Welcome to Public Speaking

We have to communicate. No matter your major, no matter your career goals, no matter your life plan (or lack of) you have to communicate with other people. We will be getting some help from our friends at TED talks.

Over the next 16 weeks, we will be working to make you the best listener, organizer of thoughts, and the best speaker you can be. (Note the order.)

Here are some of the ways we will work on this:
1. Discover your authentic voice
2. Develop your curiosity about the world
3. Practice your creative practice every day
4. Sharpen your listening skills
5. Identify how to best develop these skills in demonstrating your self-expression orally.

Okay, no matter what you speaking about (or writing about) you need to start with these things in mind:

• Audience
• Occasion
• Purpose 

Think about the basics of journalism. It is all the same. Think about it in in this order:

• Who (Audience) 
• What (Occasion) 
• Why (Purpose) 
• Where/When (Logistics) 
• How (Performance)

Public speaking is:
about being an effective orator who can master the art of rhetoric.  
Someone who speaks well for good purposes:

• Justice
• Fairness
• Truth

(Those who practice law study a lot of rhetoric)

So, while we will learn process speeches like How-to speeches and ceremonial speeches (weddings, funerals, hall of fame introductions, etc.) we are also learning the essence of what it means to express something important. We will talk about a number of different rhetoricians in this class

NOTE: The art of oratory and the practice of rhetoric is 2600 years old. People were practicing effective speaking 600 years before the birth of Christ - and the foundations of that are STILL the same. 
How crazy is that? So, don't think these old Greek and Roman guys don't still matter. 

And now consider what this means in the way we understand people who are trying to persuade us.

• Politicians 
• Advertisers
• Parents
• Husbands/Wives

We all mean to be persuasive in all of our conversations, don't we?

When does the formal idea for your speech begin? 
It begins with you - and the Greeks

—The Greeks!

¡Plato (worries about speech/rhetoric – needs Philosopher King)

¡Aristotle (says we can’t live without rhetoric “Finding the available means of persuasion”  

                               (Think of how to use the seven keys See below)

CLASSICAL RHETORIC  

(C. 5TH CENTURY BCE TO 5TH CENTURY CE)

Gorgias:  “For that which is communicated is speech, but speech is not that which is perceived by the senses and actually exists; therefore the things that actually exist ,which are observed, are not communicated but [only] speech” (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 7. 84-86).

Isocrates:  “...oratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style and originality of treatment” (48).

Plato:  “Socrates: Is not rhetoric in its entire nature an art which leads the soul by means of words, not only in law courts and the various other public assemblages but in private companies as well?  And is it not the same when concerned with small things as with great, and, properly speaking, no more to be esteemed in important than in trifling matters?” (132).

Aristotle:  “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing [discovering] in any given case the available [appropriate] means of persuasion” (160).

Cicero:  “...the subjects of other arts are derived as a rule from hidden and remote sources, while the whole art of oratory lies open to the view and is concerned in some measure with the common practice, custom, and speech of mankind, so that, whereas in all other arts that is most excellent which is farthest removed from the understanding and mental capacity of the untrained, in oratory the very cardinal sin is to depart from the language of everyday life, and the usage approved by the sense of the community....But the truth is that this oratory is a greater thing, and has its sources in more arts and branches of study, than people suppose” (201, 202).

Quintilian:  “[O]ratory is the power of judging and discoursing on civil matters that are put before it with certain persuasiveness, action of the body, and delivery;” it is “the art of speaking well” and the true orator is “the good man speaking well.”

—Ethos (Credibility)  ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect. One of the central problems of argumentation is to project an impression to the reader that you are someone worth listening to, in other words making yourself as author into an authority on the subject of the paper, as well as someone who is likable and worthy of respect.

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—Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions. We can look at texts ranging from classic essays to contemporary advertisements to see how pathos, emotional appeals, are used to persuade. Language choice affects the audience's emotional response, and emotional appeal can effectively be used to enhance an argument.

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—Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning. This will be the most important technique we will study, and Aristotle's favorite. We'll look at deductive and inductive reasoning, and discuss what makes an effective, persuasive reason to back up your claims. Giving reasons is the heart of argumentation, and cannot be emphasized enough.