Speech Critique, Research Paper Example

The most positive thing I noticed about my speech was that its topic was able to be independent of my expression of it. I had researched and written it beforehand, but it seems that when you verbalize it, a thesis can subtly change. The reason is that some words in a speech may be emphasized that do not seem emphasized in writing. This can put a different coloration on a point you are trying to make. The language spoken will determine how this can happen, so translators face this problem all the time. Turning writing into speech is translation too. To understand how, try turning something you have spoken into writing. It is not always easy.

The most negative thing I noticed was that I had not thoroughly memorized my speech, and it showed a little in my delivery of it. Watching my performance, I remembered something I had read somewhere by Mark Twain, who made a career as a public speaker as well as an author. It was simply that a public speaker should always completely memorize his speech. I then remembered reading about how the actor Richard Burton, responding to a barroom challenge from Robert Kennedy, recited a Shakespearean speech backwards word for word.

The improvement needed is mainly a matter of hard work. The idea itself came off well. I just need to rehearse more in front of a video camera, or something that looks like a video camera, in order to get more used to speaking to a non-blinking eye — or the eyes and ears of an audience. Next, I need to perfect the memorization of the speech itself. I think the way to do that is to change the surroundings of the rehearsal: outside, different rooms, different bored listeners.