Question#3

The concept that I found useful from chapter five was “Adapting to a Diverse Audience”. Each individual in an audience is different. Some individuals may be knowledgeable and agree with what you are presenting, and others may not know what exactly is that you are trying to present and disagree with you. In order to convey your message more effectively one should have a target audience, says Coopman and Lull. The responsibility of us the speaker is to recognize the diverse background, knowledge, interests, and opinions of our audience. The book presents us with how to meet the challenges of a diverse audience: 1) Promote a more supportive communication climate that welcomes differing perspectives on topics and issues, 2) Draw from a wider pool of knowledge and information that contributes to better learning experience for all participants, 3) better articulate your own cultural identity and understand those of others, and much more (pg 103 Coopman, Lull). If one could understand the needed characteristics, knowledge, and feelings toward one’s topic of the audience, well one’s speech could be much more effective.

question#2

Discuss the importance of audience analysis and audience adaptation in the speech development process. Also, discuss how YOU plan on using audience analysis in your speech.


According to the text audience analysis is anticipating your audience’s needs and interests and designing a strategy to respond to them (pg 101, Coopman, Lull). A good successful speaker sees his/her audience as partners in public speaking. The listeners are always asking themselves “how does the topic of what is being talked about apply to me?” This is where audience analysis becomes important. By one becoming knowledgeable of their audience one can better adapt to their audience. The responsibility of the speaker is to recognize the different backgrounds, knowledge, and opinions in an audience. The book gives some tips on how to meet the challenges of the audience diversity as fallows: 1) Promote a more supportive communication climate that welcomes differing perspectives on topics and issues, 2) Draw from a wider pool of knowledge and information that contributes to better learning experience for all participants, 3) better articulate your own cultural identity and understand those of others, and much more (pg 103 Coopman, Lull). I will use audience analysis in my speech to help me understand who my audience is beforehand, and to promote a better communication climate between my audience and me.

question#1

1). Speech Buddy: Review Drinking and Light Pollution videos on the Interactive Video website in accordance with Chapter 5. Respond to each video. What did the speaker do well? What can you learn from watching these videos?

Matthew’s speech I believed was a good speech; better than a speech I would give about being a responsible drinker. Matthew started out nervous as he was loosing his words. He had a little trouble speaking at first. As his speech continued he did not seem as nervous. He presented a vast quantity of facts that supported his thesis. He provided good support when he presented the statistics about the chances of one being involved in a accident as the amount of consumed beers increase. Matthew was well prepared. He provided visuals for his audience to convey his argument. Overall it looked like he practiced his speech and chose a topic that he strongly felt about. What I learn from this video was to make sure I practice my speech and provide information relevant to my topic.
The speech with Courtney was a short video. I don’t know if the video was cut off, but could not get much information from it. I did notice that Courtney was looking down on her notes while speaking, she did it a lot. Not looking toward your audience does not look proper when giving a speech. She looked unprepared, as if she did not take the time in practicing her speech. I learned from both videos.

UPDATE ON SPEECH PREPARATION

Update the class on your speech preparation progress. What topic have you chosen? What have you been researching? What are you main points in your speech? What do you plan on using for your visual aid?


The topic for my speech will be on how to bathe a baby. Until this moment I have not research anything of my topic. I have some experience giving babies a bath because I have a 2 month old baby girl.


My main points:

*express the different ways of bathing a baby.
*show what to not do when bathing a baby.
*show my way of bathing my baby.


For my visual I plan to take a baby doll and the necessary supplies for bathing a baby.

Question #2

Pick one concept from the assigned reading that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.



Ans: chapter 2 explains what speech anxiety is, "refers to fear of speaking in front of an audience". Speech anxiety comes from seven different sources of uncertainty: the speaker's role, speaking abilities, ones ideas, the audience's response towards the speaker, the setting, the technology and last how others will evaluate the speaker. The book expresses the different ways to cope with these issues, and the one that I find most useful is practicing your speech. By practicing your speech one will lower the level of anxiety because the more you practice your speech the more comfortable you, the speaker, feels. The book suggests practicing in a location similar to one where you will give his/her speech to reduce the uncertainty of the setting, and to practice in front of an audience so they could give you feedback and lower speech anxiety. Practice makes better.

?#1 research interview

I have not experience with conducting an actual research interview, but I took a research methods course. One thing I learned from this course was that the research interview must be appropriate to the research. A key strength of doing research is the comprehensive perspective; it is going directly to the source of what is being researched, and by doing this one can develop a better understanding of what is being researched. There are different ways of doing interviews, by phone or in person, but one thing that I can give advice in is for the interviewer to wear the proper attire while doing the interview.

What makes you apprehensive about public speaking?

When I think about speaking in front of an audience I immidiately panic and get real nervous. When I speak in front of an audience I tend to forget what I am speaking about. I get nerveous because all the attention is on me and I dont want to look bad in front of people. I beging to question what each person is thinking about me. The thought of making a fool out of my self scares me. I don't have any public speaking experience, but I have done some presentations in some of my courses that I have taken at SJSU. Remembering high school, I do not recall giving presentations in any of my class, and maybe that is why my fear of public speaking has not gone away.