I watched this speech given by anthropologist Helen Fisher. She’s been studying romantics and love in people for 30 years. Her speech was quite interesting and I really enjoyed hearing what she had to say.
She had an excellent topic for this speech, which was basically how people fall in love, why we might cheat on our partners, and how society is affecting relationships. She used excellent quotes from people and research. She used one that everyone knows and relates to which I think helped her gain attention, “love is blind“. She had great memorization of what she was saying without looking at her notes too often. She was not monotone at all and had great inflection in her voice when she was describing things. She talked at a perfect rate that was understandable but didn’t drag out. I enjoyed how she related our present world to the past world and the history in it. She had excellent word choice and comparisons such as, “the television is our global campfire”. I can tell she is a very intelligent person by the way she presented herself and this speech.
However, there are a few things that I noticed she could work on since learning things in this communication class. Her hand gestures in the beginning of her speech were distracting, they seemed to ease her nervousness rather than add to her presentation. In the beginning she always used “um” and “uh” a lot instead of taking natural pauses which was uneasy to listen to. For awhile, she also put her hands in her pocket which I think is a big thing not to do while speaking. Also, I was confused with the organization of the speech in the beginning and where it was going, but it eventually panned out.
To end her speech she told a story and said a comment. The story was a fantastic way to end her speech since she incorporated everything she had said and related it to a man who experienced these things in real life. And to end her whole presentation, she stated, “world without love is a deadly place”, which was a perfect way to conclude her speech about love in our world today.
UWSP Oral Communication Class Blog 