Connecting the Dots

The Beebe and Beebe reading, in my opinion, was more convoluted and the idea wasn’t as clear as it was in the Duarte reading. I felt this way with the last reading we did in both of these books, so I think that typically, I tend to prefer the Duarte reading. Personally, I click with it more, as I feel the information is presented in a more “this is what you need to know” way, while the Beebe and Beebe reading requires more deciphering.

Before taking this class, I did put importance into creating meaning from my content. In high school, I spoke at my sister’s wedding and my graduation, so I wrote and rewrote several speeches before I finally decided on the speeches that had my message laid out in a clear and concise format.

The relationship between reasoning and main points/discrete messages is rather simple. Basically, all reasoning should support the main points/discrete messages. If there’s a disconnect, then the speech will fall apart since the speech was not structured in a way that would allow for a holistic approach. In all, as was said in the Duarte reading, when the structure of a speech works, then the presentation will work.

At my high school graduation, one of the speakers from the school board spoke a lot about his career before he retired. When he was in the height of his career, he was some sort of chemical engineer and he used a great deal of jargon, which made the audience lose interest from nearly the start. In addition, he didn’t have a solid structure. As he left the podium, the audience was left scratching their heads trying to figure out what exactly we were supposed to take away from his speech. We weren’t sure how exactly his stories related to us as graduates and he was not succinct or explicit. There were no emotional appeals in his speech and he didn’t alternate between analytical and emotional content. As an audience member, I just remember a lot of jargon I was not familiar with and a lot of analytical talk.