Taking It to the Future

After taking this speech course, I feel more confident in my abilities to communicate with my peers. I think that the most important aspect of society is communication. Without it we are unable to learn from one another. This speech class has given me numerous skills I will use for years to come. It has helped me organize my thoughts and ideas, my ability to think rationally while under pressure, and my impromptu and quality of casual speaking. In the future, I know I will need these skills. I won’t to be able to express my beliefs with everyone else. I want convey with conviction. I want to help others and be able to explain the problem while providing a solution. This class has given me the self-esteem I need to succeed. The other thing I will take from this class is all the information that everyone else has shared. I learned some very interesting facts. Thank you so much everyone.

Favorite Speech a Tribute

I’d say that my last speech (Tribute) was my favorite one. It was something I wanted to share with the class and I have always held that person close to me. It was also nice hearing everyone else’s speech. It was a pretty emotional session for everyone. It really just goes to show you the impact that we have over each other. It’s an inspiring moment. I think what’s even more important is how daring it was for everyone to express their feeling and really open up to a class room of complete strangers. When I was giving that speech, I really meant the things I was saying. I believe that’s what makes the tribute speech so favorable. Although the other speeches I gave were equally just as meaningful, the tribute speech is a pure emotional roller coaster  I can only hope that my other speeches leave just as much impact as the tribute speeches do on everyone else.

Concepts We're Given

I think what concepts become really helpful are the organizational patterns for each individual type of speech. I think that’s probably what really helped me out. The outline examples were extremely useful reference material. The book also had some great examples but it was nice having something entirely rather than partially. Furthermore, how speakers uses evidence was important. Using creditable sources and having reliable statistics was something you almost usually have to use in most speeches. Gatewatching only seems natural, but I suppose that it’s always important to double check an author’s updates or sites activity. Digital media seems to be the current and future outlook for creditable information, but books and scholarly journals are always great because they’re concrete facts and studies. Although I don’t consider myself an extremely good speaker, I believe that knowing these facts and practicing them has given me a slight edge on the conduction of public speech.

Schooling: Pro & Con

After reviewing both “Schooling: Pro” and “Schooling: Con”, it was easier to spot what types of appeals were being used. In both speeches, either speaker approaches the topic with an emotional proof. In fact they both use more logical and cultural belief coming from opposite ends. I believe their ideas were pretty straight forward; however, I wasn’t too convinced with either argument. Coming from a home schooled environment, I know that as a student you have to be motivated to do your work. Even more so, I did also go to public school; however, there are too many issues that I had no control over. In the end, I went back to home school. K through 12 Institutions are pretty scary. It really depends on the type of staff parents are working with. If there’s one thing I learned from these videos, it that they need to emphasis on their facts. Perhaps using more pitch and tone to really stress key points. You have to catch the attention otherwise the audience isn’t really going to catch those brief pauses for facts. Listening, I didn’t feel connected, but I could relate on the topic. Anyone who’s ever been through some type of education can understand.

Using Evidence Effectively

Using evidence effectively is the foundation for your claims. Whenever a speaker presents evidence, there should always be a clear type of appeal they use. One of the most important concepts from reading this week was something we already learned about in previous chapter. There are four types of appeals one can use in a given speech: Logos, eithos, pathos, and mythos. Logo is the logical proof of facts and statistics. Eithos is the speaker’s credibility of expertise. Pathos is the emotional proof which could be a humorous quote or dramatic story. Finally, mythos is the cultural beliefs and values the speaker shares with that community. Practically all of these can be used in the same speech, in fact, they should be. For the audience to trust the speaker, having a well-rounded amount of facts and personal experience is important for that connection. Personally, in a normal conversation, we logically think about all these appeals even without knowing it. 

Reflecting on Persuasion

Reflecting on past arguments, I never try to get someone to accept my point of view. Perhaps providing facts and weighing the evidences, and thinking about the situation from both sides are something I try to do. Being sociology major, it’s important that I don’t hold egocentric views or bias opinions about a certain subject. Probably my last persuasive discussion was about women and the workplace. I simply provided the fact that the majority of people that hold lower-position jobs are women. This got me into trouble because they called me a sexist… after that I didn’t really want to get into the statistical data of race and gender. I could see though why this would make someone upset. I even agreed and said it was sexist, but it’s how bureaucracy has designed the system. How often do you see women holding a top management position on a corporate ladder compared to men? Right now, the number of women that hold Congress has just increased slightly but the margin is still in favor of men. Nevertheless, reasoning only got me into further trouble and I got weird looks from my female co-workers.

Question of Policy

Critical thinking is a lacking practice we do in our daily lives. It’s easy to find problems, but how do you fix them? When learning about how to be persuasive, one of the most important aspects is providing a solution to the issue. Question of policy is one type of course of action that should be taken. This tackles types of policies that reflected controversies either in substantial or meager topics. Depending on the issue, the speaker might request immediate involvement, general support for a political movement, disapproval of an idea, or a change in behavior. The general concepts of policies are formal doctrines or ethics used by institutions in government and organizations. As you can see, there is a wide verity that the “question of policy” covers. Also, it’s important to incorporate the Monroe’s Motivational Sequence in any type of persuasive argument. I think what’s nice is that Monroe’s sequence works will with the organizational pattern of policy.