Assignment: Being Audience-Centered,”Assignment: Being Audience-CenteredAssignment: Being Audience-CenteredAssignment: Being Audience-CenteredWhat You’ve Learned Here are some examples of central ideas and main ideas. Identify the organizational pattern used in each group of main ideas. If the pattern is topical, do you think the speaker also considered primacy, recency, or complex- ity? If so, identify which one.1. PURPOSE At the end of my speech, the STATEMENT: audience will be able to explainthree theories about what hap- pened to the dinosaurs.CENTRAL IDEA: There are at least three dis- tinct theories about what happened to the dinosaurs.MAIN IDEAS: I. A large asteroid hit Earth.II. A gradual climate shift occurred.III. The level of oxygen in the atmosphere gradually changed.2. PURPOSE At the end of my speech, the STATEMENT: audience will be able to de-scribe the layout and features of the new university multi- purpose sports center.CENTRAL IDEA: The new university multipur- pose sports center will serve the activity needs of the students.MAIN IDEAS: I. The south wing will house an Olympic-size pool.II. The center of the building will be a large coliseum.III. The north wing will in- clude handball and indoor tennis facilities as well as rooms for weight lifting and aerobic workouts.Subdividing Your Main Ideas Main ideas are often subdivided. Organize your sub- points so that audience members can readily grasp, un- derstand, and remember them. The five patterns for organizing main ideas can apply to subpoints as well.Being Audience-Centered ● You may add, regroup, or eliminate main ideas orsubpoints at any stage in the preparation process, as you consider the needs, interests, and expecta- tions of your audience.Speaker’s Homepage: Internet Resources to Help You Organize Your Speech● The Allyn &
Bacon Public Speaking Website can give you additional suggestions for organizing your speech. You can also read transcripts and listen to recordings of speeches that apply the patterns discussed: http://wps.ablongman.com/ ab_public_speaking_2/0,9651,1593275-,00.html
STUDY GUIDE
178 CHAPTER 7 Developing Your Speech
Study Guide 179
● The Advanced Public Speaking Institute Website provides a wealth of information about speech preparation, including tips on developing and or- ganizing ideas: http://www.public-speaking.org/ public-speaking-articles.htm.
Integrating Your Supporting Material With points and subpoints organized, your next task is to integrate your supporting material into a speech. It may help to begin by putting all main points, sub- points, and supporting material on note cards and then arranging those cards in order. Once you have placed supporting material where it belongs in your plan, incorporate the supporting material smoothly into your speech by (1) stating the point, (2) citing the source, (3) presenting the supporting material, and (4) explaining how the supporting material substantiates or develops the point.
When you have more than one piece of supporting material for a main idea or subpoint, you can organize the supporting material according to one of the five common patterns, or according to such strategies as pri- macy, recency, specificity, complexity, or soft-to-hard.
Being Audience-Centered ● Your listeners may not remember many specific facts
and statistics after a speech, but they should remem- ber the important points. Connecting ideas and sup- porting material make it more likely that they will.
A Question of Ethics ● The principles of primacy and recency are referred
to several times in this chapter. If a speaker has a
statistic that offers overwhelming evidence of the severity of a given problem, is it ethical for the speaker to save that statistic for last, or should the speaker reveal immediately to the audience how severe the problem is? In other words, is there an ethical distinction between primacy and re- cency? Discuss your answer.
● In Chapter 2, we suggest that a speaker should provide the credentials of the authors of support- ing material used in a speech. If a speaker is unable to discover an author’s credentials, could the speaker omit the author’s name altogether? If no, why not? If so, under what circumstances?
Developing Signposts Various types of signposts can help you communicate your organization to your audience. Signposts include verbal and nonverbal transitions, previews, and summaries.
Being Audience-Centered ● Remember that listeners, unlike readers, cannot go
back to review a missed point. Previews and sum- maries help to ensure that audience members will first anticipate and later remember the important points of your speech.
Supplementing Signposts with Presentation Aids Supplementing your words and gestures with presenta- tion aids helps listeners notice your signposts.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker
