Public Speaking

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Public Speaking
Professional Development 451-204

• Cliff Ogleby

Department of Geomatics, The University of
Melbourne
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Overview

• Scientific Communication
• Public Speaking Checklist
• Key Public Speaking Skills
• Your Audience
• Preparing Your Speech
• Fear
• Finding a Voice
• Speaking Checklist

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Scientific Communication
Specialised communication about scientific
topics using precise written/visual/verbal
methods to reach audiences seeking specific
information.

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Scientific Communication
Function

• To inform
• To instruct
• To persuade
• To document
• To entertain

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Scientific Communication
Process

• Sender
• Message
• Channel
• Noise
• Receiver
• Encoding/decoding

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Scientific Communication
Major Steps

• Define solve the problem
• Select the audience
• Analyse the audience
• Determine what to communicate
• Select proper format

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Scientific Communication
Major Steps

• Produce the product
• Distribute the product
• Evaluate the communication

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Scientific Communication
Comments
Communication is more than speaking or writing
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Scientific Communication
Comments
Technical Communication must withstand the review
of its contents.
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Scientific Communication
Comments
The application of communication principles is of
practical everyday use.. for example in public
speaking
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Public Speaking Checklist
Material

• Vocabulary
• Structure
• Introduction
• Body
• Conclusion

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Public Speaking Checklist
Vocabulary

• Suitable
• Simple
• No cliches
• No jargon
• Avoid repetition

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Public Speaking Checklist
Structure

• Short sentences
• Simple constructions
• Recognisable introduction
• Body Conclusion

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Public Speaking Checklist
Introduction

• Catch attention
• Establish link
• Brief

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Public Speaking Checklist
Body

• Flows logically
• Main points clear
• Main points linked
• Not too much information

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Public Speaking Checklist
Conclusion

• Adequate summary
• Ending signalled
• Final message clear
• Link with opening
• Brief and final

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Key Public Speaking Skills

• Understand audience needs
• Easy-to-follow material
• Choose words phrases that give life depth
• Prepare material thoroughly
• Prepare yourself thoroughly
• Vary the speed, tone volume of your voice

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Key Public Speaking Skills

• Use pauses effectively
• Have a relaxed posture movement
• Maintain roving eye contact with the audience
• Use audio-visual aids correctly
• Eliminate nerves
• Develop self-confidence

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Your Audience
Understanding them

• No one audience has a single need
• A large audience tends to react more like a
  single person
• Smaller audiences react more as a collection of
  individuals

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Your Audience
Hierarchy of needs

• Essential for life at a fundamental level
• Primary needs are held in the subconscious mind
• Masalows Hierarchy of needs...

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Your Audience
Masalows Hierarchy of needs

• shelter
• sustenance
• social contact
• sex reproduction
• security
• survival
• status

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Your Audience
Abraham Masalows Hierarchy of human needs
Self Realisation
Self Esteem
Social
Safety
Physical

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Your Audience
1. Physical

• food, drink etc.
• warmth, shelter
• sex reproduction
• excretion
• breathing

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Your Audience
2. Safety

• Protection from danger
• relief from anxiety
• security
• protection of dependents

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Your Audience
3. Social

• Sense of belonging
• caring for others
• receiving friendship
• social contact

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Your Audience
4. Self Esteem

• Autonomy/Independence
• Recognition
• Achievement
• Status

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Your Audience
5. Self Realisation

• Personal growth
• Accomplishment
• Creativity
• Using abilities

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Your Audience
Secondary Needs

• Are held in the conscious mind
• Many follow from Primary needs
• E.G. the need to feel power often derives from
  the need for survival

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Your Audience
Satisfying Needs

• You cannot appeal to a persons secondary needs
  if their primary needs are not met.
• These needs are understood by all good speakers,
  advertisers sales people.

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Your Audience
Satisfying Needs
You will never convince people of the benefits of
a new housing subdivision if they have nowhere to
sleep - but - offer an increased opportunity to
obtain housing then they may listen.

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Your Audience
Concentration
concentration
time (minutes)
30
60

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Your Audience
Concentration

• The law of primacy the Law of recency
• People generally remember 1st 10 minutes last 5
  minutes
• Use pointer/frameworks
• Reinforce message
• Use repetition effectively ( to highlight not to
  bore)

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Your Audience
Concentration

• Use examples, anecdotes
• Involve your audience
• Use your body to illustrate points (within
  decency - ) !!)
• Use props, sound effects
• Vary delivery speed, volume, pitch tone

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Your Audience
Need for different stimuli

• No two people experience the same thing in the
  same way
• Ever been to a cinema/concert with someone
  discovered you left the event with completely
  different impressions?

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Your Audience
Need for different stimuli

• The right side of the brain contains cells
  responsible for creative, visual spatial
  processing.
• The left side contains the cells responsible for
  language processing, mathematics logical
  thought.

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Your Audience
Need for different stimuli

• An audience needs stimuli for the
• visual
• auditory
• kinesthetic
• abstract

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Your Audience

• Audiences may have hidden agendas
• chatting up the woman in the red dress
• escaping the spouse for the evening
• looking for an argument with a colleague
• nothing better to do
• They arent always there to hear you speak

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Your Audience
Check List

• Size of audience
• Sex ratio
• Different cultural/religious/ethnic backgrounds
• Level of knowledge
• Expectations
• Attitudes

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Your Audience
Check List

• Homogeneity
• Age range
• Occupational mix
• Sensitive issues
• Precedents
• Venue

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Your Audience
Audience Types

• Professionals with high level of knowledge
• Professionals with little prior knowledge
• Teenagers
• Dinner/Wedding Guests
• Special Interest Groups.

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Your Audience
Professionals with high level of knowledge

• Audience generally on your side
• Have come to be educated informed
• Want to hear what is new pertinent

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Your Audience
Professionals with little prior knowledge

• Need to determine level of prior knowledge
• Will they be hostile to your message?
• Need the context/relevance of your message to
  them/ their profession/ work etc.

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Your Audience
Teenagers

• Sometimes a difficult audience
• Low boredom threshold
• Motivation lower
• Need lots of audiovisuals activities

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Your Audience
Dinner/Wedding Guests

• Mother-in-Law jokes from the best man..
• References to the grooms past shocks the bride..
• Religious jokes shock the reverend reverent
• Studying the guest list should avoid faux pas

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Your Audience
Special Interest Groups

• Appropriateness of message or messenger to
  audience
• Hi, Im Zelda the feminist introduction to a
  Country Womens Association meeting on knitting
  teapot cosies
• Presenting new methods of filleting beef to an
  audience of Hindus .
• Or not??!

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Your Audience
Avoid misjudging your audience

• When using jargon abbreviations
• use the full version first
• hand out a glossary
• ask about term familiarity

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Your Audience
Avoid misjudging your audience

• Do not assume they know nothing
• it appears insulting
• it appears patronising
• shows you are unaware of the audience background
• take the approach that you are here to share your
  experiences rather than Tell them something

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Your Audience
Avoid misjudging your audience

• Do not assume the audience are interested in your
  topic just because you are
• the bore syndrome
• find a common factor with the audience
• adopt an unusual approach or introduction to a
  boring subject
• the audience want to be inspired,
  enlightened, amused or changed in some way...

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Preparing Your Speech
Getting ideas

• Creative thinking
• Brain storming
• Mind Mapping

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Preparing Your Speech
Creative thinking

• Train the brain to think laterally
• Let thoughts grow like branches on a tree
• Avoid imposing a structure
• Edward de Bonos books

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Preparing Your Speech
Brain Storming

• Generates ideas using free association
• Can work well in groups
• Start with a word write down images you
  associate with the word
• Do not evaluate until finished
• Encourage left brain thinking

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Preparing Your Speech
Mind Mapping

• Developed by Tony Buzan
• Uses the right side of the brain to generate
  ideas
• Uses the left side of the brain to join the ideas

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Preparing Your Speech
Research

• Getting the supporting facts together
• Thorough research creates confidence
• Primary sources
• people to whom you have direct access
• straight from the horses mouth
• Secondary sources
• generally written material

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Preparing Your Speech
11 Golden Rules

• 1. Spoken rather than written English
• 2. Use short sentences vary structure
• 3. Use repetition rhyme
• 4. Use frequent sign posts
• 5. Add rhetorical questions the word you
• 6. Understand the emotive power of words

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Preparing Your Speech
11 Golden Rules

• 7. Avoid cliches redundant language
• 8. Avoid using jargon
• 9. Use anecdotes, quotations, illustrations
  humour
• 10. Avoid using dry facts statistics
• 11. Remember that audience memory is limited

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Preparing Your Speech
The steps involved

• 1st write a rough draft
• 2nd refine the draft
• add illustrations
• change words
• 3rd rewrite it into spoken English
• shorten sentences
• change words
• 4th rehearse it aloud, timing it
• 5th alter to fit the time slot

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Preparing Your Speech
Write like a talker... Think like a listener...

• Choice of language is critical
• Language should suit the audience
• Telling is useless unless
• you effect their EMOTIONS
• or meet their NEEDS

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Preparing Your Speech
Openings

• Avoid jokes, they rarely work have to relate to
  your speech
• Amusing anecdote possibly better
• Hard hitting statements
• A clear plan of structure
• An appeal
• A rhetorical question
• A quotation
• Opening forms of address.

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Preparing Your Speech
Openings

• Avoid saying you are nervous
• Make a positive start not a weak apology
• Avoid waffling without getting to the point
• Dont tell people you are going to make them do
  something or change their mind

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Preparing Your Speech
Endings

• Similar to beginnings
• A summary
• Recommendations appeals
• Food for thought
• Avoid a long story

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Preparing Your Speech
Endings

• Avoid several and finally
• Avoid ending with a whimper well, thats about
  it
• Avoid apologising for being boring/keeping
  audience too long
• Avoid introducing a new topic

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Fear

• Emotion is your awareness of your bodys reaction
  to a threatening situation.
• Know what causes the physical emotional
  response - it is then much easier to deal with.
• The most common emotion experienced by a speaker
  is fear

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Fear
Causes of Fear

• Speaking
• spiders
• heights
• failure
• death
• people
• closed spaces
• eating
• thunder
• being buried alive (taphophobia)

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Fear
Types of Fear

• panic
• phobia
• anxiety
• apprehension
• stress

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Fear
Symptoms of Fear

• Voice- quivering, too fast, too slow
• Verbal frequency - stammering, halting, vocalised
  pauses, hunting for words, speech blocks
• Mouth throat - swallowing, clearing throat,
  breathing heavily

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Fear
Symptoms of Fear

• Facial expressions - lack of eye contact,
  extraneous eye movement, tense facial muscles,
  deadpan facial expression
• Arms hands - rigidity or tenseness, fidgetting,
  motionlessness or lack of appropriate gestures
• Gross body movement - swaying, pacing, shuffling

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Fear
The chemistry of Fear

• The sympathetic nervous system detects a threat
  to the organism triggers a response
• The adrenal medulla secretes hormones
  (adrenaline) to mobilise the body to fight or
  flight

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Fear
The physiology of Fear

• Adrenaline speeds the heart beat ( to run, to
  deliver oxygen to the muscles)
• It causes the release of red blood cells to carry
  the oxygen
• Stored sugar from the liver is released for the
  use of muscles

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Fear
The physiology of Fear

• Blood is redistributed from the skin to the
  muscles and brain
• The bronchi are opened to allow the body to
  breathe more oxygen
• Blood cells are released from the lymphatic
  system to assist in repairing tissue damage,
  blood coagulating agents are released

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Fear
The Results

• Muscle contractions spasms
• Hands legs shake
• Thumping heart, blood racing around body
• Voice muscles tighten, voice changes

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Fear

• The body builds up adrenaline to aid the physical
  response to a perceived threat

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Fear
Burn up tension

• Use body movements to expend some of this energy,
  e.g. ...
• Write on the board
• pre-speech activity like brisk walk or push ups
• Isometric exercises
• Deep controlled breathing

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Fear
Redirect your attention

• Look at the smilers, or the sleepers
• Become more involved in one aspect to reduce
  involvement in another

Help your memory

• Visual aids
• Cue cards
• rehearsal
• when lost or in doubt - summarise

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Fear
Have faith in yourself

• Use positive visualisation - focus on triumphs
• Visualise the audience in the most humbling or
  belittling situation possible - then you are
  better than this
• Ego is not a dirty word, but it can also stand
  some abuse

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Fear
Have faith in yourself

• Concentrate in the message, rather than on
  yourself
• Know your subject, the venue, the
  audiencesowhat could go wrong?
• If all else fails.people do forget speakers,
  well, after a while anyway..

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Finding a Voice
Common delivery problems

• Reading rather than saying
• Insufficient pauses
• Speaking too fast
• Speaking too softly
• Using too high a pitch

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Finding a Voice
Common delivery problems

• Lack of clarity
• Problems of tone, speaking through the nose
• Lack of intonation
• Appendages like um, err, sort of, Bob Hawkes
  arrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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Finding a Voice
Breathing Relaxation

• Breathe from the diaphragm
• Yoga, meditation breathing
• Relaxation techniques
• roll the head and neck
• hunch the shoulders
• clench unclench your hands

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Finding a Voice
Vocal Exercises

• Vowel sounds
• Yawning, Waggling the jaw
• Learn to open the mouth
• Articulation
• Speed rhythm
• Projection volume
• Pitch
• Tone, intonation

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Speaking Checklist
Appearance

• Dress
• appropriate
• tidy
• no distractions

• Stance
• balanced
• no swaying
• not too stiff
• not slovenly
• not fidgety

• Poise
• relaxed
• comfortable
• no indications of tension

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Speaking Checklist
Presentation Impact

• Met audience level of knowledge
• Met the need for knowledge
• Extent of material was adequate
• Purpose achieved
• Enjoyable

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Speaking Checklist
Delivery

• Visual Communication
• maintained
• directed
• definite

• Use of Visual Aids
• familiarity with controls
• smooth introduction

• Gestures
• meaningful
• restricted
• mannerisms absent

• Use of microphone

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Speaking Checklist
Delivery

• Use of Notes
• use only when required
• do not read full text
• do not attempt to hide
• do not depart

• Use of words
• fluent
• no unfinished sentences
• no false starts

• Timing
• as allocated
• not rushed at the end

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Speaking Checklist
Diction

• Articulation
• clear
• not slurred or drawled
• not over precise
• adequate movement of jaw lips

• Volume
• adequate
• do not fade
• do not shout
• vary for effect

• Emphasis
• use effectively
• no false or excessive use

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Speaking Checklist
Diction

• Pause
• correct length
• not used excessively
• allow for reactions (laughter/shock?!)

• Phrasing
• natural
• awareness of meaning

• Pace
• not too fast or too slow

• Pitch
• no nasal tone
• variations used effectively

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