Persuasion

The most recent situation where I can remember myself persuading someone was actually a few days ago. It was pretty late at night and a few of my friends wanted to go get a snack. As a snack I thought they meant something of a small portion. A few of my friends suggest Dennys! Don't get me wrong, Dennys is an alright place to go for a late night snack, but I wasn't feeling Dennys that night. So I suggested to go get some yogurt at Yogurt Delight. Most of them said that they wanted to go to Dennys, because some people wanted real food. Some people agreed with me, because yogurt is good, and plus it's cheap! So my friends and I actually sat there and began to list the good things from eating at the yogurt place. I remember there being a sign at little shop telling us how yogurt is actually good for your digestive system. So I started to list that and I told him that it's good and healthy for you! Dennys is just greasy and fattening. Plus, we're not going to go work out after this, we're going to go home and sleep! By then, a few had changed their minds. Eventually, we all headed to go eat yogurt. It was pretty late, so Yogurt Delight was closed, but there was another shop called whimsical. They are opened until midnight. So for my reasonings, I used causal reasoning and inductive reasoning. So I would say that my persuasive skill works pretty well.

Video 15.1 and Schooling Pros & Cons

The video of 15.1 was useful because it broke down the elements of an argument. Of course we already know what a thesis is by now, I hope! On the other hand, I found that the simple explanation of each element and the showing of each sample is helpful. I was a bit stuck with how to make my speech a little more interesting, but from this video it did help me to develop it.
With the school pros & cons, the videos set a really good examples of transitions. I really liked how both speakers were speaking very clearly. I also intrigued by the their enthusiastic voices. The speakers connected with the audience very well, because the topic was very common. Schooling is and was something that everyone has gone through once before in their life. Presenting an option of home school to prevent those dangers that Dixie presented is quite adequate. On the other hand, Robert also did a well job with presenting the cons of home schooling. Overall, I would want the experience at a real school, because I see that there are more benefits to it on top of what Robert had explained.

Interesting Concept in Chp 14

What I found interesting in chapter 14 is the way the whole chapter greatly explains how to construct a good persuasive essay. The patterns are well explained in the chapters. It's not too hard to comprehend, because the explanations are straightforward. Also from each pattern, the book also included a sample outline. I thought that this was very useful. This helped me a lot to figure out what pattern my outline should follow. Also from some of the guides in the book such as question of policy and the different audiences are very useful. It help to guide me on what I should include in my outline. In a way it helped me to organize my ideas and main points, because it helped me to narrowed down the topic.
So hopefully with that in mind, the main points and sub point ideas I present will relate to the audience and persuade them thoroughly.

Sea of Persuasion

Every day I am in a sea of persuasion. Everywhere that I look there are always TV commercials telling me to buy something. Or when I'm walking out of SJSU, heading down the street to catch the light rail, there are tons of stores and signs that either persuades me to buy some shoes or to switch to Geiko! There are so much persuasion going on, but you just need to be asked the question for you to realize the persuasions around you. Even when I am having conversations with my friends, they are trying to get me to do buy something or to go somewhere or even to do something. I view that the media has an impact on persuading people. But usually it seems to come naturally. For example, the weatherman! They can simply give you a temperature and tell you that it's going to rain. People will automatically know to carry their umbrellas the next day. As for public speaking, I can think of school events that try to get us to either join a club, or to not smoke and what not. I was in a program which went around persuading people too. We did skits of real life scenarios to teach Junior High students how to say no to drugs and pure pressure.
As your own being and caring for what's good for you is how you can more of a critical consumer. Obviously, there will always be something that you don't favor so you would go against it.

Actuative Speech

As for my speech I am going to be persuade my audience to learn and to keep their native language. For my first main point I am planning to explain the problem with young adults, and them not understanding their language fluently enough. In my second main point I am going to explain about the benefits of keeping your native language, and what it can provide in your life along the way. Finally in my third main point, I'm going to suggest 3 reasonable actions my audience can take to learn more of their native language.
For my introduction, I'm going to start off with a question as a grabber. Afterward I am going to give a few facts and statistics on how many people in the Unites States speak English. These fact will be through a credibility. For my conclusion I am going to try to persuade my audience to consider one of the suggestions that I offered. Then I will review my main speeches again and close it up with strong ending. For the ending I hope to get my audience to at least think about how much they know their language, and hopefully try to learn more.
To persuade my audience, I'm going to give a few narratives that tie in with my topic. Because I know almost all of my audience can relate to this topic, I'm going to emphasis my 3 suggestions very clearly and strongly.

Interesting Concept

One concept that I found interesting in these readings was in chapter 13. I found it convenient, because it broke down the different patterns to organized the informative speeches. I used this chapter to help me a lot with the prior speech, so I was really familiar with this chapter and its content. Not only did they provide specific examples for each one, but the chapter also gave tips on how to make it more interesting depending on which style pattern you use. This chapter basically broke down the steps to forming a well organized informative essay. It obviously helped me a lot, because I did well on both my outline and my speech.

Sexist language

The discussion of Fickr captured my interesting very much. I didn't think anyone would feel indifferent about the use of the word "girl" to describe a women. I don't feel degraded or offended with people labeling me or any other female a girl. It's nice to be called a woman or lady, but being labeled as a "girl" in tags are just about the same. I don't view the word "girl" as to be a sexist term. There are a lot of words that label things and people (gender) that are closely related to "girl". Such examples were given by Rippie: Contra Censura:

"i suppose one solution is to ban words like girl, boy, black, white, red, yellow, etc...
asian should go, and indian is probably a hot-button, too."

I've never came across this kind if topic before. I can imagine labeling some religion or nationality something other than the original can be demeaning, but something as simple as boy, girl, yellow, red is natural. In the text book, it claimed that certain words and sentences can be viewed differently to the opposite sex. I see it all the same. I don't mind the gender use at all.

Interactive Videos 10.1, 10.2, 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3

A concept that I learned from these video 12.1 was the use of your voice. Volume can be a very effective way to get your audience's attention. Luckily, from the comments that I receive from my presentations, most people have mention that I do have a clear and loud voice. Another concept I've learn was how to control your tone. Speaking too lively and quickly can easily distract the audience. They won't really pay attention to the content of your speech, but they would be distracted by the way you are talking. Speaking calmly, yet no with a monotone, at a decent pace is the most effective way to capture your audience's attention to maintain that attention through out the presentation.
In video 12.2 I gained more knowledge about how presenters should maintain their postures and their appearance. The video also taught about eye contact and your body movement. These tips do help because again, these are the main points to delivering a good speech. You want the audience to focus on what you have to say rather than to focus on your appearance only.

From tte videos, what I plan on applying to my third speech is body gestures. For me though, it's the hand gestures in general. Some of the audience noted that I have hand gestures. I think that might be distracting some people a little.

Useful or Interesting in Chp 11.

In this chapter I learned a lot overall about presentation media. I learned more about my choice of presentation, which is the use of the Power Point. I was glad to see that for most of the tips given for using Power Point was what I was already doing. If I had to pick another way of presenting , I would choose the overhead transparency. I choose this type of media, because it's almost very similar to the Power Point. The only difference I see with the transparency is that I have the ability to write on it as I am giving the presentation. Even though as a negative, the speaker would most likely bow their head down to face the transparency, equally it is like facing the Power Point. Although with control and practice, a speaker can present while using the overhead transparency very professionally. As I read through the chapter, the guidelines for using an overhead transparency is very similar to the Power Point as I have already pointed out. I think this can also help to engage the audience, because from drawing and writing availability for the speaker, the speaker can draw more attention by asking questions and or conducting an activity of the transparency.

Presenting in front of 5 people

As for the presentation, I decided to present my speech in front my close friends. Their names were Jessica, Rushkin, Angelo, Avin, and Patty. I decide to present in front of them, because they have been through giving speeches also. I thought that maybe they could give me advice and tips that I've never received before from previous teachers and colleagues.

This time around I decided to keep my introduction, yet I added a second question to capture my audiences attention a little more. I asked my audience "Now that counterfeit has been rising, how many of you are checking the change that you get back?". I still gave my audience eye contact throughout my speech, as I did during the class presentation. Another different approach was the way I ended my conclusion. I tried to reorganize my thoughts more and continues on with what I left off in my introduction. I briefly summed up my main points again. Then I went back to the audience and reminded them to next time, wherever they may be, check the change that they receive even if the amount is correct. The bill can always be counterfeit.

From the comments that I had received, it seemed more like I improved with the content of my speech; although at some points I did stutter a little. I did get all of my main points across as I did with my speech on Friday. So as for my opinion, I did the same as I did on Friday, but the question and the the way I summed up my conclusion was a bit of an improvement. Another improvement that i accomplished was the hand gestures. I tried to keep my hands calm, but I did make small movements to make myself more interesting. I didn't want to look too boring up there.

If I had the chance to do the speech again for the third time, I wouldn't focus on changing anything much at all. I'd rather try to improve on what I already have, plus the mistakes that I made with the power point. With the power point, I talked towards the wall, instead of towards the audience. That was the only weakness that I saw that I had. Or at least, that was the main improvement that I needed to work on. So that would be the only one that I would try my best on.

The exercise was pretty useful. It's like having another chance to revise your speech. I felt a lot more comfortable though, because it was in front of people that I know very well. It helped me become aware of my content and also the delivery of my speech. At the time I was presenting, I could also picture myself standing in front of class on Friday presenting the speech. I was almost very sure of what I had said Friday, so I tried to repeat those words, but also added some new sentences/words to improve the speech a little.

Second Speech Evaluation

As for the second time around, I am glad to say that I did correct myself and my mistakes from the last presentation. I reviewed over my "needs improvement" on the comments paper from my colleagues from the last speech. I made sure to improve as much as I can, and I am glad to say that I greatly achieved the purpose of my speech.

Luckily, this time I was the fourth person to present. Versus the last time, I was actually one of the last few people to go! As I got up to the front, I felt very confident, because I felt that this subject was going to catch my audience's attention effectively. Money in general is what everyone deals with everyday, and so counterfeit money seemed like a good subject to catch their attention. As I had said before, I went up to the front with a lot of confidence. More than I did from the last speech, because this time I was aware of my mistakes. Also I was familiar with how the environment is like, and how the whole speech process was going to go. If I had to do it over, I definitely would not change my introduction or my conclusion. Unfortunately, I stuttered at the beginning. I had my citations highlighted, and so I kept trying to mention the high lighted part too early!

One goal that I accomplished through the content of my speech was the conclusion. I remembered during my last speech, I did not sum up my conclusion very well. I had left out the part of reciting my main points. Although this time, I had just enough time to summarize my main points again, and also added a clever ending to wrap up my speech. I also remembered to use transitions to make my speech flow better. I took the time to present my three main points during my introduction.

As for the deliverance of my speech, from both of my speeches I thought that I presented very clearly and loudly for the audience to hear. For improvement, I limited my speech fillers. I remembered during my last speech I kept repeating the phrase "what not". Even I noticed that I kept saying that. So this time, I avoided that phrase completely. Which was successful!

With both speeches though, I made an error by talking towards the Power Point, again. On the other hand, with the second speech, I presented my conclusion very well. I included the main points, and added a good ending to finish up my speech. Between the last two speeches, I can see that I really improved. I knew more of what I had to focus on and so I tried to present that a lot better the second time around.

As for a distraction, I don't think I did anything that was distracting. Except for one comment on a colleague's paper. Someone mentioned that I had "hand gestures". I don't realize that I'm doing weird distracting hang movements, but I'll try to eliminate that also in my third upcoming speech. Other than that, I don't notice anything distracting. As for eye contact, I think that I had did that well. Despite the mistake of facing the power point a few times. Otherwise, my eyes were focused on the audience the whole time. I would give myself a 9.

For the mistakes that I did, such as stuttering in the beginning and talking towards the Power Point I thought that I was going to get a B. And also I think I went over time a little bit, which I knew would have docked off some points. I know that I did better than a C, because I did include citations, and I left out my speech fillers. I did not focus too much on my Power Point. In addition I used transitions which made my speech flow a lot smoother. I set my standards low so when the results do come back I won't be too disappointed or too over confident. Fortunately, I am very satisfied with my grade! I did better than I expected!

I remembered the citations being a problem with my last speech, so I made sure to include them in the second speech. From watching the video I did cite two citations. Once in the beginning introduction. The other citation was during my explanation about one of the security features on counterfeit money. That was one of my improvements since the last speech.

This second speech was definitely better than my last speech. By watching myself over again, I can see my improvement significantly. I made sure to fill in the mistakes that I made during my first speech, and made it better in my second speech. I felt that the audience did understand my main points for both of speeches; although with the transitions for my second speech it made much more understandable.