Presentational versus Public Speaking
Rather than being a formal public speech, presentational speaking—reports delivered by individuals or teams addressing people in the workplace (or in the classroom)—has much in common with formal public speaking, yet important differences exist:1
- Degree of formality. Presentational speaking is less formal than public speaking; on a continuum, it would lie midway between public speaking at one end and conversational speaking at the other.
- Audience factors. Public-speaking audiences tend to be self-selected or voluntary participants, and they regard the speech as a onetime event. In contrast attendees of oral presentations are more likely to be part of a “captive” audience, as in the workplace or classroom, and may be required to attend frequent presentations. Due to the ongoing relationship among the participants, the attendees also share more information with one another than those who attend a public speech and thus can be considered to have a common knowledge base.
- Speaker expertise. Listeners generally assume that a public speaker has more expertise or firsthand knowledge than they do on a topic. Presentational speakers, by contrast, are more properly thought of as “first among equals.”
Apart from these differences, the rules of public speaking described in this text apply equally to both oral presentations and public speeches.
Five of the most common of these presentations in the workplace are the sales presentation, proposal, staff report, progress report, and crisis-response presentation. The case study, described next, is unique to the classroom environment.