Fabian Ramos-First Presentation: Book Chapters

Hi everyone, my name is Fabian Ramos, and in this first blog, I will explain to you a little bit about our first round of presentations in this amazing class. 

To begin this adventure of presenting in the Public Speaking Class, Professor Sinkoff divided us into 5 groups, and then she proceeded to assign each group their topic for the presentation. In the process of forming the groups, I was nervous because it was my first time working with a group since I entered Miami Dade College, and it would be in a virtual class. However, I must admit that my group was very helpful and full of good people. I felt very good working with them on this presentation and also felt relieved that I had a good group for the rest of the semester. For this first presentation, each of our groups was assigned different chapters from the book Cengage-Public Speaking: The Evolving of Art. 

My group was in charge of chapters 4, 6, 7, and 8. We were undecided about whether to do the visual presentation in PowerPoint or Google Slides. The minute I heard Google Slides, I said, “What is that?”. I had never worked with Google Slides; it was even difficult for me to work on PowerPoint because my ability to make visual presentations is not the best. So, imagining that I had to learn how to use another app was not the best idea for me. Despite not wanting to, it was the app the group decided to use, and it was the best, not just because it was easy to use but because it allowed me to learn a new way to do visual presentations. Even when I was nervous, I ended up feeling comfortable and confident and learned that there’s another app for presentations, not just PowerPoint. 

In order to divide the different units of those four chapters that were assigned to us, my group decided to do a poll via WhatsApp, a very democratic process. This was simply because we wanted everyone to choose the units of the chapter that most caught our attention. In my case, I vote in the poll for units 1, 2, and 3 of Chapter 4. After I chose my chapters, and only after that, I realized that I was going to be the first person in the group to present, but it was ok for me. The next day, I started working on my Google Slides. My units were focused on: 1) Determining the General Purpose, 2) Brainstorming for Possible Topics, and 3) Evaluating and Selecting Topics. Because there weren’t enough people in the group, we had to divide the 4 units of Chapter 8 among those who wanted to take one more unit, and I decided to do it. I was in charge of unit 1 of that chapter and was focused on: The Parts of a Speech. 

While I was making the Google Slides, I started to think about which unit was going to be my favorite. I realized that Unit 1 of Chapter 4 was my favorite. This unit was about determining your General Purpose. It was my favorite because it showed me that there’s not only one purpose when you create a speech. I thought that the purpose was just to inform about something, and certainly, there is a Speech to Inform, but that is not the only one. There are two more that I learned. One is to persuade, and the other is for special occasions. Of those three the one that impressed me most was the one related to the persuasion of the audience. Simply because it involves more than just information, it also involves a lot of psychological thinking in order to persuade the audience of the purpose of your speech. Doing my research on this purpose in the speech, I found one that I already knew existed, but I realized that was the best example of a persuasion speech. It was the speech given by former President Ronald Reagan in Berlin when he called for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1987. Until today, that speech is on the minds of many people, especially those who felt persuaded and pushed for the end of the wall that was separating Germany. 

In the process of creating the slides, I found that the concept of brainstorming and understanding it a little more is a tool that I will certainly use during my life and is very helpful. I also read and speak about the different things that a speaker needs to evaluate when selecting his topic, such as his own interest, time, audience, available resources, and many more. After all of that creating process, the first group presented, they were amazing, as were every group. They serve as an example of how to present in the class. His presentation was focused on the history of public speaking, and speech anxiety, which everyone suffers from, at least the first time. They explained listening in a speech, and they ended up telling us about the audience. We have great introductions and conclusions by our project managers, Christina and Steven, they did an amazing job since the beginning, along with the professor, in creating and organizing everything. They are good at their positions. I think I could have been a good project manager, but I was not sure about taking the position. 

On Friday 6th, it was my group presentation, which went amazing, everybody did great, and I felt so confident the moment when I presented. The professor’s feedback while presenting was very helpful. After that, we had 2 more presentations that went very well. We heard about the development of the parts of the speech, language in the speech, presentation media, persuasion, and many other things that if I wrote about them, I would never finish. 

So, this was my experience with the first presentation. Everything went amazing. Hope everything continues to be like this. See you soon, blog.