Public Speaking Discussion

Public speaking is different from conversation. Explain differences and similarities of these two types of speaking by addressing an issue from your personal life or from current events.

NOTE: You may conduct research to complete any of these discussions (if you are still waiting on the book), using the Internet or other resources. Be certain to properly cite your sources and provide references in APA format. This information is also addressed in this week’s audio lessons.

Remember that your discussion response must include the following:

1. An academic response of the concept we are discussing. Give us a summary of things you learned about this concept from your assigned chapter readings, citing and referencing in APA.
2. A thorough example/discussion to support your reflection.
3. A final statement that tells us what you take away from this week’s lesson.
4. Properly APA formatted in-text citations and references in ALL original posts and responses to student posts.
5. Strong grammar, spelling, and mechanics.
6. In total your discussion should be at least 250 words; responses to student posts should be a minimum of 150 words
7. Peers 1Understanding your audiences’ demographics is important when preparing and giving speeches. This is important since we live in a diverse world. Your audience’s cultural demographic, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and age are all things you should take into consideration when preparing a speech. Say you go from school to school giving important speeches on a big issue in today’s world, sexual assault. When going to a college or high school you’d address the subject differently than you would at an elementary school. For example, in a college or high school you could have the audience stand and sit after asking multiple questions (stand if you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted). This creates a powerful statement on how large this issue is in today’s world. While in an elementary school you’d want to give a more informative speech on boundaries and where to report sexual assault. Another important factor is to know the location of your speech. Say you’re one of the religious pro-lifers and decide to organize a speech to inform women on your views. You’d want to do some research on your audiences age, religious beliefs, and gender before you get negative feedback from your audience. I’ve personally only experienced public speaking during my school years. In elementary school me and my friend created a PowerPoint presentation on the first telephone. Since we were in 5th grade at the time, we used lots of colors, fonts, and transitions to keep our audience’s attention. It is important to understand your audiences’ demographics so you can give an impacting speech to everyone.
8. peers 2Audience demographics is one of the most important parts of making a speech. The purpose of public speaking is to convey a message in such a way to evoke a specific response out of your audience. You may want to persuade your audience to donate to your local shelter, or maybe you’re speaking to an angry mob of people as to why they shouldn’t throw tomatoes at you. Regardless, understanding what culture, general age, religion, language or sexual orientation just to name a few will help you during the process of creating a great speech. It helps to build a bridge to connect with you’re audience by being able to relate with them and find common ground. One example I could think of is when the police are trying to negotiate with a person with hostages from releasing everyone safely. The first thing you would even think to do is probably get his name or some form of identification and figure out some background information so you can talk to him in a way that he feels comfrotable leading to the success of you getting everyone out safely instead of maybe saying something that can trigger him to do something unpredictable. That is a dramatic example but I think the same energy is required when you are preparing for a speech. The most important thing to take away from this is when you are spending the time to prepare for a speech, keep your audience in mind. It might be beneficial to take the extra time to learn as much as you can about who you are talking to which can be a plethora of things some to include race, age gender, education, and group of membership. Learning about thr demographics of your audience will help you get the reaction that you want out of the audience.