Given that this is course is taught exclusively on line, you need to read and understand material that is presented. Please read Chapters 7 & 8 as indicated on the syllabus and then submit the five most important items found in each chapter. Large essay

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chapter_7_-_delivering_a_speech.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 7 & 8 as indicated on the syllabus and then submit the five most important items found in each chapter. Large essay

Delivering the Speech

Chapter 7
Four Methods of Delivery

Four Methods of Delivery

Impromptu Speaking

  • The presentation of a short message without advance preparation.

Forms of Impromptu Speaking

  • Impromptu speeches often occur when someone is asked to “say a few words” or give a toast on a special occasion.
  • Self-introductions in group settings are examples of impromptu speaking.
  • Another example of impromptu speaking occurs when you answer a question such as, “What did you think of the documentary?”
  • For our purposes, we are looking at instances where you would be asked to speak without advanced preparation in a more public than interpersonal context.

Step-by-Step Guide for Impromptu Speaking

  • Take a moment to collect your thoughts and plan the main point you want to make.
  • Thank the person for inviting you to speak.
  • Deliver your message, making your main point as briefly as you can while still covering it adequately and at a pace your listeners can follow.
  • Thank the person again for the opportunity to speak.
  • Stop talking.

Extemporaneous Speaking

  • The presentation of a carefully planned and rehearsed speech, spoken in a conversational manner using brief notes.
  • By using notes rather than a full manuscript, the extemporaneous speaker can establish and maintain eye contact with the audience and assess how well they are understanding the speech as it progresses.
  • The opportunity to assess is also an opportunity to restate more clearly any idea or concept that the audience seems to have trouble grasping.

Advantages of Extemporaneous Speaking

  • It promotes the likelihood that you, the speaker, will be perceived as knowledgeable and credible.
  • Your audience is likely to pay better attention to the message because it is engaging both verbally and nonverbally.

Disadvantage of Extemporaneous Speaking

  • Extemporaneous speaking requires a great deal of preparation both for the verbal and the nonverbal components of the speech.

Manuscript Speaking

  • The word-for-word iteration of a written message.
  • The speaker maintains his or her attention on the printed page except when using visual aids.

Advantages of
Manuscript Speaking

  • The speaker can ensure that the exact repetition of original words occurs.
  • In reading one word at a time, in order, the only errors would typically be mispronunciation of a word or stumbling over complex sentence structure.

Disadvantages of Manuscript Speaking

  • It’s typically an uninteresting way to present.
  • Keeping one’s eyes glued to the script precludes eye contact with the audience.
  • Some speakers (e.g., news reports, politicians, etc.) use TelePrompTers to display their manuscripts.

TelePrompTers

  • TelePrompTers are generally designed for a specific speaking pace or can actually be manually cued by someone working in conjunction with the speaker.
  • A speaker can achieve a conversational tone and give the impression of speaking extemporaneously while using an autocue device.
  • However, TelePrompTers are only effective when:
  • The speaker is already an accomplished public speaker who has learned to use a conversational tone while delivering a prepared script.
  • The speech is written in a style that sounds conversational.

Memorized Speaking

  • The rote recitation of a written message that the speaker has committed to memory.
  • When it comes to speeches, memorization can be useful when the message needs to be exact and the speaker doesn’t want to be confined by notes.

Advantages of
Memorized Speaking

  • It enables the speaker to maintain eye contact with the audience throughout the speech.
  • Can move freely around the stage and use your hands to make gestures.
  • Makes working with visual aids easier because you are not worried about losing your notes.

Disadvantages of Memorized Speaking

  • Unless you also plan and memorize every vocal cue (the subtle but meaningful variations in speech delivery, which can include the use of pitch, tone, volume, and pace), gesture, and facial expression, your presentation will be flat and uninteresting
  • You might end up speaking in a monotone or a sing-song repetitive delivery pattern.
  • You might also present your speech in a rapid “machine-gun” style that fails to emphasize the most important points.

Disadvantages of Memorized Speaking cont.

  • If you lose your place and start trying to ad lib, the contrast in your style of delivery will alert your audience that something is wrong.
  • If you go completely blank during the presentation, it will be extremely difficult to find your place and keep going.


Speaking Contexts that Affect Delivery

Five Elements that
Impact Speaking

Using Lecterns

  • Lectern: A small raised surface, usually with a slanted top, where a speaker can place notes during a speech.

Problematic Lectern Use

  • For new speakers who feel anxious, it is all too tempting to grip the edges of the lectern with both hands for security.
  • Lecterns place a physical barrier between you and your audience – this causes an innate disconnect.

Good Lectern Use

  • Limit your use of the lectern as simply a place to rest your notes.
  • Try stepping to the side or front of the lectern when speaking with free hands, only occasionally standing at the lectern to consult your notes.

Small or Large Physical Space

Large Settings

  • Be aware that your voice is likely to echo.
  • You will want to speak more slowly than usual and make use of pauses to mark the ends of phrases and sentences.
  • Your facial expressions and gestures should be larger so that they are visible from farther away.
  • Presentation aids need to be large enough to be visible from the back of the auditorium.

Small Settings

  • A small space also calls for more careful management of notecards and visual aids, as your audience will be able to see up close what you are doing with your hands.
  • Do your best to minimize fumbling, including setting up in advance or arriving early to decide how to organize your materials in the physical space.

Outdoors

  • If you’re giving a speech in a setting that is picturesquely beautiful, it may be difficult to maintain the audience’s attention.
  • Outdoor speech venues can pose challenges with weather, sun glare, and uninvited guests, such as ants and pigeons.
  • You will need to use your best efforts to project your voice clearly without sounding like you’re yelling.

Using a Microphone

  • One overall principle to remember is that a microphone only amplifies, it does not clarify.
  • If you are not enunciating clearly, the microphone will merely enable your audience to hear amplified mumbling.

Clip-On Microphones

  • Generally, the easiest microphone to use is the clip-on style worn on the front of your shirt.
  • They require very little adaptation.
  • You simply have to avoid looking down—at your notes, for instance—because your voice will be amplified when you do so.

Lectern or Handheld Microphones

  • If they’re too close to your mouth, they can screech.
  • If they’re too far away, they might not pick up your voice.
  • The best plan, of course, would be to have access to the microphone for practice ahead of the speaking date.

Audience Size

Small Audience

  • A small audience is an opportunity for a more intimate, minimally formal tone.
  • If your audience has only eight to twelve people, you can generate greater audience contact.

Large Audience

  • A large audience provides a less intimate, more formal tone.
  • You should be guided as much as possible by your preparation.

Using Notes Effectively

Extemporaneous speaking utilizes notes to enable a speaker to speak in a more conversational manner.

The Purpose of
Speaker Notes

  • Using notes adds to your credibility as a speaker.
  • You will not be tempted to read your entire speech to your audience, which causes you to sound less real or genuine.
  • Well-prepared cards are more gracefully handled than sheets of paper, and they don’t rattle if your hands tremble from nervousness.
  • Notecards look better than sheets of paper.

Creating Notecards

  • Getting Started
  • Plan on using just five cards, written on one side only.
  • Get 4 x 6 cards.

Five Card Speaking Method

  • Use one card for the introduction.
  • Use one card for body section #1.
  • Use one card for body section #2.
  • Use one card for body section #3.
  • Use one card for the conclusion.

Key Tips for Using Notes

Include Only Key Words

  • Your cards should include key words and phrases, not full sentences.
  • The words and phrases should be arranged in order so that you can stay organized and avoid forgetting important points.
  • One exception to the key word guideline would be an extended or highly technical quotation from an authoritative source.

Hold Your Notes Naturally

  • You do not need to conceal them from the audience; in fact, trying to hide and use your notes at the same time tends to be very awkward and distracting.
  • Avoid gesturing with your notes on the grounds that nervous shaking is more noticeable if you are holding your notes in your hand.
  • Practice gesturing with your free hand, or put your cards down if you need to use both hands.

Prepare Notecards to Trigger Recall

  • The key words you place on your notecards should trigger information in your brain related to the key word.
  • You must discover what works for you and then select those words that tend to jog your recall.
  • Always practice with your notecards to ensure that the key words and phrases you’ve chosen help trigger your memory while speaking.

Write in Large Letters

  • You should be able to read something on your card by glancing, not peering at it.
  • A few key words and phrases, written in large, bold print with plenty of white space between them, will help you.

Using Notecards Effectively

  • If you lose your place or go blank during the speech, you will only need a few seconds to find where you were and get going again.
  • The use of your notecards allows you to depart from the exact prepared wordings in your manuscript.
  • Under no circumstances should you put your entire speech on cards in little tiny writing.


Practicing for Successful
Speech Delivery

What Is Good Delivery?

Conversational Style

  • A speaker’s ability to sound expressive and to be perceived by the audience as natural.
  • It’s a style that approaches the way you normally express yourself in a much smaller group than before a speech audience.
  • You might not feel natural while you’re using a conversational style, but for the sake of audience preference and receptiveness, do your best to appear natural.

Conversational Quality

  • The notion that a speech should sound spontaneous no matter how many times an individual speaker has rehearsed the speech.
  • No one wants to hear a speech that is so well rehearsed that it sounds fake or robotic.
  • When you can sound conversational, people pay attention.

Eye Contact

  • A speaker’s ability to have visual contact with everyone in the audience.
  • Without eye contact, the audience begins to feel invisible and unimportant, as if the speaker is just speaking to hear her or his own voice.
  • Sustained eye contact with your audience is one of the most important tools toward effective delivery.

Faking Eye Contact

  • You might feel tempted to resort to “faking” eye contact with them by looking at the wall just above their heads or by sweeping your gaze around the room.
  • The problem with fake eye contact is that it tends to look mechanical.
  • You also lose the opportunity to assess the audience’s understanding of your message.

Vocalics (paralanguage)

  • The subfield of nonverbal communication that examines how we use our voices to communicate orally.
  • Speak loudly enough for all audience members (even those in the back of the room) to hear you clearly.
  • Enunciate clearly enough to be understood by all audience members (even those who may have a hearing impairment or who may be English-language learners).

Forms of Vocalics

  • Volume: The loudness or softness of a speaker’s voice.
  • Rate: The speed at which a person speaks.
  • Pitch: The highness or lowness of a speaker’s voice.
  • Pauses are brief breaks in a speaker’s delivery that can show emphasis and enhance the clarity of a message.

Vocal Variety

  • Changes in the vocalics we have just discussed: volume, pitch, rate, and pauses.
  • No one wants to hear the same volume, pitch, rate, or use of pauses over and over again in a speech.
  • Vocal variety should flow naturally from your wish to speak with expression.

Forms of Vocalics cont.

  • Pronunciation: The conventional patterns of speech used to form a word.
  • Why Pronunciation is Important
  • Mispronouncing a word your audience is familiar with will harm your credibility as a speaker.
  • Mispronouncing a word they are unfamiliar with can confuse and even misinform them.
  • Articulation: The ability to clearly pronounce each of a succession syllables used to make up a word.

Common Pronunciation Issues

  • Substitutions occur when a speaker replaces one consonant or vowel with another consonant (water becomes wudda; ask becomes ax).
  • Omissions occur when a speaker drops a consonant or vowel within a word (Internet becomes Innet; mesmerized becomes memerized).
  • Distortions occur when a speaker articulates a word with nasal or slurring sounds (pencil sounds like mencil; precipitation sounds like persination).
  • Additions occur when a speaker adds consonants or vowels to words that are not there (anyway becomes anyways; athletic becomes athaletic; black becomes buhlack).

Verbal Surrogates or Non-Words

  • Commonly referred to as “filler” words used as placeholders for actual words (e.g., like, er, um, uh, etc.).
  • You might be able to get away with saying “um” as many as two or three times in your speech before it becomes distracting, but the same cannot be said of “like.”

Effective Physical Manipulation

Physical Manipulation

  • The use of the body to emphasize meanings or convey meanings during a speech.

Basic Aspects of Physical Manipulation

Posture

  • When a speaker stands up straight, he or she communicates to her or his audience, without saying a word, that he or she holds a position of power and takes her or his position seriously.
  • Speakers who slouch, hunch over, or lean on something, could be perceived as ill-prepared, anxious, lacking in credibility, or not serious about their responsibilities as speakers.

Body Movement

Physical Movement

  • While moving during a speech is important, you do not want to pace.
  • One common method for easily integrating some movement into your speech is to take a few steps any time you transition from one idea to the next.
  • By only moving at transition points, not only do you help focus your audience’s attention on the transition from one idea to the next, but you also are able to increase your nonverbal immediacy by getting closer to different segments of your audience.

Gestures

  • Avoid Extremes
  • At one extreme, arm-waving and fist-pounding will distract from your message and reduce your credibility.
  • At the other extreme, refraining from the use of gestures is the waste of an opportunity to suggest emphasis, enthusiasm, or other personal connection with your topic.
  • Hand gestures should be used in moderation at carefully selected times in the speech.
  • You will also want to avoid other distracting movements when you are speaking.

Facial Expressions

  • Avoid Extremes
  • You do not want to have a completely blank face that conveys no emotions while speaking.
  • You do not want to be the speaker whose face looks like that of an exaggerated cartoon character.
  • Make sure that your speech’s content matches your facial expressions.
  • Don’t talk about death and destruction while smiling.
  • Don’t talk about your favorite vacation looking like you just stubbed your toe.
  • Another common problem some new speakers have is showing only one expression.

Dress

  • Dress is still a very important part of how others will perceive you (again, it’s all about the first impression).
  • If you want to be taken seriously, you must present yourself seriously.
  • One general rule you can use for determining dress is the “step-above rule,” which states that you should dress one step above your audience.

Avoid Distractive
Forms of Dress

  • Overly revealing clothing
  • Over-the-top hairstyles or makeup
  • Jangling jewelry
  • Displaying tattoos and unusual piercings

Self-Presentation

  • Self-presentation is determined by how you look, how you stand, how you walk to the lectern, and how you use your voice and gestures.
  • Your self-presentation can either enhance your message or detract from it.
  • You want your self-presentation to support your credibility and improve the likelihood that the audience will listen with interest.

Variety

  • You should be careful to include a variety of different nonverbal components while speaking.
  • You should make sure that your face, body, and words are all working in conjunction with each other to support your message.

Practice Effectively

  • In order to develop your best speech delivery, you need to practice—and use your practice time effectively.

Goals of Practice

  • Identifying the Weaknesses in your Delivery
  • Improving Your Delivery
  • Building Good Speech Delivery Habits

Ways of Improving Yourself

Seek Input from Others

  • Because we can’t see ourselves as others see us, one of the best ways to improve your delivery is to seek constructive criticism from others.
  • Practicing in front of others before it is time to present your speech, you can anticipate and correct problems so that you can receive a better evaluation when you give the speech “for real.”
  • You can also ask your practice audience members to look for specific delivery problems you know should be addressed.

Use Audio or Video to Record Yourself

  • Video allows you the advantage of being able to see yourself as others see you.
  • Audio allows you to concentrate on the audible aspects of your delivery.

Good Delivery Is a Habit

  • Public speaking is an activity that, when done conscientiously, strengthens with practice.
  • Your practice sessions will also enable you to make adjustments to your notecards to make them more effective in supporting your contact with your audience.
  • The habits you can develop through targeted practice are to build continuously on your strengths and to challenge yourself to find new areas for improving your delivery.