Week 5: "Foundations" chapter 5

1) Well, in this situation, I was in high school (sophomore year). The teacher was out but we still had to give presentations on "proofs". No one was really paying attention to the people presenting so other people just stood in front of the class, ran through their main points, and sat down. Of course, I had to be the one break the record. I went up there and froze. I literally stood there looking at my paper not knowing what to say or where to start from. And the worst part is, I stayed in front of the class for like 5 minutes. After that time elapsed, I just sat back down, and everyone started giving confused looks. The substitute saved me by making a joke that I was some Star Wars character using telepathy to insert the information I had into my classmates' brains. And that was the worst experience with public speaking I've ever had.

2) One situation in which a statement was an red herring was when I was at UGA and I disliked being controlled by my parents. I told my mom that she was emotionally blackmailing me by saying that would take away the money I used for college if I didn't go back home immediately. She responded with "Why are you mad at me? Weren't you saying that your dad is the one who mistreats you?" essentially trying to change the subject because she felt the need to shift the blame.

The straw-man fallacy, I think, is very prevalent in American culture, up to the point that is slows down any potential progress we might make on important issues affecting our country. A recurring situation among my conservative and liberals friends is that if one supports the army (in a general sense), then the must vote to fund the Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. My liberal friends say that those wars were unwarranted and are illegal by int'l law and that we need to pull out those soldiers and use them for missions which directly affect American sovereignty. Both sides believe that if the other doesn't believe i their opinion, that they must hate the US and are somehow traitors. Only the arguments are given a space to be heard while the reasons and details for those arguments are kept from the public arena.

3)I don't think I have been very successful in the delivery aspect of speech presentation. While everyone should excel in all areas, I will do my best to improve in what I think is necessary for the information presented to be conveyed effectively, which is rate, volume, and posture. Eye contact and posture would be the most relevant way in which one could affect how their interest while listening to others.

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