Demonstation Self-Evaluation

  I felt that overall I did a good job during my speech and achieved its intended purpose.  I clearly demonstrated how to make coffee with the use of a French press.  Beyond the simple function of making the coffee I taught my audience a little bit about the origins of coffee without getting too bogged down in details and getting away from my main purpose.  I also gave credible sources as to why drinking coffee can be beneficial to your health, which provided a reason why the audience should consider putting in to practice the skill I demonstrated for them of making coffee.  I felt very confident and completely at ease while giving my speech.  I have never had much of a problem with confidence in regards to public speaking and it was especially easy because I already knew my audience and have successfully spoken in front of them already in the past.
  If I had to do the speech over again I would have paid more attention to the details.  I only verbally cited two of my sources, whereas we were required to cite all four of them.  One source wasn't even written on to my note cards and one was on my note cards but I simply forgot to mention it.  I also would have done a better job of deciding beforehand more fluff that should have been cut out of my speech.  When I practiced my speech it originally was almost six minutes and thirty seconds, but with practice and a little bit of editing I had it consistently down around five minutes and thirty seconds.  I cut a few more superfluous parts out at the last minute, but still ended up going over the five minute time limit.  I think that for my next speech I will make a point of improving my preparation by ensuring that my speech is closer to the middle of the range of allowable times so that I am less likely to go over and don't feel like I am rushing myself during the speech.
  My biggest focus for improving the delivery of my speech will be in making sure that I do not forget to cite any of my sources.  I also feel that my eye contact was probably a 7 out of 10.  I need to try and have my introduction and conclusion more well memorized because I think that those are the times during my speech when I look down at my note cards the most.  I do not remember doing anything that I felt was distracting during my speech, so that is one area that I should not have to spend time on trying to improve.
  All in all I felt that I did a very good job on my speech, with the exception of going over the allotted time by twenty seconds and my forgetting to cite all of my sources.  I think that I did a good job of keeping the actual physical demonstration to being around a minute and that I fully showed in an easy to digest way how my audience could make coffee with a French press.  I think that my speech was well structured and if anything that I tried to cram too much information in to it.  I also think that I was persuasive and left a positive impression in the minds of my audience in regards to coffee.  Keeping in mind my technical mistakes I think that I would give myself a low A, maybe around a 93.