For the most part, I feel like my informative speech on Monday went pretty well, other than a few minor areas that probably could have been improved upon. As i mentioned, I had alot more trouble putting this speech together as opposed to the last speech, because I was having trouble making it flow naturally. As a result, I practiced quite a bit so that I could become comfortable enough with the information to not have to rely on the outline for my main facts or points. In general, I feel as though using the outline during my speech tends to hinder my delivery rather than help it, because usually once i get going, I just go with the flow and follow the natural progression of my thoughts,instead of relying on the outline to keep track of what I am saying. Not only that, but once I have lost my place on the outline, it becomes very difficult for me to find it and interrupts my thought process and can even make me nervous or flustered if I dont find my place right away.
Because i knew I didnt want to rely on the outline, i practiced the speech many times beforehand to work on the flow, and i think it really paid off because when I did my speech I barely used the outline and was able to focus more on the delivery, which I felt went really well. Because i was comfortable with the information, I felt confident and self- assured when I was up there, and was therefore able to make eye contact and hopefullym engage my audience.
Some points that I feel could have been better was my usual problem, which was run on sentances and "ands and um's" which is more of a personal habit that i feel I have to work on some more. I also ran over time, so I probably could have cut down on some of the explination of things or not gone as in depth into some points.
Overall, I feel good about the way my speech went, and I feel like I improved a little bit since last time, and know a litte bit more about what to improve on for next time.

Informative Speech

So far, Ive been having alot more trouble with the informative speech than I had with the narrative, mostly because of the fact that this speech is based around facts and information as opposed to a story. Story telling and narratives generally come alot more naturally to me, because as long as I am familiar with my topic, I can usually speak without having to refer to an outline. Stories tend to follow a nice and natural progression which comes very easily to me, however, for this speech it's pretty much the opposite, where it feels more like a paper or essay style format, which is defentiley more of a challege. The trouble I am having with my speech at this point is to deliver it in a natural and interesting manner that does not come off as sounding like meaningless facts and information that I am spewing out at the listener. I want the listener to be interested in what I have to say, and want to listen to the subject, however, I am afraid of making it sound like a boring lecture that they will just want to tune out. I am therefore working on really getting to know the material so that I can get comfortable enough with it to make it sound flowing and natural, even if it is facts and information. That has been my main problem so far, and I'm hoping that more practise will allow me to overcome it and make it an interesting subject that people will really want to listen to.

First Specch

Overall, I feel like my first speech went relativley well, though there were certainly points where I know I could have done better. This was my first time ever delivering a speech like this for a class, so I was defentiley a little bit nervous as to how it would go. I have done some acting in the past, so I dont mind being up on stage, but for some reason it seems alot scarier getting up there as yourself, as opposed to a character. The nice thing about acting is that when you are up there, you have the character to hide behind, and you already know beforehand what you have to say and how to say it, so it takes alot of the pressure off of just getting up and improvising. In this case, I had practised with my speech quite a bit, and I knew it well enough to not really have to use my outline, however, there is still always that fear that you'll go up there and just completley blank out. Every time I get up to speak in front of people, I panic and forget what I'm supposed to be talking about, or what I have to say. Forunatley, however, as soon as I get stated and just get that first line out of the way, I usually remeber what i am supposed to say and the rest just comes out naturally. I feel like that it what happened with this speech, in that I was comfortable speaking on the topic and just let it flow.

I feel like my deivery was alright, though i could have probably done a better job of differentiating the characters at some points. I also feel like I might have rushed a bit in some places and had some run on sentences, which is a problem I have in everday life as well, so that defenitley something I have to work on. Other than that though, I feel like for the first speech i did alot better than i expected, and it really wasnt as horrible or scary a experience as i thought it would be.

First Entry

Hi, my name is Sonia Tapryal.

I feel like this class deals with an extremely important aspect of the career I want to go into, which is broadcast journalism. Obviously, journalism is a field that involves a large amount of public speaking, and I feel like this class will provide me with some of the tools necessary for me to become a good speaker who is able to communicate things in a clear and concise manner. Journalists (especially reporters and anchors) rely heavily upon the ability to improvise and maintain a certain amount of composure even when in a difficult or scary situation, and I feel that this class will allow me to further develop that ability in myself as well. I therefore feel that this class will be extremely helpful to me in understanding, and hopefully, improving upon one of the most important skills needed in my career, but I am confident that it will also help me in everyday life as well, because public speaking is something that everyone does, every day, without even realizing it.