Real Reference: A Study Tool
Now that you have finished reading this chapter, you can
Describe the power of public speaking and how preparation eases natural nervousness.
Identify the purpose of your speech:
- Informative speeches aim to increase the audience’s understanding and knowledge of a topic (p. 337).
- Persuasive speeches are intended to influence the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of an audience (p. 339).
- Special-occasion speeches are given at common events (like weddings and funerals), and many of us will deliver such a speech at some point in time (p. 340).
Conduct audience analysis:
- It is important to understand and appreciate your audience’s expectations for the speech as well as key situational factors (p. 342).
- Knowing demographics, the quantifiable characteristics of your audience, and psychographics, psychological measures, will help you identify topics that the audience would be interested in learning about (pp. 342–344).
- You will want to anticipate your audience’s response by considering their motivation, seeking common ground (homogeny), determining prior exposure, and considering disposition (pp. 344, 346).
- You can learn about your audience by observing people, getting to know people, conducting interviews and using surveys, and using the Web (p. 346).
Choose an appropriate topic and develop it:
- Speak about something that inspires you (p. 348).
- Use brainstorming and clustering to amass information, think creatively, and consider problems and solutions related to your topic (pp. 348–349).
- A specific purpose statement expresses the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve with your presentation (p. 350).
- Narrow your topic and write a thesis statement, a summary of your central idea (pp. 350–351).
Support and enliven your speech with effective research:
- Include expert testimony, the opinion of an authority, or lay testimony, opinion based on personal experience (p. 352).
- Scientific research findings carry weight in topics on medicine, health, media, and the environment; statistics, information in numerical form, can clarify your presentation (p. 352).
- Anecdotes (humorous, personal, with statistic), relevant personal stories, bring the human experience to the speech (pp. 353–354).
- Surveys will add the point of view of a larger range of people (!!p. 354).
- Use databases to find material, such as directories, library gateways, search engines, metasearch engines, and research search engines. (pp. 355, 357).
Cull from among your sources the material that will be most convincing:
- Take time to evaluate the credibility—the quality, authority, and reliability—of each source you use (p. 357).
- Up-to-date information convinces the audience of its timeliness (p. 358).
- Citing accurate and exact sources gains audience respect (p. 358).
- Compelling information is influential and interesting (p. 358).
Give proper credit to sources and take responsibility for your speech:
- Avoid plagiarism, presenting someone else’s intellectual property as your own (p. 359).
- Keep accurate track of all your references to avoid unintentional errors (pp. 359–360).
- Keeping a running bibliography, the list of resources you’ve consulted, will free you from having to write the same information over and over (p. 361).
- Honor the basic rules for ethical speaking (pp. 362–363).