Opening line: I would like to speak to you all today about recycling. This is not the kind of recycling that involves bottles, cans, and paper. I’m talking about recycling opportunity.
Explanation: Towards the end of high school I began to realize how often we are asked to do things over and over again. While applying to colleges in particular, we are asked to write the same essays on the same topic. How many people in this room sent the same essay to a different college? Now, how many people looked over those papers and tweaked them for each school? I know I didn’t. I recycled my papers and my recommendations and sent them off to different schools. Now, I know that the college boards are not stupid and are aware of what it is their future students are doing, though I thought I was being very clever. Later in my first semester of college I began to realize the advantage recycling ideas could have for me… if I did it right. All-in-all recycling opportunity is a synonym for the verb bullshit.
The negative connotation “B.S.-ing” gets is something that should be analyzed. I think it depends a lot upon what kind of BS-er we’re talking about, yes there are different kinds. There are some who are very smart and just uninterested in the current topic they are being forced to learn, these people are usually very good with words, and go into car dealership jobs. Then there are those who have partied too hard and have forgotten the presentation all together. Those people usually try to act very smooth as they make complete fools of themselves. You have the plagiarizers, the class clowns, and the idea recycle-est. the latter is not trying to get away with anything or blow off the class, they are simply salvaging a previous opportunity.
I like to try to stay in the category of idea recycle-est. I’m not very good on the spot.
For example, when I was trying to decide what to talk about for this speech I looked at a few of my previous presentations that I’ve done for other classes. I have a fifteen minute one on organic food, a ten minute one on massage therapy, and even a 20 minute one on the effects of institutionalization. Any one of these can be recycled. The power points and bullet point papers are right there on my computer ready for my disposal. However, I could not come up here and give the same presentation every time… in most cases.
The key to good recycling is to first make sure what you are recycling has already received a good grade. This is especially true if you’re looking to do the least work possible, you definitely want to have a firm standing B+ base. If you already know what went wrong with the presentation the first time, however, and you know how to fix it then, by-all-means, go right ahead and use