Journal #4: Brainstorming:
How to be a better version of your academic self.
How will you connect with the audience?
The audience for this topic I believe is easy to capture. I am talking to a room of students, correct? First things first to keep my speech interesting – keep the audience engaged by adding personality and humor to the speech. Instead of rambling on about facts and listing information, I want to try and tell a story. If I speak from personal experience, they may be more engaged because they may have been in a similar position/mindset. My goal in my speech is to make relatable remarks that the audience (the students) may agree with or relate to. Hopefully being able to give good insight to help them better themselves academically and become the best version of themselves.
Why did you select this topic?
I selected this topic because I feel at this point in my life this is the area that is most important. Since I am a first year college student, bettering myself academically will make the biggest impact on eventually my professional self. I have some tips that I’ve done and hope that they could help someone. I’ve always been someone to get my work done and do it well, and that last led me to do well in school. I debated on writing my speech on bettering my professional self but why does that matter right now at this point in my life? I feel this is a topic that all students can relate to and would like to do as well. Shaping the speech- outline style
Starting with an attention grabber and just a basic brief overview of what will be talked about in the speech
Topic 1: Providing the key information such as tips and goals. Tips on how to be the best version of yourself academically
Setting short term and long term goals for academic success
Manage your time wisely, go to class, get your work done. Talk to your professors if you need help. Strengthen your study habits. (tips with this)
Topic 2: Personal experience
What has helped me in the past become a better student – how can we now expand on this.
Relate to the students with this one.
Topic 3: Explain the purpose of bettering yourself academically NOW and how that will help you going forward
Better prepared for your professional career
You will be a better student with better opportunities
You can take the advice and tips you learned and help other students grow.
Journal #7 Reflection 1
I definitely was more impressed with myself during my dry dry run of my speech than I thought I would be. I was super nervous going into it, I know it was only a super dry run, but I still worked myself up over it. I definitely had some recurring patterns within my feedback from my peers. I made good and consistent eye contact, but I could work on spreading it out more among the room. I definitely think I did a good job of organizing my speech and setting up my points nicely before really getting into the speech. I need to work on my nerves because my voice was pretty shaky throughout, but that is something that will come as we continue to work on this. I believe I used relatable scenarios and points which were good. I want to go into more detail on some of my study tips and use more personal experience examples. A stronger conclusion is something that I need to work into my speech because it’s pretty rough and not clear right now. I was pretty close to the target time of 3 minutes, my first run through I got 2:40, and the second was 2:46. My hope for the next time is that I can hit the target time of four minutes, just by adding some more detail into my speech during certain areas. The peer review and dry runs we did in class were so helpful, I got great feedback that will really help me when re-working my speech. It also made me less nervous and put me on a clearer path of where I want to go with this.
Journal #8 Reflection 2
After watching the recording of my dry run, I definitely have some things I would like to work on, but there are positive things that I can take away from it as well. I talked a lot with my hands which can be distracting to the audience, so I need to minimize that. I was less comfortable this time that I was sitting down, which is expected. I lost my place a few times and got caught up in my words which just means I need to slow down and breathe. Not losing my place will come with practice, which is what I intend on doing before the final speech. Delivery of certain sentences could be better, for example choice of wording in certain areas. I did a good job of engaging the audience by asking for a show of hands. To engage the audience more in the middle (especially during the tips section) say something like: “I do this which helps me, you should try this etc.” From peer feedback I’ve heard that I have a strong conclusion because it has a motivational touch to it and wraps up the speech well. In general I feel confident that my speech is well written, and what I really need to focus on is the delivery.
First Draft Outline:
Second Draft Outline:
Third Draft Outline (Final):
My best advice:
What I thought to be my best advice was given to Logan. The advice was to limit reading directly from the script- make bullets and then go off of this. You can read the bullet and then look up at the audience and say your thoughts on it. Once you know what you want to say in the speech, this bullet is just a reminder of what you want to say.
Why: Out of all the advice I’d given I believe this one was the most helpful and specific to something that she could work on. Looking up, eye contact, and engaging with the audience is a key element in the speech and I believe with this being fixed it will be a whole new presentation. This is something that I used to do, and I got this piece of advice once. It has completely changed me as a public speaker, so I related to this on a personal level.
Best advice received:
The best advice I received from my peers was from Montana and it was about continuing to engage the audience throughout the speech. I started to do it in the beginning by asking for a show of hands, but I need to work this throughout the speech so that the audience stays engaged and doesn’t lose focus. She told me to maybe use something along the lines of “I do this to help me, this might help you.” This wording indicates to the audience that this is something they could use and they will listen.
Why: This was really helpful because that is always my biggest fear during a speech: losing the audience’s attention. I was able to go back into my speech and work this into places, which is the ultimate goal of peer editing. If I didn’t receive this advice, I might’ve not realized that this was something I needed to do. This was one of the most specific pieces of advice that I was given throughout peer editing, which is why I thought it was the most helpful.
Journal #10: Reflection on project as a whole
During the final run, I was super surprised I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be, considering it was my first ever college presentation. I believe the reason for this was all of the prep we did, with the drafting, dry runs, and peer editing. I realized how helpful this was, and overall made me a lot less nervous for the final run. I have a newfound appreciation for this process, and I will utilize it for future assignments. For example, writing an essay should start with drafting, then peer review and making revisions based on that, rather than writing the whole essay at once with no review or previous drafts. I would say my final run went really well. I did have a bit of a shaky voice, but I feel I knew my speech well which helped me with eye contact and articulation. I also think the organization of my speech was very good, which is something I have also heard from my peers. Yes, I am glad it’s over, but at the same time I feel that I learned a lot about myself and feel much more confident with public speaking.
