This is the notes while taking Public speaking course from University of Washington, instructed by Dr. Matt McGarrity.

A rhetorical approach

Rhetoric is the art of identifying communication needs and strategically responding to them.

While public speaking, we need to find the best or most appropriate response to current rhetoric situations, including topic, setting, audience, occasion and credibility.

Rhetorical canons are tools for preparing and performing speeches, including:

• Invention: Coming up with contents.
• Arrangement: Putting it in order for the audience.
• Style: Finding the most effective language.
• Memory: Getting your speech into your head to support good delivery.
• Delivery: Performing the content effectively for this audience.

Speeches should be optimized for ears not eyes. The listeners needs cues to decode the talk. Contextual cues provide situational information, eliminating other irrelevant situations. Prosodic cues (pitch, rate, pause, stress etc) provide auditory information. e.g., We break the sentence into functional units.

Inventing and arranging main points

Key point speeches:

• Determine key points we want audience to remember.
• Discuss each points with concrete and interesting examples.
• Deliver clearly with confidence.

A model of arguments by Stephen Toulmin can help us write clearer speeches.

• Claim: an assertion you wanna audience to take as valid.
• Support: evidence used to validate your claim.

• Warrant: what links the support to the claim, helping understand the relationship.

• Outlining: Preparing a speech in a hierarchical structure. Outlines allow you to plan and refine the speech’s logic. We can outline a few points then develop the speech hierarchically.
• Flowing: Taking notes on a speech in an outline format. Flows allow you to better understand a speech.

Inventing key points

Developing key points for topics, can start with:

• Short term/long term
• Past/present/future
• Increase/decrease
  • Some types of qualitative/quantitative changes going on.
• Cause/effect
• Division
  • Two component in the topic can be broken out, not mutually exclusive.
• Definition

For how many key points to include in a speech, try 2-5 for a start; break up larger presentations into “chunks” of 2-5 key points.

Arranging key points

• Subordination: All key points are related to the topic.
• Coordination: Work well together.
  • Having a clear rationale driving the arrangement.
• Discreteness: Don’t overlap with each other.
• Phrasing key points
  • Use shorter phrases
  • Use evocative words
  • Put the key terms in important positions, starts or ends
  • Use parallel phrasing, if possible
    • Having repeating parts in each key points, e.g., “I do developing work; I do testing work; I do operational work”

Handling Q&A session

• Key is ethos (credibility of the speaker). The speaker should be and sound like an expert, in control of the content.
• Prepare for questions
  • Identify places that may get clarification or push back questions.
  • Prepare basic answers, top 5 questions, evidences.
• Structure the answer
  • Keep it brief.
  • Stay on point.
    • State it: yes or no.
    • Explain it.
    • Show it.
    • Conclude it.
  • For tough questions
    • Reject loaded questions and words like “So the company is getting rid of that unfair policy?”
    • Avoid matching hostility with hostility.
      • Can break the contact with the questioner and come back to the entire audience.
        • “I get what he’s concerned with. I do. I want to be very clear about this issue …”
    • Push it to a post Q&A.
      • “I understand what you are asking here. I don’t think we have time to hash it all out here. Let’s tak more offline.”
    • Q&A is still part of the presentation. The speaker is still held accountable.
    • Just say no if don’t know.
      • “I actually don’t have that answer right now. I will find out and get back to you”

Inventing and arranging support

Support and explanation

• Good support:
  • shows validity and provides details.
• Types of support
  • Facts, statistics, testimony
  • Example and illustrations
  • Metaphors and analogies

When discussing your support:

1. Focus on relevant details. Come back if it’s too detail.
2. Focus on clarity over comprehensiveness.
3. Help the audience craft a mental image.

To perform a key point:

• State it: give the claims
• Explain it: unpack the claim and prime for the support
• Show it: explain the support and how it relates to the claim
• Conclude it: touch on the key claim again to wrap up

Making your speech easy to follow

Speech structure:

• Introductions
  • Core functions:
    • Open the speech, like a pause then a clap.
    • Orient the audience. Let them know the matter quickly.
    • Provide a preview. Main key points; how the time is spent.
• Transitions
  • demonstrate the distinctness of each point.
  • help the audience know where you are.
  • give the audience just a little break.
  • E.g., state the previous key point then state the next key point.
• Conclusion
  • reinforce the key points.
  • provide a sense of closure.
  • should sound like a final line (usually slower and more deliberate)
  • E.g., So in conclusion, …

Revising, practicing and remembering the speech

1. Revise for fit between claims and support.
2. Look for rearrangement opportunities.
3. Try a couple of different models.

List the structure, top down:

• Topic
  • Key point 1
    • Support 1
    • Support 2
  • Key point 2
    • Support 3

Then do bottom up to see if the child point relates to the parent point.

Fear of public speaking and good delivery