Video 15.1

Both of the speakers provided good examples to support their idea. I learned how to look for the thesis, claims, evidence and reasoning. Each speaker stated their claim and then gave a sample of evidence ten backed with up with reasoning. Robert started that parents can’t teach their children as well as teachers because they don’t have the time or the credential. Then explained why they don’t have the time or the credential. Dixie backed up her claim of how schools are violence with example and a statistic. Dixie used a question to get the audience to picture their children in a violent environment to relate to the audience. Robert stated how people come from different schools of many backgrounds.

Interesting concept chapter 15

One concept I found interesting is a qualifier, it is the not using of the words like probably, likely, often and usually. The book used an example of the likeliness of outsourcing plane maintenance causes more plane accidents. By using the word likely it makes the fact sound less likely to be true. After I read the paragraph, I recalled a moment in my second speech where I used the word often. I was saying how all fruits have fiber and a bit of vitamin C in it. Instead of saying what I intended, I added “often most fruits have fiber and vitamin C.”

Recent discussion

My recent discussion was just a few minutes ago when my friend was arguing with me how I always round off time wrong and that comparing it to normal rounding off things. I usually like to look at time by the every half hour and hour. I feel that minutes go by too fast so anything past thirty minutes is basically an hour already. My friend says that way off and that my reasoning is wrong. I used analogical reasoning by comparing my rounding off my test score to minutes in time. My reasoning did not go well because my friend kept giving more examples and made my reasoning fail.

Main points for next speech

My first main point is to show the problem which is how there is trash everywhere and how it makes places dirty and gross looking. Then my solution is to explain where to put the trash instead of littering. Next for the visual I plan to show pictures of areas in cities and such of how filthy certain areas can be. For my introduction I will use the attention getter, which is to describe people felt a wall or walked past a pole and it smelled really bad and explain my purpose and preview the main points. The conclusion is the review of the main points and to convince my audience to stop littering.

Sea of persuasion

There’s persuasion everywhere I go. Family, friends, and random people have sent persuasive messages to me. From buying things, eating certain foods, and ways to do things people prefer their way of doing it and tell others to do it also. The media’s messages try to make consumers buy their products by showing them how their product is better and what they are good for. Television commercials are the most convincing advertisement to me, just because I can actually see people and objects being demonstrated. To become a more critical consumer of persuasive messages, I think about the pros and cons of the persuasive message before buying it.

Chapter 14 concept

I thought the question of value is interesting. People base their opinions on their values and cultural beliefs instead of facts. Most of the topics using question of value are based on things like moral of war and ethical uses of facebook according to the book. I find this concept interesting because most of time when we decide about something it’s more likely that we base it on what we believe in and not on facts. Even though it is on a subject we know that might be wrong, if we like it then we will believe it is right. For example killing insects, they are disgusting and it should okay to kill them but there’s also how the world needs insects for the ecosystem. Most people would want to kill bugs because they are annoying and gross and it’s just based on their opinions.

Interactive Videos 10.1, 10.2, 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3

I’ve found using similes and humor to catch the audience’s attention and to keep them listening helpful. When I hear a simile I can actually visualize what the speaker is trying to present. I am able to compare it to what the speaker is saying and to something I am familiar with. When speaking the speaker should not talk to fast or use a high pitch tone. I’ve notice how some people talk with a high pitch tone and their sentences always end with an upward reflection like it’s a sentence. When the speaker looks at their note cards too much it makes them look like they are ignoring the audience and being unprepared.

Interesting concept

One concept I found interesting was the one about culture. It talked about how in other countries like China, Japan and Vietnam, see speaking out loud as a bad thing. In general they do not like to draw attention to themselves because it shows a person being stuck up and boastful. Being modest and respect is a way to get people’s attention because they are worthy of getting attention. I think the concept is true and that it does apply to Asian cultures because I am Chinese. Since I grew up in the US I learned both ways how to be a good speaker.

Discussion on Flickr

In the book it mentions how there are women who are actually quite powerful speakers. It also talked about how women aren’t as influential as men just because of their gender. Those women became powerful speakers because they were able to capture people’s attention. Each one of the women that were mentioned had different hair color, one of the responses were about how taking away different terms of describing people and hair color was one of them. I agree with most of the people who responded with its how words are used and not what it is used for. Those words are used for describing people and that’s all.

Speech 2 redo

I presented my speech to the following five people: Steven Tran, Steven Liao Annie Luu, Alison Huang, and Wanda Huang. For this speech I did not have my visual aid so I had to use a picture instead. The area I had presented wasn’t as big as the classroom, it felt more private. My presentation went well because I was comfortable around the people I presented to. During the presentation I had slouched more and gave off the laid back look. I delivered the speech with the same tone as I had done on Friday’s speech. Something I did differently was that I was a bit more enthusiastic, it was just easier to give a speech to people I was more comfortable with. Doing the speech for the second time, I definitely did better but because I got to choose my audience I was not as nervous. If I had to do the speech over again I would work on my voice dynamics before giving the speech again. I also got feedback saying I had lost my place a few times. During the second time I had to present my speech, I lost my place two times but I was able to find my spot quicker than when I had given the speech the first time. Over all I found this exercise useful. It gave me more practice in delivering speeches.

Self Evaluation 2

Practicing makes perfect and I made sure I had practiced a lot for my second speech. During the speech I felt nervous but I was not as nervous as when I had to present my first speech. I already had the feeling of the classroom and knew a few of my classmates. The purpose of my speech is to inform my audience about nutrition, I think I was able to explain my main points clearly. My main points were clear but I think I could’ve done better on explaining my points with better examples and other source materials.

Comparing my last video to my new video, I definitely did better on my second video. In the first speech my voice was low, skipped some parts of my speech, lost my place, and used a lot of vocal fillers. In my second speech I spoke louder and more clearly but during the speech I also lost my place a few times and still used a good amount of vocal fillers. There were some hand gestures I made throughout the video that were rapid movements. Compared to my last speech I looked liked I had the same amount of hand gestures. I felt that my eye contact would be an 8 because I looked at everyone and only glanced over two or three people. Watching my video I saw myself using four citations.

Although I made an improvement in my voice projection, I had gotten feedback that I was mono tone. For my next speech I will have to show more enthusiasm and try to be less mono tone. I also need to make my speech go smoother, I frequently pause and used “um” when I lose my place. I know that it is okay to pause but in my video it looked bad since my pause took a while. It made me look like I had lost my place which is what happened but I’m not supposed to show it. In my first speech I had glanced down to look at my note cards a lot and I had done the same thing in my second speech. When I first practiced the speech it was really hard to make sure I had 5-6 minutes of things to say. For the next speech the minimum time frame is 6-8 minutes which is even longer. During the speech I was afraid I might have forgotten something or say something wrong.

The score I would give myself would be a B. I felt that my content was good but my examples could be better. My delivery was good, my voice was clear, but I lost my place quite a few times. For this speech I had found more people and practiced my speech more than my first speech. Practicing more and getting feedback from more than one person helped me gained more confidence. My second speech is definitely better than my first speech. I did more research and practiced more in front of people.

Interesting concept in chapter 11

One interesting concept I found in chapter 11 is using whiteboards and chalkboards as a visual aid. In that chapter it mentions how turning your back to the audience makes you look unprepared. I don’t see how turning your back to the audience to make a point makes you look unprepared. All you are doing is showing an example. If you are trying to show examples with arrows or lines I think it can be quite useful. I can see how the book says that turning your back to the audience may make you look unprepared but there are also some advantages in using whiteboards and chalkboards.