Part 1: SPEAKER’S REFERENCE

• Gain real-life skills that lead to greater confidence and satisfaction.
• Advance your professional goals.
• Oral and written communication are most important skills employers look for in a college graduate.

• Hone your researching, writing and outlining, reasoning, critical thinking, and listening skills.
• Deliver better oral presentations in other courses, including speaking in science and mathematics, technical, social science, arts and humanities, education, nursing and allied health, and business courses.

• Use public speaking to become more involved in addressing issues you care about.
• Become a more active participant in our democracy.
• Learn the rules of engagement for effective and ethical public discourse.

• Rhetoric first flourished in the Greek city-state of Athens in the fifth century B.C.E. and referred to making effective speeches, particularly those of a persuasive nature.
• Public speaking played a central role in the development of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome and remains an essential tool in safeguarding democracy today.
• The ancient Greek agora and the Roman forum exist today as physical spaces, such as town halls as well as virtual forums streamed to listeners online.
• The canons of rhetoric, a five-part speechmaking process developed in ancient Greece, remain relevant for today’s public speaker

• Consider that in both conversation and writing, you try to uncover the audience’s interests and needs before speaking.
• Consider that in both conversation and writing, you check to make certain that you are understood, and adjust your speech to the listeners and to the occasion.
• Much of what you’ve learned about organizing written papers can be applied to organizing your speeches.

• More so than writers, successful speakers generally use familiar words, easy-to-follow sentences, and transitional words and phrases.
• Spoken language is often more interactive and inclusive of the audience than written language.

• Try to identify and respectfully address the diversity of values and viewpoints held by audience members.
• Work toward making every member of the audience feel recognized and included in your message.

• As in conversation (dyadic communication), you attempt to make yourself understood, involve and respond to your conversational partner, and take responsibility for what you say.
• As in small group communication, you address a group of people who are focused on you and expect you to clearly discuss issues that are relevant to the topic and to the occasion.
• As in mass communication, you address a group with whom you have little or no interaction, as on television and radio.
• In public speaking, a speaker delivers a message with a specific purpose to an audience of people who are present during the delivery of the speech.

• Understand elements of source, receiver, message, and channel and how they interact in public speaking.
• Understand and plan for the rhetorical situation—the circumstance that calls for a public response (the speech).

• Opportunities for feedback are fewer than in conversation or in small group communication, and greater than in mass communication.
• Preparation required is greater than in other forms of communication.
• The degree of formality tends to be greater than in other forms of communication.

• Analyze the audience.
• Select a topic.
• Determine the speech purpose.
• Compose a thesis statement.
• Develop the main points.
• Gather supporting material.
• Separate the speech into its major parts: introduction, body, and conclusion.
• Outline the speech using coordinate and subordinate points.
• Consider presentation aids.
• Practice delivering the speech.