Public

Communication
Tamkeen Z Shah
Spring 2022
Overview
• Importance
• Various forms of public communication
• Dealing with stage fright
• The five steps of speech preparation
An indispensable skill
“The people who can stand up and give a talk stand out and are set apart from
other employees.”

• A skill that can be acquired

• Usefulness….
 In a position of leadership: As a class representative, head of the
student council, or president of a club, you are often called on to stand
up and speak to a group.
 As part of coursework: You may be asked to deliver a presentation on a
topic you have studied or researched on.
 As one of the soft skills required at the workplace.
Public speaking – various forms
• Speeches
• Impromptu
• Extemporaneous speech
• Scripted speech

• Presentations
(‘oral style’)
Impromptu Speech
Speech delivered with little or no preparation – “ad lib”, “on the spur of
the moment,” “speaking off the cuff”
1. Take a moment to collect your thoughts
2. Plan the main point you want to make.
3. Thank the person for inviting you to speak.
4. Deliver your message, making your main point briefly yet
adequately
5. Use a slow and deliberate rate of speech
6. Thank the person again for the opportunity to speak.
Extempore Speech
• The speaker is given some time to plan the content
• Delivered in a natural, conversational style
• Extemporaneous speech = “structured spontaneity”
• Appears to be spontaneous but requires a lot of preparation + an in-
depth understanding of content
• Much of the language composed in real time
• May use notecards
Scripted speech
• Read out from a manuscript
• The word-for-word iteration of a written message.
• The speaker maintains his/her attention on the printed page except
when using visual aids.
• Hassle-free way to deliver a speech
• Some situations require a precisely-worded message: legal and official
meetings
• Lack of eye-contact
• Difficult to maintain audience interest
Barrier to communication: Fear

Richard Worth (2004)

How to deal with stage fright
• Remember that the audience wants you to succeed. They are
interested in what you have to say
• Make eye contact with an individual in the audience who is a friend or
acquaintance. As you begin, address only that person.
• You could imagine you are simply sharing information with a small
group of friends (as in a rehearsal session?)
• Take a deep breath and remind yourself that you don’t have to be so
serious!
• Fear is nature’s way of helping you do your best. Use the adrenaline
rush to energize you: move around, make gestures, smile!
Try to think of stage fright in a positive way. Fear is
your friend. It makes your reflexes sharper. It heightens
your energy, adds a sparkle to your eye, and color to
your cheeks. When you are nervous about speaking you
are more conscious of your posture and breathing.
With all those good side effects you will actually look
healthier and more attractive.

—Tom Antion, author of the article “Learn How to Be a

Professional Speaker”
• The best remedy to fear is preparation.
• There is no such thing as a natural flair for public speaking.
• Even seasoned speakers find public speaking challenging.

It takes three weeks to prepare a good ad-lib speech.

—Mark Twain, American writer
Preparation: 5 steps
• The ancient Greeks and Romans recognized the importance of good
public communication
• The study and practice of public speaking has a long and
rich history dating back more than 2000 years to ancient Greek (e.g.,
Aristotle and Plato) and Roman (e.g., Cicero) philosophers.
• Coined the terms rhetoric and oratory to describe the processes of
preparing and delivering effective public speeches
• Preparation = devoting time and effort to the 5 main aspects of public
communication:
1) Invention (Topic selection and development)
2) Arrangement (Organizing information in a logical order)
3) Style (Effective use of language and presentational aids)
4) Delivery (Actual execution of the speech: voice, body language,
dress, etc)
5) Memory (Choosing how much to memorize; rehearsing beforehand)
1) Topic Selection and Development
This step enables you to:
• a) Choose an appropriate topic
• b) Develop the topic to meet the needs and expectations of your
audience
• c) Locate, evaluate and cite sources of information
a) Identify an appropriate topic
• Guideline: either a topic you know a lot about or a topic that interests
you

• List as many subjects as you can under these three categories:

1)Career interests
2)Hobbies
3)Issues of concern

(subject = a broad area of knowledge)

Narrowing down to a topic
• A topic is some specific aspect of a subject you would like to focus on
We can identify topics by:
• Brainstorming
• An uncritical, non-evaluative process of generating associated ideas
• Do not try to impose structure on the thought-process – free flow of ideas
• Usually written out as a list

• Concept-mapping (mind maps, spider diagrams, etc)

• is a visual means of exploring connections between a subject and related ideas. To generate
connections, you might ask yourself questions about your subject, focusing on who, what,
where, when, and how.
b) Analyze the audience
• Because addressing the specific needs and expectations of your
intended audience is vital, you need to conduct an audience
analysis about their demographic characteristics and subject-specific
knowledge in order to select an appropriate topic.
• You will use the information you learn from audience analysis to
inform your topic selection and throughout the speechmaking
process.
Data gathering techniques
• Conduct a survey
• Observe informally
• Question a representative
• Make educated guesses
Audience analysis questions….
(image: next slide)
Four types of survey questions
• Avoid marginalizing
• Marginalizing is the practice of ignoring the values, needs, interests, and
subject-specific knowledge of some audience members, leaving them to
feel excluded.
• For example, if you find out that most of your audience members are into
blogging, you want to avoid marginalizing the few members who have
never blogged.
• So you might provide a quick definition of blogging and show an example as
a visual aid before going into your speech about the dangers of blogging.
• Avoid stereotyping
• Stereotyping is assuming all members of a group have similar
knowledge, behaviors, or beliefs simply because they belong to that
group.
• E.g. If you find out that the average age of your audience is 65, you
might assume that most of them know nothing about blogging.
• To avoid stereotyping based on demographic data, you need to
collect subject-related data as well.
Examine the occasion
• What is the intended purpose of the speech? Why does the audience think
the speech is being given?
• What is the expected length?
Time limits for classroom speeches are usually quite short, so you will want
to choose a topic that is narrow enough to be accomplished in the brief
time allotted.

e.g.:
“Three Major Causes of the Declining Honeybee population”
Could probably be covered in a 5-minute speech, but not

“A History of Human Impact on the Environment”.

• Where will the speech be given?
• Rooms vary in size, shape, lighting, and seating arrangements. Some are a single level,
some have tiered seating.
• The space affects the speech.
• In a long, narrow room, you may have to speak loudly to be heard in the back row. If
you are speaking in an auditorium to a large group of people, you will need to speak
loudly and perhaps use a microphone.
• Need to use pronounced gestures and presentational aids that can be seen and heard
easily in all parts of the room.
• The brightness of the room and the availability of shades may affect what kinds of
visual aids you can use.
• When will the speech be given?
First presenter: think of an interesting prelude to serve as a “warm-up”
to the actual speech. Be prepared for distraction caused by late-comers.
Later in the program: include attention-catching material to retain the
interest of a weary audience. Let your presentation be more fast-paced.
After lunch: Understand that the audience will be lethargic; build up
pace more gradually. Try to eliminate repetition of content covered by
other speakers. Relate your speech with what other presenters have
already discussed to highlight its relevance and show how it builds on
what the audience knows.
Write a goal/purpose statement for your
speech
• After determining the audience’s expectations and the requirements
of the occasion, think of the exact angle from which you want to
approach your topic.
• Overall goal: informative or persuasive?
• Now write a specific goal or purpose statement. This is a single
statement that identifies the desired response the speaker wants
from the audience.
Write a goal/purpose statement for your
speech
• A specific speech goal statement must be carefully crafted because it
lays the foundation for organizing your speech.

• 1. Write a first draft of your specific speech goal statement. E.g. “I

want my audience to understand the effects of illiteracy.” It is a
complete sentence, and it specifies the response she
wants from the audience: to understand the effects of illiteracy.
2. Make sure the goal statement contains only one central idea.
“I want the audience to understand the nature of illiteracy and
innumeracy.”
This would need to be revised because it includes two
distinct ideas: illiteracy and innumeracy.
3. Revise the statement until it clearly articulates the desired
audience response.
“I want my audience to understand illiteracy” > fairly broad.
“I want my audience to understand three effects of illiteracy.” This
version is more
specific, but still does not clearly capture the intention of the speaker
“I would like the audience to understand three effects of illiteracy in
the workplace.” > focused enough.
c) Locate and evaluate sources of information
• i)Personal knowledge and experience: you may include examples from your
personal experiences.
• ii)Secondary research: present information collected, evaluated, and reported
by other reliable sources to provide insights about the topic at hand.
• Encyclopedias – how useful is Wikipedia?
• Books
• Articles in periodicals or journals
• Newspapers
• Statistical sources
• Biographies
• Quotation books/websites
• Government documents
• Skim through the sources – read abstracts to determine whether a text is
relevant to your topic
• Evaluate the sources:
• Authority: expertise of the author + reputation of the publishing company or
sponsors
• Objectivity: beware of articles using biased language against certain social groups,
worldviews, etc.
• Currency: how current/recent is the information? Pay attention to the date of
publication. Are electronic sources always more up-to-date? If no dates are listed,
you have no way of judging how current the information is.
• Relevance: Relevant information is directly related to
your topic and supports your main points, making your speech easier to understand.
Irrelevant information will only confuse listeners,
so you should avoid using it no matter how interesting it is.
• iii)Primary research: conducting your own study in the real
world.
• keep in mind that primary research is much more labor intensive and
time consuming than secondary research—and, in the professional
world, much more costly.
• You can conduct:
• Fieldwork observations- participant observer or non-participant observer –
take notes, recordings if permitted.
• Surveys- administer a questionnaire in person, over the phone, via the
Internet, in writing, etc.
• Interviews- structured and unstructured
• Original artifact or document examinations -Sometimes the information
you need has not been published. It may exist in an original unpublished
source, such as an ancient manuscript, a diary, personal correspondence, or
company files. Or you may need to view an object to get the information you
need, such as a geographic feature, a building, a monument, or an artifact
in a museum.
• Experiments – design an experiment to test a hypothesis. You must follow the
scientific process: Formulate a Research question > Review existing research >
Form a Hypothesis > Design the Experiment > Analyze data/results >
Interpretation and Conclusion.
Information to extract from selected sources
Types of information you could include in the speech from primary and secondary
sources:
• Factual statements – still need to be cross-checked
• Statistics - Statistics can be biased. Mark Twain once said there are three kinds of
lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Consider the source of statistics you’d like
to use, what that source may have been trying to prove with the data, and how
the data was collected and interpreted.
• Examples- “Professional figure skaters practice many long hours every day. Adam
Rippon, 2010 Olympic Gold medalist, practices 20 to 25 hours per week.”
• Expert opinion – Is the expert a credible source?
• Anecdotes and narratives
• Comparisons and contrasts
• Help give meaning to new ideas or facts. Comparisons illuminate
a point by showing similarities, whereas contrasts highlight differences.
Although comparisons and contrasts may be literal, like comparing and
contrasting the murder rates in different countries or during different eras,
they may also be figurative.
Figurative comparison: “In short, living without health insurance is as
much of a risk as having uncontrolled diabetes or driving without a
safety belt” (Nelson, 2006, p. 24).

• Quotations