I believe that when someone is doing a presentation it is more effective when it is visual and when it is not to long. I feel that it will keep the audience attention if you put a more personal touch to it.
The following is my speech critique, just wanted to share with you guys... have a great summer! you can view this speech by googling "DEA agent shoots self in foot" in the video section
“OUCH” The speech was a public safety address on the perils of drugs and firearms. The speech was given during what appears to be a school assembly. Students and children, from ages of approximately 3 years old and up, as well as parents were attending. The speech was given by a “professional” DEA agent; during the speech, the agent was describing and showing different types of fire arms to the audience. The agent was explaining how earlier in the week a 16 year old had been killed while playing with a gun. At that point in his speech, he takes off his side arm, hand it to an assistant and has the assistant give him what he calls an “unloaded gun”, then proceeds to let his audience know that the type of gun he has in his hand now is a glock 40, the one all the rappers sing about. The agent continues with, “I’m the only one I know of in this room professional enough to carry this glock 40”, at this point in his speech, something amazing happens; the professional DEA agent shoots himself in the foot with an unloaded glock 40. To his credit, the agent does remain calm during the incident, the first thing he does is ask if everyone else is okay, then seems to amend his speech a little by telling everyone that he made a mistake, and if he can make a mistake, that anyone can. After shooting himself in the foot, and admitting his mistake, the agent continues on with the speech as if nothing happened, even to the point of asking his assistant for another weapon to continue the demonstration. The weapon appears to be some type of automatic machine gun. As you can imagine the audience beings to grow nervous, and a strenuous objection from what sounds like a mother in the audience to “put it down”. At this point, the agent knows he has lost control of the audience, and limps off to the side for what we can only hope will be medical attention. The agent seemed to have made this type of speech in the past. The agent appeared relaxed and seemed to have knowledge of the subject he was talking about. He was loud enough to be heard, and was very passionate about the subject matter. The visual aids were ready and available, and he did not appear to fumble or struggle with them, except when he shot himself in the foot. As far as gun safety, he was ill-prepared for the demonstration. Did the agent consider his audience? I don’t think he did; I think he wanted to, but with the way he carried himself, and his super-sized ego being in the mix, and the fact that he didn’t check the firearms to see if they were truly indeed “unloaded”. He wanted to impress the audience with his knowledge of fire arms and rappers, rather than with how much he valued his audience’s safety. As far as improvement, this should be painfully obvious. Check, recheck, and then double-check to make sure your weapons are unloaded. The basic weapons class teaches us the first thing we do is check to see if the gun in loaded, the agent should, at the very least, be made to go thru weapons training again. The agent even states that after the incident, “I will probably never show guns again”. While a grave error in judgment was made, I’m almost (hopeful) sure the agent learned a very valuable lesson. While teaching isn’t the agent’s forte, he should be made to go thru Professor Parker’s communications class to learn at least the very basics of speech. The agent’s diction and pronunciations were of sub-quality, while you could hear him; you could not actually understand all of what he was saying. When you have a loaded weapon in your hand, and you are willing to shoot yourself in the foot, believe me, you have your audiences’ undivided attention whether you’ve have a communication class or not.
2 comments:
I believe that when someone is doing a presentation it is more effective when it is visual and when it is not to long. I feel that it will keep the audience attention if you put a more personal touch to it.
Lessie
The following is my speech critique, just wanted to share with you guys... have a great summer!
you can view this speech by googling "DEA agent shoots self in foot" in the video section
“OUCH”
The speech was a public safety address on the perils of drugs and firearms. The speech was given during what appears to be a school assembly. Students and children, from ages of approximately 3 years old and up, as well as parents were attending. The speech was given by a “professional” DEA agent; during the speech, the agent was describing and showing different types of fire arms to the audience. The agent was explaining how earlier in the week a 16 year old had been killed while playing with a gun. At that point in his speech, he takes off his side arm, hand it to an assistant and has the assistant give him what he calls an “unloaded gun”, then proceeds to let his audience know that the type of gun he has in his hand now is a glock 40, the one all the rappers sing about. The agent continues with, “I’m the only one I know of in this room professional enough to carry this glock 40”, at this point in his speech, something amazing happens; the professional DEA agent shoots himself in the foot with an unloaded glock 40. To his credit, the agent does remain calm during the incident, the first thing he does is ask if everyone else is okay, then seems to amend his speech a little by telling everyone that he made a mistake, and if he can make a mistake, that anyone can. After shooting himself in the foot, and admitting his mistake, the agent continues on with the speech as if nothing happened, even to the point of asking his assistant for another weapon to continue the demonstration. The weapon appears to be some type of automatic machine gun. As you can imagine the audience beings to grow nervous, and a strenuous objection from what sounds like a mother in the audience to “put it down”. At this point, the agent knows he has lost control of the audience, and limps off to the side for what we can only hope will be medical attention.
The agent seemed to have made this type of speech in the past. The agent appeared relaxed and seemed to have knowledge of the subject he was talking about. He was loud enough to be heard, and was very passionate about the subject matter. The visual aids were ready and available, and he did not appear to fumble or struggle with them, except when he shot himself in the foot. As far as gun safety, he was ill-prepared for the demonstration. Did the agent consider his audience? I don’t think he did; I think he wanted to, but with the way he carried himself, and his super-sized ego being in the mix, and the fact that he didn’t check the firearms to see if they were truly indeed “unloaded”. He wanted to impress the audience with his knowledge of fire arms and rappers, rather than with how much he valued his audience’s safety.
As far as improvement, this should be painfully obvious. Check, recheck, and then double-check to make sure your weapons are unloaded. The basic weapons class teaches us the first thing we do is check to see if the gun in loaded, the agent should, at the very least, be made to go thru weapons training again. The agent even states that after the incident, “I will probably never show guns again”. While a grave error in judgment was made, I’m almost (hopeful) sure the agent learned a very valuable lesson. While teaching isn’t the agent’s forte, he should be made to go thru Professor Parker’s communications class to learn at least the very basics of speech. The agent’s diction and pronunciations were of sub-quality, while you could hear him; you could not actually understand all of what he was saying. When you have a loaded weapon in your hand, and you are willing to shoot yourself in the foot, believe me, you have your audiences’ undivided attention whether you’ve have a communication class or not.
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