Journal #1:
This chapter had multiple significant components to it that related to the importance of public speaking and the beginning of how to become an effective public speaker. One of the major takeaways from this chapter is just how effective being a good public speaker is not only in school but when you are applying for a job. Achieving effective public speaking can be a skill that lasts a lifetime and once practiced and rehearsed, it can be used in many effective ways through your years. The main focus of a good public speaker is to keep their focus on giving their audience something of value and something they will agree with and remember. A speaker needs to include the audience in their speech and make them feel represented and connected with them as they speak. They also deliver a certain message with a purpose to both them and their audience. The main part that I connected with in this chapter is the importance of changing your tone and type of speech by the type of audience that you are presenting to. I work at a job which requires me to give an introduction to each team that arrives about their room. I need to be able to adjust my speeches based on the different audiences that I am presented with. Sometimes I have a group of kids, so I need to change my words so that they are more understandable to them. Other times I have a very large group or multiple groups I must perform in front of and my speeches differ based on that.
Journal #2:
I have had multiple experiences with both practice and rehearsal throughout my years of learning and growing up. When I was younger, I was involved in soccer, softball, dance, and played the saxophone. For all these activities I would have two or three practices every week to help me get better. Although people say practice makes perfect, I was not perfect in any of these activities by any means. However, practice and competitive motions was an important tool in helping me steal a ball from an offender, play a song without messing up, and nailing a dance move with perfect synchronization. If I were to not have practiced any of these things, then I would not have performed as adequately as I did when I showed up on the field for a game or on stage in front of a live audience. I would say that I performed immensely better when I had practiced multiple times before hand and got every movement down. However, it was not until just recently that I started to perform with words. For my job at Maine Escape Games, I have to give an introduction to each of the teams before they begin their game. It is a memorized speech that I must memorize for each of our four rooms. Even though I have them all memorized, they are some instances where the introduction gets strayed from the given speech and I have to learn to improvise. This takes a lot of practice because with improvising you never know what track you will be veered in so even though I’ve practiced the introduction time and time again, I need to anticipate the unexpected.
Journal #3:
I think that my speech was presented very well, and I did a good job, but there were areas that I can improve and things that didn’t go as well as when I had practiced. From the comments I received from my audience, my eye contact and delivery were very good in my speech which I as well thought were good. I have usually not been good at this, but ever since my job at Maine Escape Games, my eye contact and hand gestures have improved and has helped me with public speaking overall. I also think that my content and speech itself was well done and addressed the points that were needed for the assignment. I felt like I had a good voice and was loud enough to hear but speaking louder was something the audience said I need to improve on. I also think that I started to doubt myself halfway through my speech, which made me less confident and I began to stumble on a few words and stray from the script. My personality is I like to have a plan and I need to stick to it, so when I strayed from this it started to mess with my head a bit which I need to start improving on. Overall, I think I did a good job on my speech and hope to improve on my weaknesses for future speeches.
Journal #4:
Chapter 11 mainly focused on the important parts that make up a good speech. It explained the core parts of a speech and how they positively effect a presentation. The chapter describes how you start with an introduction, then go into the body where the main points of the speech are, then you end with a conclusion. There were a lot of useful tips in this chapter like how long each section should be and how they should be set up in an outline. One point that was very helpful for me was that an audience likes to have around two to seven points main points in a speech and having a fewer amount of main points will be able to maintain an audience’s attention. I also learned that I should save my best points for last so that I can interest the audience at the beginning with the point in my thesis and keep their interest through my speech until the best point at the end. I’ve always heard to save the best for last, but this chapter emphasized the importance of it. I also did not know that I had to roman numerically outline a speech, so this chapter helped a lot with that and how to have subordinate points below the main point.
Chapter 12 was a lot more relatable and had more helpful information for different types of speeches. I really liked how it described the different types of ways to organize a speech and showed examples of each so that I know how to use each type and in what cases are the best to use them. The ways of organizing a speech that I like and use the most are the chronological pattern, the problem-solution pattern, and the causal pattern. These are the ones that I like to use the most and relate with the types of speeches that I do. When I do my introductions at Maine Escape Games, I use a blend of the narrative and topical patterns. I start with the theme of the room and describe what the team needs to do to complete the room. Then, I tell a team all the rules of the room which are topical because the order that I address them in does not affect the point of my speech. I liked these two chapters and found many things significant.
Journal #6:
I thought that chapter 13 was a very good and influential chapter. There were a lot of good takeaways from it that will help me with preparing speeches in the future. This chapter was based solely on outlines and how to make and prepare them. I really like this and find it helpful because I tend to add too much to my outlines, and it is sometimes confusing when I glance down to look at what I should say next. I am also a very color coordinated person, so the tips about using color and adjusting font size was a big takeaway because I see myself using this in my future outlines for speeches. I will use this on speech by making the font bigger and changing the color when I want to start a video or change a slide during my presentation. I will also use the different types of outlines to alter my outline and make it easier to look at and present. I think that I may have too many words and the chapter explained how it will help the engagement with the audience instead of me having to read heavier sentences on my outline.
Journal #7:
Journal #8:
Overall, I think that I did a pretty good job on my two dry-runs. It was less nerve-wracking knowing that I could do it in front of my peers without having a grade attached and just positive feedback. In my first dry-run I was a bit shaky because it was my first time going through it aloud to other people, but as I got going, it was a lot more comfortable to speak because I knew the skill well and I was just displaying my knowledge. My time was pretty short on both videos, so I think that I need to slow down my speaking as I am explaining and giving my speech. However, I did not have my prop or video during the dry-run so when I incorporate these into my actual speech, it will add time to my presentation and I will meet the requirements. I also need to speak louder during my presentation but that will come when I am in front of the class and not when other people are doing the same thing around me. I also noticed that I make a lot of uncomfortable hand movements but that may have been because I am sitting down so I will improve on this during my speech by standing up and presenting that way. I used transition words very well in my dry-run so I hope to keep those during my speech.
Journal #9:
Overall, I believe that my speech went very well. I feel like I was prepared for the speech and had rehearsed enough to make a good presentation. I also love the skill that I taught and am passionate about it, so it made presenting it a lot easier because I knew in depth what I was talking about. I was very confident in my speech, however, as soon as I got in front of the class, I started to become shyer. This is why my volume was low and I received feedback from almost everyone saying that I needed to speak louder and that I was a little quiet. This is a skill that I want to improve on for my next speech so I will practice my speech more to be more confident with it and then speak louder and ask my audience if I had a good volume. I feel like my speech was very organized and had good transitions from point to point so that it was easy for the audience to follow along and understand how to do my skill. I also explained every step in depth so I think that based on the feedback I for from the audience, they all thought I had a good skill and I was experienced with it. I think that one other thing that I could improve upon is my actions as I am presenting. My eye contact is great as I believe this is one of my strengths and multiple people gave me feedback saying that I have good eye contact. However, I think that I need to move around more while I am presenting and not stand as still so that I can engage the audience more.
Journal #10:
Someone who I consider a very strong public speaker is my co-worker Angie Dubois. She has worked at Maine Escape Games or three years and I have worked there for almost a year. When I first started out, she was who I looked up to the most because she was so experienced, a very hard worker, and amazing public speaker. I used to watch her give introductions so that I could learn them better because she was a great example of the public speaker needed for this job. Therefore, this weekend while I was working with her, I watched her give an introduction to pick out what makes her such a good public speaker. While listening to her, I noticed that she spoke her words very clearly and loud and I could tell from the audience’s body language that they were understanding what she was saying. I also paid attention to her eye contact. She gave even eye contact to the players and never looked down or away from them as she was speaking. She also never used spacer words and went through each of the points she needed to address with ease and no long pauses or stumbling. She also handled an out of the ordinary question very well and didn’t let this interrupt her presentation. She also slowed down her pace of talking once she noticed that two of the players did not speak good English and used fewer complex words so that they would understand better. Another thing that I have always noticed from since I started working is that she is never nervous while giving an introduction. This has probably come from experience and having done so many over her years of working that it becomes easy for her to speak publicly now. This gives me great hope that I will become less nervous as a public speaker as well as improve my public speaking skills as I continue to work at Maine Escape Games.
Journal #11:
Chapter 12 gave a lot of insight to the many topics a speech can be about within a special occasion as well as the different types of speeches within one big special occasion. The different types of special occasion speeches are to entertain, celebrate, commemorate, inspire, and set social agendas. The big takeaway from this that there is a different time and a different place for each one of these special occasion speeches. I also realized that the types of speeches that I am most likely to do in my life are all these especially the inspire one. I will need to do these when I am presenting an idea to my peers or pitching a new drug in my job. I will also be attending cause-oriented organizations due to my job so I will need to know how to give these speeches for that as well. I also connected a lot with this chapter because of all the banquets and organizations and special occasions I have been to; I have heard many of these speeches and can now depict them from the knowledge I gained in this chapter. I also never considered an acceptance of an award a speech, but it is in its own form where it is an impromptu blurb of speaking of gratitude. There were quite a few takeaways from this chapter and the examples helped me better understand how each of them play a part in my life and when I should use them.
Journal #12:
I knew exactly who I was going to do from the start. I obviously love my parents and could talk for hours about them, however, I wanted to do someone outside of family that is really important to me. I chose to do my soccer coach and family friend. I will be having my speech take the form of a toast and do a toast to him at a soccer banquet as him retiring from being a soccer coach. I think that I have a lot of good ideas laid out and know the flow of how my speech will go. I just need to figure out how I am going to put it all together and make the toast within the required time. I want to talk about how I got the know him and how he has affected my life from being both my coach and my friend. I also want to talk about some problems he has helped me and my team with and why he is a mentor to me. Some challenges of this toast are that some of the things I want to say are very personal and I don’t feel too comfortable sharing it with the whole class. One improvement that I also always need to make is my volume and speaking louder. Overall, I think I am well prepared for this speech thus far.
Journal #13:
With speech 3, I feel confident about it, but I also have many anxieties around it as we approach the dry run. I feel like I need to have it written out more and rehearsed more because I don’t have what I want to say fully memorized yet. I am most anxious about messing up with this speech because I want it to feel real and thoughtful so I think that I may be more nervous because of this and forget what I want to say or take too long of pauses. This speech is also personal because it is about someone who we care about and what they have taught us in life and there are a lot of personal matters that contribute to this, but I don’t want to discuss in class. However, there is a lot working in this speech. I have everything outlined that I want to say, and I could talk for a long time about this person, so I don’t have any anxiety about the time or running out of things to say. I also have a lot of all emotions in my speech where I tell a funny story about the person and I have a more serious matter that the person helped me through so it can convey to the audience just how special this person is to me.
Journal #14:
When it comes to my dry runs for speech three, I do believe that they went very well and we’re a lot better than my two dry runs from speech two. After watching my two dry runs I do think that I am prepared for speech three, however I do think that there are some areas that I can improve upon. I think that I can improve upon not looking at my outline as much. I think that I looked at it too much and this might cause lots of points on my actual speech so I think that I should memorize it and rehearse my speech a little bit more so that I don’t look at the paper as much. Another thing that I can improve upon which I know that I have to do to my other two speeches is my volume. I’m not good at speaking loud during speeches and I’m not entirely sure why, so I need to be able to keep working on my volume and speak louder during my speeches. I would also like to improve upon moving around more in the speech as it is a toast and I think that it would mean a lot more if I was interacting with the audience and moving around more. Some strengths of my dry runs are that I am very good with eye contact and hand motions which I have been in my other two speeches so I can keep that up for the speech. Another strength in these dry runs is that I connected with the audience a lot. Overall I think my dry runs went very well and I am excited for speech three!
Journal #15:
I felt pretty good after delivering speech 3. Speech 3 was probably the most difficult speech thus far because we had a smaller amount of time for preparation and it was about something that needed to be more memorized rather than the second speech. However, I think that the other two speeches prepared us well for this one and I think everyone overall improved. As for me, a few areas that I think went very well were my volume and movements. I really tried to talk louder during this speech because I have gotten multiple comments about how I do not speak loudly when I am presenting so I told my mind that I needed to raise my volume. I think that it worked at the beginning, but toward the end, I started to get back to my quieter level because I got more into the speech and forgot about my goal of speaking louder. I will try to improve upon this for next time as I will continually remind myself to speak louder. Another thing that I believe was a strength of my speech was my movements. I have always done very well with hand movements and eye contact in my previous speeches and kept it up in this speech. However, something I did differently in this speech was I started to move away from the lectern and move around more during my speech. I think that this was a bold move and showed that I had confidence in my speech and didn’t need to stand still and look robotic. I wanted to relate more to my audience, so I decided to move around more. I got some feedback from the audience and a few commented on this movement and said that they thought it was nervous fidgeting and that I should stay at the lectern. I will reflect on this feedback but will continue to do whatever makes me the most comfortable in delivering a speech. Overall, I believe that I was well prepared for this speech and had a good organization of my thoughts. For my next speech, I will continue to work on my volume and moving about more confidently.
Journal #16:
I was not able to attend class when we went over speech 4, however, my group members have kept me very involved and let me know what we went over and what the plan for our next speech is. My group has created a Google Doc since last class, and everyone has been adding different ideas and points that we want in the speech to the document. We have a pretty detailed document so far with everything listed on what we are doing and how we will do it. We are all in pharmacy, so we know that we will all relate to each other in our major and this helps with what our speech will be about. We know that we will be taking a news casting path where we will all be news reporters telling our audience about breaking news about an alcoholic outbreak and how we, as pharmacists, play a role in helping with this situation. We also have some of the smaller but important details worked out like the possible names of our news casting program, our logo, music, and what we are going to wear. I think that we have something good to go off of and this will lead to an easier time creating our actual speech and rehearsing it.
Journal #17:
After watching our dry-dry run, there are many things I believe we can both keep and improve upon. A lot of things were strong about our dry-dry run like the fact that it was long and took up a lot of time, which is good because this meant we were well prepared and know what we will be doing for our real speech. We expressed all our ideas to the audience and let them know just how we plan to do the speech and what parts we still must do for it. One thing that I do think that we can improve upon is the rehearsing and time for our speech. I think that we need to have it fully scripted out and go through it to see if we meet the time requirements and see how much we can do without big pauses or forgetting what to say. With news casting, they don’t have big pauses and always know what they’re supposed to say, so we need to have that same mindset. Overall, I think that our dry-dry run went very well, and we are already starting to improve our outline and script and creating the props.
Journal #18:
After watching my dry run for Speech 4, I noticed a lot of things that were working and some things that need to be improved upon. One thing that worked really well was we were all really good with our conversation and volume. We presented to the class nice and had good elements to our presentation like having one of us standing to the side like a newscaster would with a split screen. Another good thing is we had a prop when we did our dry run so it made it seem more real and we were able to get some good feedback based on our prop. A few people said that it would be better if we only had two microphones. One for Peta-Gaye and one to pass between the interviewer and the person being interviewed. I think that this was very good feedback that we used in determining how we are going to record for real. One thing we need to improve on from watching our dry run is memorizing our lines. This will come with practice and time, but I think we just need to keep rehearsing and like the other speeches, it will come. Overall, I think that our dry run went well and we are prepared for speech 4.
Journal #19:
Overall for speech 4, I believe that it went very well. There were a lot of things that went right and everyone contributed evenly to the work load. Abby did the logo and I did the picture and music and Peta-Gaye did the props. As for editing, we did most of it together, but I also did some finishing touches. We all worked on hard on the script, editing it as we went on and got feedback from other classmates. The time in the green screen went very well and we were finished very quick because we were prepared and ready to record. The extra time in our time slot was spent editing. For the actual presentation, we got a lot of positive feedback about our speech saying how they liked the news-casting approach and we did a good job hitting all the spots on the rubric. One thing I think we could improve on is our time and speaking. I feel as though we could have added a bit more information to make it longer and we should have slowed down our talking a little bit more like news-casters do. However, I believe speech 4 was one of the best ones yet.
Journal #20:
FINAL JOURNAL:
I would like to send my thank you note to the whole class. You have all been very supportive and have helped me improve both in and out of the classroom. I feel lucky to have had a public speaking class with all pharmacy students so that we could all develop a closer bond with each other. I want to give a special thanks to Mackenzie as you have helped my public speaking by giving me constructive criticism and have been a good friend over the semester. I also want to thank Peta-Gaye as you have been nothing but honest and tell it like it is. You are independent which makes you an overall good person and friend. I also want to thank everyone in my speech 4 group as we really bonded and did an amazing job with the project. I can’t wait to become even closer to you all over the years of pharmacy together and continue to help each other succeed.
