Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Good brief advice from the text book publisher, Allyn & Bacon
















Allyn & Bacon has an excellent Public Speaking web site that contains supplemental materials for a basic college course.It contains the following six topics and sub-topics. You can find their hyperlinked Table of Contents here.

1. Assess Your Speechmaking Situation
a. Find a topic
b. Clarify your speaking goal
c. Develop your central idea or thesis

2. Analyze Your Audience
a. Determine characteristics of your audience
b. Consider cultural considerations
c. Interact with your audience during your talk
d. Get feedback following your talk

3. Research Your Topic
a. Develop your expertise
b. Work with other experts to boost your credibility
c. Assess the credibility of resources
d. Work with reference librarians
e. Find evidence to back up your claims

4. Organize and Write Your Speech
a. Choosing a pattern of organization
b. Starting your talk
c. Ending your talk
d. Developing visual aids
e. Using PowerPoint

5. Deliver Your Presentation
a. Select a mode of delivery
b. Demonstrate dynamism
c. Manage your nervousness
d. Interact with your audience
e. Use visual aids
f. Dress for success

6. Discern Other Talks
a. Analyze other talks
b. Give feedback to other speakers
c. Learn from expert speakers
d. Work with public speaking support groups

e. Volunteer to speak
f. Consider a career in public speaking

For each sub-topic there is is a thoughtful paragraph with a few links. For example, under Deliver Your Presentation the paragraph on Manage your nervousness mentions taking the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety, which I have mentioned in a previous post about how to tell if you really have a high level of anxiety.

Under Discern Other Talks the paragraph on Work with public speaking support groups mentions Toastmasters, Powertalk International (ITC), Speaking Circles International, and the Association for Women in Communications.

The home page for the website has links to other sites for six public speaking textbooks with even more information.

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