Chapter 12: Public Speaking – Human Communication: An Open Text (2023)

Public speaking

This Chapter is broken down into Five Parts

PART ONE

12.1 introduction to public speaking

In this chapter, we wish to address the finer points of effective public speaking so that you can be more successful in future presentations and later in your professional career.

Being honest about your personal agenda in choosing a topic is important. It is not always easy to discern a clear line between informative and persuasive speech. Good information has a strong tendency to be persuasive, and persuasion relies on good information. On a basic level, all communication is persuasive because at the very least when you communicate you are trying to persuade someone to listen to you and to believe you. Thus, informative and persuasive speaking do overlap. It remains up to you to examine your real motives in choosing your topic. Ethical speaking means respecting the intelligence of your audience. If you try to circumvent the purpose of the informative speech in order to plant a persuasive seed, your listeners will notice. Such strategies often come across as dishonest.

A good speech conveys accurate information to the audience clearly and keeps the listener interested in the topic. Achieving all three of these goals—accuracy, clarity, and interest—is the key to your effectiveness as a speaker. If the information is inaccurate, incomplete, or unclear, it will be of limited usefulness to the audience. There is no topic about which you can give complete information, and therefore, we strongly recommend careful narrowing. With a carefully narrowed topic and purpose, it is possible to give an accurate picture that isn’t misleading.

Part of being accurate is making sure that your information is current. Even if you know a great deal about your topic or writing a good paper on the topic in a high school course, you need to verify the accuracy and completeness of what you know. Most people understand that technology changes rapidly, so you need to update your information almost constantly, but the same is true for topics that, on the surface, may seem to require less updating. For example, the American Civil War occurred 150 years ago, but contemporary research still offers new and emerging theories about the causes of the war and its long-term effects. So even with a topic that seems to be unchanging, you need to carefully check your information to be sure it’s accurate and up to date.

For your listeners to benefit from your speech, you must convey your ideas in a fashion that your audience can understand.The clarity of your speech relies on logical organization and understandable word choices. You should not assume that something that’s obvious to you will also be obvious to the members of your audience. Formulate your work with the objective of being understood in all details, and rehearse your speech in front of peers who will tell you whether the information in your speech makes sense.

In addition to being clear,your speech should be interesting. Your listeners will benefit the most if they can give sustained attention to the speech, and this is unlikely to happen if they are bored. This often means you will decide against using some of the topics you know a great deal about. Suppose, for example, that you had a summer job as a veterinary assistant and learned a great deal about canine parasites. This topic might be very interesting to you, but how interesting will it be to others in your class? In order to make it interesting, you will need to find a way to connect it with their interests and curiosities. Perhaps there are certain canine parasites that also pose risks to humans—this might be a connection that would increase audience interest in your topic.

Part One – Audience Analysis

12.2 speaking to an audience with clarity

The first key to preparing a speech for an audience is analyzing them.Audience analysis involvesidentifying the audience and adapting a speech to their interests, level of understanding, attitudes, andbeliefs.A clear and interesting speech can make use of description, causal analysis, or categories. With description, you use words to create a picture in the minds of your audience. You can describe physical realities, social realities, emotional experiences, sequences, consequences, or contexts. For instance, you can describe the mindset of the Massachusetts town of Salem during the witch trials. You can also use causal analysis, which focuses on the connections between causes and consequences. For example, in speaking about health care costs, you could explain how a serious illness can put even a well-insured family into bankruptcy. You can also use categories to group things together. For instance, you could say that there are three categories of investment for the future: liquid savings, avoiding debt, and acquiring properties that will increase in value.

There are a number of principles to keep in mind as a speaker to make the information you present clear and interesting for your audience. Let’s examine several of them.

Adjust the Complexity to the Audience

If your speech is too complex or too simplistic, it will not hold the interest of your listeners. How can you determine the right level of complexity? Your audience analysis is one important way to do this. Will your listeners belong to a given age group, or are they more diverse? Did they all go to public schools in the United States, or are some of your listener’s international students? The answers to these and other audience analysis questions will help you to gauge what they know and what they are curious about.

Similarly, be very careful about assuming there is anything that “everybody knows.” Suppose you’ve decided to present an informative speech on the survival of the early colonists of New England. You may have learned in elementary school that their survival was attributable, in part, to the assistance of Squanto. Many of your listeners will know which states are in New England, but if there are international students in the audience, they might never have heard of New England. You should clarify the term either by pointing out the region on a map or by stating that it’s the six states in the American northeast. Other knowledge gaps can still confound the effectiveness of the speech. For instance, who or what was Squanto? What kind of assistance did the settlers get? Only a few listeners are likely to know that Squanto spoke English and that fact had greatly surprised the settlers when they landed. It was through his knowledge of English that Squanto was able to advise these settlers in survival strategies during that first harsh winter. If you neglect to provide that information, your speech will not be as informative as it could be.

Avoid Unnecessary Jargon

If you decide to give a speech on a highly specialized topic, limit how much technical language or jargon you use. Loading a speech with specialized language has the potential to be taxing on the listeners. It can become too difficult to “translate” your meanings, and if that happens, you will not effectively deliver information. Even if you define many technical terms, the audience may feel as if they are being bombarded with a set of definitions instead of useful information. Don’t treat your speech as a crash course in an entire topic. If you must, introduce one specialized term and carefully define and explain it to the audience. Define it in words, and then use a concrete and relevant example to clarify the meaning.

Create Concrete Images

As a college student, you have had a significant amount of exposure to abstract terms. You have become comfortable using and hearing a variety of abstract ideas. However, abstract terms lend themselves to many interpretations. For instance, the abstract term “responsibility” can mean many things. Among other meanings, it can mean duty, task, authority, or blame. Because of the potential for misunderstanding, it is better to use a concrete word. For example, instead of saying, “Helen Worth was responsible for the project,” you will convey clearer meaning when you say, “Helen Worth was in charge of the project”, “Helen Kimes made the project a success”, or “Helen Worth was to blame for the failure of the project”.

To illustrate the differences between abstract and concrete language, let’s look at a few pairs of terms:

By using an abstraction in a sentence and then comparing the concrete term in the sentence, you will notice the more precise meanings of the concrete terms. Those precise terms are less likely to be misunderstood. In the last pair of terms, “knowledgeable” is listed as a concrete term, but it can also be considered an abstract term. Still, it’s likely to be much clearer and more precise than “profound.”

Keep Information Limited

When you developed your speech, you carefully narrowed your topic in order to keep information limited yet complete and coherent. If you carefully adhere to your own narrowing, you can keep from going off on tangents or confusing your audience. If you overload your audience with information, they will be unable to follow your narrative. Use the definitions, descriptions, explanations, and examples you need in order to make your meanings clear, but resist the temptation to add tangential information merely because you find it interesting.

Link Current Knowledge to New Knowledge

Certain sets of knowledge are common to many people in your classroom audience. For instance, most of them know what Wikipedia is. Many have found it a useful and convenient source of information about topics related to their coursework. Because many Wikipedia entries are lengthy, greatly annotated, and followed by substantial lists of authoritative sources, many students have relied on information acquired from Wikipedia in writing papers to fulfill course requirements. All this is information that virtually every classroom listener is likely to know.

One way to make the message acceptable to your listeners is to show what Wikipedia does well. For example, some Wikipedia entries contain many good references at the end. Most of those references are likely to be authoritative, having been written by scholars. In searching for information on a topic, a student can look up one or more of those references in full-text databases or in the library. In this way, Wikipedia can be helpful in steering a student toward the authoritative information they need. Explaining this to your audience will help them accept, rather than reject, the bad news about Wikipedia.

Make it Memorable

If you’ve already done the preliminary work in choosing a topic, finding an interesting narrowing of that topic, developing and using presentation aids, and working to maintain audience contact, your delivery is likely to be memorable. Now you can turn to your content and find opportunities to make it appropriately vivid. You can do this by using explanations, comparisons, examples, or language.

This strategy rests on the ability of the audience to visualize the two contrasting situations. You have alluded to two sets of images that are familiar to most college students, images that they can easily visualize. Once the audience imagination is engaged in visualization, they are likely to remember the speech.

Your task of providing memorable imagery does not stop after the introduction. While maintaining an evenhanded approach that does not seek to persuade, you must provide the audience with information about the circumstances that triggered the policy of internment, perhaps by describing the advice that was given to President Roosevelt by his top advisers. You might depict the conditions faced by Japanese Americans during their internment by describing a typical day one of the camps. To conclude your speech on a memorable note, you might name a notable individual—an actor, writer, or politician—who is a survivor of the internment.

Such a strategy might feel unnatural to you. After all, this is not how you talk to your friends or participate in a classroom discussion. Remember, though, that public speaking is not the same as talking. It’s prepared and formal. It demands more of you. In a conversation, it might not be important to be memorable; your goal might merely be to maintain the friendship. But in a speech, when you expect the audience to pay attention, you must make the speech memorable.

Make it Relevant and Useful

When thinking about your topic, it is always very important to keep your audience members center stage in your mind. For instance, if your speech is about air pollution, ask your audience to imagine feeling the burning of eyes and lungs caused by smog. This is a strategy for making the topic more real to them, since it may have happened to them on a number of occasions; and even if it hasn’t, it easily could. If your speech is about Mark Twain, instead of simply saying that he was very famous during his lifetime, remind your audience that he was so prominent that their own great-grandparents likely knew of his work and had strong opinions about it. In so doing, you’ve connected your topic to their own forebears.

Develop your Topic for the Audience

One issue to consider when preparing a speech is how best to present the information to enhance audience learning. Katherine Rowan (2003) suggests focusing on areas where your audience may experience confusion and using the likely sources of confusion as a guide for developing the content of your speech. Rowan identifies three sources of audience confusion: difficult concepts or language, difficult-to-envision structures or processes, and ideas that are difficult to understand because they are hard to believe.

Difficult Concepts or Language

Sometimes audiences may have difficulty understanding information because of the concepts or language used. For example, they may not understand what the term “organic food” means or how it differs from “all-natural” foods. If an audience is likely to experience confusion over a basic concept or term, clarify the meaning by giving an example and defining the term. Similarly, when using an acronym it is important to explain what it means and perhaps put up the full name on a visual aid. You may know that NCA refers to the National Communication Association but your audience may not

Difficult-to-Envision Process or Structures

The second source of audience difficulty in understanding, according to Rowan, is a process or structure. Presentation aids or analogies might be helpful in giving an overview of the process. For the circulatory system, you could show a video or diagram of the entire system or make an analogy to a pump. Then you can move to explaining relationships among the components of the process. Be sure when you explain relationships among components that you include transition and linking words like “leads to” and “because” so that your audience understands relationships between concepts. You may remember the childhood song describing the bones in the body with lines such as, “the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone; the thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone.” Making the connections between components helps the audience remember and understand the process.

Difficult to Understand because it’s Hard to Believe

A third source of audience confusion, and perhaps the most difficult to address as a speaker, is an idea that’s difficult to understand because it’s hard to believe. This often happens when people have implicit but erroneous theories about how the world works. For example, the idea that science tries to disprove theories is difficult for some people to understand; after all, shouldn’t the purpose of science be to prove things? In such a case, Rowan suggests using a transformative explanation. A transformative explanation begins by discussing the audience’s implicit theory and showing why it is plausible. Then you move to showing how the implicit theory is limited and conclude by presenting the accepted explanation and why that explanation is better. In the case of scientists disproving theories, you might start by talking about what science has proven (e.g., the causes of malaria, the usefulness of penicillin in treating infection) and why focusing on science as proof is a plausible way of thinking. Then you might show how the science as proof theory is limited by providing examples of ideas that were accepted as “proven” but were later found to be false, such as the belief that diseases are caused by miasma, or “bad air”; or that bloodletting cures diseases by purging the body of “bad humor.” You can then conclude by showing how science is an enterprise designed to disprove theories and that all theories are accepted as tentative in light of existing knowledge.

Part Two- Topic Selection, Purpose, & Thesis

12.3 topic selection: finding your purpose

Finding a speech’s purpose and a topic isn’t as complex or difficult as you might believe. This may be hard to accept right now but trust us. After you read this chapter, you’ll understand how to go about finding interesting topics for a variety of different types of speeches. In this chapter, we are going to explain how to identify the general purpose of a speech. We will also discuss how to select a topic, what to do if you’re just drawing a blank and four basic questions you should ask yourself about the speech topic you ultimately select. Finally, we will explain how to use your general purpose and your chosen topic to develop the specific purpose of your speech.

Selecting a Topic

One of the most common stumbling blocks for novice public speakers is selecting their first speech topic. Generally, your public speaking instructor will provide you with some fairly specific parameters to make this a little easier. You may be assigned to tell about an event that has shaped your life or to demonstrate how to do something. Whatever your basic parameters, at some point you as the speaker will need to settle on a specific topic. In this section, we’re going to look at some common constraints of public speaking, picking a broad topic area, and narrowing your topic.

Common Constraints of Public Speaking

When we use the word “constraint” with regard to public speaking, we are referring to any limitation or restriction you may have as a speaker. Whether in a classroom situation or in the boardroom, speakers are typically given specific instructions that they must follow. These instructions constrain the speaker and limit what the speaker can say. For example, in the professional world of public speaking, speakers are often hired to speak about a specific topic (e.g., time management, customer satisfaction, entrepreneurship). In the workplace, a supervisor may assign a subordinate to present certain information in a meeting. In these kinds of situations, when a speaker is hired or assigned to talk about a specific topic, he or she cannot decide to talk about something else.

Purpose

The first major constraint someone can have involves the general purpose of the speech. As mentioned earlier, there are three general purposes: to inform, to persuade, and to entertain. If you’ve been told that you will be delivering an informative speech, you are automatically constrained from delivering a speech with the purpose of persuading or entertaining. In most public speaking classes, this is the first constraint students will come in contact with because generally, teachers will tell you the exact purpose for each speech in the class.

Audience

The second major constraint that you need to consider as a speaker is the type of audience you will have. As discussed in the chapter on audience analysis, different audiences have different political, religious, and ideological leanings. As such, choosing a speech topic for an audience that has a specific mindset can be very tricky. Unfortunately, choosing what topics may or may not be appropriate for a given audience is based on generalizations about specific audiences. For example, maybe you’re going to give a speech at a local meeting of Democratic leaders. You may think that all Democrats are liberal or progressive, but there are many conservative Democrats as well. If you assume that all Democrats are liberal or progressive, you may end up offending your audience by making such a generalization without knowing better. Obviously, the best way to prevent yourself from picking a topic that is inappropriate for a specific audience is to really know your audience, which is why we recommend conducting an audience analysis.

Context

The third major constraint relates to the context. For speaking purposes, the context of a speech is the set of circumstances surrounding a particular speech. There are countless different contexts in which we can find ourselves speaking: a classroom in college, a religious congregation, a corporate boardroom, a retirement village, or a political convention. In each of these different contexts, the expectations for a speaker are going to be unique and different. The topics that may be appropriate in front of a religious group may not be appropriate in the corporate boardroom. Topics appropriate for the corporate boardroom may not be appropriate at a political convention.

Time Frame

The last—but by no means least important—major constraint that you will face is the time frame of your speech. In speeches that are under ten minutes in length, you must narrowly focus a topic to one major idea. For example, in a ten-minute speech, you could not realistically hope to discuss the entire topic of the US Social Security program. There are countless books, research articles, websites, and other forms of media on the topic of Social Security, so trying to crystallize all that information into ten minutes is just not realistic.

Instead, narrow your topic to something that is more realistically manageable within your allotted time. You might choose to inform your audience about Social Security disability benefits, using one individual disabled person as an example. Or perhaps you could speak about the career of Robert J. Myers, one of the original architects of Social Security. By focusing on information that can be covered within your time frame, you are more likely to accomplish your goal at the end of the speech.

Selecting a Broad Subject Area

Once you know what the basic constraints are for your speech, you can then start thinking about picking a topic. The first aspect to consider is what subject area you are interested in examining. Asubject areais a broad area of knowledge. Art, business, history, physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and education are all examples of subject areas. When selecting a topic, start by casting a broad net because it will help you limit and weed out topics quickly.

Furthermore, each of these broad subject areas has a range of subject areas beneath it. For example, if we take the subject area “art,” we can break it down further into broad categories like art history, art galleries, and how to create art. We can further break down these broad areas into even narrower subject areas (e.g., art history includes prehistoric art, Egyptian art, Grecian art, Roman art, Middle Eastern art, medieval art, Asian art, Renaissance art, modern art). As you can see, topic selection is a narrowing process.

Narrowing your Topic

Narrowing your topic to something manageable for the constraints of your speech is something that takes time, patience, and experience. One of the biggest mistakes that new public speakers make is not narrowing their topics sufficiently given the constraints. In the previous section, we started demonstrating how the narrowing process works, but even in those examples, we narrowed subject areas down to fairly broad areas of knowledge.

You may think that your topic is sufficiently narrow, but even within the topic of Anatolian art, there are smaller categories: pre-Hittite, Hittite, Uratu, and Phrygian periods of art. So, let’s narrow our topic again to the Phrygian period of art (1200–700 BCE). Although we have now selected a specific period of art history in Anatolia, we are still looking at a five-hundred-year period in which a great deal of art was created. One famous Phrygian king was King Midas, who according to myth was given the ears of a donkey and the power of a golden touch by the Greek gods. As such, there is an interesting array of art from the period of Midas and its Greek counterparts representing Midas. At this point, we could create a topic about how Phrygian and Grecian art differed in their portrayals of King Midas. We now have a topic that is unique, interesting, and definitely manageable in five to seven minutes. You may be wondering how we narrowed the topic down; we just started doing a little research using the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website.

Part Three – Research

12.4 conducting research

The first mention of research can send students running for the exits or on a hike to the nearestWikipediapage, but this need not be the case. If I asked how familiar you were with finding information, conducting research, or evaluating sources, you would probably say, “Not very.” Although you may not think you engage in research regularly, in fact, you conduct research every day in many ways. Our goal is to boost both your confidence and skills for conducting research so that you know what you need and where to find it for any project you are working on.

Informed Learning or Informational Literacy are terms that explain pedagogy (the teaching process) that focuses on how combining subject content through academic practice can result in academic and professional application. Research is applicable to all areas of study and it is an important connection to educational, personal, and professional learning. These connections boost confidence so that students perform a higher level of comprehension and delivery of content. College students recognize that being informed means selecting content for review, building connections, practicing, and implementing higher standards to reading, reviewing research, and demonstration of work.

The goal from a student perspective is that informed learning locates resources and evaluates those resources based on conceptual realities mirrored in real life, whether it be family decisions about finance or workplace etiquette. Revising the way you approach learning and including an informed perspective is advantageous for numerous reasons.Informed learning skills allow students to save time, simplify or clarify reading and assignments, promote connections between ideas and perspectives, encourage participation in the learning process, and facilitate skill development.

Information Literacy Model

There are various information literacy models. OneInformation Literacy Modelconsists of four components that aid in comprehension of information in various forms. The four components include library skills, media skills, critical literacy, and information ethics.

• Library Skills: Library skills develop literacy by increasing understanding of disciplines of study.Being able to search within different branches of learning allows you to begin to build a foundation of knowledge to understand areas within your educational pursuits and designated career. Building connections between disciplines create bridges that support a more holistic approach to learning, utilizing search options, keyword and subject search, catalog and database access.
• Media Skills: Media skills develop the ability to utilize resources that combine text, graphics, and other combinations of media. Visual media has always had a strong presence with varied websites offering videos of tutorials and news. Computer generated media are widely becoming a new way to create information. Lastly, social media allows sharing of information more easily than before in the Digital Age.
• Critical Literacy: Critical Literacy activates long term memory, including critical reading, critical thinking, and synthesis. Critical reading is reached when main ideas are determined, interpreted, and evaluated. Critical thinking is reached when analysis, critique, and response motivate observation, experience, and deep learning. Synthesizing is reached when ideas are summarized and a furthered approach to learning is met by combining ideas.
• Information Ethics:Information Ethics teaches you to consider ethical and moral obligations in research, including copyright, security, and privacy. Research conducted and presented in any format requires an understanding of how to properly evaluate, cite, and attribute sources.

Researchis a word that definesthe process of inquiry, location, selection, evaluation, and application of sources. There are many types of research. A discussion of information includes the different ways that you can conduct research. Informed learning requires that you be able to identify these research types and choose accordingly which one might be useful in what context or scenario. You also want to think about how one type of research might be better implemented for the desired purpose or effect of the audience. The types of research this chapter introduces include Personal and Professional Experience, Internet Research, Library Research, and Interviewing.

Personal and Professional Experience

You will most likely want to research ideas you find interesting and can see connections to meaningful and effective ways to learn and use the information. Personal and Professional experience are great ways to begin to think about topics or areas that you can write or speak about due to your own knowledge and expertise. Using Personal and Professional experience can help lessen anxiety by allowing you to speak about subjects you are already familiar with or share meaningful stories. Additionally, when speaking from experience you are more excited about your topic, and this improves eye contact because you rely less upon your speaking notes. You connect on a personal level with the audience and build connections through something you are passionate about. Students may not always respond to a topic, but they will respond to a person.

Personal experiencerelies onthe unique frames of reference and worldviews based on the experiences that have shaped your sense of self or identity. Personal experiences can be based on age, race, or economic status. These personal experiences can also be influenced by the way you were raised, educated, or formed connections to media, society, or culture.

Personal experience is a great way to incorporate a sense of reality and sincerity into your message. You can choose common or shared experiences with your audience to better meet and anticipate audience understanding. If you share your experience, those in the audience will begin to think about their own experiences, identifying and critiquing your experience against their own. It is a great way to encourage interest and engagement. Many times we choose topics that have affected us personally. Sharing these experiences remind others how certain topics affect them at their age, in their neighborhoods, or among their friends because they are being provided a real life experience from their peer.

Professional experiencerelies oninformation gained in a professional capacity. If you have gained specific knowledge or experience from education, training, or practice in relationship to your career, the information you have attained counts as professional experience. The phrase “Professional Experience” stands out as an area you would include on your resume and is precisely what you would consider.

Professional experience can add credibility to a presentation by allowing others to see that you have more legitimate knowledge than others. For example, if you have interned, served in the military, or have a professional image as a college student, this lets you share your experiences in a real way and connect to an audience that shares your demographic characteristics. This encourages your audience to make its own connections to your topic.

12.3 Interviews

Aninterviewisa conversation in which someone is questioned about their background, lifestyle or experience and answers are given.Interviews are a great way to rely on others for personal and professional experience. Interviews can be structured (formal), semi- structured (blended), or unstructured (informal). The traditional interview experience is between two people in a face-to-face setting. Increasingly, interviews are conducted in groups, by a panel, or virtually with the use of technology. No matter the format, interviews following a similar pattern.

Interviewing often follows a simple structure and there are some key ideas that can make your interview more successful. Always remember that you need to do research and prepare before the interview. What can you learn about the person or the person’s connection to your topic? What resources can you utilize to gain this knowledge? Based on your research, develop questions or talking points to encourage sharing. Be respectful of others’ time and be clear about expectations for the interview (where will you meet, if the interview is recorded, how much time you need, the purpose of the interview, etc.).

Find the information you need and think through how you want to design questions for the interview. Use prepared questions. Primary questionsidentify key ideas and direct the interview content. Secondary questionsredirect and clarify or build on primary questions. For an informational interview, you may ask moreopen questionsthatdo not require a specific answer and allow the interviewee to direct and manage more of the conversation. Open questions will help you acquire more perspectives and variety in responses. Identify whether questions may be biased questions or neutral questions. Neutral questionsarewithout opinion; whereas,biased questionspresent an opinion or agenda in the response. For a survey or data analysis, you may ask moreclosed questionsto generateshort one word answers or numerical responses.

In thinking about interviewing from a research perspective, the interview offers a new and varied perspective. This builds credibility because it shows diversity in opinion and approach to the subject, which presents more trust when more sources are used. It can be difficult to know exactly what information to include, what information is needed, or how to organize the information. A point person or expert can be a great resource. In many instances, this person has experience researching the topic and provide important advice for what should be considered the most important, relevant or timely points, and how to best communicate a message. Lastly, there are numerous factors that divide us as an audience or create a differing worldview from those around us. We may not identify with the author because we feel they do not represent us, our ideals, or our experiences. An expert can bridge those gaps and allow you to choose someone that your audience can connect to, trust, or admire.

Internet Research

You may be wondering, “What constitutes Internet research?” Examples of internet research can benon-print resources, orformatswith special characters whose information content can only be access through the use of machines / digitalequipmentsuch as e-book, e-journals, e- images, etc. Internet resources can also include email, blogs, and list-serves can be used to collect interview statements and provide experience. Media sources such as radio, TV, film, audio and video recordings add visual content and increase audience engagement with a topic. Websites, virtual libraries, educational indexes and search engines can be used to locate content and knowledge.

Knowing how to utilize a search engine can be extremely helpful in applying informed learning to an online environment. There are shortcuts, operators, features, punctuation, and symbol searches. Also,a site’s address(i.e.,Uniform Resource Locator, or URL) contains information that can provide the purpose in selecting a source. You probably recognize .com or .org as two types of URL and there may be others that you recognize but are unsure what would be scholarly or appropriate. American universities, colleges, and secondary schools often use .edu. Not-for-profit or non-profit organizations often use the .org suffix. Businesses, news, and database websites use .com/ .net. Personal sites are individual sites that are not representative of a larger body, but a personal or local business, news, or information website and use .site.

Library Research

Library research includes all of the resources found in the library or through its website. There are three main areas of library research: Classification and Catalog, Reference Works, and Print Resources. Classification and cataloguse a variety ofcategorization to help patrons locate materials in the library. The catalog organizes resources by author, title, Library of Congress Subject Heading, and call number. Periodicalsareworks publishedatregular intervals such as daily, weekly, monthly, or even annually. These include general interest magazines and professional and academic journals. Periodicals are generally peer reviewed or edited and provide a variety of perspectives. They can provide in-depth information, research, and data statistics and studies. They can contain more up-to-date information than books or e-books. Newspaper Indexes provide a searchable database of news articles, including more current information. Reference worksarebooks and other works that contain useful facts and information, such as Encyclopedia’s, Dictionaries, Directories, Atlases, Almanacs, Books of Quotations, and Biographies. Print resourcesareprinted text and images or paper publications that are in the form of physical editions of books, journals, magazines, newspapers,etc. Books in print can provide more in-depth, credible, and historical research. Newspapers in print can provide more local information by providing access to smaller, community papers.

12.4 How to integrate and present research

Research is integrated and presented in a text as evidence. The text can be an essay or speech outline that you have written. Written text can also include a computer generated presentation like a slide show. The text can also be verbal and include a speech or presentation. It doesn’t matter what text you comprise, you need to incorporate your research. The varied ways that you incorporate your research can help you plan, organize, and deliver your evidence more effectively. Choices you make for integrating and presenting your information depend upon the message you want to convey. There are 4 ways that you can integrate evidence: definitions, examples, facts and statistics, and testimony.

Adefinitionisa formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc.. There are different types of definitions and ways to think about defining a term. Thinking about how the word is used in our language can determine if we want a common meaning or want to use a word more strategically based on how people think about the use of the word. We know there is the denotative or dictionary definition — the literal meaning of the word. There is the connotative definition — the associated meaning of the word based on our world view and experiences. There are more formal ideas about how to define terms such as theetymological definition, orhow the word is defined by the word’s origin or history. Definitions provide clarity to complex ideas, jargon, or slang.

Anexampleisa characteristic of its kind or illustrates a general rule. They can be brief, extended, or hypothetical. Abrief exampleis short and generally adds clarity by providing a detail or characteristic of a piece of information. Examples add relevance by discussing what is current or familiar to the audience as a way to connect information. For example, using a genre of music as an example of what music you listen to in your free time allows the audience to determine similarities, differences, or lack of exposure and experience. Anextended example, or narrative, provides an anecdote or story that relays a more vivid and textured example of a situation, experience, or context surrounding your topic. An extended example often serves as an illustration of an idea. If you are presenting a persuasive speech on local services, you can use an article from a local paper to help the audience visualize how the problem impacts their lives.Hypothetical examplesconvey ideas that are common, known, or sensitive in nature that is imagined to depict realistic scenarios. Since a hypothetical example does not have to be connected to a specific person, time, or place, hypothetical examples allow an audience to think introspectively about how they would react or respond in the situation.

Afactisa piece of information used as evidence known or proved to be true. Astatisticisa piece of data from a study of a large quantity of numerical data. Facts and statistics can be used to present new ideas or reinforce current ideas or to confirm or disprove information. Data and statistics help audiences consider a topic from a more informed standpoint and help further reasoning. There are, however, some constraints to using statistics efficiently. When used accurately, facts and statistics can present a clear and purposeful message that creates a sense of immediacy in relationship to a topic. When used poorly, facts and statistics can result in information overload or confusion.

When evaluating facts and statistics, it is important to ask the following questions to allow for better understanding.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Is the Source Reliable?
            2. Is there Manipulation or Distortion?
            3. Is the statistic Representative (Sample Size)?
            4. Is the Math Correct (Mean/ average, Median/ middle, or Mode/ frequency)?

PRESENTING STATISTICS

It is equally important to present statistics, numerical data, accurately. Introducing statistics as a quantity or rounding the numbers will aid the cognitive process when trying to convey the impact of large numbers. While a large blanket number may be hard to understand, the use of values like “one in three” or an illustration like “five football stadiums long” can present a more simplified, recognizable figure. Combining figures can show seriousness or magnitude of a problem or issue. While you do want to think about your main ideas to be illustrated, statistics should be used sparingly. The audience cannot remember all the information provided and will need to select information based on its goals and needs. Identify the source, cite the author, present a clear idea of where the information comes from, and ensure the audience of the source’s reliability. Explain and clarify the research by providing an interpretation of how the statistic is being applied and how it helps our understanding of the larger topic. Use visuals to help simplify the information and to bolster your audience’s interest.

Testimonyisa formal written or spoken statement. It can be expert or peer-based. The type of testimony you provide has much to do with your topic or the desired audience outcome.Expertsarepeople who are acknowledged authorities in their fields. Peersarepeople like ourselves; not prominent figures, but ordinary citizens who have thefirst-handexperience on a topic. It is important that when you present testimony, you consider the authority of the source. Celebrity or athletic endorsements may not be as trusted or credible as professional endorsements. Always credit the author and include their credentials or qualifications to build that credibility and strengthen the source. You can think back to the introduction on personal and professional experience to understand these two types of testimony better.

We integrate testimony as support by either quoting or paraphrasing our original source.Quotingispresenting a message word-for-word, exactly as it was written or stated. Quoting works best when the quote is short and not drawn out, or when the meaning is better conveyed through language or literary technique. When quoting a source, be sure that you are delivering the quote with the correct meaning or intent and presenting the context in which the quote was used.Paraphrasingisrestating or summarizing in one’s own words what another person had said. Paraphrase when the quote is long, difficult to understand, or jargon-heavy. There are a few tips to paraphrase accurately (but remember, you must still cite the original source when paraphrasing):

1. 1. 1. Change the words. Identify the key words that are not your own vocabulary or stand out and change them to reflect your own personality and voice.
      2. Edit the quote. Identify areas that you can leave out or add-to in order to make the information helpful to your audience.
      3. Re-structure the quote. Can you move the beginning to the middle or to the end? Is the paraphrased information better if you start with the last sentence’s idea and work backward to the introduction? Could the body of the quote serve as steps or claims that you can present in order?
      4. For a guide on how to paraphrase,check out this site

12.5 evaluating research

There are five fundamental questions that can help you identify the best measure of credibility and reliability of a source. These steps are easy to remember because they follow the five standard questions you have been learning to ask throughout your life. The five questions of who, what, when, where, and why create the5W’s of Web Site Evaluation.

Who

Most credible articles include an author of the text. However, if there is not an author noted in a byline, the author may be a sponsoring organization, company, or entity. The best way to locate the author if no byline is present is to scroll to the bottom of the web page. At the bottom of the page, you will usually find the author (entity) and a copyright date. This serves as a published or last updated (revised) date for the source. How do you identify an author when using a Youtube video, or a blog post? The author is not the site, but the name of the responsible party that posted the content. It may seem strange, but you will use the username if a formal name is not provided. Once you have identified the author, you want to evaluate how credible or reliable they are as a source. If there is no information on the web page, you can conduct an Internet search of the author or entity. You can also look for reviews or conduct an article search to see consumer opinions or news related to the author or entity.

What

What determines the purpose, point-of-view, or type of site you may be used for research. The purpose may be to inform or sell to consumers. It may be a biased news organization or a stay-at-home dad’s blog about raising a daughter. It may be an educational site created by an institution of learning or an entertainment site with funny videos that encourages subscribing. Determine how the information may contribute to your research as well as what ideas may be presented and shared. It is important to consider what information you will use based on your own purpose and point-of-view, as well as audience interest. Identify bias, fact or opinion, and evaluate the sources you use. The web site should include formal citations or references for material that is not written by the author. You also should be able to navigate the site without problem or error. Privacy and safety should be a concern when navigating an un-trusted site.

When

When provides the copyright or publish date of a source. It is imperative that you can discern when a site was written or put online. Without this information, you may not have relevant or current information, and that can be misleading. It can also be an indication that the site is not maintained or updated. If a date is not provided, the credibility of the site and the information on the site is questionable.

Where

Where may seem like it is asking the same question as Who or What, but it is asking specific questions that examine responsibility and transparency in research. Many web sites will borrow, restate, or write their own information. It is important to identify the primary source (created) along with the secondary source (altered or forwarded) information. In evaluating the way the information is presented on the site, it is important to consider the creator of the content. If you are reviewing a study or survey, you want to consider who was conducting the study, for what purpose, using what resources, when, and to what end. If you know that a company conducted a study of their product and only used those that are on their email list, you can see how this information would be inconsistent and not representative of the larger population. Many companies are subsidiaries of larger companies, so you may not realize that in buying organic (thought of as local or homegrown), you are buying from a large food processing company.

Why

The last question to ask is why should I use the source? The answer is really a combination of all of the other questions. If you have been able to successfully answer all of the 5 W’s and you do not have any doubts about the credibility or reliability of a site, you can explain why a source is useful. When conducting research, variety is also important. Make sure that you are not using sources that are too similar or that present the same information. If you have a source that allows you to answer a research question, prove a point, or provide interest, you need to ask: “Why do I need this source?” The source should offer a segment of the research or purpose in your message that is not replicated somewhere else.

Being able to identify the 5 W’s and how to apply each one when selecting and locating evidence is another contribution to Informed Learning. Applying this level of evaluation and critique is preparing you to succeed academically and professionally by critically thinking about choosing and integrating your research for the desired outcome.

Now that you have an understanding of Web Site Evaluation, it is time to review citing your research so that you maintain academic honesty and avoid plagiarism.

10.6 REFERENCING CITATIONS

Aciteorcitationisproviding areferenceor attributing the source of evidence used for justification of an argument or statement, especially in a scholarly work. When citing sources, it is important that you provide internal (in-text) citations in the text of your paper or speech outline, as well as oral citations when making a presentation. These citations help the reader/audience evaluate the credibility of the information. The internal citations should correlate to a full citation included in the bibliography. Internal citations are often referred to as parenthetical citations in a paper. Depending on the style guide that you are using, the required information may change. Please refer to your course’s recommended citation guide for assistance.

Ethics and Plagiarism

The topic of ethics and plagiarism is common to every academic discipline and professional career path.Ethicsis defined asthemoral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity. We make ethical decisions in the workplace every day, including language that either supports or undermines inclusion and civility. Additionally, company resources and policies determine the culture and climate of an organization. In a professional setting, plagiarism refers to idea development. Whether you are presenting at a conference, conducting a research study, creating a menu for your new restaurant, or designing a website for freelancing, it is necessary to accurately cite original authorship. Plagiarismis defined asthe practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.It is important that you avoid plagiarism and understand the consequences for trying to pass off someone else’s work or ideas as your own.

Part four – Speech organization

12.7 organizing your speech

Once you have selected your topic and conducted research, it is time to organize your ideas.

In a series of important and groundbreaking studies conducted during the 1950’s and 1960’s, researchers started investigating how a speech’s organization was related to audience perceptions of those speeches. The first study, conducted by Raymond Smith in 1951, randomly organized the parts of a speech to see how audiences would react. Not surprisingly, when speeches were randomly organized, the audience perceived the speech more negatively than when audiences were presented with a speech with clear, intentional organization. Smith also found that audiences who listened to unorganized speeches were less interested in those speeches than audiences who listened to organized speeches. Thompson furthered this investigation and found that unorganized speeches were also harder for audiences to recall after the speech. Basically, people remember information from speeches that are clearly organized—and forget information from speeches that are poorly organized. A third study by Baker found that when audiences were presented with a disorganized speaker, they were less likely to be persuaded, and saw the disorganized speaker as lacking credibility.

These three very important studies make the importance of organization very clear. When speakers are not organized they are not perceived as credible and their audiences view the speeches negatively, are less likely to be persuaded, and don’t remember specific information from the speeches after the fact.

Determining Main Ideas

“A team brainstorming session with ideas stemming off the main idea”byOne Click Group UKis licensed underCC BY 2.0

When creating a speech, it’s important to remember that speeches have three clear parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction establishes the topic and orients your audience, and the conclusion wraps everything up at the end of your speech. An introduction has four main functions–gain the attention of the audience, establish credibility, reveal topic and relevance, and overview the main points. For more information on attention getters click the following link https://www.oercommons.org/courses/public-speaking-attention-getters/view. The conclusion has two main functions–summarize your main points and achieve closure. The key to a good conclusion is to keep it short, not add extra information, and achieve a sense of finality. If you are delivering a persuasive speech, include a call to action. The real “meat” of your speech happens in the body. In this section, we’re going to discuss how to think strategically about the body of your speech.

What is your Specific Purpose

Recall that a speech can have one of three general purposes: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.

Thegeneral purposerefers tothe broad goal of creating and delivering the speech.

Aspecific purposeisa statement that starts with one of the three general purposes and then specifies the actual topic you have chosen and the basic objective you hope to accomplish with your speech. Basically, the specific purpose answers the who, what, when, where, and why questionsaboutyour speech. Suppose you are going to give a speech about using open-source software. Here are three examples (each with a different general purpose and a different audience):

In each of these three examples, you’ll notice that the general topic is the same (open-source software) but the specific purpose is different because the speech has a different general purpose and a different audience. Before you can think strategically about organizing the body of your speech, you need to know what your specific purpose is. If you have not yet written a specific purpose for your current speech, please go ahead and write one now.

FROM SPECIFIC PURPOSE TO MAIN POINTS

Once you have written down your specific purpose, you can now start thinking about the best way to turn that specific purpose into a series of main points. Main points are the key ideas you present to enable your speech to accomplish its specific purpose. In this section, we’re going to discuss how to determine your main points and how to organize those main points into a coherent, strategic speech.

How Many Main Points Do I Need?

While there is no magic number for how many main points a speech should have, speech experts generally agree that the fewer the number of main points the better. First and foremost, experts on the subject of memory have consistently shown that people don’t tend to remember very much after they listen to a message or leave a conversation. While many different factors can affect a listener’s ability to retain information after a speech, how the speech is organized is an important part of that process.For the speeches you will be delivering in a typical public speaking class, you will usually have just two or three main points. If your speech should be less than three minutes long, then two main points will probably work best. If your speech is between three and ten minutes in length, then it makes more sense to use three main points.

According to LeFrancois (1999), people are more likely to remember information that is meaningful, useful, and of interest to them; different or unique; organized; visual; and simple. Two or three main points are much easier for listeners to remember than ten or even five. In addition, if you have two or three main points, you’ll be able to develop each one with examples, statistics, or other forms of support. This breakdown of support is calledsubordination,the act of placing in a lower rank or position.Using supporting or subordinate pointshelp you to better understand how ideas are connected and how ideas or points are providing more information as you explain or provide more detail.Including support for each point will make your speech more interesting and more memorable for your audience.

Narrowing Down Main Points

When you write your specific purpose and review the research you have done on your topic, you will probably find yourself thinking of quite a few points that you’d like to make in your speech. Whether that’s the case or not, we recommend taking a few minutes to brainstorm and develop a list of points. In brainstorming, your goal is simply to think of as many different points as you can, not to judge how valuable or important they are. What information does your audience need to know to understand your topic? What information does your speech need to convey to accomplish its specific purpose? Consider the following example:

Specific Purpose

Brainstorming List of Points

• • • • • • • • Define open-source software.
              • Define educational software.
              • List and describe the software commonly used by school districts.
              • Explain the advantages of using open-source software.
              • Explain the disadvantages of using open-source software.
              • Review the history of open-source software.
              • Describe the value of open-source software.
              • Describe some educational open-source software packages.
              • Review the software needs of my specific audience.
              • Describe some problems that have occurred with open-source software.

Now that you have brainstormed and developed a list of possible points, how do you go about narrowing them down to just two or three main ones? When you look over the preceding list, you can then start to see that many of the points are related to one another. Your goal in narrowing down your main points is to identify which individual, potentially minor points can be combined to make main points.

Specific Purpose

Main Point 1:School districts use software in their operations.

1. Define educational software.
2. List and describe the software commonly used by school districts.

Main Point 2:What is open-source software?

1. Define open-source software.
2. Review the history of open-source software.
3. Explain the advantages of using open-source software.
4. Describe the value of open-source software.
5. Explain the disadvantages of using open-source software.
6. Describe some problems that have occurred with open-source software.

Main Point 3:Name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider.

1. Review the software needs of my specific audience.
2. Describe some educational open-source software packages.

You may notice that in the preceding list, the number of subpoints under each of the three main points is a little disjointed or the topics don’t go together clearly. That’s all right. Remember that these are just general ideas at this point. It’s also important to remember that there is often more than one way to organize a speech. Some of these points could be left out and others developed more fully, depending on the purpose and audience. We’ll develop the preceding main points more fully in a moment.

HELPFUL HINTS FOR PREPARING MAIN POINTS

Now that we’ve discussed how to take a specific purpose and turn it into a series of main points, here are some helpful hints for creating your main points.

Uniting Main Points

Once you’ve generated a possible list of main points, you want to ask yourself this question: “When you look at your main points, do they fit together?” For example, if you look at the three preceding main points (school districts use software in their operations; what is open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider), ask yourself, “Do these main points help my audience understand my specific purpose?”Suppose you added a fourth main point about open-source software for musicians—would this fourth main point go with the other three? Probably not. While you may have a strong passion for open-source music software, that main point is extraneous information for the speech you are giving. It does not help accomplish your specific purpose, so you’d need to toss it out.

Keeping Main Points Separate

The next question to ask yourself about your main points is whether they overlap too much. While some overlap may happen naturally because of the singular nature of a specific topic, the information covered within each main point should be clearly distinct from the other main points. Imagine you’re giving a speech with the specific purpose “to inform my audience about the health reasons for eating apples and oranges.” You could then have three main points: that eating fruits is healthy, that eating apples is healthy, and that eating oranges is healthy. While the two points related to apples and oranges are clearly distinct, both of those main points would probably overlap too much with the first point “that eating fruits is healthy,” so you would probably decide to eliminate the first point and focus on the second and third. On the other hand, you could keep the first point and then develop two new points giving additional support to why people should eat fruit.

Balancing Main Points

One of the biggest mistakes some speakers make is to spend most of their time talking about one of their main points, completely neglecting their other main points. To avoid this mistake, organize your speech so as to spend roughly the same amount of time on each main point. If you find that one of your main points is simply too large, you may need to divide that main point into two main points and consolidate your other main points into a single main point.

If you have an hour to talk, then you may find that these three main points are balanced. However, you may also find them wildly unbalanced if you only have five minutes to speak because five minutes is not enough time to even explain what open-source software is. If that’s the case, then you probably need to rethink your specific purpose of ensuring that you can cover the material in the allotted time.

Creating Parallel Structure for Main Points

Another major question to ask yourself about your main points is whether or not they have a parallel structure. By parallel structure, we mean that you should structure your main points so that they all sound similar. When all your main points sound similar, it’s simply easier for your audiences to remember your main points and retain them for later. Let’s look at our sample (school districts use software in their operations; what is open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider). Notice that the first and third main points are statements, but the second one is a question. Basically, we have an example here of main points that are not parallel in structure. You could fix this in one of two ways. You could make them all questions: what are some common school district software programs; what is open-source software; and what are some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider. Or you could turn them all into statements: school districts use software in their operations; define and describe open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider. Either of these changes will make the grammatical structure of the main points parallel.

Maintaining Logical Flow of Main Points

The last question you want to ask yourself about your main points is whether the main points make sense in the order you’ve placed them. The next section goes into more detail of common organizational patterns for speeches, but for now, we want you to just think logically about the flow of your main points. When you look at your main points, can you see them as progressive, or does it make sense to talk about one first, another one second, and the final one last? If you look at your order, and it doesn’t make sense to you, you probably need to think about the flow of your main points. Often, this process is an art and not a science. But let’s look at a couple of examples.

School Dress Codes Example

Rider Law Legislation Example

When you look at these two examples, what are your immediate impressions of the two examples? In the first example, does it make sense to talk about history, and then the problems, and finally how to eliminate school dress codes? Would it make sense to put history as your last main point? Probably not. In this case, the main points are in a logical sequential order. What about the second example? Does it make sense to talk about your solution, then your problem, and then define the solution? Not really! What order do you think these main points should be placed in for a logical flow? Maybe you should explain the problem (lack of rider laws), then define your solution (what is rider law legislation), and then argue for your solution (why states should have rider laws). Notice that in this example you don’t even need to know what “rider laws” are to see that the flow didn’t make sense.

All speeches start with a general purpose and then move to a specific purpose that gives the who, what, where, and how for the speech. Transitioning from the specific purpose to possible main points means developing a list of potential main points you could discuss. Then you can narrow your focus by looking for similarities among your potential main points and combining ones that are similar. Shorter speeches will have two main points while longer speeches will generally have three or more main points. When creating your main points, make sure that they are united, separate, balanced, parallel, and logical.

ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERNS

Previously in this chapter, we discussed how to make your main points flow logically. This section is going to provide you with a number of organizational patterns to help you create a logically organized speech.

TOPICAL

By far the most common pattern for organizing a speech is atopical organizational pattern, organizingby categories or dividing the topic into subtopics. The categories function as a way to help the speaker organize the message in a consistent fashion. The goal of a topical speech pattern is to create categories (or chunks) of information that go together to help support your original specific purpose. Let’s look at an example.

Specific Purpose:To inform a group of high school juniors about Generic University

Main Points

1. Life in the dorms
2. Life in the classroom
3. Life on campus

In this case, we have a speaker trying to inform a group of high school juniors about Generic University. The speaker has divided the information into three basic categories: what it’s like to live in the dorms, what classes are like, and what life is like on campus. Almost anyone could take this basic speech and specifically tailor the speech to fit her or his own university or college. The main points in this example could be rearranged and the organizational pattern would still be effective because there is no inherent logic to the sequence of points. Let’s look at a second example.

Specific Purpose:To inform a group of college students about the uses and misuses of Internet dating

Main Points

1. Define and describe Internet dating.
2. Explain some strategies to enhance your Internet dating experience.
3. List some warning signs to look for in potential online dates.

In this speech, the speaker is talking about how to find others online and date them. Specifically, the speaker starts by explaining what Internet dating is; then the speaker talks about how to make Internet dating better for her or his audience members; and finally, the speaker ends by discussing some negative aspects of Internet dating. Again, notice that the information is chunked into three categories or topics and that the second and third could be reversed and still provide a logical structure for your speech.

COMPARISON/CONTRAST

Another method for organizing main points is thecomparison/contrast organizationalpattern,measuring similarities and differences between two or more subjects.While this pattern clearly lends itself easily to two main points, you can also create a third point by giving basic information about what is being compared and what is being contrasted. Let’s look at two examples; the first one will be a two-point example and the second a three-point example.

Specific Purpose:To inform a group of physicians about Drug X, a newer drug with similar applications to Drug Y

Main Points

1. Show how Drug X and Drug Y are similar.
2. Show how Drug X and Drug Y differ.

Specific Purpose:To inform a group of physicians about Drug X, a newer drug with similar applications to Drug Y

Main Points

1. Explain the basic purpose and use of both Drug X and Drug Y.
2. Show how Drug X and Drug Y are similar.
3. Show how Drug X and Drug Y differ.

If you were using the comparison/contrast pattern for persuasive purposes, in the preceding examples, you’d want to make sure that when you show how Drug X and Drug Y differ, you clearly state why Drug X is clearly the better choice for physicians to adopt. In essence, you’d want to make sure that when you compare the two drugs, you show that Drug X has all the benefits of Drug Y, but when you contrast the two drugs, you show how Drug X is superior to Drug Y in some way.

SPATIAL

Thespatial organizationalpatternorganizes information according to how things fit together in physical space, either geographically or directionally. This pattern is best used when your main points are oriented to different locations that can exist independently. The basic reason to choose this format is to show that the main points have clear locations. We’ll look at two examples here, one involving physical geography and one involving a different spatial order.

Specific Purpose:To inform a group of history students about the states that seceded from the United States during the Civil War

Main Points

1. Locate and describe the Confederate states just below the Mason-Dixon Line (Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee).
2. Locate and describe the Confederate states in the Deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida).
3. Locate and describe the western Confederate states (Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas).

If you look at a basic map of the United States, you’ll notice that these groupings of states were created because of their geographic location to one another. In essence, the states create three spatial territories to explain.

Now let’s look at a spatial speech unrelated to geography.

Specific Purpose:To explain to a group of college biology students how the urinary system works

Main Points

1. Locate and describe the kidneys and ureters.
2. Locate and describe the bladder.
3. Locate and describe the sphincter and urethra.

In this example, we still have three basic spatial areas. If you look at a model of the urinary system, the first step is the kidney, which then takes waste through the ureters to the bladder, which then relies on the sphincter muscle to excrete waste through the urethra. All we’ve done in this example is create a spatial speech order for discussing how waste is removed from the human body through the urinary system. It is spatial because the organization pattern is determined by the physical location of each body part in relation to the others discussed.

CHRONOLOGICAL

Thechronological organizationalpattern organizes the main idea in time order or in a sequential pattern—whether backward or forward. Here’s a simple example.

Specific Purpose:To inform my audience about the books written by Winston Churchill

Main Points

1. Examine the style and content of Winston Churchill’s writings prior to World War II.
2. Examine the style and content of Winston Churchill’s writings during World War II.
3. Examine the style and content of Winston Churchill’s writings after World War II.

In this example, we’re looking at the writings of Winston Churchill in relation to World War II (before, during, and after). By placing his writings into these three categories, we develop a system for understanding this material based on Churchill’s own life. Note that you could also use reverse chronological order and start with Churchill’s writings after World War II, progressing backward to his earliest writings.

Specific Purpose:To inform my audience about the early life of Marilyn Manson

Main Points

1. Describe Brian Hugh Warner’s early life and the beginning of his feud with Christianity.
2. Describe Warner’s stint as a music journalist in Florida.
3. Describe Warner’s decision to create Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids.

In this example, we see how Brian Warner, through three major periods of his life, ultimately became the musician known as Marilyn Manson.

CAUSAL

Thecausal organizationalpattern organizes andexplainscause-and-effect relationships. When you use a causal speech pattern, your speech will have two basic main points: cause and effect. In the first main point, typically you will talk about the causes of a phenomenon, and in the second main point, you will then show how the causes lead to either a specific effect or a small set of effects. Let’s look at an example.

Specific Purpose:To inform my audience about the problems associated with drinking among members of Native American tribal groups

Main Points

1. Explain the history and prevalence of drinking alcohol among Native Americans.
2. Explain the effects that abuse of alcohol has on Native Americans and how this differs from the experience of other populations.

In this case, the first main point is about the history and prevalence of drinking alcohol among Native Americans (the cause). The second point then examines the effects of Native American alcohol consumption and how it differs from other population groups.

However, a causal organizational pattern can also begin with an effect and then explore one or more causes. In the following example, the effect is the number of arrests for domestic violence.

Specific Purpose:To inform local voters about the problem of domestic violence in our city

Main Points

1. Explain that there are significantly more arrests for domestic violence in our city than in cities of comparable size in our state.
2. List possible causes for the difference, which may be unrelated to the actual amount of domestic violence.

In this example, the possible causes for the difference might include stricter law enforcement, greater likelihood of neighbors reporting an incident, and police training that emphasizes arrests as opposed to other outcomes. Examining these possible causes may suggest that despite the arresting statistic, the actual number of domestic violence incidents in your city may not be greater than in other cities of similar size.

SELECTING AN ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERN

Each of the preceding organizational patterns is potentially useful for organizing the main points of your speech. However, not all organizational patterns work for all speeches. Your challenge is to choose the best pattern for the particular speech you are giving. When considering which organizational pattern to use, you need to keep in mind your specific purpose as well as your audience and the actual speech material itself to decide which pattern you think will work best. Ultimately, speakers must really think about which organizational pattern best suits a specific speech topic.

12.8 OUTLINING YOUR SPEECH

“Upper skeleton from Andrew Bell’s Anatomia Britannica (1770s-1780s)”byliverpoolhlsis licensed underCC BY-SA 2.0

Think of an outline as a skeleton you must assemble bone by bone, gradually making it take form into a coherent whole. Or think of it as a puzzle in which you must put all the pieces in their correct places in order to see the full picture. Or think of it as a game of solitaire in which the right cards must follow a legitimate sequence in order for you to win. The more fully you can come to understand the outline as both rule-bound and creative, the more fully you will experience its usefulness and its power to deliver your message in a unified, coherent way.

This means, of course, that there are no shortcuts, but there are helpful strategies. If you leave a bone out of a skeleton, something will fall apart. By the same token, if you omit a step in reasoning, your speech will be vulnerable to lapses in logic, lapses in the evidence you need to make your case, and the risk of becoming a disjointed, disorienting message. When you are talking informally with friends, your conversation might follow a haphazard course, but a public speech must not do so. Even in conversations with your friends, you might believe they understand what you mean, but they might not. In a prepared speech, you must be attentive to reasoning in logical steps so that your audience understands the meaning you intend to convey. This is where your outline can help you.

Why Outline

In order for your speech to be as effective as possible, it needs to be organized into logical patterns. Information will need to be presented in a way your audience can understand. This is especially true if you already know a great deal about your topic. You will need to take careful steps to include pertinent information your audience might not know and to explain relationships that might not be evident to them. Using a standard outline format, you can make decisions about your main points, the specific information you will use to support those points, and the language you will use. Without an outline, your message is liable to loselogical integrity. It might even deteriorate into a list of bullet points with no apparent connection to each other except the topic, leaving your audience relieved when your speech is finally over.

A full-sentence outline lays a strong foundation for your message. It will call on you to have one clear andspecific purposefor your message. As we have seen in other chapters of this book, writing your specific purpose in clear language serves you well. It helps you frame a clear, concrete thesis statement. It helps you exclude irrelevant information. It helps you focus only on information that directly bears on your thesis. It reduces the amount of research you must do. It suggests what kind of supporting evidence is needed, so less effort is expended in trying to figure out what to do next. It helps both you and your audience remember the central message of your speech.

Finally, a solid full-sentence outline helps your audience understand your message because they will be able to follow your reasoning. Remember that live audiences for oral communications lack the ability to “rewind” your message to figure out what you said, so it is critically important to help the audience follow your reasoning as it reaches their ears.

Tests Scope of Content

When you begin with a clear, concrete thesis statement, it acts as kind of a compass for your outline. The test of the scope will be a comparison of each main point to the thesis statement. If you find a poor match, you will know you’ve wandered outside the scope of the thesis.

Let’s say the general purpose of your speech is to inform, and your broad topic area is wind-generated energy. Now you must narrow this to a specific purpose. You have many choices, but let’s say your specific purpose is to inform a group of property owners about the economics of wind farms where electrical energy is generated.

Your first main point could be that modern windmills require a very small land base, making the cost of real estate low. This is directly related to economics. All you need is information to support yourclaimthat only a small land base is needed.

In your second main point, you might be tempted to claim that windmills don’t pollute in the ways other sources do. However, you will quickly note that this claim is unrelated to the thesis. You must resist the temptation to add it. Perhaps in another speech, your thesis will address environmental impact, but in this speech, you must stay within the economic scope. Perhaps you will say that once windmills are in place, they require virtually no maintenance. This claim is related to the thesis. Now all you need is supporting information to support this second claim.

Your third point, the point some audience members will want to hear, is the cost of generating electrical energy with windmills compared with other sources. This is clearly within the scope of energy economics. You should have no difficulty findingauthoritative sourcesof information to support that claim.

When you write in outline form, it is much easier to test the scope of your content because you can visually locate specific information very easily and then check it against your thesis statement.

Tests the Balance and Proportion of the Speech

Part of the value of writing a full-sentence outline is the visual space you use for each of your main points. Is each main point of approximately the same importance? Does each main point have the same number of supporting points? If you find that one of your main points has eight supporting points while the others only have three each, you have two choices: either choose the best three from the eight supporting points or strengthen the authoritative support for your other two main points.

Remember that you should use the best supporting evidence you can find even if it means investing more time in your search for knowledge.

Serves as Notes during the Speech

When we discuss outlining, we are actually focusing on a series of outlines instead of a single one. Outlines are designed to evolve throughout your speech preparation process, so this section will discuss how you progress from a working outline to a full-sentence outline and, finally, a speaking outline. We will also discuss how using note cards for your speaking outline can be helpful to you as a speaker.

10.8 TYPES OF OUTLINES

Working Outline

A working outline is an outline you use for developing your speech. It undergoes many changes on its way to completion. This is the outline where you lay out the basic structure of your speech. You must have a general and specific purpose; an introduction, including a grabber; and a concrete, specific thesis statement and preview. You also need three main points, a conclusion, and a list of references.

One strategy for beginning your working outline is to begin by typing in your labels for each of the elements. Later you can fill in the content.

When you look ahead to the full-sentence outline, you will notice that each of the three main points moves from the general to the particular. Specifically, each main point is a claim, followed by particular information that supports that claim so that the audience will perceive its validity. For example, for a speech about coal mining safety, your first main point might focus on the idea that coal mining is a hazardous occupation. You might begin by making a very general claim, such as “Coal mining is one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States,” and then become more specific by providing statistics, authoritative quotations, or examples to support your primary claim.

A working outline allows you to work out the kinks in your message. For instance, let’s say you’ve made the claim that coal mining is a hazardous occupation but you cannot find authoritative evidence as support. Now you must re-examine that main point to assess its validity. You might have to change that main point in order to be able to support it. If you do so, however, you must make sure the new main point is a logical part of the thesis statement–three main points–conclusion sequence.

The working outline shouldn’t be thought of a “rough copy,” but as a careful step in the development of your message. It will take time to develop. Here is an example of a working outline:

This stage of preparation turns out to be a good place to go back and examine whether all the main points are directly related to the thesis statement and to each other. If so, your message has a strong potential for unity of focus. But if the relationship of one of the main points is weak, this is the time to strengthen it. It will be more difficult later for two reasons: first, the sheer amount of text on your pages will make the visual task more difficult, and second, it becomes increasingly difficult to change things in which you have a large investment in time and thought.

You can see that this working outline can lay a strong foundation for the rest of your message. Its organization is visually apparent. Once you are confident in the internal unity of your basic message, you can begin filling in the supporting points in descending detail—that is, from the general (main points) to the particular (supporting points) and then to greater detail. The outline makes it visually apparent where information fits. You only need to assess your supporting points to be sure they’re authoritative and directly relevant to the main points they should support.

Sometimes transitions seem troublesome, and that’s not surprising. We often omit them when we have informal conversations. Our conversation partners understand what we mean because of our gestures and vocal strategies. However, others might not understand what we mean but think they do, and so we might never know whether they understood us. Even when we include transitions, we don’t generally identify them as transitions. In a speech, however, we need to use effectivetransitions,phrases or words used to connect one idea to the next. The listener needs to know when a speaker is moving from one main point to the next.

In the next type of outline, the full-sentence outline, take a look at the transitions and see how they make the listener aware of the shifting focus to the next main point.

Full-Sentence Outline (or Preparation Script Outline)