Assignment 2

            For me, speeches are a hit-or-miss type scenario. A speech is either good or bad; this is because you need to have every single little component to make it a good speech. If your story is good but your enunciation and pronunciation is bad, the speech is completely ruined. Or if you have good enunciation but a bad story, you might as well not deliver the speech at all. Delivering speeches is similar to Jenga, there are some pieces which just cannot be left out.

            The most important part of a speech, for me, is not the story, but the enunciation because a good story is ruined if you cannot hear what the person is talking about because he is not loud enough or is mumbling. It generates boredom and confusion amongst the audience, because some people are trying to understand what is being said, and others are just waiting for it to be over. This will only have a negative effect on the speaker by reducing his confidence, which will, in turn, diminish the audience’s interests once and for all.

            A good story or content is a must in speeches, because no one want to listen for a boring story. Although the delivery plays a huge role in this, the content is what really makes it work, because you might have a very good delivery, but it doesn’t matter if you are just talking about a normal day in which nothing special happened. Your story must hook the audience into wanting more and more, even after you have delivered the speech. The way to ensure that the public is actively listening to what is going on is to give them something which they want to hear.

I believe that in order to make a good speech, factors like the content and the delivery are not the only important ones, context is also very critical. You have to make sure that your speech matches the context of whatever it is you are talking about, because mistakes here are very, very bad. You never want to make jokes when speaking of a sad topic, or bring up something dark amidst a humorous situation.

I feel like I have room to grow as far as delivering and writing speeches. My speech definitely needs some work on the content and I also have to focus on how to deliver it better by improving both my volume and my pronunciation. But, I think it is a decent start in public speaking and now I must prepare myself for what is to come.