Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Art of Public Speaking

By far the leading speech textbook of our time, The Art of Public Speaking has defined the art of being the best for more than 10 million students and instructors. Whether a novice or an experienced speaker, every student will learn how to be a better public speaker through Lucas' clear explanations of classical and contemporary theory and thorough coverage of practical applications.

The new edition offers a revolutionary digital experience--McGraw-Hill Connect Lucas and Connect Lucas Plus. The Connect Lucas products allow students and instructors to access all course materials including a complete media and research library, study aids and speech preparation and assessment tools from a single place, connectlucas.com. With Connect Lucas, students use the traditional printed text. Specially marked icons in the text guide students to the media-rich, interactive features available at connectlucas.com. Connect Lucas Plus allows students and instructors to access the fully-integrated, media-rich textbook from connectlucas.com. As students read the book online, linked icons guide them to embedded media-rich, interactive features.

Friday, January 15, 2010

The Purpose Of A Speech Outline

So you've been asked to prepare a speech for an upcoming event. Should you just wing it and do whatever comes to mind when the event arrives or would you be better off creating a speech outline? Hopefully you answered the latter. This article will cover the advantages of creating a speech outline for any public speaking affair that you have coming up.

No matter how much experience somebody has giving public speeches, you can bet your money that public speakers of every level create a speech outline before giving their presentation. This isn't to say that public speakers actually refer to the outlines while giving a speech, but they are fully aware of the outline that they took the time to create. Creating an outline for your speech guarantees that you are prepared to deliver a speech that will get the job done with flying colors. Ask any successful person, in any field, what some of the keys to their success are, and you will discover that the majority of them will tell you in one way or another that preparation has always been a key to their success.

Preparation is not the only reason to create a speech outline before giving a speech. Keeping your audience engaged is another important reason to create an outline. From an audience's perspective, nothing is worse than sitting at somebody's presentation and listening to continuous ramblings. When you take the time to prepare an outline for your upcoming speech, your speech will flow well, stay on point, and keep your audience on their toes just dieing to know what you're going to say next.

Finally, preparing a speech outline will allow you to give a speech without having to constantly refer to notes. Sounds a little strange, right? The truth of the matter is that when you take the time to create your own outline for an upcoming speech and review it a few times, that outline is constantly in your head during your speech. As a result, you will find yourself being able to give a speech that will have a nice tempo simply because you will not have to refer to a piece of paper with your outline on an ongoing basis during the course of your speech.

As you can see, a speech outline is a good idea, even for seasoned public speakers. It helps you to be prepared, keep on point and flow from one topic to the next with ease, and keep a good tempo to your speech. These are key components of being perceived as a successful and engaging public speaker.

How To Write A Speech Is Like Grade School Writing

How To Write A Speech Is Like Grade School Writing

Have you been asked to prepare and give a speech and have not a clue where to begin when it comes to writing your speech? Do not fear. Learning how to write a speech is just like going back to grade school writing class. This article will demonstrate how easy it is to write a speech for any upcoming public speaking event that you may have.

Somehow, somewhere along your life, you have come to believe that writing a speech is somehow difficult or that you are no good at it. Nothing could be further from the truth once you realize that writing a speech is just like writing a grade school paper. The secret to writing a well crafted speech can be summarized with a single word: structure.

The structure to a great speech is simple to implement. To begin your speech, you need an introduction. The introduction should begin with a statement about the topic in general followed by another sentence introducing the specific topic you will speak about. The third sentence of your speech should vaguely mention the points you will discuss during your speech. Finally, the last sentence of your introduction should state what the purpose of the speech will be. Specifically, what can the audience expect to learn from your speech?

So the introduction is done. Now you need five to seven points that you are going to speak about. If you completed your introduction correctly, your five to seven points should have been vaguely mentioned in the third sentence without having given away too much information about the points. The next five to seven paragraphs should individually discuss a single point. You only need to expound on each point an additional three to four sentences. The final sentence of each body paragraph should conclude the point you were writing about and if possible, attempt to introduce the next paragraph.

Finally, you'll have your conclusion. The conclusion should summarize the purpose of your speech. Briefly mention the main points you covered in each of your body paragraphs and conclude your final paragraph with a general statement about the topic you covered.

That's all there is to it. Learning how to write a speech really is as simple as going back to your grade school days and following the simple format that you learned then. Start with your introduction, follow that with one paragraph per point that you will cover in your speech, and conclude your speech with a well crafted conclusion. You can now see that the process truly is simple.