Chapter 1: Introduction to Presentation Speaking

-NACE Job Outlook (2015)-employers want leaders who can work effectively on teams and
strong communication skills
-Communication skills consistently at top of importance to employers

-Ability to make effective presentations is vital to obtaining employment

-Fear of/poor speaking bars promotion

-Book methods suited for both public speaking and presentational speaking

Presentational Speaking and Career Success

-Essential for career advancement

Presentational Speaking (vs. Public Speaking)

1. More Inclusive
- Both public style and smaller presentations like within an organization

2. Less Formal
- ie. Seated around table vs. standing behind podium

3. More Interactive
-ie. Can adapt to audience and interact with audience

4. Reaches smaller number of individuals

-Usually made for smaller audiences while public presentations reach multiple
audiences (i.e. through medial like TV)

Characteristics of Effective Presentational Speaking

1. Goal directed
-Be clear: what is the purpose of your presentation?, every decision about what
to include should be based on the goal

2. Audience-centered
-Be able to adapt and relate to audience, be able to plan for difference between
our position and theirs, respond to audience during presentation
3. Ethical
-Make sure goals of your speech are ethical, audience trusts you, dont ask
audience anything that could harm them (i.e. speech on how to make fake ID
cards), be prepared (dont waste your or audiences time), be fully informed
about topic, be honest, dont make promised you cant keep (i.e. I know the key
to your happiness)

Plagiarism
Plagiarism- Taking someone elses words or ideas and claiming them as your own

-Increasing problem on college campuses

-Can also effect job, supervisor, employer, and have financial consequence

-Plagiarism it NOT limited to written words

-Copyright issues: graphs, pictures, charts, etc.
-If adapt from graphic note based on or adapted from

-Even if plagiarism is accidental, it is as serious as if it were intentional

-Remember, be ETHICAL

Types of Plagiarism
1. Misrepresentation
-Take something someone else has written and claim it as your own
-Most blatant types of plagiarism and often what people think of
when they think of plagiarism)

2. Cut-and-paste Plagiarism
-Taking information from several sources and patching it together in on
document
-If take direct quote: cite in quotes in document or speech and
outline (not just bibliography), cannot just stitch together even if
cited, must include own thoughts and insights

3. Incremental Plagiarism
-Fail to give proper credit for small parts of presentation
-Usually from misusing quotes or incorrect paraphrasing

4. Excessive Collaboration
-Write an assignment with family or friend and claim it as your own
 5. Self-Plagiarism
-Author reuses previous published material without revealing it is not new
a.k.a. Text-recycling

-Controversial, especially issues with scientific and academic communities

-Prohibited in COM114

The Presentation Process

1. Selecting a Topic
-Topic can be chosen for you based on your skills so tailor topic to audience

- Chose topic, consider 1. What is interesting and important to audience, 2. Adapt

topic to fit audiences needs

2. Determining your Purpose

-Determine exactly what your what to achieve with presentation (i.e. increase
understanding on topic?, encourage audience to try something new?),

-Write specific purpose statement and thesis statement

-Pick something that is realistic to achieve in one presentation

3. Research your Presentation

-What type of evidence is required to reach goal, consider: What audience type
(hostile? Knowledgeable? Etc.)? What types of evidence will they find most
compelling (will narrative or statistics be more persuasive/constructive?)?

-Collect a variety

4. Organizing your Presentation

-Construct and outline with main points and supporting materials

-Then craft intro/conclusion/reference list

5. Practicing the Presentation

-Construct speaking outline

-Ensure adhere to time constraints

-Practice with often and with an audience

Anxiety and Speaking

-Normal and very common fear with a lot of research dedicated to topic

What is Communication Apprehension?

-Communication apprehension- Fear or anxiety associated with real or anticipated
communication with others

-Can be anxious about communication across a wide range of contexts (not just public
speaking

-Can experience in 2 ways

1. Traitlike- Anxious with any kind of presentation with any audience in any
situation

2. Situational- Current situation makes you nervous

-i.e. Less prepared than usual, outcome will have large impact on future,
knowledgeable audience

-Assess levels of communication apprehension with Personal Report of Public Speaking

Anxiety (PRPSA) by James McCronskey (pg.20-21)

Addressing Communication Apprehension

-1. Skills training- Some anxiety can be due to perceived skills deficits necessary to
succeed in speaking situation, courses (like this one)can alleviate anxiety by giving skills

-2. Systematic desensitization- Alter negative and unconscious association with some
aversive stimulus (public speaking) and anxiety

-Most popular method to treat communication apprehension

-Two main steps

1. Deep muscular realization techniques taught

2. Visualization to simulate participation in communication situation while

in state of deep relaxation, visualizations becomes progressively more
threatening (i.e. from friend audience to unknown audience)

-90% report reeducation in anxiety, 80% who were extremely apprehensive

report no linger highly apprehensive

-3. Cognitive Restructuring aka cognitive modification- Assumes fear stem from irrational
thoughts they have about themselves and their ability to perform effectively, so replace
irrational thoughts with more appropriate ones
 -5 to 6 one hour sessions across several days or weeks

-Usually 4 steps:
1. Introduce method

2. Asked to identify negative self-statements and illogical beliefs and

leader will explain why illogical

3. Replace thoughts with more logical ones

4. Practice coping strategies and replacement messages

-Effective treatment, reduces self-reported apprehension levels

-Research shows a combination of the three treatments above is most effective way in
reducing self-reported communication anxiety

-4. Visualization- Assumes anxiety because speaker cannot envision himself being
successful in speaking situation so ask to imagine details of presentation where it is
successful

-Found effective and associated with enhanced speaking performance (i.e. less
rigid stance)

-Best suited for those with might mental-imaging ability

-Spotlight on research: Virtual Visualization

-Virtual reality immerses individual in speaking situation to simulate the
experience

-Can reduce anxiety by being exposed to virtual audience in as few as four

exposures

-At Purdue, virtual classroom created (down to small details), put on 3D goggles
and immersed in speaking situation

-As successful as conative behavior therapy or conative restructuring

-Therapy has high dropout rate (those who start dont finish), virtual
visualization shows promise and has lower dropout rate