Further Oral Presenttion Reflection

FOA Reflection

            For the first Further Oral Presentation, the possibilities were virtually endless. My FOA analyzed how American Apparel, a clothing company, continuously used the sexualization, objectification, and exploitation of women as an advertising technique. American Apparel has hundreds of ads that focus on specific body parts, shows girls in provocative positions, and does not bother censoring most of their advertisements. The message that I was trying to get across with all this was that these advertisements hold many unintended effects such as exposing women to more violence, showing that women are only here to please men, and holding up stereotypes about a women’s worth that have been prominent for centuries. I decided to take a different approach when answering the unit question of, “what does advertising reveal to us about society?” I decided to show many ads that would make it seem like society is going nowhere, but in fact I believe that these ads are the ones that show social progress because of all the controversy they constantly receive. The four criterion that this FOA was graded on was Knowledge and understanding of the text, organization, language, and understanding how language is used. The main thing that I struggled with was being able to find pictures that analyzed language well and being able to link the language with my main topic question. I believe that I was able to use the language well and understand that every sentence has a hidden meaning and I was able to communicate that well. I do think that I could have talked about the language in relation to the persuasive techniques we learned in class more (Ex: shock factor, pathos, logos, etc). The techniques that I did discuss were affect transfer, commodification of intimacy, ethos, logos, and I used trigger words several times. With that being said, there were many instances where I could have used them more effectively. Another weakness that I had was staying formal throughout the entire presentation. There were many instances where I did not use appropriate language or I could have been more formal with my wording. I picked a topic that was tricky because it was time consuming to find ads that incorporated enough language to analyze but was also school appropriate. I do believe that one of my strengths was taking a different approach when answering the unit question. Overall, I feel as if I had the potential to do a much better job on my presentation but I am happy with the overall result. I feel as if I did not say everything that I had intended to say but I also found myself saying more things than I had written down. The message that I was trying to convey was that American Apparel uses this exploitation of women to sell but it is not completely accepted in society. I think I communicated this message efficiently. Next time, I will make practicing my speech the main priority. I found myself nervously looking down at my paper several times even though I knew what I was supposed to say. I will also be aware of time constraints and have everything I need to say in the required time. Overall, although I will set the bar higher next time, I am proud of my work and how hard I worked on it.