What is the Only Thing Worse Than a Zombie Apocalypse?...Public Speaking-Chapter 14 Notes.

Chapter 14: Public Speaking Topics, Audiences, and Research

In Public Speaking: a speaker presents a relatively continuous message to a relatively large audience in a unique context. Public speaking is transactional.

Benefits of Public Speaking:
-Improve your public speaking skills
-Improve your personal and social abilities
-Improve your academic and career skills

Manage Your Apprehension:
-Reduce the newness of public speaking by gaining experience
-Reduce your self-focus by visualizing public speaking as conversation
-Reduce your perceived differentness from the audience
-Reduce your fear of failure by thoroughly preparing and practicing
-Reduce your anxiety by moving about and breathing deeply
-Avoid chemicals as tension relievers

Step 1: Select your topic, purposes, and thesis
-A good topic is:
a. substantive
b. appropriate
c. culturally sensitive

Finding a topic:
-yourself
-brain-storming
-surveys
-news items
-topic lists

Step 2: Analyze your audience
-Cultural factors
-Age
-Gender
-Affectional orientation
-Religion

Step 3: Research your topic
-research for specifics
-research to discover what is known
-research to support a position

-Interview for information
-Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources
-Scholarly and popular journals
-Encyclopedias
-Almanacs
-Biographies
-Statistics
-News sources
-The government
-The web


Thinking about this all, it doesn't seem like something I should be so utterly terrified about, but I am. I am thinking about resorting to a muscle relaxer before my speech, just to calm myself down...