Final Self-Reflection

TO: Steve Fifield

FROM: BreAnna Williams
DATE: April 29th 2019
RE: Final Self-Reflection

I have attempted this class twice now and I have to say, more so than just the simple fact that I actually finished this
time, this time was much more successful. I actually learned how to properly prepare a speech for a certain type of
audience and how to present that speech in a mostly-acceptable way.

Organization

Before COMM1020, I thought I could write a pretty decent speech. During COMM1020, I realized that that
wasn’t necessarily true… yet. Sure, I could meet the length requirements, choose a topic, have an introduction with a
thesis, etc. but I never took the time to organize it or properly develop a topic or its’ main points and they all seemed
very scattered. Most of my previous speeches lacked balance (Rothwell, 2017, p. 135) ( I remember specifically
rearranging my speeches to put my second strongest/ most developed point first, weakest second, and strongest last),
and didn’t fit the right pattern for the type of speech I was giving or paper I was writing. Thanks to this class, I can
honestly say that my overall organization has increased greatly.
However, my nemesis for paper writing and speech giving has been and always will be outlines. When I write a
speech I have an idea of the main points I would like to hit. That is all. That is where I start. Then, I write the speech and
as I research or as I write, the rest just comes to me. It is far too stressful, overwhelming and structured to have a full
outline with main points, primary subpoints, secondary subpoints, planned transitions, (Rothwell, 2017, p. 132) all that
jazz before I have even completely written my speech. I am okay with writing a speaking outline to use afterward, but
beforehand… that’s a no from me. I did actually try to write a first draft outline before each speech for this class, but only
filled them out about 1/3 of the way before giving up and getting frustrated (because my speeches weren’t finished yet).
Regrettably, because I gave up, I never turned in even the 1/3 that was completed, which, if I had probably would have
boosted my grade a little. But that just goes to show how much I absolutely loathe outlines.

Appeals and Integrated Evidence

Logos:
Logos is the hardest appeal for me, but only because researching most topics is boring and very time consuming
or we have to have a “scholarly article” and I struggle with knowing what counts as scholarly. For example, in my identity
theft speech I wanted to quote an article that was published in a periodical I found in the SLCC library. I figured the
school had it, so it had to be somewhat scholarly. However, I also researched later and found the same article published
in People’s Magazine, which isn’t scholarly, so I decided not to use it, even though it supported my claim.
While researching for logos, I can generally find what I am looking for. Before this class, it used to be a lot easier,
because I never considered source bias (Rothwell, 2017, p. 68). I used to simply find the information I was looking for, put
it in the paper, and carry on to the next piece of information. Now, I realize that a lot of the sources I would use would
likely be misleading. For example, I wrote a paper on drug addiction and recovery and got statistics off recovery
websites. I also once wrote a paper on the Utah housing market and used information from realty websites instead of
The Utah Housing Index.

Ethos:
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 I think ethos is the easiest appeal for me to establish in my speeches, at least for the speeches produced in this
class. For me, it’s easier to point out how I can relate to something or where my credibility comes from because I’m
almost always going to choose a topic that I can relate to in some way, and in most cases it will be a topic I am passionate
about.
The time it was the easiest for me to establish ethos was during my speech on identity theft. The fact that I have
been a victim of identity theft before would have been some ethos, but I feel like I really brought it home when I pointed
out that I also investigate bank fraud for a living and that I speak to victims of identity theft or people who are
impersonators who have stolen someone ‘s identity every day.

Pathos:
Looking back at the semester, I did better with pathos than I thought I would, but I still could have done more
with it. During my personal artifact speech, I briefly spoke about a depression I fell into after my dad died where I had
lost my motivation until my sister kept bugging me to read Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. Though I spoke about
that dark time, it wasn’t an awkward experience because I wasn’t overly emotional.
I get nervous with ethos because it can easily become too much, especially with anger, fear or general sadness
(Rothwell, 2017, p. 274- 275). There is a fine line with these emotional appeals and if you cross it the speech instantly
becomes uncomfortable and awkward. During the Speaker’s Showcase there was a phenomenal speech on “The Pursuit
of…” by a gentleman whose name I cannot recall and am unable to find on the SLCC website. Anyway, he wrote about
how we should rename the pursuit of happiness the pursuit of purpose, and it was such a wonderful topic. I truly related
to this idea. I loved what he was saying! But… his delivery ruined it. He got the crying part just right at the end, but I
couldn’t get over the awkward, overly-excited beginning or the supposed-to-be-funny reference to a McDonald’s Happy
Meal that did not warrant the laugh you could tell he was expecting.

Delivery and Visual Aids

Delivery is the area I believe I need to practice on the most, even though I can see an improvement from where I
was at the beginning of the semester. During the personal artifact speech, I was a mess. I paced around entirely too
much, kept touching my hair, talked way too fast and I could feel how red my face was. Slowly over the semester, I was
able to establish better eye contact, speak slower (though still fast), use less vocal fillers and develop more of a
conversational style of speaking (Rothwell, 2017, P. 170-176).
My use of visual aids has remained about the same. My preferred visual aid has been PowerPoint since
elementary, since that has been most commonly required and I lack artistic abilities. Though it has been preferred, I have
never been one to make over-the-top presentations that include a lot of words, brightly colored slides, or annoying slides
and words that fade in and out. My motto has always been “the simpler, the better” for PowerPoints, as I am sure you
could tell from my persuasive and informative speech.

Audience Assessment and Adaptation:

One main thing I rarely considered before this course was audience assessment. I am glad that changed, because
two of my speeches may have been hard to follow for some people had I not taken the time to consider that they have
not done the same work that I have and likely don’t understand all terminology and abbreviations. For example, in my
demonstration speech, I briefly showed how to perform CPR on an infant. I was going to explain the technicalities of CPR,
what bones can break ( the medical terms, not just “ribs” and “sternum”), and other, overly complex things that I realized
after my audience assessment I didn’t need to explain.
I also had to find a way to make it relatable to my audience, so in my introduction, I made sure to point out that
didn’t have kids but that I had a dream a baby was drowning at a swimming pool as stopped breathing and I just stood
there helplessly. This helped the topic become relatable to the people who do have kids of their own, but also to the
audience members who don’t because you never know whose kid you may be around that might need saving.

Speech Anxiety Management:

By far, the most effect strategy for managing my speech anxiety was developing the communication orientation.
From the first speech - where I stuttered, paced, spoke so quickly you could barely understand me and kept messing with
my hair, to my identity theft speech - where I spoke a little slower, mostly stayed in place and looked at my audience, I
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can credit that to the communication orientation and the ability to switch my thinking from “this is a performance”, “I am
being graded” to “I am just showing some classmates about this” (Rothwell, 2017, p.34). This approach allowed me to
focus more on what I was saying, rather than who I was saying it to, which in turn allowed me to speak casually and
freely rather than nervously.

Lessons Learned:
This course wasn’t the most exciting class I have ever taken, but thanks to this course, I will now be able to help
manage my speech anxiety using the strategies I have learned in this course, such as avoiding caffeine, using the
communication orientation, preparing and practicing, and more (Rothwell, 2017, p. 25-36). This will be able to help me
with my work presentations as well as having already difficult conversations with account customers when I advise them
their accounts have been closed for fraud. I will also be able to apply the speech writing techniques and the visual aid
tips to future papers and speeches throughout the rest of my academic and workplace careers.

Works Cited
Rothwell, J. D. (2017). Practically speaking. New York: Oxford University Press.