything up and you can say goodbye to your audience. In chapter 11 I think a key point is when doing an outline it should not be too wordy, it should just be one sentence on each main point.

Chapter 12 is about different organization patterns to an outline for a speech, and I believe this is very crucial in how you want to go about things. I find myself always going about different things the same way, it’s just how I like to organize things. Depending on what type of speech you may be giving, you can find other organization patterns that may be easier to flow. I think it is important to know and research the different styles so that you can customize your speech the way you want it to come out with having good organization.

Journal #4

I think my speech #2 went pretty well. In speech 2 we were given the instruction to describe a meaningful object in our household to us, and I chose my bed. Many of my other classmates chose small sentimental objects, so I really stuck out with what I chose. I like what I picked and described, as it is something that takes a lot of stress off of me right now in life. Something that I could have maybe done better could be a better showing of my bed, but I felt that was a little weird and personal so I held back a little. I sat on my bed while recording and showed the top half of my bed, and felt as though that were enough for the audience to get a good idea of it. I could have also worked on the conclusion a little more, and this is definitely something I am still figuring out how to say in each speech. I don’t want to just abruptly end my speech right away, but definitely am working on getting more comfortable just saying thank you for listening and that has been my speech about whatever I was discussing. Overall, I enjoyed giving the audience a different type of speech on a big object in my house that has been very nice to have each and every night after a long day.

Journal #5

Chapter 13 discusses outlines for your speech, and how many you should work off of. According to the book, you should create two outlines as you prepare your speech; a working outline and a delivery outline. The working outline is where you are going to originally jot down ideas and or phrases, and rearrange them so that it flows best for you. Also, in the working outline, it is suggested that you create the body of your speech first, as opposed to the introduction. This is because in your introduction you are preparing to state the main points of your speech to open up on, so before you state the main points you need to have the main points all set up and written down. As for the delivery speech outline, this is where you are going to be noting delivery cues like slowing down, sleeping up, or taking a pause moment in between sentences. I really like how in this chapter it gives you full examples of both a working outline and a delivery outline so that we can grasp the full idea of what it should look like.

Journal #6

For my teaching a skill speech I chose to demonstrate how to do a french braid. I did this skill using someone else to do it on so that the camera angle could be better and you could see me in the video. Something that went really well in this speech was the lighting. In some of my past speeches the lighting has not been too well due to the time of day I shot the video, so this time I really decided to work on that. When posting my dry run for this speech, my classmates told me maybe I could make sure you could see me more in the camera frame. I found it difficult to do this because I was really focusing on getting a good spot to put my camera so that you could really see the braid, and how I am doing it without being too far away. I think the speech was very well explained as well, considering it is all followed by one pattern over and over again. Maybe from my video demonstration and speech, somebody can take this and try to do this skill themselves!

Journal #7

Chapter 25 in the book, A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking discusses speaking out on special occasion speeches. This means talking to an audience at an event or gathering about a certain somebody or topic. Different speeches make the audience feel and listen to the speaker differently. Speeches like entertainment, celebratory, commemorating, inspiring, or set social agendas are all types of special occasion speeches. I really liked how it gave examples of each of these in the chapter and went into detail about the structure of it. It really gave me a good insight on what I would need to focus on if I were to give a speech like this on occasion.

Journal #8

After filming speech #4 I felt very confident in speaking about somebody in my life that is so important to me. What really helped me the most was the feedback that I got from my peers. I knew that my dry run of the first speech I shot was not at the time requirements for the speech rubric. After my classmates gave me pointers on what I could do to add length, I went back and adjusted what I had already. I added in more personal stories about my mom and I’s relationship and made sure to keep the pace of the speech good so that it wasn’t rushed. Also when I was first preparing the outline for my speech and organizing it, I struggled at first. I struggled because I wanted this speech to be perfect and organized to a T. This speech was about someone who is so close to me and important and I wanted it all to have no errors. After filming my first take on this speech I realized maybe if the speech feels more raw and not all so organized, the audience will feel more connected to what I am saying as it comes off the top of my head and from my heart. So for my final draft, I still kept all those good stories and words I wanted to say about my mom but spoke them as they came back to me in my head while recording so that the audience can capture the whole moment.

Journal #9

Chapter 23 discusses the principles of persuasive speaking. This means you are giving a speech to an audience and trying to change the way they may view something. A takeaway from this chapter was when it discussed aiming to produce some shift in the audience’s emotions. I thought this was important because you really do what to target the emotions of individuals if you want to be convincing and promising. This chapter also goes over ethos, logos, and pathos and those are also something to keep in mind when giving this type of speech.

Chapter 24 is all about constructing a persuasive speech. It states that you should have a claim or proposition, evidence, and a warrant that provides reasons. These three topics all help build an argument, that can help be convincing to your audience in a certain manner.

Journal #10

In speech 4 I really noticed some growth between my dry run and my final. Speech 4 was about someone important in my life, and it was almost like me giving a toast. I gave this speech about my mom, and I wanted it to be perfect. For the dry run, my speech did not meet the time requirements at all, and I referenced my notes for the majority of the speech. As I said, I wanted it to be perfect and I think I was worrying too much about it, and not capturing the full moment of me speaking so open of my mom and all the memories we share. For my final speech what I did was talk off the top of my head, and only glanced down once at my notes. I also felt more confident in doing this. Here is my dry run link to this speech, https://youtu.be/nCAlaP3Ccew. And here is the link to my final, https://youtu.be/Tnk7M4qh3OI. The feedback I was given was, “I really liked the tone and delivery of your speech. You made clear the positive impact that your mother has had in your life, and I thought the way you articulated that was really endearing. The one thing that I think needs some adjustment is the length of your speech. Although I think you hit all the marks for the content of your speech, you’re still a little shy of the 3-5 minute mark. Like Candace had mentioned, I think adding some personal stories would not only enhance your speech but also add a bit more time to it. I think this could be a fairly simple fix, by just adding a few subpoints with examples to your outline, it would help to prep and bring your speech to the next level!” I think this feedback was very helpful and made me open my eyes more about what needed to be fixed. I got to the finish line by just being confident in what I was saying and speaking from my heart. What really worked was keeping eye contact and smiling as I delivered my speech.

My Biggest Strides: A specific good moment I had in this speech would be at 0:48, when I was talking about my mom working from home and how she may not get to experience the normal drives home from work that most people have. I think it was good to add this detail as most people can relate to it, either working from home as well since the pandemic or having a normal drive home after work.

Journal #11

During my final speech of the course, I had to convince my audience the reasons why I should pass the class. I think this speech went really well. I think the introduction was very clear stating my purpose, and I had many supporting claims throughout the body of my speech on basically how this course has gone for me and how well I did. I stated that I have put many hours of practice and research into all of my speeches, as I took them very seriously. I think what really helped was being able to do dry runs of almost all of the speeches, and getting good feedback from my peers. I think it was not only important that I read all this feedback, but also that I return the favor to my peers and offer them a few pointers as well and tell them what’s going well so far. I think maybe I could have gone into a few more specifics on who said what in the feedback I was given but also was nice to just keep the video short and sweet saying all feedback I got was nice. Overall, it was very nice to end this course with a final speech discussing all of the credit I should give myself for all of my hard work.