Self-Evaluation for Informative Speech

  When I gave my Informative Speech about the Electoral College I felt that I did a pretty good job on explaining the Electoral College to the audience.  I think that I did a better job of giving historical context that helped explain the reasons behind why it was created the way that it was and a less good job of explaining the way that it works today.  I felt very confident leading up to and during the speech, but felt less comfortable than I normally do in public speaking situations.  I think that part of this was because in my previous speech I had trouble staying within the time limits because I become very rigid when giving a speech about making sure that I include all of the information that I had planned to.  In an attempt to make my speech more extemporaneous and less rehearsed, which I though would give me the opportunity to adapt as it went and cut things out as need be, I ended up feeling flustered toward the end because I was running past my time and had trouble adapting on the fly.  I also think that because my speech was less structured I ended up repeating several of the points that I made.

  I think that the content of my speech was well researched, well planned, and that I didn't leave out anything important.  If anything I think that I may have included a few unnecessary details that obfuscated my audience.  I think that the introduction was good and that the conclusion was good overall, but didn't provide very good closure or have a strong finish.  I don't think that I did anything distracting during the speech, except for maybe looking down at my notecards.  I think that my eye contact wasn't too bad, but I did look down at my notecards more than would be desired because I had rehearsed my speech less than I normally would like to.  In my last speech I only cited two of my four sources, which I improved upon in this speech by mentioning four or five of them (I think it was five, but I may have missed one, not 100% sure.)  I think that was another reason I looked at my notecards too much, because I didn't want to forget to cite a source.  I would rate my eye contact as a 7 out of 10, but hopefully I'm being too hard on myself and it was better than that.

  Overall I would say that this speech was less good than my last speech.  I did a better job of the technical aspects by citing all of my sources and being closer to the time limit for the speech, but I still went over the time limit.  I think that this speech was the least interesting speech I have given so far and my audience seemed bored and disinterested.  I have only used Power Point once in my life and it was about 15 years ago, which showed.  My use of Power Point was the worst of anyone in the class.  I think that I would give myself a B- on this speech.  I still think that I did a pretty good job.  I put a lot of work in to my speech and I think did a better job than just satisfying the requirements, but nothing special.