THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

Purpose Presenters always have a goal for their presentations. In a speech class, you might give a presentation about a problem, persuading your audience that your solutions are the best route to take. For a research composition class, you might present your research strategies in order to persuade your audience that the strategies you chose were the most appropriate for your topic and approach. At work, you might give a presentation to persuade others of an idea. Over the last several years, a presentation series called Ignite talks have sprung up in cities around the world. The tagline for Ignite is “Enlighten us, but make it quick.” Presenters persuade others about their ideas and passions within a very small time frame. Ignite presenters can use only twenty slides, which in turn automatically advance every fifteen seconds. A similar phenomenon is the PechaKucha, a slideshow of twenty slides that show for twenty seconds each.

Audience Presenters tailor their talks to their audiences. By knowing their audiences they know what kind of background information they’ll need to present, what terminology is useful, and what cultural references their listeners will connect with. For example, writer and professional speaker Scott Berkun gave a talk “How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk.” When he drafted his talk, he knew that his audience would be potential Ignite performers, so he geared his talk to persuade them that they all have a story to tell, something worth sharing on the Ignite stage.

Rhetorical appeals Any time you want to persuade, you need to establish your ethos in order to get your audience to embrace your ideas. If you are giving a persuasive talk, some ways to build ethos are to state your argument clearly, support it with accurate data and appropriate evidence, and, if you’re working with slides, to provide slides that are free of spelling and grammatical errors and that are well designed. When presenting, you can boost your ethos through good posture and eye contact. To be persuasive, you’ll also need to appeal to your audience’s sense of logic. If you want to convince a client to purchase a product, then you need to provide the reasons and benefits in a logical order. You might also appeal to pathos by being funny or surprising. The humorous and unexpected can work well, depending on your audience. Berkun establishes his ethos by showing he knows how to present within the constraints of Ignite—he uses twenty self-advancing slides within five minutes.

Modes & media Presenters use a combination of audio, visual, and text. If slides are involved, they may include text, visuals, and even hyperlinks to multimedia, such as Web pages, animated visuals, movie clips, music, and audio clips. Some speakers use physical props (for example, in the guided reading/viewing in this chapter, the speaker holds up a doll). Some provide their listeners with printouts of their slides. Some deliver their presentations face-to-face or in a digital environment (such as WebEx) where the talk can be replayed anytime, anywhere. Scott Berkun gave his presentation live at a conference; it was recorded and is now available on YouTube.

THE GENRE’S CONVENTIONS

Elements of the genre Effective presenters do the following:

Give a bold introduction to capture their audience’s attention. For example, Scott Berkun opens with “I think storytelling is everything,” which prepares his audience for the persuasive claims he will make later in the presentation. Presenters also:

An introduction is where speakers make a first impression on their audience—and also where they need to persuade the audience that the presentation is worth a listen.

Provide enough background so that the audience can understand the content of the presentation. Presenters must clarify acronyms and define unfamiliar terminology.

Present their information and arguments in the body of their talks. This is where speakers make claims and back them up with facts, data, personal stories, and quotes from experts.

Address objections and counterarguments to make the best case possible.

Conclude with a summary and solid message. This ensures that the audiences have understood the argument presented, have gotten a clear message, and know what the speaker is asking of them in terms of agreeing and/or taking action (for example, against a particular injustice). Many speakers end by inviting the audience to ask questions.

Use visuals, video, audio, and other media to support their arguments. Most presenters use slides as a way to present key points, infographics, photos, and links to various multimedia—and to provide context and support for their arguments. For example, if a presenter wants to persuade listeners of the need for a program to reduce childhood obesity, he might include an image of obese children, or a chart that shows the relationship between childhood weight and diabetes. To take another example, when Berkun mentions famous people who were “lousy speakers,” he backs this up with a visual of Abraham Lincoln. Visuals and other media should not distract the audience. And it’s a good idea to bring handouts of slides so audiences have something to refer back to.

Make transitions to move the audience from one point to the next. Presenters can do this by advancing slides or by cuing listeners through speech (for example, “This brings me to my second point . . .”).

Style Effective presenters do the following:

Organize their material so that it’s clear and persuasive. Presenters must make it easy for audiences to follow what they’re saying—and to accept their claims and arguments. Some speakers may arrange their talks into three or so main parts, for example, built around separate but related concepts. Others might use a chronological organization, which is especially useful for laying out the history of an idea or movement. For example, a speaker arguing about the factors that led to the AIDS crisis might organize his talk chronologically, while a speaker arguing about possible ways to curb the spread of the disease might organize his talk by first focusing on the problem, and then focusing on potential solutions and actions.

Tailor their level of detail. Presenters consider their subjects and audiences when deciding on the level of information to share. For an introduction to a topic, a speaker doesn’t need to provide as much complex detail as he or she would for a more advanced approach to a subject. Similarly, for an audience of experts, a presenter would provide more depth and detail—such as a speaker talking about climate change and changing geologic formations to a group of geologists.

Make eye contact with the whole room and stand tall. These nonverbal cues connect speakers with audiences and convey their confidence, knowledge, and persuasiveness.

Vary their delivery and show emotion. Speakers vary the volume of their voices, speaking softer at some points and louder at others to stress certain aspects of what they have to say. For example, a speaker may raise his voice to show anger at a situation or excitement about a future possibility. Speakers also vary their pacing between speaking slowly and more quickly, depending on their content and what they want to stress. However, it’s important to not speak too quickly, as Scott Berkun demonstrates, and to pause so that audiences digest information. Many speakers work in a couple of funny stories or anecdotes: Humor can connect them with the audiences they want to persuade.

Design For presenters creating slides, a smart, clean, nondistracting design will persuade audiences by allowing them to focus on content. Most successful slides reflect the following design features:

Sources To persuade their listeners, presenters, like anyone building an argument, may do the following: