Chapter 7 Entitled Public Speakings

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Chapter 7 Entitled Public Speakings

Assignment 1: UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF A GOOD INTERVIEW

Interviews are more or less valuable, depending on several factors. From the following list of statements regarding interviews, place a check mark beside those that you believe would definitely make an interview more valuable.

_____ 1. The person interviewed is very knowledgeable on the subject.

_____ 2. The person interviewed is older.

_____ 3. The person interviewed is controversial and enjoys being a lightning rod on the subject being discussed.

_____ 4. The person interviewed had limited time to devote to the interview.

_____ 5. The person interviewed was given the questions in advance so they would have time to think about them.

_____ 6. The person interviewed had her energetic three year old with her.

_____ 7. The person interviewed had difficulty creating sentences and wound up sharing mostly nods and short phrases.

_____ 8. The person interviewed asked not to be video recorded.

Assignment 2: EVALUATING INTERNET DOCUMENTS

For this module, I made up a bunch of words. But each packs a point. And together, they help you land closer to quality websites. Let me define each in my words and for this module, you take the time to rewrite a definition in YOUR words. What do you think I am meaning when I use each made-up term?

WIKI.ICKY

Wikepedia is doing better, but it’s still not a great source for quality information. It can be easily changed by the likes of you and me. So you need other sources to back up what you find there. But just because it closes its name with -pedia doesn’t make it an encyclopedia any more than driving a tricycle in a garage makes it a car.

ENDORSE.NETS

In the bibliographic section of the website, you will often find sponsoring organizations such as the AMA or the APA or the NAACP. If other groups endorse the website, that helps lend credibility.

BYE.BUY

If there is too much commercialization in the website, it is best to steer clear. Say “buy buy” to all the sales pitches and go for a better source.

SUFFIX.ADOT

On average, sources whose URL ends in .gov .mil and .edu are more reputable than those that end in .com . net or . org. The government does not usually have pretty websites, but they are usually quite accurate on things like GDP and employment numbers.

INSTA.CURRENT

Is the website of recent mint? Does it show currency in its knowledge. If it a medical website from the 90’s, that is hardly a current medical website. In areas such as history, the issue may not be so crucial, but in topics where the field is in constant evolution, it is good to keep an eye on the publishing date.

TOPIC.TRAINED

The person or people who wrote the material should be trained in the topic. If you can’t find a single credential in the bibliography or at the top of the article, it might be a hacker from Timbuktu who lives in a cottage in the woods and personally knows Peter Pan. The authors need to be reliable in their field.

EXCEL.LOOK

Quality websites look like it. They are state-of-the-art in their look. If you see, for example, a website where every word is underlined in pencil, nah, that’s not good. Does it look sharp and current?

SUPPORT.PEER

In the bibliographic section, there is often a number of people who will affix their names to the article saying that it is trustworthy; that they have vetted it and feel it is worthy of publication. That is a big life. If you look at the front of our text, you will find a great number of folks who have read what Dr. Lucas wrote here and have approved it as quality material. In fact, this text is used in over 1500 of the 4500 colleges and universities in The United States. That says something about it’s reliability and quality.

And look at the first letter of each of my made-up words and see what the acronym is!

Assignment 3: DISCOVERING GOOD SOURCES FOR SPEECH CONTENT

In Chapter 7 entitled “Gathering Speech Materials,” Dr. Lucas mentions four sources that we might turn to for material to include in our presentation. For this module, please read what he says about each and then in a short paragraph, please tell me the strength of that particular source. What does it offer than makes it unique as a source? Why would an audience see it as a strong source for your speech?

YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE

BOOKS, JOURNALS AND NEWSPAPERS

ONLINE SOURCES

INTERVIEWS

Assignment 4: GETTING SMARTER AT SEARCHING THE WEB

The textbook offers several tips on how to search the internet. But the internet also has a range of guidelines on how to find good material on the net. Using both the text and the internet itself, come up with 8 tips on how to find what you are looking for on the internet. Use the URL: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-tips… on the web as part of your source material for this exercise. There are many other tip sites you may use. But that is a good one.

Simple list the tips. You don’t need to explain them.

Assignment 5: CONDUCTING YOUR OWN INTERVIEW

For this exercise you are to conduct a personal interview. Rather than recording the interview and working with the taped material later, take notes as the person responds to your questions. Choose any person you wish. You may interview a person on what they do at their manufacturing job. You may want to interview a political figure in your community, or a school teacher, or a company owner.

Plan for the interview to last about 20 minutes. That will probably have you asking about seven or eight questions. For example, if you are interviewing a farmer, you might ask, “How did you come to own the farmland you work? Was it family owned? Did you work hard as a younger person and save up money to buy it? Ask how they got started. Then ask how they keep on top of all the government regulations that come with farming today? Ask how they get their product to market. Where do they actually carry their corn or soybeans or tomatoes? Ask how they balance family life with the pressures of farm responsibilities. Those are just a few of the possible questions to ask a farmer.

As you get ready for your interview and select the person you will talk to, place your list of eight questions here so I can have a sense of where you were taking the interview. Then at the end, transfer a few of your notes to the computer and let me in on their answers. This total interview with questions and a summary of their answers should run to no more than two pages. If you give too brief answers, I will get back with you and suggest ways to improve the interview content transfer.

Assignment 6: FINDING THE BIG THREE

If you are giving a presentation on the world’s dependence on oil in order to keep its engines humming and its wheels rolling, there are three types of material that you might turn to explain this. Dr. Lucas calls them, statistics, examples and testimonial. Staying with the subject of oil and its usage, give an example of each of these three. If you wanted the audience to know just how much oil people are using, turn to online websites and see what you can come up with by way of statistics relating to oil usage. Note a few of the statistics on the lines below.

Statistics:

Then give examples of the many ways in which oil is used. In this case, mention the well-known uses, but also dig a bit further and see how oil is used in ways that the average citizen might not be aware of. List at least four examples of how oil is used.

Examples:

Finally, turn to testimonial. It took me a little longer, but when I went online I was able to get quotes from people referring to the use of oil in our societies. See what you can find and include a couple of quotes here as examples of testimonials.

Testimonial:

Assignment 7: DOING THE ACTUAL DIGGING

For this exercise, you are asked to actually come up with the requested content on a given subject. Respond to each of the following. This activity will help you gain insight into where and how to find content to place into your speech.

  1. Come up with a statistic related to the incidence of lung cancer in the general population. State that statistic here and give the URL (website) where you found it.
  2. Track down a joke on the web that relates to doctors. Place the joke here and give the URL.
  3. Share a testimonial (story) of someone who has worked with ocean animals. Search websites that make common sense for finding stories on that topic. Give a brief summary—three or four sentences—of that story. What is the URL?
  4. See if you can find an example of someone being a Good Samaritan (either video or written report) and share it or a summary of it here with the URL.
  5. Give an incident that happened at a recent Cannes Film Festival. Find a website that described what happen at a recent Cannes and put the example here for me to see.
  6. Find a website that lists breeds of dogs. Share the URL you found that shows the list.

Assignment 8: PROVIDING SHORT ANSWERS TO THIS QUIZ

Respond in three or four sentences each to the following questions. All answers can be found in Chapter 8.

  1. What is the difference between expert testimony and peer testimony?
  2. What would be the benefit of what the author calls “extended example” over a “brief example”?
  3. What would be the benefit of using a personal example or story to help make one of your points?
  4. What are a couple of things that can go wrong when you are using statistics you find in a source? The author of the text suggests several.
  5. Actual testimonial is always the strongest of the three: statistics, examples and testimonials. It is personal. It involves a story which stays longest in our memory. And it usually touches us at the human interest level of our own lives. The author of the text offers four tips for using testimonial. Rewrite them here so that you will have them more clearly in your own mind.