Persuasive Speech Evaluation

            After watching the video of my persuasive speech found at http://sharing.theflip.com/session/24e7cc5efa98658acc2d35a936abdef1/video/36652991, I came to the conclusion that it had many strong points, as well as room for improvement.  The first thing I noticed was I had a good attention grabber right in the beginning.  I quoted a very interesting statement that caught people’s attention.  One thing that could have made it better was the volume I was talking at.  I talked loud enough for people to hear, but I could have talked louder to really take control of the room.  Another thing I noticed during my speech was my body language.  I had good posture and did not have my hands in my pockets or anything.  One thing that I could have done better was use more hand gestures.  I used hand gestures at time, but I could have used more in the end.  I also made good eye contact with the audience and did not look down at my notes too much.  This is an important thing to do because the audience would feel neglected if I just read off of my notes the entire time.  Another positive aspect of my speech was my information.  I came off as very knowledgeable about my topic and had a very organized presentation.  This brings me to the last good thing I noticed about my speech after watching the video.  My visual aid was helpful.  It had some pictures and some text briefly describing each of my arguments, but it was not too much.  Overall, I would say my speech was done well, but there were definitely some things I could improve on.

Response to Nick Janus's "Speech Evaluation"

            After reading Nick janus’s “Speech Evaluation,” and watching his speech, I have come to completely agree with his evaluation of himself, which can be found at http://njanuslsc100f10.blogspot.com/.  In his evaluation, Nick claims that his speech had its ups and downs.  This is very true.  In the beginning he was looking down a little too much to read from his notes.  However, he had good posture and body language, which let everyone know that he was in charge at the moment.  Nick also says that he thinks he had a good introduction as well as an attention grabber.  These are both true statements, he seemed to grab everyone’s attention great, and explain what he would be doing in his introduction.  The next thing Nick says he should have done differently is a power point presentation.  I agree with this completely.  A power point would have given a visual aid for the class to see each step better and make a proper paper crane.  The next thing he could have improved was his volume.  If he talked just a bit louder, it would have grabbed everyone’s attention just a little bit better.  One more thing that could have been improved in the speech was when Nick stumbled on some words.  Nick brought this up in his evaluation and he is completely right about it.  If he would have just practiced his speech a little more, he might not have stumbled on some of these words and the speech would have gone a little bit more smoothly.  Overall, I agree with Nick in saying that his speech was good, but it also could have been better.

Technorati Search

           I used technorati to find a blog about marijuana and addiction, and it can be found at http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2010/12/cannabis-and-severe-vomiting.html.  This blog was created by someone named Dirk Hanson in December or 2006.  This means the blog has only been active for close to 4 years.  It seems as though Dirk Hanson creates blog posts about once a month, but there is no specific pattern.   Dirk is a journalist, and he seems to utilize many links in his blog posts.  Most of his links are either links to other blogs posts or to journals, which makes sense if he is a journalist. 

            My second search using technorati was to find a specific blog post about marijuana.  I found one called “Pot can Make you Puke,” which can be found at http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2010/12/cannabis-and-severe-vomiting.html.  The author of this blog post is the same as the last one.  His name is Dirk Hanson, and he is a journalist.  This blog post came from Dirk Hanson’s blog entitled “ Addiction Inbox.”  This blog post was written on December 6, 2010, and 8:36 in the morning.  The tone in Dirk’s blog post is completely different from that of my persuasive paper.  This post is purely informative and states many facts that are both good and bad about marijuana.  My paper, on the other hand, is persuasive and tries to get all readers to take one side on the subject.  This blog has very good information and seems to be a great source.