Chapters 13, 15 Review
What are the four functions of informative speeches? Name and explain each.
- Knowledge: When other share facts or circumstances associated with a topic, our comprehension, awareness or familiarity is increased. - Shape our perceptions: Speakers can affect how people see a subject by bringing it into light, or may influence what is seen as important by virtue of directing attention to the subject. Information helps us interpret our experiences, shape our values and beliefs, and gives new meaning to situations. - Articulate alternatives: This means that speakers are helping listeners understand the number, variety, and quality of alternatives available to them. - Enhance our ability to survive and evolve: We depend on the successful communication of facts and knowledge, and this transfer of knowledge includes something valuable and useful that helps us develop and improve our lives.
What are the nine important tips for using visual aids in a speech?
- Select only visual aids that enhance or clarify your message. - Select visual aids that will have the greatest impact on your audience. - Speak to your audience, not your visual aids or the screen. - Reveal your visual aids only when relevant to the current point, and take them away when they are no longer being discussed. - Practice with your visual aids and make sure all demonstrations work smoothly. - Design visuals so they can be understood within 3 seconds. - Keep your visuals as simple as possible while still conveying your message. - When presenting text to your audience, give them time to read before you begin speaking again. - Be prepared to move on with your presentation should any of the visual aids falter or fail. No matter how great your visuals are, you need to be prepared to speak without them.
What is a speaker's credibility and how does he/she convey credibility to an audience?
Credibility is an audience's perception that the speaker is well prepared and qualified to speak on a topic. You can boost your credibility in a number of ways: by establishing your expertise (citing reputable sources, making sure facts are accurate), helping your audience identify with you (mentioning what you have in common, being friendly and enthusiastic, relating to them), and showing you are telling the truth (presenting both sides of the issue, approaching the speech with ethics and positive intentions).
Early in an informative speech, it's crucial that you tie your topic directly to listeners. Discuss how and why a speaker should do this.
Early in the speech, you must tie your topic directly to your listeners. Early in the speech, give listeners at least one reason why they should care about your topic and the ways in which the information will be beneficial or entertaining. Establishing a motive for your audience to listen to you is commonly referred to by the acronym WIIFM - "What's in it for me?" This is what the audience consciously or unconsciously asks when you start speaking.
Why was "death by PP" coined? What does it mean?
The phrase "death by powerPoint" was coined in response to the wordy and intellectually deadening presentations that focus on those slides, rather than the content or the speaker. Reading directly from slides is or showing too much text negates the need for a presentation, as it could've been done in a handout.
Discuss techniques to make informative speeches interesting, coherent, and memorable.
To make a speech interesting, you could implement many different things. You could use attention-getting elements (attention getters) like intensity, novelty, contrast, humor, and activity, tell a story, use creativity, and stimulate audience intellect. To create coherence, organize your speech logically, and think it out completely. Use simple language, and avoid information overload. To make your speech memorable, build in repetition to help them remember the content of your speech (restate main points, repeat in a poetic way, or nonverbal signs), appeal to different ways of learning, and use visuals.
