Communication Research

Reducing Communication Apprehension Here's a novel method for rehearsing your speech and for reducing your communication apprehension.

Here is a brief public speaking exercise built around the theme of distinguishing two things. The main purpose of the exercise is to illustrate some principles of organization and can be used as a regular prepared/researched speech or as an impromptu speech. For this exercise, the speeches should be organized in either of these two ways. Organizational Patterns Introduction A basic orientation as to what will be discussed Body I.                      Item No. 1 (e.g., muffin) A.       Property No. 1 (e.g., ingredients) B.       Property No. 2 (e.g., appearance) C.       Property No. 3 (e.g., taste) II.                    Item No. 2 (e.g., cupcake) A.       Property No. 1 (e.g., ingredien...

Here�s an interesting article that I just ran across while researching trends in public speaking. Lisa B. Marshall identifies 7. I paraphrase these in brief but the article is worth reading especially if you�re teaching public speaking. 1.        Public speaking in the business world is becoming more casual. 2.        Audiences no longer can be viewed as passive recipients of a speaker�s message but are listeners who want to participate. 3.        Speakers are addressing smaller audiences with more focused presentations. 4.        Webinars are increasing but so are live presentations. 5.        Videos are being increasingly incorporated into public speaking presentations. 6.        Technology is playing an ever increasing role in public speaking. 7.        The white b...

In looking over the literature on dealing with pubic speaking apprehension, I searched for less likely sources than NCA journals. Here are some of the things I found, not surprisingly, not that different from what we have in our textbooks: From an article in Forbes: 1.       Begin small, with baby steps. 2.       Organize what you want to say. 3.       Slow down. From Psychology Today : 1.       Don�t expect perfection. 2.       Don�t think of public speaking as a measure of your self-worth. 3.       Avoid getting nervous over nervousness�a wonderful lesson I learned from General Semantics 4.       Don�t memorize. 5.       Don�t read. From WebMD : 1.       Visualize yourself speaking successfully. 2.       Practice. 3.       ...

Here�s an interesting research study by Suzanne Shu and Kurt Carlson� Journal of Marketing , January 2014, 78, pp. 127-139--that argues that 3 claims is the optimal number for a persuasive presentation. They call it the �charm of three.�  When a speaker uses more than three, listeners may become skeptical. 

Here's a great example to remind students to organize and rehearse their speech and to keep their notes in order:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/11/hhs-sebelius-botches-farewell-speech/

  The current issue of Inc . (October 2013) has a wealth of information on public speaking, persuasion, and leadership that I think students will relate to easily. Among the articles are How to make people believe, How I conquered public speaking anxiety, The pose that�s worth 1,000 words (on rhetorical gestures), Rallying the troops (on motivation), Secrets of a great TED talk, Give the audience more of what it wants: less (on PechaKucha), Both simple and true (on storytelling), What kind of leader are you?

  Here�s a great public speaking example to illustrate how to make large numbers real to an audience, courtesy of the HuffingtonPost.com: Walmart�s CEO earns an annual salary of $20.7 million. To make the same amount of money, it would take an average Walmart worker (earning $12.67 per hour, working 40 hour weeks, 52 weeks a year, without paying any taxes) 785 years. A great brief exercise would be to ask students to illustrate this discrepency in other ways.

http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/04/25/the-10-commencement-speeches-were-most-excited-for-this-spring/ Those who cover special occasion speaking in a public speaking course should find this little piece interesting. It covers a wide variety of commencement addresses that are up and coming.