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contents
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1 BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN THE CRAFT
The Celebrated and Feared Power of Speech
Freedom of Speech
DIGITAL DIVE A First Teacher of Public Speaking: Gorgias
High Anxiety: The Fear of Public Speaking
Looking to Your Audience for Support
Navigating Speech Anxiety
Public Speaking as a Civic Conversation
The Craft of Speech
Practice!
Crafting Your Speech
Getting Up There: Fake It Until You Make It
Basic Speech Prep and Delivery
Let’s Do This!
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 2 LISTENING & THE ETHICS OF SPEECH
Speaking with an Open Ear
What Did You Say? Understanding Listening
Communication and Understanding: Listening beyond Noise
Rethinking Noise: There Are Always Two Messages
Selective and Active Listening: Moving toward Understanding
An Ethics of Speaking as a Listener
Responsibility as “Response-Ability”
The Pact of Speech: Accountability and Ethics
On Character, or Ethical Speaking
DIGITAL DIVE Plagiarism Is Just Plain Nasty
Guidelines for Ethical Speaking
Ethical Listening
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 3 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
Analyzing Your Speech Situation
Physical Location
Technological Needs
Audience Size
Who Is Your Audience?
Demography and Stereotyping
DIGITAL DIVE Appealing to Audiences of All Ages
Gathering Info about Your Audience
Interviews
Focus Groups
Surveys
Audience Psychology: All You Need Is Love (and Identification)
Burke-ification: Identification and Kenneth Burke
Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values
Feelings: More on Audience Disposition
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 4 CHOOSING A SPEECH TOPIC AND PURPOSE
Developing a Dynamite Topic
Consider the Speech Situation
Consider Your Interests
Consider Your Audience
DIGITAL DIVE Finding Inspiration for Your Speech
Mind Storm: Concept Mapping and Other Explosives
Getting Unstuck with Word Association
Concept Mapping
Research
Narrowing Your Topic: What’s Your Purpose?
To Inform
To Persuade
To Celebrate
From Topic to Thesis
To Inform
To Persuade
To Celebrate
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 5 RESEARCHING YOUR SPEECH TOPIC
Why Research Matters
Truth and the Importance of Research
How to Research a Speech
Go to the Library!
Research in the Digital Domain
DIGITAL DIVE The Three “Hecks” of Internet Source Reliability
The Research Interview
Don’t Forget to Cite Your Sources!
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 6 SUPPORTING MATERIALS & CONTEXTUAL REASONING
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Types of Speech Support
Facts
Statistics
Testimony
Examples
DIGITAL DIVE Examining Testimony
Stories or Narratives
Orally Referencing Your Sources
Contextual Reasoning
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 7 ORGANIZING AND OUTLINING YOUR SPEECH
Organizing Your Speech
Memory: Three Is a Magic Number
The Speech Overview: On Purposes and Points
Patterning Your Main Points
Outlining Your Speech
Developing a Preparation Outline
DIGITAL DIVE Outlining Challenge! To Selfie or Not to Selfie?
A Preparation Outline Example
The Speaking Outline
A Speaking Outline Example
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 8 INTRODUCTIONS, TRANSITIONS, & CONCLUSIONS
Introducing Your Speech
The Attention Getter
The Thesis Statement
The Preview and the Payoff
Transitions
Concluding Your Speech
DIGITAL DIVE Conclusions about Conclusions
Summary and Signal
The Closing or Note of Finality
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 9 STYLE AND LANGUAGE
What Is Style?
Defining Style for Our Time
Style as a Meeting of the Body and Language
Impression Management
Choosing Your Words
Adapting Your Language: What’s Your Playlist?
Word Choices That Convey Expertise and Credibility
On Rhythm and Word Choice
Vivid Language
Repetition and Rhythm
Tropes
DIGITAL DIVE The Effect of Repetition and Rhythm
Using Language That Uses Us: Cultivating Awareness
Biased Language
Sexist Language
Slang
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 10 STYLE AND DELIVERY
Nonverbal Communication and Tone
Body Language
Vocalics
Hands, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
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DIGITAL DIVE From Where You Say It: Feeling Accents and Dialects
Sample Speech Excerpt: Greta Thunberg’s Impassioned Speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit
… And a Good Pair of Shoes: Grooming and Dressing to Speak
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 11 PRESENTATION AIDS
Enhancing Your Speech Using Presentation Aids
Varieties of Presentation Aids
Preparation and Presentation Guidelines
Tips for Preparing Your Presentation Aids
Tips for Presenting Your Aids
Presentation Software: Slides, Slides, Slides, Yeah!
The Great PowerPoint Debate
Elements of Successful Slides
DIGITAL DIVE Understanding the Slide
Speaking While Using Slides: Practice, Pacing, and Performance
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 12 UNDERSTANDING SPEECH GENRES
What Are Speech Genres?
Culture and Form
The Genres of Public Speaking
Genres in Our Time
On Breaking the Rules: Genre Violation
DIGITAL DIVE Hybrid Speech Genres
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 13 CELEBRATORY SPEAKING
Celebrating Your Community
Types of Celebratory Speeches
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Speeches of Recognition: Introducing, Presenting, and Accepting
Speeches of Praise or Blame: Weddings, Toasts, and Roasts
DIGITAL DIVE The Toast: The Ubiquitous Speech of Honor and Goodwill
Speeches of Inspiration or Encouragement: Sermons, After-Dinner Speeches, and Commemorations
Speeches That Mourn Loss: Eulogies
Sample Celebratory Speech: Eulogy for Opal Jeanette Gresham (1920–2011)
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 14 INFORMATIVE SPEAKING
The Informing Genre
Informing versus Persuading
DIGITAL DIVE Is There Any Speech That Is Not Persuasive?
Choosing an Informative Topic
Informative Strategies
Tips for Informing
Sample Informative Speech: Car Cookery: The Real Fast Food
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 15 PERSUASIVE SPEAKING
Understanding Persuasion
Appeals and Arguments
The Ethics of Persuasion
The Psychology of Persuasion
The Persuasive Appeal
Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle
Ethos as Self-Evidence
DIGITAL DIVE Using Aristotle’s Triangle to Analyze Speeches
Appealing to Needs
Appealing to Emotion
Sample Persuasive Speech: South Carolina State Representative Jenny Anderson Horne: Statement to South
Carolina House of Representatives, July 8, 2015
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 16 MAKING ARGUMENTS
What’s an Argument?
Why Study Argumentation?
Understanding Informal Logic
Contemporary Argument: Claims, Evidence, and Warrants
DIGITAL DIVE Claim vs. Thesis
Fallacies: When Reason Slips Up
Organizing Persuasive Speeches
Organizing Persuasive Speeches of Fact
Organizing Persuasive Speeches of Value
Organizing Persuasive Speeches of Policy
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 17 SPEAKING IN THE WORKPLACE
Speaking for Your Vocation
Speaking at Work
Speaking in Small Groups
Making Presentations in the Workplace
Interviewing for a Job
Informational and Screening Interviews
Selection Interviews
DIGITAL DIVE The Elevator Speech
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 18 SPEAKING ONLINE
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Understanding Online Presentations: Purpose and Type
Online versus F2F
Types of Online Presentations
Adapting to the Amorphous Audience
Conducting Online Presentations
Composing Online Video Presentations
DIGITAL DIVE Tips for Do-It-Yourself Home Video Lighting
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Public or Private? It’s Hard to Say
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
CHAPTER 19 SPEAKING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
On Advocacy and Activism
Public Speaking and Social Movements
The Hybrid Genre of Speaking for Social Change
New Media and the Publicness of Social Movements
Civic Engagement and Civil Disobedience
Obedience and Disobedience
Tips for Public Activism
DIGITAL DIVE Arresting Developments: Protesting and the Police
Speech, Not Swords: The Humane Alternative of Public Speaking
END OF CHAPTER STUFF
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CHAPTER 1
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BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN THE CRAFT
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CHAPTER OUTLINE
The Celebrated and Feared Power of Speech
Freedom of Speech
High Anxiety: The Fear of Public Speaking
Public Speaking as a Civic Conversation
The Craft of Speech
Getting Up There: Fake It Until You Make It
Basic Speech Prep and Delivery
Let’s Do This!
Have you ever listened to a speaker and lost track of time? Have you ever been persuaded to do something
you’ve never considered before because of a speech? Have you ever been moved to tears by the heartfelt words
of a friend at a wedding or a funeral?
However much we are separated from one another physically in our changing social landscape — especially by
screens — we still have the ability to move others through speech: we entrance, we inform, we console, and we
love, both in person and from afar.
The craft of public speaking is about the many and varied rhythms and movements of hearts and minds, of
connecting with others. Across centuries, teachers of public speaking have argued that the reason to study the
craft is its primary purpose: the creation of relationships and the strengthening of community bonds.
This textbook was written and designed as a conversational guide to help you conquer your jitters, with
practical tips for speaking in a variety of situations. One of its fundamental goals is to center public speaking as
an art that concerns community building. Rather than focusing strictly on public speaking as a civic mission, on
vocational or business speaking, or on the complexities of platform speaking so popular in our time (public
lectures, TED talks, preaching, and so on), the thesis of Speech Craft is to demonstrate how building
relationships with other human beings is the common core of every type of speaking in public.
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The Celebrated and Feared Power of Speech
You will learn to
EXPLAIN why the craft of public speaking is powerful, in both good and bad ways.
The power of speech has been studied, celebrated, and even feared since the beginning of its formal study about
two thousand years ago. Because human speech moves people, because it can influence how people think, act, and
feel about the world around them, it has incredible power. Throughout human history, public speaking has been
regarded as a robust tool or skill — like a painter’s brush or a chef’s cooking techniques — that can both magically
enchant or enflame anger.
Some of the first teachers of public speaking, such as the ancient Greek orator Gorgias, compared the exciting and
fearful effects of a good speech to “witchcraft” or “spell binding,” which references public speaking’s exciting and
fear-inspiring power. Gorgias’s old analogy can be explained this way: in varied cultures around the world, shamans
and spiritual guides have used spells or rituals to heal people of physical or psychological pain, while in other
cultures, those who use incantations are feared as sinful or harmful. Similarly, the craft of speaking, or “speech
craft,” can be used as an artful tool to soothe or hurt, to help or harm (see the Digital Dive, “A First Teacher of Public
Speaking,” on page 5).
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (1936–1996)
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We tend to celebrate public speaking as a right and honorable thing, which is the message behind this book. We can
easily think of great civil rights leaders or politicians in American history, such as Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
or President John F. Kennedy, whose moving speeches helped change the minds and hearts of citizens, as well as
U.S. laws and policies. But the craft of speech can also be used for wrongdoing and deception. We can think of many
historical instances when large numbers of people were moved by the speeches of misguided leaders to support
discrimination, hatred, and even warmongering (Joseph McCarthy, Adolf Hitler, and Osama bin Laden, to name a
few). Whether speech inspires the “divinest works,” as Gorgias said, like bringing communities together to do or
think constructive things, or the most depraved deeds, like deceiving others or promoting destruction, usually
depends on the motives of both the speaker and listeners.1
Moral character is something that Isocrates — another early teacher of oratory from ancient Greece — insisted that
the craft of public speaking cannot teach. The study of public speaking can help you “more speedily towards honesty
of character,” he said, but it cannot make you a good person. You have to be a good person on your own. Make no
mistake about it, argued Isocrates, “there does not exist an art” of any kind that can “implant sobriety and justice in
depraved natures.”2 For this reason, public speaking is almost always taught with a study of ethics, even though
learning about ethics or morality will not make you ethical or moral (again, you have to will that for yourself).
Nevertheless, because an understanding of ethics and morality goes hand in hand with the risks of public speaking,
it is an important issue for us to address, which we will do together in Chapter 2.
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Freedom of Speech
You will learn to
EXPLAIN the connection between public speaking and democracies.
In the centuries-long study of public speaking, its teaching has never flourished outside democratic societies. In
some cultures, particularly nondemocratic ones, leaders and influential citizens often feared the craft of public
speaking: if people are moved by speech, then they can be persuaded to think, do, believe, or feel things that are
contrary to the interests of those in power. Influential speaking can be perceived as threatening to those in power
because a community could be persuaded to disobey laws or the will of a dictator. Throughout history, some rulers
and other leaders have outright banned the study of public speaking simply because it is founded on the ideal of
free speech — an ideal that makes it possible to criticize, critique, and disagree with others without fear of
punishment. Not surprisingly, then, the formal study of public speaking has rarely blossomed outside a democracy,
because the precondition of being moved by speech is the freedom to be moved in the first place. In a society in
which people are not free to listen to others and speak their minds, there is no need for public speaking and
certainly few opportunities for public persuasion, because speaking freely in such a culture could result in
punishment or even death. There are many historical examples of the suppression or banning of speech due to a
fear of its power. The fact that you are reading this book at all means that you are part of a society and culture that
protects the right to speak freely. Viva la public speaking!
DIGITAL DIVE
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a first teacher of public speaking: Gorgias
Way back in time — over two thousand years ago — there was an itinerant, or “wandering,” teacher named Gorgias. He taught various subjects,
including philosophy and oratory (“public speaking” in today’s lingo). As a kind of paid tutor termed a “sophist,” Gorgias traveled around the
Mediterranean world looking for work. He advertised his craft by delivering fancy, rhythmic speeches that reportedly entranced his audiences.
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A particularly famous speech, which has been described for centuries as one of the most eloquent speeches of all time, is about Helen of Troy.
In Greek myth, Helen is described as the most beautiful woman in the world, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” In his speech about
Helen, Gorgias creates an analogy to persuade his audience to study public speaking, one of the subjects he taught for payment. Gorgias
considered public speaking the most important of all the arts.
The myth that Gorgias uses to describe the power of oratory has many versions: Helen either left with or was abducted by a hot dude named
Paris, ending up at his home in Troy (in an area that is currently called Turkey), thereby causing the famous Trojan War. Contrary to popular
Greek accounts that describe Helen’s departure as a betrayal, Gorgias provocatively insinuates that the power of oratory was responsible for
her leaving.
In his speech, Gorgias compares the powers of persuasion to seduction. “Speech is a powerful lord,” argues Gorgias, because it can cause the
“divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and nurture pity.”3 Gorgias argues that the power of the spoken word can be compared to an
irresistible passion or even intoxication (e.g., that Helen was overcome by her passions for Paris just like audiences can be overcome by a
passionate orator).
Finally, Gorgias compares the power of persuasive speaking to “spell binding” and “witchcraft.” The title of this textbook is something of a
playful joke on Gorgias’s analogy: Speech Craft is meant as a reference to the ways in which a good speech is spellbinding as well as the ways in
which speech making is a craft or an art.
Gorgias’s speech, “Encomium of Helen,” is regarded as one of the most eloquent of recorded history. Listen to a dramatic reading
of the speech by visiting LaunchPad at launchpadworks.com and clicking on “Encomium of Helen.”
Consider the following questions:
Gorgias likens good oratory to drugs, witchcraft, and spell binding. What qualities of the speech delivered orally try to
intoxicate the audience? Do these qualities influence you at all?
Is Gorgias’s speech persuasive to you? Why or why not?
The fact that you are reading this book at all means that you are part of a society and
culture that protects the right to speak freely. Viva la public speaking!
The lofty ideals of free speech and democracy may seem far removed from where you sit and read at this moment.
So let’s cut to the chase: another reason why public speaking is feared is that you might be asked — even required —
to do it. Unlike many other subjects of formal study that you will take in college, public speaking is one that many of
your classmates, maybe even you, wish they were not required to take.
Public speaking teachers will often say that public speaking is one of the hardest subjects to teach because so many
students dread it. In this respect, the study and craft of public speaking is not simply about appreciating the talents
of gifted speakers and trying to learn from them but also about working through the apprehension or fear many of
us feel when anticipating the prospect of speaking in public ourselves. We begin our study of public speaking, then,
with a joke about death, courtesy of stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
What is the relationship between public speaking and democracy?
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The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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High Anxiety: The Fear of Public Speaking
You will learn to
DESCRIBE speech anxiety, and explain why people have it.
LIST the things speakers can do to reduce speech anxiety.
I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I
found that amazing — number two was death! Number two! That means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you
would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.
— Jerry Seinfeld4
Like heights, bugs, drowning, and clowns, students report that speaking publicly in front of a group is among their
biggest fears — and yes, even more than death itself.5 Although Jerry Seinfeld’s joke is based on a dated study from
the early 1970s, more recent research has shown that public speaking remains a persistent and common fear for
most people. In part, we are apprehensive about public speaking because of what we imagine it to be: a solitary
figure in formal attire approaches a podium before a sea of people — hundreds of people, no, thousands of people!
The speaker must move them all and hopes their antiperspirant is working. The speaker opens their mouth and
prepares to speak, but nothing comes out. All they hear is the sound of the silent scream in their head.
This nightmare image makes for great film or television, but it is not very realistic. Most of the scenes in which you
will be asked to speak publicly will not resemble the grand images of political leaders or movie stars addressing
thousands. Rather, you will be speaking in a smaller, more intimate setting.
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Looking to Your Audience for Support
The term “public” is something of a contradiction because it connotes a large group of people; in reality, public
speaking is often a performance before a small group of people in a private setting (in a home or a place of worship,
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in your workplace, online, or, of course, in a classroom). Whether you are speaking to inform, entertain, or
persuade, public speaking is about bringing a group together, or constituting a “public,” at the moment of speaking.
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Simply defined, public speaking is the craft of speaking to a group of people.
We tend to remember those speakers who enable audience members to feel like a group or experience a sense of
togetherness. If you think about public speaking as a group effort, which means it is as much about listeners as it is
speakers, then the challenge of giving a speech may seem much less daunting. In most public speaking situations,
an audience wants to hear the speaker and can empathize with the task of speaking. And when we are listening to a
public speaker, many of us imagine ourselves — however briefly — standing in the speaker’s shoes. This same kind
of empathy is often shared by those who assemble to hear you speak. Most people are respectful when they
congregate to hear a speech, even when they disagree with what the speaker says.
Navigating Speech Anxiety
Still, let’s be honest: what we fear about public speaking is the judgment of others. We worry about what others will
think of our speech, of course, but also about our style, our appearance, and even how our voice sounds. We get
nervous because we fear messing up or forgetting our words, or that we are speaking in front of a group wearing
unfashionable clothes. All these worries are normal, are widely shared, and contribute to what scholars of public
speaking term “communication apprehension” or “speech anxiety.” Communication apprehension concerns the
fears that we all have about verbally communicating with others. Speech anxiety is communication apprehension
specific to making speeches (sometimes termed “stage fright” in popular culture). Most beginning public speakers
tend to feel anxiety because of a lack of experience, which is precisely what this class is designed to help you with.
Here’s a little secret: advanced public speakers still feel anxiety because they want to do a good job. In general,
speech anxiety or nervousness when speaking is something all speakers, from the beginner to the expert, contend
with as the “center of attention.”6 One trick is to tell yourself that your anxiety is actually just excitement. Research
has shown that the mental reframing of stress can improve performance in sports and speaking alike.7 Another
trick is to channel your nervous energy into planning and preparation. Those who teach public speaking know that
you can reduce speaking anxiety in two ways: (1) by preparing and planning your speech and (2) by practicing
speaking in public. These are the basic tenets of the craft of teaching public speaking, and they will be the focus of
this course for the rest of the quarter or semester.
communication apprehension
refers to the anxiety or fear experienced by communicators.
speech anxiety
is the communication apprehension specific to speech making.
When we are listening to a public speaker, many of us imagine ourselves — however
briefly — standing in the speaker’s shoes. This same kind of empathy is often shared by
those who assemble to hear you speak.
We generally experience speech anxiety as we anticipate making a speech, not when we are actually speaking. We
tend to obsess on our own speaking abilities long before we stand up to speak.8 Once we start speaking, many of us
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become less nervous the longer we speak. Our tendency to obsess on “what ifs” prior to speaking goes back to
antiquity and the first formal studies of public speaking by Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece. Perhaps the oldest
image of the public speaker is that of a man in a toga imploring the populace. For centuries, the study of oratory
characterized the public speaker as an expert authority speaking to the inexpert or ignorant. This image is
understandably a burden and a cause for anxiety for any aspiring speaker. Although the solitary-speaker situation is
still common today, speakers don’t always have to be experts and often speak as a member of a group or team.
What are the reasons for communication apprehension or speech anxiety? How can speakers manage it?
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Public Speaking as a Civic Conversation
You will learn to
NAME AND DESCRIBE two models of public speaking in our time.
Over the past century, the formal study of speaking has shifted away from the expert speaker addressing an inexpert
audience toward two different but related models. The first is a conversational model, in which the speaker and
audience are understood to be in dialogue with each other. The second is a civic model, in which public speaking is
understood as a component of a much larger democratic dialogue among communities, or “publics.”10 Today, we
tend to think about public speaking as the building, maintaining, or reinforcing of a sense of community — in
addition to whatever it is a speaker has to say.
Texas governor Greg Abbott holds a televised town hall meeting. The town hall meeting combines the conversational and civic models of public speaking.9
The more recent turn toward thinking about public speaking as a conversation more equally balances the roles of
listeners and speakers. A kind of “we’re-in-this-together” attitude has emerged in the last century, which
characterizes public speaking as a transaction, or a kind of give and take, between a speaker and an audience: more
convo, less toga. Today, the formal study of public speaking is less focused on unique gifts or skills and more about
the study of expectations, or what audiences bring to a speaking situation and anticipate hearing in a speech.
Consequently, our focus in this book will be to answer questions like these:
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Who is my audience?
What is the best way to address my audience?
What kind of message is expected by this particular audience?
How is a speech like the one I am going to give supposed to go?
What am I having for dinner after I give my speech?
While that last question is a joke, it’s an instructive one for understanding public speaking. Humor, the ability to
amuse another (or oneself), is a metaphor for the process of public speaking in general. To amuse someone, you
have to have some knowledge of that person and what they may find amusing. Humor often brings people together
over something they share in common, which is precisely what public speaking is supposed to do, from the funniest
to the most serious topics.
Public speaking is not simply about addressing a group of people; it’s also about determining what constitutes a
group of people or holds them together. While speaking the same language (English, Spanish, Urdu) is what we
most fundamentally have in common with an audience, we also share the human condition in all its varieties:
common experiences, common feelings, and like-minded thoughts. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges we face
as speakers is reminding ourselves that when we address any public, we are actually speaking to human beings, and
that we are more alike than we are different. This challenge can be met by first understanding how we are similar
and then planning ahead based on those similarities.
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The Craft of Speech
You will learn to
EXPLAIN why public speaking is a craft rather than a science.
As our communication technologies have changed over thousands of years — from oral traditions to parchment
paper, the printing press, radio, television, and the Internet — the character and function of public speaking have
changed radically. Despite these changes, three elements of the craft have remained the same. Teachers of public
speaking in the time of Aristotle as well as today have stressed that a speaker understands and gets better at public
speaking by doing three things:
practicing and having good role models to emulate
studying and understanding the expectations of audiences
planning or preparing speeches in advance
No textbook can teach you how to be a good speaker. The experience of public speaking — and learning from these
experiences — is the best and most fundamental teacher of the craft. A textbook on public speaking can help you
prepare for speaking by providing you with an understanding of what different kinds of audiences expect and by
introducing you to planning strategies for meeting those expectations. How you practice the craft is up to you and
your instructor.
Practice!
Although the formal study of public speaking can help you prepare to speak, it is no substitute for practice, which is
why it is so difficult to teach (or, to make the same point by altering a cliché, “public speaking is more easily written
about than said and done”). Another fact compounds your teacher’s challenge: there are no hard-and-fast rules for
public speaking. Your instructor cannot teach you universal principles that apply to every context of speaking,
because how you speak and what you say depends on the speaking situation and your audience. There is no
absolute right or wrong way to speak.
We describe public speaking as a craft rather than a science.
Appropriate and accepted ways of addressing publics differ from community to community and from culture to
culture. For example, how you learn and practice public speaking in North America will differ from how others
learn and practice it in other parts of the world. Chicago-based marketing expert Magda Walczak describes her
experience listening to speakers in a different part of the world. The speakers and listeners were “much different
than what I’m used to in the [W]estern world. For example, the audience doesn’t necessarily look at the speaker
when [they are] talking. In the [conference] sessions I went to, people were texting, browsing the Internet[,] and
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even talking on their mobiles during presentations.” In North America, such audience behavior would be
11
considered rude, but in other parts of the world, it’s simply normal and expected.
How audiences react to speakers also depends on where and in what context you are speaking. This is why we
describe public speaking as a craft rather than a science. The sciences concern rules or laws that apply across most
contexts most of the time. Unlike the sciences, crafts concern skills that must be adapted to ever-changing contexts,
situations, and events.
Crafting Your Speech
The way public speaking is studied today — as a craft — comes most directly from ancient Greek manuscripts from
the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. So many ancient Greek thinkers appear in this book because we still depend on
their teachings. The ancient Greeks described public speaking or oratory — which they eventually called
“rhetoric”—as a techne. Techne is usually translated as “craftsmanship” or “art” for many reasons. A craft
emphasizes doing something; it is concrete and hands on, and it is situational or context dependent.
techne
is a habit of mind and body that is cultivated to make something; a craft.
Orators and philosophers like Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle often objected to the teachings of sophists like Gorgias,
some of whom boasted that they could teach public speaking like a science, specifying certain principles and
magical techniques that could help speakers manipulate audiences. Plato famously criticized the teaching of public
speaking as a science in a number of his writings, and he found the view of public speaking as manipulation
unethical. He said that teaching public speaking as if it were law based ignored the crucial component of adapting
to the “soul of the hearer,” including the listener’s welfare or well-being, which is always context dependent.12 His
student, Aristotle, was not as harsh and said that although public speaking is a highly context-dependent craft, there
are a number of general guidelines and principles that could be helpful to beginners and seasoned pros alike,
especially the study of audience psychology, the effect of evoking emotions, and the rules of reasoning.13 Although
practice and experience is still the most important teacher of speaking in public, a student can learn about audience
expectations and plan ahead. As a craft, public speaking depends on understanding, planning, and doing.
What is a techne? How is this concept better translated for our times?
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Getting Up There: Fake It Until You Make It
You will learn to
EXPLAIN the importance of positive visualization for public speaking.
Have you ever been told to “fake it until you make it”? The logic behind this statement is that if you pretend to have
confidence in what you are doing, you eventually will. Because almost every public speaker experiences speech
anxiety, there is a sense in which all speakers “fake it.” However nervous we may be, as speakers we want to appear
competent and confident. Sometimes demonstrating confidence is hard, but researchers investigating the “fake it
until you make it” approach have discovered that pretending does, in fact, work in some contexts.
At Wake Forest University, psychologist William Fleeson and two of his students, Adriane Malanos and Noelle
Achille, conducted a study in which they asked students who self-identified as introverts to act extroverted in group
exercises. What they found surprised them: introverts who pretended to be extroverted ended up feeling good about
their performances. The Wake Forest study suggests that just acting extroverted — displaying an abundance of
energy and engaging in frequent conversations, for example — can improve the positive feelings of the speaker and
the whole group and lead to more productive or successful interactions.14 Those who teach and study public
speaking have approached the craft this way for centuries by emphasizing two things: the psychology of confidence
and the importance of speech preparation. Let us discuss each in turn.
Self-assurance about one’s knowledge and abilities, or confidence, is often a hard-won trait of character, especially
for the public speaker. Although the exact cognitive and behavioral relationship between confidence and imagining
future performance is somewhat unclear, researchers have demonstrated that visualization is an important factor
in developing feelings of confidence. By imagining yourself doing well at a given task, you are more likely to
perform that task well. For example, a study of over two hundred athletes revealed a strong correlation between
visualization and confidence in sports-related performance. In other words, athletes who visualize doing well
increase their self-confidence and effectiveness in sports.15 Similarly, researchers have shown that students who
imagine doing well on exams tend to get higher grades. Not surprisingly, public speaking researchers have
demonstrated repeatedly that imagining giving a good speech gives speakers a confidence boost and actually
improves their speaking.16 In short: visualizing a successful speech has a profound impact on how you give a
speech.
visualization
refers to imagining the outcome of a possible course of action or behavior.
Minister and professional speaker Norman Vincent Peale became famous in the United States through his 1952 New
York Times best-selling book, The Power of Positive Thinking. In the book, Peale argues that positive visualization is
transformative and that it is best practiced by imagining good or desired outcomes in all parts of one’s life. His
views about the close relationship between optimism and confidence have now become common sense in North
America. Visualizing bad outcomes is sometimes necessary when planning ahead to avoid making mistakes or
hurting others, but dwelling on the negative in public speaking situations can — and often will — make your speech
worse and probably make you more nervous.
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