Quincy Denis Post 1

 

              Public Speaking is something that I am good at some days and horrible the next. I do believe that this class can help me make positive changes and articulate myself better. I don’t like presenting most of the time so I knew going in would be somewhat taxing. Throughout the project I found myself only putting in the necessary amount of effort when creating my slides. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t used Power Point in a long time or if the project just wasn’t exciting enough. The bottom line is, I wasn’t putting one hundred percent of my effort into the project, and I feel it’s shown through my slides. I think when everything concluded I felt disappointed in my work. For the next presentation I will try to better immerse myself in the project.

               I think one of my favorite parts throughout the entire presentation was gathering information for the slides. The chapters were easy to read and not very long, which made them faster to understand. A good number of my previous teachers have made me read long and strenuous books filled with complicated material, so the simple paragraphs I read were relaxing. However, putting the information on a slide while trying to minimize the amount of word clutter was a challenge. I think at first I believed everyone needed to have a similar format for our presentation to look good, but I realized that all of us have our own ways of creating things. I think making everyone conform to one thing would just limit their expression. Plus, it was interesting to see how other people’s slides came out.

               Presenting for a speech is quite different on Zoom. I found that it was much easier to present. However, although we didn’t have to stand in front of people, I think our nerves were still as bad as they would have been in person. However, I will say that presenting online is much more enjoyable because there’s less steps involved. I think I was able to be more confident in myself when presenting because I couldn’t see everyone who heard it. I think that this class could be a very good way for me to practice because of that.

Right before the speech I found myself trying anything I could to make my speech sound better. This included writing down what I believed to be the most important information and reading over my slides. These techniques were supposed to help, but instead they failed me. I went second during our group’s presentation and improvised because when I read my notes aloud, they sounded dumb. Mentally I may have been underprepared for my speech. As for the rest of my group, I think all their presentations were very solid.

               For groups outside mine I found that they used a lot of information on their slides. It was surprising the sheer number of presenters who had seemingly added whole paragraphs to their presentations. At first, I thought I’d messed up by putting too little on mine, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed. It was kind of funny how almost every group didn’t finish their presentations in the allotted time of the class. I spent a lot of time reading when listening to everyone walk through their presentations. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I did get distracted quite a few times during their speeches. One other thing that surprised me was how many people were good at talking. Some of the presenters could talk for minutes on end without losing focus or uttering a single “uhh”.

               A very important aspect of group projects is proper communication. My group was pretty good at talking to each other all things considered. Sometimes the chat was dead silent, but when things really needed to get done everyone was helping. I will admit sometimes I forgot to check the chat for updates on things, but when I do I try my best to make sure my part is done. I know the others do the same. Talking to my group has gotten much easier after this first project and I hope it will be even easier later on.

               I think my biggest weakness during my portion of the project was the way I spoke. I feel like sometimes my words don’t come out the way I mean them to. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, I can get stuck mid speech. One of my worst habits is how fast I start talking when I want things to be done. It’s not that noticeable, but when I’m speaking, I always find myself rushing to finish. My thoughts sometimes are not up to speed with what I’m saying. I think if I pause and recollect myself it’ll be easier to talk the way I want. Other than that, I think I could also improve my confidence and posture while speaking as well.

               Overall, I would say that the presentations that we got to show off were enjoyable. Many things caught my attention when all the groups presented, and I feel I got to learn more about speeches in the process. There’s still much for us to learn but I believe we all did a solid job in conveying our thoughts and presenting our ideas. I think I got more comfortable presenting the longer I talked and although my speech wasn’t perfect, I do think I got better.

 

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