Business and Professional Communication, 3rd edition
Kelly M. Quintanilla, Shawn T. Wahl
Chapter 12: Speech Design
Lecture Notes
Learning objective:
12-1 Analyze audience and context
12-2 Explain how to gather research for your speeches
12-3 Organize the body of a speech and incorporate eective transitions
12-4 Develop eective introductions and conclusions
12-5 Discuss the role and value of language
Outline:
I. Introduction
A. Delivering a moving speech does not happen without preparation.
i. Keep your speech simple.
II. Analyzing the Audience
A. Avoid the trap of the process
i. It is easy to focus your energy on your PowerPoints.
ii. It is easy to focus on all of the presentation process.
B. An audience-centered speaker
i. Speaker should ask, “Who is my audience?”
ii. Speaker should use an audience analysis to frame and guide the preparation
and delivery of the speech.
III. Analyzing the Context
A. Context Analysis
i. This is as important as identifying your purpose and analyzing your audience.
ii. Context analysis helps to determine the purpose of the presentation.
B. Context Analysis Questions to Ask to Enhance Your Presentation
i. Is the audience required to be at your presentation?
ii. Is the audience standing? (Keep it short!)
iii. Do you have a stage, no stage, seating visibility issues?
IV. Researching
A. Poor Presenters Make the Mistake of Poor Research
B. Gathering Research
1
C. Determining What to Include
i. Your research should give you more information than you need.
ii. You have to determine what to include.
a. What information does this audience need to know to be informed or
persuaded?
iii. Including information, data, and statistics that are not needed are signs of a poor
speaker.
iv. Speakers who give examples based on personal experience rather than statistics
are more persuasive.
v. Include a variety of statistics and personal examples.
V. Organizing Your Presentation
A. Organizing the Body
i. Key is to choose a clear and memorable way to organize your presentation.
ii. Monroe’s Mo$vated Sequence
a. A?ention step—the introduction
b. Need step—speaker establishes the problem and thereby the need for a
change
c. Satisfaction step—speaker provides a solution for the problem
iii. Other choices for organization
a. Classi=cation
b. Chronological
c. Spatial
d. Cause-eect
B. Developing Transitions
i. A transition is any word or phrase that helps guide the listener from one point to
the next.
ii. Within the body of the speech, clear transitions must appear between your
main points.
VI. Introductions
A. introduction include specific components.
2
i. Gaining the a?ention
ii. Introducing the topic
B. If you don’t capture the a?ention of the audience quickly, they will “change the
channel.”
C. Avoid pre-introductions:
i. Hi, my name is . . .
D. Every one of the components of the introduction should be audience centered.
VII. Conclusions
A. State That You Are Concluding
i. If you have new information to present, you are not ready to conclude; new
information belongs in the body.
B. Provide A Summary
i. Provide a review of the main things or points.
ii. “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what
you told them.”
C. Leave A Strong Impression
i. End with a story, quote, memorable story, or refer back to the beginning of the
VIII. Language
A. Delivery needs to have a conversational tone but more formal than an everyday
conversation.
i. Conversational quality to parts of the speech.
B. Adapting Your Language to Any Situation
i. Eliminate cuss words or curse words.
ii. Eliminate slag terms or made-up words.
C. Excellent presenters pay close a?ention to language.
i. Imagery, metaphors, and descriptive terms are powerful because they can paint
a picture for the audience.
IX. KEYS to Excellence in Designing a Speech
3
A. Know yourself—requires that you know both yourself and your topic, and how your
audience can relate to that topic.
4