speech chapters 11-15 – Flashcards

The fundamental communication guideline of being centered on your audience is key to reducing speaker anxiety. As you prepare your presentation, consider the needs, goals, and interests of your audience. As you rehearse your presentation, visualize your audience members and imagine how they may respond; practice adapting your presentation to the responses you imagine. The more you know about your listeners and how they are likely to respond to your message, the more comfortable you will feel about delivering that message. And as you finally deliver your presentation, focus on connecting to your audience. Look especially for positive, reinforcing feedback from audience members.10 The more you concentrate on your audience, the less you attend to your own nervousness.

Focusing on your message can be another anxiety-reducing strategy. Like focusing on your audience, it keeps you from thinking too much about how nervous you are. In the few minutes before you begin your presentation, think about what you are going to say. Mentally review your main ideas. Silently practice your opening lines and your conclusion. Once you are speaking, maintain your focus on your message and your audience, rather than on your fears.

• Understand speaker anxiety. • Know how to develop a presentation. • Be prepared. • Focus on your audience. • Focus on your message. • Give yourself a mental pep talk. • Use deep-breathing techniques. • Take advantage of opportunities to speak. • Seek professional help.

A. Focus on your audience (pp. 283-284)

An anxiety management strategy that includes general relaxation techniques and visualization of success.

An anxiety management strategy that involves viewing a videotape of a successful presentation and imagining oneself delivering that presentation.

D. Performance visualization (pp. 283-284)

1. Select and narrow topic. 2. Identify purpose. 3. Develop central idea. 4. Generate main ideas. 5. Gather supporting material. 6. Organize presentation. 7. Rehearse presentation. 8. Deliver presentation.

C (pp. 280-281)

As we have noted several times throughout this book, the principle of appropriately adapting messages to others is central to the communication process. In presentational speaking, that adaptation begins with topic selection. Who are the members of your audience? What interests and needs do they have in common? Why did they ask you to speak? One professional speaker calls the answers to such questions "actionable intelligence"—information that you can use as you select your topic.15 Your college classmates are likely to be interested in such topics as college loans and the job market. Older adults might be more interested in hearing a speaker address such topics as the cost of prescription drugs and investment tax credits. Thinking about your audience can often yield an appropriate topic.

Self-awareness, another communication principle you already know, can also help you discover a topic. Exploring your own interests, attitudes, and experiences may suggest topics about which you know a great deal and feel passionately, resulting in a presentation you can deliver with energy and genuine enthusiasm. One speaker's thinking about her own interests and experiences quickly produced the following list of possible topics:San Diego, California: city of cultural diversity Hybrid cars The reconstructed Globe Theatre Working at Six Flags What a sociologist does Even after considering audience, occasion, and personal interests and experiences, you may still find yourself facing a speaking assignment for which you just cannot come up with a satisfactory topic. When that happens, you might try silent brainstorming, scanning web directories and web pages, or listening and reading for topic ideas.

C (p. 284)

A statement of what is to come.

First statement of the main ideas of a presentation, usually presented with or near the central idea.

A preview within the speech that introduces ideas still to come.

A word, phrase, or nonverbal cue that indicates movement from one idea to the next or the relationship between ideas.

A word or phrase that indicates the relationship between two ideas.

A facial expression, vocal cue, or physical movement that indicates that a speaker is moving from one idea to the next.

A recap of what has been said.

A recap within the presentation of what has been said so far.

A recap of all the main points of a presentation, usually occurring just before or during the conclusion.

A (spp. 315-316)

Someone who considers and adapts to the audience at every stage of the presentational speaking process.

C (pp. 280-281)

1. ACCOUNTABILITY: Who is responsible for the website? If you cannot identify or verify an author or sponsor, be wary of the website. 2.ACCURACY: Is the information correct? If the author or sponsor is a credible authority, the information is more likely to be accurate than inaccurate. A website should be relatively free of writing errors. You may be able to verify or refute the information by consulting another resource. 3.OBJECTIVITY: Is the website free of bias? The more objective the author and sponsor of the website, the more credible the information. 4.DATE: Is the site current? In general, when you are concerned with factual data, the more recent, the better. 5. USABILITY: Do the layout and design of the website facilitate its use? 6. DIVERSITY: Is the site inclusive? A website should be free of bias, representative of diverse perspectives, and accessible by people with disabilities.

The conclusion offers a speaker a last chance to repeat his or her main ideas. Most speakers summarize their main ideas between the body of the presentation and its conclusion or in the first part of the conclusion.

Think back to your specific purpose. What do you want your audience to be able to do by the end of your presentation? If your purpose is to inform, you may want your audience to think about your topic or seek more information about it. If your purpose is to persuade, you may want your audience to take some sort of action, such as write a letter, make a phone call, or volunteer for a cause. Your conclusion is where you can motivate your audience to respond. Travis closes his presentation on sleep deprivation with this admonition:Before we are all, literally, dead on our feet, let's take the easiest solution step of all. Tonight, turn off your alarm, turn down your covers, and turn in for a good night's sleep.19

Summarize your presentation. Reemphasize your central idea in a memorable way. Motivate your audience to respond. Provide closure.

Get your audience's attention. Introduce your topic. Give your audience a reason to listen. Establish your credibility. State your central idea. Preview your main ideas.

B (pp. 293-295)

A (p. 319)

Organization by time or sequence.

Organization according to location, position, or direction.

Organization by discussing a situation and its causes, or a situation and its effects.

Arbitrary arrangement of topics or organization according to recency, primacy, or complexity

Organization by discussing a problem and then various solutions

D (p. 311)

A (see p. 292)

B (see p. 312)

Simplify ideas. Pace the information flow. Relate new information to old.

Relate to your listeners' interests. Use attention-catching supporting material. Establish a motive for your audience to listen to you. Use word pictures. Create interesting presentation aids. Use humor.

Build in redundancy. Use adult learning principles. Reinforce key ideas verbally. Reinforce key ideas nonverbally.

A & D (see p. 372)

The simpler your ideas and phrases, the greater the chance that your audience will understand and remember them.

Arrange your supporting material so that you present an even flow of information rather than bunch up many significant details around one point. If you present too much new information too quickly, you may overwhelm your listeners, and their ability to understand may falter. Signposts can also help you pace your informative speech, and they offer your listeners both a break from listening to new information and help in processing that information.

Most of us learn by building on what we already know. We try to make sense out of our world by associating the new with the old. When you meet someone for the first time, you may be reminded of someone you already know. It's like learning math: Your understanding of calculus is based on your knowledge of algebra.When presenting new information to a group, help your listeners associate your new idea with something that is familiar to them. Use an analogy. Tell bewildered new college students how their new academic life will be similar to high school and how it will be different. Describe how raising cattle is similar to taking care of any animal; they all need food, water, and shelter. By building on the familiar, you help your listeners understand how your new concept or information relates to their experience.

D (p. 365)

Seldom do writers need to repeat themselves. If readers don't quite understand a passage, they can go back and read it again. When you speak, however, it is useful to repeat key points. As we have noted before, audience members generally cannot stop you if a point in your presentation is unclear or if their minds wander; to make sure that the information you want to communicate will get across, you need to build in redundancy. Most speech teachers advise their students to structure their presentations as follows: 1. Tell them what you're going to tell them. In the introduction of your presentation, provide a broad overview of the purpose of your message. Identify the major points you will present. 2. Tell them. In the body of your presentation, develop each of the main points mentioned during your introduction. 3. Tell them what you've told them. Finally, in your conclusion, summarize the key ideas discussed in the body of your presentation.

Preferences of adult learners for what and how they learn.

You can reinforce an idea by using a phrase such as "This is the most important point" or "Be sure to remember this next point; it's the most compelling one." Suppose you have four suggestions for helping your listeners chair a meeting, and your last suggestion is the most important one. How can you make sure that your audience knows that? Just tell them: "Of all the suggestions I've given you, this last tip is the most important one. Here it is: Never fail to distribute an agenda before you chair any meeting." Be careful not to overuse this technique. If you claim that every other point is a key point, soon your audience will not believe you

You can also signal the importance of a point with nonverbal emphasis. Gestures can accent or emphasize key phrases, just as italics do in written communication. A well-placed pause can emphasize and reinforce a point. Pausing just before or just after you make an important point will focus attention on your thought. Raising or lowering your voice can also reinforce a key idea. Movement can help emphasize major ideas. Moving from behind the lectern to tell a personal anecdote can signal that something special and more intimate is about to be said. Remember that your movement and gestures should be meaningful and natural, rather than seeming arbitrary or forced. Your need to emphasize an idea can provide the motivation to make a meaningful movement.

D (p. 371)

C (p. 371)

Arrangement of ideas from least important to most important or from weakest to strongest.

Arrangement of ideas from most important to least important or from strongest to weakest.

Arranging ideas from simple to more complex.

A (p. 311)

It is usually a pleasure to address an audience that already supports you and your message. In these situations, you can explore your ideas in depth and can be fairly certain of a successful appeal to action. One suggestion to help you make the most of such a speaking opportunity is to identify with your audience. Emphasize your similarities and common interests. A good place to do so is often in the introduction of your message. Another suggestion is to state your speaking objective overtly, telling your audience members exactly what you want them to do and asking them for an immediate show of support. If your listeners are already receptive, you don't have to worry that being overt will antagonize them. Rather, it will give you more time to rouse them to passionate commitment and action. A third suggestion for persuading a receptive audience is to use emotional appeals. If your listeners already support your position, you can spend less time providing detailed evidence and instead focus on using strong emotional appeals to move them to action.

Many audiences will fall somewhere between being wildly enthusiastic and being hostile and will simply be neutral. The listeners' neutrality may take the form of indifference: They know about the topic or issue, but they don't see how it affects them, or they can't make up their minds about it. Alternatively, their neutrality may take the form of ignorance: They just don't know much about the topic. Regardless of whether they are indifferent or ignorant, your challenge is to get them interested in your message. Otherwise, they may escape by sleeping through your presentation or engaging in such self-distracting activities as texting on their cell phones or surfing the web on their laptops. The following suggestions can help you engage your neutral audience members:• Appeal to them early. "Hook" a neutral audience with an especially engaging introduction or attention step. Brian provided such an introduction to his persuasive presentation about the number of Americans who live with chronic pain: "I can't shower because the water feels like molten lava. Every time someone turns on a ceiling fan, it feels like razor blades are cutting through my legs. I'm dying." Meet David Bogan, financial advisor from Deptford, New Jersey; Porsche, boat, and homeowner; and a victim of a debilitating car accident that has not only rendered him two years of chronic leg pain, but a fall from the pinnacle of success. Bogan has nothing now. Life to him, life with searing pain, is a worthless tease of agony and distress.15 • Appeal to common ground. Another strategy for persuading neutral audiences is to refer to universal beliefs or common concerns. For example, protecting the environment and having access to good health care might be common concerns. • Appeal to their interests. Show how the topic affects not only them but also people they care about. For example, parents will be interested in issues and policies that affect their children. • Limit your appeals. Be realistic about what you can accomplish. People who are neutral at the beginning of your presentation are unlikely to change their opinion in just a few minutes. Persuasion is unlikely to occur all at once or after only one presentation of arguments and issues.

As a speaker, one of your biggest challenges is to persuade audience members who are unreceptive toward you or your message. If they are unreceptive toward you personally, you need to find ways to enhance your credibility and persuade them to listen to you. If they are unreceptive toward your point of view, several strategies may help. First, don't immediately announce your persuasive purpose. Immediately and explicitly telling your unreceptive listeners that you plan to change their minds can make them defensive. Instead, focus on areas of agreement. As you would with a neutral audience, refer to universal beliefs and concerns. Rather than saying, "I'm here this morning to convince you that we should raise city taxes," you might say, "I think we can agree that we have an important common goal: achieving the best quality of life possible here in our small community." Second, if you think that your audience may be unreceptive, follow the principle of primacy and advance your strongest arguments first. If you save your best argument for last (the recency principle), your audience may already have stopped listening. Third, acknowledge the opposing points of view that audience members may hold. Summarize the reasons they may oppose your point of view; then cite evidence and use arguments to refute the opposition and support your conclusion. In speaking to students seeking to hold down tuition costs, a dean might say, "I am aware that many of you struggle to pay for your education. You work nights, take out loans, and live frugally." Then the dean could go on to identify how the university could provide additional financial assistance to students.399400 Finally, when speaking to an unreceptive audience, be especially aware of and effectively use nonverbal messages. One study suggests that unreceptive audiences may more negatively evaluate speakers who do not gesture than they do those who use gestures.16 In the following persuasive presentation on breast cancer, Kailey Slone argues a proposition of policy. She supports her presentation by being a knowledgeable, well-prepared speaker; using evidence and reasoning; and making emotional appeals. She organizes her persuasive presentation according to a problem-solution pattern.

C (p. 398)

The credibility or ethical character of a speaker.

Logical arguments.

Emotional appeals.

B (pp. 387-394)

False reasoning that occurs when someone attempts to persuade without adequate evidence or with arguments that are irrelevant or inappropriate

Making a faulty cause and effect connection between two things or events.

Suggesting that because everyone believes something or does something, it must be valid, accurate, or effective.

Oversimplifying an issue as offering only two choices.

Reaching a conclusion without adequate supporting evidence.

Attacking irrelevant personal characteristics of someone connected with an idea, rather than addressing the idea itself.

Irrelevant facts or information used to distract someone from the issue under discussion.

Using someone without the appropriate credentials or expertise to endorse an idea or product.

Latin for "it does not follow"; presenting an idea or conclusion that does not logically follow the previous idea or conclusion.

C (p. 391)

A graph consisting of bars of various lengths that represent numbers or percentages.

A circular graph that shows how a set of data is divided proportionately.

A graph that shows trends over a period of time and relationships among variables.

D (p. 346)

Charts can summarize and organize a great deal of information in a small space. Consider using a chart anytime you need to present information that could be organized under several headings or in several columns.

are effective ways to present statistical relationships to your audience and help make data more concrete

Like photographs, most maps are too small to be useful as presentation aids; to be effective, they must be enlarged in some way.

You can use simple drawings to help illustrate or explain ideas that you are talking about

C (pp. 344-347)

Organization according to objections your listeners may have to your ideas and arguments.

Alan H. Monroe's five-step plan for organizing a persuasive message: attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action.

Organization by discussing a problem and then its various solutions

Organization by discussing a situation and its causes, or a situation and its effects

D (p. 395)

When you inform, you teach. You define, describe, or explain a thing, person, place, concept, or process. You may use some humor in your presentation; you may encourage your audience to seek out further information about your topic. Your primary purpose for speaking, however, is to give information.

If you are using information to try to change or reinforce your audience's ideas or convictions or to urge your audience to do something, your general purpose is persuasive. The insurance representative who tries to get you to buy life insurance, the candidate for state representative who asks for your vote, and the coordinator of Habitat for Humanity who urges your school organization to get involved in building homes all have persuasive general purposes. They may offer information about life expectancy, the voting record of an incumbent opponent, or the number of people in your community who cannot afford decent housing, but they use this information to convince you or to get you to do something. Their primary purpose is persuasive.

The speaker whose purpose is to entertain tries to get the members of his or her audience to smile, laugh, and generally enjoy themselves. For the audience members, learning something or being persuaded about something is secondary to having a good time. Most after-dinner speakers speak to entertain, as do most stand-up comedians and storytellers.

A (p. 287)

C (380)

A way of structuring interview questions so that parallel open or closed questions (or a combination of open and closed questions) are asked to gather a large amount of information in a short amount of time; no probing questions are asked.

A questioning sequence that begins with broad, open questions and proceeds toward more closed questions

A questioning sequence that begins with closed questions and proceeds to more open questions, intended to encourage an interviewee to respond easily early in the interview.

B (p. 415)

An interview, such as an opinion poll, whose purpose is to seek information from another person.

An interview during which a supervisor or employer shares information with an employee about his or her job performance

An interview, such as a grievance or disciplinary interview, that is designed to solve a problem.

An interview that attempts to change or reinforce attitudes, beliefs, values, or behavior, such as a sales interview.

A focused, structured conversation whose goal is to assess a person's credentials and skills for employment.

C. (p. 411)

D (p. 399)

B & C (p. 422)

B (p. 373)

C (p. 373)