Throughout My First Presentation By Bryan Mena

I originally signed up for public speaking in hope of getting over the anxious barrier that I get when I stand in front of a crowd and try to give a speech. One of my friends took this class before and said he completely recommends it. I had no idea what to expect when I first signed up for this class. On the first day of this class, we had to introduce ourselves and I remember telling myself that I could do it and that it will end soon. The icebreaker went smoothly, and I learned a lot about my peers. I was later put in Group 2, and we were in charge of teaching chapters 4-6. I was in Group 2 with Chanel, Bryan, Gabriel, and Dylan. When we first met, Chanel took over the leadership role of the group and thus far has been an amazing leader. She motivates us to make sure we finish our work before the due date and makes sure everything is organized. For the final position, which was the tech, Bryan volunteered to take over and make sure the PowerPoint was moving smoothly. After we all divided the pages of all 3 chapters and what everyone was going to do, we had to order our book. I ordered my book online and got it within 12 hours of my purchase. When I first received my book, I skimmed through the first 3 chapters so I can gain a general theme for the book. I had the best pages to start with because it was at the start of the chapters of the group. I had pages 64-75, Gabriel had pages 76-86, Chanel had pages 87-97, Dylan had pages 98-108. For the final pages, which were 109-145, we had to divide it because people from our group started leaving before we could get to present. Even though I wasn’t assigned the pages for the whole chapter, I still read their pages so that I could possibly help if they needed input.

The first time I read my pages, I learned a lot about public speaking and how to grab and read the audience’s attention. I personally learned about how projection, conventional wisdom, reading the audience’s demographics, and how to observe your audience to influence the way you deliver your presentation can be important tools when you are public speaking.

Projection is an important tool in public speaking because it is acting on the belief that others believe as you do when actually they may not. Public speaking is not talking to oneself in front of a group instead it is effective message transmission from one person to many people in a setting in which the speaker and audience influence each other.

Another important tool that I learned while reading Chapter 4 is Conventional Wisdom. Conventional Wisdom is the popular opinion of the time about issues, styles, topics, trends, and social mores. It also includes what most people are said to think. Also includes what most people are said to think. To sum it up, conventional wisdom is saying what your audience is thinking.

One of the most important tools when public speaking is understanding your audience’s demographic. The audience’s demographics can be easily broken into 6 different categories. Those categories are gender composition, age, ethnicity, economic status, occupation, and education. Gender composition is the factor that may cause women and men to react differently to certain topics. Age is deeper than just their actual age. Reading your audience’s age is changing the way you express yourself with the age of the audience in mind. Ethnicity help to identify people who are united through language, historical origins, nation-state, or cultural system. Economic status is also extremely important when analyzing a room because people who are wealthier tend to be more conservative, may have more education, and have probably traveled more. They may also be less open to new ideas because they are accustomed to being traded deferentially and they may also be more difficult to persuade because they feel that they have already made good choices. Less wealthy people on the other hand may be more open to new ideas and maybe more easily persuaded because they have less to lose and more to gain. Occupation may not seem as important, but you have to look at every job as its own culture, own way of talking, and its own language. An effective presented is a skilled translator; a person who can successfully communicate between cultures. Now to sum up demographics, education is important because you need to consider how much your audience already knows about your topic.

While working with my group, I learned how to properly communicate with them and how much teamwork can impact the whole presentation. Communication is key when working with a group that you may not know. Although we did not have a practice session, we were confident that we would have everything set up and ready to go for Monday.

At last, it was the day the whole group was anticipating. I will admit that we were anxious about going in front of the whole class but that happens when it is your first time presenting. Everyone always gets those “butterflies in your stomach”, even the best public speakers. Personally, I feel like we could have done a better job with our transitions and introduction if we were available before to practice but everyone was busy, and we could not all meet at once. I honestly learned a lot about how to read the audience and effective ways to speak publicly. We first started with Laura introducing us. I was the first one to start presenting and at first, I was anxious, but by the time I hit the second slide, it became secondhand nature. From there on, every single person in my group did a fantastic job in delivering their presentation. In conclusion, it was an amazing experience to present in front of the class for the first time and to learn about effective ways to read the audience and understand your audience.