I am going to take all of them

Since taking the Public Speaking class, there are so many helpful things that I could wrap up in my future endeavor. One is the many experiences of public speaking. These experiences would help me in daily life. For example, if I have to interview with or persuade people, I would know how to prepare and how to dress, how to adjust my talking manner, and the most important- eye contact. Also, I could employ the strategy of how to organize speech outlines in writing English essays, resumes, or even work proposals. A third is effectively researching credible websites. A fourth is the audience-center knowing what your audiences, relatives, friends or clients like and talking about their favorite things. A fifth is timing, which our professor has mentioned many times. But I still didn’t control the time properly in some speeches. Even though the timing control is just a little thing, it could become a big problem if we do not take it seriously. Because the timing control could represent a personality which requests respect from others. Finally, I believe that I will take all what I have learned significant concepts from this class in my future endeavor.

My Favorite Speech

Every speech is my favorite; yet before giving these speeches, they were my nightmare. Honestly, I could not compare which one is my favorite because they all have differently characteristic content. The culture speech was a warm up of public speaking. The demonstrative speech was like teaching a class that I taught my audiences how to make Chinese rice balls. The informative speech was as an educational course, in which I informed my audiences about the various characters of volcanoes. The tribute speech was as a sharing experience with an important person to whom I met. And the final persuasive speech, which was the most challenging one, was to convince my audiences to support my idea about passing the Death with Dignity Act. If I really need to pick a favorite one, I think the demonstrative speech, how to make a rice ball, would be my favor for many reasons. First, the speech’s purpose is to teach my audiences what I know about the original history of the Chinese rice ball and how to make it. Therefore, I was passionate in giving the speech. Moreover, if my audiences like the food, they would have a new exotic food on their dining room table to satisfy their appetite, and no matter they make their own rice balls or buy them from stores. If they don’t like the rice ball, at least they know about the original source and history of the rice ball. Accordingly, I felt this speech was full of fun without stress. On the other hand, the culture, persuasive and tribute speech was a little heavy for my audiences because the core of topics was about death. Therefore, the demonstrative speech is my favorite speech.

The most helpful concept in preparing speech

In preparing for my speech, there were many steps to do, such as researching topics, finding supporting materials, organizing speech outlines, preparing visual aids, and practicing the vocal presentation. In my opinion, the most helpful concept would be practicing my speech with visual aids over 7 times, as our professor posts on the Blackboard. I wasn’t taking this tip, concept, seriously in the beginning of three speeches because I was quite confident about my speech topics and my performance. Yet as I failed in my demonstrative and informative speeches, I deeply self-considered the unexpected grades; I realized that the dissatisfied grades were result in inadequate practice with visual aids. Accordingly, before giving the tribute and persuasive speech, I have practiced with visual aids over 7 times. I demonstrated that this concept, practicing with visual aids 7 times, is the most helpful because I earned the highest grade at the persuasive speech.

Avoiding Fallaceies in Argument

What should you avoid in your speech content after writing your speech outline? In the chapter 15, there is very important section, which is talked about the fallacies in arguments has brought me a new concept about my persuasive speech. Coopman has summarized the fallacies in four sections: claim, evidence, reasoning, and responding. After demonstrating some of fallacies in the speech buddy video, the pro home schooling, I found they are very useful. When I write my persuasive speech outline, I could go back this section to avoid common fallacies happing in my argument outline. We usually assert our opinions unconsciously by personal feeling or common sense, but we ignore our audience feelings. One of the examples in responding fallacy is “ad hominem-personal attack.” For instance, when you dislike a political party, you deny all of its historic efforts or positive contributions to our country. This kind of personal prejudice will be harmed your credibility in your speech. Therefore, we should pay more attention to this section to avoid a fail in our persuasive speech.

Question 2

Actually, I don’t remember that I have tried to convince my audiences on my posts. Most of the posts are reflecting my personal opinion about the topics. If I guess right, the example of persuasive post would be on one of the chapter 14 posts, which is how to become a more critical consumer. When I wrote the post, I did not have a strong assertion trying to persuade my audiences. I just wanted to share my experience. However, after reading this chapter, I went back to analyze the post. The specific purpose of the post is to convince my audiences to become more critical consumers. I use the example type of reasoning, which is understandable and practicable from my personal experience. However, I think the example reasoning does work fine to persuade my audiences to become more critical consumers because my personal experience is as an evidence of 'real world' situations that they could easily apply to their daily life.

Responding to Home School Pro vs. Con

The video 15.1 is very useful, and I have learned how they effectively organize their persuasive speech outline. They both have clearly established their claims, and have sufficiently cited credible evidences to support their conclusions. On the pro side of the speaker uses the emotional appeal by telling an example of child abuse in public schools to get her audience attention. She then provides many effective evidences which cite from variously credible experts assertions and statistics to support her claim. On the other hand, the con 's speaker presents a logical appeal by how and what do we do to educate our children. And this appeal has effectively influenced the audiences siding with him. Moreover, he uses the deductive reasoning to firmly organize his supporting evidences by questioning about the credibility of parent status as a teacher, and their roles to their children. In addition, he uses a fact to support his claim, a useful survey which is from the home school parents, who want their children at least to take part time in a public or private school. With this in mind, instead of asserting how many advantages in your claim, the opponent side’s drawback is the most effective support to support your claim.

Speech on Question of Policy

Since I decide to use the problem-solution pattern for my final persuasive speech, it is important for me to familiar with this organizational method. Therefore, I would like to discuss about speeches on question of policy, which is relating to my topic-Physician-assisted suicide. Different from question of facts or values, the speech on question of policy is more dynamic because its final goal is to motive audiences to stand up for the special position or take the special actions. As a result, the word of “shall” must be embedded in the thesis statement to motive the audience feelings.
According to the text, the first step is to actually reveal the significance of the problem’s existence. It is important to notice that if you establish an incredible problem, it will be harmful your entire speech. And the upcoming problem’s solution won't be meaningful. Although the problem/ solution pattern seems simple to apply in the persuasive speech on question of policy, it is not easy to get a strong thesis and conclusion.