MediaSpace Wiki

Public Speaking Spr2010 S15

Generating Interest

Issues with audiences
- Limited Attention Span
- Poor Listening Habits
- Presentation Length (20 minutes max)
- Poor delivery
The power of stories
- Stories generate audience interest
- They allow audience to identify with something
  - Stories allow us in invoke our own experience
  - Get mirror neurons firing
- They give audiences something to look forward to
  - They create tension
  - And make us want to listen
- The make your speech more memorable
- And make your speech easier to remember
  - Most speakers find talking about things they know about relaxing
- There are lots of ways to find stories
  - In your experience (background, history, favorite places, people, and things, successes and failures)
  - In your values and beliefs
  - Among other people, including audience members and experts on your topic
  - In the occasion or location of the speech
  - In books, magazines, and other researchable places
- Tricks to telling stories
  - Simplify
  - Exaggerate, but don't strain credulity
    - The story will work best if its believable (probable) and has the ring of truth
  - Link them to the audience
  - Practice
- There are three parts to any story
  - The introduction
    - Establish equilibrium (make the audience feel good)
      - Characters, background
    - Establish tension (make the audience want to know more)
      - A disequilibrium (something wrong or unexpected)
  - The middle
    - Twists and turns
    - Arguments that increase the tension but point to resolutions
    - Action, conflict, and increased intensity (a climax)
  - The conclusion
    - Finds a resolution to the tension
      - A solution to the problem
      - A punch line that resolves the tension
    - Uses it to create a new equilibrium
      - Morals to the story, lessons learned
      - Things we can do
      - The point of the story
Humor
- A great way to get the audiences attention
  - often useful for easing tension
  - and diffusing anger
- Humor can be
  - Planned or spontaneous
  - It works because it inserts surprising novelty into the otherwise predictable
- Types include
  - Puns
  - Jokes
  - Humorous stories
  - Satire
    - Makes fun of a relevant situation without acknowledging the humor
  - Irony
    - A comparison that leads to an unexpected outcome
  - Self-effacing humor
- You can't teach joke telling
  - or, in particular, spontaneous humor
  - Humor is often in the timing as much as the joke
  - Only practice will allow you to get it right
- Things you should avoid
  - Language that offends, including profanity
  - Jokes that offend, including
    - ethnic and stereotype-based humor
    - toilet humor, and anything else that involves bodily functions
    - audience insults or teasing
    - going overboard. The jokes are not your speech.
Engaging the audience
- Ask questions
- Encourage interaction
- Involve their senses
- Use exercises
- Ask for volunteers
- Invite feedback
Look for ways to give your speech immediacy

-- Last edited March 11, 2010

Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger, and should be cited accordingly. For example (APA):
Foulger, D. and other participants. (March 11, 2010). Public Speaking Spr2010 S15. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?PublicSpeakingSpr2010S15.