Public Speaking Course

Course Outline
First Lecture: Overview of Public Speaking
What is Public Speaking?
Public Speaking is the process or act of performing a presentation focused
around an individual’s direct speech to a live audience in a structured,
deliberate manner to inform, influence, or entertain them.

Stage Fright
Stage Fright is anxiety over the prospect of speaking in front of an audience. A
little bit of stage fright is a good thing, it keeps us alert.

What Makes Us Nervous?

1. Fear of humiliation
2. Being unprepared
3. Pressure to perform

How to Reduce Speech Anxiety

1. Acquire more experience
2. Prepare as much as possible
3. Think positively
4. Select an appropriate topic
5. Focus on your message
6. Channel nervous energy into gestures, movement, and/or a visual aid

Positive Nervousness
Good speakers are able to control their nervousness, helping to focus and
energize themselves for their presentation.

7 Greatest Fears of Communication

1. Public Speaking
2. Speaking in a meeting or class
3. Meeting new people
4. Talking to authority
5. Important exams or interviews
6. Parties
7. Talking to Strangers
Second Lecture: Speech Organization
Organizing the Speech
Main points are the series of major points developed in the body of the speech.
They are separated into different points through logical divisions such as
different topics, reasons, specific steps, etc.
There are five major speech organizational patterns:
1. Chronological
2. Topical
3. Spatial
4. Cause & Effect
5. Problem & Solution

Connectives
Connectives are words or phrases that link main points together in the
speech, improving flow and understandability.
1. Transitions indicate the speaker has finished one thought and is
moving on to another.
2. Internal Previews are statements in the body of a speech indicating
what the speaker will discuss next.
3. Internal Summaries are statements in the body of a speech
summarizing previous points made by the speaker.
4. Signposts are brief statements showing where the speaker is focusing
their attention and indicating key ideas.

Introductions
Introductions have four components, each with its own specific purpose.
1. Attention Getters function to grab the audience’s attention, creating
relevance and interest in the topic. Some types of attention getters are:
a. Anecdote
b. Startling Fact or Action
c. Quotes
d. Humor
e. Question
f. Personal Experience
g. Reference to Recent Events
 h. Activity
The most commonly used type of attention getter is a question, usually
proposed to the audience as “by a raise of hands, who…”. If you want your
speech to stand out, try something different!
2. Establish Credibility
The effectiveness of your speech depends on whether or not the
audience believes in your credibility as a speaker on your topic.
Establish credibility by showing your audience that you have a
connection to your chosen topic and that you have the best interests of
the audience in mind.
3. Relate to Audience
Why should the audience care? Connect your topic to the audience and
create relevancy, explain why your topic matters and is important on a
broad scale.
4. Preview Statement
Tell the audience what you’re going to talk about in your speech in a
very brief way, so that they know what to expect.

Conclusions
Conclusions also have four components, each with a specific purpose.
1. Transitional Signal
Let your audience know that you’re done giving them new information.
Most people use “in conclusion” or “overall” to end their speech, so if you
want your speech to stand out, be more creative here!
2. Reinforce & Summarize
Briefly summarize the main points of your speech and reinforce the
central idea.
3. Call to Action
This is where you motivate your audience to respond to your speech. If
this is not a persuasive speech, be very brief here! You want your
audience to do something with the information that you’ve given them,
but unless the goal of your speech is to persuade them, then you’re not
trying to convince them of anything here. A simple suggestion is fine.
4. Memorable Ending
You want to stand out from the crowd! End your speech with a bang with
 one of these options, but don’t use the same one as your introduction
unless you do it intentionally.
a. Quotes
b. Humor
c. Anecdote
d. Question
e. Reference to Introduction
f. Appeal to Action

IF YOU ARE EVER A KEYNOTE SPEAKER some other things are important!
Make sure to note the physical setting of the speech, including the weather,
the time of day, the temperature, the age of the building, etc. Work this into
your introduction along with gratitude for the person who invited you. Make
sure to arrive early to inspect the room, and alter your speech if need be. If you
are not the first/only speaker, reference the speaker who came before you to
provide some continuity!

TAKE NOTE OF DEMOGRAPHICS when presenting a speech! You want your

speech to be relevant to the audience as much as possible. Try to take note of:
1. Age
2. Gender or Sex
3. Sexual Orientation
4. Religion
5. Group Membership
6. Racial/Ethnic/Cultural Background

Topics
The first step of speech making is choosing a topic. Usually, the speech topic is
determined by the occasion, the audience, and the speaker’s qualifications.
There are two major types of topics that will determine how you do your
research:
1. Topics you know a lot about
2. Topics you want to learn more about
Keep in mind what kind of topic you have and how it will affect your speech
writing process!
Analyzing the Audience
The speaker should seek to create and emphasize common bonds with the
audience through values, goals, experiences, and demographics. Remember
that people are egocentric! They are concerned with their own beliefs, values,
and well being above all else, so play into that in your speech. Identifying the
general demographics of your audience can help a lot with that.

General & Specific Purpose

In general, speeches fall into one of two categories: Informative & Persuasive.
During an informative speech, presenters need to act as a teacher or lecturer
to convey information accurately, clearly, and in an interesting and
compelling way. During a persuasive speech, presenters need to act as an
advocate or politician to convince the audience or change their attitudes.
The specific purpose of a speech varies. In COMM 111, it is a single infinitive
phrase that states precisely what the speaker hopes to accomplish in their
speech.
Third Lecture: Supporting Material and
Visual Aids
There are four major types of supporting material in speeches.
1. Examples engage the mind’s eye, increase interest, and function mostly
to connect or relate to the audience. Examples should be relevant to the
audience! There are three types of examples:
a. Brief
b. Extended
c. Hypothetical - These examples must be realistic and paired with
statistics
2. Statistics add numbers to support speeches, and are best used
sparingly and with emphasis. Statistics must be from reliable sources,
quantify ideas, and clearly cited by the speaker.
3. Testimony must be relevant to the topic, and is either peer or expert
testimony. Be sure to cite quotations.
4. Analogies help listeners who may be unfamiliar with the topic to
understand the speaker’s ideas by connecting something known to the
audience to the unknown topic through comparisons.

Adding a visual aid to a speech has many advantages, and can set one speech
apart from others. While not an exhaustive list, visual aids can increase
speech clarity, audience interest, retention, credibility, and persuasiveness.
Some examples of visual aids are:
1. Objects
2. Models
3. Another Person
4. Drawings
5. Graphs
6. Charts
7. Videos
8. The Speaker
9. Multimedia Presentations
 10. Photographs - These must be used carefully. Be sure to use enlarged,
high quality photographs if possible, and show the audience using a doc
cam or multimedia presentation.

INFORMATIVE SPEECHES
These speeches are designed to convey knowledge or understanding. They
should be accurate, clear, and meaningful. DO NOT PERSUADE. There are four
types of informative speeches:
1. Object based informative speeches describe something that is visible
and tangible. An example of this object should be present and easily
seen. Object based informative speeches often use chronological or
topical organization.
2. Process based informative speeches describe a systematic series of
actions that lead to a specific result or product. Visual aids are very
helpful here! Be sure to determine whether the goal of this type of
speech is to explain or teach. These speeches typically use chronological
organization.
3. Event based informative speeches describe any kind of occurrence,
either past, present, or hypothetical. These speeches are typically
chronological or topical.
4. Concept based informative speeches are usually the most complex, and
can be difficult to write and present effectively. These speeches convey
information concerning beliefs, themes, principles, or any other
abstract subject that does not fall under objects, processes, or events.
Fourth Lecture: Delivery
Delivery is the most important aspect of a speech. Without effective delivery,
the audience will lose interest, and the speaker will lose credibility. Audiences
will always believe what they see, so be sure to use emotions wisely to connect
with the audience and increase interest. There are four different ways to
deliver a speech:
1. Manuscript - This is a word-for-word reading of someone else’s speech,
usually a famous speech.
2. Memorized - This is a completely memorized speech, where the
speaker knows their speech by heart and does not use notecards.
3. Impromptu - This is when a speaker is given little to no preparation
time for their speech, and must use only the information that they
already know.
4. Extemporaneous - This is when a speaker has notecards for their
speech, but for the most part improves and improvises on the spot.
These speeches often sound the most natural, and are improved
immensely by a positive attitude and a good sense of humor.

Characteristics of Effective Delivery

1. Eye Contact - Well established in the introduction, increases credibility
2. Gestures
a. Repeating
b. Substituting
c. Complementing
d. Emphasizing
e. Regulating
f. Contradicting - Often not recommended
3. Movement - Helps to emphasize a paragraph’s message or direction and
immediacy, and invites interest
4. Posture / Stance - Communicates strength, confidence, and credibility
5. Facial Expressions - Expresses thought, emotion, and attitude, and
must be consistent with the message of the speech
6. Voice - One of the most important delivery tools, it extends the meaning
of words and connects with the audience through six major
components:
 a. Pitch
b. Pauses
c. Volume
d. Articulation
e. Pronunciation
f. Rate/Speed - this affects learning, interest, and memory of the
audience
7. Personal Appearance - enhances credibility and affects how the
audience responds to the speaker and their message
a. In general, the larger the audience, the more formal the dress

CITATIONS & SOURCES

For COMM 111, there is a minimum of four for the informative speech.
Citations must be made in three different places:
1. Orally, in the speech - mention name, date, and credential
2. In Text, in the outline - represent author and date somehow, preferably
MLA or APA
3. Works Cited page - MLA or APA required
If relevant to the quotation, add a page number.

IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING
Listening is defined as paying attention to and making sense of what you are
hearing. More than 60% of errors made in business come from poor listening
skills! Good public speakers are also good listeners.
Four Types of Listening
1. Appreciative Listening
2. Empathic Listening
3. Comprehensive Listening
4. Critical Listening
Four Causes of Poor Listening
1. Not concentrating
2. Listening too hard
3. Jumping to conclusions
4. Focusing too much on delivery or personal appearance
Fifth Lecture: Methods of Persuasion
Persuasion is defined as creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or
actions. Persuasion involves intentionally encouraging any movement along
this chart by a listener.
Strongly Neutral Strongly
Opposed Opinion in Favor

Good public speakers use artistic proofs in their persuasive speeches.

1. LOGOS: logical connections
The speaker must state their case, and prove their case through strong
evidence and reasoning. Types of evidence are mostly restated from
types of supporting materials:
a. Facts
b. Examples - either true or hypothetical
c. Statistics
d. Testimony - either expert or peer
2. ETHOS: attitudes of the audience toward the speaker
Ethos is made up of both prior knowledge about the speaker and
demonstrated components of ethos made during the speech. A speaker
can improve their ethos through being well prepared and performing
good delivery. There are four components of ethos that speakers should
keep in mind:
a. Good Character - shows trustworthiness
b. Common Sense - shows competence
c. Goodwill - shows friendliness
d. Dynamism - shows charisma
3. PATHOS: states of emotion
Audiences often respond well to emotion, which are primarily made up
of three different types: pleasure/displeasure, arousal/non-arousal, and
dominance/powerlessness. [This is better described as happiness/anger,
excitement/fear, and power/powerlessness. These are states of
EMOTION.] There are four devices of pathos:
a. Use of language
b. Nonverbal behavior
 c. Visuals
d. Appeals to Needs and Values - Reference the
Hierarchy of Needs
[Photo from Simply Psychology]

PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
These speeches are designed to persuade the audience, as discussed above.
There are three organizational types used for persuasive speeches.
1. Problem/Solution
2. Refutation
3. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
a. Gain Attention
b. Establish Need
c. Satisfaction
d. Visualization
e. Call to Action
Sixth Lecture: Speaking to Persuade
When speaking to persuade, there are three different types of questions to
ask, and then persuade the audience on an answer.
1. Question of Fact
A claim about the truth or falsity of an assertion or interpretation of
fact.
2. Question of Value
A claim about the worth, rightness, morality, and so forth, of an idea or
action. These generally take the form of good/bad, right/wrong,
moral/immoral arguments, and are difficult to do well.
3. Question of Policy
A claim about whether or not a specific action should or should not be
taken. These arguments are future oriented, and can sometimes walk
the line between policy and value.

When speaking to persuade, the speaker must include reasoning in their

speech in order to persuade the audience. Reasoning is defined as the process
of drawing a conclusion on the basis of evidence through explaining and
making sense of the evidence. There are four general types of logical
reasoning, each of which has strengths and weaknesses with different
subjects.
1. Inductive Reasoning
Reasoning which moves from several particular facts to a general
conclusion. Often, this is studying a pattern and making general
predictions based on the pattern. For example, if the month of August
has consistently had hot weather in the past, inductive reasoning would
argue that the next month of August will be hot as well.
2. Deductive Reasoning
Reasoning which moves from a general conclusion to making
predictions from specific applications. The most common example is
this: Men are mortal (fact) + Socrates is a man (fact) = Socrates is mortal.
3. Causal Reasoning
Reasoning which looks for a cause and effect relationship between two
things. This can be difficult to do well, because correlation and
causation are very different things. Just because two things occur
 similarly and are correlated does not mean that one causes the other.
For example, one might make an argument that having good grades in
high school causes having good grades in college.
4. Analogical Reasoning
Reasoning which compares two similar cases and argues that what is
true for one case must be true for the other. For example, one might
make an argument that since many countries benefit from universal
healthcare, that the United States would as well.
* A Note: These examples are simply examples. I do not necessarily agree or
disagree with these example statements.

FALLACIES
One major thing that speech writers must look out for are fallacies, which are
errors in reasoning. These make poor arguments and are FALSE
INFORMATION.
1. Hasty Generalization
Drawing a broad conclusion on insufficient evidence.
For example: “My dad is a bad driver, so all men must be bad drivers.”
2. False Cause
Drawing a false cause and effect conclusion.
For example: “There were no nuclear weapons before women had the
right to vote, so therefore women caused the invention of nuclear
weapons.”
3. Red Herring
Presenting irrelevant information as a distraction.
For example: “How dare my political opponent accuse me of disliking
cats when I am an avid supporter of tennis?”
4. Ad Hominem
Attacking your opponent rather than addressing the issue at hand.
For example: “Religion is for the weak.” or “Women are too emotional.”
5. False Dilemma
Presents only two options during an argument and ignores the
existence of other options.
For example: “We can either get pizza or eat at home.”
C. Bandwagon
Assumes that if something is popular, then it must be a good thing.
 For example: “There’s nothing wrong with social media, everyone is
using it.”
7. Slippery Slope
Falsely argues that if one action is taken, then unavoidable events will
follow.
For example: “If you join a fraternity, then your grades will drop and you
will drop out of college.”
8. Invalid Analogy
Argues a false similarity between two completely different things.
For example: “People are like slinkies. Not exactly good for much, but it
sure brings a smile to your face when you push one down the stairs.”
D. Appeal to Tradition
Assumes that tradition is the best option, simply because it is tradition.
For example: “My mother always bought this brand of dish soap, so it
must be the best brand.”
10. Appeal to Novelty
Assumes that something new is the best option, simply because it is
new.
For example: “The new iPhone is the best phone ever.”

When determining how to argue a case in a persuasive speech, a speaker

needs to determine whether or not the audience already agrees with them,
and how much the audience knows about the subject already. Furthermore,
when it comes to receptivity, audiences may fall into one of three categories:
1. Receptive: Interested in the topic, potentially already agrees with the
speaker
2. Neutral: No strong feelings on the subject, possibly unaware of the issue
entirely and open to new ideas
3. Unreceptive: Disinterested, likely already is strongly opposed to the
speaker’s argument, sometimes hostile towards the speaker
The best practice for a persuasive speaker is to focus on persuading those in
the NEUTRAL category. However, here are some tips for persuading each
category:
1. Receptive Audience
a. Identify with the audience
b. Use emotional appeals effectively
 c. Make it easy for listeners to act
2. Neutral Audience
a. Refer to beliefs that many listeners share
b. Relate the topic not only to the listeners, but also to their families,
friends, and loved ones
c. Be realistic about what both they and the speaker can accomplish
3. Unreceptive Audience
a. Begin with areas of agreement
b. Acknowledge opposing views
c. Consider understanding as the goal of the speech rather than
advocacy and/or agreement

Always use artistic proofs to support your ideas!!

Seventh Lecture: Language
Language is very important to consider when writing a speech, especially
when it comes to cultural and comprehensive differences. Words can have
many different meanings. All words have a denotative meaning, which is the
exact, literal definition of a word or phrase. However, a speaker must also
consider the connotative meaning of a word or phrase, which is influenced by
the context of the rest of the speech, previous associations, emotions, and the
demographics of the audience. There are three big ways to use language more
clearly in a speech:
1. Use familiar words. Try to match the audience whenever possible, and
consider the demographics of the audience.
2. Use concrete words. These are designed to be specific and detailed, with
less connotative meanings.
3. Eliminate clutter. Remove verbal fillers such as “um”s, remove
unnecessary words, and reduce the number of adjectives in the speech.
Make sure that you as the speaker are using language appropriate to the
demographics and backgrounds of your audience, the occasion of the speech,
the topic of the speech, and your own background as the speaker.

There are two major ways to use language more vividly in a speech.
1. Imagery
a. Similes - explicit comparisons between two things
b. Metaphors - implicit comparisons between two things
c. Personification - giving human characteristics to something non
human
2. Rhythm
a. Parallelism - a pair of similarly arranged words, phrases, or
sentences that produce a sense of harmony
b. Anaphora - repetition of the first word in successive clauses or
sentences
c. Epistrophe - repetition of the last word in successive clauses or
sentences
d. Alliteration - repetition of sounds within the same 1-2 sentences
e. Antithesis - juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in parallel structure
Final Lecture: Special Occasions
Special occasion speeches are meant to celebrate life and accomplishment, in
many different ways depending on the scenario. Speeches should be well
delivered with appropriate language. They should be positive, honest, and
sincere, with humor if it is appropriate. Speakers should utilize concrete
details, personal references, and work to create feelings of closeness and
familiarity in their speech.
There are a few different major types of special occasion speeches:
1. Introduction Speeches
Designed to build enthusiasm and credibility about a person or topic,
and introduce and welcome the next speaker. This type of speech must
be brief, accurate, and adapted to the occasion, speaker, and audience.
2. Presentation Speeches
Designed to honor or praise the recipient of an award or gift. This type of
speech must explain both the award’s meaning and why the recipient is
receiving this specific award.
3. Acceptance Speeches
Designed to express gratitude for being chosen to receive an award or
gift, and express what the award means personally. This type of speech
must be humble and filled with gratitudes, generally towards the
presenter, organization, and anyone who aided in the choice made for
the recipient of this award.
4. Commemorative Speeches
There are multiple types of commemorative speeches, but in general,
they are meant to inspire the audience and/or pay tribute to someone or
something. They should be eloquent, warm, and emotional, and
designed to heighten admiration for someone or something.
a. Commencement - For graduations
b. After-Dinner - Informal, a toast for friends
c. Toast - Formal, a toast for a special event (like a wedding)
d. Eulogy - For funerals
e. Inaugural - For accepting a voted position
f. Dedication - For announcing a dedication