brief introduction of public speaking

00:59 Let's start off with the definition of public speaking.

01:05 Public speaking: preparing and delivering a speech

01:08 to a live audience with the purpose of informing

01:14 or persuading the listeners.

01:20 Something to keep in mind — there are two broadly speaking

01:24 important types of speeches.

01:26 Number one: informing the audience — an informative speech.

01:31 Number two: persuading the audience — a persuasive speech.

01:39 So, let's break it down. These two types of speeches.

01:44 Number one: an informative speech — to inform.

01:49 To teach the audience something new, brand new,

01:52 or enhance their knowledge about something they already know.

02:00 You're simply passing along information and that's it.

02:05 You're stopping there. You're not going beyond that.

02:09 You're informing them about something and you're stopping there.

02:14 That's called an informative speech.

02:17 However, this next type of speech is called a persuasive speech.

02:21 To persuade.

02:25 Here's our definition: reasoning with others

02:28 with a deliberate attempt to influence

02:32 their thought or behavior.

02:36 That's persuasion. See, you're going beyond

02:38 just passing along information.

02:42 You're taking it to the next level.

02:44 And you want to see change in your audience —

02:48 not just their thinking but also their behavior.

02:53 So two different types of speeches:

02:53 informative speech and persuasive speech.

03:01 Keep this in mind everybody — we'll call this a special note.

03:06 Please understand this: for the first half of our semester,

03:14 we're going to avoid all forms of persuasion.

03:17 We're only going to focus on giving an informative speech.

03:21 And by the way, an informative speech is your simpler,

03:25 funner speech to give. It's an easier speech to give.

03:30 Informative speech — first half of the semester.

03:33 The second half of the semester, that's when we're going

03:37 to go deeper and learn how to give a persuasive speech.

03:42 But keep in mind, let's lay off the persuasion

03:45 for the first half of the semester, please.

03:51 You might say that there are two broad areas of public speaking.

03:58 Two broad areas of public speaking.

04:02 Area number one: the delivery aspect of giving a speech —

04:06 Public Speaking Delivery.

04:08 What does that mean? It's how you present your message

04:11 while giving a speech.

04:14 It's not the words that come out of your mouth.

04:17 It's not what you say.

04:19 Instead, it's how you communicate your message

04:23 while you're up there giving a speech in front of an audience.

04:27 Remember, it's not the words you say,

04:32 but it's how you communicate your message.

04:34 What's going on with your face?

04:37 What's happening with your body language, your posture?

04:42 How does your voice sound? Not the words that you choose to say,

04:44 but how does your voice sound?

04:47 This is called public speaking delivery.

04:52 However, that second broad area of public speaking

04:54 is the content of your speech.

04:57 That is how you organize your material or your information.

05:03 And that is actually what you say —

05:06 it's all the words that come out of your mouth.

05:09 What do you say first in a speech?

05:11 What do you say in the middle of your speech?

05:13 What do you say at the end of your speech?

05:16 It's how you organize your information,

05:21 how you organize your material.

05:25 Thus, that translates to the words that you say.

05:27 These are the two broad areas of public speaking —

05:30 delivery and content.

05:35 Please know all of this for the exam.

05:41 Now, we're going to talk about four common methods

05:42 of public speaking.

05:47 Method number one: something called impromptu.

05:52 You've probably heard that word before — impromptu.

05:54 With public speaking, an impromptu speech

05:58 is developed on the spur of the moment

06:02 with little or no preparation at all.

06:05 So, you might have a little bit of time to prepare, but not much.

06:10 Or you may have no time to prepare

06:13 and you have to get up there in front of the audience

06:15 impromptu and deliver a message.

06:19 Not an easy task. These are not your easier speeches to give.

06:24 We prefer time to prepare our message.

06:27 I think we would all agree with that.

06:30 Our second common method of public speaking is called memorized.

06:35 Right off the bat, this sounds tough. And you know what? It is.

06:38 It's very difficult. I pretty much never give speeches like this

06:41 and I give speeches all the time.

06:46 This is not your more common way of giving a speech.

06:50 Surprisingly, believe it or not, this is not your most common method.

06:53 Memorization.

06:55 It's where you write out your speech first,

06:57 commit it to memory, memorize it,

07:00 and then deliver it with no notes.

07:05 You have nothing to look at other than the audience.

07:08 That's a really difficult thing to do.

07:10 We will not be doing any of that this semester.

07:12 Please rest assured.

07:16 Our third common method of public speaking is called manuscript.

07:21 This is where you completely write your speech out word for word —

07:26 and I mean word for word for word —

07:31 in almost paragraph style.

07:34 And then you simply read it to the audience.

07:36 Audiences least prefer this method.

07:40 Why? Well, because they know you're just reading to them.

07:42 It's not very exciting.

07:47 It's pretty much done when a speaker just has to

07:50 get an accurate message out there

07:54 and there's really no room for enjoyment.

07:58 We've just got to get a message out there.

08:01 Now, there are some rare speakers out there

08:04 who can really pull it off,

08:07 and it sounds like they're giving it without reading it,

08:09 but most of us — the audience can tell.

08:12 We're simply reading to them,

08:14 and the audience feels a disconnect

08:16 when they know we're just simply reading to them.

08:20 That's called manuscript.

08:23 Let's go to number four. I put this in green on purpose

08:27 because I want it to stand out.

08:31 This semester, this class is really going to emphasize

08:34 number four — the extemporaneous method of giving a speech.

08:39 Audiences overwhelmingly prefer this method.

08:43 Here's the definition: carefully planned with much practice.

08:48 You use what's called an outline with what's called main ideas.

08:52 We'll talk more about that later in the semester.

08:55 Instead of a word-for-word script.

08:57 So, we're going to avoid this semester the word-for-word script

09:04 and we're not just going to read to an audience.

09:07 Instead, we're going to learn how to speak extemporaneously

09:09 where we do have notes in front of us.

09:12 We have what's called an outline and we can look down at that outline.

09:14 That's fine.

09:18 But for the most part, we're looking at our audience.

09:22 In fact, notice this: as we speak,

09:24 we look at the audience at least 70% of the time.

09:28 And that means it's okay to look down

09:31 about 30% of the time.

09:33 Yeah, we can do that. That's totally acceptable in public speaking.

09:38 We can look down at our outline, at our notes,

09:41 almost a third of the time to collect our thoughts.

09:45 But then we look up and look at the audience

09:47 about 70% of the time.

09:51 And we've practiced it a lot.

09:54 So, the audience feels connected to us

09:56 because we're looking at them a lot

09:59 and we've practiced our speech a lot.

10:01 We haven't memorized it. No,

10:04 we're not going to do any memorization this semester.

10:07 We haven't memorized our speech, but we've practiced it a lot.

10:09 These are the four common methods of public speaking.

10:12 The extemporaneous method is the one

10:14 we're going to focus on this semester in this class.

10:24 All right, let's move on to managing

10:26 what's called communication apprehension.

10:30 Like we see in the image right here,

10:30 we all get nervous when giving a speech.

10:35 That's totally normal. You're not weird if that's the case.

10:38 In fact, you're very normal if you get nervous.

10:40 I get nervous. We all do.

10:44 Specifically, communication apprehension is called

10:46 fear or anxiety associated with either real

10:50 or anticipated communication encounters.

10:55 We get that anxiety, that fear.

10:58 And again, that's not necessarily bad in itself.

11:02 We just need to learn how to manage it.

11:07 And the reason why it's not bad in itself

11:09 is because having some degree of anxiety

11:11 keeps us on our toes.

11:14 It keeps us humble and it helps us to want to do a good job.

11:18 The trick — the key — is how can we manage it

11:21 so that we are successful?

11:25 Well, there are two things we can do.

11:27 Number one: this is very physiological —

11:30 something we can do with our bodies.

11:32 We contract a muscle for about 8 to 10 seconds

11:35 against resistance to release nervous energy.

11:42 And this is called an isometric exercise.

11:44 It's like we see in the image here.

11:47 And we can do this in class before we give a speech

11:49 and no one will even know. It's very subtle.

11:53 We can just put our arms underneath our chair that we're sitting on.

11:56 We can pull up for about 8 to 10 seconds.

11:59 Don't worry, nothing's going to happen.

12:01 We're not going to pull ourselves or our chair upwards.

12:08 No, because we're going against resistance.

12:10 But by doing this and then releasing it after 10 seconds

12:12 and doing this a few times —

12:14 by doing this, we can potentially release that nervous energy.

12:22 This is very physiological. Let's go to our next slide,

12:24 which is very psychological.

12:28 And this is called cognitive restructuring.

12:31 On the exam — because all of these slides will be on the exam —

12:34 when you see that word "cognitive," just think "brain,"

12:38 think realigning, putting together,

12:42 or restructuring your brain.

12:48 Here's our definition of cognitive restructuring:

12:51 Apprehensions of anxiety-producing situations

12:54 are brought to awareness,

13:00 challenged, and then changed.

13:02 You identify negative self-statements

13:05 and replace them with positive ones.

13:13 Here's a quick example. In third grade,

13:16 you got up to give a little mini speech

13:18 in front of your fellow third graders.

13:20 Maybe you noticed off in the corner two children chuckling, laughing.

13:25 While you're giving your speech, you assumed they're laughing at you.

13:28 Ever since then, it's difficult for you

13:30 to get up in front of an audience and give some kind of a speech.

13:34 Why? Because your mind thinks back to that situation in third grade.

13:40 Cognitive restructuring would say:

13:42 "Okay, let's bring that thought to awareness, to our mind."

13:44 Challenge it, saying: "Wait a minute. I'm better than that.

13:48 Were they even laughing at me? I don't know.

13:52 Maybe they were, maybe they weren't,

13:55 but I'm better than that. That was years ago. I'm an adult now."

14:00 Whatever the situation, you put it behind you

14:03 and you change your thinking.

14:05 And now you identify positivity.

14:09 Easier said than done. Of course, we're not a psychology class.

14:11 We're not going to go much deeper than that.

14:13 Easier said than done, but our textbook does say

14:17 that this could help some of us

14:20 that are dealing with anxiety when giving a speech.

14:27 All right, everybody. That was our first lecture —

14:29 Brief Introduction to Public Speaking.

14:32 Remember, all of that will be on Exam 1. Thank you.