A CASE STUDY: MIA

Let’s check back in with Mia to see how she’s handling topic selection.

Shortly after receiving the assignment, Mia went to the library to begin selecting a topic for her informative speech. She looked at recent newspapers and magazines, and a couple of topics caught her attention, including refugees who were relocating to her community and advances in three-dimensional (3-D) printing. Mia used word association and came up with more topics that came to mind when she considered her favorite sport (soccer), her career interest (sports medicine), and her favorite activities (doing family history research and volunteering with an animal rescue organization).

After generating a list of more than twenty topics, Mia needed to select the best one. The three choices that stood out to her the most were refugees, researching family history, and sending an expedition to Mars. She decided to save the Mars topic for a persuasive speech and did more research on the remaining two topics. She was surprised to find that many families had traveled hundreds of miles from the Middle East to European nations on foot and in small boats. This fascinated her because it was not unlike her own ancestors’ migration across Europe years ago. But would this interest her audience?

After she found an article about how twenty-first-century refugees use smartphones during their migration, Mia had an “aha” moment. Her classmates loved technology and many were addicted to their smartphones. The creativity of emigrants with their phones and the way they used various apps would definitely pull in her audience. And this would narrow her topic to fit the available time. So Mia formulated a thesis: “Smartphones are central to the success of emigrants’ journeys.” Her next steps would be more detailed audience analysis and research, but that night, she and her best friend went out for ice cream.

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

A CASE STUDY: JACOB

Let’s see what’s happening with Jacob as he decides what his topic should be.

Two weeks after Jacob’s instructor assigned the persuasive speech, Jacob still had not started the assignment. Before the next class, his instructor asked students if they had selected a topic for their persuasive speech. Several students had ideas, and she helped them formulate a topic that would work well as a persuasive speech. Jacob didn’t have any ideas yet, but he did make a note to himself to find a topic.

That evening, Jacob and his roommates watched a football game while they ate dinner. He asked them if they had any ideas for a speech topic. One roommate said, “Last year, I did a speech on whether student athletes should be paid. That’s a cool topic.” Jacob thought about it for a minute. If he and his roommates were interested in college football, surely his class would like it, too. Would this topic be easy to research? He googled “should student athletes be paid pros and cons.” Yes! There were over 94,000 results. One was an article in The Onion, one of Jacob’s favorite Web sites. It must be a sign. “You’ve got this,” thought Jacob.

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