Senior Project Speech

When I think of "public speaking", the first and most familiar example that comes to my mind is giving a speech to my peers in school for a class. Recently, I had to give a speech to my government class for my senior project, in order to graduate. Considering that if I did not do well on this speech it could result in me not graduating, the pressure I would normally feel was definitely raised. To prepare for this dreaded speech, I practiced much more than I normally would. I made sure that I was well informed about the topic and ideas that I was trying to convey to the audience. The message that I wanted to send out was about the importance of abortion remaining legal. I knew that most of my classmates already had their set opinions regarding abortion whether they were pro-choice or pro-life. With that being said, I knew that it would be impossible for everyone to agree with me and my pro-choice outlook. The most important thing that I wanted my audience to get from my speech was just an understanding of my viewpoint and I think that I definitely succeeded in doing so. I made a powerpoint to aide my speech and it definitely was effective as I could show pictures, graphs, charts and other visuals. Another thing that I did that really helped me with my speech was that I came in with confidence and tried my best to not seem nervous to my audience even though deep down I was. Usually, speeches are not my expertise but since I prepared so much for it, it was the first speech I actually enjoyed giving and I felt that it was very effective.