Chapter 1 Introduction to Public Speaking for use with the Public Speaking projects, Public Speaking the Virtual Text. Please note that not everything in Chapter 1 of the Virtual Text will be covered in this PowerPoint and there may be occasionally one or two items in this PowerPoint that might be slightly different than what's found in the chapter in the in the book. Why study public speaking?
Well, studying public speaking can help you in both your personal and professional lives. For example, at one point in time in your life, you're probably going to give a presentation to a group of individuals, whether that be a toast at a wedding reception, perhaps a eulogy at a memorial service, or maybe a brief speech at someone's retirement dinner. In your professional life, the communication skills you learn in public speaking can help you do well if you're a manager, if you interact with a lot of other co-workers, if you work in customer service, or if you're a salesperson. All of those communication skills can help you in those jobs. Additionally, the skills you learn in public speaking can help you to present yourself well when you go for a job interview.
The linear model of communication basically says that communication flows in one direction from a sender to a receiver over a channel. An example of this type of communication is when you're listening to music in your car or on your car stereo. The signal or the message is transmitted from the radio tower over a frequency to your car stereo where you can then listen to the music.
In the transactional model of communication, instead of having one sender and one receiver, we have two, or sometimes more than two, communicators both sending and receiving messages simultaneously. People can send messages simultaneously because of nonverbal communication. So one person may be speaking, but both people can be sending nonverbal signals to each other, regardless of who is speaking. In terms of the spoken message, that spoken message gets encoded. Or, in other words, if you're saying something to another person, you try to say it in a way that you think the other person will interpret it accurately.
And that gets sent over a channel. So the channel could be English or Portuguese or Spanish or Japanese or whatever language that you're speaking. And then the other person decodes the message or gives it meaning or makes sense of that message.
And there are two major types of noise that can interfere with a person accurately interpreting. that message. One is physiological noise and that is simply sound that you hear that might prevent you from being able to clearly hear what the other person is saying. And there's also psychological noise which is basically when you're thinking about something other than what the other person is saying to you.
So if you have something else on your mind that's an example of physiological excuse me that's an example of psychological noise. There are three general purposes for speaking. The first one is to inform, the second one is to persuade, and the third one is to entertain. This is sometimes also called special occasion speaking. As you prepare your speech, be sure to pay careful attention and put good thought into the topic that you'll be speaking about.
Also be sure to put some good effort into the organization of the content of your speech and also the supporting material that you'll use to support your thesis statement. Please put good energy and effort into both your introduction and conclusion. The introduction is the first opportunity that you have to leave a good impression with your audience.
The conclusion is where you'll have a last chance to leave a lasting memory or lasting impression on your audience. When delivering your speech, be sure to use language that's clear and easy for your audience to understand. Try to reduce, minimize, or eliminate the use of jargon or terms that members of the audience might not be familiar with.
Pay careful attention to your nonverbals, especially eye contact, but also pay attention to your other nonverbals as well, including how you're dressed, your posture, and any other gestures that you may use during your presentation. You want to come across as... to the audience is delivering your message both credibly and competently.
So you want to appear confident and you want to be very comfortable with the material that you put in your presentation. The Public Speaking Project's textbook, Public Speaking, the Virtual Text, can be found at www.publicspeakingproject.org.