Speech Analysis 1

Danielle McIntyre

Public Speaking

Speech Analysis

A.  The speaker on Thursday September 27, 2012 was Lauri Anderson. Lauri Anderson has done service work in many parts of the world and has written several books.

B. Lauri gave his speech in the Chapel at Iowa Wesleyan College. The chapel was a comfortable temperature and natural light is let in through the windows. The speaker was able to use a microphone, but mostly just talked without one. There wasn’t any background noise or distractions that occurred during the speech. Because of the size of the room the speaker had to project his voice.

C. The speaker’s main points were to inform the students of Iowa Wesleyan about his service and volunteer work around the world. He has traveled all over to help others. He also read excerpts from several of his books. He didn’t necessarily have an argument within his speech; he was just trying to inform about volunteer work.

D. The speaker did well in his ability to speak loudly, but other than that his presentation was fairly weak. Although he could speak loudly it would have been more effective if he had used the microphone. He didn’t have any visual aids, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it could have made it more interesting. I thought the speaker really jumped around between topics. I was very confused as to what he was talking about for a majority of the speech. I also thought that the speaker used a very monotone voice. It seemed as though he wasn’t passionate about what he was talking about. The speaker stayed in one spot for most of the time and didn’t really use any hand gestures. The speaker had some eye contact, but it could have been better. It also seemed like the speaker wasn’t well prepared. Like I said before, he jumped around on topics, and ran out of time at the end. I felt as if this should not have happened.

E. Overall, if I’m being honest, I did not like this speech. The way the speaker jumped around had me very confused and his monotone voice made the speech quite boring. I also felt as if he hadn’t prepared the speech; he just “winged it.” At the end of the speech he had a student argue with him about something he said. Although it was a topic I wasn’t familiar with, it made me feel as if the speaker may have said something that could have been offensive or something that he hadn’t done enough research on. From witnessing this speech I have learned that you should be prepared and your topics should be organized in a way that is easy to understand. I also learned that it is important to know how much time you will have and prepare accordingly. I also learned why it is so important to use emotion when you speak. It makes for a much more interesting and meaningful performance.