Help with speech assignment

Unit Lesson For public speakers, the challenge is selecting the information from the wide range of available data most appropriate for their speeches. That requires knowing how to research and knowing when you have done sufficient research? Whether you are delivering an informative or a persuasive speech, developing a research plan is not a quick-and-easy task. You have to contemplate what you want the audience to know, and you also want to provide information that the audience will find useful. For example, if you have to deliver an informative speech, you may decide to use stories as supporting material, or you may decide to use visual aids to emphasize your ideas. If you are informing that audience about losing weight through exercise, you may want to interview people who actually lost weight and, in your speech, you give a summary of how exercise helped them. You could also show before and after photographs. However, if you are persuading the audience to exercise so that they can lose weight, you might have to find statistics about successful weight loss through exercise, and you could use a PowerPoint presentation, or use photographs to show the type of equipment that could be used to ensure weight loss. Always be sure to document your sources at the same time that you are collecting supporting materials. For example, if you decide to interview people, take the time to write down their full names and the date of interview. Write out the questions that you will ask each individual. If the questions will be different for each person, record that information as well. Your sources must be recorded using APA format. When you interview someone and use their information in your speech, it is essential that you name the source and date of interview during the speech. Make the information available in a natural and conversational way. For example, “When I met with Mary Doe, who owns the TryMeOnce weight loss center, she gave me some advice. She said that…” Don’t make the speech sound unnatural by saying: “I had to do research for this speech so I asked Mary Doe, who owns the TryMeOnce weight loss center, to answer these questions.” Now that you are building the research plan, you must include criteria for knowing when you have valid supporting materials. Ask yourself whether the source is well known and respected. You may find really good information but discover that the source, although well known, is disliked by the public for abusive conduct toward women. Your audience may not accept your source as valid. Your source might be well known in his or her town but people outside that town might never have heard of him or her. There’s also a chance that you might look up information on the Internet, but, when doing further research using another link, discover that the information is not accurate. In other words, you have to be very careful about accepting and promoting sources. Don’t use a source that might damage your credibility. In your research plan, you also have to determine the division you will use throughout the speech. If your speech is about how to change a flat tire, then you will have to use the chronological division. This type of process speech requires you to tell the audience what tools will be needed and then take them step by step through the process. All process speeches use the same format, whether you are informing the audience how to bake a cake, or informing them how to grow orchids. Explaining your topic using

the chronological division means that you must explain sequentially. For example, first you must purchase the new tire, then you must remove the old tire by doing a, b, and c. Finally, you must install the new tire by doing a, b, and c. You should not explain about removing the old tire until the new tire is purchased. If your speech is to inform the audience how a television set (or any other object) works, then you would use the spatial division. You would start from the inside and work outwards, or vice versa. Spatial divisions are also good for informing the audience about buildings. For example, if you are informing the audience about how the Capitol was built, you would explain from bottom to top, or vice versa. Explaining from inside out, or from bottom upwards, and vice versa, ignores chronological divisions in that, if you are explaining how to build a computer, you would explain each part from the outside toward the inside, or vice versa, regardless of the date when the chip, or the fan, or the wiring was created. The topical division is used more often than any other division. You can use this division whenever you want to inform the audience about categories or, as the name suggests, a group of subtopics. For example, you can inform the audience about different types of martial arts. Whether you discuss kickboxing, or karate, or aikido, or jiu jitsu, first or second or last does not matter as long as you discuss each one fully. The mnemonic division is used to help the audience remember certain aspects of the speech. Using a jingle helps to do so. For example, if you are informing the audience about the great lakes, you could use the HOMES mnemonic that some of the audience might have learned in grade school. It is a very easy way to remember Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Many businesses use mnemonic devices and they become part of the organization jargon. It is a good way to bond with your audience, who will be delighted that you have taken the time to research the language they use at work. Some divisions are used mainly for persuasive purposes. When you want to persuade the audience that something needs to be changed, you can use the problem-solution division. With every type of persuasive speech, you must identify the problem. This must not be a problem that affects the speaker, but it must also affect the audience, or they might not listen to your persuasive speech. Once you have stated the problem, you have to ask the audience to resolve the problem by doing as you ask. Your solution must be carefully explained and must be within the audience’s ability to do. At all times, consider that you are preparing to bond with your audience and to make them feel part of the speechmaking process. If you speak naturally and conversationally, you will be speaking with (not at) your audience, bonding with them, and drawing them into the delivery act.