COMM 1200 Final Exam Study Guide
Chapter 7: Researching Your Speech
Understand why one conducts research for a speech.
Evidence is information from credible sources used to convince an audience that what you’re saying is true
Research adds to your credibility
Know the steps necessary for creating a research plan.
Inventory you needs
Why do you need the research?
What purpose will it serve?
Find sources you need
Library research
Books
Periodicals: look for peer reviewed journal articles; newspapers for current info
Internet Research
Use only primary sources
Wikipedia, blogs, and info from unknown authors are not credible
To assess credibility: verification from other sites; multiple perspectives considered;
hidden agendas
Know how to select the most credible sources by examining the four characteristics of a source’s
credibility.
Expertise: the possession of knowledge necessary to offer reliable facts or opinions about the topic in
question
Objectivity: have no bias (prejudice or partisanship) that would prevent them from making an impartial
judgment on your speech’s topic
Observational capacity: is able to witness a situation for himself/ herself
Recency: timeliness; newer evidence is generally more reliable than older evidence because many aspects of
life change constantly
Be familiar with the kinds of sources available for conducting library research.
Books
Periodicals
Peer review: editor decides to publish only articles that are approved by other experts in the field
General periodical indexes
Full text sources: links to the complete texts of the articles in question
Abstract: summary of the article’s contents
Specialized Periodicals Indexes: focus on specific subject areas and are increasingly available online
Ask your reference librarian for help
Newspapers: useful when you need very current info
Reference works: compilations of background info on major topic areas
Encyclopedias: offer relatively brief entries providing background info on a wide range of
alphabetized
Dictionaries: offer definitions, pronunciation guides, and sometimes etymologies for words
Quotation books: offer famous notable quotations on a variety of subjects
Atlas: provides maps, charts, and tables relating to different geographic regions
Yearbooks: updated annually and contain stats and other facts about social, political, and economic
topics
Government Documents
Know and understand how to best use the Internet as a research tool.
Internet has become the “go-to” research option for many college students
World Wide Web: contains about 170 trillion byes of info on its surface, which is 17x the size of the print
collections in the Library of Congress
Web sites: created by individuals, advocacy groups, clubs, and businesses my contain incorrect or biased info
Top-level domain (.com, .org)
Credibility of online sources
Analyze links to and from other web sites
Does another credible source provide info similar to that found on the site you’re evaluating?
Does the site weigh arguments for both sides?
Is there advertising on the site?
Consider the site’s word choice
Searching the WWW
Search engines: specialized programs that continually visit Web pages and index what they find
Metasearch engines: researches several different search engines at once
Advanced Search: provides commands for making searches more precise
Web directories: compiled by human editors who review Web sites and index them into subject
categories and subcategories
Hybrid search engine: combine directories and search engines in one
Invisible Web: consists of info that is available online but that can’t be accessed by standard search engines
Be familiar with the steps involved in conducting an interview.
Prepare for your interview: determine what you want to find out and who you want to interview
Set up your interview
Plan your interview questions
Conduct the interview
Start with friendly, easy-to-answer questions
Stay focused
Maintain eye contact
Be open to new info
Listen carefully
Tape the interview if your subject gives permission
Evaluate your notes
Understand how to present your research in your speech.
Verbal sources citation
Cite all sources
Cite your sources as you present them
Paraphrase responsibly
Never say “research shows”
Don’t power word: to reword evidence in a way that better supports your claim but that
misrepresents the source’s point of view
Know the terms on Speak Up’s pages 220-221.
Chapter 8: Using Supporting Materials for Your Speech
Why should you use supporting materials in your speech.
Building audience interest
Enhancing audience understanding
Winning audience agreement
Evoking audience emotion
Know the six types of supporting materials.
Supporting materials are the different types of info that you use to develop and support your main points
Examples: samples or instances that support or illustrate a general claim
Brief: short, concise piece of info
Extended: provides details about the instance being used, giving your audience a deeper and richer
picture of your point
Definitions
Dictionary: provides meaning of a term as presented in a dictionary
Expert: comes from a person who is a credible source of info for your topic
Etymology: explains the linguistic origin of the term
Functional: explains how something is used or what it does
Testimony: consists of info provided by other people
Expert: consists of statements made by credible sources who have professional or other in-depth
knowledge of a topic
Lay: consists of statements made by persons with no special expertise in the subject they’re
discussing
Statistics: info or data presented in numerical form
Narrative: anecdotes (brief stories) or somewhat longer accounts that can be used to support your main
points
Analogy: a comparison based on similarities between two phenomena, one that’s familiar to the audience
and one that’s less familiar
Source is always support material
Support material isn’t always source
Understand the five guidelines for using supporting materials.
Use a variety of supporting materials
Appeal to different learning styles
Avoid long lists
Consider your audience
Respect the available time
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 247.
Chapter 10: Introductions and Conclusions
Be familiar with the five purposes of a good introduction and how to accomplish each.
Gain your audience’s attention
Attention-getter: material intended to capture the audience’s interest at the start of a speech
Rhetorical question: one that you want listeners to answer in their heads; it can capture your
audience members’ attention because it gets them thinking about your speech topic
Signal the topic and purpose of your speech (Thesis)
Convey the importance of the topic for your audience
Establish your credibility
Preview the main points of your speech
Preview: a brief statement of the main points you will be developing in the body of your speech
Understand the purpose of a good conclusion and the three steps of a good conclusion (in order).
It helps you sum up the message you developed in the body of your speech and leave a memorable
impression in your audience members’ minds
Transition to your conclusion
Summarize your main points
Summary: a brief review of your main points; reminding the audience of what you said
Finish with a memorable clincher
Clincher: something that leaves a lasting impression of your speech in your listeners’ minds
Connect conclusion to introduction
Could be emotional or startling
Could end with a story
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 301.
Chapter 11: Outlining Your Speech
Be familiar with the two types of outlines and the situations in which each are appropriate.
Working outline: contains all of the points in your speech written in full sentences or detailed phrases
Used for practicing you speech
Speaking Outline: is preferred while you’re actually to an audience
Condensed version of working outline used when giving speech
Know the three sections of a working outline and what to include in each.
Body of Speech
Proper labeling and indention
Full sentences or detailed phrases
Check for subordination
Subordination: support materials show this to their corresponding main points
Include full info for citations, quotations, and other evidence
(Source of) Evidence: the author, his/her qualifications, the source publication or Web
page, and the date of publication
Insert transitions
Transitions: words, phrases, or sentences that indicate you’re moving from one part of
your speech to another
Between the intro and body
As you move from one main point to the next
Between body and conclusion
Introduction
The five parts: attention-getter, topic/thesis statement, connection with the audience, speaker’s
credibility, preview of main points
Conclusion
2 parts: summary of main points and clincher
Understand how to create a bibliography.
Bibliography: list of the sources you cited in your speech
Know how to construct a speaking outline. What elements must it contain?
Extemporaneous delivery: you speak from limited notes rather than reading word-for-word from a
manuscript or delivering your speech from memory
Keep notes brief, using only quick phrases or 1 or 2 keywords for each point
Make it easy on the eyes
Base it on your working outlines and use similar structure
Main Elements
Main points
Subpoints and sub-subpoints
Evidence
Difficult words
Transitions
Delivery notes
Delivery reminders: helpful for handling speaking challenges effectively
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 331.
Chapter 12: Language and Style
Why is language and word choice important?
Word choice: also known as diction
Reflects on you as a speaker
Convey your ethos to your listeners because they say something about you as a person
Explain technical terms and use helpful audiovisual aids and effectively incorporate such terms into your
speech
Know the differences between oral and written language.
Oral language is more adaptive
Oral language tends to be less formal
Oral language incorporates repitition
Know the differences between denotative and connotative meaning.
Denotative meaning: is a word’s exact, literal dictionary definition
Connotative meaning: association that comes to mind when people hear or read the word
Understand the four ways you can make your message as clear as possible.
Understandable language
Use words your listeners find recognizable
Jargon: specialized or technical words or phrases familiar to people in a specialized field or group
If you can say something in plain language, do so
If you do use jargon, explain it
Concrete words: specific and suggest exactly what you mean
Abstract words: are general and can be confusing and ambiguous for your audience
Proper use of words
Can lose respect or credibility by improper word usage
Concise language
Use the fewest words necessary to express an idea
Verbal clutter: extraneous words that make it hard for the audience to follow your message
Be familiar with the five suggestions for expressing your ideas effectively.
Repetition: saying a specific, phrase, or statement more than once
Hypothetical examples: imagined examples or scenarios that you invite your audience to think about
Can help your listeners follow a complicated point that you present immediately afterward
Personal anecdotes: brief stories that can help build credibility
Vivid language: grabs the attention of your audience with descriptive words and phrases that appeal to all
the senses
Imagery: mental impressions
Simile and metaphors
Similes: make explicit comparisons and contain words such as like or as
Metaphors: make implicit comparisons; suggest connections between objects that aren’t alike
Why is it important to choose respectful and unbiased language?
Your audience remains open to your ideas and views you as trustworthy and fair when you use respectful
language.
Biased language: word choice that suggests prejudice or preconceptions about other people
Know the guidelines for choosing respectful and unbiased language.
Avoid negative stereotypes
Negative stereotypes: are critical generalizations about characteristics that members of a group
can’t change (race, ethnicity) and about characteristics central to a person’s identity (religious
beliefs)
Use gender-neutral references
Gender-neutral terms: words that don’t suggest a specific gender
Make appropriate references to ethnic groups
Steer clear of unnecessary references to ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or religion
Not on appropriate speech and political correctness
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 363.
Chapter 14: Using Audiovisual Aids
Why should speakers use audiovisual aids?
Audiovisual aid: anything (in addition to your spoken words) that the members of your audience can see or
hear that helps them understand and remember your presentation
Adds interest
Simplify a complex topic
Helping audience remember speech
Be familiar with the seven types of audiovisual aids and the reasons for using each.
Speaker
Assistants
Objects
Printed materials: maps, charts, graphs, drawings and photographs
Map: visual representation of geography and can contain as much or as little info as you wish
Chart: any graphic representation that summarizes info and ideas
Verbal chart: uses words arranged in a certain format to explain ideas, concepts, or general info
Pie chart: resembles a sliced pie and can help you clarify how proportions and percentages relate to
one another
Flowchart: demonstrates the direction of info, processes, and ideas
Graph: can also help your audience visualize and understand the relationship between different
numbers, measurements, or quantities (line and bar graphs)
Drawing or photograph: can help you provide an exact depiction
Understand the three aspects of audience analysis that merit special consideration when choosing
audiovisual aids.
Forum: the location of your speech and what type of audiovisual aids you will be able to use
Demographics: such as listeners’ age, gender, and place of birth which can easily predetermine audience
members’ response to a particular audio or visual aid
Prior exposure to certain audiovisual aids may positively or negatively influence your audience’s response to
those aids
Know the eight guidelines for preparing audiovisual aids.
Make sure your aids support your point
Consider you audience
Test the size of visual aids
Test the legibility of visual aids
Test the volume and clarity of audio aids
Create contrast
Keep your aids simple
Practice using your aids
Be prepared to speak without aids
Know the four guidelines for using audiovisual aids during your speech.
Make sure everyone can see and hear your aids
Control audience interaction with your aids
Maintain eye contact
Remember the purpose of your aids
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 427.
Digital projector: use to show them on a screen or blank wall
Chapter 16: Persuasive Speaking
Know the three distinguishing characteristics of persuasive speeches.
Persuasive speech: attempt to influence your audience members’ belief, attitudes, or actions
Attempt to influence audience members
Three goals of persuasion
Strengthen commitment
Weaken commitment
Promote action
Utilize strategic discourse
Strategic discourse: process of selecting arguments that will best achieve your rhetoric purpose in
an ethical manner
Advocate fact, value, or policy claims
Fact claims: assert that something is true or false
Value claims: attach a judgment to subject (good, bad, moral, or immoral)
Policy claims: advocate action by organizations, institutions, or members of your audience
How can you frame your argument based on audience disposition
Latitude of acceptance: range of positions on a given issue that are acceptable to them
Latitude of rejection: a set of positions that are unacceptable
Boomerang effect: pushing your listeners to oppose your idea even more vigorously than they already do
Be familiar with the three guidelines for incorporating persuasive strategies.
Relate main and supporting points to your audience
Appealing to your audience’s needs
Needs: objects they desire and feelings that must be satisfied
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
Connect to your listeners’ values
Values: “core conception” of what is desirable for our own life and for society
Demonstrate how your audience benefits
Acknowledge listeners’ reservations
2-sided argument: acknowledge an argument against your thesis and then use evidence and
reasoning to refute that argument
Focus on peripheral beliefs
Core beliefs: viewpoints that people have held closely and are immune to persuasion from one
speech
Peripheral beliefs: beliefs that audience members have not held quite so closely or for quite so long
Understand the four important ethical considerations for persuasive speakers.
Help you audience make an informed decision
Research your facts
Note any biases
Attribute your research properly
Know and understand the most effective organizational patterns for fact, value, and policy claims.
Organizing fact claims
Casual pattern
Comparison pattern
Categorical pattern
Organizing value claims
Criteria-application
Categorical pattern
Organizing policy claims
Motivated sequence: aims to establish five main points
Attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, action
Problem-cause solution
Comparative advantage format
MP 1- solution
MP 2,3,4- advantages
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 503.
Chapter 17: Methods of Persuasion
Understand the elements of credibility and how to build and maintain your credibility.
Ethos: credibility
Modern communication scholars use the term competence (knowledgeable and experienced) to refer to
practical wisdom and trustworthiness (honest and fair) instead of virtue.
Exhibit good will
Understand their listeners’ needs and feelings
Empathize with the audience’s views
Respond quickly to others’ communication
Build credibility:
With introduction
Through word choice
Through strong evidence, organization, and delivery
Don’t say something that shows a lack of competence, trustworthiness, or goodwill that will damage
credibility.
Know how to use reasoning and evidence and how to avoid logical fallacies.
Logos: logic
Don’t use fallacious (faulty) reasoning to twist or distort the facts in your favor
Using evidence (proof)
Identify your sources and their qualifications
Give listeners new evidence
Provide precise evidence
Look for compelling evidence
Characterize your evidence accurately
Using reasoning
Inductive reasoning: generalizing from facts, instances, or examples and then making a claim based
on that generalization
Example reasoning: present specific instances to support a general claim
Representative examples: examples that are typical of the class they represent
Comparison reasoning: argue that 2 instances are similar so that what you know is true for one
instance is true for the other
Casual reasoning: argue that one event has caused another
Post hoc fallacy: assuming that just because one event follows another, the 1st caused the
2nd
Reversed causality: speakers miss the fact that the effect is actually the cause
Sign reasoning: claim that a fact is true because indirect indicators (signs) are consistent with that
fact
Avoiding logical fallacies
Ad populum fallacy (bandwagon): assuming that because the idea is popular, it’s good
Straw person fallacy: replacing your opponent’s claim with a weaker claim that is easy to criticize
Slippery slope: falsely claiming that one action will lead to another
False dilemma (false dichotomy): to say that there are only two possible choices, when, in fact,
there are more
Appeal to tradition: saying that we should do something because it’s the way we’ve always done it
Understand how to use pathos effectively.
Pathos: emotion
Be genuine
You can appeal to the audience by inciting anger, fear, excitement, and happiness
Fear appeal: argument that arouses fear in the minds of the audience
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 548.
Chapter 18: Special-Occasion Speaking
Know the six most common types of special-occasion speeches and the strategies for creating and
delivering them.
Speech of introduction
Be patient
Use attention getters
Modulate your volume
Be focused and brief
Speech of presentation
Adopt persona of a presenter
Explain significance/ background of award/honor
Connecting the recipient’s background to the award’s criteria
Use appropriate audiovisual aids
Speech of acceptance
Use appropriate volume and articulation
Show genuine humility
Less is more
Speech to memorialize/ eulogize
Focus on celebrating the person’s life
Use humor judiciously
Don’t be afraid to show your own emotions
Speech to celebrate
After dinner speech
Be familiar with the general guidelines for special occasions.
Appealing to emotion
Matching delivery to the mood of the occasion
Adapting to audience expectations
Evoking shared values (why someone deserves an honor)
Respecting time constraints
Term to know: epideictic
Epideictic rhetoric: speaking that praises or blames
Chapter 19: Group Communication
Understand the three types of leaders and how to select a leader.
Designated leader: helps the group quickly move forward with its mission
Implied leader: someone with preexisting authority or skills particularly well suited to the task at hand
Emergent leader: one who comes to be recognized as a leader by the group’s members over time
What are the guidelines for effectively leading meetings?
Address procedural needs
Facilitate discussion
Model positive behavior
Keep the group on task
Help avoid groupthink
Groupthink: members’ tendency to accept ideas and information uncritically because of strong
feelings of loyalty or single-mindedness within the group
Facilitate decisions
Help organize the group’s presentation
Know the five steps for effectively managing conflicts.
Refer to ideas by topic, not person
Resolves conflict quickly
Focus on tasks, not disagreements
Manage disruptive emotions
Know the three types of member roles.
Task-oriented roles: contribute to the group’s ability to accomplish its goals through its goals through
enhancing members’ participation and free flow of info within the group
Initiators
Informative providers
Information gatherers
Elaborators
Clarifiers
Evaluators
Synthesizers
Recorders
Maintenance-oriented roles: help sustain and strengthen efficient and effective interpersonal relations in a
group
Harmonizers
Compromisers
Encouragers
Gatekeepers
Norm facilitators
Self-oriented roles: accomplish little for the group and are motivated by selfish ends
Blockers
Withdrawers
Dominators
distracters
Be familiar with the six tips for participating in a small group.
Prepare for group meetings
Treat other members courteously
Listen interactively
Participate, don’t dominate
Participate authentically
Fulfill your commitments
Other tips:
Exercise concertive control
One person’s laziness can effect the entire group’s grade
Make sure everyone in your group passes your standards for success in this class
Choreograph your presentation
Even when you’re not speaking, you’re still a part of the presentation
Practice where you’ll stand and when
Know your part well and everyone else’s part well enough
Distribute time evenly (5 min per person)
Distribute marketing packet workload evenly
Know and understand the five steps in the reflective-thinking process.
Reflective-thinking process: a particularly effective approach
5 steps
define the problem
analyze the problem
establish criteria for solutions
generate possible solutions
select the best solution
Know the three types of group presentations and the reasons for using each.
Symposium: several or all group members speak to the audience in turn
Panel discussion: members engage in discourse with each other, observed by the audience
Moderator: introduces the panelists (other group members) and facilitates the discussion
Single group representative
Know the terms on Speak Up’s page 624.