Journal #11: Self-Evaluation for Speech #3

     Allow me to begin by saying that although my speech was not perfect, at least I only needed one take to recite it and not three. The technical mishaps I had with my second speech were definitely absent from this one, which was delightful considering how stressful that was.

    When it came to preparing my speech, I got all my resources and notecards together in a timely manner. I had my outline written out on time as opposed to the previous speech, so in terms of planning, there was an advantage to be had. 

    However, I do think my main issue is that I did not practice the speech just as much as I had wanted to. It is very apparent when you actually watch the speech just how lost in thought I was, so much so that I skipped a lot of the introduction, almost all of it. This was partially due to lack of practice and also due to the fact that I didn't add the introduction on my notecards, assuming I'd just have that part down. Clearly, I did not, and should have included it just in case.

    Additionally, my body language and overall demeanor could have used some work. I was not monitoring these aspects very closely while giving the speech, but looking through the video makes it so obvious how anxious I was. Heck, I throw my sweater off mid-speech. Who does that?

    While I am beating myself up in a lot of these critiques (rightfully so), I will say one thing I was proud of was taking some advice I was given to heart. As I mentioned in the outline, I gave the speech to a group of my mom's coworkers at a preschool, and before I headed over I had a brief discussion with one of said coworkers, Sara, about pre-speech anxiety. That little chat on the phone did help reduce my anxiety a lot, as Sara is an anxious person like myself and kept expressing how nervous she was for me. Ultimately, I used that as an example in the speech itself to help emphasize what I was talking about, and even though it was a bit hastily thrown in, I do think it added to the presentation. Audience participation and such.

    So, to wrap all that up, TLDR and such, I believe my 3rd speech went well, albeit not perfectly. I improved upon the second speech in the technical department, but I still have a long way to go in appearing competent and serious during my speech.

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