Franchesco Ramirez

 

Introduction to Public Speaking

September 21, 2023

Introduction to Public speaking By Franchesco Ramirez

What is public speaking?

As far as I understood public speaking was just as simple as speaking in front of an audience. After reading a chapter, presenting on my findings and seeing all of my classmates give their understanding on Paul Nelson's, Scott Titsworth's and Judy Pearson's 2013 edition "iSpeak" book on how to improve one's speech credibility. I realized that public speaking has a whole lot more to, it gave me a better understanding on how powerful and intricate public speaking can be. I can confidently say that public speaking is when an individual educates and influences an audience to make a change or as simple as convey a message. It is truly remarkable how much impact one's voice and choice of words has on people.

Slides and Presentations

When group 1 presented it was very eye opening because in spite of being the first group to present with a less time to do research, prepare, and present they were very professional, organized, and effective when presenting. The power point was spot on with what was on the book, they made it very easy to understand and easy to follow through with their presentation. Group 1 made the power point was very proper and overall adequate. Everyone in group 1 knew exactly what they were talking about, you can tell everyone did their research, they took the time to decompose the chapters in the book and simplify it perfectly. When I was watching group 1 present you can tell they practice for a while before presenting. Without a doubt group 1's presentation was of high quality but apart from being high quality group 1's presentation had a copious amount of words. It felt like a lot of reading hence it made the presentation very tedious. None the less, overall group one was very professional well put together.

I was in group 2; our group was presenting two days after group 1. Personally, speaking after seeing group's 1 presentation I got inspired and had to do some last minute modifications to my own part of the presentation, similarly, to group 1 I decided to make it more organized and more professional but with my own twist. I am a person who is more of a visual learner. Thus, my part of the presentation had some videos and short clips to emphasize the meaning of certain words and certain phrases. As a whole our group was also on the visual oriented side as well. We were very creative and detailed orientated. We had some issues along the way because we had to adjust to new group members being added to the class. Although I felt we managed to create a well rounded presentation, I felt we had plethora of videos and short clips henceforth made our presentation lengthy.

Group 3 presented two days after group 2. Group 3 had a bit more time to get their presentation with all the nice finishing touches. With a little bit of inspiration from group 1 and group 2, group 3's presentation was very versatile. I feel group 3's presentation was both professional and creative. In my personal opinion, group 3 could have done better on their team's joint effort to make the transitions from one person's chapter to another person's more smoothly. 

Overview

To summarize, the presentations and the "iSpeak" book really helped become a better listener, build confidence, and improve my communication skills. After presenting, I believe everyone in class has gained these skills and gained the knowledge of what it is to speak publicly. I learned that it is not just a whole cluster of words. It is the research, the preparation, the practice, and the execution that makes an extraordinary presentation and makes a true public speaker out of someone.