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Keep the following in mind, whether you are evaluating someone else’s talk or preparing your own.
Delivery
Voice loud enough but not too loud.
Appropriate degree of speed — neither hurried nor drawn out.
Dress and attitude toward audience appropriate.
Gestures and eye contact appropriate.
Language clear (e.g., technical words adequately explained).
Visual aids, if any, appropriate and effectively used.
Content
Thesis clear and kept in view.
Argument steadily advanced, with helpful transitions.
Thesis supported by evidence.
Lightweight material (e.g., bits of humor, relevant and genuinely engaging).
It is not merely because topics are complicated that we cannot agree that one side is reasonable and right and the other side irrational and wrong. The truth is, we are swayed not only by reason (logos) but also by appeals to the emotions (pathos) and by the speaker’s character (ethos). We can combine these last two factors, and put it this way: Sometimes we are inclined to agree with X rather than with Y because X strikes us as a more appealing person (perhaps more open-minded, more intelligent, better informed, more humane, and less cold). X is the sort of person we want to have as a friend. We disagree with Y — or at least we’re unwilling to associate ourselves with Y — because Y is, well, Y just isn’t the sort of person we want to agree with. Y’s statistics don’t sound right, or Y seems like a bully; for some reason, we just don’t have confidence in Y. Confidence is easily lost: Alas, even a mispronunciation will diminish the audience’s confidence in Y. As Peter de Vries said, “You can’t be happy with someone who pronounces both d’s in Wednesday.”
Earlier in the book we talked about the importance of tone and of the writer’s persona. And we have made the point that the writer’s tone will depend partly on the audience. A person writing for a conservative journal whose readership is almost entirely conservatives can adopt a highly satiric manner in talking about liberals and will win much approval. But if this conservative writer is writing in a liberal journal and hopes to get a sympathetic hearing, he or she will have to avoid satire and wisecracks and, instead, present himself or herself as a person of goodwill who is open-minded and eager to address the issue seriously.
The language that you use — the degree to which it is formal as opposed to colloquial, and the degree to which it is technical as opposed to general — will also depend on the audience. Speaking broadly, in oral argument you should speak politely but not formally. You do not want to be one of those people who “talk like a book.” But you also don’t want to be overly colloquial. Choose a middle course, probably a notch below the style you would use in a written paper. For instance, in an oral presentation you might say, “We’ll consider this point in a minute or two,” whereas in a written paper you probably would write, “We will consider this point shortly.”
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Technical language is entirely appropriate if your audience is familiar with it. If you are arguing before members of Amnesty International about the use of torture, you can assume certain kinds of specialized knowledge. You can, for ins tance, breezily speak of the DRC and of KPCS, and your listeners will know what you’re talking about because Amnesty International has been active with issues concerning the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. In contrast, if you are arguing the same case before a general public, you’ll have to explain these abbreviations, and you may even have to explain what Amnesty International is.
If you are arguing before an audience of classmates, you probably have a good idea of what they know and don’t know.