One time, it was a week before our presentation for the public speaking. I needed some money for my allowance. My parents don’t have enough money to lend me. My mother told me not to worry because she already apply for a payday loans . She already knew that will be needing money before the presentation day arrive. And she know that father had already paid all their bills and nothing was left. That is why she did apply for the loans in some company on the internet that offer fast cash. She told me that her friend was the one who told her that there is a company like that where she can apply for fast cash when she are in need of cash.
She believe her friend and apply for the loans. And the waiting doesn’t took so long. Just what the company say t s really a fast cash.
I am ready for the presentation of the public speaking class. I am thankful that mother is very resourceful I am prepared.
Aside from preparing yourself for the speech that you had practice well you also needed to look presentable and wear something respectful to be able to gain respect from the listener. But not all can be able to afford to produce the right amount of money needed. There are parents that needed to apply for a cash advance loan so that they can give their children some money that they can use for buying the appropriate dress code.
To be a very god speaker in a public speaking it is not just the dialogue that you needed to focus. There are other preparation that needed your attention to be able to make the listener believe you in what you are saying by being presentable and wearing the right dress code on the presentaton of your speech.
The Communication Environment Changes. Conversation can occur in a variety of settings, and the setting can influence the communication that takes place there. One of the most profound discussions of the ethics of communication, Plato’s Phaedrus, written in ancient Greece some twenty-four hundred years ago, takes place in a woodland setting that frames and colors its message appropriately. This setting is described by Socrates as
a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents. Here is this lofty and spreading plane-tree and the [flowering vines] high and clustering, in the fullest blossom and the greatest fragrance; and the stream which flows beneath the plane-tree is deliciously cold to the feet.’7
In this setting, Socrates envisions the loving nature of communication at its finest. Such communication, he argues, promotes spiritual growth for both listeners and speakers. Beyond the physical setting, the moods and immediate concerns of participants can also affect the fate of a message. Taken together, these physical and psychological factors make up the communication environment.
In public speaking, the communication environment is both simple and more complex. In public speaking classes your speeches will probably all be presented in one place—your classroom. This simplifies the problem of the physical setting: You can get used to speaking in one place. On the other hand, the move from three people to twenty-four complicates the psychological aspects of the communication environment. That many more people can bring to the classroom that many more personal distractions that may prevent them from listening fully to what you say. Moreover, you sometimes cannot control the immediate context of events that can affect the reception of your speech. For example, your carefully planned presentation attacking “oppressive campus security” could be jeopardized if a major crime occurs on campus shortly before your speech. But a campus incident demonstrating the overreaction of security forces could be a real bonanza. You must adapt to such events as you make your speech.
At times this adaptation can be difficult, if not impossible. One of your authors once ran for the U.S. Congress, and during that six-month experience spoke before many audiences. On one occasion, he was speaking at a meeting of mothers who were dependent on welfare benefits to support their families. He had a good message, and he was expecting a warm reception. But the speech fell flat. Later someone explained to him that the welfare checks were
Applying Universal Values. We have already noted that the public speaking class encourages us to counter ethnocentrism, which is the group parallel to egocentrism in that it holds up our own culture as the most desirable model. We learn to respect one another’s backgrounds, and to look on the world through different cultural windows. But this also presents us with
problem. If the members of your class represent many cultures, each offering a different outlook, then how can you frame a speech that will communicate and will have appeal across these many audiences-within-an-audience?
One answer to this perplexing problem has been offered by Rushworth
M. Kidder, former senior columnist for The Christian Science Monitor and president of the Institute for Global Ethics. In his book Shared Values for
Troubled World, Kidder reports interviews with leading moral representatives of many cultures that indicate the existence of a global code of ethical conduct, centering on the deeply and widely shared values of love, truthfulness, fairness, freedom, unity, tolerance, responsibility, and respect for life.28 If Kidder is correct, appeals to these fundamental values should resonate in any culture, and should be well received by the diverse members of your public speaking class. We shall say more about how to effectively engage.
You as an Ethical Speaker. Ethical considerations in public speaking are inescapable. Ethical public speaking respects the integrity of ideas and focuses on the impact of communication on listeners. Respect for the integrity of ideas means meeting the demands of responsible knowledge, carefully using communication techniques, and avoiding such practices as quoting out of context and plagiarism. Responsible knowledge is useful knowledge. It requires having up-to-date information on the major points of a topic, what the most respected experts have to say about it, and how these points affect your immediate audience. Plagiarism is intellectual theft. Being convicted or even suspected of such a crime can damage your ethos beyond repair.
Concern for listeners comes as you develop an “other” orientation in your public speaking class to balance the egocentrism, or excessive preoccupation with the self, that you may bring to such a class. You can solve the problem of adapting to the many cultures that may be represented in your class if you
base your appeals in a global code of ethics.
Public Speaking as Communication, Public speaking builds upon the basic communication skills that we originally develop as we acquire language and learn how to converse with others. As expanded conversation, public speaking preserves the natural directness and spontaneity and the colorful and compelling qualities of good conversation. Like conversation, public speaking is tuned to the reactions of listeners and makes adjustments to this feedback. Speeches are also designed with the reactions of listeners in mind.
In contrast with conversation, public speaking defines the roles of speaker and listener more clearly. Public speaking gives prominence to the speaker. The ethos of the speaker, based upon audience perceptions of that speaker’s competence and integrity, likableness and forcefulness, can be crucial to the success of a
speech. A successful speech is carefully planned to be internally consistent and complete. The speaker encodes the message; the listener decodes its meaning. Misunderstandings arise when message and meaning are far apart. The communication environment can promote or impede understanding. To achieve effective communication, the speaker must overcome interference that can block or distort the message. Successful communication can result in the transformation of speaker, audience, and the knowledge they share.
While communication can be challenging, successful communication offers so many rewards that it deserves our commitment to improve our public speaking skills. Such communication can go beyond personal achievement and the sharing of vital information, ideas, and advice.
At some basic level, successful communication also implies the creation and sharing of selves. In the introduction to Bridges Not Walls, John Stewart, an interpersonal communication scholar, notes: “Every time persons communicate, they are continually offering definitions of themselves and responding to definitions of the other(s).” Therefore, Stewart suggests, communication is an ongoing transaction “in which who we are. . . emerges out of the event itself.” We agree: Public speaking is often a self-creative event in which we discover ourselves as we communicate with others. We can grow and expand when we communicate ethically with others. On the other hand, deceitful and dishonest communication will thwart the process of growth.
This is no more than what Plato told us long ago in the Phaedrus. Indeed, Plato went beyond the idea of communication as transaction to communication as transformation. Transformation is the dynamic effect of successful communication on the identities of speaker and listener, and on public knowledge as well. Plato realized that ethical communication that respects the humanity of listeners and nourishes it with responsible knowledge encourages the spiritual growth of both speaker and listeners. As you develop in your public speaking class, you may notice the phenomenon of personal growth. Like Mary in our opening vignette, you may discover the public speaker in you! You may also see your classmates change in response to the good speeches you give throughout the term. The transformative effect of successful public speaking on listeners can be quite dramatic.
Finally, as rhetorical scholar Lloyd Bitzer has noted, successful communication builds public knowledge, what we as a community decide is worth knowing.2° Public speaking expands and builds this knowledge base. It develops the scope and accuracy of our public awareness.
In these fundamental ways, then, for the speaker, the listener, and the state of public knowledge, public speaking can be transformative. This is why Figure 1.3 shows the speaker and the listener as having drawn closer together and grown larger during their climb to the top of Interference Mountain. They both can also see farther, and their horizons of knowledge have expanded.