UNIT 8: PUBLIC SPEAKING

Welcome to PD3: CONTENTS

Communication! • The Big Idea
This downloadable version of Unit • The Benefits of Public
8 contains edited content. To get Speaking
the full experience of this course • The Art of Public
and all of its content (including Speaking
additional interactive content and • Preparing Your Speech
assignments), you are encouraged • Delivering Your Speech
to engage with the course through
• Unit Summary
LEARN.
• Extend Your Knowledge

LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Describe the benefits of having effective public speaking skills.
• Examine rhetorical situations to effectively prepare and deliver
speeches.
• Organize speeches to meet both your goals and your audience’s
needs.
• Use strategies to speak in public with confidence.

ASSESSMENT
Assignment 4: Presentation is due this week (see LEARN).
 THE BIG IDEA

Imagine for a moment that you’re about to head out of the office to meet a friend at a local coffee
shop for lunch and try to think of all the different communication events that could occur.
Perhaps you accidentally bump into someone in line and need to apologize. Or perhaps you share
some laughs with the baristas by making a few jokes as you wait for your order.

Given that you’ve all likely experienced this common scenario before, it’s easy to recognize all
sorts of different situations that give you a reason to verbally communicate with others around
you. Some are quite simple to navigate by instinct or intuition, as shown in this example; and
some are much more complex, which requires deeper thought and understanding.

We speak in front of an audience and in public every single day. It’s a bit different when it’s a
conversation with one person as opposed to a public presentation for a group of people, of course; but
it’s important we try our best to remember that, especially in moments of fear. While some of you may
find speaking in front of other people no big deal, many others would do just about anything to avoid
having to do so. In fact, public speaking is rated very highly in lists of peoples' top phobias - right up
there with the fear of death and spiders. It’s no surprise that this is still a very real concern for many
people - especially those in the early stages of their careers. Despite the practice you often get in formal
schooling, the context there isn’t going to always be the same in the workplace.

There are many scenarios in a workplace setting where you might be expected to publicly speak. For
example, it could be a team or group meeting that you're either leading or participating in, a brief
informative report on some work that you've been undertaking, or a proposal you present with your
team to a group of colleagues and managers. We could even look beyond that of the workplace and
towards scenarios in our personal lives, as well. Addresses, eulogies, toasts, pep talks, lectures, oral
reports, sermons, sales pitches… the list goes on and on. Now, are you going to be the next great
motivational speaker, like Tony Robbins, or deliver a speech that’s comparable to Martin Luther King’s,
“I Have a Dream”, by the end of this unit? Probably not. But you will understand the theory and practice
involved in the “art” of public speaking to help enhance your skill set and ability to effectively
communicate - no matter the situation.

THE BENEFITS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Personal

• Communication skills. To be an effective public speaker, you’ll need to examine your verbal and
nonverbal acts and strategize your communication so that your audience is engaged and does or
thinks in a way that you intended.

• Critical thinking skills. In addition to enhancing your communication skills, another important
competency impacted is your ability to think critically. As you craft an effective speech, you’ll find
 yourself involved in processes that may require research, analysis, problem-solving, and evaluation
to determine your best approach.

• Confidence. Being able to overcome fears and insecurities that often accompany public speaking is
not only empowering but a huge boost to one’s self-esteem. As a result, you end up building up or
growing your confidence - feeling more and more comfortable with being seen and heard by others
in many different areas of life.

Professional

• Career advancement. We know that public speaking enhances your ability to effectively
communicate - a very important skill set for employers. Being skilled at public speaking is also a
necessity for all leaders, too. Keep this in mind if you hope to climb the corporate ladder and land
yourself a leadership role in the future. After all, there’s a reason why executives all around the
world spend millions of dollars towards things such as public speaking workshops or speaking
coaches.

• Connection. Public speaking at events or conferences can provide many opportunities to build
relationships and grow your network, which in turn, helps you solidify important professional
connections.

• Influence. Perhaps you hope to become a powerful advocate, unite people, inspire change, or
influence the world around you to take action for social impact. Or you just hope to gain some
influence at work or in your personal life. Either way, you’ll have many learnings and strategies
under your belt that could be used to win over any audience.

THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Figure 1: PD3 Unit 8 – A statue of Aristotle in Greece

If you’re in a position to have to talk in front of a group of colleagues for the first time, you can once
again profit from a few key pieces of rhetorical wisdom that have been passed down from Aristotle.
Now, ancient Greeks didn't have PowerPoint, and that's maybe the one and only thing we've got over
Aristotle – but the rest of what we know about giving speeches is more or less unchanged since his day.
Rhetoric was, in fact, founded to teach oratory, and it's still a pretty good place to start.
Here's a quick recap of Aristotle's rhetorical wisdom:

In every communicative event, there is

the speaker, the audience, and the purpose. And there are
aspects of these three components - otherwise known as
"rhetorical appeals" - that when balanced, lead to successful
communication. These appeals are known as ethos, pathos,
and logos. Together they make an extremely important set of
communication relationships that when achieved
successfully, may induce the audience to act, believe, or
perceive in the manner that you, the speaker, intended.
Figure 2: PD3 Unit 8 – An illustration of the
rhetorical triangle

THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

Over the last few centuries, the field of rhetoric and its connection to public speech has expanded
beyond that of speaker, audience, and purpose to include another key factor: the “circumstances” of
your speech. In other words, the rhetorical situation. According to Lloyd Bitzer, the renowned
rhetorician behind this influential model, a rhetorical situation is a context of people, events, objects,
relations and events or occurrences that invite communication. Granted, this doesn’t necessarily apply
well to every communicative event you encounter, such as those that are casual or more conversational
in nature. However, it’s extremely beneficial when crafting a speech because the art of public speaking
requires one extra step for success: preparation. When you analyze the rhetorical situation of the
speech you are to deliver, you’re essentially answering “who, what, where, when, why, and how” of
your speech as preparation. As a result, you see a much bigger picture at play which in turn then helps
you to strategize your approach for successful delivery.

Any rhetorical situation consists of three components: exigence, audience, and constraints. Let’s
examine:

Exigence

The exigence of your rhetorical situation is the reason why you are delivering your speech. It’s an urgent
problem, issue, or situation that your speech can either resolve or change that helps you discover the
purpose behind your message. Your purpose could fall into one of three categories:

1. To Inform: A speech that helps the audience acquire new knowledge for better understanding (e.g.,
a team presenting project updates at a meeting) or skill improvement (e.g., how to use a new
software program at work).
2. To Persuade: A speech that attempts to get the audience to see a certain point of view or act in a
way they would not have acted otherwise, causing a change in behaviour and/or thinking (e.g., a
proposal to leadership or a sales presentation to a client).
3. To Entertain: A speech that is made for audience enjoyment and is often focused on a theme or
occasion (e.g., a farewell speech on your last day of work or a ceremonial toast for celebration).
 When most of us are asked to give a speech, it's natural to spend most of our time trying to figure out
what we are going to say. In doing so, we often overlook how we intend to say it. Before you can decide
this, however, you need to pause and consider what you are intending to achieve by giving your speech.
Once you determine the purpose of your speech, you can then figure out how to accomplish it.

To determine the exigence of your rhetorical situation, consider the following questions:

• Why are you delivering this speech?

• What idea, concept or method are you intending to communicate?
• What are you trying to achieve?
• Do you want your audience to think, feel, or do?

Audience

The audience of your rhetorical situation are the groups of people your speech is for. Different types of
speeches suit different audiences, and it’s important they don’t become performances. At the end of the
day, you’re there to convey a message to your audience, and so it’s important to focus your energy and
attention on getting your message across to them in a way that they can best understand you.
Whether your talk is directed to your peers, your supervisor, your supervisor’s supervisor, or to people
you’ve never met yet, learn as much about them before your presentation as possible. And it’s critical to
do so ahead of time as it’ll help you arrange your speech.
To analyze the audience of your rhetorical situation, consider the following questions:
• How much knowledge do they already have about your intended message?
• Do they have any expectations?
• What’s in it for them?
• What motivates them?
• What is their age, gender, level of education, cultural backgrounds, occupations, etc. that must be
considered?
• What are their characteristics?

Constraints

The constraints of your rhetorical situation are the various limitations that have the power to affect the
decisions you make for your speech, as well as how the audience may interpret your message. They are
often made up of people, events, objects, or anything else that you can’t control.
To understand the constraints of your rhetorical situation, consider the following questions:
• Is there a specific communication medium you must use?
• What’s the time and/or location you’re expected to deliver your speech?
• What’s the environment or setting that you are to deliver your speech in?
• Will you be impacted by current societal movements or other world events?
• Does the audience have certain beliefs, attitudes, values, or customs and traditions, etc. that you
must abide by?
• What is your ethos?

PREPARING YOUR SPEECH

Preparation is crucial. For a short talk, you don't need a lot of time to prepare, especially if you're
reporting on things you already know. You may find that you can speak without preparation (in other
words, impromptu) about a topic because you know your stuff and are confident about the facts. But no
matter how tempted you are to just “wing it”, avoid doing so. You’re not done just yet, given that you
still need to consider the arrangement of your talk in advance if you actually want the words to come
out well. You don't have to write a script, but you should at least plan out an outline that orders or
generally structures your speech. Think about the tone you want to set - do you want to come across as
friendly or formal, funny or serious? As such, would starting with a joke or a statistic be best? Do you
need to provide context before you get to your main point? You don't want to find yourself starting and
restarting or backtracking to fill in information you forgot to share earlier - this just leaves your audience
confused and unimpressed. Arrangement is key.

Just remember that an audience isn't always fascinated by your topic, as fascinated as you are, and that
by being well-organized you can at least ensure that they won't fall asleep. One of the worst things seen
in public speaking is when the presenter rambles all over the topic, searching for their main point, like a
squirrel looking for a buried nut. After a while, you just don't care whether he finds it or not.

COMPONENTS OF SPEECH

Now, the ancient Greeks and Romans told us how to arrange speeches, and despite improvements in
plumbing, steam engines, and dental hygiene, the basic shape of the oral presentation hasn’t changed
much since their time. If we want to put it very simply in modern terms, we could say that a good
speech should always do the following:

• Tell the audience why it should listen. A good introduction must tell the audience why it should
bother to listen (it exhorts them to take an interest). Perhaps it contains a big idea, which is your
special contribution to the topic. The big idea may attract the audience’s attention or provide an
intriguing new way of looking at a problem everybody is aware of.
• It should get them all on the same page in terms of context and definitions of terms. Give
necessary background on the issue being discussed. Facts or context that the audience will need to
make sense of what follows. Here, the audience is told why they need to be paying attention.
• It should tell them what the new thing is that you’re going to tell them. Explain the way that that
you’re going to handle the topic (in other words, the order of the discussion). Especially if the talk is
very long or complicated, this portion is very helpful to the audience; it helps them follow along and
stay alert for items they might expect to find particularly important. In short speeches, it could well
be unnecessary because there are so few points to follow along with.
• Then it should tell them about this new thing. Here are the points to support your topic – whether
it be a claim that requires proof, or key information to share. It can be organized in many different
ways (e.g., most important point to least important, for example, or chronological order perhaps);
and it can marshal all sorts of evidence and appeals (such as those based on ethos, pathos, and
logos discussed earlier). But it’s important that it follow along in the sequence that was outlined
earlier so that people can check off these points as you’re telling them.
• Then it should tell them anything else that might help them overcome their own resistance to this
new thing. Deal with any objections or reservations the audience might have. Not everybody’s going
to be on board with your speech, and a good speaker tries to anticipate where those objections are
coming from and deals with them in advance. It’s a powerful tactic to take your detractors’ own
ammunition and use it against them. You may also have to acknowledge, here, the audience’s
possible fears, and maybe even agree with them, that they’re legitimate. It’s especially powerful if
you can show that empathy and understanding for alternate viewpoints, even while forwarding your
own. Now, perhaps the audience is taking a risk in following your plan or analysis. But your goal is to
ultimately make them take that risk.
• And then, it should tell them again what you’ve already told them. Summarize, restate, point
towards new directions, leave the audience with something to think about—lots of choices here.
But what a good speaker always does is never end abruptly with no conclusion. A conclusion is
absolutely crucial for leaving the audience in the right state of mind, prepared to ask questions,
excited to have heard you talk, or just satisfied that they understood correctly what they heard in
the body of the speech. Sometimes the summary is very important.

Keep in mind that as you move through each component of your speech, make use of transition
words! They are connecting words or phrases that strengthen the internal cohesion of your
message – telling the reader how one idea relates to another and helping them to understand the
flow of your speech.

Now, this outline doesn’t have to be followed precisely; for example, sometimes the objections should
come before the main points. It’s also possible to add some spice to the background even before the
true topic is introduced (kind of a claim, or a joke, or a point that grabs everyone’s attention). And
maybe you don’t need objections or order of discussion at all if the speech is a very short report. But the
basic ideas here are solid. If you really want to boil things down even further, what you’ve got here is
essentially three parts to your speech:

1. A preview.
2. A view.
3. And then a review.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

There may be moments where it’s possible for you to read a speech typed out on paper out loud to an
audience. However, that’s usually not the case; nor is it a great idea. Aside from not being able to fully
engage with those you’re speaking due to low eye contact, flipping page after page as you read – not
speak – to your audience is often perceived negatively. After all, if your audience wanted to be read to,
you could have just emailed your speech to them instead. And the chances of having a teleprompter
available to help you out is also pretty slim.

It's difficult to memorize a speech word for word. In a sense, you’re still technically reading – just in your
head, as opposed to paper. Often, you forget what you planned to say which increases your nerves and
makes you scramble to remember. According to executive communications and professional
presentation coach, Joel Schwartzberg, there are much better ways to prepare yourself when it’s time to
deliver your speech:
• Start with an outline. This will help provide you with a roadmap, reminding you of key components
and the points you must speak to. They can be more complex using full sentences, or they could be
quite simple using a few words that are used as prompts. As you practice more, you’ll realize that
you’ll need fewer reminders than you initially thought – creating a much shorter outline than
originally created.
• Create useful notes. If your outline does get shorter, it’ll be perfect to use as a note on an index
card, for example. Your notes are your cheat sheet that provides you with things you might easily
forget. Construct them with a few words (no complete sentences), in bullet-point form and
abbreviations or coded for you personally.
• Practice, practice, practice. Don’t mumble as you think about your speech – that’s considered
ineffective practice. Instead, practice your speech out loud and in real-time to simulate what you’ll
be doing in real life when it’s time. Physically present it using just you, your mind, and your mouth –
no cameras, mirrors, or a friend or family member are needed.
• Trust yourself. Just like the scenario described at the start of this unit, keep in mind that you speak
without scripts to the public all the time. Use the understanding that you’ve likely spent a lot of time
trusting yourself, your experiences, and your credibility when impromptu speaking to help you
realize that you don’t need a script. When you know what you’re speaking about, prepare a good
outline or notes, and practice effectively, you may just find that conveying your message unscripted
is less scary and perhaps, more effective, than initially thought.

DELIVERING YOUR SPEECH

If you want to do well as a speaker, in any context, you have to learn to extract the measure of interest
and importance in any topic. There's nothing worse than watching an audience you're speaking to begin
to inform you, in a silent yawning protest, that your talk is boring. Here are some tips to help you polish
your delivery:

Nonverbal Communication

Use facial expressions, movements, and gestures to look and sound enthused, which garners interest
from your audience. Keep one thing in mind: move with purpose. Avoid distracting movements like
pacing, and when not gesturing, rest your hands on a podium (if available) or naturally at your sides.
Verbal Communication

Vary the speed and pitch of your voice; slow, monotonous speakers often put audiences to sleep, and
fast speakers are often hard to keep up with. And avoid filler words such as “ums”, “hmms”, “uhhs”, etc.
The long silence you think you’re filling isn’t actually as long to your audience as it seems to you.

Visual Aids and Props

If allowed and relevant, make use of diagrams, charts, PowerPoint slides, handouts, photographs,
objects, and more. They can be quite effective to supporting and/or supplementing your speech, but
ensure they’re colourful and unique but not so much where they detract from your presence. Moreover,
never use visual aids and props to avoid eye contact or interaction with your audience – an audience
isn’t going to care much for a speech that’s delivered with your back turned as you read verbatim a
lengthy paragraph (bullet points, only!) from your PowerPoint.

THE FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Dating way back to prehistoric times,

humans once perceived others
watching as an existential threat. Our
brains have now transferred this
ancient fear of being watched onto
public speaking, where we naturally
tend to view and experience the act as
an attack in some way.

As you can see, the fear of public

speaking is quite normal – in fact, it’s
in our DNA.
Figure 3: PD3 Unit 8 – A neanderthal in professional clothing drawn on a wall

We often feel as though our nervousness and inner thoughts are transparent to others when in fact,
most of our fear symptoms don't actually show. In several studies done by social psychologists Savitsky
and Gilovish, researchers asked presenters to rate their own nervousness while speaking in public. This
was then compared with audience ratings.

UNIT SUMMARY

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT – PROFESSOR ANDREW MCMURRY SUMMARIZES THE

THEMES, CONCEPTS, AND TOPICS COVERED IN THIS UNIT

Let’s summarize some of the key points of this unit.

• There are many benefits to be gained gain from developing your capacity to speak effectively to
groups of people. These include enhanced communication and critical thinking skills, or confidence,
opportunities for career advancement, external connections, and the power to influence.
• The rhetorical situation consists of three components. Exigence is the urgency or need that calls you
to speak – the thing that your speech will resolve or otherwise affect positively. The audience is the
group of people you and your speech will cause to act, believe, or feel in a new way. And the
constraints are the limitations you can't control but rather must adapt your speech to. Analyzing
your full rhetorical situation allows you to strategize your approach to ensure a successful delivery.
• The arrangement of your speech is critical and involves three parts or stages: a preview, a view
(which is the content itself), and then a review or summary. Once your presentation has been
developed, prepare for delivery by condensing it into an outline, creating useful notes, practicing
effectively, and trusting yourself. Unless otherwise directed, you’ll rarely read straight from a
prepared text.
• Always try to show enthusiasm when you are delivering your speech – this generally causes your
audience to be enthusiastic back. Make judicious use of various nonverbal and verbal techniques,
such as facial expressions and variant, speed, and pitch, as well as visual aids and props.
• The fear of public speaking is something everyone experiences but we often overestimate the cost
of our nervousness to the effectiveness of our speech. In any case, nervousness is usually not as
apparent to our audience as we imagine.

In this unit, we’ve touch on some of the tools that confident public speakers use to enhance their
performance. Try some of them yourself the next time you must give a presentation. In the next unit,
we’ll build on what we’ve learned about speaking in public to focus on ways we can build relationships
and network.

EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• The University of Waterloo's Writing and Communication Centre: Transition Words

• The University of Waterloo's Centre for Teaching Excellence: Polishing Your Delivery Skills
• Bill Gates Teaches You Everything You Need to Know About Presenting
• 5 Ways to Get Over Your Fear of Public Speaking
• Public Speaking Tips: Toastmaster's International

REFERENCES

• Bitzer, L. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, (1), 1 - 14.
• eCampusOntario. (2018). Communication for business professionals.
• Lumen Learning. (2021). Public speaking.
• Schwartzberg, J. (2021). Stop scripting your speeches. Harvard Business Review.