My Speech - Original Writing

There is no question that after giving about four speeches, I have become a much better overall public speaker. In the beginning of the semester, I would tend to get nervous during some of my speeches and consequently the delivery of my speech would be greatly affected. If I had made a mistake, my level of nervousness would drastically increase and I wouldn’t know how to correct it. Although today I have improved on these aspects. Normally in order to control my nerves I try to think as positively as possible. This is critical because when I start to think even a little bit negatively then I severely hurt my chances of giving a good speech. Instead today, my main priority is to stay very confident and tell myself that I’m going to perform fine.

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

However, I was very nervous giving the speech. This is a weakness that I noticed and that was mentioned by the peer evaluators. The most obvious sign of my nervousness was my repetitive use of the space-filler "mmmm"

Let me start by saying I was nervous, which in itself caught me by surprise. I consider myself a fairly confident person; I’ve always experienced butterflies prior to any public presentation but this was more than that. The nervousness led to other issues such as the vocal characteristics of my presentation. For instance, I stumbled on my words during the introduction, tongue-tied as it were. I saw the words in front of me but couldn’t seem to verbalize them. I stopped, re-grouped and moved forward. I continued with a number of vocalized pauses which prove not only

My preparation for my speech was simple. First, I used the method of cognitive restructuring, which “transforms negative self-talk into positive self-talk (Schwartzman, 2014, pg. 37). I used positive self-talk and a positive self-concept of myself to help boost my confidence for giving my speech. I also used systematic desensitization to reduce communication apprehension, which describes the feeling of anxiety about oral communication with others, according to Schwartzman (2014), to harness my nervousness and anxiety about presenting the speech in front of an audience (pg. 35). In addition to this, I rehearsed my introductory speech several times to make sure I was ready to present in front of my class and used the concept of visualization

Of course I was the first to be called up to give my introduction speech! Perhaps because my professor knew me so well? Who knows… but I was actually glad that I was chosen first because I get to set the bar without having to worry about competing with the previous speeches. So with that positive mindset, my anxiety levels were really low. On a scale from one to ten I’d say I was a solid two! As soon as I was about to speak I observed my audience, their faces, movements, and eyes. All the attention was on me and I got right into my zone.

I would describe my speaking style as well structured, yet lacking confidence. I think my speech outlines are organized appropriately and have the potential to be a great speech if delivered properly. I know my greatest weakness involving speeches is my social anxiety though. I have been terrified to talk to people in a non-casual way since as long as I can remember. I have become better at speaking to groups over the years, but I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be able to perform a speech properly. The proper way to present a speech is to make eye-contact as much as possible, to avoid using note cards unless absolutely necessary, and to stand in a professional and confident manner. I, unfortunately, do none of these. Due to my anxiety, I am unable to think straight which causes me to have to completely rely on my notecards to remember what I need to say, preventing me from making proper eye contact with my audience. Also, I do not stand in a professional and confident manner because I am overly nervous, and feel uncomfortable during my speech.

Mr. Stauffer also mentioned after my speech that keeping my eyes up was something that I needed to work on. I relied on my cards too much which is something that needs working on. Something that was unexpected that happened during my speech was my brain went blank for a quick second while I was on my second point, to get my thought back together I had to look down at my cards for a while. I think next time I give a speech; I am going to practice more. For the shield speech I just practiced the night before and the period before I presented. Next time I give my speech, I want to be able to practice my speech for a couple of nights before I present, that way I can have a lot memorized. Having the speech memorized will make it easier to keep my eyes up and looking around the room. A situation where I might need to introduce myself would be at a new job or at the interview for a new job. When you are working at a new place with people you don't know they might want you to introduce yourself and get to know you more. At a job interview the person that is interviewing you might ask you to tell them stuff about yourself. Another place you have to introduce yourself is in

I procrastinated a lot on my shield speech, and I went first, so I didn't have as much time to prepare as I did with my informative speech. I prepared early for this speech and performed in the middle of our class. In this speech, I was better at planning what I had to say because I wrote out a paper beforehand, and that helped.

I have no idea why this speech made me so nervous. Due to the fact that I was extremely nervous, my mind kept freezing up on me, so, therefore, I was referring to my note cards more than I needed to be; which made the speech not flow as smoothly as I would have liked it to. Furthermore, because I was referring to my note cards more, my eye contact was lacking. My eye contact was the one thing in my speech that needed the most improvement. Also, my nonverbal communication was good in the fact that I did not move my hands around a lot, but did have quite a few nervous twitches. The nonverbal that were displayed in this persuasive speech were better than the other two speeches, but I still need to work on a couple of things, such as, having a glass of water next to me so that I do not have to swallow so

I remember the first time the speech assignment was given out. It was simple because it was about introducing myself in six words within thirty-seconds. I couldn’t think of any words at all until the night before when I finally made up my mind about the most common words that my friends choose for me. I thought thirty-seconds was very short, but when I got in front of the room, it was long. I notice I stilled have fifteen seconds left when I finished my speech. After a few more speeches I was getting better, by pacing myself and not rushing to

This time around during the advocacy speeches I was a lot less nervous. It might have been because I have gotten so used to speaking in front of a specific group of people. I’m familiar with them and also the ways that they give speeches. Also preparing for the speech was not as much work as the previous assignments. Since I had previously did most of the research when preparing for the background speech, it wasn’t as time consuming. The only thing to do was pick a specific topic and give my viewpoint on it. I am very opinionated so it was easy to create a script on something that I am so passionate about. I feel as if I have learned a lot about public speaking from watching the different approaches that various people had taken.

I have had this problem dating back to high school, but I could never figure out why I feel so nervous and anxious. I remember taking many marketing classes in high school in which I had to do public speaking and every time I felt stressed out. One situation this “pattern” is likely to occur is in a class with many students. I believe audience plays a big part in public speaking. For example, a quiet classroom can make public speaking for some people even tenser and challenging. Whereas sometimes a louder and a less attentive audience can ease a speaker's nerves. I personally prefer having to talk in front of a loud and less attentive crowd because it helps me get away from feeling like everybody is judging

The actions I took to prepare for this speech impacts how I will prepare for future speeches is by continuing to rehearse until I’m able to proceed without looking at my speaking outline. I’ll study my preparation outline more than my speaking outline because I feel better reading and remembering the outline with more details. To improve my anxiousness when being in front of our class I believe it’s all based on experience so I’ll probably be more relaxed next time. Also, I’ll try and keep something positive in my mind before presenting. For my next speech, I’m going to have to condense my preparation outline more by making final decisions on points that I’m indecisive about, whether I like it or not, because they take up time. Instead of using filler words I’ll try and just pause to regain my thoughts. At last, I believe I did well at speaking in good pronunciation and articulation but I give credit to the fact of studying my preparation outline which allowed me to speak fluently as

For as long as I can remember, public speaking has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. Whether it’s a simple in-class presentation or a speech in front of an auditorium filled with people, I can barely get my words out from the anxiety and