Speech Blog Post

1) Which speech did you find the most persuasive?

Personally, I thought Dahlia's was one of the strongest speeches that were performed throughout the exercise.

2) What made it persuasive? Inspiring delivery? Topic? Rhetorical techniques?

Honestly, the strongest point throughout the whole of the speech in my opinion was the story that was started at the beginning of the speech and finished at the very end of it. I thought it was an extremely intelligent way of grabbing the attention of the audience, since it was completely different than the rest of the speeches, despite the fact that it was the speech before the last one. There were a number of metaphors used throughout the speech, however the way in which the real life examples were described also played an important role in the success of the speech. The tone of voice that was used was not stern, nor too informal, something once again, that wasn't very popular amongst the rest of the speeches. Many of them were about injustice around the world or humanitarian topics, whereas this one addressed an issue that was not necessarily very popular and brought it out to the audience in an effective way. Posture and body language stood out throughout this speech too, since there was scientific information and orientations of the body that were not only described, but physically portrayed as well. I thought this speech stood out from those performed, since it sent out a different, more personalised, atmosphere around the classroom.

3) What do you think you did well?

From the comments that were said about my speech, I think the strongest points throughout my performance were eye contact and tone. Since I was not part of the audience, I would not know, however I was told that eye contact was spread throughout the whole room and the tone used to address the important issue at hand was appropriate as well. I spoke about the killing of children under the age of 18 at war and a speech about this subject is not one that can incorporate humour or an informal tone. At the same time, it requires the attention of the readers, since the issue is one that might not appeal to some around the classroom. It was therefore important to use as many ways possible to keep sincerity throughout the speech and yet ensure the attention of the audience at all times. I tried to do this by speaking slowly and with a variating, loud tone. In addition, there was a phrase that was repeated at the end of every paragraph, that was supposed to have reminded the audience all the way through of the points that were discussed.

4) What could you have done better?

I used literary features and rhetorical techniques throughout my speech, however I personally think it could be improved by using literary features like alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance and consonance, since they are associated with audibility and will appeal to the audience more perhaps.