Oral Communication Study Guide

Oral Communication: Study Guide In this study guide you’ll be reviewing the following: ● The different types of speeches ● Outlines of the different types of speeches ● How to create attracting slides for your presentation ● How to informally and formally present a speech/slide ● Public speaking; the do’s and don’ts Types of Speeches Though there are many types of speeches, these four are the main categories: ● Entertaining ○ The principle motivation behind this speech is to amuse and entertain your audience. It’s also made to capture your audience’s attention while conveying a message. ○ Sometimes referred to as special-occasion speech. ○ Some common entertaining speeches would be acceptance speeches at ceremonies or speeches given by maid of honors/best men at weddings. ○ Entertaining speeches need to think about these four main parts: arrangements, adjustments to the event, adjustment to the crowd, and being mindful of the time. ■ Speakers need to set up the speeches, consider the occasion, adjust the speech to the certain audience, and figure to what extent they should speak. ● Informative ○ The main purpose of an informative speech is to provide information to your audience about a specific subject. ○ It makes a complex topic easier to understand and helps your audience grasp the information better. ○ An informative speech is different from a persuasive speech. With the information given to them from the speech, the audience then makes their own educated decision. ○ Relies less on pathos and using emotions and should rely more on visual aid to give the audience a visual representation of important information pertaining to the subject that is being shown. ○ There are four types of informative speech: ■ A descriptive speech creates an image in the mind of your audience about your topic. ■ A demonstrative speech shows how to do something ■ An explanatory speech explains the situation of a topic. ■ A definition speech describes a concept or idea. ● Demonstrative ○ It’s a form of informative speech where the purpose is to teach your audience how to complete a task. ○ This is accomplished by demonstrating the task through a series of steps shown in the slides along with background information on the subject. ○ The speech should be useful to the audience as well -- how will your audience benefit from the information and knowledge you’re going to share? ● Persuasive ○ Comes in many forms such as debates or legal proceedings ○ Uses ethos, pathos, and logos ○ The goal is to convince your audience to accept your point of view ■ Or the aim could also be to inform, educate, convince an audience to do something. ○ There are many ways to choose a topic; you can base it off of familiarities, interests, visualization, or relatability ○ Uses descriptive language to create mental images to keep your audience intrigued. ○ Stirs your audience’s emotions to provoke them to care about a subject. ○ It’s important that you’re fully informed on what you’re trying to present because you’re trying to convince your audience of a point of view. Types of Public Speaking There are also the 3 basic types of public speaking that tie in with the different types of speeches: ● To inform ○ The presenter/speaker is presenting interesting facts or information to an audience. ○ Needs to be objective, fair, and unbiased. ● To persuade, motivate, or take action ○ The presenter is trying to influence the audience in some way. ○ Trying to change your mind, opinion, behavior or convince you to take action. ● To entertain ○ Topics are usually humorous and light ○ Often sharing funny stories or anecdotal information Topic Selection Methods These are some questions that can help you determine what topic you want to present: ● What past and present work experience do you have? ● What special skills, knowledge, and experiences have you had? ● What are your hobbies, sports recreation etc… interests? ● What places have you traveled to? ● What unusual experiences have you experienced? ● What are your school interests? ● What strong opinions, concerns, and beliefs do you have? You could also make a list concerning: ● People who influenced you, people you admire, public figures, or past figures ● Literature ○ What books you’ve read, articles you’ve stumbled upon ● Current events ● Politics ● Social policy ● Historical events How To Get Started On Outlining Your Speech The first thing you want to do before making your slides is actually writing the speech down. You can get started first with an outline. I recommend doing two outlines: ● The first outline is like a regular bullet-point outline ○ This should help you jot down your ideas faster ○ Incomplete sentence and main ideas only ○ This is the easiest part of your speech ● The second outline being the full sentence outline ○ This should have all the details and information ○ This should be like an essay but in bullet point format BULLET-POINT OUTLINE For an informative speech the outline goes as such: ● Introduction ○ Attention getter ○ Psychological Orientation ○ Logical Orientation ● Body (2-5 main points preferred) ○ I. Main Point ■ A. Sub Point ■ B. Sub Point ○ Transition sentence ○ II. Main Point ■ A. Sub Point ■ B. Sub Point ○ Transition sentence ● Conclusion ○ Logical closure ○ Psychological closure ○ Clincher Now to break down this outline: The first thing in your presentation is your introduction. ● Start off with an attention-getter ○ You don’t want to bore your audience with the first slide so make it interesting ○ Attention getters are usually stories, a short clip, or a question ○ If you’re doing a question, make sure to choose one of these options ■ Ask a question and don’t wait for a response because most of the time, no one really responds ■ Ask someone beforehand to answer the question or else it’ll be awkward when no one responds to your question ○ Example: For my presentation, I made it about gambling. For the attention-getter, the first thing I did was rain playing cards like I was throwing money on the floor. And then I started my presentation by saying, “If only earning money was that easy -- so easy that you had enough dough to make your cash rain!” I think what made my attention-getter stand out was that no one really expected someone to start raining playing cards at 8 o’clock in the morning. ○ Reminder: Your attention-getter should always be a bang! ● After your attention-getter, the next thing you want to discuss is a psychological orientation. ○ Why is this(your slides) important--especially to the audience? ○ You want to make sure this relates to the audience ○ This is so that the audience has a reason to pay attention to your slides; why would they care about a random presentation that doesn’t benefit them in any way? ○ Example: For my presentation, my psychological orientation went as such: “Being addicted is not necessarily a good thing, but knowing the background of the things you might potentially be addicted to will help you in the long run.” ● After the psychological orientation is the logical orientation where you state your thesis or a little preview of your main points. ○ For my presentation, I just introduced my name after my attention getter and gave them a preview of my slides ○ You could also introduce yourself. I don’t like introducing myself in the beginning because it’s not really a good attention getter and my name’s usually on the slides already so it feels weird to introduce myself. ● For conclusion: ○ Logical closure ■ Restate main points and thesis ■ Restate logical orientation ○ Psychological Closure ■ Relate importance and relevance to this audience ■ Basically restate your psychological orientation ○ Clincher ■ End with a bang, not a whimper! ■ End off with a good note or something ecstatic ■ Don’t forget to say “thank you”! For a persuasive speech, the outline goes as such: ● Introduction ○ Start off with an attention grabber. Do something shocking, intriguing, or dramatic. ○ State your topic and what your speech is about and who are you to be in this position to be presenting this. ○ Preview your statement and introduce the main points of your speech. ● Body ○ Introduce your topic by explaining. Not everyone knows what you’re talking about, so start off with some background information. ○ Explain your point in detail. ■ State your point ■ State the reason ■ Give an example ■ Restate your point ● Conclusion ○ Summarize or restate your thesis and main points ○ Call on your audience to act and offer them some steps on how to do so. ○ You could list the benefits of your audience taking action on your topic. For a demonstrative speech, the outline goes as such: ● Introduction ○ Attention-getter. Capture your audience’s attention. ○ Description of what you’re presenting or what you’re going to teach ○ Why you decided to demonstrate this topic. ○ Why you are the expert in demonstrating this; this builds up your credibility so that the audience can trust you. ■ Example: If you’re making a demonstration speech on how to make a cake, you would establish your credibility by saying, “I’ve been baking for five years.” This shows that you know what you’re talking about. ○ Give a brief overview of the entire process ● Body ○ Introduce what materials they would need. ○ Go through the steps, one-by-one. Use visual aid if needed. Break the process down to the most essential steps. ■ For each step, explain the purpose and why it is necessary. Use simple and straightforward language to avoid confusion. ○ Show them some tips or different variations of what you’re presenting if possible. ● Conclusion ○ Summarize the whole presentation of what you did ○ Bring it to an end with a closing statement ○ And if possible, bring some examples of what you’re demonstrating to make the presentation more interesting. For example if you’re demonstrating on how to make cupcakes, bring some cupcakes to share to your audience. For a persuasive speech, the outline goes as such: ● Introduction ○ Attention material/Credibility material ○ Relate it to the audience. Again, why should they care? ○ Thesis and preview. The thesis statement is where you tell your audience your position on the issue you’re discussing. ● Body ○ Your main reasons. There should be various statements that provide support to your thesis statement. ○ After each reason, list examples as evidence to provide a factual argument to persuade your audience’ opinion. ● Conclusion ○ The most important of your speech besides the introduction and thesis statement. ○ Sum up and tie in all your arguments into a solid point. FULL SENTENCE OUTLINE ● The same thing as a bullet-point outline but make sure it’s in complete sentences like this is your actual speech and you’re saying everything verbatim. ● Remember, outlines help when making your presentation because you have all your information by your side. ● For my bullet-point outline, I use the main topics I put as the main bullets on my slides so I don’t overcrowd the slides with notes. ● Instead of printing my bullet-point outline notes, I use my full sentence outline instead. ● Don’t forget to add transition sentences between your main points so it doesn’t sound chunky and not smooth. Some transitional phrases: ○ The basics: first, second, third.. ○ The next point I’d like to make is... ○ Now let’s consider… ○ Keeping these points in mind… ○ Now that we have established… ATTENTION-GETTING TECHNIQUES ● Here are some attention-getter tips you can use for your introduction or anywhere in your slides when you feel like you’re losing your audience’s attention: ● Activity or movement ○ Physical mobility -- don’t just stand in one corner ○ Movement that relates to your speech-■ Example: if you have to demonstrate how to play a sport, demonstrate something related to it. When demonstrating soccer, show the motion of how to kick the ball. ■ Example: My professor was demonstrating how his brother was a professional fighter and he showed some moves by punching back and forth. ○ Movement creates a feeling of something happening and allows the audience to visualize it better ● Reality ○ Reference to actual people (celebrities, family), event, or places ○ Be specific and concrete rather than abstract (details!) ● Proximity ○ Reference to what is close at hand(the environment around you) ○ Reference to people in the room, current events, local references, etc ● Familiarity ○ Well known phrases & commonplace ○ Use recognized examples ● Novelty ○ The opposite of familiarity ○ Startling facts, odd turns of phrases, surprising images, and unusual combinations ○ Random, but relevant! ● Suspense ○ Create a feeling of curiosity about what will happen next ○ Use puzzles or provocative questions ● Conflict ○ Pros and cons ○ Opposing viewpoint ○ Competing schools of thoughts ● Humor ○ Playful remarks, silly or exaggerated images ○ Amusing play on words ○ Ironic twists of fate ● Vital ○ Reference to something that is important to listeners ○ Money, time, health (anything that benefits) ○ Ranging to making life pleasant ● Story Telling ○ Story or illustration to highlight or to make your point clear ○ Anecdotals are popular PERSUASIVE THOUGHTS ● Pathos ○ Appeal to their emotions (use of language) ○ Sob story/clip ● Logos ○ Use of logic or reason ○ Can include data, statistics ● Ethos ○ Credibility ○ Information about yourself ● Problem/Solution Sequence ○ Identify a problem and provide solutions to it How To Get Started On Decorating Your Slides *The slides that are being used are my own slides. I will be using two different presentations to display my points. The first slide discussed is an informational presentation on gambling and the history behind it. The second slide is a demonstration slide about a card game.* ● In the present and future, we’re eventually going to have to create presentation slides once in our lives and present them. The biggest concern people usually have is: What if my presentation is boring and puts people to sleep? Here is some advice: THEME ● First off, you want to have alluring slides that attract your audience’s eyes. ● They should have a nice theme, nothing boring or repetitive. You could make your own theme or use slide templates. Some websites I use are: ○ Slidesgo ○ Slidescarnival ○ Slidesmania ● Nothing too spontaneous that it distracts the audience from the information being displayed. Don’t make the slides too bold. For example, don’t use a neon color background because it makes it hard to read the font. Do NOT use yellow and white together! ● Personally, I like to use dark backgrounds with a white font because it makes the slides stand out ● There are lots of background photos on Google that you can to use as your background ● Example: For the first slide in my gambling presentation, I decided to use this background because it was relevant to my topic and it was simple and had enough space for the title and information in the little corner. As I mentioned before, I prefer dark backgrounds more so I ended up choosing this picture. ● Make sure your slides are in a cohesive theme ○ Same color palette ■ Example: If you use white, pink, and blue, make sure to keep using the same colors TEXT ● Don’t make your slides too overwhelmed with too much text. ○ Too many words aren’t always a good thing and can bore your audience real quick. ○ Don’t put every single information on your slide because it looks jumbled up. ○ Putting every single detail leads to using small fonts and that looks really messy. ● Example: This was an old slide from my freshman year. This is what you want to avoid when making slides. If you can see, I put way too much information, making it look messy. I also added random decoration that had no correlation to my main topic. Avoid adding unnecessary things. ● Example: For my informational presentation, I incorporated a picture of solitaire (an online card game) to add more information on the topic. The main topic was Mobile Games, and that text was bigger because the main topic had to be noticeable. I do wish I changed the uppercase sub-points. It almost looks like it’s about to blend in with the main topic. TIPS on how to make your slides look better! ● The solution is to keep your slides concise and straight to the point ○ Don’t use complete sentences but rather bullet points so that the audience can grasp your points faster ● If you have a lot to say, add the key points on the slides and memorize the rest of the information or jot it down on a notecard. ● It doesn’t hurt to add pictures relevant to your topic onto your slides because your audience can remember information better. However, don’t add random decorations like the example up there! ● Example: For my demonstration slides, I was presenting on how to play a card game: Thirteen. For the introduction slide, I wanted to keep things simple; for the background, it was black with some playing cards. I also used this font for my slides because it seemed to match the cards. ● Example: For the rest of my slides, I decided to keep the same theme: dark background, white font, and gold/red decoration to match the first slide. I ended up adding lines as decoration because I wanted to keep it simple and relevant to the first slide. ○ I wanted to make sure my topic and sub-points were noticeable, so I made the topic bigger while the sub-points were smaller and italicized. The reason why it’s in bullet points and simple is that I memorized the information of the combos and what each combo did. That way, I didn’t have to overcrowd the slides with information. BE CREATIVE ● Be creative with your slides if possible! ● This can attract your audience by a LOT! ● Example: This was one of my most favorite slides! In this presentation, I had to write a tribute to myself, talk about my accomplishments, and what I was like as a person. This slide was about my personality and how I saw myself. What I did was ask my friends what they thought of me. So on the outside of the white box, I put down everything they said and in the middle, I put what I thought of myself. I wasn’t sure if extroverted introvert was the right term, but I figured it represented me a lot. How To Start Your Presentation For my oral communication class, we had to present multiple times. To calm us down before speaking, we have something called the fear gauge. It measures how much fear you have before public speaking. Every time before I presented, I liked to demonstrate my fear gauge physically so it would help me calm down. I did this by stretching both arms really far to represent my fear gauge and then make it smaller. Some ways you can calm your nerves before presenting ● Breathe ○ Before presenting, I like to take HUGE deep breaths. Sometimes in front of my friends and we end up laughing it off. ● Practice out loud ○ Practice with your friends or by yourself ○ Keep rehearsing until you feel comfortable ● Make eye contact ○ Before presenting, look for some friendly faces such as your friends. Know that they’re there for you. ■ If you don’t want to make eye contact with the audience but you want to be professional, look at their forehead. ● Acceptance ○ Before every presentation or event, accept the fact that you have to do it; however, realize this is a one time thing. You’re in then out. Go in with a bang. ● Do some warm ups ○ Stretch to loosen up your muscles and become more relaxed and comfortable ○ Start jumping around to block your nerves. This helps me become more energetic when I jump. ○ Do some vocal warm ups. Start singing as loud as you can if you’re comfortable or if you’re by yourself or surrounded by friends. ○ Scream. After screaming, I usually have the mindset of: Let’s get this over with. ATTITUDE During presenting, you should decide on what attitude you want to give off. ● Formal ○ Professional, serious, straight to the point ● Informal ○ Laidback, relaxed, keep your audience entertained ● Now you can be formal and informal during your presentation but for me, I like to choose one of the above to keep it consistent. ● Every time I present, I give out a very laid back attitude. It’s like talking in front of your friends. I don’t want everything to be serious and I’d rather have my audience entertained. It just depends on your personality or what type of presentation you’re giving. ATTIRE When presenting, keep in mind what you’re wearing. Your attire says a lot about you. ● Avoid wearing PJ’s or raggy clothes ○ Makes you seem like you don’t really care about what you’re presenting and gives off an unprofessional vibe ● Most people wear formal attire such as a skirt or a suit ○ In honesty, I wore sweats and a hoodie when I presented because it was an informal presentation. ○ However, most of the time people just wore jeans and a t-shirt, though that was because it was a college class. If you’re presenting during your job, keep in mind of your attire! It’s very important. BODY LANGUAGE ● Stand straight with shoulders back (Don’t slouch!) ● Be relaxed ● Don’t cross your arms or put your arms in your pockets ● Avoid looking at the slides 24/7 ● Keep a good focus on your audience! Face them as much as possible ● Avoid fidgeting ● NEVER face your back to the crowd! WOW-FACTOR ● Keep your audience hooked! ● Example: My friend once did a presentation on tennis so she brought her tennis racket and a tennis ball to demonstrate how to hit it ● Example: My other friend did a presentation on how to play the piano so he ended up bringing a melodica SPEAKING ● Voice projection! ○ Don’t speak too small! Make sure your whole audience can hear you ■ If you’re being graded, professors usually sit in the back. Make sure you’re speaking loud enough so your professor can hear you ● Speak with CONFIDENCE! ○ Be bold and act boldly ○ It’s okay if you don’t feel confident--a lot of people are shy--but fake it till you make it! Your audience will never feel that you’re unprepared if you act confident ○ Show enthusiasm and energy! This will motivate the audience ○ If you’re not excited, your audience won’t be either ● Be confident in what you are presenting! ○ Practice over and over! ○ If you’re confident with your slides, then the audience will be confident with you TIPS ● Use notecards! ○ They help with memorizing all the details ○ However, don’t keep them in your hand ○ Place them on a table or a podium next to you and occasionally visit it to see the next lines ○ When you go back to check your notes, make it smooth! Don’t make it too obvious ● The classic -- avoid saying “um” ○ My tip is to practice your speech over and over! ○ Go practice with a friend before the presentation! ● Time yourself! ○ Make sure you aren’t speaking too fast or too slow ○ Don’t rush yourself -- sometimes you or your audience can miss information ○ Going too slow will bore your audience ● Don’t jump back and forth through your slides ● Don’t go OFF TRACK! ○ This can make your audience bored! ○ Keep on track and focus on the message you want to get across from your slides ● Before presentation, ask someone to transition the slides for you; that way you don’t have to go and do it yourself all the time ○ Or bring a clicker to do that ● Use a laser pointer if you have one! ○ You can use this to direct your audience’s attention to an information or graphic ○ Don’t wave it around your screen; that can be a distraction to your audience ● Practice pronouncing big words you may use on your slide ○ If you think a few people don’t know the definition, don’t hesitate to define it ■ EX: He had an amiable--friendly--personality towards the teachers. MONROE’S MOTIVATED SEQUENCE (*for persuasive speeches) ● Attention ○ Make sure your audience’s attention is on YOU ○ If they’re not paying attention, then it’s a waste of time! ○ Use storytelling, humor, rhetorical question, or shocking statistics ● Need/Problem ○ Once you provide an issue or problem to the audience, make sure to relate it to them ○ Make the problem seem relevant ○ Do this and your audience will be convinced that the issue won’t go away or can’t be ignored ○ Make your audience feel a need for change ● Satisfaction/Solution ○ Provide solutions to the problem! This was satisfy your audience ○ Talk about the facts ○ Use examples, statistics, testimonials to show the effectiveness of the solution ● Visualize ○ Help your audience visualize the solution ○ Three ways to do it: ■ Positive method - Describe what the situation will look like if your ideas are put in place. Emphasize the positiveness. ■ Negative method - Describe what the situation will look like if your ideas are rejected and what dangers might occur. ■ Contrast method - Describe the negative picture and then show what would happen if you areas are put into place ● Act ○ Close with a call to action that makes your audience a part of the solution ○ Make them take action but overwhelm them