Chapter 9/ 10

The scenario often occurs where I am speaking to a person about something I am really interested in and they do not seem to be listening to me or seem to care what it is that I am so passionate about. This usually occurs when I bring up heavy topics like the misrepresentation of beauty in society, the normalizing of androcnetricsm, or the importance of being actively anti-racist. Whenever someone seems to be ignoring me or tuning me out, I feel like my opinions are not valued or my ideas do not matter. A prominent listening barriers present were likely that the other person found my topic to be uninteresting or they have chosen to close off their mind to this topic of discussion due to its nature. Another barrier that was probably present was their failure to adjust to distraction, since they were desiring a way out of the topic of conversation. Faking attention is the other barrier to effective listening that was certain to be present in many of these frustrating situations. I can encourage myself to listen more attentively to others by assuring that even if I don't seem to be interested in the topic at hand, I can continue to keep an open mind while they are speaking. I can also be certain to limit the number of distractions that I can control while a person is speaking, and tune out other distractions instead of rudely tuning out the person speaking to me.

I have sat through a several disorganized lectures. These lectures were given to my high school English class by the teacher. This teacher never seemed to have her class planned out. It was very difficult to both pay attention and to benefit from this class. It was always hard to know what it was that I was supposed to know to for the tests and quizzes. It was also difficult to stay on beat with this instructor since she jumped from point to point to point in a rambling fashion. My classmates and I had a very difficult time learning anything from this class. I would tell a speaker who is disorganized to really plan out what they are going to say, before they have to say it with thorough points and sub-points. I would also tell aw disorganized speaker to restate and emphasize the most important points.

Presentations

Presentations that I have attended in the past have been most effective when they have involved analogies, factual illustrations, examples, and restatements. All of these have been highly effective in catching my attention and keeping it. Speeches that are especially effective include many elements that I can personally relate to. The types of verbal support that bore me, are often read from a manuscript, and involve very few analogies, examples, or factual illustrations. The ineffective speeches are often filled with hypothetical illustrations and little anecdotal support/personal connection. The speeches that leave me in a state of confusion often have a very narrow direction or no direction, include loose metaphors, and paint hypothetical situations that I cannot link to any concrete information. The most easily forgotten metaphors are those with little emotion or vocal inflection, and little personal connection to the speaker. I am able to tell if a source is "quality" based on its credibility. I expect a speaker to provide a citation as they give their speech, and I will consider it quality if the source is deemed credible by APA and MLA standards. Often, the quality of the source can be determined by the name alone. This reflection will help me to assure that I use the techniques that are most effective for me when giving my speech for others to hear.

Captive Audience

I cannot specifically recall a time that I have been in a large crowd of people who had to sit through a lecture or presentation not geared at me. I have, however, been a member of a captive audience, which I feel is very similar. When I visited my parents a couple of months ago, they had made some new friends. These friends met me and my room mate that I brought along with me. I feel like they must have seen us and thought "ooh, impressionable college students.." Unfortunately, the whole evening, they were preaching to us about 401k's and retirement funds. They also happened to be particularly pessimistic people who felt it was their job to inform us of how shoddily our government has been running everything. They even went so far as to tell us that by being independent and by not supporting the government, we are much better off. This entire situation was ridiculously uncomfortable because we did not share the beliefs of the people trying to enforce their own onto us. It was a very patronizing experience that neither my roommate nor I care to repeat.

In order to prevent such discomfort and upset in the audience of the people I am speaking to, I plan on considering my audience while I am writing my speech. It is very difficult to prepare a speech when you don't know who you are speaking to anyway, so this is actually a highly beneficial part of the process. I also plan on directing my speech at a broader spectrum of people, interests, and points of view, so as not to make anyone uncomfortable or upset upon hearing my speech.