A CASE STUDY: MIA

Let’s look at how Mia decided what techniques to use in her informative speech.

Mia kept two choices in mind as she finalized her informative speech. First, she needed to decide what informative techniques to use. Did she want to provide technical information about how the cell phones were used, focus on the journeys made possible by cell phones, or share narrative stories? In the end, Mia settled on all three: she would explain the technical aspects of how emigrants used smartphones for their journeys, use vivid language and word choice to paint a verbal picture of emigrants’ smartphone use, and occasionally tell the stories of specific emigrants.

The other choice Mia had to make was to decide whether her speech would be about an object (cell phones) or a process (using cell phones to navigate a journey). After thinking it over, Mia decided that she wanted her speech to be about the process of using smartphones, so she organized her speech using a series of steps in chronological order that demonstrated all the ways that a smartphone could assist in the journey. Mia occasionally used analogies to help her audience understand the steps of this process.

Even though she had personal connections to this topic, Mia also made sure to document her main points so that no one would raise concerns about where she had gotten her information or whether she was representing other people’s work as her own. She knew that this kind of honesty would make it easier for the audience to believe her claims.

Look for the and throughout the chapter for adaptive quizzing and online video activities.