Question 2

More facts and statistics! No emotions just logic! As sated multiple times by me already on this and other posts I feel that we shouldn't really need emotional narratives to get the attention or convince a person. Obviously this isn't the correct way to go about a speech, but this is my preferred style, throw in some humor on your side and you have a nice speech in my mind. Facts and statistics are great when trying to explain your point of view or back up the point you are trying to make. They are not as effective when there are too many or too complicated. You can add a dash of statistics periodically to make your speech sound more authoritative so people believe what you are saying. Also just laying down your facts and statistics in a row will kill the average person so they need to be separated with nice simple words.

Question 1

In chapter 7 I think they did a good job telling us what the pros and cons are about each type of supporting material we can use. I liked all of them, but the narrative. I think that is a person bias though I am not a fan of trying to get someone attention of convince them of something by making them feel a certain way. I prefer facts and logic overwhelmingly. This can lead to issues though because if there are to many facts or statistics a lot of people will start to tune out and not pay any attention. Chapter 7 also tells us to make sure we choose wisely when it comes to information, which is great. Always fact check your facts, just because one place says something no matter how reputable it should be fact check a few times to get the whole story. Chapter 8 told us about patterns and transitions. I like some of the pattern ideas like cause-and-effect and problem solution. These fit more of my logical style of transmitting ideas. Transitions are always a little hard for me because in my mind I see the big picture and its all a single idea, however people that are listening tend to get confused because my transitions are not pronounced enough. The transitions given here will help me separate main points easier.

Question 3

I liked the audience research questionnaire section of our assigned reading. At first it seemed a bit silly to me until I reached the conclusion that it was similar to marketing and then it all made sense. It was used to get the opinions of the perspective audience, but I think more importantly it was used to gather the knowledge of them. It is good to tailor your speech to their opinions in some situations, but even if its tailored for their tastes and they are not knowledgeable enough to understand what you are saying might might as well not even give the speech. You as the speaker have to understand what they know. Example is sure most people know of pollution and they know its bad, but do they understand why there is pollution in the first place? Do they understand that their decisions are making the pollution so, do they get what it is doing to the environment, is there a clear connection between action and results for them? Once you have understood their knowledge of the particular situation then you can make a speech that will be comprehended by everyone.

Question 2

It is much easier for me to explain audience analysis and audience adaptation in marketing terms and logic, it also helps that they are pretty much identical except instead of audience its market. So just like marketing you must first understand your target audience/market. This is who the speech is going to be delivered to. Just like marketing you need to do a ton of research. If you market a product that has no use to that particular market it is not going to go well. This can be easily translated to if you give a speech that no one in the room is going to care about it will not go well at all. You must understand the audience's demographics, psycho-graphic, etc to properly prepare a speech. You have to tailor your words and your ideas so that they can identify with you. Having a lot of experience with marketing I think that it will be easy to identify and analysis my audience and prepare a speech for them. Luckily in this class we can choose are own topics and the class is pretty much forced to listen, so I can speak my mind with impunity.

Question 1

Talk about an attention getter! The drinking speech beginning I think it was way over the top and silly, but I did defiantly pay attention after that. He had an issue with stuttering and getting his words out. He did have a lot of stats though, which is hard to get out for most people. The use of the projector seemed awkward and distracting, but with the amazing invention of power point will eliminate this problem. Towards the middle and end he got a little bit nervous and you could tell by his hand and body movement and placement. I did like his speech overall it was full of information, but he managed to tell it in a non boring fashion, which made me pay attention to all of the details. The light pollution girl spoke much more fluently, however she was looking at her paper way more often than the drinking guy did. She fumbled with her hands a little bit, but I am not sure if this was a constant problem because the video was so short.

Week 2 Question 3

Gathering research materials! I love to research, I love to learn and better myself. Usually on my on time, somehow doing it for school seems painful. Regardless, researching is the back bone of any speech. In reality research and the understanding of things is pretty much the back bone of society but that is a different topic. I always say do your own research! Fact check everything! Due to my curious nature and my upbringing of never trusting anyone this luckily comes nature to me. Researching your topic will make it way easier to write your paper. If your filled with a ton of knowledge because you love your topic or you just poured a ton of time into researching writing and composing the speech should be much easier. With an easier time writing it will take the burden off you when your up there giving your speech. You wont have to remember every single line because you have learned it instead of memorized it. So if you forget a line its not big deal because you know the facts instead. 

Week 2 Question 2

First off do people still actively kill slugs with salt? I thought as a society we moved passed torture animals. Second off what is with all the religious stuff it has nothing to do with education. Back to the question at hand. I really enjoyed the slug ladies speech. She was very entertaining without being totally awesome at public speeching, which I think gives the rest of us hope in doing well in this class. She had a lot of different topics that moved seamlessly from topic to topic. I think that might have been the best part of that. Her speech was very well planned out. That is probably the best thing to learn from that speech. Everything she did was good, but her planning I think won the day. I tend to jump around a lot in my speeches due to nerves and just poor planning, but if I can really have a structured speech I think that will defiantly help.

Week 2 Question 1

Over the years I have done a few interviews for various reasons usually involving work. I am very in depth when it comes to my research probably a little to over the top. The people I have interviewed I kind of feel bad for because it is almost like an interrogation. This is probably the issue I have with the interview process. I can tell when people are not totally forthcoming or are just pulling stuff out of their...well you know. Don't BS a BSer...hooray editing! Anyways my strong points would be that I can become easily informed on a topic so if I have a good person to interview I can adept my questions accordingly to their level of intelligence and knowledge of the subject at hand. My advice would do a ton of research. I like to know as much or more as my person I am going to interview so that I can relate to their answers. Make sure to have great questions, if you do not fully understand something make sure to ask it.

Question 3

I really liked a part of the building your confidence before the day of your speech. I think a part that is really good advice is the choose a topic your care about section. This is huge! People usually will just pick a topic that is easy or they think will be well recieved. This might be a mistake for them if they are having issues with speaking in front of people. If you pick a topic that is interesting you wont have an issue talking about it. An example would be if you like dogs, you can go on and on about dogs, but you pick cats because your teacher is a total cat lady. You dont really know much about cats and infact when you were five years old a cat bit you and to this day you are still a little afriad of them. You have a hard time finding topics for your talk and you akwardly assemble them to a speech and sputter through it. In a different scenario you do your talk about dogs you have no problem pouring your collective knowledge out and getting a good outline going. You go up to do your talk and you compeltey forget your speech, but you still know everything about dogs you can still manage a great and true to heart speech even if you forget every word that was planned out.

Question 2

First of all I found it pretty shocking that school material in this day in age would use a reference mentioning god. I found it it particulary amusing that she said that god is in control when this is a class that is focusing on how to better train yourself in better public speaking not letting her so called god guide the way. Anyways, these videos wernt exactly super hepful at least not for me. Not saying I am great in public speaking they just didnt have anything really helpfull with the issues I have. I did like the suggestions of controlled breathing to calm yourself before a speech, however it seems a little inpracticle to stand up in the middle of class start breathing heavily. I liked the hand movements of the lady giving the speech. Her topic and relating story were pretty out there, but her constant hand narrativce kept me watching and listening. I am not sure how well I would use this technique because my hand might be shaking and people might be conserned if I am going to pass out or finish the speech.

Question 1

I personally believe that the anxiety that comes with public speaking is because of all the negative hype associated with it. Public speaking wasn't really a huge area of study for previous generations at least when speaking to a few parents of different ages. I feel that the anxiety attached to public speaking is because of the lack of knowledge and practice of the ones who raised us. I think with the large emphasis that our currently curriculum's that are in place now the fear of public speaking will start to diminish. For me personally my biggest issue with talking in front of a crowd is engaging all of them. As in it is hard for me to engage each and every person or the opposite of just looking in the general directing of them. In that scenario I feel like I am ignoring the people listening. So for me it is hard finding that happy medium of eye contact and no eye contact. One of the book references does ring true as well for me as well. It is the uncertainty about the audience's response. I have a very unique way of talking and a dry and complex sense of humor. When I explain things people tend to get lost because they get overwhelmed with details that I include or I explain it with an expectation that they are listening to every word I am saying. When I go back to reference something I had said earlier people tend to get lost. Also when someone tells a joke thinking it is going to get the audience going and there is no response it kind of kills the mood.