Given that this is course is taught exclusively on line, you need to read and understand material that is presented. Please read Chapters 5 & 6 as indicated on the syllabus and then submit the five most important items found in each chapter. Large essay

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chapter_6_-_finding_purpose.ppt
Home>English homework help>Given that this is course is taught exclusively on line, you need to read and understand material that is presented. Please read Chapters 5 & 6 as indicated on the syllabus and then submit the five most important items found in each chapter. Large essay

Finding a Purpose and
Selecting a Topic

Section 6.1
General Purposes of Speaking

Getting Specific

  • When we speak of “purpose,” we refer to the reason why the speech is given.
  • The ancient scholars began laying out the main purposes that applied to their time in history. Since then, other scholars have contributed additional purposes for speaking.
  • Today, we often refer to the general purposes of speaking:
  • Teaching (informing)
  • Delighting (entertaining)
  • Swaying (persuading) audiences

Informative Speaking

  • A speech to inform helps audience members acquire information that they do not already have.

Do or Understand Something

  • The goal is to transmit knowledge.
  • The informative goal does not encourage people to think or behave in any specific way.
  • We should take steps not to blur the line between informing and persuading.

Knowledge Sharing

  • The delivery of information to people who could benefit from it.
  • Knowledge management is a field of study in which we become more effective at harnessing and exchanging knowledge.
  • In the professional world, sharing knowledge is becoming increasingly important.

Five Types of Informative Speeches

Objects

  • A speech related to objects can include:
  • How objects are designed,
  • How they work, and
  • What they mean.

People

  • A speech about people tend to be biography-oriented:
  • Emphasize a person’s achievements.
  • How events shaped their contributions.

Specific Events

  • A speech about specific events can be either historic or contemporary.
  • Examples Include:
  • Inventions
  • Natural disasters
  • International episodes
  • Famous crimes
  • Art expos

Concepts

  • A speech about concepts involves ideas and theories.
  • Examples Include:
  • Big Bang Theory
  • Theories related to how we learn
  • Social theories of collective behavior

Issues

  • A speech about issues is about “problems or matters of dispute.”
  • In speeches about problematic issues, we must be vigilant to remain informative and not lapse into persuasion.
  • This can be done by discussing all sides of an issue in an even-handed way.

Technical or Demonstration Speaking

  • Teaches the audience how to make something
  • How to do something
  • Explains a process
  • Shows how something works
  • for example:
  • How to make a paper airplane
  • How to perform CPR
  • How to complete an online application
  • How the latest gadget works

Persuasive Speaking

  • The goal is to get listeners to embrace a particular point of view or to adopt a behavior; it calls for change in thinking or behavior.

Two Types of Persuasion

Pure Persuasion

  • The speaker honestly believes that the change is in the best interest of the audience members.
  • The speaker has no ulterior, or hidden, motive.

Manipulative Persuasion

  • The speaker urges listeners to change by misleading them.
  • The speaker is not honest about his or her real purposes for attempting to persuade the listeners.
  • The speaker has an ulterior, or hidden, purpose.
  • It is unethical.

Persuasion

Persuasion is an attempt to change a listener’s behavior, attitudes, values, or beliefs.

An attitude is a predisposition toward something as good or bad, right or wrong; for instance, campus dress codes.

A value is a perception of the usefulness, importance, or worth of something; for instance, education, or environmental protections.

A belief is a proposition that something is true or false, generally without evidence or proof.

Two Types of Beliefs

  • Core beliefs are developed over a lifetime: belief in a higher power, for instance.
  • Dispositional beliefs are beliefs people have not necessarily engaged in. They are judgments made without direct experience.

Entertaining Speaking

  • Not designed to give an audience a deep understanding of life; entertaining speeches function as a way to divert an audience from their day-to-day experience for a short period of time.

Three Types of Entertaining Speeches

After-Dinner Speaking

  • An after-dinner speech begins with a serious topic and injects humor.

Ceremonial Speaking

  • A ceremonial speech focuses on the specific context: the occasion.
  • Ceremonial speeches can include:
  • Introductions of people
  • Toasts
  • Eulogies
  • Award presentations

Inspirational Speaking

  • Inspirational speeches are based in emotion with the goal to motivate listeners to alter their lives in some significant way, such as doing random acts of kindness.

Section 6.2
Selecting a Topic

Selecting a Topic

  • Narrowing to a very specific topic and adapting to some basic constraints.
  • Constraints
  • The specific instructions that you must follow as a public speaker; there will be limitations and restrictions.

Four Common Constraints

Purpose

  • If you are instructed to give a speech to inform, you may not persuade or entertain.

Audience

  • Your topic choice must be of benefit to them.
  • A good audience analysis should be helpful in making this choice.

Context

  • The context is most often related to a physical setting, such as a classroom, a political convention, or a church, for example.

Time Frame

  • If you are to present a ten-minute speech, you must carefully narrow your topic in order to give a coherent, substantial speech within that time frame.

Selecting a Broad
Subject Area

  • Subject Area - A broad area of knowledge (e.g., art, business, history, physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, education).
  • In selecting a broad subject area, choose one you are interested in investigating.

Narrowing Your Topic

  • A broad subject area is an area such as art, business, or physical science.
  • Such an area would need to be narrowed to categories, such as religious art, e-mail, or biology.
  • These categories must be further narrowed into such narrow areas as the art of the 19th century Russian Orthodox Church, e-tail inventory control, or salmon migration in the Pacific Northwest.

Insufficient Narrowing

  • A carefully focused topic is easier to research, write, and deliver.
  • Sometimes even a much-narrowed topic is still too broad for your time constraints; it requires further narrowing.
  • You may find yourself narrowing to the art of the Russian Orthodox during the reign of a certain tsar, e-tail inventory control in a specific industry or at a specific well-known company, or salmon migrations as impacted by hydroelectric dams.

Four Questions to Help Narrow a Topic

  • Does the topic match my intended general purpose?
  • Is the topic appropriate for my audience?
  • Is the topic appropriate for the given speaking context?
  • Can I reasonably hope to inform or persuade my audience in the time frame I have for the speech?

Section 6.3
What if You Draw a Blank?

Three Common Ways of Finding a Topic

Personal Inventory

  • A detailed and descriptive list about an individual.

Using a Personal Inventory

  • In such an inventory, you answer questions such as:
  • “What is your major?”
  • “What extracurricular activities have you engaged in?”
  • “What political issues interest you?”
  • Some inventory items are interesting and could be developed into a speech.

Finding Aids

  • A tool that will help you find lists of possible topics.

Best-Selling Book Lists

  • Best-seller lists of books that people are currently buying.
  • They can show you what topics are interesting to people.

Polling Organizations

  • Polling organizations do research about Americans’ perceptions of public affairs, business issues, social issues, and a range of other issues.
  • These polls can help you know what issues are on people’s minds.

Media Outlets

  • Media outlets can provide interesting topic ideas.
  • PBS, the National Geographic Channel, Dateline, and other channels provide a wide variety of ideas to develop into speech topics.

The Internet

  • Information on Internet sites is not always reliable, but many of the topics are good as long as you do your research using reliable sources.
  • There are some websites specifically offered to help people in search of a good speech idea.

Poll Your Audience

Ask your audience what they may be interested in or what they need to know more about.

A Needs Analysis

  • A set of activities designed to determine your audience’s needs, wants, wishes, and desires.
  • Patterns of interests exist in every group.
  • You can identify some patterns simply by asking.
  • Using a questionnaire is another way to collect audience information.

Narrowing Your Topic

Sample

Topic The military
Narrower Topic The military’s use of embedded journalists
Narrowed Topic The death of British reporter Rupert Hamer in 2010 in a roadside bombing in Nawa, Afghanistan, along with five US Marines

Additional Samples
Informative

General Purpose To inform
Specific Purpose To inform my audience about the danger of embedded journalism by focusing on the death of British reporter Rupert Hamer

Additional Samples
Persuasive

General Purpose To inform
Specific Purpose To inform my audience about the danger of embedded journalism by focusing on the death of British reporter Rupert Hamer

Your Specific Statement of Purpose

General Purpose To persuade
Specific Purpose To persuade a group of journalism students to avoid jobs as embedded journalists by using the death of British report Rupert Hamer as an example of what can happen

Creating a Specific Purpose

  • Start by naming your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain).
  • A capsule description of your audience (my peers in class, a group of kindergarten teachers, etc.)..

Samples

General Purpose Audience Topic
To inform my audience about the usefulness of scrapbooking to save a family’s memories.
To persuade a group of kindergarten teachers to adopt a new disciplinary method for their classrooms.
To entertain a group of executives by describing the lighter side of life in “cubicle-ville.”
To inform community members about the newly proposed swimming pool plans that have been adopted.
To persuade my peers in class to vote for me for class president.
To entertain the guests attending my mother’s birthday party by telling a humorous story followed by a toast.

Five Basic Tips for Creating Specific Purposes

Audience, Audience, Audience

  • Think about your intended audience when choosing your specific purpose.
  • Start off your sentence by including the words “my audience” or actually listing the name of your audience: a group of journalism students, the people in my congregation, my peers in class, etc.

Matching the Rhetorical Situation

  • Rhetorical Situation: The set of circumstances surrounding your speech (e.g., speaker, audience, text, and context).
  • Making Your Speech Appropriate
  • Are you the appropriate speaker for a topic?
  • Is the topic appropriate for your audience?
  • Is the text of your speech is appropriate?
  • Is the speech is appropriate for the context?

Make it Clear

  • The specific purpose statement for any speech should be direct; and not too broad, general, or vague.
  • Avoid unclear or colloquial language.

Don’t Double Up

  • Only have one main idea for a speech – do not try to do too much in one speech.
  • If you find yourself using the word “and” in your specific topic statement, you’re probably doubling up on topics.

Can I Really Do This in six to 10 minutes?

  • Can you cover your specific purpose in the time that you have allotted?
  • How long it would take to make you an informed person on your chosen topic, or to persuade you to change your behavior or attitudes?