Public Speaking Chapter Six

Choosing a Topic:
- Commitment to a cause
- Reputation of knowledge
- Occasion
- A complex matter
- Analyze audience and choose a topic that will attract listeners
- Pick a topic first because it is important to you and then analyze the audience
- Choose your topic based on the situation that you are giving the speech in
Topic: the subject area of the speech
Picking a Good Topic:
- A good topic is one that matters to you
- Be careful that your own interest does not bias your speech
- Interest the audience
o Provide new information
o Offer a solution to a relevant puzzle or problem
o Connect what is unfamiliar to things they know
o Tell stories or experiences that will be similar to their own
o Sometimes their personal experience will weaken their ability to listen critically
- Worthy of the listener’s time
o Something worth hearing about
o Does not need to be extravagant or serious
o Must be worth their time and attention
- Appropriateness of Scope
o Cover a topic thoroughly in the time available
o Don’t use a lot of points in a short period of time
o Don’t use just a few points in a long period of time and over explain them
- Appropriateness of Delivery
o Some listeners may not be able to recall the speech
o Restate important parts so if it was missed the first time it can be caught
eventually
o Plan main ideas and examples carefully and present them clearly and most people
will understand the speech
- Appropriateness to the Situation
o Don’t address topics that are so widely known that you cannot bring anything new
to the table
- Clarity
o Make the topic clear to all listeners
o Failure to refine the topic will result in poorly connected ideas
o Be sensitive to the audience’s prior knowledge
- Personal Inventories
o What public issues do I care about?
§ Public issues are the ones the concern people generally
§ Be aware of current events and how they affect other people and yourself
o Which of my experiences might be generalizable?
 §
If an experience can be generalized into something that most people can
understand and relate to its probably a good topic
o Which of my interest overlap with those of the audience?
§ Determine what interests you may have in common
§ Break down the invisible wall between speaker and listener by relating to
them
Brainstorming:
- Do not censor your thoughts just record them
- Write whatever comes to mind first
- Topoi can be used to form the categories in the first place
- Be informed about current events to help brainstorm possible topics
- Narrow the topic
o Make the topic fit the situation and time allotted
o Focus on one part of the broader idea to increase clarity of the topic
o Time restrictions are the number one reason why speakers must narrow the topic
o You must be able to research enough before the speech is due, fulfill the
assignment, and can allude briefly to the general topic during the speech
o Resist the urge to procrastinate choosing a topic
Brainstorm: a mental free-association exercise in which one identifies, without evaluation, the
first thoughts that come to mind when one is presented with a given term or category
Topoi: common or typical categories for organizing subject matter
Developing a Strategic Plan:
- Plan how your speech will respond to the rhetorical situation
- Any speech will change the situation in some way, the change may be strategic not
random in order to reach the desired ending
- The strategic plan should identify the purpose of the speech, the constraints on it, and the
opportunities it provides
- The strategic plan will help you select the best means to achieve your purpose, execute
them, and evaluate the results
Strategic Planning: an identification of the objectives to be sought in a speech and the means
for achieving them
Identifying the Purpose:
- The purpose provides the criteria to see if the speech was successful or not
- Ceremonial speeches entertain but also celebrate shared values and strengthen
commitments to them
- Deliberative speeches explore what public policy should be
- Forensic speeches seek justice with respect to past events
Purpose: the outcome the speaker wishes to achieve, the response desired from the audience
Common Purposes:
- Providing new information or perspective
o Fill gaps by providing new information
o Get listeners to think about a topic from a different point of view
o Change perspectives about a topic might also change their beliefs and values
o Might make listeners think that the subject is more complicated than they believed
it to be before
Perspective: the point of view from which one approaches a topic
 - Agenda setting
o Causing people to think about a topic that they previously knew little about or
ignored
o The goal of the speech is to just draw attention to the topic
Agenda setting: causing listeners to be aware of and to think about a topic that previously had
escaped their attention
- Creating positive or negative feeling
o Sometimes the speaker just wants to leave the audience with a positive or
negative feeling about the speaker, topic, or occasion
o Many ceremonial speeches aim to evoke or strengthen common bonds by
reference to a shared event or experience
o The audiences general attitude is the measure of success instead of their belief or
action
- Strengthening commitment
o Speeches that are given to people that already are on the speaker’s side of the
topic, the speaker just wants them to be even more strongly committed
o Increasing the intensity of the listeners beliefs makes it more likely that they will
act upon their beliefs
- Weakening commitment
o Speakers also may want to reduce the intensity of the listeners commitment, not to
get them to change their belief but just to acknowledge some form of doubt
- Conversion
o To get the listeners to stop believing one thing and to start believing another
o Replacing one set of beliefs with another set that is inconsistent with the first
Conversion: the replacement of one set of beliefs by another one that is inconsistent with the
first
- Inducing a specific action
o This purpose is the most specific and the most pragmatic
o Speaker does not worry about the listener’s beliefs or values as long as they take
action after the speech (donation, voting, buying a product)
o The speaker may use widely different appeals because they do not care why the
listener took action they just want them to do something after the speech
o Use multiple appeals to gain the action of as many listeners as possible
Identifying the Constraints:
- Audiences in general
o Organize topics in an easy to follow structure, repeat them during the speech, and
phrase them simply
o Use interesting examples and words that will capture attention
o Show respect to the audience and recognize that they are the judges of the speech
- Audience analysis
o The analysis may tell you that some appeals are unlikely to succeed
- Ethos as a speaker
o Listeners will see you as competent, trustworthy, dynamic, energetic, and having
good will if you have a positive ethos
o Audience perception of character affect whether or not they be influenced by the
speaker
 o If the speaker’s ethos is negative, then they have the challenge of trying to change
or overcome it
- Nature of the topic
o Some topics constrain speakers more than others do
o The challenge is to plan strategies that evoke and heighten interest
- The rhetorical situation
o Every speech is a one-shot effort to influence the audience, but the occasions
where one speech changes someone attitude are few
o A speaker should never overestimate the effect that a single speech can have on
an audience
o The challenge is to be creative within the limits of the speech
Identifying the Opportunities
- The speaker has an information advantage over the listeners
- After giving the topic sustained attention the speaker can better awaken interest in the
topic, provide new information, and explain difficult concepts
- The audience analysis will tell you the specific composition of attitudes from your
listeners
- Almost any topic can be presented in different ways and there is no correct approach
- The audience analysis will enable the speaker to plan the strategies that are most likely to
succeed
Selecting the Means:
- Selecting the means that will be used to achieve the purpose of the speech
- How will you lead your audience in reasoning through to the conclusions you want to
establish?
- How will you structure the speech?
- What supporting materials will you use?
- What choices will you make about wording, emotional language, and repetition?
- How will you actually present the speech?
- Goal of strategic planning is to avoid accident and to design means that are the most
appropriate to achieve the purpose
The Purpose Statement:
- Describe the overall purpose of the speech, this is the general purpose statement
- Then from the general purpose statement develop a specific purpose statement
- The specific purpose statement specifies what the speech is attempting to achieve
- The specific purpose statement…
o Focuses on the audience rather than the speaker, identifies the outcome the
speaker seeks not how it will be achieved
o Summarizes a specific idea, speech will be more effective if the purpose can be
stated as a single idea
o Is precise and free of vague language, tells exactly what is attempted to be
achieved and determines whether or not the speaker succeeded
General purpose statement: statement of the overall goal of the speech
Specific purpose statement: statement of the particular outcome sought from the audience
The Thesis Statement:
- The thesis statement indicates what the speaker wants to put into the speech
 - Summarizes the speech into a single sentence that the speaker most wants the audience to
remember
- Occasionally the speaker does not state the thesis explicitly, this makes the audience have
to catch the implied thesis from the supporting ideas
- Students in public speaking class are encouraged to state the thesis explicitly
Thesis: the central idea or claim made by the speech, usually stated in a single sentence
Identifying the Issues:
- An issue is a question raised by the thesis statement that must be addressed in order for
the thesis to be addressed effectively
- Some thesis statements may seem straightforward but after asking questions seem vague
- Identifying issues allows speaker to determine what the speech may cover
- Allows speaker to direct their research
- Identifying issues may help modify the thesis and make it better
Issue: a question raised by the thesis statement that must be addressed in order for the thesis
itself to be addressed effectively