978-1319059491 Chapter 13

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Chapter 13

Preparing and Researching Presentations

CHAPTER OUTCOMES

•

Describe the power of public speaking and how preparation eases natural nervousness

•

Identify the purpose of your speech

•

Conduct audience analysis

•

Choose an appropriate topic and develop it

•

Support and enliven your speech with effective research

•

Give proper credit to sources and take responsibility for your speech

LECTURE NOTES

• Public speaking always includes the following elements:

• Clarify the General Purpose of Your Speech explores the three general categories of

speeches:

• Analyze Your Audience shows how audience analysis is a critical step in the speech

preparation process.

they plan a speech.

− Psychographics are an audience’s psychological qualities, such as attitudes, values,

lifestyles, behaviors, and interests.

• Knowing this information can help you narrow your topic to one of interest to the

group.

• Doing general research on the type of audience you are likely to get will help you

understand these demographics and understand which characteristics may be more

salient to the speech.

• Be careful—relying on this information can lead to stereotyping.

o Anticipating Your Audience’s Response

− Consider disposition—How does your audience feel about your topic?

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o Types of Information to Consider

− Testimony

• Include expert testimony, which is the opinion or judgment of an expert in your topic.

• Lay testimony is the opinion of a nonexpert who has personal experience or has

witnessed an event related to your topic.

• Scientific research findings carry a lot of weight with audiences because they bolster

testimonies with hard numbers and facts.

• Statistics, or information in numerical form, may be more impressive than words to an

audience. They are most effective when paired with factual statements.

− Anecdotes

perspective, and timeless eloquence.

o Research Supporting Material for your speech by:

− Talking to people

• Search engines are programs that index website content (Google and Yahoo).

• Research search engines search only for researched published academic books and

journals.

o Evaluate Supporting Material and use only that which is the most credible.

o Credibility is a measure of the quality, authority, and reliability of a source as related to

• Ethical Speaking: Taking Responsibility for Your Speech discusses the ethical

responsibility of a public speaker.

o Recognizing Plagiarism

o Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s words or ideas as your own—intentionally or

unintentionally.

and be fair in presenting opposing views.

CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What are some ways you can make sure your informative speech doesn’t turn into a

persuasive speech?

2. Why do you think it’s important to pick a speaking topic that is important or interesting to

you?

3. Why do you think some people plagiarize?

4. When do you think testimony from an interview is appropriate as a source for a speech?

5. What are some ways to choose a speech topic?

1.

Speeches That Move Us

the speech more powerful for you?

2.

Speaking “Right”

Given the list of basic rules of ethical speaking that are presented on p. 363 of the text, think

of additional items you might add to that list. Why do you think that aspect is important to

include? (See the And You? on p. 000 of the text.)

3.

Informative or Persuasive?

Take a topic that you have brainstormed for a speech. Can you make the topic into an

informative speech? A persuasive speech? What do you find to be the main difference in

changing from one type of speech to another?

1. Avoiding Plagiarism 101

4. Blank paper and writing implements for students

Directions:

2.

Ask students to then share their paraphrase with the student next to them.

3.

Once students are finished sharing, put up the overhead with the paragraph with only a few

4.

Ask students to volunteer their own paraphrases and compare them to the original as well

as to the one that was incorrectly paraphrased on the overhead.

2. APA Matching

Goal: To have students learn to put together citations correctly in APA format (this exercise

2.

Information from each of these citations for students to put in the correct format (follow

the example below)

4.

Prizes (optional)

Directions:

1. Have students form teams of two to three people.

3. After ten minutes, ask students to call out the correct APA (or other) format (one at a time)

for each citation. Check the answers against the citations list. Give prizes (if desired) to

teams that get the information right.

Debriefing: Have teams correct their own papers. If you see mistakes that are made frequently

3. Audience Matching

Goal: To have students understand how their speech topics need to be adjusted based on the

1.

“Speech Topics” handout (provided at the end of this chapter)

1.

Ask students to write an audience type on their note card. Encourage them to go beyond

2.

Have students then hand in their audience types.

3.

Give students the list of topics. Tell them they must give a one-minute, impromptu speech

about one of these topics. Make it fun—tell them it won’t be graded. Depending on the

4.

One by one, have students stand up (using volunteers at first works best) and tell you which

topic they want to speak on. Then give them the top card on the stack of audience type note

cards. Give students one minute to gather their thoughts on the topic, and then one minute

at the end of the period to discuss the importance of tying your topic to your audience, and how

doing this can make you a better speaker.

4. Deconstructing a Public Speech

2. Video clip of the same speech and method of viewing it in class

Directions:

2. Show the video clip of the person giving the same speech.

4. Have students consider the following questions: Is the speech ethical? Why or why not?

Who is the audience? How did the speaker tailor the speech to the audience?

5. Brainstorming and Clustering

Goal: To have students understand how to brainstorm topics

1.

Assign students to groups of three to four (if students have been assigned to give group

speeches, put them in those groups).

3.

Explain the rules of brainstorming: No ideas are ruled out; all ideas are written down.

5.

Have a contest for the group that has the most topics, the most interesting topics, the most

unusual topics, and so on.

6. The Speaker

Goal: To have students understand how professionals prepare to speak

1.

Invite a professional speaker or broadcaster to your class as a guest lecturer.

3.

Email the questions to the guest speaker before the day he or she is to speak in class.

4.

Ask the speaker to respond to the student’s questions about preparing for a presentation.

Debriefing: After the speaker has left or during the next class period, ask students what they

learned from the speaker that they did not learn from reading the chapter. Ask students to share

one tip they learned that they will apply the next time they have to give a presentation.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

REVIEW QUESTIONS

2.

Why is analyzing your audience so important to making a presentation?

3.

Imagine you are writing an informative speech on college majors. Show the process of

narrowing down the topic using the clustering technique.

5.

Write a thesis statement for a persuasive speech on why colleges should provide each student

with a free bicycle.

6.

Describe why the time of day of your presentation might influence your audience. How might

you, as the speaker, compensate for this?

7.

How do you evaluate whether you can use a particular source for your speech?

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companies devastated. In the movie’s most iconic moment, Gekko tells a group of

stockholders that “greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Throughout the speech, Gekko

employs such principles as anecdotes, comparisons, and a thesis statement as well as

statistics. His speech is informative and persuasive, with great consideration given to

audience expectations and situational factors. Discuss the ways in which public speaking

can be used to make morally dubious principles seem palatable, and the ways in which this

technique permeates American business and politics.

“We Just Decided To” episode of The Newsroom (HBO, 2012)

Creator/writer Aaron Sorkin courted controversy with the first episode of this series about

a fictional television news show. The opening sequence features main character Will

McAvoy, a popular news anchor, delivering a blistering speech refuting the aphorism that

America is the greatest country in the world. Employing facts and figures, McAvoy argues

that corporate corruption and political inefficiency have allowed the United States to fall

behind other countries in education, health, and other important areas. Ask students to

analyze this speech and discuss the power of public speaking to challenge assumptions and

fallacies. The fact that McAvoy experiences negative repercussions from the speech further

affirms the power of public speaking.

Steve Jobs at Stanford University (Stanford University, 2005)

This commencement speech by Apple founder Steve Jobs is an excellent example of a

well-prepared speech. He has a strong thesis and understood his audience. Jobs’s speech is

a perfect example of a persuasive, yet personal, presentation that used ethos, pathos, and

logos. Students can practice analyzing the speech and its effectiveness.

HANDOUTS

Speech Topics

Use the following ideas for speech topics to complete the classroom activity “Audience

Matching.”

1. Vegan diets

2. Computer viruses

4. Driverless cars

6. Selfies

8. Social media privacy

10. “Fake news”