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One way to develop these ideas is to make a concept map. Below is a sample of the student's concept map if they focused on knitting.
Now this particular student enjoys mysteries and crime shows, because they like to figure out who the culprit is. The student needs to write an informative speech, and decides that they could inform others on how to solve mysteries.
Since it is a very large topic, the student decides to focus on helping people solve mysteries by informing them on how to tell if someone is lying .
After narrowing the topic, evaluate your speech to see if it is a good fit for your assignment.
In our example the student’s evaluation would look like this:
: Lying - How to recognize if someone is lying. : To provide my audience with information about lying. | : Professor and other college students. : Yes, possibly in psychology and sociology journals. |
Write out your research question or thesis statement. Underline words that you believe best represent the main ideas.
How can we determine if someone is lying to us?
Second, create a list of synonyms for each word you underlined and use these terms to search for resources.
Lying OR lie-spotting Face perception Body language. Deception.
You can add additional terms as you survey what is available:
Lying OR Deception AND workplace or business Friendship or workplace or business
As you gather resources be sure to evaluate the resources!
Check out the Searching Strategies for Websites and Databases for more tips. Check out the Evaluating Resources page to avoid choosing bad sources for your projects!
There are lots of reasons to provide references to the sources that you use.
Your audience may want to know how to investigate your topic further. By providing your resources you are helping others who are interested in the same topic.
You also need to credit the people who did the research you are using otherwise you will be claiming it is your own (even if unintentionally doing so). Plagiarism is a serious offense.
Here is a definition of plagiarism:
“Plagiarism is appropriating someone else's words or ideas without acknowledgment. To understand plagiarism we must consider two questions: (1) How is plagiarism like or unlike theft— (2) Why is plagiarism considered wrong; why should we acknowledge the originator of an idea.”
(Encyclopedia of Ethics. London: Routledge, 2001. Credo Reference. 17 April 2009 <http://www.credoreference.com/entry/7915618>.)
Just like in college writing, speeches should provide your audience with verbal cues to the information you have used: the SOURCE where you found your information. (This might be an interview, scholarly article, book, or website, etc.); the AUTHOR, when available, and the DATE when your source was published or accessed (for web sources and interviews).
Here are three ways to incorporate citations for your speech:
For more information on how to cite sources, see the “Citation” page in this guide.
Hours Policies Support Services
WorldCat Research Guides Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Staff Directory Email the Library
Blackboard My Library Account My Taylor
Zondervan Library Taylor University 1846 Main Street, Upland, IN 46989 (765) 998-4357
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On the first day of class, your instructor provided you a “lay of the land.” They introduced you to course documents, the syllabus, and reading materials.
“It’s important that you read your textbook,” they likely shared. “The material will allow you to dive deeper into the course material and, even if you don’t initially realize its importance, the reading material will build throughout the semester. The time spent reading will be worth it because without that knowledge, it will be difficult to complete assignments and receive full credit. The time spent reading will benefit you after you leave for the semester, too, and you’ll have critical thinking skills that will permeate your life out of the classroom.” Sound familiar?
This is persuasion. Your instructor is persuading you that reading the textbook is a good idea—that it’s an action you should take throughout the semester. As an audience member, you get to weigh the potential benefits of reading the textbook in relation to the consequences. But if your instructor has succeeded in their persuasive attempt, you will read the book because they have done a good job of helping you to conclude in favor of their perspective.
Your instructor may have even gone a step further, introducing themselves and including their credentials, such as degrees earned, courses taught, years of teaching, books published, etc. That sounds like what Aristotle called ethos , right? This is another key to persuasion, which we will discuss further in Chapter 17.
Persuasion is everywhere. We are constantly inundated with ideas, perspectives, politics, and products that are requesting our attention. Persuasion is often positively paired with ideas of encouragement, influence, urging, or logic. Your instructors, for example, are passionate about the subject position and want you to succeed in the class. Sadly, persuasion can also be experienced as manipulation, force, lack of choice, or inducement. You might get suspicious if you think someone is trying to persuade you. You might not appreciate someone telling you to change your viewpoints.
In this chapter, we explore persuasive speaking and work through best practices in persuasion. Because persuasion is everywhere, being critical and aware of persuasive techniques will allow you to both ethically persuade audiences and evaluate arguments when others attempt to persuade you. We’ll start with the basics by answering the question, “what is persuasion?”
Persuasion is “the process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or actions” (Lucas, 2015, p. 306). Persuasion is important in all communication processes and contexts—interpersonal, professional, digital—and it’s something that you do every day. Convincing a friend to go see the latest movie instead of staying in to watch TV; giving your instructor a reason to give you an extension on an assignment; writing a cover letter and resume and going through an interview for a job—all of these and so many more are examples of persuasion. In fact, it is hard to think of life without the everyday give-and-take of persuasion. In each example listed, Lucas’s definition of persuasion is being implemented: you are asking a person or group to agree with your main idea.
When using persuasion in a public speech, the goal is to create, change, or reinforce a belief or action by addressing community problems or controversies. Remember that public speaking is a long-standing type of civic engagement; when we publicly speak, we are participating in democratic deliberation. Deliberatio n , or the process of discussing feasible choices that address community problems, is important in resolving community concerns because it allows all perspectives to be considered. Persuasive speaking means addressing a public controversy and advocating for a perspective that the speaker hopes the audience will adopt. If the issue isn’t publicly controversial – if everyone agrees or if there are not multiple perspectives – you are not persuading. You’re informing.
So, what’s a public controversy? Public controversies are community disputes that affect a large number of people. Because they involve a large number of people, public controversies often have multiple perspectives, leading to public deliberation and debate to resolve each dispute.
We experience public controversies daily. Through our social media feeds, we continuously scroll past shared articles, comments, or posts that provide different perspectives on community problems and potential solutions. You might, for example, join your local neighborhood (or dorm) Facebook group where neighbors share information and collaborate on solutions to specific problems facing the community. Each problem has consequences for different neighbors, and Facebook allows a space to deliberate and organize to address community priorities. They are controversial, however, because not all neighbors agree what which problems should be solved first or what those solutions are.
Sadly, there is no shortage of public controversies, and advocating for solutions to key community problems can feel overwhelming.
“How do I figure out one controversy to speak out about?” you may wonder.
Identify public controversies by listening and engaging with your community. What issues are affecting them? What are priorities? Once you’re able to locate a key community dispute, ask yourself:
Controversies arise when a community experiences a problem, so your job is to decipher the breadth and depth of that problem. It’s impossible to address all issues in one speech, so researching and prioritizing are key to identifying what advocacy you find most urgent. For any controversy that you can address in a persuasive speech, keep context and power in mind.
Your public speaking context always informs what’s possible to accomplish during a speech. Remember, the public speaking context refers to both the physical space and cultural context.
The physical context will influence how much information you can provide to your audience. In other words, “Do I have time to talk about this issue?” “What is the most essential information to cover in a limited timeframe?” The broader cultural context can help you in situating your advocacy alongside other community conversations. What else is happening? Have other communities experienced this problem?
As persuasive speakers, you are attempting to influence an audience. What you select and how you present that information will alter how audiences understand the world, and that’s a pretty powerful thought. When you select an advocacy that addresses a public controversy, you are asking the audience to trust your perspective. To uphold that trust, it’s key to examine who is empowered or disempowered by our perspective.
When you’re considering a position toward a public controversy, you might ask, who’s empowered or disempowered by this problem? Who’s left out of the research? How are communities being represented? What am I assuming about those communities? Who is affected by my advocacy?
We can be well-meaning in our advocacies, especially when we select a persuasive insight based on our own experience. We become passionate about issues that we have seen, and that’s OK! Such passion can also, however, mean that we represent information in ways that are stereotypical or lead to the disempowerment of others.
If your city, for example, is deciding where to place a landfill, you may advocate against the plant being placed in your neighborhood. That advocacy, on face, makes sense!
“This will reduce our property values and just be plain stinky,” you might argue.
When we think about the issue reflexively and with power in mind, however, we may find that landfills are much more likely to be placed in neighborhoods that are predominant people of color (Massey, 2004). Advocating against placing the plant in your home may inadvertently mean the plant is placed in more vulnerable neighborhoods. Those neighbors become disempowered in your attempt to empower your own community.
In this example, practicing reflexivity might include asking: What are the potential solutions? What options do I have to avoid disempowering groups? Using sound research skills, considering other alternatives or perspectives, and listening can be mechanisms to answer these inquiries
There are no easy answers, but we are confident that you can select advocacies that are meaningful and worthwhile.
Once you feel comfortable and confident about a controversial issue that is ethical, timely and contextually relevant, you will need to identify what type of persuasive proposition that you’ll use in your speech. There are three types of persuasive propositions: propositions of fact, value, or policy. Each type will require different approaches and may have different persuasive outcomes for your audience.
Propositions of fact answer the question, “is this true?” Speeches with this type of proposition attempt to establish the truth of a statement. There is not a sense of what is morally right and wrong or what should be done about the issue, only that a statement is supported by evidence or not. Imagine these questions as true or false.
These propositions are not facts like “the chemical symbol for water is H20” or “Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008.” Propositions or claims of fact are advocacies with evidence on different sides and/or spark disagreement. Imagine that you are a lawyer in the courtroom arguing if something is true or false, with evidence. Some examples of propositions of fact are:
Notice that no values—good or bad—are explicitly mentioned. The point of these propositions is to prove with evidence the truth of a statement, not its inherent value. Your goal is to persuade the audience to update their understanding or belief about the topic in question. Because you are likely not asking the audience to overtly act, it’s necessary to embed arguments that highlight how or why this factual information is meaningful for them or how the factual statement resolves a public controversy.
Propositions of fact are meaningful persuasive claims when new evidence or scientific observations arise that your audience may not know. Facts, statistics, definitions, or expert testimony are common evidence types for these propositions.
Propositions of value argue that something is good/bad or right/wrong. When the proposition has a word such as good, bad, best, worst, just, unjust, ethical, unethical, moral, immoral, advantageous or disadvantageous, it is a proposition of value. Some examples include:
Communication is a key vehicle in understanding values because communication is how communities collectively determine what is right or wrong. Because values are culturally situated and not universal, as a speaker, you must ground and describe what value or moral judgement you’re utilizing. If a war is unjustified, what makes a war “just” or “justified” in the first place? What makes a form of transportation “best” or “better” than another? Isn’t that a matter of personal approach? For different people, “best” might mean “safest,” “least expensive,” “most environmentally responsible,” “most stylish,” “powerful,” or “prestigious.”
Effective propositions of value rely on shared beliefs held by your audience. Developing confidence about your audience will allow you to determine what value systems they rely on and how your proposition relies on similar belief systems. We’ll talk more about appealing to your audience below.
Policy propositions identify a solution to correct the problem. These propositions call for a change in policy (including those in a government, community, or school) or call for the audience to adopt a certain behavior.
Speeches with propositions of policy try to instigate the audience to act immediately, in the long-term, or alter their perspective on an issue. A few examples include:
These propositions are easy to identify because they almost always have the word “should” in them.
Many policy propositions advocate for a solution through a specific organization or government agency. In the examples above, the federal government, the state, and the Supreme Court are all listed as relevant actors to resolve the problem.
Alternatively, you could advocate for your audience to make specific behavioral changes that lead to solutions. If you’re addressing the consequences of climate change in your local community, do solutions require government or non-profit action? Could your audience make in-roads to reducing the negative effects of climate change alone? Thorough research will assist you in determining what actors – organizations or your audience—are best suited to implement your policy solution.
Policy propositions commonly embed a specific call-to-action. What should the audience do if they are persuading by your perspective? What actions can and should they take that can support your policy proposition? This can include “call your senator” (though more specificity is often helpful), but your call-to-action should be crafted with audience adaptation and information in mind.
Burns Library, Boston College – Maya Angelou – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Organization plays a key role in comprehending an argument. While we have previously discussed organization, in this section, we discuss organizing persuasive speeches with a focus on propositions of policy.
Once you’ve identified your main argument, ask, “what organizational pattern best suits my argument?”
For propositions of fact or value, you might select a categorical organization. Essentially that means that you will have two to four discrete, separate arguments in support of the proposition. For example:
Proposition of Fact: Converting to solar energy can save homeowners money.
For propositions of policy, the problem-solution organization pattern is commonly used. We do not typically feel any motivation to change unless we are convinced that some harm, problem, need, or deficiency exists, and even more, that it affects us personally. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” In a problem-solution pattern, you can spend ample and organized time outlining the consequences to inaction, i.e. the problem.
Although a simple problem-solution organization is permissible for a speech of actuation, you will probably do well to utilize the more detailed format called Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
This format, designed by Alan Monroe (1951), is based on John Dewey’s reflective thinking process to consider audience listening patterns. This is one of the most commonly cited and discussed organizational patterns for persuasive speeches. The purpose of Monroe’s motivated sequence is to help speakers “sequence supporting materials and motivational appeals to form a useful organizational pattern for speeches as a whole” (German et al., 2010). Each step is described below and fully developed following:
First, you need to clearly state the attitude, value, belief, or action you want your audience to accept. The purpose of this statement is to clearly tell your audience what your ultimate goal is.
Second, you want to make sure that you clearly explain to your audience why they should accept the attitude, value, belief, or action you proposed. Just telling your audience they should do something isn’t strong enough to actually get them to change. Instead, you really need to provide a solid argument for why they should accept your proposed solution.
Third, you need to show how the solution you have proposed meets the need or problem. Monroe calls this link between your solution and the need a theoretical demonstration because you cannot prove that your solution will work. Instead, you theorize based on research and good judgment that your solution will meet the need or solve the problem.
Fourth, to help with this theoretical demonstration, you need to reference practical experience, which should include examples demonstrating that your proposal has worked elsewhere. Research, statistics, and expert testimony are all great ways of referencing practical experience.
Lastly, Monroe recommends that a speaker respond to possible objections. As a persuasive speaker, one of your jobs is to think through your speech and see what counterarguments could be made against your speech and then rebut those arguments within your speech. When you offer rebuttals for arguments against your speech, it shows your audience that you’ve done your homework and educated yourself about multiple sides of the issue.
When preparing an action step, it is important to make sure that the action, whether audience action or approval, is realistic for your audience. Asking your peers in a college classroom to donate one thousand dollars to charity isn’t realistic. Asking your peers to donate one dollar is considerably more realistic. In a persuasive speech based on Monroe’s motivated sequence, the action step will end with the speech’s concluding device. As discussed elsewhere in this text, you need to make sure that you conclude in a vivid way so that the speech ends on a high point and the audience has a sense of energy as well as a sense of closure.
The more concrete you can make the action step, the better. Research shows that people are more likely to act if they know how accessible the action can be. For example, if you want students to be vaccinated against the chicken pox virus (after establishing that it is a key public controversy), you can give them directions to and hours for a clinic or health center where vaccinations at a free or discounted price can be obtained.
Now that we have discussed Monroe’s motivated sequence, let’s look at how you could use Monroe’s motivated sequence to outline a persuasive speech:
Specific Purpose: To persuade my classroom peers that the United States should have stronger laws governing the use of for-profit medical experiments.
Introduction (Attention): Want to make nine thousand dollars for just three weeks of work lying around and not doing much? Then be a human guinea pig. Admittedly, you’ll have to have a tube down your throat most of those three weeks, but you’ll earn three thousand dollars a week.
Main Points:
Conclusion (Action): In order to prevent the atrocities associated with for-profit medical and pharmaceutical experiments, please sign this petition asking the US Department of Health and Human Services to pass stricter regulations on this preying industry that is out of control.
This example shows how you can take a basic speech topic and use Monroe’s motivated sequence to clearly and easily outline your speech efficiently and effectively.
While Monroe’s motivated sequence is commonly discussed in most public speaking textbooks, we do want to provide one minor caution. Thus far, almost no research has been conducted that has demonstrated that Monroe’s motivated sequence is any more persuasive than other structural patterns. We add this sidenote because we don’t want you to think that Monroe’s motivated sequence is some kind of magic persuasive bullet. At the same time, research does support organized messages being perceived as more persuasive, so using Monroe’s motivated sequence to think through one’s persuasive argument could still be very beneficial.
Another format for organizing a persuasive speech is the problem-cause-solution format. In this specific format, you discuss what a problem is, what you believe is causing the problem, and then what the solution should be to correct the problem.
Specific Purpose: To persuade my classroom peers that our campus should adopt a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech.
In this speech, you want to persuade people to support a new campus-wide policy calling for zero-tolerance of hate speech. Once you have shown the problem, you then explain to your audience that the cause of the unnecessary confrontations and violence is prior incidents of hate speech. Lastly, you argue that a campus-wide zero-tolerance policy could help prevent future unnecessary confrontations and violence. Again, this method of organizing a speech is as simple as its name: problem-cause-solution.
The final method for organizing a persuasive speech is called the comparative advantages speech format. The goal of this speech is to compare items side-by-side and show why one of them is more advantageous than the other. For example, let’s say that you’re giving a speech on which e-book reader is better: Amazon.com’s Kindle or Barnes and Nobles’ Nook. Here’s how you could organize this speech:
Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that the Nook is more advantageous than the Kindle.
As you can see from this speech’s organization, the simple goal of this speech is to show why one thing has more positives than something else. Obviously, when you are demonstrating comparative advantages, the items you are comparing need to be functional equivalents—or, as the saying goes, you cannot compare apples to oranges.
Before we continue with the potential barriers to persuasive speaking, consider this TEDEd talk: How to Use Rhetoric to Get What You Want .
Persuasive speaking can provide opportunities to advocate for important community solutions. But persuasion is really difficult, and there are often barriers to effectively persuading our audience to change their beliefs or act in a new way.
Persuasion is hard because we have a bias against change. As much as we hear statements like “The only constant is change” or “Variety is the spice of life,” the evidence from research and from our personal experience shows that, in reality, we do not like change. Recent risk aversion research, for example, found that humans are concerned more with what we lose than what we gain. Change is often seen as a loss of something rather than a gain of something else, and that’s stressful. We do not generally embrace things that bring us stress.
Given our aversion to change, audiences often go out of their way to protect their beliefs, attitudes, and values. We (as audience members) selectively expose ourselves to messages that we already agree with, rather than those that confront or challenge us. This selective exposure is especially seen in choices of mass media that individuals listen to, watch, and read. Not only do we selectively expose ourselves to information, but we also selectively attend to, perceive, and recall information that supports our existing viewpoints (referred to a s elective recall ).
This principle led Leon Festinger (1957) to form the theory of cognitive dissonance , which states, among other ideas, that when we are confronted with conflicting information or viewpoints, we reach a state of dissonance, or tension between ideas and beliefs. It often occurs when we’re presented information that’s out of line with our values or experiences. This state can be very uncomfortable, and we will do things to get rid of the dissonance and maintain “consonance.” We don’t want to accept that our beliefs may be wrong or inconsistent; we want to remain harmonious.
In a sense, not changing can outweigh very logical reasons to change. For example, you probably know a friend who will not wear a seatbelt in a car. You can say to your friend, “Don’t you know that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2009) says, and I quote, ‘1,652 lives could be saved, and 22,372 serious injuries avoided each year on America’s roadways if seat belt use rates rose to 90 percent in every state’?” What will your friend probably say, even though you have cited a credible source?
They will come up with some reason for not wearing it, even something as dramatic as “I knew a guy who had a cousin who was in an accident and the cop said he died because he was wearing his seatbelt.” They may even say, “Well I am a good driver, so you only need seat belts if you’re driving poorly.” You may have had this conversation, or one like it. Their argument may be less dramatic, such as “I don’t like how it feels” or “I don’t like the government telling me what to do in my car.” For your friend, the argument for wearing a seat belt is not as strong as the argument against it, at least at this moment. Ideally, at least for a public speaker, the dissonance is relieved or resolved by being persuaded (changed) to a new belief, attitude, or behavior.
So, what is a speaker to do to overcome these barriers? We suggest making reasonable requests, articulating the benefits or consequences, and answering oppositional arguments.
Setting reasonable persuasive goals is the first way to meet audience resistance. Since we resist change, we do not make many large or major changes in our lives. We do, however, make smaller, concrete, step-by-step or incremental changes every day. Over time these small shifts can eventually result in a significant amount of persuasion. Aim small, especially within a time constraint, and work to find future room to build.
When problems aren’t resolved, there are consequences. When problems are resolved, there are positive benefits for the community. Because you are asking the audience to change something, they must view the benefits of acting as worth the stress of the change. A speaker should be able to engage the audience at the level of needs, wants, and values as well as logic and evidence.
Identify the benefits, advantages, or improvements that would happen for the audience members who enacted your advocacy. If you do good audience analysis, you know that audiences are asking, “What’s in it for me?” “Why do I need this?”
Alternatively, you could outline the short and long-term consequences of inaction and detail how the problem would negatively affect the audience and/or their community. In other words, you’re identifying what would occur if the audience did nothing, if they choose not to act. Using Monroe’s Motivated Sequences can assist in organizing these arguments.
During a persuasive speech, audience members are holding a mental dialogue, and they are thinking through rebuttals or oppositional arguments to your advocacy. These mental dialogues could be called the “yeah-buts”—the audience members are saying in their minds, “Yeah, I see what you are arguing, but—”. Reservations can be very strong, since, again, our human bias is to be loss averse and not to change our actions or beliefs.
If you’re advocating a claim that humans are the primary cause of climate change, your audience may think, “yeah, but these consequences won’t happen for a long time,” or “yeah, but we have time to resolve these problems.”
As a speaker, address these! Refute the arguments that may prohibit your audience from changing.
It’s common to call oppositional arguments “misconceptions,” “myths,” or “mistaken ideas” that are widely held about the proposition. You may answer oppositional arguments around climate change by saying, “One common misconception about climate change is that we won’t see the negative impacts for decades. A recent study determined that consequences are already upon us.”
After acknowledging oppositional arguments and seeking to refute or rebut the reservations, you must also provide evidence for your refutation. Ultimately, this will show your audience that you are aware of both sides of the issue you are presenting and make you a more credible speaker.
Additionally, keep in mind that you may be asking your audience for passive agreement or immediate action. Each is described below.
When we attempt to gain the passive agreement of our audiences, our goal is to get our audiences to agree with what we are saying and our specific policy without asking the audience to do anything to enact the policy. For example, maybe your speech is on why the Federal Communications Commission should regulate violence on television like it does foul language (i.e., no violence until after 9 p.m.). Your goal as a speaker is to get your audience to agree that it is in our best interest as a society to prevent violence from being shown on television before 9 p.m., but you are not seeking to have your audience run out and call their senators or congressmen or even sign a petition. Often the first step in larger political change is simply getting a massive number of people to agree with your policy perspective.
Let’s look at a few more passive agreement claims:
In each of these claims, the goal is to sway one’s audience to a specific attitude, value, or belief, but not necessarily to get the audience to enact any specific behaviors.
The alternative to passive agreement is immediate action, or persuading your audience to start engaging in a specific behavior. Many passive agreement topics can become immediate action-oriented topics as soon as you tell your audience what behavior they should engage in (e.g., sign a petition, call a senator, vote). While it is much easier to elicit passive agreement than to get people to do something, you should always try to get your audience to act and do so quickly. A common mistake that speakers make is telling people to enact a behavior that will occur in the future. The longer it takes for people to engage in the action you desire, the less likely it is that your audience will engage in that behavior.
Here are some examples of good claims with immediate calls to action:
Each of these three examples starts with a basic claim and then tags on an immediate call to action. Remember, the faster you can get people to engage in a behavior the more likely they actually will.
Principles of Public Speaking Copyright © 2022 by Katie Gruber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Frank Laurence Lucas (28 December 1894 – 1 June 1967) was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright … He is now best remembered … for his book Style (1955; revised 1962), an acclaimed guide to recognizing and writing good prose.
After teaching English for 40 years as a professor at Cambridge University, he concluded that “writing well” is an inborn gift. As a teacher, he can only teach people how to “write better.”
He wrote Style – a book aiming to teach the process of writing better. In this book, he listed down 10 principles of effective writing as follows:
According to Lucas, a writer must always respect the time of the reader. Therefore, brevity is on top of his list of principles of effective writing.
For example:
Long Sentence
Writing Hacks Academy has created a Facebook page for budding writers to help them find a community to consult about writing-related concerns and provide a sounding board for the newbies. It will make them stop dithering and make progress faster.
Brevity Sentence
Writing Hacks Academy has created a Facebook page, so budding writers will have a community that provides consultation for their writing concerns and a sounding board for their ideas to make them progress faster.
Lucas also emphasized the use of understandable words to save your readers unnecessary trouble. We achieve clarity when we write to serve people rather than to impress.
Long Sentence
When the Covid-19 Pandemic hit the Philippines, and we experienced lockdown in Metro Manila, it has given officer workers a whole new perspective to see the bigger picture when it comes to work-from-home setup.
Clear Sentence
When Metro Manila was in lockdown due to Covid-19 Pandemic, it has given office workers a new perspective on the work-from-home setup.
Writers know that the purpose of their writing is to communicate, and the best way to follow this principle in effective writing is by using simple language.
Writing to impress is a formula for failure. Using big elaborate words and jargon shows the writer is unsure of expressing himself.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
The most crucial lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat. ~ Robert Heinlein
When writing, we want to use big and strong words in the right places. And the right place is usually the end of a clause or sentence.
Skilled writers leave a great thought at the end of the sentence for emphasis. They do this to achieve climax. Mastering this art will allow you to bring the reader to a brief pause, with the emphatic word lingering in his mind.
Example:
Original sentence – The Eiffel Tower is one of the famous landmarks in the world.
Revised sentence – One of the world’s most famous landmarks is The Eiffel Tower.
For us to gain the readers’ trust, Lucas points out that honesty is the best policy. Whatever we write may be used against us in the future, so be very careful since writing reveals a lot of the writer’s character.
Lucas further states that when writers use long, impressive words, in the end, the length only shows the fakes.
To write with passion is to make your readers feel like the words are jumping out of the pages. Without it, our thoughts lay flat, communicating nothing. Control is what holds passion in check, making sure nothing goes overboard. These two principles of effective writing always come hand-in-hand.
Passion and Control are often used in copywriting. To drive home the point, copywriters must write passionately about what he is selling.
Example of Passion and Control in Copywriting:
Don’t know how to organize a corporate event? We DO!!
Don’t know how to bring in the country’s top DJs and models? We DO!!
Don’t know how to turn your party into the biggest event this summer? We DO!!
Call us at _____ or email us to stage your next exciting event!
As we have been taught by our English teachers, to become a good writer, reading good books starts. By reading numerous books from a favorite author, we somehow imbibe their style of writing.
With more practice, the writer’s style will shine through soon enough. F.L. Lucas equates it to hearing different speakers if you want to learn to give speeches.
So remember our Reading subject in grade school? Part of its purpose is to prepare us to be better writers.
What makes writing better than public speaking is this principle – we can always review our work and edit it. This usually happens to writers, they write continuously with passion today, only to change the words they use tomorrow because the fire sparked in them has simmered.
So, it is always wise to write, leave it for one day before re-reading it again. There must be something in the essay that needs rewriting.
Lucas tells us that sophisticated does not necessarily express ideas better. Sometimes, Simplicity does the trick. Or vice-versa. The lesson here is to strike a balance between the two.
The easier it is to read your writing, the more believable it is. And the more believable it is, the more your credibility increases. ~ Steve Maurer
What did Leonardo Da Vinci say again?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Da Vinci
To finish off the list are sound and rhythm. Whatever was written down or typed on paper may look good. Lucas said, “Read it out loud. Do the words sound good?”
If not, go back to # 8 – Revision.
Which of the 10 principles resonates with you the most? If you have read the above principles of effective writing and felt that you already possess some of them, but not all, it is not too late for you.
Learn more easy-to-follow tips that will help you become a better writer . Check out this post .
Writing Hacks Academy is offering an online course on Level Up Your Writing Skills . The program is designed for writers like you.
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10 Principles Of Effective Writing. (2019, September 29). Retrieved from https://www.writerswrite.co.za/ten-principles-of-effective-writing/
30 Famous Authors On Writing In Plain Language. (2020, February 10). Retrieved from https://www.writerswrite.co.za/30-famous-quotes-on-writing-in-plain-language/
Admin, & Admin. (n.d.). How To Write Honestly. Retrieved from http://mikeshreeve.com/how-to-write-honestly/
Admin. (2012, October 19). Ten Principles for Effective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.jli.edu.in/blog/ten-principles-for-effective-writing/
Brevity. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/brevity?s=t
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Maurer, S., About the Author Steve Maurer, Twitter, F. O., & Maurer, M. C. (2020, April 04). Sophistication in Simplicity: The Writer’s Da Vinci Code. Retrieved from https://hub.uberflip.com/blog/sophistication-in-simplicity-the-writer-s-da-vinci-code#:~:text=Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication&text=Some writers believe that to,the more your credibility increases
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Mary Ann , also called “The Millennial Granny” is a single mother of three and a granny of two little munchkins. Her story started as a newbie in the hotel industry, where she learned the ABCs of sales and marketing. She eventually took off and worked in a foreign country where she met the father of her children. Fast forward a few years, she went back to the Philippines as Hotel Sales and Marketing Director of an upscale resort.
She explored freelance writing in 2020 to adjust to the Coronavirus pandemic, which affected the travel industry. Mary Ann completed Writing Hacks Academy’s course, Freelance Writing Road Map.
Through all of her life’s journeys, she has always kept a close relationship with her three millennial kids. She believes in continuous learning, regardless of age. Thus, she calls herself The Millennial Granny.
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Outlining your speech.
Most speakers and audience members would agree that an organized speech is both easier to present as well as more persuasive. Public speaking teachers especially believe in the power of organizing your speech, which is why they encourage (and often require) that you create an outline for your speech. Outlines , or textual arrangements of all the various elements of a speech, are a very common way of organizing a speech before it is delivered. Most extemporaneous speakers keep their outlines with them during the speech as a way to ensure that they do not leave out any important elements and to keep them on track. Writing an outline is also important to the speechwriting process since doing so forces the speakers to think about the main points and sub-points, the examples they wish to include, and the ways in which these elements correspond to one another. In short, the outline functions both as an organization tool and as a reference for delivering a speech.
“Alpena Mayor Carol Shafto Speaks at 2011 Michigan Municipal League Convention” by Michigan Municipal League. CC-BY-ND .
There are two types of outlines. The first outline you will write is called the preparation outline . Also called a working, practice, or rough outline, the preparation outline is used to work through the various components of your speech in an inventive format. Stephen E. Lucas [1] put it simply: “The preparation outline is just what its name implies—an outline that helps you prepare the speech” (p. 248). When writing the preparation outline, you should focus on finalizing the purpose and thesis statements, logically ordering your main points, deciding where supporting material should be included, and refining the overall organizational pattern of your speech. As you write the preparation outline, you may find it necessary to rearrange your points or to add or subtract supporting material. You may also realize that some of your main points are sufficiently supported while others are lacking. The final draft of your preparation outline should include full sentences, making up a complete script of your entire speech. In most cases, however, the preparation outline is reserved for planning purposes only and is translated into a speaking outline before you deliver the speech.
A speaking outline is the outline you will prepare for use when delivering the speech. The speaking outline is much more succinct than the preparation outline and includes brief phrases or words that remind the speakers of the points they need to make, plus supporting material and signposts. [2] The words or phrases used on the speaking outline should briefly encapsulate all of the information needed to prompt the speaker to accurately deliver the speech. Although some cases call for reading a speech verbatim from the full-sentence outline, in most cases speakers will simply refer to their speaking outline for quick reminders and to ensure that they do not omit any important information. Because it uses just words or short phrases, and not full sentences, the speaking outline can easily be transferred to index cards that can be referenced during a speech.
Because an outline is used to arrange all of the elements of your speech, it makes sense that the outline itself has an organizational hierarchy and a common format. Although there are a variety of outline styles, generally they follow the same pattern. Main ideas are preceded by Roman numerals (I, II, III, etc.). Sub-points are preceded by capital letters (A, B, C, etc.), then Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.), and finally lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.). Each level of subordination is also differentiated from its predecessor by indenting a few spaces. Indenting makes it easy to find your main points, sub-points, and the supporting points and examples below them. Since there are three sections to your speech— introduction, body, and conclusion— your outline needs to include all of them. Each of these sections is titled and the main points start with Roman numeral I.
Title: Organizing Your Public Speech
Topic: Organizing public speeches
Specific Purpose Statement: To inform listeners about the various ways in which they can organize their public speeches.
Thesis Statement: A variety of organizational styles can used to organize public speeches.
Introduction Paragraph that gets the attention of the audience, establishes speaker credibility, explains topic relevance, states the purpose of the speech, and previews the speech and its structure.
(Transition)
I. Main point
A. Sub-point B. Sub-point C. Sub-point
1. Supporting point 2. Supporting point
Conclusion Paragraph that prepares the audience for the end of the speech, presents any final appeals, and summarizes and wraps up the speech.
Bibliography
In addition to these formatting suggestions, there are some additional elements that should be included at the beginning of your outline: the title, topic, specific purpose statement, and thesis statement. These elements are helpful to you, the speechwriter, since they remind you what, specifically, you are trying to accomplish in your speech. They are also helpful to anyone reading and assessing your outline since knowing what you want to accomplish will determine how they perceive the elements included in your outline. Additionally, you should write out the transitional statements that you will use to alert audiences that you are moving from one point to another. These are included in parentheses between main points. At the end of the outlines, you should include bibliographic information for any outside resources you mention during the speech. These should be cited using whatever citations style your professor requires. The textbox entitled “Outline Formatting Guide” provides an example of the appropriate outline format.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu
This chapter contains the preparation and speaking outlines for a short speech the author of this chapter gave about how small organizations can work on issues related to climate change (see appendices). In this example, the title, specific purpose, thesis, and list of visual aids precedes the speech. Depending on your instructor’s requirements, you may need to include these details plus additional information. It is also a good idea to keep these details at the top of your document as you write the speech since they will help keep you on track to developing an organized speech that is in line with your specific purpose and helps prove your thesis. At the end of the chapter, in Appendix A, you can find a full length example of a Preparation (Full Sentence) Outline.
In Appendix B, the Preparation Outline is condensed into just a few short key words or phrases that will remind speakers to include all of their main points and supporting information. The introduction and conclusion are not included since they will simply be inserted from the Preparation Outline. It is easy to forget your catchy attention-getter or final thoughts you have prepared for your audience, so it is best to include the full sentence versions even in your speaking outline.
COMMENTS
The award-winning Art of Public Speaking offers a time-tested approach to teaching the practical skills of public speaking and the major aspects of speech preparation and presentation. Clear, authoritative coverage written in a personable voice. Integrates a rich selection of narratives, speech excerpts, and full sample speeches that illustrate principles in action.
The Art of Public Speaking continues to define the art of being the best public speaker by helping today's students become capable and responsible speakers and thinkers. With a strong focus on the practical skills of public speaking and grounded in classical and contemporary theories of rhetoric, The Art of Public Speaking covers all major aspects of speech preparation and presentation.<BR>
Stephen E. Lucas [1] put it simply: "The preparation outline is just what its name implies—an outline that helps you prepare the speech" (p. 248). When writing the preparation outline, you should focus on finalizing the purpose and thesis statements, logically ordering your main points, deciding where supporting material should be ...
A speaking outline is the outline you will prepare for use when delivering the speech. The speaking outline is much more succinct than the preparation outline and includes brief phrases or words that remind the speakers of the points they need to make, plus supporting material and signposts. [2] The words or phrases used on the speaking outline ...
*As explained in The Art of Public Speaking by Stephen Lucas, 11th ed. BCCC ASC Rev. 4/2018 Effective Speaking: From Ideas to Delivery There are three main types of speeches you will prepare and deliver: Tribute/Commemorative Speech - to honor or commemorate a person, program, animal, etc. Informative Speech - to educate your audience about a particular topic
The first outline you will write is called the preparation outline. Also called a working, practice, or rough outline, the preparation outline is used to work through the various components of your speech in an inventive format. Stephen E. Lucas [1] put it simply: "The preparation outline is just what its name implies—an outline that helps ...
Stephen E. Lucas is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin. His major books include Portents of Rebellion: Rhetoric and Revolution in Philadelphia, 1765-1776; Words of a Century: The Top 100 American Speeches, 1900-1999; and Rhetoric, Independence, and Nationhood, 1760-1800.A Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication ...
Stephen Lucas. McGraw-Hill, 2004 - Education - 500 pages. Lucas' The Art of Public Speaking is the leading public speaking textbook in the field ... Creative activities, vivid examples, annotated speech samples, and foundation of classic and contemporary rhetoric provide students a strong understanding of public speaking ...
Whether a novice or an experienced speaker, students will learn how to be a better public speaker through this text's explanations of classical and contemporary theory and thorough its coverage of practical applications. Keeping a steady eye on the practical skills of public speaking, it offers full coverage of the major aspects of speech preparation and presentation.
t. Persuasion is the process of creating, reinforc-ing, or changing people's beliefs or actions.1 The ability to speak (and write) persuasively will benefit you in every part of your life, from personal rela-tions to community activities to career aspiratio. s. In a recent study, ec. n-omists added up the number of people—lawyers, sales ...
The Academy Award-winning movie The King's Speech did much to increase public awareness of what a person with a stutter goes through when it comes to public speaking. It also prompted some well-known individuals who stutter, such as television news reporter John Stossel, to go public about their stuttering (Stossel, 2011).
Developing & Writing a Speech. This guide was created to take you along a step by step process to develop a speech. It is mainly focused on helping you brainstorm, identify, and define a topic to research. This is a general guide, so it may vary from your classroom assignments. As always, refer to your professor and syllabus for your project ...
Chapter Sixteen - Speaking to Persuade. On the first day of class, your instructor provided you a "lay of the land.". They introduced you to course documents, the syllabus, and reading materials. "It's important that you read your textbook," they likely shared. "The material will allow you to dive deeper into the course material ...
speech—plus four new needs improvement speeches. Improved coverage of introduction and conclusions. Chapter 10 features new sample introductions and conclusions with commentary, both of which are also available on video. The chapter also includes a new section on using visual aids to gain attention and interest at the start of a speech. List of
Stephen Lucas, Stephen E. Lucas, Paul Stob. McGraw-Hill Education, Feb 22, 2019 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 389 pages. Fully updated for the thirteenth edition, the award-winning The Art of Public Speaking offers a time-tested approach that has made it the most widely used college textbook on its subject in the world.
Principle # 6 Passion and Control. To write with passion is to make your readers feel like the words are jumping out of the pages. Without it, our thoughts lay flat, communicating nothing. Control is what holds passion in check, making sure nothing goes overboard.
Plan where you want to finish your speech and how you will get there before you start writing . The structure of a speech is often in three parts. For example: 1. an opening that grabs your audience's attention and makes the overall topic of your speech clear - for example, pose a question to the audience where you can predict the answer. 2.
An extemporaneous speech is the presentation of a planned and rehearsed speech using minimal notes. 18 Guidelines on writing a speech (Lucas, 2015) Focus on your topic. Develop your topic. Organize your speech. Introduction Body Conclusion 19 Elements f o r a good delivery 1.
Lucas' "The Art of Public Speaking" is the leading public speaking textbook in the field. Whether a novice or an experienced speaker when beginning the course, every student will learn how to be a better public speaker through Lucas' clear explanations. Creative activities, vivid examples, annotated speech samples, and foundation of classic and contemporary rhetoric provide students a strong ...
Guidelines on Writing a Speech (LUCAS, 2015); 1. Focus on your topic 2. Develop your topic 3. Organize your speech a. Introduction b. Body c. Conclusion Public Speaking B. 1. Understand your audience 2. Define your main points 3. Gather supporting material 4. Organize your content 5. Develop each main point 6. Use visual and props 7.
A speaking outline is the outline you will prepare for use when delivering the speech. The speaking outline is much more succinct than the preparation outline and includes brief phrases or words that remind the speakers of the points they need to make, plus supporting material and signposts. [2] The words or phrases used on the speaking outline ...
Guidelines on writing a speech (Lucas, 2015) 1. Focus on your topic. 2. Develop your topic. 3. Organize your speech. a) Introduction b) Body c) Conclusion 19. Elements for a good delivery 1. Volume 2. Pitch 3. Rate 4. Pauses 5. Vocal variety 6. Pronunciation 7. Articulation 8. Movement 9.
Stephen Lucas Snippet view - 2000. ... credibility cryonics delivery discussion effective emotional appeal ethical example experience explain eye contact fact give graph guidelines Hypnosis important inform my audience informative speech Internet interview introduction kinds language listeners look magazine main points major metasearch ...