Advanced Public Speaking

Lynn Meade

Advanced Public Speaking Copyright © by Lynn Meade. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

- Introduction

- Part I. Main Body

- 1. Oh, The Places You Can Go! Public Speaking Matters

- 2. Overcoming Communication Apprehension by Hacking Your Brain

- 3. Overcoming Communication Apprehension by Hacking Your Body

- 4. Engage Your Audience So You Don't Spit Words at Generic People

- 5. What the Old Dead Greek (and Roman) Guys Have to Teach Us About Speaking

- 6. Story--The Most Powerful Tool!

- 7. Brainstorming: Moving the Cheese Out of the Way So You Can Find Your Best Ideas

- 8. Do Not Imagine the Audience Naked and Other Practical Advice to Public Speaking

- 9. Mindsucking Slides or Brilliant Visual Anchors?

- 10. Speeches Are Like Airplanes--They Need to Have Good Take-Offs and Good Landings

- 11. A Tiny Chapter on the Big Subject of Speech Order

- 12. How to Write Like the Pros -- Colorful Language

- 13. The Dirty Dozen--Fallacies to Avoid and Fallacies to Notice

- 14. Thirteen is Bad Luck so this is Chapter 12.5. Things That Don't Belong

- 15. Be Credible, Be Interesting, Be Aware of Multiple Types of Research

- 16. Delivery Methods

- 17. Are You Really Listening?

- 18. Why Not to Wear a Floppy Jacket When Using a Lapel Microphone and Other Tips for Large Groups

- 19. Packing your big ideas in little sentences-Writing the thesis

- 20. Never Let Them See Up Your Nose and Other Tips for Speaking To a Camera

- 21. Your Voice is the Most Important

- 22. A Bumpy or Smooth Ride is Up to You: The Magic of Good Transitions

- 23. Taking It To The Next Level, The Rule of Threes

- 24. Charts and Stats

- Part II. Speeches

- 25. Let Me Persuade You

- 26. Career Speech

- Part III. Special Topics

- 27. When World's Collide: Freedom of Speech and Diversity, Inclusion, and Political Correctness

- Appendix

Welcome

I

Main Body

1

Oh, The Places You Can Go! Public Speaking Matters

Why Does Public Speaking Matter?

Follow this link to a speakers burea and take a look around.

https://www.eaglestalent.com/

2

Overcoming Communication Apprehension by Hacking Your Brain

Lynn Meade

There are two types of speakers:
Those that are nervous and those that are liars.
Mark Twain

Normal People Get Nervous

Most people will tell you that the thought of making a speech makes them apprehensive. In fact, a poll by the National Communication Association found that only 24% of Americans are very comfortable giving a speech. You may be part of that 24%,  or you may be like the rest of the population–uncomfortable at the thought of speaking in front of others. “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” This quote from actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, is only funny because its true. Researchers at the University of Nebraska conducted research to see if that was correct and at least for the 2,543 college students they surveyed, the answer was “yes.” Public speaking ranked up there with death as the most common fears.

So, there you have it. If the thought of a speech makes you feel apprehensive, you are normal. Normal people have all kinds of physical reactions when delivering a speech or even thinking about delivering a speech:

- Sweaty palms

- Accelerated heart rate

- A knotted stomach

- Dry mouth

- A lump in the throat

- Shortness of breath

Can you relate to any of these feelings? If you have any of these, you are not broken, you are not doomed for speech failure, quite the contrary. If you experience any of these, you are normal.

At this point, you may be thinking that pointing out your anxiety does not make you feel any better. Hang in there and keep reading. The goal of this chapter is three fold. It is to help you to realize that if you are anxious, apprehensive, or nervous about public speaking, then you are normal.  It is to help you understand that most people will have some physical responses to being anxious and it is how you think about these responses that make a difference. The biggest takeaway of all is for you to learn to be intentional with your thoughts and to change your mindset. In doing these things, you will prepare the path for future speaking success.

Time to Check Your Brain’s Check Engine Light

There is a dashboard warning light in my car that lets me know that something is wrong. When I take it to specialists, they plug in my car and “read the code” and they tell me exactly what the problem is. Let’s assume, that your brain’s dashboard warning light is on and letting you know that you are nervous and that there may be a problem. Let’s “read the code” to see what the issue is so we can fix it. You may have some faulty reasoning happening that is causing your speech anxiety.  Time for a diagnostic, how many of these relate to you?

All or Nothing Thinking:

All or nothing thinking assumes that your speech is either perfect or you are a failure. If you have ever given a speech and forgotten a part or misspoke a word and then you declared the speech a disaster, you might have all or nothing thinking. A speech can be good– even great–and still contain speech mistakes.

What’s the Fix For All Or Nothing Speaking? The fix for all or nothing thinking is to realize that a perfect speech rarely exists. A great speech is one that communicates an idea to an audience. If you do that, you have accomplished the goal. If you mess up, or should I say when you mess up (because normal people make mistakes), then all is not lost. You recognize that the speech can be good and contain  mistakes. You might say, “Overall the speech was great, I just wish I would have had a stronger ending. I will write it out next time.”

Overgeneralization:

Overgeneralization is the belief that a single failure is a universal sign of failure.  If you are on a diet and you eat a cookie and then declare yourself a diet failure, you have overgeneralized.  If you have a failure, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure. If you have ever had a less than perfect speech moment, and then declared yourself a bad speaker, you have overgeneralized.

What’s the Fix for Overgeneralization? The fix is to recognize that one mistake does not make you a mistake. One failure, does not make you a failure. If you make a mistake, recognize it, make a plan to correct it in the future but realize that you are not defined by it.

Fortune Telling:

Have you ever told yourself, “I know this is going to be a disaster?” If you predict that your speech will go badly, then you have a fortune telling problem. The more you fortune tell that your speech will be a  disaster, the more you undermine your own success. By fortunetelling, you are wishing that you will fail and then you will make your own negative predictions come true. Some people even delight in their own misfortune, “See, I told you I wan’t cut out for public speaking.”

What’s the Fix for Fortune Telling? The fix is to stop. Just stop. Predicting your own failure is just your own way of not trying. If you want to predict something, predict that if you practice, you will get better. If you focus on the needs of the audience, you will connect with them. If you do vocal exercises, you will strengthen your voice.

Reality Check

At one time or another, most of us have gotten caught up in our failures or we have created scenarios in our head about the terrible things that may happen.  It’s just plain silly the way we torture ourselves. Most of us get worked up and miss out on sleep worrying about things that never even happen. Sometimes you just have to have a reality check.

So what if you say the wrong word and they laugh….
Will they fire you—probably not.
Will they walk out—unlikely.
Will they hate you—not likely
Will your face turn red—maybe,
but so what?
Is it really that awful? ——no

One professional speaker commented that no matter what happens in a speech that she can turn it into something good. Even if everyone walks out on me, I can still use that she tells. Next time I speak, I can say, “Last time I gave this talk the whole room walked out on me.”

Change Takes Effort

Whether you are a seasoned speaker or just getting started, it is important to realize that everyone’s mind and motivation needs a tune up from time to time.  It is difficult to break out of faulty patterns of thinking and it is not enough to just recognize it, you have to do something about it. Motivational speaker, Mel Robbins, illustrates this in a talk to executives. After reminding them that they came to the conference to network and to make new connections, she asks each of them to raise a hand if they sat by someone they already know. Most people laughed and raised their hands. She illustrated perfectly the human condition. They, like us, were motivated to change, and yet they fell back on old patterns of behavior. Robbins then proceeded to make them change seats and sit by someone new. They looked uncomfortable, grumbled a bit, and then changed seat. Change is uncomfortable.

It is one thing to be motivated to think about change and it is another thing to be motivated to actually make the change.   Making the change causes discomfort and leads to resistance, even if you are the one telling yourself the do it.

What’s the point? The point is that you likely recognize that there are areas that you need to work on. You likely know what you need to do. You are already motivated to think about improving (that’s why you are reading this book). It is not enough to want to change, you have to act on it. To do the next step, you have to recognize that change causes discomfort.  You are going to have to be vigilant to actually begin making those changes.

Chose Which Self to Wear to Your Speech

In the morning, I go in my closet and I look at all the clothes that I have to wear. I get to pick which ones to put on for the day. I decide whether to dress like casual Lynn or professional Lynn. I make a decision on how to dress each day. In the same way, I decide which self to wear each day. I decide who to be each day. One of the most powerful things that I learned about identity is that I don’t have one identify, I have many to pick from.  Just like picking which outfit to wear for the day, I pick which “me” to be for the day.

Think about the “self clothes” that you wear every day. If you are like me, there are times when you have felt unsure of yourself, maybe you lowered your eyes when people looked at you, maybe you talked in a powerless voice–on that day, you were wearing your shy self. On a different day, you felt like the expert, you were able to tell people how to accomplish a task, and you used your assertive voice–on that day, you were wearing your powerful self. Which was the real you? They both were. The people around you, the situation you were in, you mood at that moment, were all contributors to which self you brought out for that day.

This is also true for which speaker you will be. You make the decision about which self you bring to your speech. You can bring the brave, outspoken you that has great things to say or you can bring the you that decides to play small.

A lot of growth can happen when you learn that you are not an attribute, but rather you act out an attribute. You are not shy, you act shy. You are not bold, you act bold. You are not nervous, you act nervous.  Once you realize that you are not going against your biology or against your personality to be a powerful, confident speaker, then you can give yourself permission to wear that self to your speech.

Consider This

I often have students play a game where they stand up in groups and each group talks at the exact same time as the other group with the goal of competing for the audience’s attention. In this game, students wave their arms, make direct eye contact, and raise their voices. They laugh and they have fun. I do this to let them know that they can speak loudly, use gestures, and have fun in front of an audience. I remind them that they have just demonstrated to me that they are capable of expressive movement and dynamic voice projection. Later when they tell me, they “just can’t project their voice” or they “just aren’t a person who gestures,” I remind them of the exercise where they demonstrated to me that they can do both. I let them know that they are capable of it; sometimes they decide to do it and other times they decide not to do it but they most own the fact that it is a choice they made.

Even after this activity, I still have an occasional student will come into my office and talk about how they can’t project their voice or how they ‘just aren’t assertive.’ I never argue, I ask them if they have siblings. If they answer, “yes,” I ask them if they have ever yelled at their sibling to get out of their stuff. They usually laugh and say, “Oh, yes.” I then ask them to tell me of places that they feel comfortable and they act assertive. They tell me of a club they are in, a friend pack they hang out with, or a role where they feel confident. I remind them that clearly they know how to be project their voice, because they have done it before. Clearly, they know how to be assertive, because they have been assertive before. I remind them they they know how to talk to others and be confident, because they have acted confidently before. They have the ability, they just chose when to use that ability.

Now, I want you to think of a time that you have chosen to define yourself as weak, shy, or unassertive. I want you to ask yourself why did you decided that for yourself?  Think of at least three settings where you brought your “big self”  to the situation. Think about a time, you have projected your voice. Think about a time that you felt the power of your own words. You know you have the ability, what causes you to not want to bring out?

We All Feel Like Imposters

You are not the only one who feels powerless. When interviewed, top executives, college professors, leaders of all kinds admit they often feel powerless. They often feel like they don’t belong, they aren’t smart enough, they are not good enough, and they don’t speak clearly enough. And yet. And yet, they put on their assertive selves and act the part until they begin to fully feel the part. They decide that just because they have feelings of smallness, doesn’t mean that they should act small. They have the choice not to act on the powerlessness they feel. In fact, for most it pushes them to try harder.  These leaders decide that even if they sometimes feel like an impostor, that can still act the part and be powerful. They can put on their “big self” and so can you.

What’s the point? You decide how you are going to act in a speech. You control whether you act powerful and whether you bring your “big self.” I hope you decide to try on the powerful you. You owe it to yourself to see what you can do. You might just decide that its a good fit.

Who Will You Decide to Be?

Awfulizing Me
“What if I mess up? I always mess things up.”

Powerful Me
“I’ve got great things to say and I know it will cause them to think.”

Overcomer Me
“I’m tough, and can take on any challenge. It may not be easy, but I can do it. ”

Insecure Me
“What if they don’t like me? They will hate me.”

Confident Me
“I’ve got this, because I have practiced and I  know my stuff.”

Hater Me
“Speech is stupid. I can’t believe I have to do this.”

Optimistic Me
“I may not be perfect, but I have something important to share.”
“I’ve been given this opportunity to speak, I’m going to make the most of it.”

You are capable of being all these. Which one will you pick on your speech day?

What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

Sometimes, you can create fears to keep yourself from fully trying. If that happens,  the best thing you can do with your fear is to take it to it’s logical absurdity.

What if I mess up?

So what?

People will laugh at me!

So what?

They won’t like me!

So what?

No one will be my friend.

Really, So what?

If no one in the class will be my friend, then I will be lonely.

So what?

No one will talk to me outside of class and I will be so lonesome that I will drop out of college.

Are you sure? So, then what?

I will drop out of college, never have  good relationships which means that I will never get a job.

So what?

I will be homeless living under a bridge with a stray dog.

All that because you messed up on your speech in college? Really?

Like I said, we take it to its absurdity. So what if you mess up. Usually, the worst that can happen is you get a little embarrassed at the time and have a good story to tell for a lifetime.

Know That the Audience Can’t Tell How Nervous You Are

You know the feeling that goes through your mind: “I’m so nervous. I bet everyone can tell”? Well guess what—they can’t. At least that’s what research suggests.  The illusion of transparency is the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others.  Because our emotions feel so strong to us, we are sure that they “leak out” and that everyone can tell just how we feel. When researchers put it to the test, they found that observers just aren’t very good at picking up on a speaker’s emotional state. The speakers thought that the audience could see their hands shaking and could hear their voice shaking, but the audience actually noticed very little or not at all. Researchers in an article titled, The Illusion of Transparency and the Alleviation of Speech Anxiety, suggest:

What’s inside of you typically manifests itself too subtly to be detected by others. With this in mind, you should just relax and try to do your best. Know that if you become nervous, you’ll probably be the only one to know.

The researchers found that simply telling people that the audience couldn’t see through them made them less anxious as speakers. The bottom line is this—speaker anxiety is not very accurately detected by audiences. Simply knowing this can help set you free. Don’t worry, they can’t see through you.

I turn pale at the outset of a speech and quake in every limb and in all my soul.
Cicero

Realize That Stress Can Be Helpful

Health psychologist, Kelly McGonigal shares her surprising revelation– that stress can be a good thing.  In her Ted Talk, How to Make Stress Your Friend, she reveals that a rapid heartbeat and fast breathing are not the problem, it is the interpretation of those, that is the  problem.  Your heart pounds and your breath quickens in moments of joy. Your heart pounds and your breath quickens before acts of great courage. Your heart pounds and your breath quickens in anticipation of special events.  A pounding heart and quickened breath can be a good thing.  When you interpret those physical signs as something good, it opens up your blood vessels and sends extra oxygen to your brain making you feel energized and prepared.  When you interpret these symptoms as helpful, you feel more confident. less anxious, and less stressed out. It is when you interpret the stress as bad that it constricts your blood vessels leading to health issues.

Football players and other athletes often do things to get pumped before running out on the field. These players believe that an  adrenaline rush means they are going to play well. They believe that the adrenaline will help them run faster and be more alert. If you’re a speaker and you experience an adrenaline rush, be like these players and think of it as a sign that your body is awake, alert, and ready to go. Just remember, most people experience some version of butterflies before they speak. If you are nervous, you are normal. Good speakers channel that energy into making a good speech. Good speakers know that you don’t want to get rid of the butterflies, you just want them to fly in formation.

So what does that mean for you? It means your pounding heart and heavy breathing have prepared you for action.

Watch the full video on stress here.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=23

The Surprising Side Effect of Stress

Now that you have watched the video, you know that there is a great side effect to stress–you become more social. McGonigal suggests that when you are stressed, not only do you release adrenaline, but you also release oxytocin. It is the release of oxytocin that makes you want to spend time with encouraging people. It also makes you want to be an encouragement to others. All these years, I’ve joked that my public speaking students have bonded so fiercely because they bonded through pain, and now I know it is literally true.  McGonigal suggests that the oxytocin reaction is a form of  self healing. By seeking and giving support, you increase the oxytocin which protects,  regenerates,  and  strengthens your heart.

What does this mean for you? It means if you feel anxious about a speech, call a friend, share with those in your class, or get a hug from your mom. That feeling you have that makes you want to tell someone how you feel is your body’s way of helping you to be successful and healthy. This research also suggest that in your anxiety, you should encourage others. In doing so, you help yourself along the way. Your body knows what to do—-listen.

Let Fear Propel You

It is normal to have physical reactions when thinking about public speaking and as we just learned it is how we frame these feelings that makes the difference. Many famous speakers tell of wrestling with fear. Gerry Spence, lawyer and author of How To Argue and Win Every Time and Win Your Case tells of his battle.

“In the courtroom I sometimes carry on a silent conversation with myself about my fear, while the jurors look on wondering, as they must, what occupies this strange man who stands silently before them looking down at his feet. My conversation with myself most often sounds like this:

“How are you feeling, Gerry?” I ask.

“The jury is watching, waiting for me to begin my argument,” I reply. “I can’t just stand here saying nothing.”

“I asked you, how are you feeling?”

“You know how I feel.

“What is the feeling?”

“You know what the feeling is.”

“Are you afraid to say it?”

“All right. I’m afraid.”

“Well, you should be. Big stakes. The prosecutor wants to destroy your client. He wants to destroy you.”

“I don’t want to think about it. Not now. Not standing here.”

It’s all right to be afraid. You should be afraid. Go ahead. Feel it.

“But the jury’s watching.”

“They can wait a few seconds more. Fear is energy. If you feel your fear, you can also feel its power, and you can change its power to your power.”

Suddenly I look up at the waiting jury. I hear myself address them in a clear, quiet voice, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” Suddenly I am vaguely aware that something is happening to my fear. I have looked it in the eye. I have stared it down. It retreats like a whimpering cur that is now afraid to face me! The pain of it recedes. I feel a new power well up. And my argument begins…

I have learned not to be ashamed of my fear, but to embrace it. One cannot be brave without it, for is not our bravery merely the facing of our fear?”

Can you see a pattern emerge with these things? Fear is not he problem, it is how we allow that fear to cripple us or give us power that matters.

Believe That With Practice You Can Improve

When you think about speaking are you tempted to believe, “Some people are just born good speakers” or “I just wasn’t’ made for this public speaking stuff.” If that’s you, you may have what Stanford researcher, Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” It doesn’t have to be that way, Dweck found that when people left their options opened and believed that they could improve, they did. One way to keep your mind open is to add the word “yet” to the end of the sentence. I haven’t mastered this…yet.

Keep Your Growth Mindset In Front of You

Pick a few growth mindset  quotes and you place them where you can see them everyday. Look at them, read them out loud, and think about where you want to be. Let growth mindset become your new habit.

Here are a few of my favorites quotes:

- It’s not always about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.

- No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow your progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying. Tony Robbins

- Be better than you were yesterday.

- Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Charles Swindoll

- Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it when we use it. Ruth Gordon

- Sometimes what we call “failure” is really just that necessary struggle called learning.

- May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Nelson Mandela

- A comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows there. John Assaraf

- You won’t always be motivated, you will have to learn to be disciplined.

- Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Suzy Kassem

- You have not failed unless you have quit trying. Gordon B. Hinckley

Change the Way You Think About Things

Whatever you do, do not think about the pink elephant. Stop!

Don’t think about the pink elephant with cute pink ears and a hot pink tail. How are you doing? If you are like most people, not too well. Now, try this. Think about a green monkey. Go ahead. Picture its green curly tail and its fluffy green fur. So here’s the question, when you were thinking of the green monkey, did your image of the pink elephant go away? For most people, it did.

What’s the point? The point is that before a speech, most people tell themselves, “I won’t be nervous, I won’t be nervous, I won’t think of the pink elephant.” Do you see where I’m headed with all of this? Telling yourself not to be nervous rarely helps. The more you say it, the more you think about it, the more you reinforce it. So how do you stop thinking of the pink elephant? By thinking of the green monkey of course.

Apply this to speaking. Instead of saying, “I won’t be nervous” or “I won’t forget what to say,” say things like, “This speech is going to be great! I can do this.” or “My audience will love the part where I…” Speech teacher, Donn King calls this harassing your green monkey and researchers call it cognitive restructuring. You will restructure the way you think about things.
Conquer your fear with positive self talk. Tell yourself that you will be relaxed, articulate, and confident…
and you will be.

Don’t Say
(Pink Elephant)

Do Say
(Green Monkey)

• I’m afraid my voice will crack
• I’ll mess up and say the wrong words

• I’m so nervous

• I hate doing speeches

- I can do this

- The audience will like my topic

- I am confident

- I know my stuff

- I am smart and capable

- I will speak with power and authority

Plan on Recovering Well

I Hope You Mess Up At Least Once—- I Really Mean It ! I hope you mess up so you can get it over your unrealistic expectation of perfection.

I love hearing stories of how people messed up in speeches. My favorite one is of a mega-church pastor who attempted to say that the ‘church is a living organism’ but he accidentally said another much more embarrassing “O” word. Guess what——he’s still preaching.

I love showing videos of where Obama says there are 52 states and I laugh at how Bush says that many Americans are working to put food on their family. Guess what—they still managed to get things done.

I love to see the video of where the local TV anchor’s tooth falls out during a broadcast. Guess what—he’s still the anchor.

Being human and making mistakes makes you human, how you deal with those mistakes can make you  more approachable. One of my first jobs  was as a cashier at a convenience store. Whenever I made a mistake, I would lower my eyes and look ashamed and repeatedly tell the customer how sorry I was.  One day,  my boss came up to me and said that I needed to find a better strategy for when I messed up. He said by repeatedly apologizing, I was making it a bigger deal then it was. The next time, I messed up, I looked at the customer and said, “This very special hamburger is only sixty five dollars and twenty cents.”  The customer laughed and made a remark about how it had better be a darn good burger.  I assured him it was while I fixed my mistake.

What’s the point? The point is that mistakes will not kill you. Mistakes give you good stories to tell. I hope that you mess up at least once so when you are old an you are sitting in your rocking chair surrounded by people willing to listen to your stories that  you can tell them of your most embarrassing speech blunder. I hope everyone can have a good laugh. And laughter after all…is good for you.

Just remember that the audience doesn’t judge that you made a mistake, but rather how you recover from it. If you do mess up, don’t make a big deal of it. Most of the time, you are better off not even mentioning it at all. If you are quick on your feet, you might say one or two funny words but then go on. You have great things to say, don’t let a little bump in the road slow you down. Practice your speech and plan on being perfect, but if that doesn’t work out, plan on recovering well.

If you pretend you didn’t make a mistake,
chances are the audience won’t notice, and certainly won’t dwell on it.
Interrupting your speech by apologizing or panicking
will make your mistake more noticeable and will throw you off.
Jennifer Conner
U of A Speech Student

Realize the Audience is On Your Side

Chris Anderson gives the following wisdom.

Acknowledging nervousness can also create engagement. Showing your vulnerability, whether through nerves or tone of voice, is one of the most powerful ways to win over an audience, provided it is authentic. Susan Cain, who wrote a book about introverts and spoke at our 2012 conference, was terrified about giving her talk. You could feel her fragility onstage, and it created this dynamic where the audience was rooting for her—everybody wanted to hug her afterward. The fact that we knew she was fighting to keep herself up there made it beautiful, and it was the most popular talk that year.

I share this example for a couple of reasons. One, notice you can hear her nervousness and yet you get so carried away with her message that you forget about it quickly. Two, many of you may think of yourself as an introvert who is just not the “public speaking” type and yet, here she is speaking powerfully and giving examples of other introverts who speak powerfully.

A TED element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=23

Exercises

- The  PRCA-24 is one of the most widely used research surveys of communication apprehension

- Take the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24)

Key Takeaways

Remember this!

Most people get nervous at the thought of public speaking. If you are nervous, you are normal.

It is not the physical reaction of stress that is the problem, it is how you think about it. Think of the adrenaline rush as excitement. The way you feel is your body getting you ready to succeed.

You have permission to be powerful. Have a growth mindset and allow yourself to try.

Decide that what you have to say is more important than any discomfort you have.

Focus on what the audience needs to hear. Move your focus from what the audience needs to hear more than your need to be comfortable.

By now, you should have identified that you have some ways of thinking that may be holding you back. You are armed with the knowledge that you can chose which self to bring to your speech. Now, it is time to try it out.

Additional Resources

Her directness and her vocabulary may not be for everyone, but she makes an important point that we let our fears stop us from doing what we know we should do.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=23

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=23

References

Anderson, C. (2016). Ted talks: The official TED guide to public speaking. Boston: Mariner.

Anderson, C.(2013). How to give a killer presentation. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation

Ayers, J. (1995). Comparing self-constructed visualization scripts with guided visualization. Communication Reports 8, 193-199.
Ayres, J & Hopf, T. (1992). Reducing speech anxiety and enhancing performance. Communication Reports 5(1), 1-10.

Behnke, R.R., Sawyer, C. R. & King, P.E. (1987). The communication of public speaking anxiety. Communication Education, 36.
Bergland, C. (Jan. 2013). Cortisol: Why “The stress hormone” is public enemy number one. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes- way/201301/cortisol-why-the-stress-hormone-is-public- enemy-no-1

Bulard & Carrol (1993). Communicating from the Inside Out. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt

Cuddy, A. Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are. Ted.com.

Dweck, C. (2016). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House.

Dwyer, K.K & Davidson, M.D (20120. Is public speaking really more feared than death? Communication Research Reports 29(2).

King, D. Managing Speech Anxiety. http://donnellking.com/

McCluen, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. MIT Press, Cambridge.

McCroskey, J. C. (1977). Oral communication apprehension: A summary of recent theory and research. Human Communication Research, 4(1), 78-96.

Osborn, Osborn, Osborn (2012). Public Speaking: Finding Your Voice. Boston: Allyn Bacon

Savitsky, K. & Gilovich, T. (2003). The illusion of transparency and the alleviation of speech anxiety. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 39, 618-625.

Snyder, K. Controlling nerves. /www.presentation-pointers.com

Stevanoni, E. & Salmon, K. (2005). Giving memory a hand: Instructing Children to gesture enhances event recall. Journal of
Nonverbal Behavior. 29(4).

Toastmasters International. 90 Tips. https://www.toastmasters.org/About/90th-Anniversary/90-Tips

VanEdwards, Vanessa. Five Secrets of a Successful Ted Talk. https://www.scienceofpeople.com/secrets-of-a-successful-ted-talk/

Wenner, M. (2009), Smile it could make you happier. Scientific American. www.scientificamerican.com
**Some researchers have contested Amy Cuddy’s research and the notion of
facial feedback hypothesis.

Video Attribution

Cain, Susan. The Power of Introverts. Ted.com. Standard You Tube Licence.

Dweck, Carol. Developing a Growth Mindset. Standard You Tube Licence.

McGonigal, Kelly. How to Make Stress Your Friend. Ted.com. Standard You Tube Licence.

Robbins, Mel. Stop Giving a Shit.Standard You Tube Licence.

Toastmasters. Managing Fear.Standard You Tube Licence.

Image Attribution

Images from microsoftclipart, publicdomainppictures.net, and Bing public domain images

3

Overcoming Communication Apprehension by Hacking Your Body

Lynn Meade

Visualize Yourself Giving Your Speech

Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself rising from your chair and walking towards the podium. Imagine delivering your first few words with power. Imagine your audience smiling and nodding. Imagine using your visuals effectively. Imagine a thunderous applause at the end and imagine confidently walking back to your chair.

Richmond and McCroskey, Researchers who study communication apprehension in public speaking, reported that 80% of college students who used positive visualization strategies were able to reduce their level of apprehension. When students visualized giving a speech, they could reduce negative thinking and lower their communication anxiety. Not only that, but students who visualized giving their speech had better gestures and fewer “ums.”

Visualization, it’s easy, it’s free, and it works. Try it!

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=90

Talk About Yourself in Positive Ways

It’s time to start talking nice to yourself. In the book, Communicating from the Inside Out, the authors noted
that thoughts you have about yourself trigger up to 100 times more brain activity than random thoughts. In addition, when you talk out loud to yourself, your brain activity increases 1,000 fold. Did you catch that? When you talk about yourself, you activate your brain in powerful ways—-when you listen as you say things about yourself, you activate your brain even more. It makes sense when you think about it. When I say, “I’ve got this,” I activated the part of my brain that had the thought, I activated the part of my brain associated with speech, and I activated the part of the brain associated with listening. That is a lot of brain power given to one sentence.  When you say things, good or bad, you hear yourself as if you sat in the car and cranked the volume up. Make sure that the “song” that you are playing to yourself is a good one.

The lesson here is this—be careful what you tell yourself, because you are listening more than you know.
Take charge of your thoughts and replace any negative thoughts with positive ones. Talk nice…. Your brain is
listening.

Say Positive Things About Public Speaking

Your brain communicates by the firing of neurons. These neurons are like an interstate system in your brain. The more often a neural route is used, the larger it becomes. When you take the same road over and over in your thoughts, the messages transmit faster and faster. If the road is used repeatedly, then those thoughts become automatic. Think of it like the familiar road back to your house, you can drive their without even thinking about it–it’s automatic. That’s why when you practice — playing piano, driving a car, putting a golf ball, you get better and it becomes easier. Eventually, it is like you are on autopilot.

If you think positive thoughts over and over, then those positive thoughts become automatic. If you think negative thoughts over and over, those thoughts become automatic.Beware of negative thoughts about public speaking,  if you keep thinking negative thoughts, you will make the pathway so large and strong that it becomes your default setting. Once you are on autopilot, they will keep playing over and over until you do something to consciously stop them.

In order to stop the automatic negative thoughts concerning public speaking, you need to consciously take control. You need to (1) recognize that negative thoughts are a choice and you can chose to think positive thoughts, (2) say positive things out loud and often and, (3) use visualization techniques to visualize yourself being successful at presentations. Repeat this often so these pathways become automatic.

Say “I Am Excited”

Never say, “I am nervous;” instead say, “I am excited.” When you feel nervous acknowledge it. Acknowledge that you are having a physical reaction and then take control of the interpretation.  Think, “I can feel my heart beating fast. I’m nervous because I’m about to do something of consequence. It is normal for me to feel like this. I am excited.”

Exercise, Laugh, and Breathe to Reduce the Effect of Cortisol

Cortisol is the stress hormone released when you are anxious, upset, or scared. Since public speaking can be a source of stress, you benefit yourself by working on ways to reduce cortisol reaction. Changing  how you think about stress helps (see chapter 2), but you also need to “burn off” stress.

Exercising before and after a speech can be a powerful way to help your body reduce the effects of cortisol. A Psychology Today article, Cortisol: Why “the Stress Hormone” is Public Enemy Number One, suggests  a number of ways to lower your cortisol levels.

1. Physical activity: exercise, walk, do yoga
2. Meditation and deep breathing
3. Spend time with friends
4. Laughter
5. Listen to some of your favorite music

Get started on your public speaking playlist today! After that, go hand out with friends and go for a walk.

Tips from Toastmaster’s International

- Breathe out. Take slow deep breaths in and then release your breath from the bottom of your abdomen to get the maximum benefits of release and relaxation.

- Get rest. Nerves may keep you awake, but try to get an adequate amount of sleep prior to your speech to ensure optimal mental alertness.

- Fuel your mental engine. Eat a light meal at least 20 minutes prior to your speech.

Release the Tension in Your Body

How can you make your body work for you, you ask? You can stop many of your nervous reactions by releasing the tension in your  your muscles.

- Roll your shoulders, loosen your arms.

- Close your eyes and notice any tight muscles, tense them and then relax them.

- Sit with your palms open and facing up on your lap.

- Make funny faces to relax your cheeks and facial muscles.

- Notice if your neck and facial muscles are tense. If they are, make a point to relax them.

- Consciously try to slow down your breathing.

FAKE CONFIDENCE

When you get nervous, your body responds in very direct ways. Your breathing gets short and your muscles begin to tense up. Here’s the good news! Your body and your mind work in a feedback loop. Let me give you an example: If I am mad, my face makes a mad face and if I make a mad face, I feel mad. Now that you know there is a feedback loop, you can break into it. In the example I just gave you, I could break the mad feedback loop by smiling. If I smile long enough and add a “happy thought,” then my body tells my mind that I am happy.

The same is true with communication apprehension. When you begin to feel nervous, your muscles tighten and your breathing changes. The more your body acts nervous, the more your mind believes that you are nervous. The good news is that you have the power to break into the cycle. You can stop the physical reaction of nervousness.

The Facial Feedback Hypothesis states that when you make a facial expression, it can influence the emotion that you are feeling. For example, when you force yourself to smile, you may actually begin to enjoy the moment more. The more you smile, the more you may alter your own perception of the situation. As a speaker, when you fake confidence with your body and face, you may actually begin to feel more confident. Amy Cuddy says, “Fake it until you become it.”  Watch this quick video explain more about the facial feedback effect.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=90

STAND LIKE WONDER WOMAN To HACK YOUR HORMONES

Stand like Wonder Woman (or Superman) with your legs spread and your hands on your hips. Now hold that pose for two minutes. Do you feel powerful yet? Amy Cuddy, Harvard Researcher, had test subjects power pose (tall stance open arms, open torso) for as little as two minutes before subjecting them to a stressful job interview. She tested the subjects stress hormone, cortisol and their confidence hormone, testosterone before and after. She found that taking a confident pose caused decreases in the stress hormone and increases in the confidence hormone. Subjects who power posed reported feeling more confident and less nervous.

But wait, there’s more. When they asked the job interviewers what they thought of the interviewees, they had a preference for those who had power posed before the job interviewer. The effect not only influences the speakers but the listeners. When observers view you acting confidently, they treat you like you are confident which guess what….makes you feel more confident.  Act confident to feel confident.

https://youtu.be/zmR2A9TnIso

- Mention controversy

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Gesture to Help Release Nervous Energy

I love the movie clip from Talladega Nights where the race car driver, Ricky Bobby, is being interviewed and he keeps making his hands float up awkwardly. After struggling with his hands a while, he finally blurts out, “What do I do with my hands?” I am always amazed at how I don’t even think about my hands most days, but when I get up to give a speech, suddenly, I am aware that they exist and I have no idea what to do with them.  If you are like me and like most speakers, you struggle with your hands during presentations.

Researchers did a study where they had people tell about what they did that day. When the participants told the story using their hands, they added more details to their story, they spoke more fluidly, and were able to think better. Gestures seemed to help the speaker to recall information and to speak more fluidly. Did you know that even people who are blind from birth, gesture. It seems to serve the purpose of helping the speaker to think of word and maintain a flow in the speech.

Gesturing doesn’t just help the listener, it helps the speaker. But what does this mean for you? It means that you are meant to gesture. It suggests that when you gesture, you will be able to think of ideas more clearly and thus speak with better fluidity. In addition, gestures can help you to release nervous energy. When you gesture, you can relieve cognitive stress, you can relieve nervous energy, and you can appear confident.

Gestures also help the audience listen and understand. Studies show that audiences who see speakers gesture rate them as more persuasive, more likable, and see them as having more leadership potential. In a major study of the most popular Ted Talks, the researchers discovered that the more gestures, the more views and likes for the speech.

Gesturing—good for the speaker, good to relieve stress, and good for the audience!

Quick Tips With Your Hands

Make the OK sign with one hand. The act of touching your fingertips together actually relieves stress. This is a good trick to try when you feel a little anxious because it really is going to be “OK.”

Sweaty palms? Have a ice cold water bottle that you hold in your hand to reduce the temperature of your hands.

Memorize Your Opening and Closing

Getting started and closing a speech are the times when speakers tend to get the most nervous. For that reason, it is very helpful to memorize the first few sentences and the last few sentences of your speech. When you start off powerful, you feel powerful, and the audience expects you to be powerful. Carefully write out the first few words. Practice those over and over until you can say them with confidence and power.

When you begin to wind down your speech, your audience is preparing to clap. They don’t want to clap too soon or too late so they are on high alert. Having a planned out closing, not only helps you own the last point, but it gives them a definitive notion of when to clap. If you are like most of us, you might get a little extra nervous near the end. That’s why it helps to memorize your ending.  By memorizing the closing, you are helping to relieve that tension and finish in a way that demonstrates your confidence and knowledge.

Pretend To Be Someone Else

Still feeling a little unsure about yourself? No worries—just pretend like you are an actor playing the part of someone confident. Think about a confident speaker you know. When you are mentally preparing for your speech, imagine that you are that person: How would they walk, how would they talk, how would they gesture? When I make a professional presentation, I often think about my former boss who is a powerful communicator. I ask myself, how would he enter the room and shake hands How would he walk to the podium? How would he move around during the speech? I steal his confidence to get started. When you start your speech, imagine you are that powerful person. Use their confidence going into the speech. I’m always amazed at how I start my speech as someone else and then slowly that confidence becomes me.

PRACTICE UNTIL IT FEELS COMFORTABLE

PRACTICE AT LEAST 5 TIMES

The best way to practice speaking is to practice speaking. It may sound obvious but it is true. Make sure you practice your speech at least 5-10 times from start to finish.

PRACTICE GETTING FUNKY

After you have practiced your speech with your notes, I suggest you go someplace comfortable and practice your speech without note cards. Don’t worry if you don’t know all the details—just wing it! I like to call this “Getting funky. ” Do something a little crazy like sing your speech, do your speech in a wrestlers voice, rap your speech, or dance around while saying your speech.

Relax, have fun, get funky. This will help you associate speech with being relaxed and having fun. For “funky” speech practice, it is less important that you get the words right and it is more important that you relax your body, put a smile on your face, and have fun. After doing this exercise, go back and do your speech with notes and in a serious tone. You’ll be amazed at how much more relaxed you feel.

PRACTICE TO A LIVE AUDIENCE

It is one thing to practice to a mirror, it is another to practice to a living thing. Find a friendly face, a roommate, a friend, or a dog and practice your speech to a live audience member. Practicing with a set of watching eyes makes a big difference.

PRACTICE BY RECORDING YOURSELF

Record yourself giving your speech. Sit back and watch your video recording and make notes of areas where you need to make adjustments.

PRACTICE BY VISUALIZING YOURSELF

Sit in your chair and imagine yourself giving your speech. Imagine your confidence as you walk to the podium, as you give the speech and as you conclude.

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act
but a habit.
Aristotle

WRITE YOURSELF ENCOURAGING NOTES

On the top of your speech notes, put positive messages to yourself. Write “I’ve got this” in bright colors on the top of the page. Add a little cartoon character that makes you smile. Put a picture of your loved one making a funny face, a picture of your dog, a cartoon picture that makes you happy. One Ted Talk speaker said she wrote on her notes, “This Matters, I’ve got this!”

I still get nervous on the first day of class so I draw a smiley face  on my notes and the phrase, “I love being a teacher.”

BREATHE

BELLY BREATHING

One way to manage stress is to do deep breathing. Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. Take a deep breath in through your nose. Feel the breath go in. Let the breath completely fill up your lungs—inhale for 15 seconds. You should feel the hand that is on your stomach rise. Now, open your mouth and let the air our slowly over 15 seconds. Repeat this. Each time try to fill up you lungs fully. Taking as few as 3 belly breaths can increase your oxygen allowing you to relax.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=90

THE NOSTRIL SWITCH

Put your finger on the side of your nose and push the nostril closed. Breathe in through the nose and out through your mouth. Now, push the other nostril closed. Breathe in through the nose and out through your mouth. Do this until you have taken 3 breaths on each side. Now, take 3 big breaths in through the mouth and out through the nose with both nostrils open. This should deepen your breathing and relieve some of the stress. Most important——Don’t just read about deep breathing—- DO IT!

Taking a deep breath, faking that I’m confident,
and focusing on the topic helped me manage my anxiety.
After a few seconds, I would forget about the anxiety
and really get into what I was speaking about!
Tara Johnson
Advanced Public Speaking Student, University of Arkansas

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Think of Giving a Speech as a Conversation with Friends

Your goal is not to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela. It’s to be you.
If you’re a scientist, be a scientist; don’t try to be an activist.
If you’re an artist, be an artist; don’t try to be an academic.
If you’re just an ordinary person, don’t try to fake some big intellectual style; just be you.
You don’t have to raise a crowd to its feet with a thunderous oration.
Conversational sharing can work just as well.
In fact, for most audiences, it’s a lot better.
If you know how to talk to a group of friends over dinner,
then you know enough to speak publicly.
― Chris J. Anderson, Ted Talks

Key Takeaways

- Visualize yourself being successful at speaking

- Talk about public speaking in positive ways. Say, “I’m excited!” instead of “I’m nervous.”

- Exercise, laugh, or meditate to reduce the cortisol reaction.

- Do exercises to release tension. Beware of tension and relax your muscles.

- Pretend to be confident, borrow someone else confidence if needed. Fake confidence and it will become you.

- Memorize your opening and closing

- Write yourself positive notes

- Practice, practice, practice

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Sources of Anxiety and Ways to Overcome

1. Situational — When talking to friends, we may not be nervous but if asked to say the same thing as a speech, we get nervous. The solution is to think of a presentation as a conversation rather than a performance.

2. Audience –Sometimes we are nervous because of who is in the audience. The solution is to visualize your speech and the audience’s positive reaction.

3. Goal –We may get anxious when we think about the goal of the speech. Often times we have a future goal that we are are worried about. The solution is to focus on the moment–exercise, play video game, do a tongue twister.

No Freaking Speaking: Managing Public Speaking Anxiety by Matt Abrahams

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=90

Developing Self Confidence

Lessons from soccer coach, Dr. Ivan Joseph on how to develop self-confidence.

- Practice and keep practicing. Repetition is important to learning a skill.

- Self talk. Be aware of the things you say to yourself.

- Get away from the people who will tear you down.

- Catch yourself doing good and record it.

The Skill of Self Confidence by Dr. Ivan Joseph

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=90

References

Keysers, C. and Gozzola, V. (2014). Hebbian learning and predictive mirror neurons for actions, sensations and emotions. Philosophical Transitions. Royal Society Biological Science.

*Cuddy controvery

Develop references

Videos

Abraham, Matt. No Freaking Speaking: Managing Public Speaking Anxiety. Toastmasters. Standard You Tube License.

Cuddy, Amy. Game Changer: Amy Cuddy, Power Poser. Standard You Tube License.

Cuddy, Amy. Tips for Success in Public Speaking. Standard You Tube License.

Sessinghaus, Rick. Visualization and Mental Rehearsal.  PERFORM For Success. Standard You Tube License.

Udacity, Facial feedback effect – Intro to Psychology. Standard You Tube License.

Joseph, Ivan. The Skill of Self Confidence TEDxRyersonU. Standard You Tube License.

4

Engage Your Audience So You Don't Spit Words at Generic People

Lynn Meade

There are four words that can change everything about how you look at public speaking. These four words can effect how you look at nervousness, how you design your content, the way that you present, and the way the audience receives the message. What are these words?

It’s Not About You.

So there you have it, the secret to success in speaking. Most of the time, speakers think, “I have this great message that I need to tell people” or “I need to inform them of what I know.”  In each case, it is about “I”. To be a successful speaker, you have to change your way of thinking. A speech is not about you, the speaker, it is about them, the audience. It is about the fact that they need something and you can provide it for them. They may need information, they may need to be inspired, they may need to know about a product that will improve their lives, they may need to celebrate a special moment. They have needs and when you weave your message into those needs both you and your audience will be transformed. The more that you think about your audience and explore who they are and what they need, the more you can tailor your speech.

Give Your Audience Something  of Value

A speech is a gift that you give the audience.  Chris Anderson of Ted Talk fame says, “Focusing on what you should give, should be the foundation of your talk.” From the moment, you are tasked with giving a speech, you should ask yourself what gift you have to give. Another speech coach imagines herself handing out one hundred dollar bills to each audience remember to remind herself to give each person something of value. Either way you look at it–gift or money–it is about what you have to give. It is about serving.  Ginger public speaking coaches illustrate the difference between taking and serving:

Normal public speaking can focus more on taking from an audience:

- I need them to listen to me

- I need them to look interested in what I’m saying

- I need them to laugh at my jokes

- I need them to affirm my expertise

- I need them to know how good I am

Servant speaking is all about building a community:

- I have something important to give – I’m not only ‘taking’ Instead of just ‘getting through’ my material

- I want to give my community what they most need to hear

- I believe that my message will bring benefit to those listening

- I want the people listening to me to feel a part OF not apart FROM

Every speech, every time, you should consider how to connect with the audience. In order to do so, you have to think about who they are and the perspective they bring. You have to think about their wants, their needs, their desires, and their perspective. Now that you understand the most important thing, I’m sure you are wondering about how to get into the mind of your audience.

Watch this short video where Chris Anderson talks about the gift of an idea.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=25

Did you notice that three out of four of the key features that he mentions have to do with the audience?
1. Limit your talk to just one major idea.
2. Give them a reason to care.
3. Build you ideas based on what the audience already knows.
4. Make your idea worth sharing. Who does this idea benefit.

Getting in the Mind of Your Audience

Like Chris Anderson suggested, the key is to put an idea in the mind of your audience. In order for this to work, we need to think about them and their world view.

Ask Yourself, What Do They Need?

Many of you are reading this book because you are in a public speaking class. If so, you are thinking, “What do I have to do to make an “A” on this speech” or “What is the least that I can do to get my college credit.” Notice that both of these approaches focus on “I.” Realize that when you give your presentation, there will be an audience of college students that need something. What do they need? They need not be bored. They need to think that it was worth it to come to class. They need to learn things. They need to be inspired. If it is a persuasion speech, don’t think about what you need to persuade them to do, think about them and how their lives will be improved if they listen to your speech and act of the important issue.

Here are a few “real world” scenarios that I encountered.  I wanted to get you thinking about the many needs of the audience.

INFORMATION: I spoke to the monthly meeting of Kiwanis about a nonprofit that I managed.

What did my audience need?

- To enjoy themselves among friends after the meal.

- To know about what is happening in their community.

- To feel like their involvement in the club was meaningful.

- To feel like they could do things that make a difference.

Why did they come to the speech?

Because they are part of a club that has weekly luncheons with community speakers.

CELEBRATION: I spoke to a sorority at their annual banquet that honored scholarship.

What did my audience need?

- To feel bonded with others in their sorority.

- To feel proud of their achievements.

- To feel motivated to succeed and make good grades in college.

- To feel like the university cares and recognized their hard work.

Why did they come to the speech?

They were required to or they would be fined. They liked being part of something.

PERSUASION: I spoke to a major retail business about why they need to buy diesel engine parts from the company that I worked with.

What did my audience need?

- To know about the product and why it might benefit them.

- To be able to understand the details of the product.

- To feel empowered to make an informed choice.

- To be able to get back to work in a timely fashion.

Why did they come to the speech?

It was their job. They benefited from finding good products for their company.

TRAINING: I spoke at teaching camp to a group of faculty about teaching tips.

What did my audience need?

- To know about specific ways to improve teaching

- To feel good about being a teacher

- To understand the technique so they can apply it

Why did they come to camp?

It is an optional camp so they came specifically to learn to be a better teacher.

This is an important exercise anytime you have a speech to give. Try to put yourself in the mind the the audience.

Write down what they need and why they are at the event. It is easy to think about the tangible reasons they attended but it is helpful to think about the emotional reasons they are there. Are they there to bond with friends? Are they there to be inspired that they are good at their job? Are they there because they have to be?

It may help to make yourself a graphic of the target audience members.  As you write your speech, keep looking at this reference so you keep the audience’s needs in mind. Here is one I made for students I have in my public speaking class.

Consider Situational Needs

Consider the setting of your speech. After a big lunch, people may be tired. If they have listened to other speeches before yours, they may be fatigued from sitting and listening so long. If they have been listening for a while, consider having them engage briefly with another audience member. If you know they have been sitting, consider how you can have them move a little. If the room is stuffy, or loud, or the they were forced to come and listen, acknowledge how much you appreciate their presence in spite of the circumstances.

Consider Audience’s Needs

There are many different tools you can use to think about your audience’s needs one of these it to work thought Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and see if you can relate each level to your topic in some way. Write a list of how they relate and then use that list as a brainstorming tool when you construct your speech.

You should always consider the many needs of your audience.

Let’s work thought an illustration of how this works. Imagine you are doing a speech to persuade people to take a self-defense course at a local gym.

- PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS: People need to sleep: I can remind them that they sleep better when they feel safe.

- SAFETY NEEDS: People need to feel safe:  I can remind them of crime statistics to make them feel unsafe so they take the class to regain that since of safety.

- BELONGING NEEDS: People need to belong:  I can encourage them to take the class with a group of friends or I can remind them of times they missed spending times with friends because they were uncomfortable being out late at night alone.

- ESTEEM NEEDS: People need to feel good about themselves:  I can tell them how good it feels to have the confidence that you know how to defend yourself.

- COGNITIVE NEEDS: People have the need to know, so I can tell them about the science of some of the techniques and why they work.

Maslow suggested that esteem, friendship and love, security, and physical needs are deficiency needs. If these needs are not met, the individual will feel anxious and tense.

Recipe for Listenability

Listenability: What does that mean in plain English?
Make your speech easy to listen to by using easily understood phrases and words and by giving the audience a reason to listen.

It may help to think of your speech in terms of listenability. Rubin says, “Listenable discourse is characterized by linguistic and rhetorical structures that ease the particular cognitive burdens listeners face.”  In short, make your speech easy to listen? How do you do that? Glad you asked,  let me share with you a few ways.

To Be Listenable
Find Common Ground

Seek to establish connection with your audience at the beginning of your presentation.  Find common ground or draw from common experiences. If you are talking to a civic organization, you may not know everything about them but you can seek commonalities. Read their mission statement or look up their outreach to find common ground. “Like you, I am passionate about finding  a better solution for homeless is our area.” Recognize similarities if they represent a cause that matters to you, if they have a hometown team in common, if they all ate a catered lunch, if they all walked uphill to get to class.  Have you noticed? When speakers come on college campus, they almost always mention one of these: The mascot, the sports team, a place on campus, a famous eating establishment, or a campus hero. These details draw the audience in as they appreciate a speaker who took the time to think about them.

To Be Listenable,
Reference Someone in the Group

If possible,  go into a speaking event early and talk to several people. Engage them in friendly conversation and then ask them questions about your topic.  During your presentation,  point out someone and say, “Derek was telling me that….” The audience’s attention’s zooms in when you acknowledge someone from the group.

To Be Listenable,
Tell Them How it Applies to Them

Communication scholars Sprague, Stuart, and Bodary explain, “Speakers do not give speeches to audiences; they jointly create meaning with audiences.” In order to co-create, you have to get the audience on your side. Tell them why it is relevant to them. Help them make connections. Typically highly engaged and knowledgeable audiences, need only a light reminder of the topics application but for those that are not very knowledgeable or not motivated listeners, you need to tell them specifically how it applies and why. One easy way to do this is to say, “So what, who cares…” Another way is to simply ask the audience, “Why do you think this should matter to you?”

To Be Listenable
Use Inclusive Language

Speak to the audience in comfortable language that is inclusive. Consider the difference between these two.

I know that most people worry about what goes into their food.

I know that most of us worry about what goes into our food.

The use of “us” and “our,” makes the sentence more personal and friendly.  As much as possible, use personal pronouns with your audience.  As Shel Leanne points out in the book, Say It Like Obama: The Power of Speaking with Purpose and Vision, these words help to “send the message that the speaker and those listening are on the same team, in the same boat, facing the same fate.”

To Be Listenable
Give the Audience a Map of the Journey

Tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said. Along the way, help them stay on track by telling the where they are headed. “Now that we talked about this history of this, I want to share with you the future of the product.”

To Be Listenable
Use the Language of Your Audience

Throughout your speech, define your terms clearly and carefully. Be careful not to use jargon or “insider” language that will exclude listeners who aren’t “in the know.”  While working for a nonprofit, I was invited to come onto the university campus to speak to campus groups interested in volunteering. In order to identify with the audience, I told them I was a COMM major. After my presentation, someone came up to me and said, “Ms. Meade, what is a COMM?” I explained it was shorthand for Communication Major. We laughed at my mistake, I apologized for assuming everyone knew what it meant, and then he offered to join my organization. It goes to show you, that even within the group (in my case people on a college campus), you can’t assume that people know the specialty language. It also goes to show you that you can mess up and still make a friend (if you acknowledge your mistake gracefully).

I am often a judge for a unique speech competition. Graduate students have three minutes to explain their research in a way that anyone can understand what they are doing and what the results mean. Many of them have been working in complex theories and specialty language for so long that they have a hard time realizing that not everyone knows what these concepts mean. It is important that you learn to know how to adapt your message to audiences with differing levels of knowledge and complexity.

Here is perhaps the simplest case of persuasion.
You persuade a person only insofar as you can talk their language
by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea,
identifying your ways with theirs.
Kenneth Burke

To Be Listenable
Take the Audience’s Perspective

Your speech is a journey and you are taking your audience on that journey with you. Chris Anderson says, It is your job to know about your fellow travelers. What do they need from the journey and how can you help them so they they enjoy the trip and they don’t get lost? Delve into the audience’s mind, what is their perspective of your topic.

Consider This
When the country music singer, Garth Brooks arrives as the venue, he sits in many of the seats that are pointing at the stage and asks, “What am I doing for this person.”  As a speaker, it is good to sit in the many (symbolic) seats of your audience and ask, “What am I doing for this person?”

To Be Listenable
Ask for Audience Participation

Actively involving your audience helps them stay alert and attentive.  All to often, speakers seem to puke words at people. The audience is supposed to passively sit back and take in what ever comes their way. An audience is made up of people who need to be considered, addressed, and engaged. Consider using one of the following when engaging your audience.

- Ask Rhetorical Questions

- Take an Informal Poll

- Ask for a volunteer

- Have them write something down

- Ask them to talk with their neighbor about a topic

- Have everyone yell the answer at the same time

- Tell them there will be a “test” at the end

Asses and Elephants

Making Assumptions Makes an Ass out of U and Me (ASSuME)

You absolutely should consider make a list of the known demographics of your audience and create a profile.  But don’t let that profile lead you astray. Don’t create unrealistic stereotypes and expectations based on the way you profiled them. For example, just because your audience is made up of seventy year- old women, does not mean that they have the same values as your conservative grandma. Most of us naturally default to grouping things based on what we already know–don’t assume.

While persuading the class to skydive, one student said, “I know you may not be interested Dr. Meade, but you can tell your sons about it.” Just for the record, I went skydiving the next year, my sons still haven’t been. In another speech, I had a student say, “Now that I have shown you how to make Doritos casserole, you can take this recipe home with you to make it. Guys, you can take it to your girlfriend.” The guys were upset that she didn’t think they were interested or capable.

In the first example, they made assumptions about abilities and interests based on age and in the other example, they made assumptions based on gender roles. Don’t assume.

Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room

What do you call people? Frankly, this is a tricky topic. It is like the elephant in the room that everyone can see but no one wants to mention. African American/Black/Native American/Indian/Transexual/Nonbianary–there are so many different words in the people dictionary. If I am honest (and I try to be), I get nervous about what to call people, because I’m afraid that I will mess up and someone will get upset when I didn’t mean any ill intent. Then I think, why do people get their feeling hurt over the littlest things?  Well, if you are on the receiving end, they are not little things.  I then remember when someone said something hurtful things to me and I remember how it felt. Even if they weren’t trying to be mean, it still hurt. When I am hurt, I don’t listen. Now we are finally back to the point, when people are hurt they don’t listen. It doesn’t matter if you meant to say the wrong name, they still stop listening.

I once spoke before an interfaith board of directors. I had a list of the names and organizations that were represented, and I thought I had done all my research. During my presentation, I talked about the need for volunteers in the community, I talked about how each of their  groups represented a belief that people should help each other, and then I asked to see if they could help me get speaking engagements at their churches. After my presentation, a member of the board came up to me and said, “Lynn, not all of us go to church, some of us go to synagogue.” I thanked her for correcting me, I learned to use the word faith groups, and we developed a great working relationship for years to come. Before speaking to a group– do your research. Find out what they like to be called. Learn the vocabulary specific to that group of individuals. If you mess up (and if you are human, you will mess up eventually), be gracious to those who pointed out your mistake, learn from your mistake, and accept responsibility.

Here’s some perspective. My goal as a public speaker is to get a message to you. It is to get an idea from my head into yours. If I use words that offend you –whether that be a curse word or a wrong name for your group–then it interferes with the message. As soon as I say a term that offends you, you quit listening or you listening with a suspicious ear.  When that happens, I have defeated my own purpose. When I take the audience centered approach, then I consider what they need so they can  listen to me. Sometimes, that means I have to do my research and take the time to learn the preferred name for a group of people, but that’s OK because it (1) respects the audience and (2) audiences who feel respected are more likely to listen and (3) my message gets across better when there are no barriers present.

Randy Pausch says if there is an elephant in the room you should introduce it.

Elephant in the Room
Elephant in the room is an idiom that means to point out an obvious truth or fact.

Did you see what I did here?
I didn’t ASSuME that you knew what that phrase means, I gave you a definition.

Thoughts About the Audience

Your Credibility is Linked to the Audience’s Opinion of You

Your credibility (ethos) is linked to what the audience thinks of you. An audience expects you to have knowledge but to be credible that also need you to be trustworthy and sincere. What they think about your translates to how much they will listen to your message.  Their opinion of you is greatly tied to the way that you address them in your speech.

Thinking About the Audience Makes You Less Anxious

When you realize that speech is not about you having something to say but rather, you giving the audience something of value, it changes things. You are less nervous because you aren’t as focused on being perfect but rather you focus on the fact that the audience needs something that you can provide. Instead of thinking, “I am so nervous,” try thinking “the audience really will benefit from knowing this.” Instead of thinking, “I will persuade them to do this” change your thinking to”their life will be better if they try this.” Even teachers do this. As a teacher,  I  change from “I need to tell this to my students” to “my students will benefit from knowing this.”

If you pick a topic that you are passionate about and if you believe in it, you will begin to care more about the importance of the topic and less about your own personal discomfort. If you feel a little nervous, think about how your information can improve lives or change people’s perspective. Make your topic so important that you forget to be nervous. Quit being so self-centered. It’s not about you—- it’s about the audience. They need something and you have it. Ambrose Redmoon said,“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

Don’t be selfish. Marianne Williamson says,  “Your playing small does not serve the world.” It is worth a little discomfort for the awesome privilege you have to change, educate, motivate, and persuade your audience. They need this information and you are the one lucky enough to get to give it to them. When you spend all your time thinking about how to connect with the audience and how to help them understand what you have to offer, you have less energy to spend on worrying about if you are nervous.

I tell myself that what I have to say in any speech
is important for people to hear, and that I prepped for it, and am well versed in it.
So basically knowing that what I have to say is worth hearing
makes me confident in saying it.
Andrew Powell
U of A Student

There are many ways to gather information about the audience, I want to share with you few of the most common and a list of pros and cons.

Audience Analysis Tools

Interview

- Ask the person who invited you to tell you about the audience

- When possible, interview a member of the audience

- Sometimes, it is helpful to ask someone outside the group to give you impressions of the group

PRO

- Gives great insider information.

- Often yields quotable items.

CON

- Interviews are time consuming.

- The interviewee always represents a limited perspective.

Survey

- Send out an electronic survey

- Do an informal survey by those who pass by in a break room or lunchroom

- Have the leadership administer a survey

PRO

- Allows you to know key opinions

- Gives the audience a first impression of you as someone who wants to be prepared

CON

- Survey may become a burden to people who don’t want one more thing to do

- People often say what is expected rather than what they really feel.

Be A Internet Stalker

- Google the group, the person, the venue

- Check out professional and social media sites for information

- Look up the mission statement of the organization

- Find pictures of the venue

PROS

- Gives you an overview of who they want people to think that they are

- Helps you identify priorities of an organization

CONS

- It can be/feel a little creepy to look at family photos of someone on their Facebook and Instragram

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=25

Key Takeaways

- The most important thing to remember is that it is not about you, it is about the audience

- Focus on making your speech listenable

- Make a list of what your audience needs and why they are listening to your speak

- Don’t stereotype or make assumptions about your audience

- Know the right words to use

- Use a variety of tools to gather information about your audience.

References

Aristotle. (2007. on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse, 2nd edi. trans George Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Burke, K. (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press. *In the Burke quote, I changed it from “his” to gender inclusive language “theirs.”  A topic worth thinking about and discussing.

Cartier, F.A. (1952). The social context of listenability research. Journal of Communication, 2, 44-47.

Goble, F. (1970). The third force: The psychology of Abraham Maslow. Richmond, CA: Maurice Bassett Publishing. pp. 62.

Harris, L. (2017).  Stand up speak out: The practice and ethics of public speaking. Creative Common License

Kardes, F.R., Kim, J. & Lim, J.S. (1994). Moderation effects of prior knowledge on perceived diagnosity of beliefs derived from implicit versus explicit product claims. Journal of Business Research, 29, 219-224.

Martin, B.A.S., Lang, B. & Wong, S. (2003/2004). Conclusion explicitness in advertising: The moderating role of need for cognition and argumentation quality on persuasion. Journal of Advertising, 32(4), 57-65.

Maslow, A.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review. 50 (4): 370-96

Rubin, D.L. (1993). Listenabilty = oral-based discourse+ considerateness. In Wolvin, A.D. & Coakley, C.G. (Eds.) Perspectives on Listening. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 261-281.

Rubin, D.L., Hafter, T. & Arata, K. Reasing and listening to oral based versus literature-based discourse. Communication Education, 49, 121-134.

Toastmasters: Know Your Audience.  https://www.toastmasters.org/Resources/Know-Your-Audience

Sawyer, Am.G. & Howard, D.J. (1991) Effects of omiting conclusions in advertisements to involved and uninvolved audiences. Journal of Marketing Research, 28, 467-474.

Saylor Academy (2012). Stand Up, Speak Out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking Publisher: Saylor Academy

Sprague, J., Stuart, D., & Bodary, D. (2010). The speaker’s handbook (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage.

Wolvin, A. (2017). Listenability: A Missing Link in the Basic Communication Course. Listening Education. 13-21.

Wrench, J.S., Goding, A. Ifert-Johnson, D., Attias, B.A. Stand up, Speak out. The practice and ethics of public speaking. Flatworld Knowledge.

Image Credit

“The Elephant in the Room” by BitBoy Creative Commons License

Video Credit

Teds Secret to Great Public Speaking by Chris Anderson. Standard You Tube
Keep Your Audience Engaged. Toastmasters. Standard You Tube

5

What the Old Dead Greek (and Roman) Guys Have to Teach Us About Speaking

https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/constitutive-communication-introduction-and-case-study-campus-identity

Constitutive Communication and controversial camus speakers

6

Story--The Most Powerful Tool!

“Ideas are not really alive if they are confined to one person’s mind.”

Nancy Duarte

The goal of public speaking is to take an idea from your mind and plant it into the minds of your listeners and the most effect way to do that is through story. I want to share with you three major principles about storytelling and give you concrete ways to incorporate them into your own storytelling.

1. Stories, when told properly, will ignite not only the reason center, but also the emotion center of your audience’s brains making them not only more effective in the moment but more memorable in long run.

2. Stories activate the little voice in the audience’s heads that help them think creatively about problems. This encourages audiences to act on the idea as opposed to be passive listeners.

3. Stories are best when they are tied to a message, offer concrete details, and follow predetermined plot line.

Stories Help Ideas Stick

In the world of speech making, storytelling may the highest skill.  So, why is that? Because stories have stickiness. Gershon and Page suggest that story enables visualization as effectively and intuitively as if the viewer were watching a movie.  Much like a good movie, a well told story will activate multiple parts of the listener’s brains. Story moves us from passive listeners to active participants.  As the speaker presents, the audience will  “see” the story in their mind’s eye, they will “feel” the emotions of the story, and  they may even “act” out a facial expressions in reaction to the story.  Think about it. When we imagine a flashing light, it activates the visual part of our brain, if we imagine someone patting us, the tactile center lights up. It really is quite powerful when you think about it. When we hear a story, we don’t just visualize it, we simulate it.

Do you like it when your teachers tell stories? Does it help you learn? Researchers Kromka and Goodby put it to the test. They had one hundred ninety four undergraduate student hear a lecture that include a lesson with a story or only the lesson’s key points. Students that heard the narrative had more sustained attention to the lecture and they did better on a test of short term recall. In addition, they indicated that they liked the teacher more and were more likely to to a future course with the instructor.

Watch one of the top Ted Talks of all time, My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. She weaves a story so engaging that the audience is afraid to blink because they might miss what happens next. She beings her story at 6:25 telling you about the “Morning of the stroke.”

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

Try This

- Imagine you are looking at the Eiffel tower.

- Think of two words that start with “b.”

- Think of two words that start with “p.”

- Imagine that I am cutting a lemon in half and then squeezing the juice in a glass.

Stories Help the Audience Become Emotionally Engaged

You’ve probably heard of a FMRI, right? It’s the machine that measures blood flow to the brain. Scientists have used FMRI machines to measure what happens to audience members when a speaker is sharing stories and they found that their brains were lighting up in the same places. In short, their minds were syncing.  Why is this? It is because when a speaker tells you something emotional, you begin to feel the emotion.

Researchers at Ohio state use the word transportation to highlight that people can get transported and carried away into the world of a story. After conducting several experiments on cognitive processes, they noticed that we can become so immersed in story that we hardly notice the world around us. When we’re transported by a narrative — whether it’s true or imagined — “we tend to view the protagonist more favorably and embrace the beliefs and worldviews the story presents.” Sometimes the best way to challenge someone to think is not to tell them what to think but to tell them a story of someone who thinks that way.

The book, Made to Stick suggests that credible ideas make people believe and an emotional idea makes people care. The right stories bring these together. Stories not only inspire us to act but often they give us the knowledge on how to act.

Stories Inspire Action

The conventional view has always been that when you speak, you try to get the listeners pay attention to you and to keep the little voice inside their heads quiet. If it stays quiet, then your message will get through. Steve Denning author of the Leaders Guide to Storytelling and The Springboard  suggests an alternative view. In a “if you can’t beat em join em” mentality he challenges us to tell stories to work in harmony with the little voice in people’s heads. He says that you don’t want your audience to ignore their voice, you want to tell a story in a way that awakens their little voice to tell its own story. You awaken their voice and then you give it something to do. He advocates using stories as springboards to help the audience think about situations so they can  begin to mentally solve problems. In this way, you are not speaking at an audience but rather you are inviting the audience to participate with you.

Stories Can Have Drawbacks

While storytelling can be used positively, it can have drawbacks. A story can be more memorable than the point.  If the audience remembers your story without the purpose of the story, you missed it. In the teacher’s study mentioned above, students had better short term recall when the teacher told a narrative, but they also remembered more extraneous information increasing their cognitive load. The lesson here, it to make sure he story reinforces a point and make sure that point is clear.

The other drawback is really a word of caution.  Because stories draw people in emotionally, there is an ethical obligation to consider the impact of the story. Stories tap into emotions and create lasting memories. Stories told with the wrong motives can be manipulative.

Recipe for a Good Story

Setting

When you tell the audience where the story is taking place, we see the setting in their mind. It gives us a place to put the characters and then the action.

Characters

When you describe how the characters look or how they felt, we can see them as if we are watching them in a movie. The trick is to tell enough details that we can create a mental picture of the character without giving so much information that we get bogged down.

Notice how Matthew starts with the setting and the characters and you can see the events unfold.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

Action

When you describe the action that is taking place, we begin to feel the action. If you describe something sad that happened, the audience will feel the sadness. If you describe something exciting that happened to you or a character, the audience will feel that excitement. There is research on mirror neurons. If you want to nerd out, look it up, otherwise, suffice it to say that our brains and therefore our emotions sync up with a speakers’ brain when they are telling us a story.

Tension-Release

The best stories create tension or conflict and then in some way resolve that conflict. In persuasion, a story can create tension that can only be released by acting on the persuasion.

Change

Good stories represent change.

“The story of how your’re an amazing person who did an amasing thing and ended up in an amazing place is not a story, it is a recipe for a douchbag. The story of how you are a pathetic person who did a pathetic thing and remained pathetic, is also not a story, it is a recipe for a sadsack. You should represent a change in behavior, a change in heart, a change in attitude. It can be a large change or a very large change.” Matthew Dick, Moth GrandSlam Champion.

Story Arc

- Exposition

- Rising Action

- Climaz

- Falling Action

- Denoument

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

Details

Flavor Crystals

Rubeon Gonzalez and Olympic Champion luger is a motivational speaker. As you watch this video clip, notice how he incorporates details in his story so we can see what’s happening.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

Consider This

Kenneth Burke asks us to think of life like a drama where people are actors on a stage. What is their motivation for what they do and what they say? He offered five strategies for viewing life that he called dramatistic pentad.

1. Act: What happened? What is the action? What is going on? What action; what thoughts?

2. Scene: Where is the act happening? What is the background situation?

3. Agent: Who is involved in the action? What are their roles?

4. Agency: How do the agents act? By what means do they act?

5. Purpose: Why do the agents act? What do they want?

How does all this relate to telling a story in a speech? The first thing you can do is to use this list when brainstorming how to fully develop your story. You can also use it as a way to evaluate the completeness of your story. The third way to use it is as a tool to evaluate your audience and how they view life. Why do they do what they do and what to they need to hear in order to be inspired, motivated, or persuaded?

Burke, Kenneth. 1945. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: U of California Press.

In this Ted Talk, Richard Turere, My Invention that Made Peace with Lions, makes the audience wonder, how a problem like lions killing livestock can possibility be solved. Richard draws us into his story and makes us want to know how a young boy could solve such a large problem. Watch this video and see if you can apply each of Burke’s Five Items.

A TED element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

Dale Carnegie’s  Magic Formula for Storytelling for Persuasion

1

Incident

2

Action

3

Benefit

Share a vivid personal experience relevant to the point

Share the specific action you have taken (to solve the problem)

State the benefit; clearly emphasize the benefit of taking the recommended action to the audience

Dale Carnegie-The Art of Storytellng 2017. Dale Carnegie & Associates ebook.

Common Story Plots

Challenge Plot

Connection Plot

Creativity Plot

- Underdog story

- Rags to riches story

- Willpower over adversity

- Focusing on on relationships

- Making and developing friendships

- Discovering and growing in love

- Making a mental breakthrough

- Solving a longstanding puzzle

- Attacking a problem in an innovative way

Inspire us to act

- To take on challenges

- To work harder

Inspire us in social ways

- To love others

- To help others

- To be more tolerant of others

Inspire us to do something different

- To be creative

- To experiment

- To try something new

Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

The Magic Science of Storytelling

David Philips uses stories to illustrate how storytelling can activate what he calls the angels cocktail: dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphine.

- Dopamine

- What it does: Increases focus, motivation, memory

- How to do it: Build suspense, launch a cliff hanger, create a cycle of waiting and expecting

- Oxytocin

- What it does: Increases generosity, trusting, bonding

- How to do it:  Create empathy for whatever character you build

- Endorphin

- What it does: Increases creativity and focus and people become more relaxed,

- How to do it: Make people laugh

- Devil’s Cocktail

- Cortisol, Adrenaline

- High concentration of these leads to Intolerance, irritability, Un-creative, Critical, Memory Impairment, Bad decisions

- Functional Storytelling

1. Have to understand the you don’t have to be a bearded old man in front of a fireplace with a dark voice to be a great storyteller

2. Write down your stories

3. Index your stories – which of your stories made people LAUGH? EMPATHIZE?

- o Pick the story you want correlating to the hormone that you want and tell it to the person you are talking to to create the desired effect

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-talk-rules-for-presentations-2016-3–analyzed Ted talk, story is the most common

REFERENCES

Bolte-Taylor, J. My Stroke of Insight. Ted. Standard You Tube License.

Burke, K. (1945). A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: U of California P, 1969

Carnegie, D. (2017). -The Art of Storytelling. Dale Carnegie & Associates ebook.

Dicks, M (2018). Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. Canada: New World.

Gershon, N and Page, W. (2001). What Storytelling Can Do for Information Visualization. Communication of the ACM. 44,31–37.

Green, M.C. and Brock, T.C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narrative. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(5).

Heath, C & Heath, D. (2008) Made to Stick. New York: Random House.

Kromka, S. M.  & Goodboy, A. K.  (2019) Classroom storytelling: using instructor narratives to increase student recall, affect, and attention, Communication Education, 68:1, 20-43.

Reynolds, G. Why Storytelling Matters: Ted. Standard You Tube License.

Turere,T.  My Invention that Made Peace with Lions: Ted. Standard You Tube License.

There are so many great videos on story, I wanted to share a few of the best with you.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=29

7

Brainstorming: Moving the Cheese Out of the Way So You Can Find Your Best Ideas

Maybe you can relate to this scenario. You open the frig looking for the mayonaise and it is nowhere to be found.  You scoot a few things around half-heartedly, and still no mayo. In desperation, you call out to your roommate/spouse/mom, “Hey, have you seen the mayo?” They come in the room, open the frig, move the milk out of the way, bump the cheese to the side, and there it is, the mayo. And there you are relieved and a little embarrassed.

I like to think of brainstorming as looking for things in the frig of out minds (profound right?).  Sometimes a good idea is there but we we just have to look. Sometimes we have to get help. Sometimes it was there all along, but it was hiding behind the cheese. I want to help you, to inspire you, to equip you to find your good idea. I will talk about brainstorming, narrowing your topic, and about how to get a little weird (aka cheesy).

So, let’s get started, shall we?

mind the Gap  (GAP) Goal, Audience, Parameters

In the underground subway station in London, a voice comes on over the intercom telling you to “Mind the Gap.” It means, when you get on the train, don’t step in the crack between the platform and the train. Similarly, you should mind the GAP –the goal, audience, and parameters–as you build your speech so you don’t get tripped up.  As you begin to brainstorm, you should write down the goals, the audience, and parameters of your speech. If you are in a speech class it might be, “Inform college students of a health related topic in five to seven minutes.” If you are an invited after dinner speaker it might be, “Give a 30 minute speech after a meal to inspire an local business members to achieve a goal.”  It is very important that you have this in front of you as you brainstorm so you don’t fall in the crack–mind the GAP.

Refuse to Be Satisfied with Your First Idea

There is a lot of pressure, I know to come up with an idea and it can feel so satisfying to finally have one.  Great first step but don’t let it end there. Write your idea down and keep going. Keep going because there may be another idea, a better idea, hiding behind that idea but it will never come out until you get the first one written and out of the way. Matthew Dicks knows a lot about speaking and brainstorming, he is a 36 time slam champion and a 5 time grand champion at a speaking competition club called the Moth.  He says, “The first idea is rarely the best idea. It may be the most convenient idea. The easiest to remember. The one you personally like the most. But rarely is the first idea the one I chose. First ideas are for the lazy. The complacent, The easily satisfied.” Refuse to be easily satisfied.

Back to the Basics–Say Your ABC’s

Write your ABC’s on a piece of paper with one letter per line. Now, look at your goal, audience and parameters. If your goal is to persuade the audience of a health related behavior, your list might look like this.

Goal: Persuade the audience of a health related behavior
Audience: College students.
Parameters 4-5 minutes

A -Apple a day keeps the doctor away
B-Bicycle for health
C-Colonoscopy
D– Vitamin D for depression
E-Eye exam
F-Fitness class
G-Go outside

Look at the ABC list again, there is one that does not fit the parameters. Can you find it? It is the colonoscopy. If you are talking to a group of college students, they are mostly not in the age bracket that this topic would concern them. Yes, you could tell them to make sure they older guardian gets one, but why not go for something more relevant like cardiovascular health, eating carrots or taking vitamin C.

Be Like Sherlock Holmes–Ask the WWWWWH

All the detective shows do it and you should too–ask who, what, where, when, why, and how. Start with your parameters, audience, and goals.

Parameters: 8-10 minutes
Audience: College students
Goal: Ceremonial speech to inspire and celebrateWho: Grandma, Barak Obama, Edgar Allen Poe, Salvador Dali
What: The invention of the chocolate chip cookie, the famer’s market
Where: The Battle of the Budge, Paris, Crystal Bridges
When: 1492, 2020, After my first kiss, After the Boston Tea Party
Why: Because my mom loved me, Because the man wanted to give of himself, to save his fellow solider
How: By walking with his walker in the garden every day, By giving of his allowance

Go Look in Your Frig

I’m not kidding. Go look in your frig.  When I tell my student how to find ideas, I suggest they walk around their house, the park, the school, the ballfield and just call out things that they could give a speech on. So if I open my frig, I might give a speech on the following: Do I have to pay attention to the expiration dates of condiments? How long can you keep leftovers? What the heck is Worcesterhire sauce? Is butter healthier than margarine? Why  are most people are allergic to milk and if that’s the case why is it subsidized in school? What is the best container to store left overs in? I could make up at least 100 topic ideas just from my frig and so could you, but let’s move on. The point that I am trying to make here is that once you open up your mind and start looking for speech ideas, you will find them everywhere.

Creep on Your Social Media

This one is tricky and you will have to time yourself or you may get stuck there, but open your social media and look at your pictures, your reposts, and your most common tweet topics. Make a list of ideas that come to you as you look. On mine I see pictures of the Grand Canyon–there’s a persuasive speech, why to go to the Grand Canyon. I see resposts of inspiring speakers and feel good stories–I might research the impact of positive videos on health and mood. I might research what inspirational speakers have in common. You get the idea. Be sure to leave social media in a reasonable amount of time so you can get back to working on your speech.

Write Down Story Prompts

You should have stories, lots of stories. You can use stories in business speeches, stories in academic speeches, stories in teaching, stories in job interview, stories in classroom speeches. Get a special notebook just to write down one sentence stories. Write enough details to jog your memory about the story.  You might even write down what it made you think. “Today, I thought I saw a baby hummingbird. I took a picture and looked it up only to find it was a hummingbird moth. I can’t figure out why I am disappointed or think it is any less wonderous now that I know it is a moth.”  This simple story could be placed in many different speeches to talk about when you think you get one thing and you really get another.

Get Cheesy with It

Write down the bizarre ideas. The ones that you know that you will never use, but they popped into your mind. In fact, encourage yourself to get a little crazy and a lot cheesy. By cheesy, I mean come up with an idea that is silly or outrageous or too fun for the situation. I began this chapter with talking about how to find something in the frig and how sometimes you can’t find it because other things are in the way. This is true for an idea as well. Sometimes you can’t find the good idea because the crazy, cheesy idea is blocking the path. Once you let it out, your mind can access what’s behind it–the idea that just might work.

Sleep On It

Some of the best ideas will come in your sleep. To tap into your noctorunal creativity, it helps to do twho things. One, think about your upcoming speech, the audience, and the purpose and then two, sleep with pen an paper beside your bed. There’s a good change that you will wake up with a speech topic on your mind.  Write it down right away before it gets buried by your morning cup of coffee.

Just Do It

All of this is just a worthless page of words if you don’t put it into action. Really. You just wasted your time reading it if you aren’t planning on trying any of this. If you really want to improve as a speaker start working on improving how you generate and develop ideas.

More Resources

More ways to Brainstorm:  https://business.tutsplus.com/articles/top-brainstorming-techniques–cms-27181

Narrow it Down

Once you have a list of ideas, it is time to narrow it down. Always go back to the parameters, audience, and goal. Go down your list and mark out any that don’t fit. Mark them in pencil because you might need that idea another day.

Take a good look at the remaining items and really think about your audience. What would they like? What do they need?  Make sure your topic selection has them in mind.

Finally, ask yourself, “Which remaining topic excites me the most?” The best topic is one that fits the parameters, audience and goal and that gets you excited.

Write it Down

Write your topic down as a thesis
Test it to a friend and have them text you what they think it means.

Build it Up

Now that you have narrowed it down, you should build it up and develop your topic.

Cluster and Bubble

Don’t Get Sucked into Group Ideas

Avoid group think and randomly playing along.

Write a Shitty First Draft

Writer Anne Lamont is famous for her book Bird by Bird where she talks about the writing process.

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages. Anne Lamont

Get it Down, Fix it Up

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy Anne Lamont

Silence the Voices

What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head. First there’s the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, “Well, that’s not very interesting, is it?” And there’s the emaciated German male who writes these Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes. And there are your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion; and there’s William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant; and so on. And there are also the dogs: let’s not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained. Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily… Anne Lamont

Refine the Idea

An idea is anything that can change how people see the world. If you can conjure up a compelling idea in people’s mind, you have done something wonderous. You have given them a gift of incalculable value. In a very real sense, a little piece of you had become part of them.  Chris Anderson.

Chris Anderson

Anne Lamont Shitty First Drafts

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Obama’s Speech Writer

1. Speaker should know what they want to say

2. Ask what story do you want to tell

3. Say something bigger than the moment

4. Authenticity–Keep it real

5. Humor–Be ready to lighten the mood

6. Know Your Audience

7. Always be writing and read widely

REFERENCES

Dicks, M (2018). Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. Canada: New World.

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8

Do Not Imagine the Audience Naked and Other Practical Advice to Public Speaking

I’d like to share with you some tips on managing your body –eyes, hands, etc. while speaking in a non traditional way. I want to start by telling you the worst speech advice I have ever heard and then talk about alternatives.

Let’s start with eye contact.

Bad Advice–Look at their Foreheads

I had a teacher in high school who told me, you shouldn’t actually make eye contact with the audience because that will make you nervous. Instead, she told us to look at their foreheads. Just for fun, walk up to a friend an begin to speak to their forehead to see how they react. It just looks weird, it will freak them out. Chances are your friends will say, “What the heck are you doing?”  Your audience will feel the same way and wonder what the heck is wrong with you.  Honestly, it is harder to focus on foreheads than it is to look in eyes.

Bad Advice–Imagine Your Audience Naked

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImagineTheAudienceNaked—Get permission to use this image (email sent 7-22)

Most everyone has heard this advice, and it is the worst. If you are in my audience and I imagine you naked, I guarantee there will be NO EYE CONTACT at all. One speech coach said, “Depending on your audience, this is too exciting or too disgusting.”  This piece of advice it designed to make you feel more at ease. I don’t know about you, but the thought of speaking to a room full of naked people does not make me feel relaxed.

Bad Advice– Stare at Random Spots Above Your Audience’s Heads (Head or heads)

I’ve heard this one multiple times from well meaning teachers. Yet again, the idea is to make the speaker feel more relaxed by avoiding the eyes of the audience. First off, get real, what do you think will happen if you make eye contact? Will their laser beam eyes melt your very being. No. You have to ask yourself, why do we act like eye contact is so frightening? It is because there is a person connected to those eyes. One nonverbal researcher says, “Eye contact make interaction obligation.” If I make eye contact, I have to recognize that I am speaking to a real person with feelings, expectations, and dreams. If I make eye contact, I have to realize that a speech is an interaction and I have an obligation to that person. At a bare minimum, I am obligated not to waste their time.  (CHOPPY)

Second of all, this is bad advice because it makes you look indifferent. It is a strange thing to talk to walls. If you are a speaker, it looks strange for you to look over the audience’s heads to stare at the wall and I guarantee that the audeince feels strange when you do it. Even in a large audience, you should find random people throughout the room to look at.

Bad (But Well Meant Advice) –Follow this Formula

A lot of well meaning advisors will say things like “make eye contact for 3-5 seconds with each person” or scan the audience from left to right (the lighthouse technique) or find three places in the room and look to those (the umpire technique). The advice is not entirely bad, but the problem is that it puts too much pressure on the speaker. If I am counting the seconds or working on the perfect eye contact pattern, then I am missing the point of being conversational.

Good Advice on Eye Contact

The most important advice I can give you on eye contact is to JUST DO IT.

I find it helpful to find a few friendly faces around the room and to look at them. I try to find those nice people who smile and nod. I start by looking at those folks and then I move to looking at others in the room. Looking them in the eyes makes me very aware of them listening. It helps me to focus on them as a speaker. It helps me remember the most important rule that the audience’s needs are first.

Watch the video, I See You by Dananjaya Hettiarachchi  and notice how he looks directly at audience members. It is obvious why he is world champion.

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Practical Tips

- If you struggle with eye contact, at the top of every page of your notes write–“Make eye contact.”

- Have your friends sit at various places throughout the room so you have a few friendly eyes you can talk to.

- Practice with real people. Sure it is helpful to record yourself, to practice talking to a wall, and to speak to a mirror, but those are no substitution for what happens when you speak to people. Find some friends and practice with them.

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Cultural Note

In this _____ world, you will encounter those from various cultures and it is helpful to realize that eye contact can vary from culture to culture. Just because an audience member looks away from you, it may not mean that they are not interested.

- In some cultures, it would be considered in appropriate to make eye contact with someone of a different gender (or sex).

- When in a high power culture (a culture where those in power are given higher status and have deferential body language), you may notice that those in lower status lower their eyes or avoid eye contact with those of higher status.

What do I do with my hands

How to stop shaking

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The top Ted talk speakers make an average of 465 gestures in 18 minutes and the less popluar make 272 gestures.

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Believe That With Practice You Can Improve

When you think about speaking are you tempted to believe, “Some people are just born good speakers” or “I just wasn’t’ made for this public speaking stuff.” If that’s you, you may have what Stanford researcher, Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” Dweck said that people either have a fixed mindset, believing that people were just born to be good at things or a growth mindset, believing that with effort, people could learn new skills.

When it comes to public speaking, you should work on having a growth mindset and acknowledge that effort is needed for mastery and that when you apply yourself, get help from others, and develop new strategies, that you can improve. Adjusting your belief to a growth mindset frees your self-limiting beliefs and allows you to move beyond what you thought was possible.

Those who think they got their success from effort often are able to go farther than those who believe success is due to to their natural ability.  They key to making the change is to continually recognize your effort : “I gave it my best, I really stretched myself today, I put a lot of time into this and I can tell it made a difference.” In addition, Dweck suggests that the simple change of adding the word “yet” to your self vocabulary helps keep you growth focused. Believe that if you work hard enough, and practice enough, and get help when needed that you can improve and grow.

The Power of YET

Never say, “I can’t do this”
but rather say “I can’t do this yet”
Never say, “ I can’t remember the name of that song”
but rather say, “I can’t think of the name of that song yet
but it will come to me.”
In one case, you tell your brain to be open to possibilities,
in the other version you telling your brain to quit trying.

Never say, “I’m not good at public speaking.”
bur rather say, “I may not be a perfect speaker yet but what I have to say is important
so I will work and keep getting better at it.”

In this video, Carol Dweck explains how “Yet” and “Not Yet” influences learning.

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Just Don’t Do It

Uptalking

In a survey conducted by Pearson, 85% of research participants said that up talking indicates a person’s insecurity or emotional weakness while 57% of them believed that it damages a person’s professional credibility.

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A recent survey by the Pearson reveals that bosses find uptalk not only annoying, but the majority believe uptalk hinders the prospects of promotion as well as better pay grades in their organization. Here are some revealing stats from the survey (based on the responses of 700 male and female bosses):

- 85% believe uptalk is a clear indicator of a person’s insecurity and emotional weakness

- 70% find uptalk a particularly annoying trait

- 57% confirmed that uptalk has the potential to damage a person’s professional credibility

- 44% stated that they would mark down applicants with uptalk by as much as a third

- CHASE THIS DOWNhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140120061951-64875646-want-a-promotion-then-don-t-upspeak/?trk=tod-home-art-list-large_0

2. Tag questions
These occur when you add a question to the end of a phrase, such as “This is a good hamburger, isn’t it?” Again, in interpersonal situations tag questions can work in your favor, in this case by inviting participation from your interlocutor.

Hedges

1. Hedges
These are soft word choices such as “I think,” “sort of,” or “kind of” that litter many a presentation. In some interpersonal conversation situations, phrases such as these can actually help by allowing you to appear less dogmatic and more open to collaboration. But in presentations, hedges have the effect of softening your position, reducing your authority and making you seem wishy-washy and unsure of what you are saying.

The best way to address hedging? Substitution. Find stronger, more powerful words to replace these less assertive ones. For example, “I think” becomes “I believe” or “I know.” “Kind of” and “sort of” can be replaced with “one way.” Finding more assertive substitutions affords you a way to make your point more clearly and definitively.

Van Edwards, Vanessa. You Are Contagious. Ted Talk. Standard You Tube Liscence

9

Mindsucking Slides or Brilliant Visual Anchors?

The speaker was a master in his field that is why he was chosen to speak. He was brilliant, he was motivated to share his ideas, and he was great at conversation. The only problem was that he was the most boring speaker that I have ever heard. He stood at the front of the room and read presentation slides to us for two hours.

Chances are you have had a similar experience. A speaker has ridiculous amounts of text on a slide and then stands there and reads it to you. Unfortunately for all of us, a lot of college classes are that way. In fact, most of us learned about how to use slides by seeing our teachers use them–poorly.

The use of electronic slides–Power Point, Presenter, Google Slides, Prezi—is pervasive. Sixty seven percent of college students reported that instructors used PowerPoint; and of these instructors, 95% used this software all or most of the time.  Numerous articles chide that presentation slides might be the death of educational.

Many successful speakers have shunned slides all together. Chris Anderson, head of Ted, the highly successful group that leads Ted Talks, highlights that at least of third of the most viewed Ted talks don’t use any slides whatsoever.

The Most Important Questions of All

1. Do I need slides?

2. If I need slides, what does the audience need to get from those slides?

I once made a presentation to NASA scientists who were preparing to talk about their research. I said, “If you sit at your computer and you open Power Point and begin writing your speech on your slides, you are making a slide show, not a speech. A speech always begins with what does the audience need to hear, then you write your speech working towards that goal, and finally, you think of a few visuals that the audience needs to see to best understand and remember what you talked about. You begin with the speech, not with the slides.” Two years later, I ran into one of those scientist and he smiled in delight as he said, “That piece of advice, changed everything for me. I really struggled as a speaker until you told us that we are making a speech, not a slide show. Since I have changed, people seem to like my presentations more and more likely to come up and talk to me about my research.

Having no slides at all is better than bad slides.
Chris Anderson, Ted Talk Founder

What is the Purpose of Slides

1, Reveal

To show something that is hard to describe. The purpose of your slide is not to say the words, that is what your mouth is for. The purpose is to communicate things that your mouth can’t do–videos, photos, charts, key ideas.

2. Explain

Help the audience to understand concepts

3. Delight

Give immense aesthetic appeal.

4. Organize

Rules for Slides

Keep Text To A Minimum

No more than six words across and six words down. Chris Anderson of Ted says,

“Even when a text slide is simple, it may be indirectly stealing your thunder. Instead of a slide that reads: A black hole is an object so massive that no light can escape from it, you’d do better with one that reads: How black is a black hole? Then you’d give the information from that original slide in spoken form. That way, the slide teases the audience’s curiosity and makes your words more interesting, not less.

Offer One Idea to a Slide

Limit ideas to one per slide.

Use Large Font Size

Use 28 point and larger. Do not use more than three different sizes and make the size variants purposeful. For example, one size is if titles and the other size is for the point.

Go For High Contrast

Always go for the highest contrast. Use only one color of font per presentation to keep it consistent.

Use Minimal Bullets

Chris Anderson says, Bullets belong to the Godfather, Avoid them at all costs. Dashes belong at the Olympics, not at the beginning of text. While I’m not sure I am ready to eliminate all bullets, I do warn you to use them sparingly.

Avoid Slide Transitions

There is rarely a time when you should use the transition feature of the software. Things that twirl, cube, swap, and swoosh rarely help the audience to focus on your idea. Most of the time, they are just cheesy and distracting. Two transitions that can be used with a level of professionalism are cut and dissolve. The easiest rules is if you don’t have a reason for a transition, don’t do it.

Use Blank Slides

Give Credit for Visuals

Make sure that you always credit to the originator of the photo. Simply write “Photo credit: Name or originator of the photo.” Usually 14-18 point font that is centered under the photo looks nice. Be consistent in the way you do your citations. Make sure you have legal license to use the photo or they are listed as Creative Commons.

Thoughts About Fair Use

The internet makes it was to get photos, videos, and music that you can use in your presentation. Just because it is easy to get, doesn’t mean that it is legal.

Chances are that you are using this textbook because you are a college student. Because your presentations are of an educational nature, they are protected under copyright light. In most cases, the pictures and video clips you use will be protected under the Fair Use which means that you can use copyrighted material because it is for educational purposes. Once you graduate and work for a company, what is considered free to use under that law may be different. For example, you may have to get permission to use someone’s photos of you may have to pay to use a music clip. Baylor University put together a checklist to help determine whether something would be considered fair use.

Fair list checklist.

Using Photos

When using photos, it is usually best to make them full screen. If you do make it smaller, use a black background. Use pictures with the highest resolution possible.

Don’t Do This!

There are many things wrong with this slide: The background is distracting, there are too many photos, the heading should be spoken by the speaker and not written, and the photo credit is too large.

Do This Instead!

Notice that the picture takes up most of the slide, the background is plain, and the photo credit is simple and doesn’t distract.

Have a Backup Plan

Technology is evil and is the enemy of all that is good. It will crash on you.

Watch parts of this Ted Talk to see how the speaker seamlessly integrates photo and video.

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Videos

Videos can be an amazing addition to your presentation. Rarely do you want to use more than a one minute clip. More likely, you will want about 30 seconds. In my experience, videos that work perfectly at your home computer, have about a sixty percent chance of working at the venue where you speak. Always go in ahead of your presentation and make sure that everything works and the volume on the video is set properly.

The most common mistake that I see is that someone will link their presentation to a video and they bring a copy of the presentation with them but leave the video on their home computer.  Make

I usually upload videos to my personal YouTube account and also have them in file format on a USB I always include a link to the video on my slide just in case it doesn’t work.

Always Test Your Slide, Videos, and Clicker

You should always practice using your slides. It is helpful to test out your presentation on your friends or trusted colleague and ask them to give you feedback. When you get to the place where you will give your presentation, it is a good idea to pull up your slides and make sure they work with the clicker. Test the volume of your videos and make sure you know where the audio-visual person will be in case you have any problems.

Make Notes on When To Change Your Slide

Don’t Look Back

You feet will point the way.

Don’t Be a Shadow on the Wall

The Good and The Bad of Using Slides

The Good

- Help the speaker stay organized

- Since it is an expectation, it can make the speakers appear more credible

- Helps audience to pay attention

- Depending on the application, it may help with cognitive learning.

- Helpful in teaching STEM concepts, but not humanities

- Students self report show that it helps, but their test scores shows it does not.

- Wecker 2012 when students held Poer POint slides in high regard the important information form the speaker was not retained.

Notice how Tim Urban uses slides to engage the audience. Instead of long lists of words, he uses funny drawings and the effect is brilliant–an audience who hangs on his every word.

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The Bad

College students expect teachers to use slides, however research is inconclusive as to wheter it helps students cognitive learning. In fact, some studies suggest that it has a detrimental effect on learning.
Students who write every word on the slides actually perform worse on quizzes. Because they spend more time writing than cognitively processing.

Think About It

A team of researchers did a meta-analysis where looked at all the major studies on Power Point to see if it had an impact on student learning. The results were interesting. Students expected teachers to use slides and they  reported that they liked when a teacher used slides because they thought that it helped them to learn and to pay attention. This was particularly true  for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields, where students benefited from seeing projected models and diagrams. While students perceived it was helpful, research indicates there there is little or no effect to test scores and information retention when a teacher uses Power Points.

It is worth considering that there currently is an expectations that speakers (not just teachers) to use slides. If a speaker choses not to use slides, it may violate student expectations and lower the teacher’s perceived credibility.

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What a great example of how to use charts.

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Watch at 4.05 how he uses a moving chart to demonstrate the link between family size and life span.

Can we paralle process visual and auditory–does it divide

Wrecker found that students’ learning suffered when they alloated their attention to the Power POInt slides over the instructor.

Magician use slight of hand to distract us.

Highly salient information will be remembered.

Expectency violation theory….. without slides

Multimedia Learning

Moreno and Mayer

What does it mean?

What does it mean
for your slides?

Multiple Representation Principle

For meaningful learning to occur, both channels (verbal and visual) should be used at the same time in a way that learner can connect the information from each channel.

Say it and show it on your slide to help people remember things. It is helpful to access the visual and auditory parts of the brain to help people connect.

Temporal Contiguity Principle

Verbal and visual content should be presented together in contiguous time. Putting words and and pictures explaining the same content into working memory at the same time is beneficial. If the information is out of synch, the brain is less able to connect the information from teh two inputs.

Make your words and pictures presented simultaneously.
Don’t be talking about one thing and have a picture or graph of something different on your slide.

Split Attention Principles

It is preferable to present words as verbal content rather than text on screen.

Modality Principle

People learn better when text is presented in verbal form (narration) rather than visual form (written text)

It is best to put pictures and talk about hose rather than a lot of animation and on screen words.

Redundancy Principle

While two channels of content can be more effective, too much can cause cognitive overload.

When possible, it is best to talk and show pictures rather than talk, have words, and show pictures. When you speak words and you project words and then you add a picture, it causes overload.

Coherence Principle

Background sounds and music can overload auditory channels and distract.

Make sure everything on the slide is related to the message. Skip the distractions.

Image Principle

People do not learn better when the speaker’s image is on the screen

No need to show your headshot.

Should I Give Out My Slides As a Handout?

Research indicates that if students spend their attention copying slides, they do not spend time listening to the lecture. The same would be considered true of any presentation. Giving the audience a copy of the slides before or after the presentation my reduce cognitive load.

DOES THE POWER POINT STYLE IMPACT LEARNING?

Pictures vs Text

Subjects preferred pictures and “visually rich” slides  if they were relevant to the content of the lecture.
Subjects preferred minimal text and limited bullet point lists.

Narrated Animations

Narrated animations generated interest and enhanced learning in an astronomy classroom.

Animations

Relevant animations enhanced interests
Too many animations can cause cognitive overload and distraction

How to Put Citations in Slides

When considering the how and when of citations, it is important to consider the context of your speech. Different contexts will require different types of citations.

Student in a public speaking class.

In class, you should always verbally mention your research and you should turn in a complete reference page.

Businessperson making a formal presentation

You will have to read into the context on this one. You should always mention any research to give you credibility but whether you put a citation on the slide will vary from place to place. When in doubt, err on the side or including the citation just keep it small at 12 point so it doesn’t distract.

Student presenting research at an academic conference

Put the full citation at the bottom of the slide in 12-14 point fold. Also,  put the full reference page on your last slide. You do not need to show your reference page to the audience (let’s face it, it is a boring way to end the presenation), but rather when people are given a copy of your presentation, they will have a copy of your references.

Many speakers have ended their presentation with, “And here’s my reference page.” That has got to be the most boring way to end a speech ever! Don’t do it. There is NEVER any reason to project your reference page for your audience to see.

Putting in the Advanced

How you treat pictures

Timing

Purposefulness

More Resources

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To see samples of good and bad use of photos on slides, check out Presentation Zen.

https://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/visuals/

To take your visual composition to the next level by using the rule of thirds to compose slides, check out

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/rule-of-thirds-powerpoint/

References

Anderson, C. (2016). Ted talks: The official Ted guide to Public Speaking. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Baker, J. P., Goodboy, A.K., Bowman, N.D., Wright, A.A. (2018).  Does teaching with Power Point increase students’ learning? A metanalysis. Computers and Education Science Direct. 126. pg  376-387 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.08.003

Copyright and Fair Use: Common Scenarios from California State University. https://csulb.libguides.com/copyrightforfaculty/scenarios

Hill, A., Arford, T., Lubitow, A., & Smollin, L. M. (2012).“I’m ambivalent about it”: The dilemmas of PowerPoint.Teaching Sociology, 40, 242–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X12444071

Mantei, E. J. (2000). Using internet class notes and PowerPoint in the physical geology lecture.Journal of College Science Teaching, 29, 301–305.

Marsh, E. J., & Sink, H. E. (2010). Access to handouts of presentation slides during lecture: Consequences for learning.Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 691–706.https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1579.

Mayer, R. E. (2001).Multimedia learning.New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2002). Animation as an aid to multimedia learning.Educational Psychology Review, 14,87–99. https://doi.org/10.40-726X/02/0300-0087/0.

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning.Educational Psychologist, 38,43–52. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801

Miller,S. T., & James, R. C. (2011). The effect of animations within PowerPoint presentations on learning introductory astronomy.Astronomy Education Review, 10,1–13. https://doi.org/10.3847/AER2010041.

Nelson-Wong, E., Eigsti, H., Hammerich, A., & Ellison, N. (2013). Influence of presentation handout completeness on student learning in a physical therapy curriculum.The Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13,33–47.

Nouri, H., & Shahid, A. (2005). The effect of PowerPoint presentations on student learning and attitudes.Global Perspectives on Accounting Education, 2,53–73.

Nowaczyk, R. H., Santos, L. T., & Patton, C. (1998). Student perception of multimedia in the undergraduate classroom.International Journal of Instructional Media, 25,367–382.

Ogeyik, M. C. (2017). The effectiveness of PowerPoint presentation ad conventional lecture on pedagogical content knowledge attainment.Innovations in Education &Teaching International, 54, 503–∗510.https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1250663.

Steinert Y, Linda S. Snell (2009). Interactive lecturing: Strategies for increasing participation in large group presentations. Med Teach. 2009;21:37–42.

Swerdloff, M. (2016), Online learning, multimedia, and emotions. Emotions Technology and Learning.

Wecker, C. (2012). Slide presentation as speech suppressors: When and why learners miss oral information.Computers & Education, 59, 260–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.01.013.

Wilmoth, J., & Wybraniec, J. (1998). Profits and pitfalls: Thoughts on using a laptop computer and presentation software to teach introductory social statistics.Teaching Sociology, 26, 166–178

.Worthington, D. L., & Levasseur, D. G. (2015). To provide or not to provide course PowerPoint slides? The impact of instructor-provided slides upon student attendanceand performance.Computer Education, 85,14–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.02.002

10

Speeches Are Like Airplanes--They Need to Have Good Take-Offs and Good Landings

- Quotation

- Reference to Current Events

- Historical Reference

- Story

- Startling Fact

- Question

- Rhetorical Question

- Humor

- Hypothetical Situation

- Demonstration

- Personal Reference

- Reference to Audience

- Reference to Occasion

How to Start a Speech

College students brain activity goes down at lectures, more than when asleep.

Joke

There’s nowhere I would rather be on a day like this than around all this electoral equipment.” (It was raining) Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy. Harvard Commencement 2006.

Start with dopamine

Keep in mind the following when attempting to deliver a funny introduction:

1. Know your audience: Make sure your audience gets the context of the joke (if it’s and inside joke among the members you’re speaking to, that’s even better!)

2. The joke should suit your natural personality. Don’t make it look forced or it won’t elicit the desired response

3. Test the opening out on a few people who match your real audience. Analyze their response and tweak the joke accordingly if necessary

4. Starting your speech with humour means your setting the tone of your speech. It would make sense to have a few more jokes sprinkled around the rest of the speech as well as the audience might be expecting the same from you

Interesting Fact

“Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat.” Jamie Oliver, Teach Every Child About Food. Ted Talk

“So I want to start by offering you a free, no-tech life hack, and all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture for two minutes.” Amy Cuddy, “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are.” Ted Talk

“The human voice: It’s the instrument we all play.” Julian Treasure,  “How to Speak so that People Want to Listen.” Ted Talk

“Hi, my name is Vanessa and I am a recovering awkward person. (Shows elementary school photo). ” Vanessa Van Edwards, You are Contagious. Ted Talk

“Okay, now I don’t want to alarm anybody in this room, but it’s just come to my attention that the person to your right is a liar. (Laughter) Also, the person to your left is a liar. Also the person sitting in your very seats is a liar. We’re all liars. What I’m going to do today is I’m going to show you what the research says about why we’re all liars, how you can become a liespotter and why you might want to go the extra mile and go from liespotting to truth seeking, and ultimately to trust building.” Pamela Meyer, How to Spot a Liar. Ted Talk .

You will live 7.5 minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.” Jane McGonigal. The Game That Can Give You Ten Extra Years of Life. Ted Talk.

Set up the Story

” Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. It sounds scary. Well I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D.” Ric Elias, Three Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed. Ted Talk.

“I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder: schizophrenia.” Jill Bolte Taylor, “My Stroke of Insight.” Ted Talk.

“A few years ago, I got one of those spam emails.” James Veitch This is What Happens When You Reply to Spam Email. ”Ted Talk.

Use a Prop

“Darren walks onto the stage and stares at the audience. He pulls a pair of underwear out of his pocket and puts them on over his suit. “Hey loser how do you like your new school uniform. I think it looks great on you. Those were the words of my high school bully Greg Upperfield. Now if you are all wondering if the underwear that Greg used was clean, I had the same questions.”   Darren Tay, Outsmart, Outlast. Toastmasters 2016 World Champion of Public Speaking.

Ask a Question

“I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you’ve experienced relatively little stress.” Kelly McGonigal, How to Make Stress Your Friend.  Ted Talk.

Rhetorical Question

“How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions?” Simon Sinek, How Great Leaders Inspire Action. Ted Talk.

Stress gratitude at the occasion

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.” Martin Luther King Junior

Why I’m Credible

“I’m a doctor, but I kind of slipped sideways into research, and now I’m an epidemiologist.”  Ben Goldacre, Battling Bad Science. Ted Talk.

Why It’s Important

“You know, I didn’t set out to be a parenting expert. In fact, I’m not very interested in parenting, per se. It’s just that there’s a certain style of parenting these days that is kind of messing up kids,
impeding their chances to develop. ”  Julie Lythcott-Haims, How to raise successful kids – without over-parenting”

Purpose of the Talk, Preview, Thesis

For years, I’ve been telling people, stress makes you sick. It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. Basically, I’ve turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours. Kelly McGonigal, How to Make Stress Your Friend.  Ted Talk

We’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional.  Stella Young, I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much”

What I’m going to show you is all of the main things, all of the main features of my discipline, evidence-based medicine. And I will talk you through all of these and demonstrate how they
work, exclusively using examples of people getting stuff wrong. Ben Goldacre, Battling Bad Science. Ted Talk.

I would like to think that we (Arab women) poor, oppressed women actually have some useful, certainly hard-earned lessons to share, lessons that might turn out useful for anyone wishing to thrive in the modern world. Here are three of mine. Leila Hoteit“Three lessons on success from an Arab businesswoman

We are often terrified and fascinated by the power hackers now have. They scare us. But the choices they make have dramatic outcomes that influence us all. So I am here today because I think we need hackers, and in fact, they just might be the immune system for the information age. Sometimes they make us sick, but they also find those hidden threats in our world, and they make us fix it. Keren Elazari. Hackers: the Internet’s immune system

Thesis Restated

The speaker restates the thesis of talk as a final thought or a reminder
Sample statement Thesis and a Restated thesis from the talk “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much”
by Stella Young
Thesis of the talk:
We’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live
with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional.
Restated thesis of the talk:
Disability doesn’t make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.

Never Start a Speech This Way

“Can everybody hear me?”

You should plan your opening to be intentional and with power. This is not the first impression you want to leave. Instead, do a microphone check before the audience members arrive.

“How long do I have to speak?”

You should know that before you begin. Even if the presentations for the day are running over and you are the last speaker, you should ask the MC before you begin. Always plan your first words with power.

“Can you read this?”

You should make your slides big, really big. Test out your slides in advance of your speech, walk all around the room and make sure you can read them.

“Turn off your cell phones and laptops.”

People really hate having things taken away not to mention that your audience may want to take notes on their devices. It is Ok, to ask your audience to put their devices in silent mode.

“I’m sorry, I’m losing my voice….I’m stopped up….I’m under the weather.”

These come of as excuses and can make the audience either feel like you don’t want to be there.

“I’m so nervous right now.”

Just start your speech. Talking about your nervousness will make you more nervous and will make them look for signs of your nervousness.

“So, Um”

Don’t start with a hesitation. Plan the first word.

Closing

Here are the inspiring closing words of Malala Yousafzai’s address to the United Nations:

One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education First.

STAR MOMENT

Something They Will Always Remember— STAR

Something They Will Always Remember

Memorable Dramatization:

Small dramatizations convey insights. They can be as simple as a prop or demo, or something more dramatic, like a reenactment or skit.

Repeatable Sound Bites:

Small, repeatable sound bites help feed the press with headlines, populate and energize social media channels with insights, and give employees a rallying cry.

Evocative Visuals:

A picture really is worth a thousand words—and a thousand emotions. A compelling image can become an unforgettable emotional link to your information.

Emotive Storytelling:

Stories package information in a way that people remember. Attaching a great story to the big idea makes it easily repeatable beyond the presentation.

Shocking Statistics:

If statistics are shocking, don’t gloss over them; draw attention to them.

- Nancy Duarte https://www.duarte.com/be-a-star-presenter/

Nancy Duarte https://www.duarte.com/be-a-star-presenter/

McViker, Daniela

10 Phrases Savvy Speakers Never Say by Daniele McViker

by Daniela McVicker

Published: Nov 4th, 2015

Ratanakul, Surasawadee (2017).  A Study of Problem-Solution Discourse:Examining TED Talks through the Lens of Move Analysis. LEARN Journal :Language Education and Acquisition Research Network Journal, 10(2).  Available: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1229624.pdf

11

A Tiny Chapter on the Big Subject of Speech Order

When it comes to speeches there are many formulas for how to present. This chapter is a “Cliff’s Notes” overview of each type. Once you pick your topic, it is helpful to decide which formula works for you and use it from the start. Sure, you could wing it, but when you run into trouble, you will most likely find yourself seeking out a formula so it just makes sense to start there.

Staples of Most Speeches

Most of the speeches you give will have the following

Grabber: A statement to get the audience’s attention

Preview: Also know as your thesis statement

Credibility Statement: Why should the audience listen to you talk about this

Audience Adaptation (aka Statement of Importance) : Why this topic suits this audience and this occasion

Transitions (signposts): Statements that move the audience from one idea to the next.

Review: Summary of the speech

Closure (Cincher): Wrap it up and give a well thought out last thought.

. James C. McCroskey and Jason J. Teven have conducted extensive research on credibility and have determined that an individual’s credibility is composed of three factors: competence, trustworthiness, and caring/goodwill (McCroskey & Teven, 1999). Competence is the degree to which a speaker is perceived to be knowledgeable or expert in a given subject by an audience member.

The second factor of credibility noted by McCroskey and Teven is trustworthiness, or the degree to which an audience member perceives a speaker as honest. Nothing will turn an audience against a speaker faster than if the audience believes the speaker is lying. When an audience does not perceive a speaker as trustworthy, the information coming out of the speaker’s mouth is automatically perceived as deceitful. Finally, caring/goodwill is the last factor of credibility noted by McCroskey and Teven. Caring/goodwill refers to the degree to which an audience member perceives a speaker as caring about the audience member. As noted by Wrench, McCroskey, and Richmond, “If a receiver does not believe that a source has the best intentions in mind for the receiver, the receiver will not see the source as credible. Simply put, we are going to listen to people who we think truly care for us and are looking out for our welfare” (Wrench, McCroskey & Richmond, 2008). As a speaker, then, you need to establish that your information is being presented because you care about your audience and are not just trying to manipulate them. We should note that research has indicated that caring/goodwill is the most important factor of credibility. This means that if an audience believes that a speaker truly cares about the audience’s best interests, the audience may overlook some competence and trust issues. From Stand up speak out

Informative Speech

Chronological: This is formatting your speech in order of which the point occur.

Compare and Contrast: This is the way things are similar, this is the way they are different.

Cause and Effect: Just like it sounds, this speech it discussing the cause of something and then explaining the impact of the occurrence.

Problem Solution: State the problem. Tell us why it is a problem. Offer a solution to the stated problem.

Spatial Organization: This in of spatial order as moving across space. It arranges your point according to geography or movement throught an area.

Topical Organization: Inform your audience of a topic and then break it down into subtopics.

Persuasive Speech

Problem Solution

Problem Cause Solution

Comparitieve Advantages

Monroes Motivated Sequence

Psychological A further way to organize your main ideas within a speech is through a psychological speech pattern Speech format built on basic logic in which “a” leads to “b” and “b” leads to “c.” in which “a” leads to “b” and “b” leads to “c.” This speech format is designed to follow a logical argument, so this format lends itself to persuasive speeches very easily.

Ceremonial Speeches

Toast Speech

Eulogy Speech

Ceremonial Speech

Introducion SPeech

Educational Speeches –AKA Lecture

In a series of important and ground-breaking studies conducted during the 1950s and 1960s, 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 (Smith, 1951). 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 (Thompson, 1960). 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 (Baker, 1965). https://press.rebus.community/uwmpublicspeaking/chapter/building-and-organizing-your-speech/

These three

REFERENCES

Stand up Speak Out online textbook

Ausubel, D. P. (1968). Educational psychology. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

Baker, E. E. (1965). The immediate effects of perceived speaker disorganization on speaker credibility and audience attitude change in persuasive speaking. Western Speech, 29, 148–161.

Bostrom, R. N., & Waldhart, E. S. (1988). Memory models and the measurement of listening. Communication Education, 37, 1–13.

Dunham, J. R. (1964). Voice contrast and repetition in speech retention (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from: http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses.

LeFrancois, G. R. (1999). Psychology for teaching (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Smith, R. G. (1951). An experimental study of the effects of speech organization upon attitudes of college students. Speech Monographs, 18, 292–301.

Thompson, E. C. (1960). An experimental investigation of the relative effectiveness of organizational structure in oral communication. Southern Speech Journal, 26, 59–69.

12

How to Write Like the Pros -- Colorful Language

Colorful Langauge

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=41

Colorful Language

Metaphor:

America which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.

Antithesis:

- And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation.

- I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my precious daughters.

- And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option, but it should never be the first option.

- The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to.

Parallel Construction: Repeated More to Do:

And fellow Americans — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — I say to you tonight: we have more work to do.
More to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that’s moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour.
More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on.
More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college.

If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child.
If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother.
If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

Don’t get me wrong. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — or at least, most of the time.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he’ll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home. John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves. John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren’t held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields. John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.

A while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6’2″ or 6’3″, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. As I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us? I thought of more than 900 service men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one’s full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or with nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists. When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!

Tonight, if you feel the same energy I do, the same urgency I do, the same passion I do, the same hopefulness I do — if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president, and John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come. Thank you and God bless you.

Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning (Look up the story told–it is really cool)

Vladimir Kush, Atlas Of Wander

“The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments, we explore how these metaphors influence the way that we reason about complex issues and forage for further information about them. We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions. Interestingly, we find that the influence of the metaphorical framing effect is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions; instead they point to more “substantive” (often numerical) information as the motivation for their problem-solving decision. Metaphors in language appear to instantiate frame-consistent knowledge structures and invite structurally consistent inferences. Far from being mere rhetorical flourishes, metaphors have profound influences on how we conceptualize and act with respect to important societal issues. We find that exposure to even a single metaphor can induce substantial differences in opinion about how to solve social problems. (…)

Even fleeting and seemingly unnoticed metaphors in natural language can instantiate complex knowledge structures and influence people’s reasoning in a way that is similar to the role that schemas, scripts, and frames have been argued to play in reasoning and memory. (…)

We find that the metaphors were most effective when they were presented early in the narrative and were then able to help organize and coerce further incoming information. (…)

Through analogical transfer in this way, systems of metaphors in language can encourage the creation of systems of knowledge in a wide range of domains. Our reasoning about many complex domains then can be mediated through these patchworks of analogically-created representations. A final question is how strong the influence of metaphorical framing really is? Focusing on a real-world social issue like crime allows us to compare the effects of metaphor we observe in the lab with the opinion differences that exist naturally in the population. People with different political affiliations hold different opinions on how to address societal problems like crime. (…)

Analysis reveals a striking effect of metaphor as measured against real-world differences in opinion that exist in the population and impact policy-making. Interestingly, we found that self-identified Republicans were also less likely to be influenced by the metaphors than were Democrats and Independents. (…)

The studies presented in this paper demonstrate that even minimal (one-word) metaphors can significantly shift people’s representations and reasoning about important real-world domains. These findings suggest that people don’t have a single integrated representation of complex issues like crime, but rather rely on a patchwork of (sometimes disconnected or inconsistent) representations and can (without realizing it) dynamically shift between them when cued in context.

Metaphor is incredibly pervasive in everyday discourse. By some estimates, English speakers produce one unique metaphor for every 25 words that they utter. Metaphor is clearly not just an ornamental flourish, but a fundamental part of the language system. This is particularly true in discussions of social policy, where it often seems impossible to “literally” discuss immigration, the economy, or crime. If metaphors routinely influence how we make inferences and gather information about the social problems that confront us, then the metaphors in our linguistic system may be offering a unique window onto how we construct knowledge and reason about complex issues. (…)

We find that metaphors can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve complex problems and how they gather more information to make “well-informed” decisions. Our findings shed further light on the mechanisms through which metaphors exert their influence, by instantiating frame-consistent knowledge structures, and inviting structurally-consistent inferences. Interestingly, the influence of the metaphorical framing is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as an influential aspect in their decisions. Finally, the influence of metaphor we find is strong: different metaphorical frames created differences in opinion as big or bigger than those between Democrats and Republicans.”

– Paul H. Thibodeau, Lera Boroditsky, Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA, Published: February 23, 2011.

Design by S. Dayal

Stand Up, Speak Out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking

- Publisher: Saylor Academy

- Year Published: 2012

Scholars Samovar and McDaniel tell us that ethical language choices require four guidelines:

1. Be accurate; present the facts accurately.

2. Be aware of the emotional impact; make sure that you don’t manipulate feelings.

3. Avoid hateful words; refrain from language that disparages or belittles people.

4. Be sensitive to the audience; know how audience members prefer to be identified (e.g., Native American instead of Indian, women instead of girls, African American instead of black, disabled instead of crippled)

References

Samovar, L. A., & McDaniel, E. R. (2007). Public speaking in a multicultural society. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.

Saylor Academy (2012). Stand up Speak Out: the Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking.

Thibodeau, P.H and Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA,

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The Dirty Dozen--Fallacies to Avoid and Fallacies to Notice

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Thirteen is Bad Luck so this is Chapter 12.5. Things That Don't Belong

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Be Credible, Be Interesting, Be Aware of Multiple Types of Research

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Delivery Methods

17

Are You Really Listening?

18

Why Not to Wear a Floppy Jacket When Using a Lapel Microphone and Other Tips for Large Groups

19

Packing your big ideas in little sentences-Writing the thesis

After you write your thesis, send it to three people and ask. Based on what you read here, what do you think my speech will be about.

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Never Let Them See Up Your Nose and Other Tips for Speaking To a Camera

21

Your Voice is the Most Important

Various Vocal Warm Ups (from Joyful Noise)

Say “MMMMM-MMMMM.” Basically you hum and feel your face vibrate. Try to get your nose and cheeks to vibrate.

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YAWN

Yawn a couple of times really big. Feel the back of your throat open when you are yawning.

Now try a big yawn, as you exhale close your mouth and sigh.

The goal is to open your throat. Focus on the back of your throat opening up. Now yawn right before taking a big breath to open up the back of your throat. Relax your larynx and your head and neck muscles.

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Try to sing all the ABC’s without taking a breath

Get a cup/bottle of water that is 75% full. Use a straw to blow bubbles into the water. First practice blowing so that the bubbles are even. Now try to hum a song into the bubbles smoothly.

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Think About It

If you have an attractive voice, people tend to attribute other positive characteristics to you. Research highlights that those with attractive voices are believed to possess these desirable personality characteristics.

- Judged to be more warm,

- More likable

- More honest

- More dominant

- Anticipated that they are  likely to achieve more.

- Berry, D. (1990). Accuracy in social perception: Contributions of facial and vocal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 298-307.

- Zuckerman, M.  and Driver, R.E.  (1989). What sounds beautiful is good. The vocal attractiveness stereotype. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 67-82.

- Zuckerman, M.  Hodgins, H. and Miyake, K. (1990). The vocal attractiveness stereotype: Replication and elaboration.  Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14, 97-112.

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Voice Factors

1. Volume

2. Pitch

3. Pace

4. Timbre

5. TOne

6. Prosody

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The surprising secret to speaking with confidence

https://youtu.be/a2MR5XbJtXU

\

ome simple voice projection exercises

2 September 2014

Graham Williamson

Categories: Voice

https://www.sltinfo.com/voice-projection-exercises/

Your throat should be open – if you feel it closing then introduce a yawn before taking a breath, this will open up the back of the throat. There should be no increased tension in your larynx. You are aiming to relax the muscles in the head and neck area, open the throat, use a proper diaphragmatic breath and use the upper chest as a resonator to amplify the sound.

Varying the loudness using vowel sounds:

Take a breath and say the vowel sound ah as follows (in American English this is the vowel as it sounds in the word body; in British English it is the sound as it appears in the word bard):

1.    ah……    (soft → loud)

Start softly and then gradually, and as smoothly as possible, increase your loudness. Remember, you are not trying to shout or scream but to create a contrast between a soft conversational voice (e.g. talking to someone just one meter away) and a louder conversational voice (e.g. talking to someone about three meters away). If it helps, imagine that there is a wire extending from your mouth that is tied to some object in a room about three meters away. As you increase your loudness, imagine that you are sending the sound along the wire to meet the object. This may help to create a mental image of projecting the voice across a short distance.

2.    ah……    (loud → soft)

This is the reverse of Exercise 1. As you are staring loudly this time, be careful that you do not use a hard attack when initiating the vocalization. Remember to use easy onset at all times. If you do find that you are hitting the vowel too harshly, simply put a short /h/ sound (as in the word house) before the vowel. This should help to bring the vocal folds together gently before they start to vibrate.

3.    ah……    (soft → loud → soft)

Doing this exercise gently and smoothly almost sounds a little like a car approaching you and then passing by and away – the engine is quiet to begin with, it gets louder as it approaches and then quiet again as it moves off into the distance.

4.    ah……    (soft → loud → soft → loud → soft ……)

This exercise sounds a little like an ambulance siren – alternating between soft and loud, soft and loud.

Repeat with different vowel sounds

When you have completed all four exercises repeat them again, this time using the following vowels:

oo    as in the word booed

oh    as in bode

aw    as in bawd

ay    as in bayed

ee    as in bead

Varying the loudness using numbers:

1.    Count and gradually increase the loudness

2.    Count and gradually decrease the loudness

3.    Count and increase the loudness on every 2nd number

4.    … on every 3rd number

5.    … on every 4th number

6.    … on every 5th number

NB: When performing the above counting exercises, you will need to divide up each utterance into manageable lengths – of a size that you can speak comfortably on one breath, without straining. For example, Exercise 1 requires you to count to 10. If your breath control is such that you cannot currently perform this exercise comfortably on one breath, then you can divide it into two – taking a breath after ‘5’. It is usually easier to replenish your breath supply after speaking a loud sound.

Projection using words and phrases:

In these exercises the idea is to sustain and project the voice by intoning words and phrases. This means that you exaggerate the vocalization of the vowel sounds by lengthening each vowel and continuing the voicing through the whole word. Imagine you are filling the room with a rich, resonant sound but be careful that you are not increasing the muscle tension in the head and neck area or in your general posture.

single words

1.   moon – moan – mourn – mane – mean

2.   mooning – moaning – morning – mining – meaning

3.   memory – minimum – marmalade – maneuver – manager

phrases

When speaking phrases, imagine that you are speaking just one long word and keep the vocalization going from the start of the phrase until its end. There should be an almost continuous voicing with no breaks between the words.

1.    many men munch many melons

2.    Mandy made marinade in May

3.    Major Mickey’s malt makes me merry

4.    my mom’s marvelous modern manicure

5.    Mervin Maclean’s mess marred my marmalade

References

Berry, D. (1990). Accuracy in social perception: Contributions of facial and vocal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 298-307.

Zuckerman, M.  and Driver, R.E.  (1989). What sounds beautiful is good. The vocal attractiveness stereotype. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 13, 67-82.

Zuckerman, M.  Hodgins, H. and Miyake, K. (1990). The vocal attractiveness stereotype: Replication and elaboration.  Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14, 97-112.

22

A Bumpy or Smooth Ride is Up to You: The Magic of Good Transitions

Transitions

Taking your speech making from surviving a speech to thriving as a speechmaker is a big deal One of the things that helps you make this step is planning your transitions. Transitions can be one word, a phrase, or a full sentence.

Bridging Techniques  https://westsidetoastmasters.com/article_reference/bridge_the_gap-speech_transitions.html

Transition techniques can be divided into two categories: four techniques that pull the audience along, and three that push. Transition words or phrases are the most common pulling technique. These include:

first

next

finally

also

in addition

besides

just as important

still

these include

likewise

sometimes

on the other hand

even so

however

that’s why…

an example is …

speaking of…

reminds me of…

what a contrast that is to …

meanwhile, back at the ranch …

Westside Toastmasters break transitions into those that push the audience and those that pull the audience.

Pulling Techniques Include

Silence.

Keynote speaker John Chappelear suggests the use of silence occasionally.

“You may say something thought-provoking,” he says. “Without giving transition time, the audience will be back with that thought while you have moved on. The use of silence as a transition is powerful. But being able to stand silently in front of a large audience for 15-45 seconds requires practice.”

•Movement.

Gestures, like dipping the head when saying “Meanwhile…” or “that’s why…” emphasizes a transition.

“I think body movement is a great way to transition,” says Michaels. “If, for example, the speaker walks a few steps to the left, and lifts up his arm with the lifted index finger of the left hand, the audience cannot ignore that action. The movement carries the audience with him. A few steps over, a few steps back – use your space, and the audience will transition with you.”

Recap

In a long or complex speech, it’s important to remind listeners of the points you have covered before presenting new information.

Dixon offers an example: “Let’s say you have the five secrets of something. You’ve just finished talking about secret number three. Just before the transition you might say, “So what have we looked at so far? We’ve seen how…” and you say a sentence or two about numbers one and two. “Now let’s look at where this logically takes us….

One thing the brain really needs is a sense of order and pattern, Dixon continues. “The brain hears a topic being dealt with. As soon as the speaker says something like, ‘Let’s look at the three of this’ or ‘the four of that’ the listener’s brain whispers, ‘Oh, thank you! There’s going to be an outline here.”‘

“You set up their hopes but you have to satisfy them,” he continues. “So occasionally you have to say, 鮮ow, we’re still on number one.’ Then the audience feels like they’re being taken care of. Even though it’s basic, it still answers that part of us that asks, 糎here are we now? What did you just say?'”

Pushing Techniques Include

• Visual Aids. Something to look at creates expectations in the listeners. Pick up a stuffed snake or prop up a poster listing three points and all eyes will brighten.

• Questions. Ask a question to shift to the next point. “How much money did they lose?” you may wonder. The audience expects the next part of your speech to answer the question.

• Sequence. If you tell the audience to expect five of something, they’ll start counting.

Organizing The Order of Points

Beginning

- Let’s begin with…

- First, I’d like to share with you..

- Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…

- Our first stop is..

- I will first cover…

- My first point covers…

- To get started, let’s look at…

The Order of Things

- After that…

- Next…

- Second thing…

- Our next stop is…

- Let me tell you about your next step.

Between similar points

- In the same way…

- In addition…

- Likewise…

- Similarly…

Between disagreeing points

- Conversely…

- Despite this…

- The flip side of the issue…

- However…

- On the contrary…

- On the other hand…

- However …

- On the other side …

- Yet, we cannot ignore …

- The opposing argument …

- If we examine the opposite side, we see …

To show Cause-Effect Relationship

- Resulting in…

- As a result …

- Consequently …

- For that reason …

- The effect is…

Introduce an example

- This is best illustrated by an example…

- For instance…

- Take the case of…

- For example…

- Let me illustrate this by…

Cause and effect

You will have to transition to show relationships between factors:

- Therefore…

- Thus…

- Consequently…

- As a result…

- This is significant because…

- Hence…

Elaboration

- Also…

- Besides…

- What’s more…

- In addition/additionally…

- Moreover…

- Furthermore…

Transition to a demonstration

- Let me show you how this works…

- Let me demonstrate this…

- Now that we’ve covered the theory, let’s see it in action …

Introducing Your Visual

- As you can see from this chart…

- I’d like you to notice that…

- The table indicates…

Signaling the End is Near

- In conclusion

- To recap…

- I’d like to leave you with…

- Finally, I’d like to say…

- The take away from all of this is…

Moving to the Next Speaker

It is best to recap your main points before going to the next speaker. “I told you about the ost credilbite theoories about climate change, now John will share with you some examples of what you can do. ”

- I’m going to turn it over to Malachi, who will take you through the next few points.

- Next, Angie will come up and talk about…

https://franticallyspeaking.com/effective-speech-transitions-how-to-make-your-speech-flow/

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-transitions/

Want to learn more?

For more on mastering team presentations, read How to Deliver Group Presentations: The Unified Team Approach.

Just so you know, I went to many transition websites and combined the lists for what I presented here.

- ______________________

- https://www.uccs.edu/communicationcenter/sites/communicationcenter/files/inline-files/CreatingEffectiveTransitionStatements%281%29.pdf

- Revised/Updated: August 2017 Approved by: ENA
Adapted from: Allgood, E., & Ebersole, T. (Eds.). (2017). COMM 2100 public speaking: A workbook for student success.
Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press.
Creating Effective Transition StatementsDugan, A. (2013, August 26). Speech Transitions: magical words and phrases. Retrieved from
http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-transitions/

- I

https://virtualspeech.com/blog/speech-transitions-words-phrases

23

Taking It To The Next Level, The Rule of Threes

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/rule-of-three-speeches-public-speaking/

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Charts and Stats

Stats

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II

Speeches

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Let Me Persuade You

Persuasion

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Make one Like this

26

Career Speech

A very excited college senior came to me and said, “Dr. Meade, I have the opportunity of a lifetime, will you please, help me?” She went on to tell me that she was a finalist for a very prestigious internship with a major magazine in New York. They were flying her out at the end of the month where she and three other finalists would each make a 3-5 minute presentation. The prompt was, “Tell us about yourself.”  Her dream internship hung in the balance of a three minute speech. That was a lot of pressure.

I desperately wanted to help, so I  looked up examples of how to do such a speech, and came up empty.  I couldn’t let her down, so I pulled my resources from career centers, my knowledge as a speech teacher, and my background as a teacher of persuasion, and created a template for her. It worked– She got the internship! Not long after, another student was headed for a three day interview with a firm in Houston.  This time, they sent him three Power Point slides, one of these read “Summarize the accomplishment of your life so far” I showed him how to apply the principles we used before–he got the job.

There are many ways that employers determine which person is the right candidate for a particular position. You are likely familiar the cover letters, resumes, and interviews, however, there are two newer ways that require public speaking.

1. Applicants submit a 3-5 minute video clip that is submitted with their resume

2. Applicants are asked to make a presentation as part of a second or third interview.

I like to think of this as one of the most important speeches. Most of you will spend 4-5-6 years in college and this is the speech that can make it all work for you. Think about it, you may have spent three hours making a study guide for an exam that you spent at least six hours studying for. If you will spend ten hours for one paper or one test for a class, shouldn’t you spend considerable amount of time and thought on a speech that will make all those other hours spent studying work for you?

Let’s begin with a few examples of what this speech “looks like.”

Example from a Student

E-MAIL FROM A STUDENT:

I learned a ton last semester and I have my first chance to put your teachings to work in a real world situation. I recently interviewed with a company (XXX Oil Services) and what do you know I got called back for another interview! They are flying me out to Houston and they will holding interviews over two days. Part of the requirements for the interview process is that I give a speech that is 5-7 minutes long. Here is a little sample of the e-mail they have sent me and I have attached a short Powerpoint guideline that they have sent as well:

Student Presentations
As part of the interview process on Friday, March 2nd, you are required to do a 5 – 7 minute presentation about your life accomplishments. Please review the attached PowerPoint for details and bring your presentation on a flash drive to your interview.

Please prepare a presentation (5-7 minutes) in which you

- Summarize the accomplishments of your life so far,

- Explain what your goals are and

- Demonstrate that you are the ideal candidate for XXX Oil Services

Example from a Human Resource Manager

These are my thoughts on the oral resume. We give candidates 30 minutes to prepare for the exercise, but we have already informed the candidates that they should put together an oral resume presentation ahead of time.  That is to say, a few weeks prior to the assessment center I meet with the candidates and tell them that they will have this exercise.  They should put together a presentation of about 8 minutes in length that presents their qualifications for the job.  I typically emphasize that a simple listing of every course they’ve ever taken or every certification they hold is not very effective.  Instead, they should focus on how both their educational and experiential backgrounds have contributed to who they are, how they perform in their current position, and how they will perform in their promoted position. During the 30 minute preparation period, candidates are given the instructions that tell them they will have 8 minutes for their initial presentation on their resume (this time varies depending on the overall length of the exercise and may be as long as 15 minutes), and the remaining 12 minutes (or longer depending on the overall length of the exercise) will be devoted to answering the interview questions which are presented to them on the next page.  Typically, for a 12 minute answer period, we would provide them 4 interview questions. We inform them both during the candidate orientations and the instructions that the assessors will be asking follow up questions.  I believe this is an essential aspect of a good oral resume and a good assessment center.  I encourage follow up questions from the assessors.  So often it is not the initial response that is revealing but rather the candidate’s rationale behind the decision that is so important in evaluating the candidate.

Example from a Career Services Specialist

I interviewed Renee Clay Director for Career Services and Students Programs, Walton Career Services and she said that companies are asking students to give speeches at follow up interviews. She said she has even encountered situations where they ask applicants to give a ten minute speech on a topic of their choice.

What does this look like in the “Real World”?

- Companies are using career speech by asking applicants to give a speech with the prompt: Why are you a good fit for this company?

- Religious groups (Mostly Christian Churches) are using career speeches by asking the applicants to give a speech with the prompt: What is your ministry philosophy?

- Educational groups are asking future teaches to give a career speech by asking: Show us a lesson plan and talk us through the pedagogy.

- Not for Profits are using this career speech by asking applicants to give a speech with a prompt: Tell us how your ideal align with out mission statement.

- Internships are using career speeches by asking applicant to give a career speech with prompts such as the following: What do you hope to get out of this internship

Now that you know, what employers are asking, let’s get started on building the speech.

Step One: Learn Everything You Can About the Company Who Is Hiring.

All good speeches begin with knowing your audience. Start with the job posting and write down the specific things they say they are looking for. What are the specific skills, what values are represented, what can you learn about the company from what they say about themselves in the job posting?  Go to the company’s mission and values statement and add it to your research. If it is a larger company, look at the individual division and research their mission and purpose. If you are a college student, check with the career services office and see what information they know about the company. Many career service groups actually keep databases on major companies and what they look for in candidates, who they know are alums, and what are the most frequently asked questions about the group.

You main goal is to know the company so that you can make direct references to them in your speech and to pull out the core competencies that they are looking for in a candidate so that you can include them in your speech.

Research the company so you can match your strengths to what they are looking for in an employee.

Step Two: Brainstorm What You Have to Offer

They liked your resume, they interviewed you, and now they are inviting you back to see if you are a good fit for the company. At this point, it doesn’t benefit you to reread your resume to them.  You are qualified or they wouldn’t ask you back for another interview. Now, they are trying to decide if they LIKE you and if you would make them look good because they hired the right candidate. If they hire you, they are going to have to work with you on a regular basis. They may have lunch with you and go to company parties with you. If you don’t work out, they are going to have to pick up the slack. They want to like you enough to spend time with you and they want to know that you will pull your weight in the company.

You goal is to be MEMORABLE, LIKABLE, and to DEMONSTRATE that you have characteristics that they  NEED. In order to do that, you need take a good, hard look at what you have to offer and I’m not talking about your previous jobs or even your GPA, they already know that. What sets you apart from people with similar (or more) experience? There are many ways to take the deep dive, but it takes time and you have to be willing to take to fully explore.

1. Take Personality, Leadership, and Career Assessment Tests

I suggest, you do a version of the Myers Briggs, Jung Typology. http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality.   (I could write an entire chapter on how a test can never tell you who you are, and I could debate the validity of most of these tests, but that won’t be necessary, because the way that I have you use it, it will be valuable.) What is helpful about using personality test results is that you can use them to brainstorm attributes about you that you may not have considered. Once you get your results, cut and paste them into a document and  highlight everything that you think that really applies to you that might be of value to the employer. For example, when I look up my type not everything fits, but what does fit is the line that says, that my type is creative and likes to come up with original solutions. Let’s work with that for now. If I am trying to think of attributes that stand out about me, my creativity and ingenuity might be something that I want to highlight. I would check that attribute against what the company looks for and if it is something that the position would require, then I might decide to develop that. I will write that on my list of possible things to focus on–CREATIVITY and INGENUITY. Take a variety of tests that you can find. Consider taking a leadership test and a personality test. If you have access to Strengths quest, take that one too. Use what you learn from these test to complete a worksheet of your strengths.

2. Ask Your Friends, Family, and Coworkers.

Find those who know you and ask them a series of questions. Resist the temptation to disagree or defend when they share, just listen and write the responses.

What could I bring to ___ company?
Why would someone hire someone like me?
What would set me apart from other candidates?
What do you think is my strongest attribute?

3. Figure Out What Gets You Up in the Morning

One career advisor that I interviewed said that they ask students to think about, “What gets you up in the morning?” The goal is to think about what your unique story is and why you want to be a part of the company’s story. Figure out your “why.”

Step Three: Match Your Strengths to What The Company Needs

Now comes the deep thinking. Look at some of the words that came out from your tests and your friends. Look at what special qualities that you have to offer. How can you match those with what the company is looking for? How do they relate to the core competencies that the company needs.  Try to find three strengths that you possess that they will want.

Think about if for a minute. Most of the main interview questions can be answered with “these are my three strengths.”

- Tell me about yourself. These are the strengths that set me apart.

- Why you should I give you the job over someone else? These are the strengths that set me apart.

- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? These are the strength that set me apart and where they will take me.

- Why do you think you are a good fit for the company? These are the strengths that make me a good fit.

- What is your leadership style. These are the strengths that make me this type of leader.

Most of the time, you can develop your career speech by highlighting your main strengths (the ones that align with their needs).

Step Four: Develop Your Strengths Into a Narrative

Let’s face it. Most of the time, the answers people give whether in interview or speech form are boring, they lack substance, and they sound like a form letter. “I am a people person who demonstrates good customer service. I believe in hard work and ….bla, bla, bla.” Meaningless words that bounce off the ears. Nothing memorable here.

If you want to be remembered, tell a story. First, start with your attribute. I had a student who said he was hard-working and wanted to highlight that. He was worried because he didn’t have any “real” work experience. Once we brainstormed, he realized that he spent every summer on his grandpa’s cattle farm. He was out mending fences before the sun rose and many days he would work until dark. He said, “Cows don’t care what day of the week it is.” Now that was something we could work with. He told a story about how his grandfather taught him to work hard and how it was a family legacy to take pride in the work was done–hard work was a badge of honor. By the time he was done with his story, I would have hired him for just about anything because I was convinced that he would give it his all. By story proved that he was a hard worker. It was a story we could remember.

The added benefit is that stories make us feel something. When your story is done, they should know more than just the attribute that you want them to know about you, they should feel something about you. This feeling will cause them to have a “gut feeling” about you–be sure to make it a good one. (I’m not dismissing logic here…it was the hard facts on your resume and from your interview that put you here and your speech should certainly contain facts.)

Speaking of the next day. Anytime you are applying for a position, you have to consider the people who are hiring you may have to do interviews all day. Get into their heads. They need to hire someone–that’s why you are there. The fact that they need to hire someone means that there may be work that is not getting done. Maybe, they are having to do extra work until you are hired. Maybe, this is a new position and they are hoping to make changes in the company once they get someone hired. The fact that they are hiring, often means that they have a lot going on and they are eager to get it going but cautious that they need to find the right person. In addition, to meeting with you, they have to do their own job, answer their own emails, deal with customers or coworkers, and figure out what to make for dinner. They may even have to coach the soccer team or volunteer at the foodbank.  You get it– they are busy. Make it easy for them to listen. Be interesting. Don’t waste their time.

Imagine when you are writing this speech that in addition to listening to you, they have to listen to at least three other speeches. Imagine that after hearing all these speeches that they are going to do their job, go home and do their home time, listen to the news on the way to work,  and then come back 24 hours later to make their decision. The question is….will they remember you? If you only said, “I’m hardworking,” then probably not. If you told them a story that proves you are hardworking, they will remember your story, remember you, and they might even tell someone about this speech that they heard.

Now, back to telling a story. It can be one big story that hits on the three strengths that you want them to remember or it can be three stories–one for each strength. I once had a student who took the three main ideas from the company’s mission statement and told one story how she exemplified each of those. It was very direct and very audience centered and she used that speech to start a new career with her dream company right out of college.

When you are done with your speech, any person who heard the speech should be able to say what your three attributes were and retell most of your story. You need to refine your speech and test this out on others. Have them listen to your speech and see if they can tell you what those three attributes were.

Step Five: Begin Strong

The very first sentence of your speech should be powerful. You should pluck that sentence out and you should test it on a trusted friend or mentor. Each word in that sentence should be intentional. Soon after that strong first sentence should be your name. You want them to link the strength of those words with your name.

I didn’t chose teaching, teaching chose me.  When I came home from kindergarten, I set up school in the back yard and taught the neighborhood kids their ABC’s. I guess you could say, I’ve always been a teacher. Good morning, my name is Lynn Meade, and I want to tell you why I am a good fit for the teaching position. As a teacher, I am enthusiastic, innovative, and encouraging and I would like to demonstrate those attributes to you today.

The regional manager flew into Northwest Arkansas to meet with me. He flew in so he could ask me face to face how my sales strategy resulted in 12% increase in computer sales. He brought with him a team that was ready to listen.  My name is Bob Smith and I would like to share with you what three things I shared with them that day.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams.  I believe this quote summarize my leadership philosophy that I want to share with you today. Good morning my name is Frankie Lane and I would like to tell you how this quote defines my leadership style and why I am a good fit for made up company.

Not only should that first sentence be written to have impact, it should be delivered well. Memorize your opening. Know it so well that you could recite it easily. Practice it in the car, practice it in the shower, practice it while talking to your pet.  Resist the temptation to start with “ok so” or “um.” You have been working up to this speech all your adult life, you spent hours studying for tests, writing papers, and completing assignments to you could get to this moment. You owe it to yourself to put in the work and to make this speech work for you.

Step Six: Present the Total Package

Your speech begins the moment they see you. Your “speech” begins whether you are speaking or not. I once worked for a firm that would have candidates wait in a waiting room before the interview. The administrative assistant would offer them water while they waited. Little did the job candidate’s know that the assistant was taking notes on their behavior in the waiting room. Were they polite when offered a drink, were they poised while in the waiting room, were they prepared? I’ve even heard of companies who have someone look out the window at a person’s car to see if it is clean. After all, it does little good to say you pay attention to details and drive up in a dirty car.

Potential employers will be sizing you up immediately. Are you dressed properly. Are your shoes clean?   Are you sitting attentively? Are you preoccupied with your phone in the waiting room? Are you walking with confidence? Are you picking your nails? Are you listening respectfully or just waiting for your turn? Everything you do or say that it is in view of someone in the company is part of this interview and part of your credibility as a speaker.

In nonverbal communication terms, trappings are those artifacts that enact stereotypes–a stethoscope around the neck means the person is a doctor or nurse, a briefcase means the person is a business professional.  It will benefit you to consider how the artifacts you have with your will be cause your audience to think about you.  Think about the difference between a sports watch and a fancy watch and the message it sends. Depending on the job, one may be preferred. For example, I had a student who researched the group she was interviewing with and realized that high fashion handbags seemed to be important. She borrowed a friends’ name brand bag and then was delighted when someone in the group commented about it in the interview meeting. She wrote me a message afterwards that said, “They hired me over other candidates who had higher GPA’s and more experience and I think it is because I researched them so well that I knew what they were looking for and I really think my bag helped close the deal.” It is worth noting that many career specialists suggest not carrying a bad–in this situation it was an intentional decision based on her research.

Dress the part. Research the standard dress for the organization. Be cautious however, because they may wear athleisure wear to work each day but they expect job candidates to wear a suit for interviews. As a college student, you have a big advantage because you likely have a career center that keeps records of the clothing suggestions for interviewing and many will even have places that will loan you professional clothing items for interviews.  Shoes are also  very important. I highly suggest you research the right type of shoe for the situation and you buy new ones. Yes, it may be an expensive item, but so was your education. Time and time again human resources directors and career specialist tell me that the way that people know whether you pay attention to important details is to look at your shoes.

Handshake Matters

Having a good handshake is very important. In American business, it is expected that you will shake hands with the interviewer and key members of the group. Several things go into a good handshake. First is the condition of your hand.  You should have neatly manicured nails and clean hands. If you are prone to have sweaty hands, it is a good idea to keep a napkin in your pocket to wipe your hand on before you shake.

Next, the grip. When you reach for someone’s hand, you should open your hand wide enough that the web of skin between your pointer finger and thumb is aiming for the web of their hand. This prevents the finger grab handshake. Hands should be so neither person’s hand is on top. Pump your hand two to three times.  When you shake hands, try to say the person’s name and something nice. “Mr Jackson, I am so glad to have the opportunity to talk with you today. ”

Nonverbal research suggests that when you shake hands with someone that it gives them a positive feeling (as long as it is an appropriate handshake). When you attach that handshake with their name, you activate even more positive feelings.  (Source + Develop Idea)

Other research suggests that other people in the room who see you give a nice handshake will get positive feelings about you. (Source+ Develop Idea)

Step Seven: Refer to the Company Throughout

Remember that this is not a speech about your, it is a speech about them and where you can fit in with their mission and focus. Because of this, it is important to talk about the company in your speech. “As I was researching your company, I came across a headline that said you were developing one of the largest interactive art displays in the area. As a consumer of outdoor art, I…” or “Your organizations commitment to the environment is inspiring. I became active in enviromental issue as part of a collegewide initiative…”

Step Eight: Practice Your Speech

So you have researched the company and decided on how to present yourself.  Make yourself brief notecards outlining your presentation and begin practicing. You need to practice your speech enough that you could say most of it without notes. Memorize the opening and the closing because those can be the most difficult parts and tend to be the places where the audience is most likely to build impressions of you. If you are required to use  presentation slides, be sure to practice with your slides and perfect the timing.

In addition to practicing by yourself, you should practice your speech in front of a trusted professional and ask them for honest and detailed feedback. You should also record your speech and watch it as if you were the hiring team. Oftentimes, I will draw a smiley face on a piece of paper and put a name under it President of the company, and then another with a smiley face and a name, future co-worker. When you practice,  tape your smiley audience around the room and speak to them directly, “The director of development will be happy to know that I have successfully…”

Step Nine: End Strong.

The very last sentence is where you “seal the deal. ”

Example from a Career Speech

SPEECH OPENING

A job isn’t just a job. It’s who you are. I’m Kelsey Gomez, and today, I’m not going to tell you why I think I’m best suited for this job—I know I am. Instead, I’m here to prove to you that this isn’t just a job to me, it’s a position that I feel best brings out what I was born to do in life. Company’s Name is working to make America a better place to be a child and raise a family.  To do this, a person needs to have passion, strong communication skills, enthusiasm to learn and gain experience, and the flexibility to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment—and here’s how I possess all of these qualities.

BODY

She told 3 stories to prove her attributes

SPEECH CLOSING

My whole life, I never dreamed of success—I worked for it.  I did this by helping others, educating myself, and handling everything that came my way with poise and determination. A job isn’t just a job, it’s who you are. And, who I am is a passionate, flexible, and driven person who yearns to make a difference in people’s lives.  The best way to predict the future is to create it.  And I believe, if you hire me, Company’s Name and I can create something worthwhile.

RANDOM STUFF TO RESEACH AND POSSIBLY INCLUDE

First 30 Seconds Count The Most

What you do and say in the first 30 seconds will make the most impact. Psychological research shows that listeners form opinions about your personality and intelligence in the first 30 seconds of the interview. So be sure to start with a compelling opening, framing exactly how you want to be perceived.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/07/first-impressions-snap-decisions-impulse

Thin Slice

Try To Appear Similar to the Interviewer

Lauren Rivera, a professor from Kellogg School, came to the conclusion that interviewers tend to hire “people like them”.

Even the top human resource management folks fall for this bias and tend to base their evaluations on how similar a candidate is to them, instead of trying to decide whether the

Other research has focused on the outcomes in the domain of job recruitment. First impressions significantly predict employers’ behavioral tendencies during job interviews as well as their ultimate recruitment decisions (Barrick, Swider, & Stewart, 2010; Swider, Barrick, & Harris, 2016). Specifically, employers tend to ask questions that confirm their first impressions about the candidates and treat them in ways that are consistent with such impressions (Snyder & Swann, 1978). If their initial impressions of the candidates are positive, employers show a higher tendency to “sell” the job by providing information to the candidates about the job rather than gathering information from them (Dougherty, Ebert, & Callender, 1986; Dougherty, Turban, & Callender, 1994). In turn, employers’ warmer behaviors typically elicit warmer behaviors from the candidates (e.g., Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid, 1977), and thus the employers’ initial positive impressions about the candidates are validated. Importantly, however, even in cases when a job candidate performs in ways that disconfirm employers’ first impressions, employers may fail to assess the candidate’s performance accurately, preventing them from changing their first impressions accordingly. Research has shown that this might be due to high levels of self-regulation on behalf of the interviewers (Nordstrom, Hall, & Bartels, 1998). Therefore, reducing cognitive demands in an interview context by using scripted questions or having third-party observers evaluate the interview process might be effective in fostering accurate impressions and judgments of a job candidate.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/studying-first-impressions-what-to-consider

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/how-to-make-a-video-resume

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

According to Walton College of Business Career Services, some of the most common interview questions that you should prepare for when going into an interview are as follows.

- Tell me about yourself.

- What interests you most about this job?

- Why did you choose your major/degree?

- What do you know about our company?

- Tell me about a time when you managed a team project?

- Give me an example of working with a difficult customer/client?

- Give me an example of when you failed.

- Tell me a time when you felt you like you were a success.

- What is your greatest strength/weakness?

- Why should I hire you?

- Tell me about a time when you exhibited leadership skills.

Be a Star

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://uark.pressbooks.pub/speaking/?p=647

References

Barrick, M. R., Swider, B. W., & Stewart, G. L. (2010). Initial evaluations in the interview: Relationships with subsequent interviewer evaluations and employment offers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 1163–1172. doi:10.1037/a0019918

Renee Clay Director for Career Services and Students Programs, Walton Career Services. Personal Interview. November 22, 2020.

Dougherty, T. W., Turban, D. B., & Callender, J. C. (1994). Confirming first impressions in the employment interview: A field study of interviewer behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 659–665.

Interviewing Skills. Walton College of Business Website. https://walton.uark.edu/career/students/interviewing.php

Image Credit

Handshake: Creative Common License

Star: Creative Common License http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

Video Credit

Ten Behavioral Based Interview Questions with Examples Using the Star Method. by Mock Questions. Standard YouTube licensee.

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Special Topics

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When World's Collide: Freedom of Speech and Diversity, Inclusion, and Political Correctness

https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/constitutive-communication-introduction-and-case-study-campus-identity

Constitutive Communication and controversial camus speakers

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