ACOM203: Speech Composition and Presentation (Spring 2003)

Class Number: 2106 TTH 07:15:00_PM-08:35:00_PM BA0224 SUNY

Notes from first speech

Use your experiences – if you have had them - when giving information – you are the one who knows about what you are talking about

Too much reading

Nervousness

Too casual – body language says – probably from nerves – I really don’t want to do this

Or use more body language – sometimes we get behind the podium and do not move

Too large of a topic

Let us know from the beginning where your source is from i.e. – you have been there – you have studied it or it is your hobby

Give a pause in between information

Do not start with ‘I do not know if you would be interested in…’ assume we are interested – that is why you have an audience

Voice dropping at the end of the sentence

Speaking too rapid or too soft

Too many umms and ‘like’

Speak to the audience and not just the pp – we don’t want to see just the back of you

Speech two (three if counting the non-graded first speech) Persuasive Speech

Persuasive Speech Organisation

1) Introduction a) attention-grabbing b) establish basic context

2) Problematize the Status Quo a) for the audience (why should the audience want to change?)

3) Propose Course of Action a) concrete and specific

4) Sources of Resistance a) name and fully explain them b) attend to them; wrestle with them; take them seriously; overcome them

5) Benefits to the Audience a) what’s in it for them? (enlightened self-interest)

6) Conclusion a) summary b) dramatic/interesting

Speech rationale

Before writing any speech, write a rationale for the approach you will take to persuading your audience. The primary idea is to explain what choices you have made and how every choice you have made in the speech is designed to overcome audience resistance.

1) Audience identification: Who is your audience? Identify them specifically. You can not have more than one audience, and it must be reasonably concrete.

2) Persuasive goal: What is the status quo? What is the problem with the status quo that you want to address? What change in your audience’s behaviour do you want to achieve? What is your specific proposal that deals with the specific situation?

3) Audience state and resistance: What does your audience want in general? What do they value in life? What makes their job/situation easy/hard? What is their stake in this issue? Why is this situation a problem for them? What reasons do they have for resisting your proposed change?

4) Reasoning and evidence: What evidence and reasoning are you presenting that (a) demonstrates that there is a problem with the status quo, (b) justifies your specific proposal to change the status quo, and (c) specifically deals with your audience’s reasons for resisting you? Lay out every point in the claim-grounds-warrant format (that is, for every point you want to make, you need at least one piece of evidence and a way of linking your evidence to your point).

5) Organisation: How is the material in the speech ordered (e.g. strongest to weakest points, or chronologically, or problem-solution)? How will the way you have ordered the points in your speech overcome resistance?

6) Language: What language choices have you made (e.g.) choice of main descriptive words, rhetorical figures) and how will they overcome resistance?

7) Delivery: What delivery choices have you made that will overcome resistance (e.g. what gestures will you use, what visual aids, what kind of feeling will you deliver the speech with)?