Chapter Presentation 3/26/2021

March 26th, 2021 : Public Speaking Period 9

Anton Slesarevich and Matthew Wilson

Chapter 10 and 11 Presentations

Chapter 10 (Beginning and Ending the Speech)

The introduction has four main objectives:

• To get the attention and interest of your audience

• To reveal the speech’s topic

• To establish your credibility and goodwill

• To preview the body of the speech

• Get attention and interest

• Relate the topic to your audience by introducing a scenario that they may find themselves in

• State the importance of your topic

• Startle the audience with an intriguing or unexpected statement

• Arouse curiosity by building suspense in your opening statements

• Question the audience by asking a rhetorical question

• Tell a personal anecdote or story to get the audience emotionally invested in the speech

• Reveal the topic

• Make sure to clearly state the topic of your speech in order to not lose your audience 

• Establish credibility

• Show how you are involved with the topic to make the audience perceive you as qualified

• Preview the body

• Stating your main points clearly helps the audience follow along

• Preview statements should also provide a smooth transition to the body of your speech

The Conclusion has two main objectives:

• To let the audience know you are ending the speech

• To reinforce the central idea

• Signal the end of your speech

• Ending a speech too suddenly makes the audience puzzled and unfulfilled 

• Use phrases such as “In conclusion”, “My purpose has been”, and “Let me end by saying”

• Change your manner of delivery to slow the momentum of the speech

• “Dissolve” the ending to have your speech “fade away”

• Reinforce the central idea

• Summarize your speech by restating the main points

• End with a quotation that fits the pace and idea of your speech

• Make a dramatic statement in order to keep your audience thinking about your speech and its message

• Referring to the introduction gives your speech psychological unity

Chapter 11 (Outlining the Speech)

The Preparation outline

• The blueprint for your speech

• Includes main ideas, and creates a structured speech

• Specific Purpose/Central Idea

• This is the goal of your speech and is determined before the speech is written

• The Central Idea comes after your specific points; It is made up of your main points

• Intro/Conclusion

• The introduction should contain a hook, lead up to your central idea, and show previews of your main points

• The conclusion restates the main points and includes a closing wrap up

• Body

• 

  Made up of main points and sub-points

• Transitions + Internal Summaries/Previews

• Included between points in the outline

• Provides a flow to the speech that the listener can follow along to

• Connects the different parts of the speech

• Bibliography

• Shows all referenced sources (books, websites, studies, etc.)
  

The Speaking Outline

• A brief outline that the speaker can use during a speech to remember main points of the speech

• Can be a condensed prep outline

• Contains:

• Key words or phrases

• Important statistics/quotes

• Cues to emphasize certain points

• Guidelines:

• Use a similar format as to your preparation outline

• Make sure handwriting is clear and legible

• Keep the outline as brief as possible

• Include cues for delivering the speech

Argument Presentation

 

Mrs. Sanguinedo’s argument presentation discusses how an argument should be organized and constructed, what its main objectives should be, and how it should be carried out both in writing and in oratory. 

The main objective of an argument, according to the presentation, should be to support or reject a given claim with the use of evidence. The claim that an argument proposes should be straightforward and specific, and special care should be taken to ensure that a firm stance is taken on the issue at hand (for example, say “the Treaty of Versailles fueled the rise of Nazism in Germany” not “the Treaty of Versailles had a lot of negative consequences”). 

The evidence that backs your claim will likely take up a variety of different forms, but it’ll generally be divisible into three broad and comprehensive categories: ethos, pathos, and logos. All of these aspects of evidence, whichever you decide to implement, should of course be backed by sound facts and statistics (e.g. after making an emotional appeal about the number of deaths that occur due to drunk driving, you proceed to reference government data showing that, according to the CDC, 29 people in the United States die at the hands of drunk driving every day).

An additional aspect of the argument which is usually absent in persuasive pieces (designed to move an audience to action) but is integral in argumentative pieces (designed to convince an audience that your viewpoint deserves consideration) is the rebuttal. This is an area where many will default to logical fallacies and poor argumentative tactics (see pyramid of refutations above) like ad hominem and responses to tone that give the impression that you are unable to respond directly to the substantive evidence backing the opposing viewpoint in question. The most valid and effective refutation you could use for this purpose is the rebuttal of the central point, the explicit identification and refutation of an intrinsic flaw in the claim of an opposing argument that proves the entire argument dismissible and invalid.

The final component of any good argument is of course the conclusion. Here you recap your ideas and insist once more that, because of the reasons you described, you believe the claim you’ve made is true, factual, and correct. Generally speaking, this should be an aerial view summarization of your argument that excludes any new ideas and simply restates your primary reasons and claims. 

For all of the benefits that are gifted by good structure and organization in your arguments, this presentation concludes by pointing out the importance of other aspects of thought and rational that go hand in hand with making your arguments better. It’s important, for instance, to assess the quality and relevance of your evidence before using it to support your claims, and 

when giving speeches, it's important to take into account the values and perspectives of your audience in order to, for example, avoid using offensive rhetoric that would immediately impel your audience to dismiss your argument entirely. Another important aspect of thought and perspective to keep in mind in your arguments is keeping aware of how you are being affected by others’ opinions and ideas. When you pay careful attention to how events are depicted in news and media, for instance, you begin to realize how minor aspects of presentation have the potential to move mountains. 

The final topic discussed in Mrs. Sanguinedo’s presentation is the fact that argument and debate are not the same thing. An argument  of any kind can be unpacked and presented in its entirety; it can be pre-planned and communicated chronologically in the typical claim-evidence-rebuttal format we’re all so familiar with. A debate, on the other hand, is usually an informal, fluid and changing discussion. Although you may have an organization and structure in mind, you are frequently forced to follow along with the conversation and adapt quickly to shifts in the primary topic being discussed.

Reflections

Matthew:

In my point of view, both of the class presentations summarized above delineated especially crucial aspects of speech giving, not only because both addressed undeniably important aspects of the speech itself, but also, because both gave telling and informative insights into some of the most pervasive sources of angst and frustration faced by struggling speakers. These struggles, of course, are the imperative issues, first, of how to organize the whipping winds and clutter of the mind into something that induces clarity and understanding, and second, of how to begin and end a speech in a way that overcomes the chatter of self-doubt, establishes an aura of self-confidence, and deftly demands the attention of the audience. 

The Chapter 11 group addressed the first of these issues. Too often, it seems, when a writer puts their hand to the page, they instantly feel the power of impetus and immediately let intuition and impulse guide them hither and thither across the page; they pour their heart aimlessly onto the paper in the form of free writing and let their pen guide them along until it runs out of places to go and destinations to depart to. In the past, this is how I usually have prepared my own speeches––I would usually simply grab a blank sheet of paper and get to the business of writing what I wanted to say.  The crucial thing I garnered from this presentation is that there are many unique benefits associated with the opposite approach. Especially when it comes to writing speeches, minimalism and strict organization during the preparation process can really be quite beneficial. When you’re writing a preparation outline, for example, keeping things to the mere essentials forces you to focus on the most important details (what your first main point will be, what sub-points will support it, etc.) instead of permitting you to drone on about grammar and word choice (which can be addressed later). For the typical speech, the importance of this is quite well founded, because while a piece of writing can be revised and edited on the go, a speech requires a certain level of precision and accuracy to avoid confusing audiences that lack the ability to analyze every word and sentence they hear. When you're writing your speech outline, a similar fact is true. The last thing you want to be doing in this effort is rewriting your entire speech onto a single sheet of paper and rereading it to the audience—once again, strategic organization comes in handy. My main takeaway from all of this is that I will definitely be using some of the techniques mentioned by group 11 in the future.

The chapter 10 group addresses the second of these issues, and it is one that I myself can readily recall struggling with in the past. Although the fundamental definition of what an introduction or conclusion is happens to be quiete simplistic, I have often found myself, in my own experience, reverting to one or the other extremes of common practice. Sometimes, I put so much energy into either of these aspects of the speech that they seem never to end. On other occasions, I resort to the tendency of many others by shortening my introduction and conclusion unnecessarily, usually because I am so eager to get the primary subject matter at hand. Although I’ve already been well acquainted with much of the information presented by group 10 for some time, I found their description of an ideal middle ground between these two extremes to be quite useful. They outlined some of the central ideas to keep in mind, such as leading off with a short hook and closing out without adding any new information. The primary takeaway I extract from this group’s presentation is that I could definitely try, in the future, to pay more attention to these fundamentals in order to make my introductions and conclusions as fluid, effective, economical, and entertaining as conceivably possible. 

As I’ve said already, I think that both group 10 and 11 discussed concepts of some of the highest levels of importance in speech and oration. Not only did they both address the primary principles of the chapter assigned to them, but in so doing, they expanded their meaning beyond concept and technique into the realm of personal struggle and self-improvement by speaking to challenges faced by many speakers over the course of their individual careers. I believe these groups likely shared crucial information to many of us, and so I expect that they, in this regard, well achieved their collective educational goals.

When I watched Mrs. Sanguinedo’s presentation, I don’t believe that I encountered a lot of new information. I was essentially familiar with how arguments were organized, and I have been well acquainted over the years with some of the essential ideas to keep in mind when preparing compositions of that nature. None of this is to say, however, that I was not profoundly enlightened by this presentation. I took very detailed notes (which are summarized above) on what I believed to be the most essential takeaways, and what I found was that in many cases, I have not applied, as fastidiously as I might have initially expected, the foundational principles of argument and logic that I have known for so long.

Take, for instance, the concept that we should always be simultaneously open minded and critical of the opinions and viewpoints presented to us by others. ALthough I have always known this to be a proper axiom, and one that I have tried continuously to abide by, I realized upon evaluating the NY Times article about Governor Christie that my adherence to this teaching has frequently been limited in size and scale. Although, because I am a frequent reader of the news, I have attempted to diversify my exposure to various opinions by reading newspapers positioned at different ends of the political spectrum (the New York Times, the National Review, etc.) I have frequently, I now realize in retrospect, given greater consideration when evaluating my balance of information intake to which stories are being told as opposed to how certain events are covered. One can easily, for example, imagine the Gov. Christie article being told without the critical descriptions provided by the Times authors. With this in mind I don’t deem it an impossibility, that in my own experience, I may have read an article covering a certain event from one source (such as The NY Times, which I read most frequently) without getting the fuller picture (even if the main events being described appear to be just straightforward, unbiased facts, figures, and descriptions). This is because we are always being influenced by the information we consume, no matter the degree of subtleties involved; this is certainly something that I would like to give more attention to in the future, not only to achieve a more open mind, but also, to garner a fuller understanding of how I am being influenced by others on a constant basis. One additional area where I believe my basic knowledge has not translated fully to application is in that of the essential differences between written and oral argument. Although I have undoubtedly, during the course of my educational history, produced many written and oral arguments and have considered deeply the differences between the two, it seems I have never once entertained the notion of putting the most powerful and effective main points toward the end of oral arguments. The reason this is beneficial, evidently, is because it leaves the audience, which is without the ability to review and “reread” what you said previously (as they would be able to do in a written argument), with a strong impression before your speech's conclusion. This is something that I will definitely be considering implementing in my future speeches. Overall, my main view of this presentation, as I’ve said, is that I did not just receive information already familiar to me. All of the facts I thought I knew were presented in such a manner that their importance was made undoubtedly apparent, and I was moved to evaluate more fully my own argumentative abilities and capacities as both a speaker and a orator. And whether it concerns matters of mindfulness and perspective, or basic skills and main point organization techniques, I certainly derived advice and guidelines that I undoubtedly will be keeping tight to in the future. Anton: Today’s chapter presentations focused on the different parts of your speech and how to properly execute them. Chapter 10 was about the introduction and conclusion of your speech: two components that, if executed properly, can exponentially amplify your speech’s impact on the audience. I learned about the introduction and how it is meant to be used to quickly get the audience’s attention, as well as tease the rest of the speech and establish your own credibility in relation to your topic. I learned about various techniques to improve the introduction such as telling a personal anecdote or story to make the audience interested and stating main points clearly early on to let the audience follow along with easier. The conclusion is similar to the introduction, and it is also important because it’s the thing that the audience remembers. I learned how to let the audience know that the speech is ending, and also how to reinforce the central idea by restating the main points or ending the speech with a quote. Chapter 11 was more geared towards planning and preparing a speech through outlines. I learned about how the preparation outline gives the speech structure and allows you to clearly make connections between different parts of your speech, and how that gives the speech flow. This outline would help correct many of the issues that I find in my own speeches, whether it’s improving the flow or connecting my ideas in a better and clearer way for my audience. The second part of this chapter focuses on the speaking outline, which is essentially a condensed preparation outline that you use during a speech (usually on an index card), and this outline helps you keep track of your ideas and points throughout the speech, and gives you something to fall back on if you forget a talking point. These two chapters taught me about proper planning and execution of the parts of speech (especially the introduction and conclusion), and I am sure I will use them in future speeches. My conclusions are probably the weakest parts of my speeches, and using the preparation outline to create a meaningful conclusion while keeping in mind the rules shown in chapter 10, I know that I will be able to get my message to “stick” much better.