What I will take from this class

I was actually really surprised at how much I will be able to take from this class. I thought that it was going to be the class that I was just going to have to suck it up and get through because I knew I really was not comfortable speaking in front of anyone. Now, I know that I will have so much more confidence if I ever have to give another speech, which is probably pretty likely at some point in my life, I know that all I really need to do is make sure that I have prepared myself for at least a few days beforehand. Also, I think the outline could be really helpful even if it is not a very formal speech. In the future, I may have to give a speech at a friend’s wedding or give a presentation at work. Now, I feel like I will know how to prepare myself rather than just being anxious and stressed up until the big day.

Concept from the class

One concept that I will be able to take from this class is how being prepared really decreases your anxiety. Before this class I had been so nervous about speeches every single time that I encountered them in any of my classes. I realized after taking this course that this was because I was not fully prepared and also that I was not using the strategies for building confidence before an oral presentation. I think that visualization, relabeling, and relaxation were key in helping me not be nervous about my upcoming speeches. I didn’t know before this class that there even were methods like these to help you in overcoming your anxiety. By addressing my various uncertainties, such as my uncertainty as a speaker, uncertainty about my ideas, or uncertainty about my speaking abilities, I was able to get up in front of the audience and be a lot more confident because I had prepared for the things I may have been uncertain about in speeches before this class.

My Favorite Speech

I think that the informative speech was my favorite out of all of the speeches from the whole semester. I did pretty well on it because I had prepared early enough and it was also a topic that I was really interested in. Part of the reason I liked this particular speech was that I did not have to be persuading anyone or using any specific method. It was just about informing the audience about a topic that I found interesting. I think it makes a lot easier to feel enthusiastic about an informative topic if it is something that you actually find intriguing. Another reason I liked this speech was that it was a type of speech that could be useful to me in the future. Someday I may need to do something like this in my line of work, so it was definitely good practice. Hopefully I’ll be prepared for it if I ever have to do one in the future. 

Home Schooling Persuasive Speeches

I first watched the home schooling pro video from chapter 15. I was surprised by the reasoning behind this speech. She said that public school is like a “prison” and is a place of violence that many people choose to keep their kids away from. I think these arguments may be a little exaggerated. The speaker used appeals to logic and emotion. She gave statistics that talked about how many more hours home school students actually spend learning in a single year. She used example of safety needs for her emotional appeal. The speaker connected with the audience because the topic is something that we all are familiar with. We all went to school. But she is asking you to consider a different option than the one many of us had. She had a good use of facts and statistics that could be helpful in my speech. In the home schooling con video, I was a more in agreement with what the speaker was saying. Something that I found helpful in this speech was that he would ask a question to the audience and then immediately give a reasonable answer to it. This was effective. He used appeals to emotion and to logic also. He talked about how we do not have the tools necessary at home to provide an adequate education. For an emotional appeal, he talked about how students need the classroom setting for self-actualization. 

concept from chp 15

What I would like to talk about from the chapter 15 of the reading this week is using reasoning effectively. Deductive reasoning is where the speaker is arguing “from a general principle to a specific instance or case”. There are many different ways that deductive reasoning can be applied. It can be applied to groups, processes, or events. Another type of reasoning would be inductive. This where you show very specific examples in order to show a more general principle. This is a strong form of reasoning because it allows the audience to visualize the argument and it also makes it more personal because of the specific examples. Another form of reasoning is causal, which is kind of self-explanatory. It’s where one event causes another. The last is analogical, which is one I was not familiar with. It’s where you show likenesses between two separate cases. It allows you to make a connection between something that is familiar to something that is not.

Discussion from reading this week

The most recent discussion I have had in which I was trying to persuade someone was just a few days ago at my work. I needed to convince my boss of the fact that I was the right person to get a shift that I wanted but that others wanted also. I used logical reasoning in order to persuade my boss to allow me to take the shift that I wanted. I had to provide facts to him to show him that I was the right person for the job. I told him about how I was the one that was always available on that day and also that I was the one who had the most experienced at the task that was in question. My reasoning worked well because I succeeded in getting exactly what I wanted because I was able to provide my boss with good reasons why I should be the one he chose for the job. 

Concept from Chp 14

The concept from chapter 14 of the reading this week is defining persuasion. I chose to define persuasion because it is something that will be important to me in the upcoming weeks as I begin to prepare for my persuasive speech at the end of the month. Our book defines persuasion as “relying on language, images, and other means of communication to influence people’s beliefs, attitudes, values, or actions.” The book also talks about the fact that we are bombarded with persuasive messages every single day. Friends may convince us to help them with something, charities are trying to get you to donate to them, or the television is always trying to sell you new products. All of these messages are trying to influence you to behave in a certain way or believe something and act upon it in a specific manner. Also, we, as functioning members of society, must sometimes persuade people to make sure that our needs are met. Persuasion is an important thing to understand because I do not want my speech to sound too informative and not get the point across that action needs to be taken on the matter.