Speech 1

I prepared my first speech by gathering information about my home town. I used the Internet and found articles to find certain facts and staticstics that vividly described my home town. I did,t really make too many assumption about the audience. The only assumption I really made was that people had the wrong impression of where I am from. I assumed that most people have never been to my hometown and had the impression that it was similar to typical stereotypes that New Jersey is associated with. Personally I thought that my speech was not that great. During my speech I noticed myself relying on the Powerpoint too often. I also noticed that I started to get a little nervous and began to speak quicker. Many of my peers also agreed that I was speaking too fast. Both my teacher and some of my peers noticed I was pausing and saying "uhhh" between slides and sentences. Some positives were that both my teacher and peers made was that I projected my voice well and spoke at a good pace. Those two things were aspects of my speech that I really focused on. However there is a lot more I can also improve on. I think that the feedback from by class mates and teacher will definately help me when I present my next speech. One student said I should give more eye contact to the audience, but another said my eye contact was good. I'm not exactly sure who to listen to; however, more eye contact with the audience can't hurt so I will definately try to incorporate that more into my next speech. For my next speech I will definately try to add more content because I did notice that my speech was quite short. I also ended my presentation abruptly so I will definately try to have a better conclusion to wrap everything up. Also I should practice my speech more before I give my actual presentation. I think that with practice the speech will sound more natural and can eliminate those pauses where I was saying "uhh" and "umm."