Audience Matters

I felt that Matthew started off his speech with a great attention getter by pretending to vomit and then engaging the audience by asking how many of them had done something similar because of too much drinking.  I actually felt like he did a great job all around on his speech.  It was informative, especially do to his utilization of the overhead projector to display and draw special attention to certain data.  I also felt that he did a good job orally citing his source and because it was a credible source, it allowed him to speak with authority on the subject.  He repeatedly referred to the well-being and safety of his audience, which lent him an air of goodwill.

It was hard to get much of a feel for the other speech since it was such a short clip.  I actually thought that Courtney looked down way too much instead of engaging her audience.  I thought that she did a good job in her introduction of letting her audience the information that her speech was going to cover.  Her topic of "light pollution" seemed interesting, so I would have liked to see where she was going with it.

"If you're the last one left, this is my request:  could you just shut off the lights." -The Jealous Sound

Good Sources Make for Good Information

As the internet has exploded over the last few decades its wealth of knowledge and convenience of accessibility has made it the most commonly used resource for research material.  Gone are the days of heading of to the library for a day of cramming and frantically searching through card catalogs to locate the material you need.  This has greatly increased the importance for all of us to be able to evaluate the reliability and validity of information when researching for an essay, speech, etc.  Wikipedia is probably the most notorious internet location for misinformation.  It is now sometimes the case that I find myself spending almost as much time researching the source of my information to make sure that it's credible as I do researching the information itself.

While the prevalence of less than credible sources can often be a problem, the abundance of information and the currency of that information has certainly been a boon for all students.  Instead of picking up a book whose information could by now be outdated or scouring recent magazines for pertinent and current information a simple Google search can now easily yield up to date articles.  We now have more information, more current information, and more accessible information.  When used properly these tools provide students with everything that they need to educate themselves and make better presentations than might have been possible in the past.

"We don't think we think so, we know." -Maritime

My Limited Experience as an Interviewer

I personally have not had a whole lot of experience conducting research interviews.  As a matter of fact I can only remember one instance of ever having to do so, which was during my sophomore year of high school.  My final project for my English class that year was a large research essay that I believe had to be over 10 pages and include 3 research interviews.  I wrote my paper about HIV/AIDS because somebody in my family that I am very close to has been living with HIV for well over 20 years now.

Of the 3 interviews that I conducted I felt that the most productive and informative one was that in which I interviewed somebody who worked at a hospice caring for AIDS patients.  Part of what made this interview so good was that I branched out of my comfort zone and found somebody who I had absolutely no connection with.  They were an authority on the source and were very knowledgeable on the subject matter.  This gave the information that I obtained from them credibility.  Even though my questions were not as well constructed as this week's reading informed me that interview questions should be, they were still well thought out in advance and had a natural structure or flow to them.

My biggest mistake during these interviews was in choosing to interview family members for the other 2 interviews.  My family member who has HIV was very helpful and gave me exactly the insight that I was looking for, but I think that this was mostly luck.  I also chose to interview another one of my family members about what it was like to have a close family member with HIV and how they had dealt with it.  This was a very poor decision.  I was too familiar with the interviewee in this case and the interview turned out to be rather less formal than I had hoped it would be.  They were too casual about the whole thing and didn't take it as seriously as I would have liked.  I ended up including almost nothing from their interview in my final report.

"It's cool, it's cool to love your family." -Feist

Pssst! Librarian.

When it comes to research I tend to fall in to the same trap that I would imagine most everyone that has grown up in an age where computers are in most households does:  I lean too hard on the internet as a resource.  This isn't necessarily a problem considering the new information I found within the reading this week about the deep web, web directories, and specialized search engines.  I feel that this has opened my mind as to how I can find more credible and relevant information in my research.

But how should I take advantage of these new research options that I am unfamiliar with?  When this week's Speech Buddy videos promoted the idea of seeking help from the librarian it opened my eyes.  Normally I feel bad "wasting" the librarian's time, but as the video said, "providing you with information is what the library is there for."  I am going to try very hard not to be shy in the future when it comes to approaching the librarian, since in the past I have looked at the library as an intimidating place and have not fully utilized it as a tool in my research.  While I'm in there gathering information from the librarian, who knows, I may even actually pick up a book and give the internet a rest for once.

In a much smaller way the opening to the Gastropods speech reminded me of a resource that has always been available to me but I don't often use:  my imagination.  Using information that the speaker was already knowledgeable about she created an interesting anecdote to get the audience's attention.  Anecdotes don't only have to come from your memory, but can also come from your imagination as long as it is germane to your speech's purpose and you clearly establish that it is not a factual story about actual events.

"There'll be room for change, but gradually." -Mae

It's All About You (...Getting to Know Me)

While brainstorming ideas for which topic within this week's reading I should do my final blog of the week about it occurred to me:  Why not do it about brainstorming!?  How appropriate!  (Or I could say "How ironic!" if I had as flimsy of a grasp of the meaning of the word as most people seem to.)  When doing the reading I spent extra time thinking about and paid special attention to the section specifically about considering the audience.  Considering that I hardly know my audience up to this point, I sort of have to take some leaps and think in generalities as to how they might receive things and what they may know about my subject.

Without giving it away (because, believe it or not, I already came up with one instead of waiting until the last possible moment) I will just say that I came up with something that I believe most everyone the class will know of, but that most will not know much about.  This gives me a good chance to speak to inform my audience about the topic.  I feel that this is appropriate since it will be my first formal, pre-planned speech in front of everyone.  I'm sure it's no coincidence that Carol chose Culture as our first speech topic exactly because it provides a great opportunity for all of us to inform our audience about our culture and by extension about ourselves.  This makes my topic very relevant to all of my audience, because all of my audience is getting to know me.  Keeping all of this in mind, I feel excited about the opportunity to tell all of you a little bit about who I am.

"Today I woke up younger than I've been in years.  Not concerned with what's outside and fears: I don't have any." -Alkaline Trio

One Bite at a Time

As one who doesn't get particularly nervous giving speeches, I tried to be sure and focus on at least one thing that I could take from these early, introductory videos and build upon it.  Specific to our next speech, I found that Janine's tip about finding a subject that interests me particularly stood out.  The whole time that I have been brainstorming about what to give my Culture Speech about I have been thinking to myself, "What topic would interest my fellow students the most."  As I have barely gotten to know any of you (not to say that you all didn't do a fabulous job on your Intro Speeches) this was certainly the wrong tactic to employ.  When watching the videos it dawned on me that the primary purposes of my speech were to inform the audience about me through my culture and hopefully to entertain them.  If my topic is something that I am passionate about I will certainly feel more at ease and will give a much more interesting speech than if I am struggling to read their collective minds as to what they want to hear.

In Julie's video I picked up that she was using her hands a lot during her speech.  She was far from flamboyant with them, yet it was enough to draw my eye until toward the end of the video I noticed that she had been looking at her notes a lot.  As one who's eyes are too often drawn to my notecards, I now realize that this would be an excellent strategy for me to employ that will serve the dual purpose of keeping my audience from getting bored, as well as to distract them from eyes if I am looking down at my notecards too much.  Bit by bit, I already feel that I am improving at public speaking.

"How does an ant eat an elephant?  One bite at a time." -Anonymous

Personal Challenges in Public Speaking

As I have never been one to feel any level of speech anxiety, I suppose that any apprehension that I have toward public speaking would be on a micro level.  I do not wish to imply that I am a great public speaker with little room for improvement; rather that I am generally comfortable with public speaking but still have a lot of fine tuning to do in regards to the process.

The area in which I could use the most improvement would be organizationally.  I am a pretty disorganized person generally.  I never use a calendar or schedule and tend to just keep everything in my head and do things as they need to be done.  This can lead to the unfortunate circumstance of something being forgotten and letting myself or others down.  As this relates to public speaking I usually am better at speaking off the cuff and when it comes to a fully preplanned speech if I have not gone to the trouble of writing it out in its entirety and memorizing it verbatim I end up in a spot of trouble.  I struggle with writing outlines and especially with filling out and reading off of note cards.  This can lead to uncertainty about my ideas.

I also have noticed in the past that while I do not necessarily get nervous or feel anxiety I can get rattled when I make a mistake.  This has applied at times to other forms of public performance, as well as public speaking.  When I make a mistake I act as though the audience has a written copy of my speech and know exactly what I have said incorrectly or left out.  I suppose this could be a form of the spotlight effect, as I am placing more emphasis on how closely everyone is watching me than they actually are.  I will often retrace my steps and draw unnecessary attention to a mistake that would likely otherwise have gone completely unnoticed.  This also could lead to internal noise for my audience as they become distracted thinking about why I reacted the way that I did.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity to work on the more technical aspects of speech writing and presentations, as well as to become more comfortable moving past the mistakes that I make.