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I Call it a Matt Talk. I Know, It's Clever.

Everyone has those things that makes them unhappy. For some people, it's nails on a chalkboard or taking the SAT. For me, it's waking up because of this weird stuff known as "responsibilities," remembering that I'm going to be 20 and thus old in less than a year, and hating on the oxford comma when all it wants to do is be a friend. BUT MOST OF ALL, it's listening to my own voice. So for this assignment, I managed to turn listening into a 5 minute speech into an hour long endeavor as I could only digest my own voice moments at a time. I was drained by the end. But the worst is over...



My preparation for this speech was simply to practice the speech again and again and again. It was based off of the most interesting aspects of my essay, so I was already intimately familiar with the content. Plus, with the slides giving visual cues in moments of need, I never struggled with what I was trying to say and when. However, I typically practiced sitting down so I never practiced incorporating gestures of any kind. But when I did practice, I tried to focus on what parts I wanted to emphasize and tried to alter my tone at some aspects to become more conversational. I explicitly remember the one reading by the actual Ted Talk speaker who reminded use this type of talk is meant be a conversation. So I constantly reminded myself of this as I practiced and started to sound too technical. I never practiced in front of anyone, so it might be a good idea to try that instead so I can get some pointers on my body language.

In terms of the actual performance, I had some nervous habits such as touching my face. I also sometimes retreated into looking at the screen instead of the audience. However, I typically had engaging eye contact that was spread throughout the room. I had a good introduction that was able to ease me into feeling a little bit better about being up there, although I could never shake the fear entirely and sometimes it showed. I, of course, would most like to improve my body control. I want to be able to limit the distracting tendencies I have and create a more natural persona when speaking. I also should try slowing down when I reach a transition so that the audience does not feel inundated with information constantly and they have time to recognize that a change is coming instead of being dragged along by content. The reason I couldn't slow down in this speech was because it was crossing the border of the time limit if I stayed at a point too long. Thus, in the future, I should try to cut a little more content out so that I can create a balance of delivery and content.  

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