Self-Evaluation #2

My informal speech was about dining etiquette. I think I achieved the purpose of the speech very well. My purpose of the speech was to inform my audience about proper dining etiquette rules and manners that an individual should follow. Although not a perfect presentation I believe that I taught my audience the general basics about dining etiquette.

Throughout the speech I felt much more confident than I was in my first speech. One factor was that I knew the audience more this time around. This made me feel more comfortable and confident during the speech. During the speech I wasn’t as nervous as I was the first time. I was confident I knew the information well for my presentation but my fallback was that I put my attention on my notes and powerpoint for security. During the speech I mentioned about 3 source citations. I mentioned my sources more toward the beginning of the speech rather than at the end. In the beginning of the speech I was more confident and knew the information better and near the end of the speech while watching over my video I noticed that I was rushing more to get my presentation done. During the speech the only thing I did distracting was facing my back towards the audience instead of against them. During the whole presentation I looked at my visual too much rather than at my audience.

If I had to do the speech over again I would make changes in my preparation, and delivery. In my preparation, next time I would try to practice the whole presentation instead of just practicing parts of the presentation so that I am more aware of my time. During this presentation I did go over about 1.5 minutes so going over the speech and practicing time management would surely be a change. In my delivery I would try to limit my visual more. In my powerpoint I had a lot of words and pictures that I couldn’t explain thoroughly. I had put too much wordy information on my slides which I will try to limit next time. One specific different thing from my last speech that I did in the recent speech was having a visual that was technology based. For my cultural artifact speech I just brought in my artifact and for this speech I prepared a powerpoint presentation. A bad thing that I did differently this time around was not completely going over my speech like I did during the first presentation. Not practicing the whole presentation all at once made me feel pressed for time and in the end I went over my time limit.

I have many goals for my next speech. To improve the content in my next speech I plan to use more pertinent sources. So far the information in my speeches has relied a lot on the internet so I plan to use sources such as newspapers, magazines, and journals. To improve the delivery in my next speech I plan to prepare and practice my speech beforehand. I also plan to present my speech in front of a few people so I can ask for feedback and improvements before I present to the actual class.

Based on my performance I would give myself a B on my presentation. During the presentation I had a powerpoint as my visual. The drawback of the powerpoint though was that I was relying on the computer screen or projection screen for information which resulted in less eye contact to the audience. Given this fact I would rate my eye contact as a 6-7 out of 10 because instead of looking at the computer I should have been paying attention to my audience more. Another fallback about my presentation was that my speech was a little bit too long. To me it just felt like I was trying to fit a lot of information into a 5-6 minute speech. Overall I felt as if this speech was better than my last speech. During this speech I was more confident and I had more reliable sources.