Rick Bragg's Speech Analysis

The Walton Arts and Ideas Series did not look as something that would interest me, but Rick Bragg definitely proved me wrong. Listening to Rick Bragg talking about Southern identity and self-image was a pleasant experience. Besides, his delivering skills were very good and able to catch the audience attention. Indeed, it is not just the funny experiences he told that day, but also how he told them which made the whole speech a worthwhile one. Therefore, it is pertinent to analyze the strengths and the weaknesses of Bragg’s speech to learn from the good techniques he applied and to understand the weaknesses. The introduction was very good; he made the audience laugh from the beginning and seemed very comfortable doing it. Thus, the joke as an attention getter was definitely a great idea. …show more content…
On one hand, it does not seem appropriate to not wrap up your ideas and give the sense of conclusion, but on the other hand, Rick made a good job to connect most of the questions and at the end of the questions round he gave a memorable closing line. Then, even though the main purpose of the conclusion(summarizing the main ideas) was not achieved, his conclusion line was very powerful and audience targeted that it was one to remember. The way he used the extemporaneous style was one of the speaker’s biggest strengths. His poise was excellent and the conversational tone was clearly noted throughout the speech. Besides, there was good eye contact and interaction with the audience. One weakness I noticed was that in some occasions Mr. Bragg would put his hand near his mouth and it caused his voice to sound distorted. Nevertheless, Rick Braggs’ performance overall was excellent and it was a pleasure listening to him on the Walton Arts and Ideas