Speech Evaluation

           Public speaking is a worldwide every day occurrence. When I entered the world of you-tube I was shocked to see how many demonstration speeches, similar to the speech I gave to my life and science communications class, were accessible from the web. The speeches I found and watched seemed to all have identical criteria as my demonstration speech given just a few weeks ago.  I took some time to critique a particular speech I found.

            I watched a male’s speech that was just over six minutes long demonstrating how to play a guitar.  The speech had many positives that kept me interested in the speech. First of all, the speaker began by playing an ear catching tune. He then told the story of how he got into playing the guitar. The body of his speech was the “how to” part. He was very descriptive and enthusiastic about his topic, which in turn made me very enthusiastic about listening. He used creative ways to remember particular cords on the guitar such as funny phrases. Those phrases made the speech both humorous and memorable. He then closed his speech by relating the topic to his audience. He suggested to the audience to listen for the guitar in favorite songs and then maybe go learn how to play those guitar pieces. All of these aspects of the speech made the speech very strong, however, there were some downfalls.

            The speech had particular drawbacks. The speaker did not have consistent or strong eye contact. He did not relate the speech to the audience until the end of it; therefore I did not understand the relevance to me for the majority of the speech. Also, there was no strong thesis statement.  These all took away from the content of his speech.

            Although there were drawbacks, the speech was overall successful and influencing from an observer’s standpoint.