How To Write A Speaking Outline

My informative speech was on Jazz. The main topics I discussed in my presentation were the history of Jazz, the “Jazz Age”, and about Louis Armstrong. To begin this evaluation, I did poorly on this speech because I had my set of index card that had a lot of information, but instead of taking those index cards, I took one with less information and that’s what made me nervous during my presentation. I Think I need to make improvements on my posture, timing, and project my voice for everyone could be able to hear me. The reason I wrote these three things for improvement because I felt I was slouching and not projecting my voice as much.

I have never taken a public speaking course before getting into college, finding myself too stressed to calm down in the class of CC-100-11. I experienced the most anxious moment before I did my Grab Bag speech. Though I was so nervous, I finally finished it with all my efforts. In general, I feel that my Grab Bag speech is good enough for me as the first challenge, despite of the lack of experience in preparation, missing parts of the outline and the overwhelming anxiety. Therefore, I also give myself some advice and set an aim to achieve.

I. Regardless of the situation you have to be willing to face any hard situation given by life. Sometimes we have situations when is time to laugh, sadness and sometimes Anger.

This was something I was concerned about because when rehearsing for my speech I was worried the points were unbalanced but during the speech I did not feel like I spoke more about one topic than the other. I think it helped that I recognized this during rehearsing, so I was conscious of it during my presentation. Another thing I think I did well was my vocalized pauses. My um's & and's. Although I am aware that I still used vocalized pauses, I think it was a lot less frequent than in my first speech. I could definitely improve on a few things for my next speech. I feel that for my next speech I could improve on being relaxed and calming myself down. I need to remind myself I know what I am talking about and not get so tense and shaky during the presentation. Also I need to work on my eye contact. I looked at the crowd, but they were glances. And short ones. I need to extend my eye contact length and width. I need to focus and not reading from my cards and holding the eye contact for longer than a

In the first speech for this class, my main goals were to gain confidence to voice my ideas and use speech to make a difference in peoples’ lives, and to practice overcoming my speech anxiety therefore be able to use my nerves to focus myself. Overall, I believe that I did improve in both of these areas as a result of information from the book, mini speeches, and the larger speeches.

According to Peter Doolittle's Ted Talk working memory is limited. There is only so much our working memory can take away from the information we learn. This is why it is important for me to construct my speech in such a way that it helps keep my audience engaged and leaves them remembering the topic long after my speech is over. I could do this in a couple different ways. I plan on engaging my audience by sharing a story connected to the topic early on to make it personal to the audience and keep their attention on the topic throughout the speech. Besides telling a story I will arrange my main points into clear patterns that help my audience follow my speech easily. This means I will make sure my main points are easily understood by the audience.

I did a lot of preparation before my actual speech. First, I planned the outline several times and made many changes to it. Then, I would look at myself in a mirror, and started talking about the topic. I simply divided the speech into three parts during my preparation; intro, instruction on how to set up a skateboard and conclusion. I practiced each part several times, and I would try to present the whole speech again and again. Also, I presented the speech to my

1. The sun set. The sky changed to a deep, starry blue. 2. When you finish your dinner will be ready.

Comparing my first speech to this one, I can see several differences. I can tell by watching and listening that I was very nervous. My first speech was much easier, because it was over a topic that I know endless amounts of information about. I fumbled over my words, and that throws off rhythm, and makes me use several verbal pauses. The first speech, I hardly used my note cards. I did have them filled out but after starting the speech, I just went by the picture order and talked accordingly. My second speech, I could see many of the same mistakes. Being nervous is the main culprit, but practicing more, would have made the presentation smoother. I practiced multiple times, on a few different

The informative speech that I presented on Friday, which was about how to make gingerbread cookies went better that I though. I succeed in some aspects of the speech in others not. I still have couple points that I need to improve for my next speech and I hope I do much better than I did. The aspects I effectively accomplished in my speech were; good organization, good preparation, appropriate tone of voice and good eye contacts. The weakness points that I need to improve or perfect are the anxiety that I had, the topic of my speech and my body language.

One of my favorite books is by Ronald M. Shapiro; “Dare to Prepare: How to Win Before You Begin”. In the book successful people recount how they prepare for their success. I have become so much more likely to prepare now than before I read the book back in 2008. I also wholeheartedly agree with the Mark Twain quote at the beginning of our chapter 10; “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech”.

When giving a speech it is handy to have a list of key concepts with you that you want to get across to your audience. Writing out your whole speech will not do. Writing out your full speech may cause you to have your head buried in your notes for your entire

This time around during the advocacy speeches I was a lot less nervous. It might have been because I have gotten so used to speaking in front of a specific group of people. I’m familiar with them and also the ways that they give speeches. Also preparing for the speech was not as much work as the previous assignments. Since I had previously did most of the research when preparing for the background speech, it wasn’t as time consuming. The only thing to do was pick a specific topic and give my viewpoint on it. I am very opinionated so it was easy to create a script on something that I am so passionate about. I feel as if I have learned a lot about public speaking from watching the different approaches that various people had taken.

The best thing I see myself doing during the introduction is catching their attention with the topic. I saw myself move around more than I did in previous speeches, even though it was minimal. My voice was the least shaky throughout the introduction as it was my most memorized part of my speech. I believe overall, this speech was among one of my best speeches given during the duration of the course. I believe I gave my audience great life examples during my speech to help them not repeat the same mistakes I made.

I have learned my strengths and my weaknesses as a leader. I have learned that some of my strengths during public speaking are being confident, relaxed, and being able to articulate my points very well. I learned that my weakness was not including as much detail as I could have. During the rest of this course and in the future I plan to make a conscious effort to make sure that I not only provide details, but that I make sure that I provide enough details for other people to understand all that I am saying or doing when I am being a leader. Now that I am fully aware of my strengths and weaknesses I can practice them and grow throughout the duration of the course