Introducing Public Speaking

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Chapter 1

• Introducing Public Speaking

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Introducing Public Speaking Introduction

• Effective public speaking can inspire, persuade,
  educate, and entertain.
• Because of this, public speaking is a required
  course at many colleges.
• Despite this, many employers report a lack of
  public speaking skills among job candidates.
• You can learn to overcome speech anxiety and
  master public speaking just like you can learn to
  read, ride a bicycle, or use the Internet.

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Introducing Public Speaking Introduction
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Introducing Public SpeakingAn Overview

• This introduction to public speaking reviews
• What is public speaking? What distinguishes it
  from other types of speech?
• Why study public speaking?
• Public speaking a great tradition
• Public speaking a dynamic discipline

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What Is Public Speaking?

• Public speaking features communication between a
  speaker and an audience.
• The speaker does most of the talking.
• The audience listens and gives feedback.

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What Is Public Speaking?

• Public speaking is audience centered.
• Good speakers
• Consider audience's interests and needs
• Adapt to the occasion

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What Is Public Speaking?

• Public speaking emphasizes the spoken word.
• Visual aids should supplement the speech.
• Good speakers spend their time speaking to their
  audience.
• Good speakers heighten their words with other
  forms of communication.

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What Is Public Speaking?

• Public speaking is usually a prepared
  presentation.
• The best speakers spend significant time
  preparing.
• Even impromptu speeches typically piece together
  a string of relevant ideas.

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Why Study Public Speaking?

• Studying public speaking can help you deliver
  effective presentations in the classroom, on the
  job, and in your community.

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Why Study Public Speaking?

• Using public speaking as a student
• Many courses require speeches.
• Strong speeches make a better impression on the
  professor and the class.
• Extracurricular groups often have a public
  speaking component.

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Why Study Public Speaking?

• Using public speaking in your career
• Employers cite communication skills as the most
  important quality for a job candidate.
• Workers report that communication is important in
  their jobs.

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Why Study Public Speaking?

• Using public speaking in your community
• Membership in community organizations may require
  speaking.
• Community leadership will require speaking.
• Other special occasions may require speaking.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition
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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• There is a great tradition of the study of
  speaking in antiquity.
• In fifth-century B.C.E. Greece, speaking at
  assembly gave rise to the first formal studies of
  rhetoric, the craft of public speaking.
• Aristotle formalized the analysis of rhetoric.
• His work influences the study of public speaking
  today.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• In first-century B.C.E. Rome, vigorous debate
  took place in the Senate.
• Cicero was a senator and famous orator who wrote
  prolifically on rhetoric.
• Quintilian emphasized the notion of the ethical
  oratorthe good person speaking well.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• Historically, public speaking has been important
  across the globe.
• From the fifth through third centuries B.C.E.,
  traveling scholars debated philosophies
  throughout ancient China.
• Traveling storytellers and Islamic scholars spoke
  throughout Africa in the fifteenth century.
• Many Native Americans prized oratory over bravery
  in battle.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition
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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• The tradition of public speaking flourished in
  colonial American history.
• The Great Awakening of the 1730s-1740s was an
  oratorical religious revival.
• George Whitefield spoke in fields because
  churches weren't big enough.
• Jonathan Edwards made worshippers shriek in
  fright with Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
  God in 1741.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• There were many key speaking opportunities in
  revolutionary America.
• The Boston Tea Party is a well-known instance of
  colonists speaking out in protest of taxation.
• Numerous political debates arose around the
  framing of the Constitution and the Bill of
  Rights.
• The Lincoln-Douglas debates before the Civil War
  drew massive crowds.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• The antislavery movement was one of great
  oratory.
• Frederick Douglass moved audiences with accounts
  of life under slavery.
• Women joined the abolitionist movement and spoke
  out publicly.
• Abolitionist Angelina Grimké won adherents with
  her tales of slave abuse in South Carolina.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• The women's suffrage movement emerged at the same
  time.
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and
  others led the movement.
• They used oratory to persuade Americans that
  women deserved the vote.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• Public address flourished in the twentieth
  century.
• After World War I President Wilson traveled
  through the U.S. to promote his League of Nations
  idea.
• In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. brought 250,000
  to the Capitol with his march on Washington and
  his I have a dream speech.
• In the mid-1990s, activists participated in the
  Million Man and Million Woman marches.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition

• Today, it may seem as if speaking is less
  important.
• We are more likely to communicate now by cell
  phone or text message than to listen to a speech.
• Yet public speaking remains a potent leadership
  tool.
• Presidents still speak directly to the people in
  various ways.

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Public Speaking A Great Tradition
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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• From linear to transactional Evolving views of
  the public speaking process
• The linear model emphasized a source encoding a
  message through a channel impeded by noise to a
  decoding receiver.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• From linear to transactional Evolving views of
  the public speaking process
• Recent models stress the idea of transaction
  both parties are in communication, sending and
  receiving messages and feedback, and creating
  shared meaning.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• Awareness of audiences cultural diversity
• The United States is culturally diverse.
• Culture is the traditions, values, and rules for
  living that people pass from generation to
  generation.
• Increasingly, Americans come from other
  countries, bringing cultural diversity.
• Speakers must consider these differences.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• Awareness of audiences cultural diversity
• Because of cultural diversity, it is unlikely
  people you interact with share the same
  worldviews and values.
• We must adapt the way we use humor.
• We must adjust our understandings of how
  audiences express feedback.
• The recent immigration debates illustrate the
  complexity of this issue.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• Emphasis on critical thinking
• You should feel confident that all the ideas you
  present to an audience are reasonable.
• You should always evaluate the truth claims you
  make.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline
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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• A focus on free and ethical communication
• Freedom of expression is vital in a democracy.
• Speakers have a responsibility to express ideas
  ethically.
• Unethical communication seems to have increased
  in the United States.

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Public Speaking A Dynamic Discipline

• A focus on free and ethical communication
• It is thus even more important that we treat our
  audiences ethically.
• The persuasive power of public speaking comes
  with responsibilities.
• Always tell the truth.
• Provide balanced, accurate information.
• Avoid manipulative reasoning.
• Supply proper support for your argument.