Self Evaluation

The purpose of my speech was to persuade my audience as to why they should support gay marriage. Not for themselves, not for their church, but for equality. I think I did a good job bringing awareness of this issue to my audience. If they are religious, homophobic, or unaware of the problem with gay rights, I certainly brought it to their attention by using examples that concerned them. I’m pretty sure the whole class raised their hand when I asked if they knew someone who is gay. In that sense, they are supporting their friends and family. When reading my feedback, only one person gave me a low rate of how persuasive I was. It must have been more of a personal issue, but my reasons of history and equality did not get through to them for some reason. I expected mixed responses though because my topic was very touchy.
As far as confidence goes, I certainly felt more confident this time than I did with my demo speech. After doing the three speeches, I learned how to prepare better, manage my time better, and paid more attention to what was on the grading sheet, like the structure of my speech. I knew who my audience was, and it was a little easier since a lot of people dropped the course since the first meet. The only thing I think could have been stronger was my support. I went crazy researching this topic because there is a ton of information of gay marriage, and millions of opinions for and against it. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence definitely helped with my organization, so out of everything, I could have improved my delivery. I’m still not comfortable enough presenting my speech without note cards or with only a few notes on the cards, but I could have practiced a lot more. I should have tried practicing in front of a group of people, that may have helped. Another thing I could have done better is use a better variety of sources. I didn’t use any textbooks this time, which could have been helpful. I did, however, cite the sources I did use, which was mostly internet and interviews. I counted four sources throughout my entire speech.
In my last speech, I swayed back and forth a lot and got a few comments back about it, so this time, I tried to stay still. It was my nerves that was causing my to move back and forth I think. I didn’t notice anything distracting this time in my speech, except that I could have sounded a little more enthusiastic. I tend to sound very monotone when I speak in public. I used my note cards less this time than the last, which I did unconsciously because I didn’t realize that I actually knew my topic, so there was no need to constantly glance down. My eye contact was much better than my last speech, and I would rate it an 8. I didn’t memorize my speech on purpose, and only used my cards to remind me of what’s next.
Based on my overall performance, I would give myself an A-. I took past comments and suggestions into consideration and focused on not making the same mistakes. I even structured my speech a little better than I did before. I know my speech was not perfect because I went over my time limit for the third time and could have practiced more until it was almost perfect. But overall, I think I did a pretty good job and deserved at least an A-. I didn’t get any negative comments this time, so I’m not sure where I went wrong except for the time limit. This speech was definitely an improvement from the previous two, as I performed the best this time.