Author:
Sharon Holderman, Thomas King, neely ann sheucraft, Ruth Livingston, Amy Bryant, Brian Gerber, Colleen Mestayer
Subject:
Communication, Speaking and Listening
Material Type:
Textbook
Level:
Community College / Lower Division
Tags:
  • Communication
  • Speech
  • License:
    Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
    Language:
    English

    Essential Communication

    Essential Communication

    Overview

    This textbook was compiled for use with Tennessee's State Dual Credit (SDC) COMM 2025 course. It covers communication basics, listening, verbal and nonverbal communication, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, group communication, and public speaking. Please see supplemental materials in the TBR Speech and Communications folder (https://www.oercommons.org/groups/tennessee-board-of-regents/6827/18643/), including assignments, assessments, and PowerPoints.

    Chapter 1: Elements of Communication

    (cover image Architecture Design by Evan, reused under CC BY-ND 2.0)

     

    Learning Objectives for Chapter 1: Elements of Communication

    • Describe the communication needs of humans. 
    • Compare different models of communication. 
    • Identify characteristics of communication competence. 
    • Explain the relationship between technology and communication. 

     

    1.1 Introduction to Communication

    (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

     

    Communication Is Integrated into All Parts of Our Lives

    This class is meant to help people see the value of communication in the real world and our real lives. When I say real, I don’t mean to imply that there is some part of our world or lives that is not real. Since communication is such a practical field of study, I use the word real to emphasize that what you’re reading in this book isn’t just about theories and vocabulary or passing a test and giving a good speech. I also don’t mean to imply that there is a divide between the classroom and the real world. The “real world” is whatever we are experiencing at any given moment. In order to explore how communication is integrated into all parts of our lives, I have divided up our lives into four spheres: academic, professional, personal, and civic. The boundaries and borders between these spheres are not solid, and there is much overlap. After all, much of what goes on in a classroom is present in a professional environment, and the classroom has long been seen as a place to prepare students to become active and responsible citizens in their civic lives. The philosophy behind this approach is called integrative learning, which encourages students to reflect on how the content they are learning connects to other classes they have taken or are taking, their professional goals, and their civic responsibilities.

    Academic

    It’s probably not difficult to get you, as students in a communication class, to see the relevance of communication to your academic lives. At least during this semester, studying communication is important to earn a good grade in the class, right? Beyond the relevance to your grade in this class, I challenge you to try to make explicit connections between this course and courses you have taken before and are currently taking. Then, when you leave this class, I want you to connect the content in future classes back to what you learned here. If you can begin to see these connections now, you can build on the foundational communication skills you learn here to become a more competent communicator, which will undoubtedly also benefit you as a student.

    Aside from wanting to earn a good grade in this class, you may also be genuinely interested in becoming a better communicator. If that’s the case, you are in luck because research shows that even people who have poor communication skills can improve a wide range of verbal, nonverbal, and interpersonal communication skills by taking introductory communication courses (Zabava & Wolvin, 1993). Communication skills are also tied to academic success. Poor listening skills were shown to contribute significantly to failure in a person’s first year of college. Also, students who take a communication course report more confidence in their communication abilities, and these students have higher grade point averages and are less likely to drop out of school. 

    Professional

    The National Association of Colleges and Employers has found that employers most desire good communication skills in the college graduates they may hire (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2010). Desired communication skills vary from career to career, but again, this book provides a foundation on which you can build communication skills specific to your major or field of study. Research has shown that introductory communication courses provide important skills necessary for functioning in entry-level jobs, including listening, writing, motivating/persuading, interpersonal skills, informational interviewing, and small-group problem solving (DiSalvo, 1980). Interpersonal communication skills are also highly sought after by potential employers, consistently ranking in the top ten in national surveys (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2010). Poor listening skills, lack of conciseness, and inability to give constructive feedback have been identified as potential communication challenges in professional contexts. Employers appreciate good listening skills and the ability to communicate concisely because efficiency and clarity are often directly tied to productivity and success in terms of profit or task/project completion. Despite the well-documented need for communication skills in the professional world, many students still resist taking communication classes. Perhaps people think they already have good communication skills or can improve their skills on their own. While either of these may be true for some, studying communication can only help. In such a competitive job market, being able to document that you have received communication instruction and training can give you the edge needed to stand out from other applicants or employees.

    Personal

    While many students know from personal experience and from the prevalence of communication counseling on television talk shows and in self-help books that communication forms, maintains, and ends our interpersonal relationships, they do not know the extent to which that occurs. My students often remark that they already know from experience much of what’s discussed in the interpersonal unit of the course. While we do learn from experience, until we learn specific vocabulary and develop foundational knowledge of communication concepts and theories, we do not have the tools needed to make sense of these experiences. Just having a vocabulary to name the communication phenomena in our lives increases our ability to consciously alter our communication to achieve our goals, avoid miscommunication, and analyze and learn from our inevitable mistakes. 

    Civic

    The connection between communication and our civic lives is a little more abstract and difficult for students to understand. Many younger people don’t yet have a conception of a “civic” part of their lives because the academic, professional, and personal parts of their lives have so much more daily relevance. Civic engagement refers to working to make a difference in our communities by improving the quality of life of community members; raising awareness about social, cultural, or political issues; or participating in a wide variety of political and nonpolitical processes (Ehrlich, 2000). The civic part of our lives is developed through engagement with the decision-making that goes on in our society at the small-group, local, state, regional, national, or international level. Such involvement ranges from serving on a neighborhood advisory board to sending an e-mail to a US senator. Discussions and decisions that affect our communities happen around us all the time, but it takes time and effort to become a part of that process. Doing so, however, allows us to become a part of groups or causes that are meaningful to us, which enables us to work for the common good. This type of civic engagement is crucial to the functioning of a democratic society.

    Communication scholars have been aware of the connections between communication and a person’s civic engagement or citizenship for thousands of years. Aristotle, who wrote the first and most influential comprehensive book on communication 2,400 years ago, taught that it is through our voice, our ability to communicate, that we engage with the world around us, participate in our society, and become a “virtuous citizen.” It is a well-established and unfortunate fact that younger people between the ages of eighteen and thirty are some of the least politically active and engaged members of our democracy. Civic engagement includes but goes beyond political engagement, which includes things like choosing a political party or advocating for a presidential candidate. Although younger people have tended not to be as politically engaged as other age groups, the current generation of sixteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, known as the millennial generation, is known to be very engaged in volunteerism and community service. In addition, some research has indicated that college students are eager for civic engagement but are not finding the resources they need on their campuses (Jaschik, 2012). 

     

    Communication Is Guided by Culture and Context

    As we learned earlier, context is a dynamic component of the communication process. Culture and context also influence how we perceive and define communication. Western culture tends to put more value on senders than receivers and on the content rather than the context of a message. These cultural values are reflected in our definitions and models of communication. Cultures vary in terms of having a more individualistic or more collectivistic cultural orientation. The United States is considered an individualistic culture, where the emphasis is put on individual expression and success. Japan is considered a collectivistic culture, where the emphasis is put on group cohesion and harmony. These are strong cultural values that are embedded in how we learn to communicate. In many collectivistic cultures, there is more emphasis placed on silence and nonverbal context. Whether in the United States, Japan, or another country, people are socialized from birth to communication in culturally specific ways that vary by context.

     

    Communication Is Learned

    Most people are born with the capacity and ability to communicate, but everyone communicates differently. This is because communication is learned rather than innate. As we have already seen, communication patterns are relative to the context and culture in which one is communicating, and many cultures have distinct languages consisting of symbols.

    A key principle of communication is that it is symbolic. Communication is symbolic in that the words that make up our language systems do not directly correspond to something in reality. Instead, they stand in for or symbolize something. The fact that communication varies so much among people, contexts, and cultures illustrates the principle that meaning is not inherent in the words we use. For example, let’s say you go to France on vacation and see the word poisson on the menu. Unless you know how to read French, you will not know that the symbol is the same as the English symbol fish. Those two words don’t look the same at all, yet they symbolize the same object. If you went by how the word looks alone, you might think that the French word for fish is more like the English word poison and avoid choosing that for your dinner. Putting a picture of a fish on a menu would definitely help a foreign tourist understand what they are ordering since the picture is an actual representation of the object rather than a symbol for it.

    All symbolic communication is learned, negotiated, and dynamic. We know that the letters b-o-o-k refer to a bound object with multiple written pages. We also know that the letters t-r-u-c-k refer to a vehicle with a bed in the back for hauling things. But if we learned in school that the letters t-r-u-c-k referred to a bound object with written pages and b-o-o-k referred to a vehicle with a bed in the back, then that would make just as much sense because the letters don’t actually refer to the object and the word itself only has the meaning that we assign to it. Communication is more than the words we use.

    We are all socialized into different languages, but we also speak different “languages” based on the situation we are in. For example, in some cultures, it is considered inappropriate to talk about family or health issues in public, but it wouldn’t be odd to overhear people in a small town grocery store in the United States talking about their children or their upcoming surgery. There are some communication patterns shared by very large numbers of people and some that are particular to a dyad—best friends, for example, who have their own inside terminology and expressions that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. These examples aren’t on the same scale as differing languages, but they still indicate that communication is learned. They also illustrate how rules and norms influence how we communicate.

     

    Communication Has Ethical Implications

    Another culturally and situationally relative principle of communication is the fact that communication has ethical implications. Communication ethics deals with the process of negotiating and reflecting on our actions and communication regarding what we believe to be right and wrong. Aristotle said, “In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action” (Pearson et al., 2006). Aristotle focuses on actions, which is an important part of communication ethics. While ethics has been studied as a part of philosophy since the time of Aristotle, only more recently has it become applied. In communication ethics, we are more concerned with the decisions people make about what is right and wrong than the systems, philosophies, or religions that inform those decisions. Much of ethics is a gray area. Although we talk about making decisions in terms of what is right and what is wrong, the choice is rarely that simple. Aristotle goes on to say that we should act “to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way.” 

    When dealing with communication ethics, it’s difficult to state that something is 100 percent ethical or unethical. I tell my students that we all make choices daily that are more ethical or less ethical, and we may confidently make a decision only later to learn that it wasn’t the most ethical option. In such cases, our ethics and goodwill are tested since, in any given situation, multiple options may seem appropriate, but we can only choose one. If, in a situation, we make a decision and we reflect on it and realize we could have made a more ethical choice, does that make us a bad person? While many behaviors can be more easily labeled as ethical or unethical, communication isn’t always as clear. Murdering someone is generally thought of as unethical and illegal, but many instances of hurtful speech, or even what some would consider hate speech, have been protected as free speech. This shows the complicated relationship between protected speech, ethical speech, and the law. In some cases, people see it as their ethical duty to communicate information that they feel is in the public’s best interest. The people behind WikiLeaks, for example, have released thousands of classified documents related to wars, intelligence gathering, and diplomatic communication. WikiLeaks claims that exposing this information keeps politicians and leaders accountable and keeps the public informed, but government officials claim the release of the information should be considered a criminal act. Both parties consider the other’s communication unethical and their own communication ethical. Who is right? 

     

    Exercises

    1. How do you see communication ethics playing a role in academic, professional, personal, and civic aspects of your life?
    2. Communication is irreversible and unrepeatable. Identify a situation in which you wished you could reverse communication. Identify a situation in which you wished you could repeat communication. Even though it’s impossible to reverse or repeat communication, what lessons can be learned from these two situations you identified that you could apply to future communication?

     

    References

    DiSalvo, V. S. (1980). A summary of current research identifying communication skills in various organizational contexts. Communication Education, 29(3), 283–90.

    Ehrlich, T. (2000). Civic responsibility and higher education. Oryx.

    Jaschik, S. (2009, September 30). The civic engagement gap. Inside Higher Ed. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/30/civic.

    National Association of Colleges and Employers, Job Outlook 2011 (2010): 25.

    Pearson, J. C., Child, J. T., Mattern, J. L., & Kahl Jr., D. H. (2006). What are students being taught about ethics in public speaking textbooks? Communication Quarterly, 54(4), 508.

    Zabava, W. S., & Wolvin, A. D. (1993). The differential impact of a basic communication course on perceived communication competencies in class, work, and social contexts. Communication Education, 42(3), 215–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529309378929 

    1.2 Communication Needs

    (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

     

    The exchange of messages and information is important for many reasons, but it is not enough to meet the various needs we have as human beings. While the content of our communication may help us achieve certain physical and instrumental needs, it also feeds into our identities and relationships in ways that far exceed the content of what we say.

     

    Physical Needs

    Physical needs include needs that keep our bodies and minds functioning. Communication, which we most often associate with our brain, mouth, eyes, and ears, actually has many more connections to and effects on our physical body and well-being. At the most basic level, communication can alert others that our physical needs are not being met. Even babies cry when they are hungry or sick to alert their caregiver of these physical needs. Asking a friend if you can stay at their house because you got evicted or kicked out of your own place will help you meet your physical need for shelter. There are also strong ties between the social function of communication and our physical and psychological health. Human beings are social creatures, which makes communication important for our survival. In fact, prolonged isolation has been shown to severely damage a human (Williams & Zadro, 2001). Aside from surviving, communication skills can also help us thrive. People with good interpersonal communication skills are better able to adapt to stress and have less depression and anxiety (Hargie, 2011). Communication can also be therapeutic, which can lessen or prevent physical problems. A research study found that spouses of suicide or accidental death victims who did not communicate about the death with their friends were more likely to have health problems such as weight change and headaches than those who did talk with friends (Greene, Derlega, & Mathews, 2006). Satisfying physical needs is essential for our physical functioning and survival. But, in order to socially function and thrive, we must also meet instrumental, relational, and identity needs.

     

    Instrumental Needs

    Instrumental needs include needs that help us get things done in our day-to-day lives and achieve short- and long-term goals. We all have short- and long-term goals that we work on every day. Fulfilling these goals is an ongoing communicative task, which means we spend much of our time communicating for instrumental needs. Some common instrumental needs include influencing others, getting the information we need, or getting support (Burleson, Metts, & Kirch, 2000). In short, communication that meets our instrumental needs helps us “get things done.”

    1.3.2N

    Communicating for instrumental needs helps us get things done. Think about how much instrumental communication is required to build a house. Sandia Labs – Habitat for Humanity Build-A-Thon – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

     

    To meet instrumental needs, we often use communication strategically. Politicians, parents, bosses, and friends use communication to influence others in order to accomplish goals and meet needs. There is a research area within communication that examines compliance-gaining communication, or communication aimed at getting people to do something or act in a particular way (Gass & Seiter, 1999). Compliance gaining and communicating for instrumental needs is different from coercion, which forces or manipulates people into doing what you want. While research on persuasion typically focuses on public speaking and how a speaker persuades a group, compliance-gaining research focuses on our daily interpersonal interactions. Researchers have identified many tactics that people typically use in compliance-gaining communication (Gass & Seiter, 1999). As you read through the following list, I am sure many of these tactics will be familiar to you.

    Common Tactics Used for Compliance Gaining

    • Offering rewards: seeks compliance in a positive way by promising returns, rewards, or generally positive outcomes.
    • Threatening punishment: seeks compliance in a negative way by threatening negative consequences such as loss of privileges, grounding, or legal action.
    • Using expertise: seeks compliance by implying that one person “knows better” than the other based on experience, age, education, or intelligence.
    • Liking: seeks compliance by acting friendly and helpful to get the other person into a good mood before asking them to do something.
    • Debt: seeks compliance by calling in past favors and indicating that one person “owes” the other.
    • Altruism: seeks compliance by claiming that one person only wants “what is best” for the other, and they are looking out for the other person’s “best interests.”
    • Esteem: seeks compliance by claiming that others will think more highly of the person if they comply or think less of the person if they do not comply.

     

    Relational Needs

    Relational needs include needs that help us maintain social bonds and interpersonal relationships. Communicating to fill our instrumental needs helps us function on many levels, but communicating for relational needs helps us achieve the social relating that is an essential part of being human. Communication meets our relational needs by giving us a tool through which to develop, maintain, and end relationships. In order to develop a relationship, we may use nonverbal communication to assess whether someone is interested in talking to us or not, then use verbal communication to strike up a conversation. Then, through the mutual process of self-disclosure, a relationship forms over time. Once formed, we need to maintain a relationship, so we use communication to express our continued liking of someone. We can verbally say things like “You’re such a great friend” or engage in behaviors that communicate our investment in the relationship, like organizing a birthday party. Although our relationships vary in terms of closeness and intimacy, all individuals have relational needs, and all relationships require maintenance. Finally, communication or the lack of it helps us end relationships. We may communicate our deteriorating commitment to a relationship by avoiding communication with someone, verbally criticizing them, or explicitly ending a relationship. From spending time together, to checking in with relational partners by text, social media, or face-to-face, to celebrating accomplishments, to providing support during difficult times, communication forms the building blocks of our relationships. Communicating for relational needs isn’t always positive, though. Some people’s “relational needs” are negative, unethical, or even illegal. Although we may feel the “need” to be passive-aggressive or controlling, these communicative patterns are not positive and can hurt our relationships. 

     

    Identity Needs

    Identity needs include our need to present ourselves to others and be thought of in particular and desired ways. What adjectives would you use to describe yourself? Are you funny, smart, loyal, or quirky? Your answer isn’t just based on who you think you are since much of how we think of ourselves is based on our communication with other people. Our identity changes as we progress through life, but communication is the primary means of establishing our identity and fulfilling our identity needs. Communication allows us to present ourselves to others in particular ways. Just as many companies, celebrities, and politicians create a public image, we desire to present different faces in different contexts. The influential scholar Erving Goffman compared self-presentation to a performance and suggested we all perform different roles in different contexts (Goffman, 1959). Indeed, competent communicators can successfully manage how others perceive them by adapting to situations and contexts. A parent may perform the role of stern head of household, supportive shoulder to cry on, or hip and culturally aware friend based on the situation they are in with their child. A newly hired employee may initially perform the role of motivated and agreeable coworker but later perform more leadership behaviors after being promoted. 

     

    Exercises

    1. Identify some physical, instrumental, relational, and identity needs that communication helps you meet in a given day. Which need is most important for you? Why?
    2. Think about how your identity has been shaped by others. What is something that was said to you that impacted how you felt? How do you feel now about the comment?

     

    References

    Burleson, B. R., Sandra Metts, and Michael W. Kirch, “Communication in Close Relationships,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook, eds. Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 247.

    Gass, R. H., and John S. Seiter, Persuasion, Social Influence and Compliance Gaining (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999), 205.

    Goffman, E., The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1959).

    Greene, K., Valerian J. Derlega, and Alicia Mathews, “Self-Disclosure in Personal Relationships,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships, eds. Anita L. Vangelisti and Daniel Perlman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 421.

    Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 2.

    Williams, K. D., and Lisa Zadro, “Ostracism: On Being Ignored, Excluded, and Rejected,” in Interpersonal Rejection, ed. Mark R. Leary (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 21–54.

    1.3 Models of Communication

    (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

     

    The Communication Process

    Communication is a complex process, and it is difficult to determine where or with whom a communication encounter starts and ends. Models of communication simplify the process by providing a visual representation of the various aspects of a communication encounter. Some models explain communication in more detail than others, but even the most complex model still doesn’t recreate what we experience in even a moment of a communication encounter. Models still serve a valuable purpose for students of communication because they allow us to see specific concepts and steps within the process of communication, define communication, and apply communication concepts. When you become aware of how communication functions, you can think more deliberately through your communication encounters, which can help you better prepare for future communication and learn from your previous communication. The three models of communication we will discuss are the transmission, interaction, and transaction models.

    Although these models of communication differ, they contain some common elements. The first two models we will discuss, the transmission model and the interaction model, include the following parts: participants, messages, encoding, decoding, and channels. In communication models, the participants are the senders and/or receivers of messages in a communication encounter. The message is the verbal or nonverbal content being conveyed from sender to receiver. For example, when you say “Hello!” to your friend, you are sending a message of greeting that will be received by your friend.

    1.2.0N

    Although models of communication provide a useful blueprint to see how the communication process works, they are not complex enough to capture what communication is like as it is experienced. Chris Searle – Blueprint – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

     

    The internal cognitive process that allows participants to send, receive, and understand messages is the encoding and decoding process. Encoding is the process of turning thoughts into communication. The level of conscious thought that goes into encoding messages varies. Decoding is the process of turning communication into thoughts. For example, you may realize you’re hungry and encode the following message to send to your roommate: “I’m hungry. Do you want to get pizza tonight?” As your roommate receives the message, they decode your communication and turns it back into thoughts in order to make meaning out of it. Of course, we don’t just communicate verbally—we have various options or channels for communication. Encoded messages are sent through a channel, or a sensory route on which a message travels, to the receiver for decoding. While communication can be sent and received using any sensory route (sight, smell, touch, taste, or sound), most communication occurs through visual (sight) and/or auditory (sound) channels. If your roommate has headphones on and is engrossed in a video game, you may need to get their attention by waving your hands before you can ask them about dinner.

     

    Transmission Model of Communication

    The transmission model of communication describes communication as a linear, one-way process in which a sender intentionally transmits a message to a receiver (Ellis & McClintock, 1990). This model focuses on the sender and message within a communication encounter. Although the receiver is included in the model, this role is viewed as more of a target or endpoint rather than part of an ongoing process. We are left to presume that the receiver either successfully receives and understands the message or does not. The scholars who designed this model extended on a linear model proposed by Aristotle centuries before that included a speaker, message, and hearer. They were also influenced by the advent and spread of new communication technologies of the time, such as telegraphy and radio, and you can probably see these technical influences within the model (Shannon & Weaver, 1949). Think of how a radio message is sent from a person in the radio studio to you listening in your car. The sender is the radio announcer who encodes a verbal message that is transmitted by a radio tower through electromagnetic waves (the channel) and eventually reaches your (the receiver’s) ears via an antenna and speakers in order to be decoded. The radio announcer doesn’t really know if you receive their message or not, but if the equipment is working and the channel is free of static, then there is a good chance that the message was successfully received.

    Figure 1.3.1 The Transmission Model of Communication

    he Transmission Model of Communication

    Since this model is sender and message-focused, responsibility is put on the sender to help ensure the message is successfully conveyed. This model emphasizes clarity and effectiveness, but it also acknowledges that there are barriers to effective communication. Noise is anything that interferes with a message being sent between participants in a communication encounter. Even if a speaker sends a clear message, noise may interfere with a message being accurately received and decoded. The transmission model of communication accounts for environmental and semantic noise. Environmental noise is any physical noise present in a communication encounter. Other people talking in a crowded diner could interfere with your ability to transmit a message and have it successfully decoded. While environmental noise interferes with the transmission of the message, semantic noise refers to noise that occurs in the encoding and decoding process when participants do not understand a symbol. To use a technical example, FM antennae can’t decode AM radio signals and vice versa. Likewise, most French speakers can’t decode Swedish and vice versa. Semantic noise can also interfere in communication between people speaking the same language because many words have multiple or unfamiliar meanings.

    Although the transmission model may seem simple or even underdeveloped to us today, the creation of this model allowed scholars to examine the communication process in new ways, which eventually led to more complex models and theories of communication. This model is not quite rich enough to capture dynamic face-to-face interactions, but there are instances in which communication is one-way and linear, especially computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC is integrated into many aspects of our lives now and has opened up new ways of communicating and brought some new challenges. Think of text messaging, for example. The transmission model of communication is well suited for describing the act of text messaging since the sender isn’t sure that the meaning was effectively conveyed or that the message was received at all. Noise can also interfere with the transmission of a text. If you use an abbreviation the receiver doesn’t know, or the phone autocorrects to something completely different than you meant, then semantic noise has interfered with the message transmission. I enjoy bargain hunting at thrift stores, so I just recently sent a text to a friend asking if they wanted to go thrifting over the weekend. After they replied with “What?!?” I reviewed my text and saw that my “smart” phone had autocorrected thrifting to thrusting! You have likely experienced similar problems with text messaging, and a quick Google search for examples of text messages made funny or embarrassing by the autocorrect feature proves that many others do, too.

     

      Interaction Model of Communication

      The interaction model of communication describes communication as a process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts (Schramm, 1997). Rather than illustrating communication as a linear, one-way process, the interaction model incorporates feedback, which makes communication a more interactive, two-way process. Feedback includes messages sent in response to other messages. For example, your instructor may respond to a point you raise during class discussion, or you may point to the sofa when your roommate asks you where the remote control is. The inclusion of a feedback loop also leads to a more complex understanding of the roles of participants in a communication encounter. Rather than having one sender, one message, and one receiver, this model has two sender-receivers who exchange messages. Each participant alternates roles as sender and receiver in order to keep a communication encounter going. Although this seems like a perceptible and deliberate process, we alternate between the roles of sender and receiver very quickly and often without conscious thought.

      The interaction model is also less message-focused and more interaction-focused. While the transmission model focused on how a message was transmitted and whether or not it was received, the interaction model is more concerned with the communication process itself. In fact, this model acknowledges that there are so many messages being sent at one time that many of them may not even be received. Some messages are also unintentionally sent. Therefore, communication isn’t judged effective or ineffective in this model based on whether or not a single message was successfully transmitted and received.

      Figure 1.3.2 The Interaction Model of Communication

      The Interaction Model of Communication

      The interaction model takes physical and psychological context into account. Physical context includes the environmental factors in a communication encounter. The size, layout, temperature, and lighting of a space influence our communication. Imagine the different physical contexts in which job interviews take place and how that may affect your communication. I have had job interviews on a sofa in a comfortable office, sitting around a large conference table, and even once in an auditorium where I was positioned on the stage facing about twenty potential colleagues seated in the audience. I’ve also been walked around campus to interview with various people in temperatures below zero degrees. Although I was a little chilly when I got to each separate interview, it wasn’t too difficult to warm up and go on with the interview. During a job interview in Puerto Rico, however, walking around outside wearing a suit in near 90-degree temperatures created a sweating situation that wasn’t pleasant to try to communicate through. Whether it’s the size of the room, the temperature, or other environmental factors, it’s important to consider the role that physical context plays in our communication.

      Psychological context includes the mental and emotional factors in a communication encounter. Stress, anxiety, and emotions are just some examples of psychological influences that can affect our communication. I recently found out some troubling news a few hours before a big public presentation. It was challenging to try to communicate because the psychological noise triggered by the stressful news kept intruding into my other thoughts. Seemingly positive psychological states like experiencing the emotion of love can also affect communication. During the initial stages of a romantic relationship, individuals may be so “love struck” that they don’t see incompatible personality traits or don’t negatively evaluate behaviors they might otherwise find off-putting. Feedback and context help make the interaction model a more useful illustration of the communication process, but the transaction model views communication as a powerful tool that shapes our realities beyond individual communication encounters.

       

      Transaction Model of Communication

      As the study of communication progressed, models expanded to account for more of the communication process. Many scholars view communication as more than a process that is used to carry on conversations and convey meaning. We don’t send messages like computers, and we don’t neatly alternate between the roles of sender and receiver as an interaction unfolds. We also can’t consciously decide to stop communicating because communication is more than sending and receiving messages. The transaction model differs from the transmission and interaction models in significant ways, including the conceptualization of communication, the role of sender and receiver, and the role of context (Barnlund, 1970).

      To review, each model incorporates a different understanding of what communication is and what communication does. The transmission model views communication as a thing, like an information packet, that is sent from one place to another. From this view, communication is defined as sending and receiving messages. The interaction model views communication as an interaction in which a message is sent and then followed by a reaction (feedback), which is then followed by another reaction, and so on. From this view, communication is defined as producing conversations and interactions within physical and psychological contexts. The transaction model views communication as integrated into our social realities in such a way that it helps us not only understand them but also create and change them.

      The transaction model of communication describes communication as a process in which communicators generate social realities within social, relational, and cultural contexts. In this model, we don’t just communicate to exchange messages; we communicate to create relationships, form intercultural alliances, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities. In short, we don’t communicate about our realities; communication helps to construct our realities.

      The roles of sender and receiver in the transaction model of communication differ significantly from the other models. Instead of labeling participants as senders and receivers, the people in a communication encounter are referred to as communicators, unlike the interaction model, which suggests that participants alternate positions as sender and receiver, the transaction model suggests that we are simultaneously senders and receivers. For example, on a first date, as you send verbal messages about your interests and background, your date reacts nonverbally. You don’t wait until you are done sending your verbal message to start receiving and decoding the nonverbal messages of your date. Instead, you are simultaneously sending your verbal message and receiving your date’s nonverbal messages. This is an important addition to the model because it allows us to understand how we are able to adapt our communication—for example, a verbal message—in the middle of sending it based on the communication we are simultaneously receiving from our communication partner.

      Figure 1.3.3 The Transaction Model of Communication

      The Transaction Model of Communication

      The transaction model also includes a more complex understanding of context. The interaction model portrays context as physical and psychological influences that enhance or impede communication. While these contexts are important, they focus on message transmission and reception. Since the transaction model of communication views communication as a force that shapes our realities before and after specific interactions occur, it must account for contextual influences outside of a single interaction. To do this, the transaction model considers how social, relational, and cultural contexts frame and influence our communication encounters.

      Social context refers to the stated rules or unstated norms that guide communication. As we are socialized into our various communities, we learn rules and implicitly pick up on norms for communicating. Some common rules that influence social contexts include don’t lie to people, don’t interrupt people, don’t pass people in line, greeting people when they greet you, thank people when they pay you a compliment, and so on. Parents and teachers often explicitly convey these rules to their children or students. Rules may be stated over and over, and there may be punishment for not following them. 

      Norms are social conventions that we pick up on through observation, practice, and trial and error. We may not even know we are breaking a social norm until we notice people looking at us strangely or someone corrects or teases us. For example, as a new employee, you may overdress or underdress for the company’s holiday party because you don’t know the norm for formality. Although there probably isn’t a stated rule about how to dress at the holiday party, you will notice your error without someone having to point it out, and you will likely not deviate from the norm again in order to save yourself any potential embarrassment. Even though breaking social norms doesn’t result in the formal punishment that might be a consequence of breaking a social rule, the social awkwardness we feel when we violate social norms is usually enough to teach us that these norms are powerful even though they aren’t made explicit like rules. Norms even have the power to override social rules in some situations. To go back to the examples of common social rules mentioned before, we may break the rule about not lying if the lie is meant to save someone from feeling hurt. We often interrupt close friends when we’re having an exciting conversation, but we wouldn’t be as likely to interrupt a professor while they are lecturing. Since norms and rules vary among people and cultures, relational and cultural contexts are also included in the transaction model in order to help us understand the multiple contexts that influence our communication.

      Relational context includes the previous interpersonal history and type of relationship we have with a person. We communicate differently with someone we just met versus someone we’ve known for a long time. Initial interactions with people tend to be more highly scripted and governed by established norms and rules, but when we have an established relational context, we may be able to bend or break social norms and rules more easily. For example, you would likely follow social norms of politeness and attentiveness and might spend the whole day cleaning the house for the first time you invite your new neighbors to visit. Once the neighbors are in your house, you may also make them the center of your attention during their visit. If you end up becoming friends with your neighbors and establishing a relational context, you might not think as much about having everything cleaned and prepared or even giving them your whole attention during later visits. Since communication norms and rules also vary based on the type of relationship people have, relationship type is also included in relational context. For example, there are certain communication rules and norms that apply to a supervisor-supervisee relationship that don’t apply to a brother-sister relationship and vice versa. Just as social norms and relational history influence how we communicate, so does culture.

      Cultural context includes various aspects of identities such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and ability. It is important for us to understand that whether we are aware of it or not, we all have multiple cultural identities that influence our communication. Some people, especially those with identities that have been historically marginalized, are regularly aware of how their cultural identities influence their communication and influence how others communicate with them. Conversely, people with identities that are dominant or in the majority may rarely, if ever, think about the role their cultural identities play in their communication.

      image holding hands

      Cultural context is influenced by numerous aspects of our identities and is not limited to race or ethnicity.
      Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

       

      When cultural context comes to the forefront of a communication encounter, it can be difficult to manage. Since intercultural communication creates uncertainty, it can deter people from communicating across cultures or lead people to view intercultural communication as negative. But if you avoid communicating across cultural identities, you will likely not get more comfortable or competent as a communicator. Difference isn’t a bad thing. In fact, intercultural communication has the potential to enrich various aspects of our lives. In order to communicate well within various cultural contexts, it is important to keep an open mind and avoid making assumptions about others’ cultural identities. While you may be able to identify some aspects of the cultural context within a communication encounter, there may also be cultural influences that you can’t see. A competent communicator shouldn’t assume to know all the cultural contexts a person brings to an encounter since not all cultural identities are visible. As with the other contexts, it requires skill to adapt to shifting contexts, and the best way to develop these skills is through practice and reflection.

       

      Exercises

      1. What communication situations does the transmission model best represent? The interaction model? The transaction model?
      2. Use the transaction model of communication to analyze a recent communication encounter you had. Sketch out the communication encounter and make sure to label each part of the model (communicators; message; channel; feedback; and physical, psychological, social, relational, and cultural contexts). 

       

      References

      Barnlund, D. C., “A Transactional Model of Communication,” in Foundations of Communication Theory, eds. Kenneth K. Sereno and C. David Mortensen (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970), 83–92.

      Ellis, R. and Ann McClintock, You Take My Meaning: Theory into Practice in Human Communication (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), 71.

      Schramm, W., The Beginnings of Communication Study in America (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).

      Shannon, C. and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), 16.

      Thurlow, C., Laura Lengel, and Alice Tomic, Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet (London: Sage, 2004), 14.

      1.4 Communication Competence

      (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

       

      Communication competence has become a focus in higher education over the past couple of decades as educational policymakers and advocates have stressed a “back to basics” mentality (McCroskey, 1984). The ability to communicate effectively is often included as a primary undergraduate learning goal, along with other key skills like writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving. You likely haven’t heard professors or university administrators use the term communication competence, but as we learn more about it in this section, I am sure you will see how communication competence can benefit you in many aspects of your life. 

       

      Defining Competence

      We have already defined communication, and you probably know that to be competent at something means you know what you’re doing. When we combine these terms, we get the following definition: communication competence refers to the knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts (Cooley & Roach, 1984). To better understand this definition, let’s break apart its components.

      1.4.0N

      Developing communication competence can bring many rewards, but it also requires time and effort.
      Paul Shanks – Communication – CC BY-NC 2.0.

       

      The first part of the definition we will unpack deals with knowledge. The cognitive elements of competence include knowing how to do something and understanding why things are done the way they are (Hargie, 2011). People can develop cognitive competence by observing and evaluating the actions of others. Cognitive competence can also be developed through instruction. Since you are currently taking a communication class, I encourage you to try to observe the communication concepts you are learning in the communication practices of others and yourself. This will help bring the concepts to life and also help you evaluate how communication in the real world matches up with communication concepts. As you build a repertoire of communication knowledge based on your experiential and classroom knowledge, you will also be developing behavioral competence.

      The second part of the definition of communication competence that we will unpack is the ability to use. Individual factors affect our ability to do anything. Not everyone has the same athletic, musical, or intellectual ability. At the individual level, a person’s physiological and psychological characteristics affect competence. In terms of physiology, age, maturity, and ability to communicate affect competence. In terms of psychology, a person’s mood, stress level, personality, and level of communication apprehension (level of anxiety regarding communication) affect competence (Cooley & Roach, 1984). All these factors will either help or hinder you when you try to apply the knowledge you have learned to actual communication behaviors. For example, you might know strategies for being an effective speaker, but public speaking anxiety that kicks in when you get in front of the audience may prevent you from fully putting that knowledge into practice.

      The third part of the definition we will unpack is the ability to adapt to various contexts. What is competent or not varies based on social and cultural context, which makes it impossible to have only one standard for what counts as communication competence (Cooley & Roach, 1984). Social variables such as status and power affect competence. In a social situation where one person—say, a supervisor—has more power than another—for example, their employee—then the supervisor is typically the one who sets the standard for competence. Cultural variables such as race and nationality also affect competence. A Taiwanese person who speaks English as their second language may be praised for their competence in the English language in their home country but be viewed as less competent in the United States because of their accent. In summary, although we have a clear definition of communication competence, there are no definitions for how to be competent in any given situation since competence varies at the individual, social, and cultural levels. 

      Despite the fact that no guidelines for or definitions of competence will be applicable in all situations, the National Communication Association (NCA) has identified many aspects of competence related to communication. The primary focus has been on competencies related to speaking and listening, and the NCA notes that developing communication competence in these areas will help people in academic, professional, and civic contexts (Morreale, Rubin, & Jones, 1998). To help colleges and universities develop curriculum and instruction strategies to prepare students, the NCA has defined what students should be able to do in terms of speaking and listening competencies by the time they graduate from college:

      1. State ideas clearly.
      2. Communicate ethically.
      3. Recognize when it is appropriate to communicate.
      4. Identify their communication goals.
      5. Select the most appropriate and effective medium for communicating.
      6. Demonstrate credibility.
      7. Identify and manage misunderstandings.
      8. Manage conflict.
      9. Be open-minded about another’s point of view.
      10. Listen attentively.

      These are just some of the competencies the NCA identified as important for college graduates. While these are skill-focused rather than interpersonally or culturally focused, they provide a concrete way to assess your own speaking competencies and to prepare yourself for professional speaking and listening, which is often skill-driven. 

       

      Developing Competence

      Knowing the dimensions of competence is an important first step toward developing competence. Everyone reading this book already has some experience with and knowledge about communication. After all, you’ve spent many years explicitly and implicitly learning to communicate. For example, we are explicitly taught the verbal codes we use to communicate. On the other hand, although there are numerous rules and norms associated with nonverbal communication, we rarely receive explicit instruction on how to do it. Instead, we learn by observing others and through trial and error with our own nonverbal communication. Competence obviously involves verbal and nonverbal elements, but it also applies to many situations and contexts. Communication competence is needed in order to understand communication ethics, to develop cultural awareness, to use computer-mediated communication, and to think critically. Competence involves knowledge, motivation, and skills. It’s not enough to know what good communication consists of; you must also have the motivation to reflect on and better your communication and the skills needed to do so.

      In regards to competence, we all have areas where we are skilled and areas where we have deficiencies. In most cases, we can consciously decide to work on our deficiencies, which may take considerable effort. There are multiple stages of competence that I challenge you to assess as you communicate in your daily life: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence (Hargie, 2011). Before you have built up a rich cognitive knowledge base of communication concepts and practiced and reflected on skills in a particular area, you may exhibit unconscious incompetence, which means you are not even aware that you are communicating in an incompetent manner. Once you learn more about communication and have a vocabulary to identify concepts, you may find yourself exhibiting conscious incompetence. This is where you know what you should be doing, and you realize that you’re not doing it as well as you could. However, as your skills increase, you may advance to conscious competence, meaning that you know you are communicating well in the moment, which will add to your bank of experiences to draw from in future interactions. When you reach the stage of unconscious competence, you just communicate successfully without straining to be competent. Just because you reach the stage of unconscious competence in one area or with one person does not mean you will always stay there. We are faced with new communication encounters regularly, and although we may be able to draw on the communication skills we have learned about and developed, it may take a few instances of conscious incompetence before you can advance to later stages.

      In many introductory communication classes that I teach, a student usually says something like, “You must be really good at this stuff since you study it and have been teaching it for a while.” At the same time, students assume that I have a high level of communication competence. They are hard on themselves for being at the stage of conscious incompetence, where they catch themselves communicating poorly in regards to a concept we recently studied. In response to both of these comments, I say, “Just because I know the concepts and definitions doesn’t mean I always put them to good use. We’re all imperfect and fallible, and if we expect to be perfect communicators after studying this, then we’re setting ourselves up for failure. However, when I do mess up, I almost always make a mental note and reflect on it. And now you’re starting to do the same thing, which is to notice and reflect on your communication more. And that already puts you ahead of most people!”

       

      Mindful Communicator

      One way to progress toward communication competence is to become a more mindful communicator. A mindful communicator actively and fluidly processes information, is sensitive to communication contexts and multiple perspectives, and is able to adapt to novel communication situations (Burgoon, Berger, & Waldron, 2000). Becoming a more mindful communicator has many benefits, including achieving communication goals, detecting deception, avoiding stereotypes, and reducing conflict. Whether or not we achieve our day-to-day communication goals depends on our communication competence. Various communication behaviors can signal that we are communicating mindfully. For example, asking an employee to paraphrase their understanding of the instructions you just gave them shows that you are aware that verbal messages are not always clear, that people do not always listen actively, and that people often do not speak up when they are unsure of instructions for fear of appearing incompetent or embarrassing themselves. Some communication behaviors indicate that we are not communicating mindfully, such as withdrawing from a romantic partner or engaging in passive-aggressive behavior during a period of interpersonal conflict. Most of us know that such behaviors lead to predictable and avoidable conflict cycles, yet we are all guilty of them. Our tendency to assume that people are telling us the truth can also lead to negative results. Therefore, a certain amount of tentativeness and mindful monitoring of a person’s nonverbal and verbal communication can help us detect deception. However, this is not the same thing as chronic suspicion, which would not indicate communication competence. 

       

      Ethical Communicator

      Another way to progress toward communication competence is to become a more ethical communicator. The word ethical echoes what Aristotle called ethos, the communicator’s good character and reputation for doing what is right. An ethical communicator considers the welfare of their audience and is guided by moral principles and standards. Ethical communicators strive to do what is right and understand their responsibility to keep society civil. Name-calling among political figures and on social media and the preponderance of fake news are just a couple of examples of why a review of standards of ethical communication is needed now more than ever. Because ethics is so important, we will look at this characteristic in more detail. 

      Ethical Communicators Are Egalitarian

      The word “egalitarian” comes from the root “equal.” An egalitarian communicator believes in equality and is inclusive of all receivers or listeners. This means using ideas and language appropriate for and inclusive of all the message’s readers or listeners, not just some of them. Egalitarian communicators respect diversity and do not speak to only those who are “like them” in terms of religion, age, gender, race, or ethnicity. In terms of your own communication, egalitarianism means avoiding stereotypical, discriminatory language. Use communication to unite, not incite or divide. 

      Ethical Communicators Are Respectful

      We may have also seen people hurt by sarcasm, insults, and other disrespectful forms of communication. These are behaviors a respectful communicator will avoid. Losing one’s temper and being abusive are generally regarded as showing a lack of professionalism (and could even involve legal consequences for you or your employer). When you disagree strongly with a classmate, coworker, or friend, or when you feel deeply annoyed with a difficult customer, it is important to express such sentiments respectfully. For example, instead of telling a customer, “I’ve had it with your complaints!” a respectful business communicator might say, “I’m having trouble seeing how I can fix this situation. Would you explain to me what you want to see happen?” Taking time to observe and familiarize yourself with customs and viewpoints of those from different cultures than your own is another way of showing respect. Avoid telling jokes or using language that may be offensive to others. And if you inadvertently offend, apologize sincerely. Consider your nonverbal communication, as well. Eye-rolling and other forms of nonverbal communication can be just as disrespectful as words.

      Ethical Communicators Are Trustworthy

      Trust is a key component in communication. As a consumer, would you choose to buy merchandise from a company you did not trust? If you were an employer, would you hire someone you did not trust? Would you want to be friends with someone who betrays your trust by revealing something you told that friend in confidence? Being worthy of trust is something you earn with others. A communicator may not know something and still be trustworthy, but it’s a violation of trust to pretend you know something when you don’t. Communicate what you know, and if you don’t know something, research it before you speak or write. If you are asked a question you don’t know how to respond to, say, “I don’t know the answer, but I will research it and get back to you” (and then make sure you follow through later). This will go over much better with listeners than trying to cover by stumbling through an answer or portraying yourself as knowledgeable on an issue that you are not. A trustworthy communicator also does not hide relevant information from an audience. As many wise communicators have observed, “Trust is hard to build but takes only seconds to destroy.”

      Ethical Communicators Do Not Plagiarize

      Another important ethical obligation is to avoid plagiarism in all its forms. Plagiarism is the act of presenting another’s work or ideas as though they are your own. It is a form of theft or cheating. Plagiarism can range from copying a classmate’s answers and submitting them instead of your own work all the way to submitting an outline or giving a speech written by another. Plagiarism can have extremely serious consequences in academics, such as earning an F on an assignment or failing a course. In the workplace or community, a person who plagiarizes may lose their job and perhaps their reputation. Since plagiarism has such serious repercussions, it is important to understand what plagiarism is. 

      Examples of plagiarism

      • Copying another student’s work and submitting the work as though it were your own.
      • Turning in a paper,  outline, or speech you wrote for a different class (unless approved by your instructor)
      • Buying or “borrowing” a paper, outline, or speech from the internet and submitting it as though you wrote it
      • Using large sections of chunks of information from sources without adding your own analysis and original thoughts
      • Failing to acknowledge the source of ideas and research both orally and in writing. 

       

      Overcoming Anxiety

      Whether you will give your first presentation in this class next week or in two months, you may be one of many students in the introduction to communication studies course to face anxiety about communication in general or public speaking in particular.

      1.4.2N

      Communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety are common but can be managed productively.
      Ana C. – day 339 butterflies – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

       

      Decades of research conducted by communication scholars show that communication apprehension is common among college students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Communication apprehension (CA) is fear or anxiety experienced by a person due to actual or imagined communication with another person or persons. CA includes multiple forms of communication, not just public speaking. Of college students, 15 to 20 percent experience high trait CA, meaning they are generally anxious about communication. Furthermore, 70 percent of college students experience some trait CA, which means that addressing communication anxiety in a class like the one you’re taking now stands to benefit the majority of students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Public speaking anxiety is a type of CA that produces physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions in people when faced with a real or imagined presentation (Bodie, 2010). Research on public speaking anxiety has focused on three key ways to address this common issue: systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, and skills training (Bodie, 2010). Communication departments are typically the only departments that address communication apprehension explicitly, which is important as CA is “related to negative academic consequences such as negative attitudes toward school, lower overall classroom achievement, lower final course grades, and higher college attrition rates” (Allen, Hunter, & Donohue, 2009). Additionally, CA can lead others to make assumptions about your communication competence that may be unfavorable. Even if you are intelligent, prepared, and motivated, CA and public speaking anxiety can detract from your communication and lead others to perceive you in ways you did not intend. CA is a common issue faced by many people, so you are not alone.

       

      Exercises

      1. Getting integrated: Evaluate your speaking and listening competencies based on the list generated by the NCA. Out of the skills listed, which ones are you more competent in and less competent in? Which skill will be most useful for you in academic contexts? Professional contexts? Personal contexts? Civic contexts?
      2. Think of a person you know who you think possesses a high level of communication competence. What makes you think this? What communication characteristics do they have that you might want to have yourself?
      3. What anxieties do you have regarding communication and/or public speaking? Since communication and speaking are a necessary part of life, identify some strategies you can use to manage those anxieties.

       

      References

      Allen, M., John E. Hunter, and William A. Donohue, “Meta-analysis of Self-Report Data on the Effectiveness of Public Speaking Anxiety Treatment Techniques,” Communication Education 38, no. 1 (2009): 54–76.

      Bodie, G. D., “A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety,” Communication Education 59, no. 1 (2010): 72.

      Burgoon, J. K., Charles R. Berger, and Vincent R. Waldron, “Mindfulness and Interpersonal Communication,” Journal of Social Issues 56, no. 1 (2000): 105.

      Cooley, R. E., and Deborah A. Roach, “A Conceptual Framework,” in Competence in Communication: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Robert N. Bostrom (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984), 25.

      Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 9.

      McCroskey, J. C., “Communication Competence: The Elusive Construct,” in Competence in Communication: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Robert N. Bostrom (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984), 259.

      Morreale, S., Rebecca B. Rubin, and Elizabeth Jones, Speaking and Listening Competencies for College Students (Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 1998), n.p.

      Priem, J. S., and Denise Haunani Solomon, “Comforting Apprehensive Communicators: The Effects of Reappraisal and Distraction on Cortisol Levels among Students in a Public Speaking Class,” Communication Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2009): 260.

       

      1.5 Technology and Communication

      (Content obtained from OpenStax College Success, CC BY- Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction and Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

       

      Is Technology Vital to Your Ability to Communicate Well?

      Over a billion people use chat rooms, mailing lists, instant messengers, social network services, newsgroups, games, wikis, blogs, and more in order to share social relationships and organize collective action. Everything is connected: people, information, events, and places, all the more so with the advent of online social media. You live in a world where the traditional forms of education, conversations, relationships, and social activity, in general, have been transformed by the ubiquitous presence of technology. Digital media affects every student’s life and their families, friends, and the wider community. Most of you have grown up while this transformation has taken place. The new technologies have created dramatic changes in the relationship between people and information. Though you will come across people who don’t want to believe that these new technologies are here to stay, we, as humans, will never be able to separate ourselves from our own inventions, and to try to do so is perhaps only a step backward in an evolutionary sense. Therefore it is important that we learn to adapt our behavior to include the new inventions. Technology, after all, is an extension of the human mind, and the new technologies are only tools we have created over years of fashioning new ways to do things.

      We continue to move from simple to complex tools. Advancements in technology go hand in hand with changes in communication options. The telegraph was replaced with landlines, those went out of style as the cordless phone became available, and this phone eventually morphed into a cell phone. When the Internet became accessible by cell phone, cell phones became devices that revolutionized personal communication.

       

      Are There Rules to Follow When Using Communication Technology?

      Did you find anything significant about how you use social media? When you carefully looked at how much time you spent on the different platforms, were you surprised? It is probably a good thing to sometimes step back and take a look at how we use our communication tools, and even more importantly, we need to ask ourselves if we are using them to our advantage and not just to pass the time.

      Just as it is important to know your responsibilities in using communication technologies, it is necessary for you to understand that there is a code of honor and etiquette to go along with them. Here are a few pointers on how to go about being active on the Internet without offending or annoying others.

      1. Don’t write emails, post to social media sites, or talk in chat rooms in ALL CAPS. CAPS can be interpreted as screaming or talking in a very loud voice.
      2. Don’t make fun of others.
      3. Apologize if someone was offended and did not “hear” what you were saying in the way you meant it.
      4. When stating a strong opinion, it is not a bad idea to use the abbreviation of IMHO (in my humble opinion). It might keep people from reacting strongly right back at you.
      5. Remember, no one can hear your tone of voice or see your facial expression, so use words carefully to get your message across.
      6. Be respectful of your audience with the level of familiarity used.

       

      Social Media

      Social networking services—like Facebook, Twitter, Tik-Tok, and LinkedIn —provide a limited but public platform for users to create a “personal profile” that can reach a mass communication level. As Internet technology evolves rapidly, most users have few qualms about moving to whichever site offers the better experience; most users have profiles and accounts on many services at once. But as relational networks become more and more established and concentrated on a few social media sites, it becomes increasingly difficult for newcomers and lagging challengers to offer the same rich networking experience. The character of social networking is highly dependent on the type of social circle.

      Benefits and Problems of Social Media

      Social media allows an unprecedented volume of personal, informal communication in real-time from anywhere in the world. It allows users to keep in touch with friends on other continents yet keeps the conversation as casual as a Facebook post. Social networks can even provide a place for people with more obscure interests to meet one another and share commonalities. Twitter has, in many ways, changed yet again the way social media is conceived. Rather than connecting with “friends,” Twitter allows social media to be purely a source of information.

      Online bullying can pervade social networks while shielding bullies through anonymity. Another downside of many of the Internet’s segmented communities is that users tend to be exposed only to the information they are interested in and opinions they agree with. This lack of exposure to novel ideas and contrary opinions can create or reinforce a lack of understanding among people with different beliefs and make political and social compromise more difficult to come by.

      There are clearly some important arguments to consider regarding the effects of the web and social media in particular. The main concerns come down to two things: the possibility that the volume of amateur, user-generated content online is overshadowing better-researched sources and the questionable ability of users to tell the difference between the two.

      Marketing and Privacy Issues with Social Media

      Social media provides unprecedented ways to keep in touch with friends, but that ability can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Users can update friends with every latest achievement—“[your name here] just won three straight games of solitaire!”—but may also unwittingly be updating bosses and others from whom particular information should be hidden. The shrinking of privacy online has been rapidly exacerbated by social networks, and for a surprising reason: conscious decisions made by participants. Putting personal information online—even if it is set to be viewed by only select friends—has become fairly standard.

      Social media on the Internet has been around for a while, and it has always been of some interest to marketers. The ability to target advertising based on demographic information given willingly to the service—age, political preference, gender, and location—allows marketers to target advertising extremely efficiently. Increasingly, marketers are turning to social networks as a way to reach these consumers, even creating a new category of employment called Social Media “Influencers” and “Content Creators” who monetize their fanbase on various sites and apps. Culturally, these developments indicate a mistrust among consumers of traditional marketing techniques; marketers must now use new and more personalized ways of reaching consumers if they are going to sell their products.

       

      Controlling Your Online Communication 

      “Whether digital media will be beneficial or destructive in the long run doesn't depend on the technologies, but on the literacy of those who use them.”

      — Howard Rheingold

      What is important is that we have to decide what we are going to do with the new communication tools for our future. We need to understand when to log on and when to log off. These days you sometimes find yourself being bombarded with new technologies and social media platforms, and you don’t know how you will keep up with them all. You have multiple sites sending you continuous notifications and find yourself scrambling to look at them and perhaps respond. Perhaps turning off those notifications will free up your mind a bit. Sitting at your desk in your dorm room and trying to do an assignment for a class can be difficult if your phone is blinking messages at you continuously.

      It is probably important sometimes to take the focus away from the media itself and look at oneself. What is happening to our minds, our sense of self, and our ways of representing ourselves to others when we spend a significant portion of our time on various online sites? How do we mediate our relationships differently? What kinds of signals do we send, knowingly and unknowingly? Are we shaping the media we use, or is it shaping us? Sometimes we hide behind our on-screen identities as well as navigate social media sites in ways that make us communicate with people that are like ourselves. Do we use these new communication tools appropriately?

      Howard Rheingold, a technology guru who coined the term “virtual community” in 1993, has been thinking and writing about the changes that technology has been making over the years. He has come to the opinion that in order for us to deal with the new communication opportunities, we must learn about what he calls “mindful participation” (Rheingold, 2012). Rheingold doesn’t suggest, as many others do, that these new technologies are bad for us. He offers ways to engage online that keep us in control of our actions and make us a bit more productive about our use of online platforms. He believes in social media literacy and suggests that learning the following five literacies will make our life on the Internet more productive, less stressful, and ultimately more enjoyable. If social media is our most often used form of communication, then the following five literacies should help us manage our time online and keep us in control of the tools we use for purposes of communication.

      Figure 1.5.1 Howard Rheingold explores ways we can consider our use and consumption of media technologies, such as social media, in terms of five literacy areas. Asking ourselves questions will lead us to thoughtfully consider how an online environment may be changing us and our relationships. (Credit: Modification of work by Howard Rheingold.)

      1.5.1

       

      Attention

      Attention is the first literacy and is the fundamental building block of how individuals think. It is sometimes difficult to focus our attention since our minds tend to wander in a random manner. Therefore, it is essential that you become more aware of how you are directing your attention. Consider being in a lecture hall and trying to focus on the professor and what they are saying. Is your full attention there? Are you also scrolling through some social media feed while listening to the lecture? When you are in your dorm room working on a class assignment, are you also watching your social media notifications, listening to music, talking to your roommate, and clicking on various ads on a website? On what is your attention most focused? Probably on everything and consequently on nothing. Learning how to pay attention to what is most important at the moment will help you fine-tune your skills.

      Participation

      And even though you might be really good at using online applications and connecting with friends, that does not necessarily mean that you always understand the implications of your participation or that you are actually participating.

      Participation, the next literacy, is much broader as it recognizes the vast population of users that are connected. Participation is connecting with the tool, not people. It is a way of becoming an active citizen and not just a passive consumer. There are multiple ways to participate on a variety of social media platforms. In fact, you probably don’t realize that clicking on a “like,” making a short comment on a picture, or whatever else one does on a site is actually participating. Of course, the effect of your participation can vary, but it can also be very powerful. You participate when you post, fill out a survey, start your own blog, respond to others’ blogs, or just watch a video on YouTube. All of these actions are a form of participation.

      In college, participation with communication environments and other resources is often essential for success and for your grade. If you use learning management systems, online homework systems, polling or attendance software, or other educational media, you need to understand the levels and types of participation, as well as the implications of each. As with social media platforms, learning technology can be a powerful tool, and you’ll likely engage with it throughout your academic and even your professional career.

      Collaboration

      The third literacy, collaboration, refers to your being able to work together using technology. Doing things together gives us more power than doing them alone. Think of all the times Twitter was used by multitudes of people to pass on information about major storms. When there was a bombing in Paris, people went to Twitter to let those people in the streets who’d been displaced know they had apartments and homes that they would open up to them. Of course, there are many collective intelligence projects, such as helping Coke come up with a new flavor or GoFundMe sites to help people in need of money for health reasons. The collaborative efforts of people communicating around a big project are endless and a perfect way to use communication technologies. Tools fostering collaboration allow you to share resources and work as a team and build on each other’s ideas. 

      Network Awareness

      Network awareness is the fourth literacy. Technological networks now allow us to have a greater number of people we can contact. These networks multiply human capacity for social networking and allow connection in a matter of seconds. You can become a member of newsgroups, virtual communities, gossip sites, forums, and other organizations. Making use of these possibilities expands your ability to contribute to the vast stores of information on the Internet. At the same time, you should be conscious of the people whom you’re inviting to hear you and influence you. Have you ever been intrigued, angered, or persuaded by a friend of a friend (someone you don’t know at all) who commented on a social media posting? If so, you are in a relationship with that stranger, and they are affecting you.

      Critical Consumption

      The last literacy, critical consumption, helps us to discern what is true and what is not. We have to learn how to differentiate fact from fiction. Humans have a difficult time trusting people in everyday life; this also translates to the millions of people on the Internet using social media. Before believing what others have written, communicating with them, or using a tool, it is wise to do some detective work. Check the claims, the author’s background, sources, and accuracy.

       

      Evolving Our Strategies to Match Our Evolving Technologies

      Communication has changed because of the way we are using technology. Yes, we still write and talk, but where and how? There are myriad social media platforms that you can use for communication, from Snapchat to Twitter, each with its own set of rules and limitations. These platforms have completely changed many of the ways we transfer ideas and information, find romantic partners, keep in touch with friends and family, connect with our professors and classmates, make plans with teammates, look for employment, and so much more.

      When using a device for communication, there are fewer nonverbal cues we can pick up on, only what the other person is posting or showing. In certain situations, such as talking on the phone, a person can’t see hand gestures but can still hear a tone of voice. When typing, however, there is no tone of voice, hand gesture, or body language. Sometimes typing may not convey the same message as saying what you’re feeling. 

      Social media has made it easier to keep in contact with many people, but it also creates missed opportunities for new relationships since we are too often looking down at our phones instead of talking with the person standing next to us.

        Socialization is an integral part of human behavior, and over time new technologies have made networking and communication more complex. The tools you have available for communication within your networks are powerful and fulfilling, but they can also stand in the way of real-time thinking, doing, relating, and communicating. The past twenty years have seen an explosion in new tools and means of communication, but the next twenty may see similarly rapid growth and change. Adaptability may be as important a skill as any method specific to a certain platform. The key is mindfully participating and knowing when to use and when not to use the new technological tools available to us, which may require learning and acceptance. In this way, your communication with others will be positive and allow you to be productive in all aspects of your life.

         

        Exercises

        1. Share your personal story about when you started using social media. Include what social media you use, how you use it, and how much time you spend doing so. At the end of this story, discuss what you might like to see in the future of social media. What other communication technologies do you wish were available to you, and why?
        2. Think about the effect technology has had on our society. Is that cell phone in your pocket something that has made life better? Are we empowering those who most often don’t have access to power in our society, or are we further alienating them? Does the ability to access global communications create people who are more open and free with their ideas?
        3. How much does social media influence your mood? Your identity? Your opinions?

         

        References

        Rheingold, H. (2012). Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. MIT Press. 

         

          Chapter 2: Active Listening

          Learning Objectives for Chapter 2: Active Listening

          • Describe listening and the importance of listening. 
          • Differentiate hearing and listening. 
          • Analyze the four different types of listening styles and identify practical strategies for each.  
          • Recognize barriers to listening. 
          • List and explain the stages in the listening process. 
          • Analyze personal listening practices. 
          • Design a strategy to improve listening behaviors.  

           

          2.1 Listening vs. Hearing

          (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

           

          Angry Man With Megaphone

          “Angry Man With Megaphone” by cosimoilvecchio is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

           

          “Are you listening to me?” You may have been asked this question because the speaker thinks you are nodding off or daydreaming. Many of us mistakenly think of listening as a “passive” activity. We think we just need to sit there and let words wash over us. Yet the reality is different. Effective listening demands active participation.

          In our sender-oriented society, listening is often overlooked as an important part of the communication process. Yet research shows that adults spend about 45 percent of their time listening, which is more than any other communicative activity. In some contexts, we spend even more time listening than that. On average, workers spend 55 percent of their workday listening, and managers spend about 63 percent of their day listening. (Hargie)

          O, The Oprah Magazine featured a cover article with the title, “How to Talk So People Really Listen: Four Ways to Make Yourself Heard.” This title leads us to expect a list of ways to leave the listening to others and insist that they do so, but the article contains a surprise ending. The final piece of advice is this: “You can’t go wrong by showing interest in what other people say and making them feel important. In other words, the better you listen, the more you’ll be listened to” (Jarvis, 2009).

           

          A group of men listening during a meeting

          Zach Graves – The Importance of Listening – licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

           

          The adage, “We have two ears but only one mouth,” serves as an important reminder that listening is often even more important than talking. Yet many of us think that listening is the same thing as hearing and therefore put very little effort into the process. The reality is quite different. 

           

          Listening vs. Hearing

          Hearing is an automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort. We are surrounded by sounds most of the time, such as airplanes, lawnmowers, furnace blowers, the rattling of pots and pans, and so on. We hear those incidental sounds, and unless we have a reason to do otherwise, we train ourselves to ignore them. We learn to filter out sounds that mean little to us, just as we choose to hear our ringing cell phones and other sounds that are more important to us.

          Hearing (Accidental, Involuntary, Effortless) and Listening (Focused, Voluntary, Intentional).

          Figure 2.1.1: Hearing vs. Listening - licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

           

          Listening, on the other hand, is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. As a result, it requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best, is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker. We do not always listen at our best.

           

          Benefits of Listening

          Today, you can gain a great deal of information and entertainment through reading and electronic recordings rather than through real-time listening. If you become distracted and let your attention wander, you can go back and replay a recording. However, much of what we need to hear at work and in our personal relationships isn’t recorded. There are many benefits to listening effectively and competently in real-time, including the four compelling benefits discussed below.

          Listening is a primary means through which we learn new information, which can help us complete tasks effectively at home, work, or school and get things done in general. The act of listening to our relational partners provides support, which is an important part of building and keeping relationships and helps us meet our relationship needs. Listening to what others say about us helps us develop an accurate self-concept, which can help us put our best foot forward and communicate our identity in the best way possible. Improving our listening skills can help us be better students and more successful professionals. In addition, listening effectively can help you improve your public speaking abilities.

          Clearly, effective listening has many benefits. 

          2.2 Listening Stages

          (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

           

          Figure 2.2.1: Author Joseph DeVito has divided the listening process into five stages: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding through feedback. DeVito, J. A. (2000).

           

          Receiving

          Receiving is the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message, which happens when we filter out other sources so that we can isolate the message and avoid the confusing mixture of incoming stimuli. At this stage, we are still only hearing the message. Notice in Figure 2.2.1 that this stage is represented by the ear because it is the primary tool involved with this stage of the listening process.

          During a crowded event in an outdoor amphitheater, for example. When the person on stage starts speaking, the cheering and/or yelling is sometimes so loud that the speaker can’t be heard easily despite using a speaker system. In this example, the difficulty of receiving the message is due to the external noise. This is only one example of the ways that hearing alone can require sincere effort, but you must hear the message before you can continue the process of listening.

           

          Understanding

          In the understanding stage, we attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not always easy. For one thing, if a speaker does not enunciate clearly, it may be difficult to tell what the message was—did your friend say, “I think they’ll be late for class,” or “My teacher delayed the class”? Notice in Figure 2.2.1 that stages two, three, and four are represented by the brain because it is the primary tool involved with these stages of the listening process.

          Even when we have understood the words in a message, because of the differences in our backgrounds and experience, we sometimes make the mistake of attaching our own meanings to the words of others. For example, say you have made plans with your friends to meet at a certain movie theater, but you arrive, and nobody else shows up. Eventually, you find out that your friends are at a different theater all the way across town where the same movie is playing. Everyone else understood that the meeting place was the “west side” location, but you wrongly understood it as the “east side” location and therefore missed out on part of the fun.

          The consequences of ineffective listening in a classroom can be much worse. When your professor advises students to get an “early start” on your speech, they probably hope that you will begin your research right away and move on to developing a thesis statement and outlining the speech as soon as possible. However, students in your class might misunderstand the instructor’s meaning in several ways. One student might interpret the advice to mean that as long as they get started, the rest of the assignment will have time to develop itself. Another student might instead think that to start early is to start on the Friday before the Monday due date instead of Sunday night.

          So much of the way we understand others is influenced by our own perceptions and experiences. Therefore, at the understanding stage of listening, we should be on the lookout for places where our perceptions might differ from those of the speaker.

           

          Remembering

          Remembering begins with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you might not have been listening effectively. Wolvin and Coakley note that the most common reason for not remembering a message after the fact is because it wasn’t really learned in the first place (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996). However, even when you are listening attentively, some messages are more difficult than others to understand and remember. Highly complex messages filled with detail call for highly developed listening skills. Moreover, if something distracts your attention even for a moment, you could miss out on information that explains other new concepts you hear when you begin to listen fully again.

          It’s also important to know that you can improve your memory of a message by processing it meaningfully—that is, by applying it in ways that are meaningful to you (Gluck et al., 2008). Instead of simply repeating a new acquaintance’s name over and over, for example, you might remember it by associating it with something in your own life. “Emily,” you might say, “reminds me of the Emily I knew in middle school,” or “Mr. Impiari’s name reminds me of the Impala my father drives.”

          Finally, if understanding has been inaccurate, recollection of the message will be inaccurate too.

           

          Evaluating

          The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating or judging the value of the message. We might be thinking, “This makes sense” or, conversely, “This is very odd.” Because everyone embodies biases and perspectives learned from widely diverse sets of life experiences, evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another. Even the most open-minded listeners will have opinions of a speaker, and those opinions will influence how the message is evaluated. People are more likely to evaluate a message positively if the speaker speaks clearly, presents ideas logically, and gives reasons to support the points made.

          Unfortunately, personal opinions sometimes result in prejudiced evaluations. Imagine you’re listening to a speech given by someone from another country, and this person has an accent that is hard to understand. You may have a hard time simply making out the speaker’s message. Some people find a foreign accent to be interesting or even exotic, while others find it annoying or even take it as a sign of ignorance. If a listener has a strong bias against foreign accents, the listener may not even attempt to attend to the message. If you mistrust a speaker because of an accent, you could be rejecting important or personally enriching information. Good listeners have learned to refrain from making these judgments and instead to focus on the speaker’s meanings. 

           

          Responding through Feedback

          Responding—sometimes referred to as feedback—is the fifth and final stage of the listening process. It’s the stage at which you indicate your involvement. Almost anything you do at this stage can be interpreted as feedback. For example, you are giving positive feedback to your instructor if at the end of the class you stay behind to finish a sentence in your notes or approach the instructor to ask for clarification. The opposite kind of feedback is given by students who gather their belongings and rush out the door as soon as class is over. Notice in Figure 2.2.1 that this stage is represented by the lips because we often give feedback in the form of verbal feedback; however, you can just as easily respond nonverbally.

          Formative Feedback

          Not all response occurs at the end of the message. Formative feedback is a natural part of the ongoing transaction between a speaker and a listener. As the speaker delivers the message, a listener signals their involvement with focused attention, note-taking, nodding, and other behaviors that indicate understanding or failure to understand the message. These signals are important to the speaker, who is interested in whether the message is clear and accepted or whether the content of the message is meeting the resistance of preconceived ideas. Speakers can use this feedback to decide whether additional examples, support materials, or explanation is needed.

          Summative Feedback

          Summative feedback is given at the end of the communication. When you attend a political rally, a presentation given by a speaker you admire, or even a class, there are verbal and nonverbal ways of indicating your appreciation for or your disagreement with the messages of the speakers at the end of the message. Maybe you’ll stand up and applaud a speaker you agreed with or just sit staring in silence after listening to a speaker you didn’t like. In other cases, a speaker may be attempting to persuade you to donate to a charity, so if the speaker passes a bucket and you make a donation, you are providing feedback on the speaker’s effectiveness. At the same time, we do not always listen most carefully to the messages of speakers we admire. Sometimes we simply enjoy being in their presence, and our summative feedback is not about the message but about our attitudes about the speaker. If your feedback is limited to something like, “I just love your voice,” you might be indicating that you did not listen carefully to the content of the message.

          There is little doubt that by now, you are beginning to understand the complexity of listening and the great potential for errors. By becoming aware of what is involved with active listening and where difficulties might lie, you can prepare yourself both as a listener and as a speaker to minimize listening errors with your own public speeches.

           

          Exercises

          1. Make a list of some of the abstract words you have misunderstood. What were the consequences of the misunderstanding?
          2. Reflect on your listening in class or in other settings where remembering information is important. What keeps you from remembering important information accurately?
          3. Give an example of a time when you felt that your message was misunderstood or treated with shallow attention. How did you know your message had been misunderstood or rejected? As a communicator, is there anything you could have done differently?

          2.3 Listening Styles and Types

          (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

           

           

          QUASER - Project Management Board Meeting no ISCTE-IUL_0007

          Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

           

           

          If listening were easy, and if all people went about it in the same way, teaching listening would be much easier. One reason for the complexity of teaching listening is that people have ways of listening. Aristotle, as long ago as 325 BC, recognized that listeners in his audience were varied in listening styles. 

           

          Styles of Listening

          Part of the potential for misunderstanding is the difference in listening styles. In an article in the International Journal of Listening, Watson, Barker, and Weaver (Watson et al., 1995) identified four listening styles: people, action, content, and time.

          People

          The people-oriented listener is interested in the speaker. People-oriented listeners listen to the message in order to learn how the speaker thinks and how they feel about their message. For instance, when people-oriented listeners listen to an interview with a famous rap artist, they are likely to be more curious about the artist as an individual than about music, even though the people-oriented listener might also appreciate the artist’s work. If you are a people-oriented listener, you might have certain questions you hope will be answered, such as: Does the artist feel successful? What’s it like to be famous? What kind of educational background do they have? In the same way, if we’re listening to a doctor who responded to the earthquake crisis in Haiti, we might be more interested in the doctor as a person than in the state of affairs for Haitians. Why did they go to Haiti? How did they get away from their normal practice and patients? How many lives did they save? We might be less interested in the equally important and urgent needs for food, shelter, and sanitation following the earthquake.

          The people-oriented listener is likely to be more attentive to the speaker than to the message.

          Action

          Action-oriented listeners are primarily interested in finding out what the speaker wants. Does the speaker want votes, donations, volunteers, or something else? It’s sometimes difficult for an action-oriented speaker to listen through the descriptions, evidence, and explanations with which a speaker builds their case.

          Action-oriented listening is sometimes called task-oriented listening. This type of listener seeks a clear message about what needs to be done and might have less patience for listening to the reasons behind the task. This can be especially true if the reasons are complicated. For example, when you’re a passenger on an airplane waiting to push back from the gate, a flight attendant delivers a brief speech called the preflight safety briefing. The flight attendant does not read the findings of a safety study or the regulations about seat belts. The flight attendant doesn’t explain that the content of their speech is actually mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Instead, the attendant says only to buckle up so we can leave. An action-oriented listener finds “buckling up” a more compelling message than a message about the underlying reasons.

          Content

          Content-oriented listeners are interested in the message itself, whether it makes sense, what it means, and whether it’s accurate. When you give a speech or lead a meeting at work, many members of your audience will be content-oriented listeners who will be interested in learning from you. You, therefore, have an obligation to represent the truth in the fullest way you can. You can emphasize an idea, but if you exaggerate, you could lose credibility in the minds of your content-oriented audience. You can advocate ideas that are important to you, but if you omit important limitations, you are withholding part of the truth and could leave your audience with an inaccurate view.

          Imagine you’re delivering a speech on the plight of orphans in Africa. If you just talk about the fact that there are over forty-five million orphans in Africa but don’t explain why you’ll sound like an infomercial. In such an instance, your audience’s response is likely to be less enthusiastic than you might want. Instead, content-oriented listeners want to listen to well-developed information with solid explanations.

          Time

          People using a time-oriented listening style prefer a message that gets to the point quickly. Time-oriented listeners can become impatient with slow delivery or lengthy explanations. This kind of listener may be receptive for only a brief amount of time and may become rude or even hostile if the communicator expects a longer focus of attention. Time-oriented listeners convey their impatience through eye-rolling, shifting about in their seats, checking their cell phones, and other inappropriate behaviors. If you’ve been asked to speak to a group of middle-school students, you need to realize that their attention spans are simply not as long as those of college students. This is the important reason why speeches or conversations with young audiences must be shorter or broken up by more variety than speeches to adults.

          In your professional future, some of your audience members will have real-time constraints, not merely perceived ones. Imagine that you’ve been asked to speak about a new project to the board of directors of a local corporation. Chances are, the people on the board of directors are all pressed for time. If your speech is long and filled with overly detailed information, time-oriented listeners will simply start to tune you out as you’re speaking. Obviously, if time-oriented listeners start tuning you out, they will not be listening to your message. This is not the same thing as being a time-oriented listener who might be less interested in the message content than in its length.

          Just as there are many different listening styles, people also engage in different types of listening. 

           

          Listening Types

          Listening serves many purposes, and different situations require different types of listening. The type of listening we engage in affects our communication and how others respond to us. For example, when we listen to empathize with others, our communication will likely be supportive and open, which will then lead the other person to feel “heard” and supported and hopefully view the interaction positively. (Bodie)  

          The main types of listening we will discuss are discriminative, informational, critical, and empathetic. (Watson) 

          Discriminative Listening

          Discriminative listening occurs mostly at the receiving stage of the listening process. Here we engage in listening to scan and monitor our surroundings in order to focus on particular sounds. For example, we may focus our listening on a dark part of the yard while walking the dog at night to determine if the noise we just heard presents us with any danger. Or we may look for a particular nonverbal cue to let us know our conversational partner received our message. (Hargie)  In the absence of hearing impairment, we have an innate and physiological ability to engage in discriminative listening. Although this is the most basic form of listening, it provides the foundation on which more intentional listening skills are built. This type of listening can be refined and honed. Think of how musicians, singers, and mechanics exercise specialized discriminative listening to isolate specific sounds and how parents train themselves to listen to sounds from their baby’s room that might indicate the baby is in distress. (Watson)

          Informational Listening

          Informational listening entails listening with the goal of comprehending and retaining information. This type of listening is common in contexts ranging from a student listening to an informative speech to an out-of-towner listening to directions to the nearest gas station. We also use informational listening when we listen to news reports, voice mail, and briefings at work. Since retention and recall are important components of informational listening, good concentration and memory skills are key. These also happen to be skills that many college students struggle with, at least in the first years of college, but will be expected to have mastered once they get into professional contexts. In many professional contexts, informational listening is important, especially when receiving instructions. I caution my students that they will be expected to process verbal instructions more frequently in their profession than they are in college. Most college professors provide detailed instructions and handouts with assignments so students can review them as needed, but many supervisors and managers will expect you to take the initiative to remember or record vital information. Additionally, many bosses are not as open to questions or requests to repeat themselves as professors are.

          Critical Listening

          Critical listening entails listening with the goal of analyzing or evaluating a message based on information presented verbally and information that can be inferred from context. A critical listener evaluates a message and accepts it, rejects it, or decides to withhold judgment and seek more information. As constant consumers of messages, we need to be able to assess the credibility of speakers and their messages and identify various persuasive appeals and faulty logic (known as fallacies). Critical listening is important during persuasive exchanges, but I recommend always employing some degree of critical listening because you may find yourself in a persuasive interaction that you thought was informative. Critical-listening skills are useful when listening to a persuasive speech in this class and when processing any of the persuasive media messages we receive daily. You can see judges employ critical listening, with varying degrees of competence, on talent competition shows like Rupaul’s Drag RaceAmerica’s Got Talent, and The Voice.

           

          empathetic listening photo

          We support others through empathetic listening. (Thinkstock. A Primer on Communication Studies)

           

          Empathetic Listening

          Empathetic listening is the most challenging form of listening and occurs when we try to understand or experience what a speaker is thinking or feeling. Empathetic listening is distinct from sympathetic listening. While the word empathy means to “feel into” or “feel with” another person, sympathy means to “feel for” someone. Sympathy is generally more self-oriented and distant than empathy. (Bruneau)  Empathetic listening is other-oriented and should be genuine. Because of our own egocentrism, empathetic listening can be difficult. It’s often much easier for us to tell our own story or to give advice than it is to really listen to and empathize with someone else. We should keep in mind that sometimes others just need to be heard and our feedback isn’t actually desired.

          Empathetic listening is key for dialogue and helps maintain interpersonal relationships. In order to reach dialogue, people must have a degree of open-mindedness and a commitment to civility that allows them to be empathetic while still allowing them to believe in and advocate for their own position. An excellent example of critical and empathetic listening in action is the international Truth and Reconciliation movement. The first TRC in the United States occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, as a means of processing the events and aftermath of November 3, 1979, when members of the Ku Klux Klan shot and killed five members of the Communist Worker’s Party during a daytime confrontation witnessed by news crews and many bystanders (Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission, n.d.). The goal of such commissions is to allow people to tell their stories, share their perspectives in an open environment, and be listened to. 

           

          Exercises

          1. The recalling stage of the listening process is a place where many people experience difficulties. What techniques do you use or could you use to improve your recall of certain information such as people’s names, key concepts from your classes, or instructions or directions given verbally?
          2. Getting integrated: Identify how critical listening might be useful for you in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, personal, and civic.
          3. Listening scholars have noted that empathetic listening is the most difficult type of listening. Do you agree? Why or why not?
          4. Which style of listening best describes you and why? Which style do you have the most difficulty with or like the least and why?
          5. As you prepare for presenting a speech, identify ways that you can adapt your message to each of the listening styles noted in this section.

             

            References

            Aristotle. (c. 350 BCE). Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts, Trans.). Book I, Part 3, para. 1. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.1.i.html.

            Bruneau, Tom. “Empathy and Listening,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 188, from  A Primer on Communication Studies (v. 1.0).

            Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission. (n.d.). What is truth and reconciliation? https://greensborotrc.org/truth_reconciliation.php

            Hargie, Owen. Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 185. Taken from “Understanding How and Why We Listen,” section 5.1, from the book A Primer on Communication Studies (v. 1.0).

            Watson, K. W., Barker, L. L., & Weaver, J. B., III. (1995). The listening styles profile (LSP-16): Development and validation of an instrument to assess four listening styles. International Journal of Listening9, 1–13.

            Wolvin, Andrew, and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley, “A Listening Taxonomy,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 18–19. Taken from “Understanding How and Why We Listen,” section 5.1, from the book A Primer on Communication Studies (v. 1.0).

            2.4 Listening Problems

            (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

             

            Numerous tests confirm that we are inefficient listeners. Studies have shown that immediately after listening to a 10-minute oral presentation, the average listener has heard, understood, and retained 50 percent of what was said. Within 48 hours, that drops off another 50 percent to a final level of 25 percent efficiency. In other words, we often comprehend and retain only one-fourth of what we hear. We all want to be more than 25 percent efficient. Poor listening causes us many personal and professional problems. It’s not difficult to see the many problems inefficient listeners can create for themselves and others.

             

            Poor Listening Habits

            The International Listening Association identifies many listening habits that can interfere with our ability to listen effectively. Here, we will analyze a few of the most common habits.

            Interrupting the Speaker

            Conversations unfold as a series of turns, and conversational turn-taking has been likened to a dance where communicators try to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. One of the most frequent glitches in the turn-taking process is an interruption, but not all interruptions are considered “bad listening.” An interruption could be unintentional if we misread cues and think a person is done speaking only to have them start up again at the same time we do. Sometimes interruptions are more like overlapping statements that show support (“I think so too.”) or excitement about the conversation (“That’s so cool!”). Supportive paralanguage like “uh-huh,” as we learned earlier, also overlaps with a speaker’s message. All these interruptions are not typically thought of as evidence of bad listening unless they become distracting for the speaker or are unnecessary. Unintentional interruptions can still be considered bad listening if they result from mindless communication. So if you interrupt unintentionally, but because you were only half-listening, then the interruption is still evidence of bad listening. Or, if you interrupt the speaker in an attempt to dominate the conversation, you are engaged in poor listening. Hijacking the speaker’s message with “That reminds me...” or “That’s nothing, let me tell you about...” is evidence of an attempt to hijack the conversation.

            Faking Attention

            Do you have a friend or family member who repeats stories? If so, then you’ve probably engaged in fake listening as a politeness strategy. Outwardly visible signals of attentiveness are an important part of the listening process, but when they are just an “act,” they are bad listening behaviors. Although it is a bad listening practice, we all understandably engage in faking attention from time to time, especially if the friend just needs a sounding board and isn’t expecting advice or guidance. We may also pseudo-listen to a romantic partner to prevent hurting their feelings. On the other hand, some of us constantly fake attention when we can’t really afford to do so, such as in the classroom and at work. We should avoid faking attention as much as possible and should definitely avoid making it a listening habit. Although we may get away with it in some situations, each time, we risk being “found out,” which could have negative consequences.

            Giving in to Internal and External Distractions

            Our ability to process more information more quickly than a speaker can talk often leads to internal distractions. While people speak at a rate of 125 to 175 words per minute, we can process between 400 and 800 words per minute. (Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 195. This gap between speech rate and thought rate gives us an opportunity to engage in thoughts unrelated to the message. Because of this gap, it is impossible to give one message our “undivided attention,” but we can occupy other channels in our minds with thoughts related to the central message. For example, using some of your extra cognitive processing abilities to repeat, rephrase, or reorganize messages coming from one source allows you to use that extra capacity in a way that reinforces the primary message.

            A common problem for many in listening is that we give in to external barriers such as technology. 

             

            Technology, Multitasking, and Listening

            Do you like to listen to music while you do homework? Do you clean your apartment while talking to your mom on the phone? Do you think students should be allowed to use laptops in all college classrooms? Your answers to these questions will point to your preferences for multitasking. If you answered “yes” to most of them, then you are in line with the general practices of the “net generation” of digital natives for whom multitasking, especially with various forms of media, is a way of life. Multitasking is a concept that has been around for a while and emerged along with the increasing expectation that we will fill multiple role demands throughout the day. Multitasking can be pretty straightforward and beneficial—for example, if we listen to motivating music while working out. But multitasking can be very inefficient, especially when one or more of our concurrent tasks are complex or unfamiliar to us. (Fleura et al., 2010). 

            Media multitasking specifically refers to the use of multiple forms of media at the same time, and it can have positive and negative effects on listening. The negative effects of media multitasking have received much attention in recent years, as people question the decreasing attention span within our society. Media multitasking may promote inefficiency because it can lead to distractions and plays a prominent role for many in procrastination. The numerous options for media engagement that we have can also lead to a feeling of chaos as our attention is pulled in multiple directions, creating a general sense of disorder. And many of us feel a sense of enslavement when we engage in media multitasking, as we feel like we can’t live without certain personal media outlets.

            Media multitasking can also increase efficiency, as people can carry out tasks faster. The links to videos and online articles included in this textbook allow readers like you to quickly access additional information about a particular subject to prepare for a presentation or complete a paper assignment. Media multitasking can also increase engagement. Aside from just reading material in a textbook, students can now access information through an author’s blog or Twitter account.

            Media multitasking can produce an experience that feels productive, but is it really? What are the consequences of our media- and the technology-saturated world? Although many of us like to think that we’re good multitaskers, some research indicates otherwise. For example, student laptop use during class has been connected to lower academic performance. (Carrie B. Fried, “In-Class Laptop Use and Its Effects on Student Learning,” Computers and Education 50 (2008): 906–14. This is because media multitasking has the potential to interfere with listening to multiple stages of the process. The study showed that laptop use interfered with receiving, as students using them reported that they paid less attention to the class lectures. This is because students used the laptops for purposes other than taking notes or exploring class content. Of the students using laptops, 81 percent checked the e-mail during lectures, 68 percent used instant messaging, and 43 percent surfed the web. Students using laptops also had difficulty with the interpretation stage of listening, as they found less clarity in the parts of the lecture they heard and did not understand the course material as much as students who didn’t use a laptop. The difficulties with receiving and interpreting obviously create issues with recall that can lead to lower academic performance in the class. Laptop use also negatively affected the listening abilities of students not using laptops. These students reported that they were distracted, as their attention was drawn to the laptop screens of other students. Although these examples are about laptops, cell phones have now taken over as likely distractions to listening.

            1. What are some common ways that you engage in media multitasking? What are some positive and negative consequences of your media multitasking?
            2. What strategies do you or could you use to help minimize the negative effects of media multitasking?
            3. Should laptops, smartphones, and other media devices be used by students during college classes? Why or why not? What restrictions or guidelines for use could instructors provide that would capitalize on the presence of such media to enhance student learning and help minimize distractions?

            From the book A Primer on Communication Studies (v. 1.0). 

             

            4.3.0-1.jpg
            Ian T. McFarland – Listen –  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

             

            Factors that Interfere with Listening

            Some of the factors that interfere with good listening might exist beyond our control, but others are manageable. It’s helpful to be aware of these factors so that they interfere as little as possible with understanding the message.

            Noise

            Noise is one of the biggest factors to interfere with listening; it can be defined as anything that interferes with your ability to attend to and understand a message. There are many kinds of noise, but we will focus on only the four you are most likely to encounter in public speaking situations: physical noise, psychological noise, physiological noise, and semantic noise.

            Physical noise consists of various sounds in an environment that interfere with a source’s ability to hear. Construction noises right outside a window, planes flying directly overhead, or loud music in the next room can make it difficult to hear the message being presented by a speaker even if a microphone is being used. It is sometimes possible to manage the context to reduce the noise. Closing a window might be helpful. Asking the people in the next room to turn their music down might be possible. Changing to a new location is more difficult, as it involves finding a new location and having everyone get there. If you are responsible for organizing a meeting at work or school, consider the environment and, if possible, choose a setting where external noise won’t interfere with communication and listening.

            Psychological noise consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a receiver’s internal thoughts. For example, if you are preoccupied with personal problems, it is difficult to give your full attention to understanding the meanings of a message. The presence of another person to whom you feel attracted, or perhaps a person you dislike intensely, can also be psychosocial noise that draws your attention away from the message.

            Physiological noise consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a listener’s own body. Maybe you’re listening to a speech in class around noon, and you haven’t eaten anything. Your stomach may be growling, and your desk is starting to look tasty. Maybe the room is cold, and you’re thinking more about how to keep warm than about what the speaker is saying. In either case, your body can distract you from attending to the information being presented.

            Semantic noise occurs when a receiver experiences confusion over the meaning of a source’s word choice. While you are attempting to understand a particular word or phrase, the speaker continues to present the message. While you are struggling with a word interpretation, you are distracted from listening to the rest of the message. One of the authors was listening to a speaker who mentioned using a sweeper to clean carpeting. The author was confused, as she did not see how a broom would be effective in cleaning carpeting. Later, the author found out that the speaker was using the word “sweeper” to refer to a vacuum cleaner; however, in the meantime, her listening was hurt by her inability to understand what the speaker meant. 

            Figure 2.4.1: Types of Noise

            Types of Noise

             

            Many distractions are the fault of neither the listener nor the speaker. However, when you are the speaker, being aware of these sources of noise can help you reduce some of the noise that interferes with your audience’s ability to understand you.

            Attention Span

            A person can only maintain focused attention for a finite length of time. In his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education professor Neil Postman argued that modern audiences had lost the ability to sustain attention to a message (Postman, 1985). More recently, researchers have engaged in an ongoing debate over whether Internet use is detrimental to attention span (Carr, 2010). Whether or not these concerns are well-founded, you have probably noticed that even when your attention is “glued” to something in which you are deeply interested, every now and then, you pause to do something else, such as getting a drink of water, stretching, or looking out the window.

            The limits of the human attention span can interfere with listening, but listeners and speakers can use strategies to prevent this interference. As many classroom instructors know, listeners will readily renew their attention when the presentation includes frequent breaks in pacing (Middendorf & Kalish, 1996). For example, a fifty- to seventy-five-minute class session might include some lecture material alternated with questions for class discussion, video clips, handouts, and demonstrations. Instructors who are adept at holding listeners’ attention also move about the front of the room, writing on the board, drawing diagrams, and intermittently using slide transparencies or PowerPoint slides.

            If you have instructors who do a good job of keeping your attention, they are positive role models showing strategies you can use to accommodate the limitations of your audience’s attention span.

            Receiver Biases

            Good listening involves keeping an open mind and withholding judgment until the speaker has completed the message. Conversely, biased listening is characterized by jumping to conclusions; the biased listener believes, “I don’t need to listen because I already know what I think.” Receiver biases can refer to two things: biases with reference to the speaker and preconceived ideas and opinions about the topic or message. Both can be considered noise. Everyone has biases, but good listeners have learned to hold them in check while listening.

            The first type of bias listeners can have is related to the speaker. Often a speaker stands up, and an audience member simply doesn’t like the speaker or doesn’t care for the way the speaker is dressed, so the audience member may not listen to the speaker’s message. Maybe you have a classmate who just annoys you for some reason, or maybe you question a classmate’s competence on a given topic. When we have preconceived notions about a speaker, those biases can interfere with our ability to listen accurately and competently to the speaker’s message.

            The second type of bias listeners can have is related to the topic or content of the speech. Maybe the speech topic is one you’ve heard a thousand times, so you just tune out the speech. Or maybe the speaker is presenting a topic or position you fundamentally disagree with. When listeners have strong preexisting opinions about a topic, such as the death penalty, religious issues, affirmative action, abortion, or global warming, their biases may make it difficult for them to even consider new information about the topic, especially if the new information is inconsistent with what they already believe to be true. As listeners, we have difficulty identifying our biases, especially when they seem to make sense. However, it is worth recognizing that our lives would be very difficult if no one ever considered new points of view or new information. We live in a world where everyone can benefit from clear thinking and open-minded listening. Oscar Wilde said, “Listening is a very dangerous thing. If one listens one may be convinced.”

            Listening or Receiver Apprehension

            Listening or receiver apprehension is the fear that you might be unable to understand the message or process the information correctly or be able to adapt your thinking to include the new information coherently (Wheeless, 1975). In some situations, you might worry that the information presented will be “over your head”—too complex, technical, or advanced for you to understand adequately.

            Many students will actually avoid registering for courses in which they feel certain they will do poorly. In other cases, students will choose to take a challenging course only if it’s a requirement. This avoidance might be understandable but is not a good strategy for success. To become educated people, students should take a few courses that can shed light on areas where their knowledge is limited.

            As a communicator, you can reduce listener apprehension by defining terms clearly and using simple visual aids to hold the audience’s attention. You don’t want to underestimate or overestimate your audience’s knowledge on a subject, so good audience analysis is always important. If you know your audience doesn’t have special knowledge on a given topic, you should start by defining important terms. Research has shown us that when listeners do not feel they understand a speaker’s message, their apprehension about receiving the message escalates. Imagine that you are listening to a speech about chemistry, and the speaker begins talking about “colligative properties.” You may start questioning whether you’re even in the right place. When this happens, apprehension clearly interferes with a listener’s ability to accurately and competently understand a speaker’s message. As a speaker, you can lessen the listener’s apprehension by explaining that colligative properties focus on how much is dissolved in a solution, not on what is dissolved in a solution. You could also give an example that they might readily understand, such as saying that it doesn’t matter what kind of salt you use in the winter to melt ice on your driveway; what is important is how much salt you use.

             

              Exercises

              1. In a group, discuss what distracts you most from listening attentively to a speaker. Have you found ways to filter out or manage the distraction?
              2. This section refers to psychological noise as one of the distractions you might experience. Identify strategies you have successfully used to minimize the impact of the specific psychological noises you have experienced.
              3. Make a list of biases you might have as a listener. Think about how you’d answer these questions: With whom would I refuse to be seen socially or in public? Who would I reject as a trustworthy person to help if I were in danger? What topics do I refuse to discuss? The answers to these questions might provide useful insights into your biases as a listener.

               

              References

              Carr, N. (2010, May 24). The web shatters focus, rewires brains. Wired Magazine. Retrieved from www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/all/1.

              Fleura Bardhi, Andres J. Rohm, and Fareena Sultan, “Tuning in and Tuning out: Media Multitasking among Young Consumers,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour 9 (2010): 318.

              International Listening Association. “Are you listening?” International Listening Association. Retrieved 2021. https://www.listen.org/Are-you-Listening

              Middendorf, J., & Kalish, A. (1996). The “change-up” in lectures. The National Teaching and Learning Forum5(2).

              Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Viking Press.

               A Primer on Communication Studies (v. 1.0).

              Wheeless, L. R. (1975). An investigation of receiver apprehension and social context dimensions of communication apprehension. Speech Teacher24, 261–268.

              2.5 Improving Listening Competence

              (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

               

              As a student, you are exposed to many kinds of messages. You receive messages conveying academic information, institutional rules, instructions, and warnings; you also receive messages through political discourse, advertisements, gossip, jokes, song lyrics, text messages, invitations, weblinks, and all other manners of communication. You know it’s not all the same, but it isn’t always clear how to separate the truth from the messages that are misleading or even blatantly false. Nor is it always clear which messages are intended to help the listener and which ones are merely self-serving for the speaker. Part of being a good listener is to learn when to use caution in evaluating the messages we hear.

               

              4.5.0.jpg
              Kizzzbeth – Good Listener –  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

               

              Critical listening in this context means using careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence. Critical listening can be learned with practice but is not necessarily easy to do. Some people never learn this skill; instead, they take every message at face value even when those messages are in conflict with their knowledge. Problems occur when messages are repeated to others who have not yet developed the skills to discern the difference between a valid message and a mistaken one. Critical listening can be particularly difficult when the message is complex. Unfortunately, some speakers may make their messages intentionally complex to avoid critical scrutiny. For example, a city treasurer giving a budget presentation might use very large words and technical jargon, which makes it difficult for listeners to understand the proposed budget and ask probing questions.

               

              Six Ways to Improve Your Critical Listening

              Critical listening is first and foremost a skill that can be learned and improved. In this section, we are going to explore six different techniques you can use to become a more critical listener.

              Recognizing the Difference between Facts and Opinions

              Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is credited with saying, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts” (Wikiquote). Part of critical listening is learning to separate opinions from facts, and this works two ways: critical listeners are aware of whether a speaker is delivering a factual message or a message based on opinion, and they are also aware of the interplay between their own opinions and facts as they listen to messages.

              In American politics, the issue of health care reform is heavily laden with both opinions and facts, and it is extremely difficult to sort some of them out. A clash of fact versus opinion happened on September 9, 2010, during President Obama’s nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress outlining his health care reform plan. In this speech, President Obama responded to several rumors about the plan, including the claim “that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false—the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” At this point, one congressman yelled out, “You lie!” Clearly, this congressman did not have a very high opinion of either the health care reform plan or the president. However, when the nonpartisan watch group Factcheck.org examined the language of the proposed bill, they found that it had a section titled “No Federal Payment for Undocumented Aliens” (Factcheck.org, 2009).

              Often when people have a negative opinion about a topic, they are unwilling to accept facts. Instead, they question all aspects of the speech and have a negative predisposition toward both the speech and the speaker.

              This is not to say that speakers should not express their opinions. Many of the greatest speeches in history include personal opinions. Consider, for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he expressed his personal wish for the future of American society. Critical listeners may agree or disagree with a speaker’s opinions, but the point is that they know when a message they are hearing is based on opinion and when it is factual.

              Uncovering Assumptions

              If something is factual, supporting evidence exists. However, we still need to be careful about what evidence does and does not mean. Assumptions are gaps in a logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may or may not be accurate. When listening to a public speech, you may find yourself being asked to assume something is a fact when in reality, many people question that fact. For example, suppose you’re listening to a speech on weight loss. The speaker talks about how people who are overweight are simply not motivated or lack the self-discipline to lose weight. The speaker has built the speech on the assumption that motivation and self-discipline are the only reasons why people can’t lose weight. You may think to yourself, what about genetics? By listening critically, you will be more likely to notice unwarranted assumptions in a speech, which may prompt you to question the speaker if questions are taken or to do further research to examine the validity of the speaker’s assumptions. If, however, you sit passively by and let the speaker’s assumptions go unchallenged, you may find yourself persuaded by information that is not factual.

              When you listen critically to a speech, you might hear information that appears unsupported by evidence. You shouldn’t accept that information unconditionally. You would accept it under the condition that the speaker offers credible evidence that directly supports it.

               

              Figure 2.5.1: Facts vs. Assumptions

               
              FactsAssumptions
              Facts are verified by clear, unambiguous evidence.Assumptions are not supported by evidence.
              Most facts can be tested.Assumptions about the future cannot be tested in the present.

               

              Be Open to New Ideas

              Sometimes people are so fully invested in their perceptions of the world that they are unable to listen receptively to messages that make sense and would be of great benefit to them. Human progress has been possible, sometimes against great odds, because of the mental curiosity and discernment of a few people. In the late 1700s, when the technique of vaccination to prevent smallpox was introduced, it was opposed by both medical professionals and everyday citizens who staged public protests (Edward Jenner Museum). More than two centuries later, vaccinations against smallpox, diphtheria, polio, and other infectious diseases have saved countless lives, yet popular opposition continues.

              In college, at work, and in our personal lives, we must be open to new ideas. Let’s face it, people have a tendency to filter out information they disagree with and to filter in the information that supports what they already believe. Nicolaus Copernicus was a sixteenth-century astronomer who dared to publish a treatise explaining that the earth revolves around the sun, which was a violation of Catholic doctrine. Copernicus’s astronomical findings were labeled heretical, and his treatise was banned because a group of people at the time were not open to new ideas. In May of 2010, almost five hundred years after his death, the Roman Catholic Church admitted its error and reburied his remains with the full rites of Catholic burial (Owen, 2010).

              While the Copernicus case is a fairly dramatic reversal, listeners should always be open to new ideas. We are not suggesting that you have to agree with every idea that you are faced with in life; rather, we are suggesting that you at least listen to the message and then evaluate the message.

              Rely on Reason and Common Sense

              If you are listening to a conversation, advertisement, or speech and your common sense tells you that the message is illogical, you very well might be right. You should be thinking about whether the viewpoints expressed seem credible and coherent. In this way, your use of common sense can act as a warning system for you.

              In a recent speech, the speaker argued that fireworks (the public kind, not the personal kind people buy and set off in their backyards) were environmentally hazardous because of litter. Although there is certainly some paper that makes it to the ground before burning up, the amount of litter created by fireworks displays is relatively small compared to other sources of litter, including trash left behind by all the spectators watching fireworks at public parks and other venues. It just does not make sense to identify a few bits of charred paper as a major environmental hazard.

              If the message is inconsistent with things you already know, if the argument is illogical, or if the language is exaggerated, you should investigate the issues before accepting or rejecting the message. Often, you will not be able to take this step during the presentation of the message; it may take longer to collect enough knowledge to make that decision for yourself.

              However, when you are a public speaker, you should not give a speech based only on your common sense. You must also be able to back up your common-sense statements with evidence from reputable sources. That’s why it’s necessary for public speakers to cite sources and refer to the works of scholars whose research is irrefutable or at least highly credible. 

              Relate New Ideas to Old Ones

              As both a speaker and a listener, one of the most important things you can do to understand a message is to relate new ideas to previously held ideas. Imagine you’re giving a speech about biological systems, and you need to use the term “homeostasis,” which refers to the ability of an organism to maintain stability by making constant adjustments. To help your audience understand homeostasis, you could show how homeostasis is similar to adjustments made by the thermostats that keep our homes at a more or less even temperature. If you set your thermostat for seventy degrees and it gets hotter, the central cooling will kick in and cool your house down. If your house gets below seventy degrees, your heater will kick in and heat your house up. Notice that in both cases, your thermostat is making constant adjustments to stay at seventy degrees. Explaining that the body’s homeostasis works in a similar way will make it more relevant to your listeners and will likely help them both understand and remember the idea because it links to something they have already experienced.

              If you can make effective comparisons while you are listening, it can deepen your understanding of the message. If you can provide those comparisons for your listeners, you make it easier for them to give consideration to your ideas.

              Take Notes

              Note-taking is a skill that improves with practice. You already know that it’s nearly impossible to write down everything a speaker says. In fact, in your attempt to record everything, you might fall behind and wish you had divided your attention differently between writing and listening.

              Careful, selective note-taking is important because we want an accurate record that reflects the meanings of the message. However much you might concentrate on the notes, you could inadvertently leave out an important word, such as not, and undermine the reliability of your otherwise carefully written notes. Instead, if you give the same care and attention to listening, you are less likely to make that kind of a mistake.

              It’s important to find a balance between listening well and taking good notes. Many people struggle with this balance for a long time. For example, if you try to write down only key phrases instead of full sentences, you might find that you can’t remember how two ideas were related. In that case, too few notes were taken. At the opposite end, extensive note-taking can result in a loss of emphasis on the most important ideas.

              To increase your critical listening skills, continue developing your ability to identify the central issues in messages so that you can take accurate notes that represent the meanings intended by the speaker.

               

              Listen Ethically

              Ethical listening rests heavily on honest intentions. We should extend to speakers the same respect we want to receive when it’s our turn to speak. We should be facing the speaker with our eyes open. We should not be checking our cell phones. We should avoid any behavior that belittles the speaker or the message.

               

              A man using a string telephone
              Ben Smith – String telephone –  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

               

              Scholars Stephanie Coopman and James Lull emphasize the creation of a climate of caring and mutual understanding, observing that “respecting others’ perspectives is one hallmark of the effective listener” (Coopman & Lull, 2008). Respect, or unconditional positive regard for others, means that you treat others with consideration and decency whether you agree with them or not. Professors Sprague, Stuart, and Bodary also urge us to treat the speaker with respect even when we disagree, don’t understand the message, or find the speech boring (Sprague et al., 2010).

              Doug Lippman (1998), a storytelling coach, wrote powerfully and sensitively about listening in his book:

              Like so many of us, I used to take listening for granted, glossing over this step as I rushed into the more active, visible ways of being helpful. Now, I am convinced that listening is the single most important element of any helping relationship.

              Listening has great power. It draws thoughts and feelings out of people as nothing else can. When someone listens to you well, you become aware of feelings you may not have realized that you felt. You have ideas you may have never thought before. You become more eloquent, more insightful.…

              As a helpful listener, I do not interrupt you. I do not give advice. I do not do something else while listening to you. I do not convey distraction through nervous mannerisms. I do not finish your sentences for you. In spite of all my attempts to understand you, I do not assume I know what you mean.

              I do not convey disapproval, impatience, or condescension. If I am confused, I show a desire for clarification, not dislike for your obtuseness. I do not act vindicated when you misspeak or correct yourself.

              I do not sit impassively, withholding participation.

              Instead, I project affection, approval, interest, and enthusiasm. I am your partner in communication. I am eager for your imminent success, fascinated by your struggles, forgiving of your mistakes, always expecting the best. I am your delighted listener (Lippman, 1998).

              This excerpt expresses the decency with which people should treat each other. It doesn’t mean we must accept everything we hear, but ethically, we should refrain from trivializing each other’s concerns. We have all had the painful experience of being ignored or misunderstood. This is how we know that one of the greatest gifts one human can give to another is listening.

              On its website, the International Listening Association asks the following questions, which can become an excellent checklist for effective listening. 

               

              Are You Listening? A Checklist for Listeners

              1. Are you giving the speaker 100% of your attention?
              2. Are you listening to understand rather than listening to respond?
              3. Have you opened your mind to receive what is being said?
              4. Have you rejected the temptation to prepare your response while the other person is speaking?
              5. Are you open to changing your mind?
              6. Are you aware of what is not being said as well as what is being said?
              7. Are you taking account of the degree of emotion attached to the words?
              8. Are you aware of differences or similarities (culture, age, gender) between you and the speaker which may influence how you listen?
              9. Are you giving signals to the speaker that you are listening?
              10. Are you valuing the speaker and the experience they have gathered in their life so far?

               

              Exercises

              1. Think of a time when you were too tired or distracted to give your full attention to the ideas in a speech. What did you do? What should you have done?
              2. Give an example of a mistake in reasoning that involved the speaker mistaking an assumption for a fact.
              3. Examine the checklist provided by the International Listening Association. On your own, organize the steps from what you see as being (1)  least important to (10 most important to effective listening. In a group, compare and discuss your lists.

               

              Assignment

              Take the Listening Self-Assessment

              Then ask two other people who you communicate with on a regular basis to take the assessment about YOU. Try to ask two people you have different types of relationships with, such as a parent and best friend or partner and boss. Discuss your listening behaviors with those two people.

              Type a 1- to 2-page, double-spaced paper that addresses the following, each in a complete paragraph: 

              • Define the characteristics of an effective, active listener.  
              • Describe the positive qualities you have according to your self-assessment and those who assessed you as a listener. 
              • Describe the negative qualities you have according to your self-assessment and those who assessed you as a listener. 
              • Write a very specific strategic plan for you to improve your listening skills.

               

              Additional Resources 

              Read about active listening on this MindTools page. http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

              A collection of articles and other resources to assist in improving listening and other communication skills. http://conflict911.com/resources/Communication/Listening

               

                  References

                  Coopman, S. J., & Lull, J. (2008). Public speaking: The evolving art. Cengage Learning, p. 60.

                  Edward Jenner Museum. (n.d.). Vaccination. Retrieved from www.jennermuseum.com/Jenner/vaccination.html

                  Factcheck.org, a Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. (2009, September 10). Obama’s health care speech. Retrieved from http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/obamas-health-care-speech

                  Lippman, D. (1998). The storytelling coach: How to listen, praise, and bring out people’s best. Little Rock, AR: August House. 

                  Owen, R. (2010, May 23). Catholic church reburies “heretic” Nicolaus Copernicus with honour. Times Online. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7134341.ece

                  Sprague, J., Stuart, D., & Bodary, D. (2010). The speaker’s handbook (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage.

                  Wikiquote. (n.d.). Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Retrieved from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan

                  Chapter 3: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

                  Learning Objectives for Chapter 3: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

                  • Describe the principles of verbal communication. 
                  • Demonstrate how to use verbal messages effectively. 
                  • Explain how communication can be impacted by the type of language used. 
                  • Describe the functions served by nonverbal communication. 
                  • Identify the different types of nonverbal communication.  
                  • Describe how to effectively send, receive, and interpret nonverbal communication.

                   

                   

                   

                  3.1 How Words Work

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  Have you ever said something that someone else misinterpreted as something else? Some of the most common problems in interpersonal communication stem from the use of language. For instance, two students, Kelly and James, are texting each other. Kelly texts James about meeting for dinner, and James texts “K” instead of “okay.” Kelly is worried because she thinks James is mad. She wonders why he texted “K” instead of “k,” “ok,” “yes,” or “okay.” James was in a hurry, and he just texted in caps because he was excited to see Kelly.

                  This example gives us an understanding of how language can influence our perceptions. Kelly and James had two different perceptions of the same event. One person was worried, and the other person was excited. We know that words are powerful. The words that we use can impact how other people perceive us and how we perceive others.

                  Language is a system of human communication using a particular form of spoken or written words or other symbols. Language consists of the use of words in a structured way. Language helps us understand others’ wants, needs, and desires. Language can help create connections, but it can also pull us apart. Language is so vital to communication. Imagine if you never learned a language; how would you be able to function? Without language, how could you develop meaningful connections with others? Language allows us to express ourselves and obtain our goals. Language is the most important element in human communication. Language is made up of words, which are arbitrary symbols. 

                  One person might call a shopping cart a buggy, and another person might call it a cart. There are several ways to say you would like a beverage, such as “liquid refresher,” “soda,” “Coke,” “pop,” “refreshment,” or “drink.” A pacifier for a baby is sometimes called a “paci,” “binkie,” “sookie,” or “mute button.” Linguist Robin Tolmach Lakoff asks, “How can something that is physically just puffs of air, a mere stand-in for reality, have the power to change us and our world?” (Lakoff, 2001). This example illustrates that meanings are in people, and words don’t necessarily represent what they mean.

                   

                  Words and Meaning

                  Words can have different rules to help us understand their meaning. There are three rules: semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic (Gamble & Gamble, 2014).

                  Semantic Rules

                  First, semantic rules are the dictionary definition of the word. However, the meaning can change based on the context in which it is used. For instance, the word fly by itself does not mean anything. It makes more sense if we put the word into a context by saying things like, “There is a fly on the wall;” “I will fly to Dallas tomorrow;” “That girl is so fly;” or “The fly on your pants is open!” We would not be able to communicate with others if we did not have semantic rules.

                  A cute example of this is a third-grade teacher who asked about a period. One male student in her class went on and on about how girls have monthly periods, but he did not realize that the teacher meant the use of periods for punctuation at the end of a sentence. Hence, semantic rules need to be understood to avoid embarrassment or misunderstandings.

                  Syntactic Rules

                  Second, syntactic rules govern how we help guide the words we use. Syntactic rules can refer to the use of grammar, structure, and punctuation to help effectively convey our ideas. For instance, we can say “Where are you” as opposed to “where you are,” which can convey a different meaning and have different perceptions. The same thing can happen when you don’t place a comma in the right place. The comma can make a big difference in how people understand a message.

                  A great example of how syntactic rules is the Star Wars character, Yoda, who often speaks with different rules. He has said, “Named must be your fear before banish it you can” and “Happens to every guy sometimes this does.” This example illustrates that syntactic rules can vary based on culture or background.

                  Another example is Figure 3.1.1. In this case, we learn the importance that a comma can make in written language. In the first instance, “Let’s eat grandma!” is quite different than the second one, “Let’s eat, grandma!” The first implies cannibalism, and the second is a family dinner. As the image says, punctuation saves lives.

                   

                  Figure 3.1.1 Commas Matter

                  "Let's eat Grandma" and "Let's eat, Grandma"

                   

                  Pragmatic Rules

                  Third, pragmatic rules help us interpret messages by analyzing the interaction completely. We need to consider the words used, how they are stated, our relationship with the speaker, and the objectives of our communication. For instance, the words “I want to see you now” would mean different things if the speaker was your boss versus your lover. One could be a positive connotation, and another might be a negative one. The same holds true for humor. If we know that the other person understands and appreciates sarcasm, we might be more likely to engage in that behavior and perceive it differently from someone who takes every word literally.

                  Most pragmatic rules are based on culture and experience. For instance, the term “Netflix and chill” often means that two people will hook up. Imagine someone from a different country who did not know what this meant; they would be shocked if they thought they were going to watch Netflix with the other person and just relax. Another example would be “Want to have a drink?” which usually infers an alcoholic beverage. Another way of saying this might be to say, “Would you like something to drink?” The second sentence does not imply that the drink has to contain alcohol.

                  It is common for people to text in capital letters when they are angry or excited. You would interpret the text differently if the text was not in capital letters. For instance, “I love you” might be perceived differently from “I LOVE YOU!!!” Thus, when communicating with others, you should also realize that pragmatic rules can impact the message.

                   

                  Words Create Reality

                  Language helps to create reality. Often, humans will label their experiences. For instance, the word “success” has different interpretations depending on your perceptions. Success to you might be a certain type of car or a certain amount of income. However, for someone else, success might be the freedom to do what they love or to travel to exotic places. Success might mean something different based on your background or your culture.

                  Another example might be the word “intimacy.” Intimacy to one person might be something similar to love, but to another person, it might be the psychological connection that you feel to another person. Words can impact a person’s reality of what they believe and feel.

                  If a child complains that they don’t feel loved, but the parents/guardians argue that they continuously show affection by giving hugs and doing fun shared activities, who would you believe? The child might say that they never heard their parents/guardians say the word love, and hence, they don’t feel loved. So, when we argue that words can create a person’s reality, that is what we mean. Specific words can make a difference in how a person will receive the message. That is why certain rhetoricians and politicians will spend hours looking for the right word to capture the true essence of a message. At Disney World, they call their employees “cast members” rather than workers because it gives a perception that each person has a part in helping to run the show. Even on a resume, you might select words that set you apart from the other applicants. For instance, if you were a cook, you might say “culinary artist.” It gives the impression that you weren’t just cooking food; you were making masterpieces with food. Words matter, and how they are used will make a difference.

                   

                  Words Reflect Attitudes

                  When we first fall in love with someone, we will use positive adjectives to describe that person. However, if you have fallen out of love with that person, you might use negative or neutral words to describe that same person. Words can reflect attitudes. Some people can label one experience as pleasant, and another person can have the opposite experience. This difference is because words reflect our attitudes about things. If a person has positive emotions towards another, they might say that that person is funny, mature, and thrifty. However, if the person has negative feelings or attitudes towards that same person, they might describe them as childish, old, and cheap. These words can give a connotation about how the person perceives them.

                   

                  Level of Abstraction

                  When we think of language, it can be pretty abstract. For example, when we say something is “interesting,” it can be positive or negative. That is what we mean when we say that language is abstract. Language can be very specific. You can tell someone specific things to help them better understand what you are trying to say by using specific and concrete examples. For instance, if you say, “You are a jerk!” the person who receives that message might get pretty angry and wonder why you said that statement. To be clear, it might be better to say something like, “When you slammed that door in my face this morning, it really upset me, and I didn’t think that behavior was appropriate.” The second statement is more descriptive.

                  In 1941, linguist S.I. Hayakawa created what is called the abstraction ladder (Figure 3.1.2) (Hayakawa, 1941). The abstraction ladder starts abstract at the top, while the bottom rung is very concrete. In Figure 3.1.2, we’ve shown how you can go from abstract ideas (e.g., information) through various levels of more concrete ideas down to the most concrete idea (e.g., interpersonal communication). Ideally, you can see that as we move down the ladder, the topic becomes more fine-tuned and concrete.

                  In our daily lives, we tend to use high levels of abstraction all the time. For instance, growing up, your parents/guardians probably helped you with homework, cleaning, cooking, and transporting you from one event to another. Yet, we don’t typically say thank you to everything; we might make a general comment, such as a thank you rather than saying, “Thank you so much for helping me with my math homework and helping me figure out how to solve for the volume of spheres.” It takes too long to say that, so people tend to be abstract. However, abstraction can cause problems if you don’t provide enough description.

                   

                  Figure 3.1.2 Abstraction Ladder

                  abstract concrete ladder
                   

                   

                  Metamessages

                  Metacommunication is known as communication about communication (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). Yet, metamessages are relationship messages that are sent among people who communicate. These messages can be verbal, nonverbal, direct, or indirect. For instance, if you see two friends just talking about what they did last weekend, they are also sending metamessages as they talk. Metamessages can convey affection, appreciation, disgust, ridicule, scorn, or contempt. Every time you send messages to others, notice the metamessages that they might be sending you. Do they seem upset or annoyed with certain things that you say? We want to stress the importance of mindfulness when speaking. You may not realize what metamessages you are sending out to others (see Figure 3.1.3).

                   

                  Figure 3.1.3 Perception is Key

                  two figures with thought bubbles, one picturing a ring, and one says "I'm sorry"
                   

                   

                  Words and Meanings

                  Words can have denotative meanings or connotative meanings. In this section, we will learn about the differences and the triangle of meaning (Ogden & Richards, 1923). Researchers by the names of Ogden and Richards noticed that misunderstandings occur when people associate different meanings with the same message. Their model (Figure 3.1.4) illustrates that there is an indirect association between a word and the actual referent or thing it represents.

                  As you can see, when you hear the word “dog,” it conjures up meaning for different people. The word “dog” itself is a symbol and signifier, or sound elements or other linguistic symbols that represent an underlying concept or meaning. When we hear the word “dog,” it is what we call the “signified,” or the meaning or idea expressed when someone hears the word. In this case, maybe you have a dog, and you really see that dog as your best friend, or, as in my case, you call it your little “cuddle monster” because it always wants to be connected to you at all times. Again, the meaning that we attach to the symbol is still separate from the physical entity itself. In this case, there is a real dog named Teddy, who is the referent, or the physical thing that a word or phrase denotes or stands for.

                   

                  Figure 3.1.4 Signifier, Signified, and Referent

                  word/object picture with dog
                   

                   

                  Words can have a denotative meaning, which is the dictionary definition. These are words that most people are familiar with, and they all can agree on the understanding of that word. If you asked a person what a car or a phone is, they would most likely know what you are talking about when you use those words. 

                  Words can have a connotative meaning, which is a subjective definition of the word. The word might mean something different from what you meant. For example, you may hear someone referring to their baby. You could fairly safely assume that the person is referring to their infant, but just as easily, they could be referring to a significant other.

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Create an example of an abstraction ladder of how communication can range from general to very specific.
                  2. Denotative and Connotative Ability. In groups, find ten random words from the dictionary and ask everyone to write down at least five connotations of each of the words. Then, compare your lists. Discuss the similarities and differences between your word choices.
                  3. Create a metamessages love board. As a class, make a list of all the ways you could tell someone you love them. Then, discuss how your metamessages might cause some misunderstandings or confusion.

                   

                  References

                  Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2014). Interpersonal communication: Building connections together. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

                  Hayakawa, S. I. (1941). Language in thought and action. Harcourt, Brace, & Company.

                  Lakoff, R. T. (2001). Language war. Ewing, NJ: University of California Press; pg. 20.

                  Ogden, C. K., & Richards, I. A. (1923). The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (Vol. 29). K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Limited.

                  Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J. H., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication. New York: W. W. Norton.

                  3.2 Functions of Language

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  Based on research examining how children learn language, it was found that children are trying to create “meaning potential” (Halliday & Webster, 2004). In other words, children learn language so they can understand and be understood by others. As children age, language serves different functions.

                   

                  Instrumental and Regulatory Functions

                  Children will typically communicate in a fashion that lets parents/guardians know what they want to do. When children are born, parents/guardians have to figure out if the child is hungry, thirsty, dirty, or sick. Later, when the child acquires language, the child can let the parent/guardian know what they want by using simple words like “eat” or “drink.”

                  Instrumental functions use language to fulfill a need. For us to meet our needs, we need to use language that other people understand.

                  Language can help us define what we can or cannot do. Often, you might see campaigns that say “Don’t drink and drive” or “Don’t text and drive” to help control behaviors while driving.

                  Regulatory functions of language are to influence the behaviors of others through requests, rules, or persuasion. These functions do not necessarily coincide with our needs. These might be advertisements that tell us to eat healthier or exercise more using specific products.

                   

                  Interactional and Imaginative Functions

                  Interactional functions of language are used to help maintain or develop the relationship. Interactional functions also help to alleviate the interaction. Examples might include “Thank you,” “Please,” or “I care about you.”

                  Imaginative functions of language help to create imaginary constructs and tell stories. This use of fantasy usually occurs in play or leisure activities. People who roleplay in video games will sometimes engage in imaginative functions to help their character be more effective and persuasive.

                   

                  Personal Functions

                  Next, we have personal functions, or the use of language to help you form your identity or sense of self. In job interviews, people are asked, “how do you describe yourself?” For some people, this is a challenging question because it showcases what makes you who you are. The words you pick, as opposed to others, can help define who you are.

                  Perhaps someone told you that you were funny. You never realized that you were funny until that person told you. Because they used the word “funny” as opposed to “silly” or “crazy,” it caused you to have perceptions about yourself. This example illustrates how words serve as a personal function for us. Personal functions of language are used to express identity, feelings, and options.

                   

                  Heuristic and Representational Functions

                  The heuristic function of language is used to learn, discover, and explore. The heuristic function could include asking several questions during a lecture or adding commentary to a child’s behavior. Another example might be “What is that tractor doing?” or “why is the cat sleeping?”

                  Representational functions of language are used to request or relay information. These statements are straightforward. They do not seek an explanation. For instance, “my cat is asleep” or “the kitchen light isn’t working.”

                   

                  Cultural Functions

                  We know a lot about a culture based on the language that the members of the group speak (Deutscher, 2010). Some words exist in other languages, but we do not have them in English. For instance, in China, there are five different words for shame, but in the English language, we only have one word for shame. Anthropologist Franz Boas studied the Inuit people of Baffin Island, Canada, in the late 1800s and noted that they had many different words for “snow.” In fact, it’s become a myth over the years that the Inuit have 50 different words for snow. In reality, as Laura Kelly points out, there are a number of Inuit languages, so this myth is problematic because it attempts to generalize to all of them (Kelly, 2019). Instead, the Eskimo-Aleut language tends to have long, complicated words that describe ideas, whereas, in English, we’d have a sentence to say the same thing. As such, the Eskimo-Aleut language probably has 100s of different words that can describe snow.

                  Analyzing the Hopi Native American language, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf discovered that there is no difference between nouns and verbs (Tohidian, 2009). To the Hopi people, their language showcases how their world and perceptions of the world are always in constant flux. The Hopi believe that everything is evolving and changing. Their conceptualization of the world is that there is continuous time. As Whorf wrote, “After a long and careful analysis the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call ‘time,’ or to past, present or future” (Whorf, 1956a).

                  A very popular theory that helps us understand how culture and language coexist is the Sapir-Worf hypothesis (Whorf, 1956b). Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf created this hypothesis to help us understand cultural differences in language use. The theory suggests that language impacts perceptions by showing a culture’s worldview. The hypothesis is also seen as linguistic determinism, which is the perspective that language influences our thoughts.

                  Sometimes, language has special rooted characteristics or linguistic relativity. Language can express not only our thoughts but our feelings as well. Language does not only represent things but also how we feel about things. For instance, in the United States, most houses will have backyards. In Japan, due to limited space, most houses do not have backyards, and thus, it is not represented in their language. To the Japanese, they do not understand the concept of a backyard, and they don’t have a word for a backyard. All in all, language helps to describe our world and how we understand our world.

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Watch a clip of your favorite TV show and record how many statements are regulatory versus instrumental. Why do you think these differences exist? Do you think it would differ depending on the program? Why?
                  2. Ask several classmates to describe themselves. Then, randomly read a set of descriptions to another classmate and ask them to identify who this person is. Discover if these personal characteristics are viewed by others or not. Determine why these differences might exist.
                  3. Create a list of words that exist in English but are not found in other languages. Then, create a list of words that exist in other languages but not in English. Determine why those words might not exist in English or other cultures. 

                   

                  References

                  Deutscher, G. (2010). Through the language glass: Why the world looks different in other languages. Metropolitan Books.

                  Halliday, M. A. K., & Webster, J. J. (Ed.). (2004). Language of early childhood. Continuum International Publishing.

                  Kelly, L. (2019, February 8). Do Inuits really have 50 words for snow? Readable. https://readable.com/blog/do-inuits-really-have-50-words-for-snow/

                  Tohidian, I. (2009). Examining linguistic relativity hypothesis as one of the main views on the relationship between language and thought. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 38(1), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-008-9083-1

                  Whorf, B. L. (1956a). An American Indian model of the universe. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 57-64). Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. pp. 57–64; pg. 57.

                  Whorf, B. L. (1956b). The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 134-159). MIT Press.

                  3.3 Improving Verbal Communication

                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  To be a successful communicator, it is extremely important that you also know how to use words in the most effective way. In this segment, we will examine ways we can improve our verbal communication.

                  The words we use and the grammatical structure of how we use those words can impact our communication success in school, work, and our personal lives. Here are some tips to help you improve your verbal skills.

                   

                  Choose Words Appropriate for Your Audience and the Communication Context

                  Your word choice should be determined by the audience you are communicating with and the communication context. Choose words that will have meaning to your listeners and that are appropriate for the situation. For example, using profanity in a classroom discussion might be understood by your listeners but would be inappropriate for the setting. Using “textspeak” on a class discussion board or an email to your instructor would be inadvisable because textspeak is too informal. Be aware that many words may have both denotative and connotative meanings, and you need to choose and use words consciously and strategically. Always avoid biased language, which is inappropriate for all contexts. 

                   

                  Define Unfamiliar Terms

                  Even when you are careful to craft your message clearly and concisely, some of your receivers may not understand every word you say or write. As a conscientious communicator, you know it is your responsibility to give listeners every advantage in understanding your meaning. Yet your presentation would fall flat if you tried to define each and every term—you would end up sounding like a dictionary! The solution is to be aware of any words you are using that may not be familiar to your receiver and provide clues to meaning in the process of making and supporting your points. Give examples to illustrate each concept. Use parallels from everyday life. Rephrase unfamiliar terms in different words.

                   

                  Choose Specific, Concrete Words

                  Think back to the ladder of abstraction discussed earlier in the chapter, and choose specific, concrete words that paint as vivid and accurate a mental picture as possible for your listeners. If you use language that is vague or abstract, your meaning may be lost or misinterpreted. Your paper or presentation will also be less dynamic and interesting than it could be.

                  • Abstract:  Clumber spaniels are big dogs. 
                  • Concrete: The Clumber Spaniel Club of America describes the breed as a “long, low, substantial dog,” standing 17 to 20 inches high and weighing 55 to 80 pounds.

                  • Abstract:  It is important to each a healthy diet during pregnancy.
                  • Concrete: Eating a diet rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and low-fat dairy products can improve your health during pregnancy and boost your chances of having a healthy baby. 

                   

                  Check for Understanding

                  Check to see that your message is understood. If you are giving a speech or are engaged in conversation, one way to do this is to stay alert to nonverbal feedback. If your listeners are frowning or otherwise indicating confusion, it is important to check for understanding. Even if listeners are smiling and nodding at you when you talk, this does not necessarily mean that they comprehend. Let’s say you are training a new employee for an important job responsibility. Even though the employee might be nodding and smiling, it is still a good idea to ask questions to evaluate understanding. But instead of asking a question like “Did you understand everything?” it would be more beneficial to say, “Let’s go back through this so I can make sure I explained this clearly. What did you understand me to say?” 

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Read a speech from either Vital Speeches of the Day or American Rhetoric. After reading/watching a speech, find a video where the speaker was interviewed. Watch how the speaker sounds when both giving a speech and when answering questions. Analyze the speaker’s use of both language awareness and adaptation.

                   

                  3.4 The Impact of Language

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  By now, you can see that language influences how we make sense of the world. In this section, we will understand some of the ways that language can impact our perceptions and possibly our behavior. To be effective communicators, we need to realize the different ways that language can be significant and instrumental.

                   

                  Naming and Identity

                  New parents/guardians typically spend a great deal of time trying to pick just the right name for their newborn. We know that names can impact other people’s perceptions (Lieberson, 2000). Our names impact how we feel and how we behave. For instance, if you heard that someone was named Stacy, you might think that person was female, nice, and friendly, and you would be surprised if that person turned out to be male, mean, and aggressive.

                  People with unusual names tend to have more emotional distress than those with common names (Christensend & Larsen, 2008). Names impact our identity because others will typically have negative perceptions of unusual names or unique spellings of names. Names can change over time and can gain acceptance. For instance, the name Madison was not even considered a female first name until the movie “Splash” in the 1980s (Weingarten, 2003).

                  Some names are very distinctive, which also makes them memorable and recognizable. Think about musical artists or celebrities with unique names. It helps you remember them, and it helps you distinguish that person from others.

                  Some of the names encompass some cultural or ethnic identity. In the popular book Freakonomics, the authors showed a relationship between names and socioeconomic status (Levitt & Dubner, 2005). They discover that a popular name usually starts with high socioeconomic families, and then it becomes popular with lower socioeconomic families. Hence, it is very conceivable to determine the socioeconomic status of people you associate with based on their birth date and name. Figure 3.4.1 shows some of the more popular baby names for girls and boys, along with names that are non-binary.

                   

                  Figure 3.4.1 Popular Baby Names

                  Popular male, female, and unisex names
                   

                   

                  Affiliation

                  When we want others to associate with us or have an affiliation with us, we might change the way we speak and the words we use. All of those things can impact how other people relate to us. Researchers found that when potential romantic partners employed the same word choices regarding pronouns and prepositions, then interest also increased. At the same time, couples that used similar word choices when texting each other significantly increased their relationship duration (Ireland et al., 2011). This study implies that we often inadvertently mimic other people’s use of language when we focus on what they say.

                  If you have been in a romantic relationship for a long period, you might create special expressions or jargon for the other person, and that specialized vocabulary can create greater closeness and understanding. The same line of thinking occurs for groups in a gang or persons in the military. If we adapt to the other person’s communication style or converge, then we can also impact perceptions of affiliation. Research has shown that people who have similar speech also have more positive feelings for each other (Dunleavy & Booth-Butterfield, 2009). However, speech can also work in the opposite direction when we diverge or when we communicate in a very different fashion. For instance, a group from another culture might speak the same dialect, even though they can speak English, in order to create distance and privacy from others.

                   

                  Sexism and Racism

                  Before discussing the concepts of sexism and racism, we must understand the term “bias.” Bias is an attitude that is not objective or balanced, prejudiced, or the use of words that intentionally or unintentionally offend people or express an unfair attitude concerning a person’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or illness.

                  Sexism or bias against others based on their sex can come across in language. Sexist language can be defined as “words, phrases, and expressions that unnecessarily differentiate between females and males or exclude, trivialize, or diminish either sex” (Parks & Robertson, 2008). Language can impact how we feel about ourselves and others. For instance, there is a magazine called Working Mother, but there is not one called “Working Father.” Even though the reality is that many men who work also have families and are fathers, there are no words that tend to distinguish them from other working men. Whereas women are distinguished when they both work and are mothers compared to other women who solely work and also compared to women who are solely mothers and/or wives.

                  Think about how language has changed over the years. We used to have occupations that were highly male-dominated in the workplace and had words to describe them. For instance, policemen, firemen, and chairmen are now police officers, firefighters, and chairpersons. The same can also be said for some female-dominated occupations. For instance, stewardess, secretary, and waitress have been changed to include males and are often called flight attendants, office assistants, and servers. Thus, to eliminate sexism, we need to be cautious of the word choices we use when talking with others. Sexist language will impact perceptions, and people might be swayed about a person’s capability based on their word choices.

                  Similarly, racism is the bias people have towards others of a different race. Racist language conveys that a racial group is superior or better than another race. Some words in English have racial connotations. Aaron Smith-McLallen, Blair T. Johnson, John Dovidio, and Adam Pearson wrote:

                  In the United States and many other cultures, the color white often carries more positive connotations than the color black… Terms such as “Black Monday,” “Black Plague,” “black cats,” and the “black market” all have negative connotations, and literature, television, and movies have traditionally portrayed heroes in white and villains in black. The empirical work of John E. Williams and others throughout the 1960s demonstrated that these positive and negative associations with the colors black and white, independent of any explicit connection to race, were evident among Black and White children as young as 3 years old … as well as adults. (Smith- McLallen et al., 2006)

                  It is important to note that many words do not imply any type of sexual or racial connotations. However, some people might use it to make judgments or expectations of others. For example, when describing a bad learning experience, the student might say “Black professor” or “female student” as opposed to just saying the student and professor argued. These descriptors can be problematic and sometimes not even necessary in the conversation. When using those types of words, it can create slight factors of sexism/racism. 

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Create a list of names that you have heard that are unique. What makes these names so unique and memorable? Ask friends to give you their perceptions of those names. Does that match with what you think? Why or why not?
                  2. Engage in a normal conversation with a friend or family member. Without having them know what you are doing, slowly and subtly converge your communication style to theirs. Record your observations. Then, with the same person, try to diverge your communication style. Re-record your observations. Ask if the person noticed any communication changes. How did it make them feel? How did you feel? Why?
                  3. Make a list of all the words in the English language that are sexist or racist. Try to research those words on the Internet and determine how these words are sexists or racists. Then, provide alternatives for these words to be more politically correct.

                   

                  References

                  Christensend, N., & Larsen, B. (2008). The name game. The Psychologist, 21, 210-213. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-21/edition-3/name-game

                  Dunleavy, K. N., & Booth-Butterfield, M. (2009). Idiomatic communication in the stages of coming together and falling apart. Communication Quarterly, 57(4), 416-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/01463370903320906

                  Ireland, M. E., Slatcher, R. B., Eastwick, P. W., Scissors, L. E., Finkel, E. J., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). Language style matching predicts relationship initiation and stability. Psychological Science, 22(1), 39 – 44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610392928

                  Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2005). Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. William Morrow.

                  Lieberson, S. (2000). A matter of taste: How names, fashions, and culture change. Yale University Press.

                  Parks, J. B., & Robertson, M. A. (2008). Generation gaps in attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 27(3), 276-283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X08317956

                  Smith- McLallen, A, Johnson, B. T., Dovidio, J. F., & Pearson, A. R. (2006). Black and white: The role of color bias and implicit race bias. Social Cognition, 24(1), 46–73. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2006.24.1.46

                  Weingarten, G. (2003, September 21). Signs of a troubled society. The Washington Post. https://tinyurl.com/v629xn

                  3.5 Types of Language

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  If you read or watch different types of programming, you will probably notice that there is a difference in language use based on the environment, who you are talking to, and the reason for communicating. In this section, we will discuss the different types of language. The types of language used will impact how others view you and if they will view you positively or negatively.

                   

                  Formal vs. Informal Language

                  You probably know by now that how we communicate in different contexts can vary greatly. For example, how you compose a text to your best friend is going to use different grammatical structures and words than when you compose an email to your professor. One of the main reasons for this difference is because of formal and informal language. This table provides a general overview of the major differences between formal and informal language.

                  Formal LanguageInformal Language
                  Used in carefully edited communication.Used in impromptu, conversational communication.
                  Used in academic or official content.Used in everyday communication.
                  The sentence structure is long and complicated.The sentence structure is short, choppy, and improvised.
                  The emphasis is on grammatical correctness.The emphasis is on easily understood messages using everyday phrases.
                  Uses the passive voice.Uses the active voice.
                  Often communicated from a detached, third person perspective.Perspective is less of a problem (1st, 2nd, or 3rd).
                  Speakers/writers avoid the use of contractions.Speakers/writers can actively include contractions.
                  Avoid the inclusion of emotionally laden ideas and words.It allows for the inclusion of emotions and empathy.
                  Language should be objective.Language can be subjective.
                  Language should avoid the use of colloquialisms.It’s perfectly appropriate to use colloquialisms.
                  Only use an acronym after it has clearly been spelled out once.People use acronyms without always clearly spelling out what it means.
                  All sentences should be complete (clear subjects and verbs).Sentences may be incomplete (lacking a clear subject and/or verb).
                  The use of pronouns should be avoided.The use of personal pronouns is common.
                  Avoids artistic languages as much as possible.Includes a range of artistic language choices (e.g., alliteration, anaphora, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, etc.).
                  Arguments are supported by facts and documented research.Arguments are supported by personal beliefs and opinions.
                  Language is gender-neutral.Language includes gender references.
                  Avoids the imperative voice.Uses the imperative voice.

                   

                  Formal Language

                  When applying for a job, you will most likely use formal language in your cover letter and resume. Formal language is official and academic language. You want to appear intelligent and capable, so formal language helps you accomplish those goals. Formal language often occurs when we write. Formal language uses full sentences and is grammatically correct. Formal language is more objective and more complex. Most legal agreements are written in formal language.

                  Informal Language

                  Informal language is common, everyday language, which might include slang words. It is continuous and casual. We use informal language when we talk to other people. It is more simple. Informal language tends to use more contractions and abbreviations. If you look at your text messages, you will probably see several examples of informal language.

                  Jargon

                  Jargon is the specialized or technical language of a specific group or profession that may not be understood by outsiders (Murray, 2012). If you are really into cars or computers, you probably know a lot about the different parts and functions. Jargon is normally used in a specific context and may be understood outside that context. Jargon consists of a specific vocabulary that uses words that only certain people understand. The business world is full of jargon. Joanna Cutrara created a list of 14 commonly heard jargon phrases used in the business world (Cutrara, 2017):

                  • Low-Hanging Fruit
                  • Leverage
                  • Open the Kimono
                  • Giving 110%
                  • Out of Pocket
                  • Drink the Kool-Aid
                  • Bio Break
                  • Blue Sky Training
                  • Tiger Team
                  • Idea Shower or Thought Shower
                  • Moving the Goal Post
                  • Drill Down
                  • Gain Traction

                  Chances are you’ve heard a few of these jargon phrases in your workplace. You may have even found yourself using a few of them. Your workplace may even have some specific jargon only used in your organization. Take a minute and think through all of the jargon you hear on an average day.

                  Colloquialisms

                  Colloquialisms are the use of informal words in communication (Trudgill, 2000). Colloquialism varies from region to region. Examples might be “wanna” instead of “want to” or “gonna” instead of “going to.” It shows us how a society uses language in their everyday lives. Here’s a short list of some common colloquialisms you may have used yourself:

                  • Bamboozle – to deceive
                  • Be blue – to be sad
                  • Beat around the bush – to avoid a specific topic
                  • Buzz off – go away
                  • Fell through the cracks – to be neglected
                  • Go bananas, or go nuts – go insane or be very angry
                  • Gobsmacked – shocked
                  • Gonna – going to
                  • Hit a writer’s block – unable to write
                  • Hit the hay – to go to sleep
                  • Pop into my head – to have a new thought
                  • Sticktoitiveness – to be persistent
                  • Threw me for a loop – to be surprised
                  • Throw someone under the bus – to throw the blame on another person
                  • Wanna – want to
                  • Y’all – you all
                  • Yinz – you all

                  Slang

                  Slang refers to words that are employed by certain groups, such as young adults and teens (Mattiello, 2008). Slang is more common when speaking to others rather than written. Slang is often used with people who are similar and have experience with each other. Here is a list of some common slang terms you may use in your day-to-day life:

                  • BAE (baby / before all else)
                  • On Fleek (looking perfect)
                  • The Tea (gossip)
                  • Bro (typically a male friend)
                  • Cash (money)
                  • Cheesy (cheap or tacky)
                  • Ship (wanting people to be in a relationship, whether real or fictional)
                  • Frenemy (someone who is both a friend and an enemy)
                  • Thirsty (being overly eager or desperate)
                  • Throw Shade (to insult another person)
                  • Woke (being acutely aware of social injustice within society)

                  How many of these slang words do you use? What other slang words do you find yourself using? When it comes to slang, it’s important to understand that this list is constantly evolving. What is common slang today might be completely passé tomorrow. What’s common slang in the United States is not universal in English-speaking countries.

                  Idioms

                  Idioms are expressions or figures of speech whose meaning cannot be understood by looking at the individual words and interpreting them literally (Nunberg et al., 1994). Idioms can help amplify messages. Idioms can be used to provide artistic expression. For instance, “knowledge is power!”

                  Idioms can be hard to grasp for non-native speakers. As such, many instructors in the English as a Second Language world spend a good deal of time trying to explain idioms to non-native speakers. This table presents a wide array of different idioms.

                  Adapted from Kifissia under a Creative Commons Attribution License. https://tinyurl.com/rtxklo5
                  IdiomMeaning. Sentence.
                  ishAbout. I’ll meet you at 4ish.
                  a basketcaseA wreck. They were a basketcase after they were thrown off the basketball team.
                  a breath of fresh airRefreshing/fun. You’re a breath of fresh air.
                  a change of heartChange my mind. I’ve had a change of heart.
                  a blessing in disguiseSomething bad that turns out good. Losing my job turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
                  a dead endThat’s a dead-end job–time to find a new one.
                  a gut feelingFeeling in my stomach. I have a gut feeling that everything is going to turn out all right.
                  a matter of opinionIt’s a matter of opinion whether eating fried tarantulas is a gourmet treat.
                  a piece of cakeEasy. That test was a snap–it was a piece of cake. 
                  a ripoffYou spent $500 for a watermelon? What a ripoff! You were cheated.
                  a pain in the neckA pest. My little brother is a real pain in the neck.
                  be in hot waterBe in trouble. If you tell your boss off, you’ll really be in hot water.
                  in the same boatWe’re in the same situation. We’re all in the same boat–so be cool.
                  on the same wavelengthWe have the same ideas and opinions. We’re on the same wavelength.
                  be on the ballVery sharp. Very smart. He’s really on the ball.
                  it’s only a matter of timeVery soon. It’s only a matter of time until my boss realizes that I am the one stealing money from the till.
                  be that as it mayAs things stand. Be that as it may, I think you should reconsider your decision to move to Antarctica.
                  up in armsReally angry. My parents were up in arms when they learned that I had crashed the new car.
                  up in the airNot sure. Plans are up in the air–we haven’t decided what to do yet.
                  bend over backwardsGo out of your way. They really bent over backwards to make my stay enjoyable.
                  Big deal!Not important (sarcastic). Losing an old sock is not a big deal.
                  cost an arm and a legVery expensive. My new Ferrari cost an arm and a leg.
                  cross your fingersFor good luck. Cross your fingers that I pass the English exam with flying colors.
                  draw a blankI can’t remember. I drew a blank when I tried to remember your brother’s name.
                  easier said than doneMore difficult than it seems.
                  am fed up withSick and tired of something. I’m fed up with whining friends who have everything!
                  from scratchMake from basic ingredients. My carrot cake was made from scratch.
                  for the time beingFor now. For the time being, everything is fine at work.
                  get cold feetFeel too scared to do something. I wanted to ask someone out, but I got cold feet and decided not to.
                  get out of the wrong side of the bedIn a bad mood. They must have gotten up out of the wrong side of the bed today.
                  get the pictureUnderstand. Do you get the picture?
                  get your act togetherGet organized/stop wasting time. You better get your act together, or you’re going to fail all your classes.
                  give it a shotTry. Why not try bungee jumping. Give it a shot.
                  give him a piece of your mindGet angry and tell someone off. If I were you, I would give him a piece of your mind.
                  give him the cold shoulderIgnore someone. They gave me the cold shoulder, walking right past me without saying a word.
                  go all outDo your utmost for someone or something. Their parents went all out for their graduation party.
                  go downhillGet worse. After they got divorced, everything went downhill.
                  go up in smokeEvaporate/disappear. My dreams of being a professional athlete went up in smoke when I broke my leg.
                  have a chip on your shoulderHolding a grudge. They have such a chip on their shoulder that they hardly ever relate to anyone.
                  had it up to hereCan’t take any more. I’ve had it up to here with noisy students!
                  mixed feelingsPositive and negative feelings together. I have very mixed feelings about marrying a fisherman.
                  second thoughtsThinking again about a decision. I’m having second thoughts about trekking in Greenland this summer.
                  throw a fitGet really angry. My parents threw a fit when they heard that I lost my iPhone.
                  I’m all earsTo listen intently. Tell me about your wedding plans–I’m all ears.
                  in the bagCertain. Their new job is in the bag, so they quit their old job.
                  in the middle of nowhereWay out in the country. Their ski chalet is in the middle of nowhere.
                  Just my luck!Bad luck. Just my luck to lose the winning lottery ticket.
                  keep an eye onWatch carefully. Will you keep an eye on my nephew while I walk the dog?
                  bear in mindKeep it in mind. Bear in mind, learning a new language isn’t as easy as it seems.
                  learn by heartMemorize. You have to learn irregular verbs by heart.
                  let the cat out of the bagSpill the beans or tell a secret. Don’t let the cat out of the bag. Keep their surprise birthday party a secret.
                  make my dayMake my day great. The person I have a crush on finally called me, which made my day.
                  miss the pointDon’t understand the basic meaning. You are missing the point entirely.
                  no wayImpossible. You got all A’s on your exams, and you never studied. No way!
                  don’t have a clueI have no idea. I don’t have a clue what the professor was talking about.
                  don’t have the faintest ideaDon’t understand. I don’t have the faintest idea of what that article was talking about.
                  off the top of my headWithout thinking. Off the top of my head, I think it’s worth $6 million.
                  on the dotOntime. It started at 6 o’clock on the dot.
                  out of sight, out of mindYou forget someone you don’t see anymore.
                  out of the blueSuddenly. Guess who called me out of the blue?
                  play it by earMake no plans–do things spontaneously. Let’s just play it by ear tonight and see what comes up.
                  pull someone’s legKid someone. Stop pulling my leg. I know you are kidding!
                  red tapeBureaucracy. It’s almost impossible to set up a business in Greece because there is so much red tape.
                  read between the linesUnderstand what is not stated. If you read between the lines, you’ll realize that they are trying to dump you.
                  safe and soundFine. The Boy Scouts returned safe and sound from their camping adventure in Yellowstone National Park.
                  see eye to eyeAgree. They don’t see eye to eye with their parents at all.
                  sour grapesPretend to not want something that you are desperate for. It’s just sour grapes that they are criticizing Ali’s villa in Italy.
                  slipped my mindForgot. I meant to call you last night, but it slipped my mind.
                  small talkChitchat. It’s important to be able to make small talk when you meet new people for the first time.
                  talk shopTalk about work. What a boring evening! Everyone talked shop- and they’re all dog walkers!
                  the icing on the cakeSomething that makes a good thing great. And the icing on the cake was that the movie that earned $12 million also won the Oscar for best picture.
                  the last strawThe thing that ruins everything. When my boss asked me to cancel my wedding to complete a project–I said that’s the last straw, and I quit!
                  time fliesTime goes fast. Time flies when you are having fun.
                  you can say that againYou agree emphatically. Kanye West is a great singer.
                  You can say that again!
                  you name itEverything you can think of. This camp has every activity you can think it–like swimming, canoeing, basketball and you name it.
                  wouldn’t be caught deadNot even dead would I do something. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that dress to the ball.
                  she’s a dollSomeone really great. Thanks for helping me out. You’re a doll.
                  full of beansLively–usually for a child. Little children are usually full of beans.
                  full of baloneyNot true. They are full of baloney–they don’t know anything.
                  like two peas in a podVery similar. My two brothers are like peas in a pod.
                  a piece of cakeVery easy. My math test was so easy–a real piece of cake.
                  sounds fishySuspicious. Doubling your money in an hour sounds fishy to me.
                  a frog in my throatI can’t speak clearly. Ahem! Sorry I had a frog in my throat.
                  smell a ratSomething is suspicious. The police didn’t believe the witness–in fact, they smelled a rat.
                  go to the dogsGo downhill. Everything has been going to the dogs in our town since the new mayor took office.
                  cat got your tongueSilent for no reason. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?
                  for the birdsAwful. How was the new Batman movie? Oh, it was for the birds.
                  pay through the nosePay lots of money. They paid through the nose to hold their wedding at Buckingham Palace.
                  tongue in cheekBeing ironic. I meant that tongue in cheek and was only kidding.
                  all thumbsClumsy. They couldn’t put that simple table together–they’re all thumbs.
                  get off my backLeave me alone. Bug off! Get off my back!
                  drive me up a wallDrive me crazy. Rude people drive me up a wall.
                  spill the beansTell a secret. Hey, don’t spill the beans. It’s a secret.
                  hit the ceilingBlow up. My parents hit the ceiling when they saw my dreadful report card.
                  go fly a kiteGet lost! Oh, leave me alone! Go fly a kite!
                  dressed to killDressed in fancy clothes. You were dressed to kill when you arrived at the ball.
                  in stitchesLaughing a lot. We were all in stitches when we heard the latest joke.
                  feel like a million dollarsFeel great. I just slept for 15 hours–I feel like a million dollars.
                  at the end of my ropeCan’t stand it anymore. The babysitter of four little children is at the end of their rope.
                  my head is killing meSomething hurts. My head is killing me–I should take an aspirin.
                  out of the questionImpossible. Me? Stand up and sing and dance in front of the whole school–out of the question!
                  I’m beatVery tired.
                  It’ll knock your socks off!Thrills you. You’ll love this summer’s action movie. It’ll knock your socks off.
                  beats meDon’t know. What’s the capital of Outer Mongolia? Beats me!
                  hands downNo comparison. Hands down Mykonos is the world’s most beautiful island.
                  goody-goodyBehaves perfectly. I can’t stand Matilda–she’s such a goody-goody and no fun at all.
                  pain in the neckA big problem. Washing dishes is a pain in the neck.
                  like pulling teethVery difficult. Trying to get 2-year-olds to cooperate is like pulling teeth.
                  for crying out loudOh no! For crying out loud–let me finish this book–will you?
                  I’m at my wit’s endI’m desperate. I’m at my wit’s end trying to deal with two impossible bosses.
                  beating a dead horseA waste of time. Trying to get you to ever change your mind is like beating a dead horse.
                  out of this worldFantastic! My vacation to Hawaii was out of this world!
                  cost an arm and a legVery expensive. A Rolls Royce costs an arm and a leg.
                  go figureTry to guess why. Our English teacher gives us five tests a week and this week–no tests at all. Go figure.
                  in the nick of timeJust in time. The hero arrived in the nick of time to save the desperate damsel.
                  I’m up to my eyeballsVery busy. I’m up to my eyeballs in work this week.
                  I had a blast/a ballA great time. I had a blast/ball at Sandy’s slumber party.
                  win-win situationBoth sides win. Selling their old stock of iPhone 10s was a
                  win-win situation. They got rid of the useless phones, and we bought them really cheaply.
                  I’m swampedVery busy. Let’s get together next week–this week I’m swamped.
                  It’s a stealFantastic bargain. Getting a new computer for $300 dollars is a steal.
                  the sticksWay out in the country. Who would want to live in the sticks–what would you do for excitement?
                  break the iceStart a conversation. Talking about the weather is a good way to break the ice when you meet someone new.
                  give me a breakLeave me alone! Come on! Give me a break! I’ve been working all day long- and I just want to play a little bit of Angry Birds….
                  like talking to the wallA waste of time. Dealing with many teenagers is like talking to a wall–they won’t even respond to your questions.
                  see eye to eyeAgree. I hardly ever see eye to eye with my parents.
                  It’s about timeIt’s time. It’s about time you started your homework–it’s midnight!
                  pays peanutsPays hardly anything. This job pays peanuts–$1 an hour!.
                  sleep like a logSleep soundly. Last night I slept like a log and didn’t hear the thunderstorm at all.
                  aceDo great. I aced the math test. I got 100%.
                  easy as pieSuper easy. The English test was as easy as pie.
                  blabbermouthSomeone who tells secrets. Don’t tell Sophie your secrets or the whole town will know them.
                  don’t bug meDon’t bother me. Don’t bug me–I’m busy.
                  by the skin of my teethBarely manage something. I passed the geography test by the skin of my teeth.
                  can’t make head nor tail ofI can’t understand. I can’t make head nor tail of this math chapter.
                  cool as a cucumberVery calm. The policeman was cool as a cucumber when they persuaded someone not to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

                   

                  Clichés

                  Cliché is an idea or expression that has been so overused that it has lost its original meaning (Blake & Bly, 1993). Clichés are common and can often be heard. For instance, “light as a feather” or “happily ever after” are common clichés. They are important because they express ideas and thoughts that are popular in everyday use. They are prevalent in advertisements, television, and literature.

                   

                  Improper Language

                  Improper language is not proper, correct, or applicable in certain situations (Ioannidou, 2009). There are two different types of improper language: vulgarity and cursing. First, vulgarity includes language that is offensive or lacks good taste. Often, vulgar is lewd or obscene. Second, cursing is language that includes evil, doom, misfortune on a person or group. It can also include curse or profane words. People might differ in their perceptions about improper language.

                   

                  Biased Language

                  Biased language shows preference in favor of or against a certain point-of-view, shows prejudice, or is demeaning to others (Poteat & DiGiovanni, 2010). Bias in language is uneven or unbalanced. Examples of this may include “mankind” as opposed to “humanity.”

                  AvoidConsider Using
                  Black AttorneyAttorney
                  BusinessmanBusinessperson, Business Owner, Executive, Leader, Manager, etc.
                  ChairmanChair or Chairperson
                  Cleaning Lady / MaidCleaner, Cleaning Person, Housecleaner, Housekeeper, Maintenance Worker, Office Cleaner, etc.
                  Male NurseNurse
                  Male Flight Attendant or StewardessFlight Attendant
                  Female DoctorPhysician or Doctor
                  ManpowerPersonnel or Staff
                  CongressmanLegislator, Member of Congress, or Member of the House of Representatives
                  PostmanPostal Employee or Letter carrier
                  ForefatherAncestor
                  PolicemanPolice Officer / Law Enforcement Officer
                  FiremanFirefighter
                  DisabledPeople with Disabilities
                  SchizophrenicPerson Diagnosed with Schizophrenia
                  HomosexualLesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual Men or Women

                   

                  One specific type of biased language is called spin, or the manipulation of language to achieve the most positive interpretation of words, to gain political advantage, or to deceive others. In essence, people utilizing spin can make language choices that frame themselves or their clients in a positive way.

                   

                  Ambiguous Language

                  Ambiguous language can have various meanings. Google Jay Leno’s headlines videos. Sometimes he uses advertisements that are very abstract. For instance, there is a restaurant ad that says, “People are our best ingredient!” What comes to mind when you hear that? Are they actually using people in their food? Or do they mean their customer service is what makes their restaurant notable? When we are trying to communicate with others, it is important that we are clear in our language. We need others to know exactly what we mean and not imply meaning. That is why you need to make sure that you don’t use ambiguous language.

                   

                  Euphemisms

                  Euphemisms also make language unclear. People use euphemisms as a means of saying something more politely or less bluntly. For instance, instead of telling your parents/guardians that you failed a test, you might say that you did sub-optimal. People use euphemisms because it sounds better, and it seems like a better way to express how they feel. People use euphemisms all the time. For instance, instead of saying this person died, they might say the person passed away. Instead of saying that someone farted, you might say someone passed gas.

                   

                  Relative Language

                  Relative language depends on the person communicating. People’s backgrounds vary. Hence, their perspectives will vary. I know a college professor that complains about their salary. However, other college professors would love to have a salary like that. In other words, our language is based on our perception of our experiences. For instance, if someone asked you what would be your ideal salary, would it be based on your previous salary? Your parents? Your friends? Language is relative because of that reason. If I said, “Let’s go eat at an expensive restaurant,” what would be expensive for you? For some person, it would be $50; for another, $20; for someone else, it might be $10, yet there might be someone who would say $5 is expensive!

                   

                  Static Evaluation

                  Oftentimes, we think that people and things do not change, but they do change. If you ever watch afternoon talk shows, you might see people who go through amazing transformations, perhaps through weight loss, a makeover, or surgery of some sort. These people changed. Static evaluation states that things are not constant. Things vary over time, and our language should be representative of that change. For instance, Max is bad. It is important to note that Max might be bad at one time or may have displayed bad behavior, but it may not represent how Max will be in the future.

                   

                  MINDFULNESS ACTIVITY

                  imageFor the entire day, we want you to take a minute to pause before you text or email someone. When we text or email someone, we typically just put our thoughts together in a quick fashion. Take a second to decide how you plan to use your words. Think about which words would be best to get our message across effectively. After you have typed your message, take another few minutes to reread the message. Be mindful of how others might interpret your message. Would they read it at face value, or would they misinterpret the message because there is a lack of nonverbal messages? Do you need to add emojis or GIFS to change how the message is conveyed?

                  Researchers have found that when college students can address their emotions and are mindful of their feelings, it can enhance written communication with others (Westlund et al., 2020). After doing this activity, try to be more mindful of the things that you send to other people.

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Create a list of jargon or slang words that you use and what they mean. Determine if there are differences between how words are used now compared to the past.
                  2. Create a list of colloquialisms or idioms. Find an international student and see if these words make sense. What was confusing or unclear?
                  3. Find clichés that are used in other cultures. Determine if you can find an American equivalent of each cliché.

                   

                  References

                  Blake, G., & Bly, R. W. (1993). The elements of technical writing. Macmillan, pg. 85.

                  Cutrara, J. (2017, September 11). 14 business jargon phrases people love to hate. Grammarly Blog. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/business-jargon-phrases/

                  Ioannidou, E. (2009). Using the ‘improper’ language in the classroom: The conflict between language use and legitimate varieties in education. Evidence from a Greek Cypriot classroom. Language and Education, 23(3), 263-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780802691744

                  Murray, N. (2012). Writing essays in English language and linguistics: Principles, tips and strategies for undergraduates. Cambridge University Press; p. 147.

                  Mattiello, E. (2008). An introduction to English slang: a description of its morphology, semantics and sociology. Polimetrica.

                  Nunberg, G., Sag, I. A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3), 491-538.

                  Poteat, V. P., & DiGiovanni, C. D. (2010). When biased language use is associated with bullying and dominance behavior: The moderating effect of prejudice. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(10), 1123-1133. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-010-9565-y

                  Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. Penguin, pg. 17.

                  Westlund Stewart, N., Wilson, A. W., & Drewery, D. W. (2020). Mindfulness exercises for written communication: Key issues in large classrooms. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 57(1), 109-118. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2019.1567369

                   

                  3.6 Importance of Nonverbal Communication in Interaction

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  “You cannot not communicate.” The foundation for this idea is that even though we may not be sending verbal messages, we are continually sending nonverbal messages. As such, it’s very important to understand how nonverbal messages impact our daily interpersonal interactions. In this section, we’re going to discuss the role that nonverbal communication plays in our daily lives and the six functions of nonverbal communication.

                   

                  The Role of Nonverbal in Everyday Life

                  We communicate nonverbally constantly. It’s the primary way that we communicate with other people. In this section, we’re going to explore the role that nonverbal communication plays in our day-to-day lives.

                  Nonverbal has Communicative Value

                  The meaning associated with nonverbal communication in any given interaction cannot be underestimated. For example, if you are having a conversation with your friend who just broke up with their partner, you will use more than the words, “I just broke up with my partner” to understand how to communicate with your friend. Your friend’s facial expression, way of standing, rate of speech, tone of voice, and general appearance, to name a few, will indicate to you how you should respond. If they are sobbing, gasping for air, hunched over, and appear emotionally pained, you might attempt to comfort them. If they say, “I just broke up with my partner,” and sigh while placing their hand over their heart, they might appear relieved. Your response might be, “it seems like you may be a little relieved. Were things not going well?” 

                  Thus, nonverbal communication plays a tremendous role in successfully engaging in interactions. The successful use of nonverbal communication requires an awareness of the value of nonverbal communication and the belief that it is valuable. When individuals are unaware of the importance of nonverbal communication, they may be overlooking crucial interactional information. For example, one of the authors of this textbook was once meeting with a colleague who was repeatedly sighing during a meeting. Later, when she and her colleague were discussing the meeting, he said, “Didn’t you notice that I was sighing?” She told him she did notice that he was sighing, but she was unsure why. We will discuss this further in the ambiguity of nonverbal communication. In this example, the author’s colleague was aware of the importance of nonverbal communication and attempted to use it deliberately.

                  In addition to awareness, individuals must believe that nonverbal communication is valuable. If your parent/guardian ever said to you, “it wasn’t what you said, it was how you said it,” then your parent/guardian was demonstrating a belief that nonverbal communication is essential. An individual may acknowledge that nonverbal communication exists but may discount its value. For example, one of the authors had a recurring argument with the author’s spouse, who would sigh or roll her eyes as a response in interaction. The author would ask the spouse what it meant, and the spouse would inevitably say, “I can sigh or roll my eyes without it meaning anything.” This is not an uncommon response, but the authors of this text hope to dispel this perception.

                  For a better understanding of the value of communication, Google “value of communication.” Your search will return over a billion links. While it is not possible to review all of the search results, read through a few of the articles. For this exercise, we found titles like “The Value of Effective Communication in the Workplace” and “Why Communication Is Today’s Most Important Skill” (Satell, 2015). In fact, we found almost 300,000 articles with the phrase “value of communication.” These news articles tell readers that effective communication secures customers, creates bonds between employees, and increases revenues.

                  Nonverbal Used for Relational Purposes

                  Nonverbal communication is an essential element in relating to others. Nonverbal communication is often the very first way in which we invite a relationship with another or, at the very least, invite communication. To communicate with another, we must make eye contact with a few exceptions. Thus, relationships begin with nonverbal communication. Also, consider how humans relate to others through touch, scent, hand gestures, physical appearance, and more.

                  Humans often use nonverbal communication to relay to others an interest in continuing a conversation or leaving a conversation. For example, you may run into a colleague and strike up a spontaneous conversation in the hall. The conversation is enjoyable, and you each relate to the other that you are enjoying conversing about work. Your colleague may recognize the need to get to a meeting and relates this information to you by looking at the clock, beginning to back away, or looking at the exit.

                  Another way in which we relate to others via nonverbal communication is through the communication of emotion. Through a myriad of nonverbal behaviors, we can communicate emotions such as joy, happiness, and sadness. The nonverbal expression of emotion allows others to know how to communicate with us.

                  Nonverbal is Ambiguous

                  A particularly challenging aspect of nonverbal communication is the fact that it is ambiguous. In the seventies, nonverbal communication as a topic was trendy. Some were under the impression that we could use nonverbal communication to “read others like a book.” One of the authors remembers her cousin’s wife telling her that she shouldn’t cross her arms because it signaled to others that she was closed off. It would be wonderful if crossing one’s arms signaled one meaning, but think about the many meanings of crossing one’s arms. An individual may have crossed arms because the individual is cold, upset, sad, or angry. It is impossible to know unless a conversation is paired with nonverbal behavior.

                  Another great example of ambiguous nonverbal behavior is flirting! Consider some very stereotypical behavior of flirting (e.g., smiling, laughing, a light touch on the arm, or prolonged eye contact). Each of these behaviors signals interest to others. The question is whether an individual engaging in these behaviors is indicating romantic interest or a desire for platonic friendship. Have you ever walked away from a situation and explained a person’s behavior to another friend to determine whether you were being flirted with? If so, you have undoubtedly experienced the ambiguity of nonverbal communication.

                  Nonverbal is Culturally Based

                  Just as we have discussed that it is beneficial to recognize the value of nonverbal communication, we must also acknowledge that nonverbal communication is culturally based. Successful interactions with individuals from other cultures are partially based on the ability to adapt to or understand the nonverbal behaviors associated with different cultures. There are two aspects to understanding that nonverbal communication is culturally based. The first aspect is recognizing that even if we do not know the appropriate nonverbal communication with someone from another culture, then we must at least acknowledge that there is a need to be flexible, not react, and ask questions. The second aspect is recognizing that there are specific aspects of nonverbal communication that differ depending on the culture. When entering a new culture, we must learn the rules of the culture.

                  Regarding recognizing differences, you may encounter someone from a culture that communicates very differently from you and perhaps in an unexpected way. For example, one of the author’s brothers, Patrick, was working in Afghanistan as a contractor on a military base. He was working with a man from Africa. During their first conversation, he held Patrick’s hand. Patrick later told his sister, the author, this story and said he wasn’t sure how to respond, so he “just rolled with it.” Patrick’s response allowed for the most flexibility in the situation and the best chance of moving forward productively. Imagine if he had withdrawn his hand quickly with a surprised look on his face. The outcome of the interaction would have been very different.

                  Patrick’s response also exemplifies the second aspect of understanding that nonverbal communication is culturally based. Patrick was hired by a contractor to work on the military base in Afghanistan. The contracting firm could have trained Patrick and his coworkers about communicating with the various cultures they would encounter on the base. For example, many people from the Philippines were working on the base. It would have been helpful for the contractors to explain that there may be differences in spatial distance and touch when communicating with other males from the Philippines. Researching and understanding the nonverbal communication of different countries before entering the country can often mean a smoother entry phase, whether conducting business or simply visiting.

                  Attribution Error

                  A final area to address before examining specific aspects of nonverbal communication is “attribution error.” Attribution error is defined as the tendency to explain another individual’s behavior in relation to the individual’s internal tendencies rather than an external factor (Ross, 1977). For example, if a friend is late, we might attribute this failure to be on time as the friend being irresponsible rather than running through a list of external factors that may have influenced the friend’s ability to be on time, such as an emergency, traffic, read the time wrong, etc. It is easy to make an error when trying to attribute meaning to the behaviors of others, and nonverbal communication is particularly vulnerable to attribution error.

                  On Saturday, September 8, 2018, Serena Williams may have been a victim of an umpire’s attribution error on the part of the judge. Let’s just say Serena did suffer as a result of attribution error. The judge spotted Serena Williams’ coach gesturing in the audience and assumed that the gesture was explicitly directed toward Serena as a means to coach her. Her coach later acknowledged that he was “coaching” via nonverbal signals, but Serena was not looking at him, nor was she intended to be a recipient. Her coach indicated that all coaches gesture while sitting in the stands as though they are coaching practice and that it’s a habit and not an other-oriented communication behavior. This is a perfect example of an attribution error. The judge attributed the coaches’ gesture to the coach intending to communicate rather than the gesture merely being due to habit. The judge’s attribution error may have cost Serena William’s comeback match. While the stakes may not be so high in day-to-day interaction, attribution error can create relational strife and general misunderstandings that can be avoided if we recognize that it is necessary to understand the intention behind a specific nonverbal behavior.

                  Omnipresent

                  According to Dictionary.com, omnipresent is indicative of being everywhere at the same time. Nonverbal communication is always present. Silence is an excellent example of nonverbal communication being omnipresent. Have you ever given someone the “silent treatment?” If so, you understand that by remaining silent, you are trying to convey some meaning, such as “You hurt me” or “I’m really upset with you.” Thus, silence makes nonverbal communication omnipresent.

                  Another way of considering the omnipresence of nonverbal communication is to consider the way we walk, posture, engage in facial expression, eye contact, lack of eye contact, gestures, etc. When sitting alone in the library working, your posture may be communicating something to others. If you need to focus and don’t want to invite communication, you may keep your head down and avoid eye contact. Suppose you are walking across campus at a brisk pace. What might your pace be communicating?

                  When discussing the omnipresence of nonverbal communication, it is necessary to discuss Paul Watzlawick’s assertion that humans cannot not communicate. This assertion is the first axiom of his interactional view of communication. According to Watzlawick, humans are always communicating. As discussed in the “silent treatment” example and the posture and walking example, communication is found in everyday behaviors that are common to all humans. We might conclude that humans cannot escape communicating meaning.

                  Can Form Universal Language

                  When discussing whether nonverbal communication is a universal language, caution must be used. We must remember that understanding the context in which nonverbal communication is used is almost always necessary to understand the meaning of nonverbal communication. However, there are exceptions concerning what Paul Ekman calls “basic emotions.”

                  Can Lead to Misunderstandings

                  Comedian Samuel J. Comroe has tremendous expertise in explaining how nonverbal communication can be misunderstood. Comroe’s comedic routines focus on how Tourette’s syndrome affects his daily living. Tourette’s syndrome can change individual behavior, from uncontrolled body movements to uncontrolled vocalizations. Comroe often appears to be winking when he is not. He explains how his “wink” can cause others to believe he is joking when he isn’t. He also tells the story of how he met his wife in high school. During a skit, he played a criminal, and she played a police officer. She told him to “freeze,” and he continued to move (due to Tourette’s). She misunderstood his movement to mean he was being defiant and thus “took him down.” You can watch Comroe’s routine here.

                  Although nonverbal misunderstandings can be humorous, these misunderstandings can affect interpersonal as well as professional relationships. One of the authors once went on an important job interview for a job she was not offered. She asked the interviewer for feedback, and he said, “your answers sounded canned.” The author did not think to do so at the moment, but what she should have said is that she may have sounded canned because she frequently thinks about work, her work philosophy, and how she approaches work. Thus, her tone may have been more indicative of simply knowing how she feels rather than “canned.”

                  As you continue to learn about nonverbal communication, consider how you come to understand nonverbal communication in interactions. Sometimes, the meaning of nonverbal communication can be fairly obvious. Most of the time, a head nod in conversation means something positive such as agreement, “yes,” keep talking, etc. At other times, the meaning of nonverbal communication isn’t clear. Have you ever asked a friend, “did she sound rude to you” about a customer service representative? If so, you are familiar with the ambiguity of nonverbal communication.

                  Usually Trusted

                  Despite the pitfalls of nonverbal communication, individuals typically rely on nonverbal communication to understand meaning during interactions. Communication scholars agree that the majority of meaning in any interaction is attributable to nonverbal communication. It isn’t necessarily true, but we are taught from a very early age that lack of eye contact is indicative of lying. We have learned through research that this “myth” is not necessarily true; this myth does tell a story about how our culture views nonverbal communication. That view is simply that nonverbal communication is important and that it has meaning.

                  Another excellent example of nonverbal communication being trusted may be related to a scenario many have experienced. At times, children, adolescents, and teenagers will be required by their parents/guardians to say, “I’m sorry” to a sibling or the parent/guardian. Alternatively, you may have said “yes” to your parents/guardians, but your parent/guardian doesn’t believe you. A parent/guardian might say in either of these scenarios, “it wasn’t what you said; it was how you said it.” Thus, we find yet another example of nonverbal communication being the “go-to” for meaning in an interaction.

                  According to research, as much as 93% of meaning in any interaction is attributable to nonverbal communication. Albert Mehrabian asserts that this 93% of meaning can be broken into three parts (Figure 3.6.1) (Mehrabian, 1971). 

                   

                  Figure 3.6.1 Mehrabian’s Explanation of Message Meaning

                  a pie chart: 38% Vocalics, 55% Body language, 7% verbal.
                   

                   

                  Mehrabian’s work is widely reported and accepted. Other researchers like Birdwhistell and Philpott say that meaning attributed to nonverbal communication in interactions ranges from 60 to 70% (Birdwhistell, 1970; Philpott, 1983). Regardless of the actual percentage, it is worth noting that the majority of meaning in interaction is deduced from nonverbal communication.

                   

                  The Six Functions of Nonverbal Communication

                  As we have established, nonverbal communication plays an important role in communicating successfully and effectively. Because nonverbal communication plays a significant role in interactions, nonverbal communication was studied heavily in the early days of studying communication. These studies resulted in the discovery of multiple utilitarian functions of nonverbal communication (Figure 3.6.2).

                   

                  Figure 3.6.2 Six Functions of Nonverbal Communication

                  Complementing, Substituting, Contradicting, Accenting, Repeating, and Regulating
                   

                  Complementing

                  Complementing is defined as nonverbal behavior that is used in combination with the verbal portion of the message to emphasize the meaning of the entire message. An excellent example of complementing behavior is when a child exclaims, “I’m so excited,” while jumping up and down. The child’s body is further emphasizing the meaning of “I’m so excited.”

                  Contradicting

                  At times, an individual’s nonverbal communication contradicts verbal communication. Recently, when visiting an aunt’s house, one of the author’s folded her arms. She asked the author if she was cold and if she needed to turn up the air conditioning. The author said no because she was trying to be polite, but her aunt did not believe her. The author’s nonverbal communication gave away her actual discomfort! In this case, nonverbal communication was truly more meaningful than verbal communication.

                  Consider a situation where a friend says, “The concert was amazing,” but the friend’s voice is monotone. A response might be, “oh, you sound real enthused.” Communication scholars refer to this as “contradicting” verbal and nonverbal behavior. When contradicting occurs, the verbal and nonverbal messages are incongruent. This incongruence heightens our awareness, and we tend to believe the nonverbal communication over verbal communication.

                  Accenting

                  Accenting is a form of nonverbal communication that emphasizes a word or a part of a message. The word or part of the message accented might change the meaning of the message. Accenting can be accomplished through multiple types of nonverbal behaviors. Gestures paired with a word can provide emphasis, such as when an individual says, “no (slams hand on table), you don’t understand me.” By slamming the hand on a table while saying “no,” the source draws attention to the word. Words or phrases can also be emphasized via pauses. Speakers will often pause before saying something important. Your professors likely pause just before relaying information that is important to the course content.

                  Repeating

                  Nonverbal communication that repeats the meaning of verbal communication assists the receiver by reinforcing the words of the sender. Nonverbal communication that repeats verbal communication may stand alone, but when paired with verbal communication, it serves to repeat the message. For example, nodding one’s head while saying “yes” serves to reinforce the meaning of the word “yes,” and the word “yes” reinforces the head nod.

                  Regulating

                  Regulating the flow of communication is often accomplished through nonverbal behavior communication. Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen state that regulators are “acts which maintain and regulate the back-and-forth nature of speaking and listening between two or more interactions” (1969, p. 82). You may notice your friends nodding their heads when you are speaking. Nodding one’s head is a primary means of regulating communication. Other behaviors that regulate conversational flow are eye contact, moving or leaning forward, posture changes, and eyebrow raises, to name a few. You may also have noticed several nonverbal behaviors people engage in when trying to exit a conversation. These behaviors include stepping away from the speaker, checking one’s watch/phone for the time, or packing up belongings. These are referred to as leave-taking behaviors. Without the regulating function of nonverbal behaviors, it would be necessary to interrupt conversational content to insert phrases such as “I have to leave.” However, when interactants fail to recognize regulating behavior, verbal communication will be used instead.

                  Substituting

                  At times, nonverbal behavior serves to replace verbal communication altogether. Substituting nonverbal behaviors must be understood within a context more often than not. For example, a friend may ask you what time it is, and you may shrug your shoulders to indicate you don’t know. At other times, your friend may ask whether you want pizza or sushi for dinner, and you may shrug your shoulders to indicate you don’t care or have no preference.

                  Emblems are a specific type of substituting nonverbal behavior that have a direct verbal translation. Emblems may generally be understood outside of the context in which they are used. Some highly recognizable emblems in the U.S. culture are the peace sign and the okay sign. Emblems are a generally understood concept and have made their way into popular culture. The term “emblem” may not be applied within popular culture. In the popular television show Friends, the main characters Ross and Monica are siblings. Ross and Monica are forbidden to “flip the bird” to each other, so they make up their own “emblem,” which involves holding one’s palms upward in a fist and bumping the outside of the palms together. Flipping the bird in the traditional manner, or doing so Ross and Monica style, each of these represents an emblem that does not require context for accurate interpretation.

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Create a list of five situations in which nonverbal communication helped you to accurately interpret verbal communication. Use the functions of nonverbal communication in your description.
                  2. Reflect upon the functions of nonverbal communication and provide an example from your own life for each function.
                  3. Experiment with nonverbal communication. Use an unexpected nonverbal cue when having conversations with friends throughout the day. For example, use a contradictory nonverbal cue such as shaking your head while saying yes. Note your friend’s reaction and be ready to provide an explanation to your friend.

                   

                  References

                  Birdwhistell, R. L. (1970). Kinesics and context: Essays in body motion communication. University of Pennsylvania Press, p. xiv.

                  Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent messages. Wadsworth.

                  Philpott, J. S. (1983). The relative contribution to meaning of verbal and nonverbal channels of communication: A meta-analysis. Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Nebraska.

                  Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In Berkowitz, L. Advances in experimental social psychology. Academic Press. pp. 173–220.

                  Satell, G. (2015, February 6). Why communication is today’s most important skill. Retrieved on December 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2015/02/06/why-communication-is-todays-most-important-skill/#768491331100

                  3.7 Nonverbal Communication Categories

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  In addition to the functions of nonverbal communication, there are categories of nonverbal communication. This section addresses several categories of nonverbal communication that are of particular importance in interpersonal relationships. These categories include haptics (touch), vocalics (voice), kinesics (body movement and gestures), oculesics/facial expressions (eye and face behavior), and physical appearance. Each of these categories influences interpersonal communication and may have an impact on the success of interpersonal interactions.

                   

                  Haptics

                  Haptics is the study of touch as a form of nonverbal communication. Touch is used in many ways in our daily lives, such as greeting, comfort, affection, task accomplishment, and control. You may have engaged in a few or all of these behaviors today. If you shook hands with someone, hugged a friend, kissed your romantic partner, then you used touch to greet and give affection. If you visited a salon to have your hair cut, then you were touched with the purpose of task accomplishment. You may have encountered a friend who was upset and patted the friend to ease the pain and provide comfort. Finally, you may recall your parents or guardians putting an arm around your shoulder to help you walk faster if there was a need to hurry you along. In this case, your parent/guardian was using touch for control.

                  Several factors impact how touch is perceived. These factors are duration, frequency, and intensity. Duration is how long touch endures. Frequency is how often touch is used, and intensity is the amount of pressure applied. These factors influence how individuals are evaluated in social interactions. For example, researchers state, “a handshake preceding social interactions positively influenced the way individuals evaluated the social interaction partners and their interest in further interactions while reversing the impact of negative impressions” (Dolcos et al., 2012). This research demonstrates that individuals must understand when it is appropriate to shake hands and that there are negative consequences for failing to do so. Importantly, an appropriately timed handshake can erase the negative effects of any mistakes one might make in an initial interaction!

                  Touch is a form of communication that can be used to initiate, regulate, and maintain relationships. It is a very powerful form of communication that can be used to communicate messages ranging from comfort to power. Duration, frequency, and intensity of touch can be used to convey liking, attraction, or dominance. Touch can be helpful or harmful and must be used appropriately to have effective relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners. Consider that inappropriate touch can convey romantic intentions where no romance exists. Conversely, fear can be instilled through touch. Touch is a powerful interpersonal tool along with voice and body movement.

                  It’s also essential to understand the importance of touch on someone’s psychological wellbeing. Narissra Punyanunt-Carter and Jason Wrench created the touch deprivation scale to examine the lack of haptic communication in an individual’s life (in the green box below) (Punyanunt-Carter & Wrench, 2009).

                   

                  Read the following questions and select the answer that corresponds with how you perceive physical contact with other people. Do not be concerned if some of the items appear similar. Please use the scale below to rate the degree to which each statement applies to you:

                  Strongly DisagreeDisagreeNeutralAgreeStrongly Agree
                  12345

                  _____1. I do not receive as much touch in my life as normal people.

                  _____2. I receive a normal, healthy amount of touch from people.

                  _____3. Human touch is not a daily occurrence in my life.

                  _____4. Touch from other people is a very common and natural part of my daily life.

                  _____5. I often go for days without being touched by someone.

                  _____6. I often feel like I’m untouchable because of the lack of touch from others in my life.

                  _____7. I receive a variety of forms of touch from a variety of different people.

                  _____8. I can go long periods of time without being touched by another person.

                  _____9. There are days when I would do anything just to be touched by someone.

                  _____10. I have longed for the touch of another person, any person.

                  _____11. Some days I long to be held but have no one to hold me.

                  _____12. I often wish I could get more hugs from others.

                  _____13. I’ve engaged in sexual behaviors for the pure purpose of being touched by someone.

                  _____14. I would never engage in sex with someone just to be touched.

                  SCORING: To compute your scores follow the instructions below:

                  Absence of Touch

                  Step One: Add scores for items 1, 3, 5, 6, & 8_____

                  Step Two: Add scores for items 2, 4, & 7_____

                  Step Three: Add 18 to Step One._____

                  Step Four: Subtract the score for Step two from the score for Step Three._____

                  Longing for Touch

                  Step One: Add scores for items 9, 10, 11, & 12_____

                  Sex for Touch

                  Step One: Add scores for item 13_____

                  Step Two: Add scores for item 14_____

                  Step Three: Add 6 to Step One._____

                  Step Four: Subtract the score for Step Two from the score for Step Three._____

                   

                  Interpreting Your Score:

                  For absence of touch, scores should be between 7 and 35. If your score is above 17, you are considered to have an absence of touch. If your score is below 16, then touch is a normal part of your daily life.

                  For longing for touch, scores should be between 4 and 20. If your score is above 10, you are considered to have a longing for touch in your life. If your score is below 9, then touch is a normal part of your daily life.

                  For sex for touch, scores should be between 2 and 10. If your score is above 5, you have probably engaged in sexual intimacy as a way of receiving touch in your life. If your score is below 5, then you probably have not in sexual intimacy as a way of receiving touch in your life.

                   

                  Source: Punyanunt-Carter, N. M., & Wrench, J. S. (2009). Development and validity testing of a measure of touch deprivation. Human Communication, 12, 67-76.

                   

                  As you can see, Punyanunt-Carter and Wrench found that there are three different factors related to touch deprivation: the absence of touch, longing for touch, and sexual intimacy for touch. First, the absence of touch is the degree to which an individual perceives that touch is not a normal part of their day-to-day interactions. Many people can go days or even weeks without physically having contact with another person. People may surround them on a day-to-day basis at work, but this doesn’t mean that they can engage in physical contact with other people.

                  Second, there is the longing for touch. It’s one thing to realize that touch is not a normal part of your day-to-day interactions, but it’s something completely different not to have that touch and desire that touch. For some people, the lack of touch can be psychologically straining because humans inherently have a desire for physical contact. For some people, this lack of physical contact with other humans can be satisfied by having a pet.

                  Lastly, some people desire touch so much that they’ll engage in sexual activity just as a way to get touched by another human being. Obviously, these types of situations can be risky because they involve sexual contact outside of an intimate relationship. In fact, “hooking up” can be detrimental to someone’s psychological wellbeing (Napper et al., 2016). 

                  In the Punyanunt-Carter and Wrench study, the researchers found that there was a positive relationship between touch deprivation and depression and a negative relationship between touch deprivation and self-esteem. The study also found that those individuals who felt that they did not receive enough touch growing up (tactile nurturance) also reported higher levels of touch deprivation as adults. This is just a further indication of how important touch is for children and adolescents.

                   

                  Vocalics

                  In this section, we are going to discuss vocalics, that is, vocal utterances, other than words, that serve as a form of communication. Our discussion will begin with vocal characteristics, including timbre, pitch, tempo, rhythm, and intensity.

                  Timbre

                  According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, timbre refers to the “quality given to a sound by its overtones: such as the resonance by which the ear recognizes and identifies a voiced speech sound.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/timbre accessed on November 25, 2018.) Pitch refers to the frequency range between high and low. Pitch is not generally thought of much unless an individual’s pitch stands out. For example, if a female’s vocal pitch is low, meaning might be assigned to the low pitch, just as meaning might be attached to a male voice with a high pitch. Also, pitch that is at a higher or lower end of a range will be noticed if there is a momentary or situational change to an individual’s pitch that will trigger an assignment of meaning. For example, when children become excited or scared, they may be described as “squealing.” The situation will determine whether squealing children are thought to be excited or scared.

                  Tempo

                  Tempo refers to the rate at which one speaks. Changes in tempo can reflect emotions such as excitement or anger, physical wellbeing, or energy level. One of the author’s aunts is a brittle diabetic. When talking to her aunt, the author can detect whether the aunt’s blood sugar is too low if her aunt is speaking extremely slow. Rhythm refers to the pattern used when speaking. Unusual speaking rhythms are often imitated. Consider the speaking rhythm of a “surfer dude” or a “valley girl.” One of the most well-known forms of rhythm used in a speech was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. More recently, the speaking rhythm of Presidents Obama and Trump are easily identifiable and often imitated by comedians.

                  Intensity

                  Finally, intensity refers to how loudly or softly an individual speaks. Intensity can be tied to emotion. When individuals speak loudly, the increased volume may be used to convey anger, emotional distress, happiness, or heightened excitement. When individuals speak at a lower volume, the decreased volume may be an effort to diffuse an emotionally intense conversation. Lower volume could also be the result of sharing bad news, discussing taboo or sensitive topics (i.e., when people whisper “sex” or “she died”), or conveying private information.

                  Other Vocal Features

                  Paralanguage

                  Paralanguage is another term for vocalics and refers to “extra-linguistic” features involved in speaking, such as the characteristics of speech just discussed, pauses and silences, and nonverbal vocalizations.

                  Pauses and Silences

                  Pauses and silences are an important part of creating meaning during an interaction. Pauses draw attention to important parts of messages. The “pregnant pause” is an extra-long pause that precedes particularly weighty information. Pauses are a type of silence that are brief in nature, but prolonged silence such as minutes, hours, or even days can be used to convey meaning as well. Consider a conversation in which the other person does not respond to you. What meaning is conveyed? Is the individual thinking? Is the individual hurt, angry, or too shocked to speak? Myriad meanings of silence help emphasize the significance of silence and that it is as impactful as verbal communication, if not more so.

                  Dysfluencies, Vocal Fillers, or Verbal Surrogates

                  Dysfluencies, vocal fillers, or verbal surrogates are sounds that we make as we attempt to fill dead air while we are thinking of what to say next. In the United States, “um” or “uh” are the most commonly used dysfluencies. In conversation, these dysfluencies may pass unnoticed by both the sender or receiver, but consider how the recognition of dysfluencies increases when listening to a speaker who says “uh” or “um” during a speech. When giving a presentation, the speaker may even call attention to dysfluencies by speaking of them directly, and audience members may become distracted by dysfluencies. One of the author’s classmates used to count the number of “ums” used by a particular professor who was known to frequently use “um” when teaching. Though focusing on dysfluencies may be common, it is best for the speaker to attempt to reduce an excessive amount of dysfluencies and for listeners to focus on the meaning rather than the “ums” and “uhs.”

                   

                  Kinesics

                  Kinesics, first coined by Ray Birdwhistell, is the study of how gestures, facial expressions, and eye behavior communicate. Gestures can generally be considered any visible movement of the body. These movements “stimulate meaning” in the minds of others.

                  As we study kinesics, we recognize that body appearance is a form of nonverbal communication. Our general body appearance communicates about us to others. Cultures will have different definitions for what is deemed attractive based on cultural norms. As a result, what is deemed attractive to one person may not be attractive to another. 

                  Facial Expressions

                  Facial expressions are another form of kinesics. Paul Eckman and Wallace V. Friesen asserted that facial expressions are likely to communicate “affect” or liking (Eckman & Friesen, 1969). Eckman and Friesen present seven emotions that are recognized throughout the world. These emotions are often referred to by the acronym S.A.D.F.I.S.H. and include surprise, anger, disgust, fear, interest, sadness, and happiness. Facial expressions are especially useful in communicating emotion. Although not all facial expression is “universally” recognized, people are generally able to interpret facial expressions within a context. We generally consider happiness is indicated by a smile. Smiling might, however, also communicate politeness, a desire to be pleasing, and even fear. If an individual attempts to use a smile to diffuse a volatile interaction where the individual fears being attacked verbally or physically, then the smile may be an indication of fear. In this case, the smile cannot be accurately interpreted outside of the context.

                  In a study investigating preferences for facial expressions in relation to the Big Five personality traits, it was found that most participants showed the strongest preferences for faces communicating high levels of agreeableness and extraversion. Individuals who are high in openness preferred a display of all facially-communicated Big Five personality traits. In relation to females who report being highly neurotic, they preferred male faces displaying agreeableness and female faces communicating disagreeableness. Male faces communicating openness were preferred by males who were higher in neuroticism. Interestingly, males reporting higher levels of neuroticism had a lower preference for female faces communicating openness (Sacco & Brown, 2018). This study underscores the importance of facial expressions in determining who we prefer.

                  Oculesics

                  Oculesics is the study of how individuals communicate through eye behavior. Eye contact is generally the first form of communication for interactants. Consider when a stranger speaks to you in a grocery store from behind you with a question such as, “Can you reach the Frosted Flakes for me?” When a general question such as this is asked with no eye contact, you may not be aware that the question was meant for you.

                  Often when discussing eye behavior, researchers refer to “gaze.” Research consistently demonstrates that females gaze at interaction partners more frequently than males (Bente et al., 1998; Burgoon et al., 1996; Knapp & Hall, 2002). Also, gaze has been studied concerning deception. Early research determined the significance of eye contact in the interpretation behavior. When people gaze too long or for too little, there is likely to be a negative interpretation of this behavior (Burgoon et al., 2002). However, later researchers acknowledge that there is a much greater range of acceptable “gazing” as influenced by verbal communication.

                  Gestures

                  Kinesics serve multiple functions when communicating—such as emblems, illustrators, affect displays, and regulators.

                  Emblems

                  Many gestures are emblems. Gestures are clear and unambiguous and have a verbal equivalent in a given culture (Poyatos, 2002). Only a handful of emblematic gestures seem to be universal, for example, a shrug of the shoulders to indicate “I don’t know.” Most emblems are culturally determined, and they can get you into difficulty if you use them in other countries. In the United States, some emblematic gestures are the thumb-up-and-out hitchhiking sign, the circled thumb and index finger Ok sign, and the “V” for victory sign. However, be careful of using these gestures outside the United States. The thumb-up sign in Iran, for example, is an obscene gesture, and our Ok sign has sexual connotations in Ethiopia and Mexico (Goldin-Meadow, 2005). 

                  Illustrators

                  While emblems can be used as direct substitutions for words, illustrators help emphasize or explain a word. Recall the Smashmouth lyric in All Star: “She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead.” The “L” gesture is often used to illustrate “loser.”

                  Affect Displays

                  Affect displays show feelings and emotions. Consider how music and sports fans show enthusiasm. It is not uncommon to see grown men and women jumping up and down at sports events during a particularly exciting moment in a game. However, there are different norms depending on the sport. It would simply be inappropriate to demonstrate the same nonverbal gestures at a golf or tennis game as a football game.

                  Regulators

                  Regulators, as discussed earlier, are gestures that help coordinate the flow of conversation, such as when you shrug your shoulders or wink. Head nods, eye contact/aversion, hand movements, and changes in posture are considered to be turn-taking cues in conversation. Individuals may sit back when listening but shift forward to indicate a desire to speak. Eye contact frequently shifts during a conversation to indicate listening or a desire to speak. Head nods are used as a sign of listening and often indicate that the speaker should continue speaking.

                   

                  Proxemics

                  Proxemics is the study of communication through space. Space as communication was heavily studied by Edward T. Hall (1969), and he famously categorized space into four “distances. These distances represent how space is used and by whom (Figure 3.71).

                   

                  Figure 3.7.1 Edward T. Hall’s Four Spaces

                  four space ranges from intimate to public
                   

                   

                  Hall’s first distance is referred to as intimate space and is often referred to as our “personal bubble.” This bubble ranges from 0 to 18 inches from the body. This space is reserved for those with whom we have close personal relationships.

                  The next distance is referred to as personal space and ranges from 18 inches to 4 feet. You will notice that, as the distances move further away from the body, the intimacy of interactions decreases. Personal space is used for conversations with friends or family. If you meet a friend at the local coffee shop to catch up on life, it is likely that you will sit between 18 inches and four feet from your friend.

                  The next distance is “social” distance, ranging from 4 feet to 12 feet. This space is meant for acquaintances.

                  Finally, the greatest distance is referred to as “public” distance, ranging from 12 feet to 25 feet. In an uncrowded public space, we would not likely approach a stranger any closer than 12 feet. Consider an empty movie theatre. If you enter a theatre with only one other customer, you will not likely sit in the seat directly behind, beside, or in front of this individual. In all likelihood, you would sit further than 12 feet from this individual. However, as the theatre begins to fill, individuals will be forced to sit in Hall’s distances which represent more intimate relationships. How awkward do you feel if you have to sit directly next to a stranger in a theatre? 

                   

                  Artifacts

                  Artifacts are items with which we adorn our bodies or which we carry with us. Artifacts include glasses, jewelry, canes, shoes, clothing, or any object associated with our body that communicates meaning. One very famous artifact that most everyone can recognize is the glasses of Harry Potter. Harry Potter’s style of glasses has taken on its own meaning. What does his style of eyewear communicate when donned by others? Clothing also stimulates meaning. Do you recall Barney Stinson’s famous line “suit up” in How I Met Your Mother? Why was it necessary to suit up? Recently, Snoop Dogg was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Snoop Dogg was wearing a beautiful, classic camel hair overcoat. In contrast, he was wearing large bulky jewelry. What do these two types of artifacts communicate? One of the authors is a big fan. The author interpreted the classic overcoat as Snoop having excellent taste and the jewelry as strength and wealth. Together the artifacts were interpreted as power.

                   

                  Chronemics

                  Chronemics, as explained by Thomas J. Bruneau (1980), is the use of time to communicate. The use of time is considered to be culturally bound, with some cultures using monochronic time and others using polychronic time. Cultures using monochronic time engage in one task at a time. Cultures using polychronic time engage in multiple tasks at the same time. This use of time involves fluidity with individuals feeling free to work on multiple tasks simultaneously rather than completing a task before moving to the next task, as in the monochronic use of time. When considering how time is used, it is necessary to consider individual preferences as well as cultural preferences. Traditionally, the U.S. is a monochronic culture along with Canada or Northern Europe. Korea is an example of a polychronic culture along with Latin America, the Arab part of the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. However, one can live in each of these cultures and express the opposite orientation toward time. One of the authors is admittedly uptight when it comes to time. She is highly monochronic. This author went to a conference in Puerto Rico, which represents a polychronic orientation toward time. Buses usually run 30 minutes late, if not longer. Time is a bit more fluid rather than incremental in polychronic cultures. Unfortunately, the author failed to take this into account and nearly missed a presentation. This resulted in stress that could have been avoided had she remembered to pay more attention to the time orientation of those around her.

                   

                  Olfactics

                  Finally, olfactics generally refers to the influence of scent on perceptions. Scent can draw others in or repel them, and the same scent can have different impacts on different people. According to statistica.com, the global estimated sales value of the fragrances worldwide in 2016 was $47 billion U.S. dollars. This is in addition to $39 billion U.S. dollars in shower and bath products and another $20.5 billion in deodorants. The total spending in these categories was $106.5 billion U.S. dollars. These figures underscore the importance of “smelling good” across the globe. Consider the impact of failing to manage one’s natural scent in the workplace. Countless articles in the popular media address how to deal with a “smelly coworker.” Thus, it is crucial to be aware of one’s scent, including the ones we wear in an effort not to offend those around us. Although smelling “bad” may end a relationship or at least create distance, an attractive scent may help individuals begin a new relationship. Have you ever purchased a new scent before a first date? If so, you are aware of the power of scent to attract a mate. Although we regularly try to cover our scent, we also attempt to control the scent of our environments. The air freshener market in 2016 was valued at $1.62 billion U.S. dollars. Go to your local grocery store and investigate the number of products available to enhance environmental scents. Be prepared to spend a significant amount of time taking in the many products to keep our environments “fresh” (Grand View Research, 2018).

                  The amount of money spent on fragrances for the body and home highlights the meaning of scent to humans. Ask yourself the following questions:

                  1. What meaning do you associate with a floral scent vs. a spicy scent?
                  2. When comparing men’s fragrances to women’s fragrances, what differences do you notice?
                  3. Are there scents that immediately transport you back in time, such as the smell of honeysuckle or freshly baked cookies?

                  Regardless of the scent you prefer, when using scent to communicate positively with others, do not make the mistake of believing the scent you like is loved by those around you!

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. List and define the categories of nonverbal communication. For each category, make a list of corresponding nonverbal behaviors that are discussed and add to this list from your own experiences.
                  2. Recall a situation in which you interacted with someone whose nonverbal behaviors stood out for positive reasons. Describe the situation and nonverbal behaviors. Why do you consider nonverbal behaviors to be positive?
                  3. Recall a situation in which you interacted with an individual whose nonverbal behaviors detracted from the individual’s ability to communicate effectively. Describe these nonverbal behaviors and suggest what the individual could do differently.

                   

                  Assignment

                  You have two observation options for this assignment.   

                  • Option One is to observe a public situation in which a number of people interact, such as the grocery store, Target, Lowes, Walmart, or a restaurant.   
                  • Option Two is to use a scene from a television show or movie in which a number of people interact, such as a train station, subway car, mall, library, or restaurant.   

                  For either option, briefly describe the situation you observed (if you use a television show or movie, be sure to also give the name of the show/movie and to indicate the time at which the scene occurred). 

                  Next, answer the following questions about the nonverbal communication normally used in this setting.     

                  1. How much distance do people keep between themselves and others? 
                  2. Does this distance vary as the situation changes? For example, what happens when it becomes more or less crowded? 
                  3. Does the distance vary among different people with different relationships? 
                  4. What kinds of behaviors occur if the normal distances are violated? 
                  5. Explain the use of markers in this setting. 
                  6. What kind of eye communication is used in this setting? 
                  7. Is there any use of haptics in this setting? Explain how. 

                  If you choose Option One, you might want to consider how the pandemic conditions are affecting nonverbal communication, such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing.   

                   

                  References

                  Bente, G., Donaghy, W. C., & Suwelack, D. (1998). Sex differences in body movement and visual attention: An integrated analysis of movement and gaze in mixed-sex dyads. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 22(1), 31–58. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022900525673

                  Bruneau, T. J. (1980). Chronemics and the verbal-nonverbal interface. In M. R. Key (Ed.), The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication (pp. 101-119). Mouton Press.

                  Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., & Woodall, W. G. (1996). Nonverbal Communication. McGraw-Hill. 

                  Dolcos, S., Sung, K., Argo, J. J., Flor-Henry, S., & Dolcos, F. (2012). The power of a handshake: Neural correlates of evaluative judgments in observed social interactions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(12), 2292-2305. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00295; pg. 2303.

                  Eckman, P and Friesen, W.V. (1969). Head and body cues in the judgment of emotion: A reformulation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 24, 711-724.

                  Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). The two faces of gesture: Language and thought. Gesture, 5(1-2), 241-257. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.5.1.16gol

                  Grand View Research (2018). U.S. air fresheners market analysis by product type (aerosol/spray, electric air fresheners, gels, candles, others) by application (residential, commercial, cars, others), competitive analysis and segment forecasts, 2018 – 2025. Accessed December 1, 2018, https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-air-fresheners-market

                  Hall, E.T. (1969). The hidden dimension. Doubleday.

                  Knapp, M. L., & Hall, J. A. (2002). Nonverbal communication in human interaction. Thomson Learning.Poyatos, F. (2002). Nonverbal communication across disciplines (Volume 1: Culture, sensory interaction, speech conversation). John Benjamins.

                  Napper, L. E., Montes, K. S., Kenney, S. R., & LaBrie, J. W. (2016). Assessing the personal negative impacts of hooking up experienced by college students: Gender differences and mental health. The Journal of Sex Research, 53(7), 766-775. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2015.1065951

                  Punyanunt-Carter, N. M., & Wrench, J. S. (2009). Development and validity testing of a measure of touch deprivation. Human Communication, 12, 67-76.

                  Sacco, D. F., & Brown, M. (2018). Preferences for facially communicated big five personality traits and their relation to self-reported big five personality. Personality & Individual Differences, 134, 195–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.06.024

                  3.8 Improving Nonverbal Skills

                  (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  It’s one thing to understand nonverbal communication and something completely different to communicate using nonverbal behaviors effectively. In this section, we’re going to explore some ways that you can start to improve your nonverbal skills.

                   

                  The Nonverbal Mindset

                  When it comes to effective communication, you need to develop an appropriate mindset towards nonverbal communication. First, individuals must be aware that nonverbal communication plays a significant role in creating meaning.

                  Second, individuals must believe nonverbal communication is important and impactful. Awareness of nonverbal communication without the belief that it is important can result in negative outcomes. For example, students in nonverbal communication begin to learn about the importance of clothing and general appearance in creating impressions. Some students “rebel” against the idea that appearance and clothing matter stating, “people should accept me no matter what I am wearing.” While this would be ideal, the fact of the matter is that humans size up other humans using visual cues in initial interactions.

                  Lastly, individuals can analyze their nonverbal communication. This can be accomplished in several ways. Individuals might observe the behavior of individuals who seem to be liked by others and to whom others are socially attracted. The individual should then compare the behaviors of the “popular” person to their own behaviors. What differences exist? Does the other individual smile more, make more or less eye contact, engage in more or less touch, etc.? Based on this comparison, individuals can devise a plan for improvement, or perhaps no improvement is needed!

                   

                  Nonverbal Immediacy

                  In addition to awareness of nonverbal communication, believing that nonverbal communication is important, and analyzing one’s own behavior, individuals should be aware of nonverbal immediacy. Immediacy is defined as physical and psychological closeness. More specifically, Mehrabian defines immediacy as behaviors increasing the sensory stimulation between individuals (Mehrabian, 1972). Immediacy behaviors include being physically oriented toward another, eye contact, some touch, gesturing, vocal variety, and talking louder. Immediacy behaviors are known to be impactful in a variety of contexts.

                  In instructional, organizational, and social contexts, research has revealed powerful positive impacts attributable to immediacy behaviors, including influence and compliance, liking, relationship satisfaction, job satisfaction, learning, etc. In the health care setting, the positive outcomes of nonverbally immediate interaction are well documented: patient satisfaction (LaBelle et al., 2015; Richmond et al., 2001), understanding of medical information (Conlee et al., 1993; Wanzer et al., 2004), patient perceptions of provider credibility (Paulsel et al., 2006), patient perceptions of confidentiality (Paulsel et al., 2005), parent recall of medical directives given by pediatricians and associated cognitive learning (LaBelle et al., 2015), affect for the provider,(LaBelle et al., 2015; Richmond et al., 2001), and decreased apprehension when communicating with a physician (Richmond et al., 2001). Individuals can increase their immediacy behaviors through practice!

                   

                  Exercises

                  1. Record your voice and listen to the recording several times. Make a note of areas where you believe you are doing well and areas where you may need improvement. Ask a friend to listen to your voice and respond to the question for additional feedback.
                  2. Video record a conversation between you and a friend/s. (Make sure everyone approves of being recorded.) As a group, review your facial expressions, body movements, and gestures. Discuss your nonverbal behavior as a group being certain to compliment areas of success, and ask for constructive feedback if you are comfortable doing so. 
                  3. Select a nonverbal specific behavior such as greeting through a wave or eye contact. Use this nonverbal behavior in a manner that is inconsistent with the accepted use of this nonverbal behavior. For example, avoid eye contact completely with a friend or kiss a friend on the cheek instead of simply saying hello. Make a note of your reaction as well as the reaction of your friend. (Be prepared to explain your behavior to your friend.)
                  4. Take an inventory of your nonverbal communication skills by answering the following questions. Do you believe nonverbal communication is important? Why or why not? Which subcategories of nonverbal communication are your strengths and weaknesses? How can you improve on these weaknesses?

                   

                  References

                  Conlee, C. J., Olvera, J., & Vagim, N. N. (1993). The relationships among physician nonverbal immediacy and patient satisfaction with hospital care: Results of an analysis with a novel instrumental variable. Health Research and Educational Trust, 43(5), 1505-1519. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2008.00849.x

                  LaBelle, S., Odenweller, K.G., Myers, S.A. (2015). Applying instructor communication behaviors and learning outcomes to the pediatrician-parent context. Southern Communication Journal, 80(1), 55-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2014.981284

                  Mehrabian, A. (1972). Nonverbal communication. Aldine Publishing Company.

                  Paulsel, M. L., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2006). Perceptions of health care professionals’ credibility as a predictor of patients’ satisfaction with their medical care and physician. Communication Research Reports, 23(2), 69-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824090600668832

                  Paulsel, M. L., Richmond, V. P., McCroskey, J. C., & Cayanus, J. L. (2005). The relationships of perceived health professionals’ communication traits and credibility with perceived patient confidentiality. Communication Research Reports, 22(2), 129-142. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036810500130588

                  Richmond, V. P., Smith, R. S., Heisel, A. D., & McCroskey, J. C. (2001). Nonverbal immediacy in the patient/physician relationship. Communication Research Reports, 18(3), 211-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824090109384800

                  Wanzer, M. B., Booth-Butterfield, M., & Gruber, K. (2004). Perceptions of health care providers’ communication: Relationships between patient-centered communication and satisfaction. Health Communication, 16(3), 363-384. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327027HC1603_6

                  Chapter 4: Interpersonal Communication

                  Learning Objectives for Chapter 4: Interpersonal Communication

                  • Understand and apply the skills needed to develop and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships.  
                  • Describe conflict styles and strategies, and differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate conflict styles and strategies depending on context. 
                  • Describe the impact of self on communication and the impact of communication on self.   
                  • Explain how self-perception affects the perception of others and interpersonal relationships.  
                  • Apply the interpersonal relationship model to all relationships.

                   

                  4.1 Introduction to Interpersonal Communication

                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                   

                  Think about your relationships in the last few years. You may have just transitioned from high school to a community college or university. Perhaps you and your friends from high school went to different colleges and are now living far apart from each other. If you have recently been separated by distance from friends or family, you have noticed that it is more difficult to stay connected and share all of the little things that go on in your day. As you continue to grow and change in college, it is likely that you will create relationships along the way. Being away from your family, you will probably notice changes to your relationships with them. All of these dynamics, and many more, fall under the scope of interpersonal communication.

                  Homecoming and Reunions 2017
                  "Homecoming and Reunions 2017" by The University of the South is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                   

                  What is Interpersonal Communication?

                  Interpersonal communication is an exchange between two or more individuals who are part of a close relationship in which they get to know one another as individuals. We usually think of interpersonal communication as occurring between two people. However, interpersonal communication also takes place in small groups such as a family unit. By virtue of this definition, chatting with a classmate you just met, nodding to a coworker in the hallway, or participating in a committee or group project would not be considered interpersonal communication. On the other hand, having lunch and talking with a close friend or sharing the day's events at the family dinner table would meet the definition of interpersonal communication. Because conflict is a natural part of interpersonal communication, we will also discuss multiple ways of understanding and managing conflict. Before we learn more about interpersonal relationships, let's begin by examining two important aspects of interpersonal communication: self-disclosure and climate.

                   

                  Self-Disclosure

                  Because interpersonal communication is the primary means by which we get to know others as unique individuals, it is important to understand the role of self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is the process of revealing information about yourself to others that is not readily known by them. In face-to-face interactions, telling someone "I have brown hair" would not be self-disclosure because that person can perceive that about you without being told. However, revealing, "I am an avid runner" or "I like to make TikTok videos" would be examples of self-disclosure because these are pieces of personal information others do not know unless you tell them. To establish strong friendships or lasting romantic relationships, it is necessary to self-disclose. Even in an academic or career setting, appropriate self-disclosure can help establish an open work environment and build trust and a sense of collaboration. The key here is self-disclose appropriately. 

                  There are degrees of self-disclosure, ranging from relatively safe (revealing your hobbies or musical preferences) to more personal topics (fears, dreams for the future, or fantasies). Typically, as relationships deepen and trust is established, self-disclosure increases in both breadth and depth. We tend to disclose facts about ourselves first (I am a Biology major), then move towards opinions (I feel the war is wrong), and finally disclose feelings (I'm sad that you said that). Even in an academic or career setting, self-disclosure is a good way to establish an open communication environment, although self-disclosure in that setting would not be as intimate as it would be in a personal relationship. At work, be cautious about revealing things that might be damaging to your credibility or career.

                  An important aspect of self-disclosure is the rule of reciprocity. This rule states that self-disclosure between two people works best in a back and forth fashion. When you tell someone something personal, you probably expect them to do the same. When one person reveals more than another, there can be an imbalance in the relationship because the one who self discloses more may feel vulnerable as a result of sharing more personal information. This may be a clue to you to back off on self-disclosing until the other person reciprocates.

                   

                  Johari Window

                  The Johari Window (Figure 4.1.1) is a communication model designed to help improve interpersonal communication skills. The name Johari Window comes from combining the first names of the window's creators, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. It is used in communication classes as well as some businesses to help people think about differences in how they see themselves and how others see them.   The window is divided into four quadrants or "panes": the open area or pane, the blind spot, the hidden area or facade, and the unknown. The size of each of the four areas or window panes varies depending on whom you are communicating with and the context of the communication. 

                   

                  Figure 4.1.1: Johari Window. Source: Luft, Joseph. (Of Human Interaction, 1969).

                  1cad467ae5579c037e00e9be7680fc1c.jpg

                   

                  The open area of the Johari Window contains information that is known to us and to others. This area is sometimes called the "I know and you know" pane. When we first meet another person, the open area is small, consisting only of those things others see, such as our hair color, or things we freely share, such as our occupation. Early on, we share only "safe" topics, but as we become more comfortable with another person, we increase our self-disclosure, adding more information; thus, the open area expands.

                  The blind area or blind spot includes those things that are apparent to others, yet we are unaware of in ourselves. This is the "I don't know but you know" area. The habit of playing with your hair when nervous may be a habit that others have observed, but you are unaware of, or perhaps the habit of growing rude and testy when you are under stress is something that others have come to expect, yet you are oblivious to. Think about your own blind area. Do you wonder what characteristics or behaviors loved ones or colleagues might see in you that you don't? If you do, the best way to find out is to ask for feedback from a trusted friend or colleague. If you can remain open-minded and not become defensive, this type of feedback can be very helpful in increasing your self-awareness and interpersonal skills. Once you become aware of information previously in your blind spot, it moves from the blind area to the open area.

                  The third area, the hidden area, contains information that you know but you keep hidden from others. This is the "I know, but you don't know" area. Something you may have done in the past but are ashamed of, previous mistakes or failures, embarrassing moments, or private family history are topics we typically hold close and reveal only in the context of safe, long-term relationships. Sometimes we may choose to keep some things hidden in an attempt to protect the other person. If and when we do reveal this previously hidden information, it moves into the open area. Thus, the hidden area grows smaller, and the open area expands.

                  Finally, the unknown area contains information that neither you nor others know about you. This is the "I don't know and you don't know" area. We cannot know how we will react when a parent dies or just what we will do after graduation until the experience occurs. Or perhaps we have an unknown talent or interest that we are as yet unaware of. Taking on challenges and trying new things can help us discover traits or gifts that we didn't know we had. 

                  Knowing how much to share with someone you are close to can be difficult at times. Certainly, you don't want to reveal too much too soon. On the other hand, if the open area remains small, it is difficult for the relationship and trust to grow. Knowing about ourselves, especially our blind and unknown areas, enables us to have a healthy, well-rounded self-concept. 

                   

                  Creating Your Own Johari Window

                  The Johari Window can help you identify your strengths as well as your weaknesses and blind spots. If you would like to create your own Johari Window, you can do so using instructions from The World of Work Project, a company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, dedicated to creating training that will "increate team cohesion and help individuals have more fulfilling and engaging careers." (WOW 2019) To create your own Johari Window, you will need to:

                  1. Choose your friend or collaborator: Identify a person or people whom you trust and whom you think know you.
                  2. Select your words: Review the list of 56 words given below and circle 5-10 words that you think best describe you.
                  3. Get your feedback from your collaborator: Ask your chosen collaborators to complete the same exercise, choosing the 5-10 words they think best describe you.
                  4. Place your words in the appropriate pane of the Johari Window: Place words both you and others selected in the "Open" pane. Place words that only you selected in the "Hidden" pane.
                  5. Plot your feedback: Place words your friend or collaborator selected but that you didn't place in the "Blind" pane. Place the remaining words in the "unknown" pane.
                  6. Review your Window: Review the words in the four pains of the window. How aligned is your view of who you are with how others see you? How open are you as a person?

                   

                  Words to Choose From

                    ableacceptingadaptableboldbrave
                    calmcaringcheerfulclevercomplex
                    confidentdependabledignifiedenergeticextroverted
                    friendlygivinghappyhelpfulidealistic
                    independentingeniousintelligentintrovertedkind
                    knowledgeablelogicallovingmaturemodest
                    nervousobservantorganizedpatientpowerful
                    proudquietreflectiverelaxedreligious
                    responsivesearchingself-assertiveself-conscioussensible
                    sentimentalshysillyspontaneoussympathetic
                    tensetrustworthywarmwisewitty

                     

                    One of the most important parts of creating your own Johari Window is considering the results. How can you use what you learned to improve your interpersonal relationships? Could you share more about yourself to create more trusting relationships? Are there "blind spots" you discovered about yourself that you and address?

                     

                    Self-Disclosure and Social Media

                    The willingness of many users to self-disclose personal information about moods, religious affiliation, relationship status, and personal contact information has led to an increase in privacy concerns. Facebook and Twitter offer convenient opportunities to stay in touch with friends, family, and coworkers, but are people using them responsibly? Some argue that there are fundamental differences between today's digital natives, whose private and public selves are intertwined through these technologies, and older generations (Kornblum, 2007). Even though some colleges are offering seminars on managing privacy online, we still hear stories of self-disclosure, such as the football player from the University of Texas who was kicked off the team for posting racist comments and about the president of the student who was kicked out of his private, Christian college after a picture of him dressed in drag surfaced on Facebook. (Nealy, 2009). The issue of privacy management on Facebook is affecting parent-child relationships, too, and as the website "Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook." shows, the results can sometimes be embarrassing for the college student and the parent as they balance the dialectic between openness and closedness once the child has moved away.  

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. Have you ever said too much on a first date? At a job interview? To a professor? Have you ever posted something on Facebook only to return later to remove it? If you answered yes to any of the questions, what have you learned that may have led you to do something differently?
                    2. Have you experienced negative results due to self-disclosure (as sender or receiver)? If so, what could have been altered in the decisions of what, where, when, or how to disclose that may have improved the situation?
                    3. Under what circumstances is it OK to share information that someone has disclosed to you? Under what circumstances is it not OK to share the information?
                    4. How do you manage your privacy and self-disclosures online?  Reflect on your answer to determine if it would be helpful to alter your approach.

                    References

                    Survey of Communication Study. Authored by: Scott T Paynton and Linda K Hahn. Provided by: Humboldt State University. Located athttps://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_StudyLicenseCC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

                    Image of Known Table. Authored by: Spaynton. Located athttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johari_window.pngLicenseCC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

                     

                    4.2 Communication Climate

                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                     

                    Do you feel organized or confined in a clean workspace? Are you more productive when the sun is shining than when it’s gray and cloudy outside? Just as factors like weather and physical space impact us, communication climate influences our interpersonal interactions. Communication climate is the “overall feeling or emotional mood between people” (Wood 245). If you dread going to visit your family during the holidays because of tension between you and your sister, or you look forward to dinner with a particular set of friends because they make you laugh, you are responding to the communication climate—the overall mood that is created because of the people involved and the type of communication they bring to the interaction. Let’s look at two different types of communication climates: Confirming and Disconfirming climates.

                     

                    Confirming and Disconfirming Climates

                    We experience Confirming Climates when we receive messages that demonstrate our value and worth from those with whom we have a relationship. Conversely, we experience Disconfirming Climates when we receive messages that suggest we are devalued and unimportant. Obviously, most of us like to be in confirming climates because they foster emotional safety as well as personal and relational growth. However, it is likely that your relationships fall somewhere between the two extremes. Let’s look at how we and others create either a confirming or disconfirming climate by using--or failing to use-- three types of messages. 

                     

                    Free hugs
                    “Free hugs” by hien_it is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                     

                    Recognition Messages 

                    Recognition Messages are messages that either confirm or deny another person’s existence. For example, if a friend enters your home and you smile, hug them, and say, “I’m so glad to see you,” you are confirming their existence. If you say “good morning” to a colleague and they ignore you by walking out of the room without saying anything, they are creating a disconfirming climate by not recognizing you as a unique individual. To foster a confirming climate, it is important to recognize others.

                     

                    A Laugh With Richard Allen
                    “A Laugh With Richard Allen” by MTSOfan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                     

                    Acknowledgment Messages

                    Acknowledgment Messages go beyond recognizing another’s existence by confirming what they say or how they feel. Nodding your head while listening or laughing appropriately at a funny story are nonverbal acknowledgment messages. When a friend tells you they had a really bad day at work and you respond with, “Yeah, that does sound hard, do you want to go somewhere quiet and talk?”, you are acknowledging and responding to their feelings. In contrast, if you were to respond to your friend’s frustrations with a comment like, “That’s nothing. Listen to what happened to me today,” you would be ignoring their experience and presenting your own experiences as more important than theirs.

                     

                    fig-ch01_patchfile_01.jpg

                    Image by Tumisu from Pixabay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                     

                     

                    Endorsement Messages

                    Endorsement Messages go one step further by recognizing a person’s feelings as valid. Suppose a friend comes to you upset after a fight with their partner. If you respond with, “Yeah, I can see why you would be upset,” you are endorsing their right to feel upset. However, if you said, “Get over it. At least you have a partner,” you would be sending messages that deny their right to feel frustrated at that moment. It is difficult to see people we care about in emotional pain, but people are responsible for their own emotions. When we let people own their emotions and do not tell them how to feel, we are creating supportive climates that provide a safe environment for them to work through their problems

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. Have you ever avoided a particular interpersonal communication situation because it was uncomfortable or you felt out of place? Could any of this have been related to disconfirming behaviors? Explain.
                    2. Do you attempt to establish a confirming communication environment in your interactions with others? Explain.

                     

                    References

                    Survey of Communication Study. Authored by: Scott T Paynton and Linda K Hahn. Provided by: Humboldt State University. Located athttps://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_StudyLicenseCC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

                    4.3 Perceiving Others

                    (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                     

                    Are you a good judge of character? How quickly can you “size someone up?” Interestingly, research shows that many people are surprisingly accurate at predicting how an interaction with someone will unfold based on initial impressions. Fascinating research has also been done on the ability of people to make a judgment about a person’s competence after as little as 100 milliseconds of exposure to politicians’ faces. Even more surprising is that people’s judgments of competence, after exposure to two candidates for senate elections, accurately predicted election outcomes (Ballew II & Todoroy, 2007). In short, after only minimal exposure to a candidate’s facial expressions, people made judgments about the person’s competence, and those candidates judged more competent were people who actually won elections! As you read this section, keep in mind that these principles apply to how you perceive others and to how others perceive you. Just as others make impressions on us, we make impressions on others.  In this section, we will focus on how we perceive others, with specific attention to how we interpret our perceptions of others.

                    I’m sure you have a family member, friend, or coworker with whom you have ideological or political differences. When conversations and inevitable disagreements occur, you may view this person as “pushing your buttons” if you are invested in the issue being debated, or you may view the person as “on their soapbox” if you aren’t invested. In either case, your existing perceptions of the other person are probably reinforced after your conversation, and you may leave the conversation thinking, “They are never going to wake up and see how ignorant they are! I don’t know why I even bother trying to talk to them!” Similar situations occur regularly, and there are some key psychological processes that play into how we perceive others’ behaviors. By examining these processes, attribution, in particular, we can see how our communication with others is affected by the explanations we create for others’ behavior. In addition, we will learn some common errors that we make in the attribution process that regularly lead to conflict and misunderstanding.

                     

                    Attribution

                    In most interactions, we are constantly running an attribution script in our minds, which essentially tries to come up with explanations for what is happening. Why did my neighbor slam the door when they saw me walking down the hall? Why is my partner being extra nice to me today? Why did my officemate miss our project team meeting this morning? In general, we seek to attribute the cause of others’ behaviors to internal or external factors. Internal attributions connect the cause of behaviors to personal aspects such as personality traits. External attributions connect the cause of behaviors to situational factors. Attributions are important to consider because our reactions to others’ behaviors are strongly influenced by the explanations we reach. Imagine that Sam and Riley are dating. One day, Riley gets frustrated and yells at Sam. Sam may find that behavior offensive and even consider breaking up with Riley if Sam attributes the cause of the blow-up to Riley’s personality since personality traits are usually fairly stable and difficult to control or change.

                    Conversely, Sam may be more forgiving if attributing the cause of Riley's behavior to situational factors beyond Riley's control since external factors are usually temporary. If making an internal attribution, Sam may think, “Wow, this person is really a loose cannon. Who knows when they will lose it again?” Makings an external attribution, Sam may think, “Riley has been under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines at work and hasn’t been getting much sleep. Once this project is over, I’m sure they’ll be more relaxed.” This process of attribution is ongoing, and, as with many aspects of perception, we are sometimes aware of the attributions we make, and sometimes they are automatic and/or unconscious. Attribution has received much scholarly attention because it is in this part of the perception process that some of the most common perceptual errors or biases occur.

                     

                    2.2.0N

                    Frustrated drivers often use internal attributions to explain other drivers’ behaviors.
                    Beelgin – ROAD RAGE FIST – CC BY 2.0.

                     

                    One of the most common perceptual errors is the fundamental attribution error, which refers to our tendency to explain others’ behaviors using internal rather than external attributions (Sillars, 1980). For example, when I worked at an urban college in Denver, Colorado, I often had students come into class irritated, saying, “I got a parking ticket! I can’t believe those people. Why don’t they get a real job and stop ruining my life!” If you Google some clips from the reality television show Parking Wars, you will see the anger that people often direct at parking enforcement officers. In this case, illegally parked students attribute the cause of their situation to the malevolence of the parking officer, essentially saying they got a ticket because the officer was a mean/bad person, which is an internal attribution. Students were much less likely to acknowledge that the officer was just doing their job (an external attribution), and the ticket was a result of the student’s decision to park illegally.

                    Perceptual errors can also be biased, and in the case of the self-serving bias, the error works out in our favor. Just as we tend to attribute others’ behaviors to internal rather than external causes, we do the same for ourselves, especially when our behaviors have led to something successful or positive. When our behaviors lead to failure or something negative, we tend to attribute the cause to external factors. Thus the self-serving bias is a perceptual error through which we attribute the cause of our successes to internal personal factors while attributing our failures to external factors beyond our control. When we look at the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias together, we can see that we are likely to judge ourselves more favorably than another person, or at least less personally.

                    The professor-student relationship offers a good case example of how these concepts can play out. I have often heard students who earned an unsatisfactory grade on an assignment attribute that grade to the strictness, unfairness, or incompetence of their professor. I have also heard professors attribute a poor grade to the student’s laziness, attitude, or intelligence. In both cases, the behavior is explained using an internal attribution and is an example of the fundamental attribution error. Students may further attribute their poor grades to their busy schedules or other external, situational factors rather than their lack of motivation, interest, or preparation (internal attributions). On the other hand, when students get a good grade on a paper, they will likely attribute that cause to their intelligence or hard work rather than an easy assignment or an “easy grading” professor. Both of these examples illustrate the self-serving bias. These psychological processes have implications for our communication because when we attribute causality to another person’s personality, we tend to have a stronger emotional reaction and tend to assume that this personality characteristic is stable, which may lead us to avoid communication with the person or to react negatively. Now that you are aware of these common errors, you can monitor them more and engage in perception checking to verify your attributions.

                    Impressions and Interpretation

                    As we perceive others, we make impressions about their personality, likeability, attractiveness, and other characteristics. Although much of our impressions are personal, what forms them is sometimes based more on circumstances than personal characteristics. All the information we take in isn’t treated equally. How important are first impressions? Does the last thing you notice about a person stick with you longer because it’s more recent? Do we tend to remember the positive or negative things we notice about a person? This section will help answer these questions as we explore how the timing of information and the content of the messages we receive can influence our perception.

                     

                    First and Last Impressions

                     

                    2.2.1N

                    People who are able to form accurate first impressions tend to have more satisfying relationships and more quickly advance in their careers. Reynermedia – Businessmen shaking hands – CC BY 2.0.

                     

                    The old saying “You never get a second chance to make a good impression” points to the fact that first impressions matter. The brain is a predictive organ in that it wants to know, based on previous experiences and patterns, what to expect next, and first impressions function to fill this need, allowing us to determine how we will proceed with an interaction after only a quick assessment of the person with whom we are interacting (Hargie, 2011). Research shows that people are surprisingly good at making accurate first impressions about how an interaction will unfold and at identifying personality characteristics of people they do not know. Studies show that people are generally able to predict how another person will behave toward them based on an initial interaction. People’s accuracy and ability to predict interaction based on first impressions vary, but people with high accuracy are typically socially skilled and popular and have less loneliness, anxiety, and depression; more satisfying relationships; and more senior positions and higher salaries (Hargie, 2011). So not only do first impressions matter but having the ability to form accurate first impressions seems to correlate to many other positive characteristics.

                    First impressions are enduring because of the primacy effect, which leads us to place more value on the first information we receive about a person. So if we interpret the first information we receive from or about a person as positive, then a positive first impression will form and influence how we respond to that person as the interaction continues. Likewise, negative interpretations of information can lead us to form negative first impressions. If you sit down at a restaurant and servers walk by for several minutes, and no one greets you, then you will likely interpret that negatively and not have a good impression of your server when they finally show up. This may lead you to be short with the server, which may lead them to not be as attentive as they normally would. At this point, a series of negative interactions has set into motion a cycle that will be very difficult to reverse and make positive.

                    The recency effect leads us to put more weight on the most recent impression we have of a person’s communication over earlier impressions. Even a positive first impression can be tarnished by a negative final impression. Imagine that a professor has maintained a relatively high level of credibility with you over the course of the semester. They made a good first impression by being organized, approachable, and interesting during the first days of class. The rest of the semester went fairly well, with no major conflicts. However, during the last week of the term, they didn’t have final papers graded and ready to turn back by the time they said they would, which left you with some uncertainty about how well you needed to do on the final exam to earn an A in the class. When you did get your paper back on the last day of class, you saw that your grade was much lower than you expected. If this happened to you, what would you write on the instructor evaluation? Because of the recency effect, many students would likely give a disproportionate amount of value to the professor’s actions in the final week of the semester, negatively skewing the evaluation, which is supposed to be reflective of the entire semester. Even though the professor only returned one assignment late, that fact is very recent in students’ minds and can overshadow the positive impression that formed many weeks earlier.  Primacy and recency can keep us from creating accurate impressions of people and events.  To create more accurate impressions, we need to create our perception based on all the information we have about an event or person, not just the beginning or end.

                     

                    Physical and Environmental Influences on Perception

                    We make first impressions based on a variety of factors, including physical and environmental characteristics. In terms of physical characteristics, style of dress and grooming are important, especially in professional contexts. We have a general schema regarding how to dress and groom for various situations ranging from formal to business casual to casual to lounging around the house.

                    You would likely be able to offer some descriptors of how a person would look and act from the following categories: a goth person, a prep, a jock, a fashionista, a hipster. The schema associated with these various cliques or styles is formed through personal experience and through exposure to media representations of these groups. Different professions also have a schema for appearance and dress. Imagine a doctor, mechanic, congressperson, exotic dancer, or mail carrier. Each group has clothing and personal styles that create and fit into general patterns. Of course, the mental picture we have of any of the examples above is not going to be representative of the whole group, meaning that stereotypical thinking often exists within our schema. It’s important to understand how persuasive various physical perceptual influences can be.

                    Think about the harm that has been done when people pose as police or doctors to commit crimes or other acts of malice. Seeing someone in a white lab coat automatically leads us to see that person as an authority figure, and we fall into a scripted pattern of deferring to the “doctor” and not asking too many questions. The Milgram experiments offer a startling example of how powerful these influences are. In the experiments, participants followed instructions from a man in a white lab coat (who was actually an actor), who prompted them to deliver electric shocks to a person in another room every time the other person answered a memory question incorrectly. The experiment was actually about how people defer to authority figures instead of acting independently. Although no one was actually being shocked in the other room, many participants continued to “shock,” at very high levels of voltage, even after that person supposedly being shocked complained of chest pains and became unresponsive (Encina, 2003).

                     

                    2.2.2N

                    Clothing, like a doctor’s lab coat, forms powerful impressions that have noticeable effects on people’s behavior.
                    Lisa Brewster – Happy doctor – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                     

                    Just as clothing and personal style help us form impressions of others, so do physical body features. The degree to which we perceive people to be attractive influences our attitudes about and communication with them. Facial attractiveness and body weight tend to be common features used in the perception of physical attractiveness. In general, people find symmetrical faces and non-overweight bodies attractive. People perceived as attractive are generally evaluated more positively and seen as more kind and competent than people evaluated as less attractive. Additionally, people rated as attractive receive more eye contact, more smiles, and closer proximity to others (people stand closer to them). Unlike clothing and personal style, these physical features are more difficult, if not impossible, to change.

                    Finally, the material objects and people that surround a person influence our perception. In the MTV show Room Raiders, contestants go into the bedrooms of three potential dates and choose the one they want to go on the date with based on the impressions made while examining each potential date’s cleanliness, decorations, clothes, trophies and awards, books, music, and so on. Research supports the reliability of such impressions, as people have been shown to make reasonably accurate judgments about a person’s personality after viewing their office or bedroom (Hargie, 2011). Although the artificial scenario set up in Room Raiders doesn’t exactly match up with typical encounters, the link between environmental cues and perception is important enough for many companies to create policies about what can and can’t be displayed in personal office spaces. It would seem odd for a bank manager to have an Animal House poster hanging in their office, and that would definitely influence customers’ perceptions of the manager’s personality and credibility. The arrangement of furniture also creates impressions. Walking into a meeting and sitting on one end of a long boardroom table is typically less inviting than sitting at a round table or on a sofa.

                    Although some physical and environmental features are easier to change than others, it is useful to become aware of how these factors, which aren’t necessarily related to personality or verbal and nonverbal communication, shape our perceptions. These early impressions also affect how we interpret and perceive later encounters, which can be further explained through the halo and horn effects.

                     

                    The Halo and Horn Effects

                    We have a tendency to adapt information that conflicts with our earlier impressions in order to make it fit within the frame we have established. This is known as selective distortion, and it manifests in the halo and horn effects. The angelic halo and devilish horn are useful metaphors for the lasting effects of positive and negative impressions.

                    The halo effect occurs when initial positive perceptions lead us to view later interactions as positive. The horn effect occurs when initial negative perceptions lead us to view later interactions as negative (Hargie, 2011). Since impressions are especially important when a person is navigating the job market, let’s imagine how the horn and halo effects could play out for you as a recent college graduate looking to land your first real job. Let's say you have recently graduated with your degree in communication studies and are looking to start your career as a corporate trainer. If one of your professors has a relationship with an executive at an area business, their positive verbal recommendation will likely result in a halo effect for you. Since the executive thinks highly of their friend, your professor, and your professor thinks highly of you, then the executive will start their interaction with you with a positive impression and interpret your behaviors more positively than they would otherwise. The halo effect initiated by your professor’s recommendation may even lead the executive to dismiss or overlook some negative behaviors. Let’s say you don't have a third party to help make a connection and arrive late for your interview. That negative impression may create a horn effect that carries through the interview. Even if you present as competent and friendly, the negative first impression could lead the executive to minimize or ignore those positive characteristics, and the company may not hire you. 

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. Think of a recent conflict and how you explained the behavior that caused the conflict and subsequently formed impressions about the other person based on your perceptions. Briefly describe the conflict situation and then identify internal and external attributions for your behavior and the behavior of the other person. Is there any evidence of the fundamental attribution error or self-serving bias in this conflict encounter? If so, what?
                    2. Describe a situation in which you believe the primacy and/or recency effect influenced your perceptions of a person or event.

                     

                    References

                    Ballew II, C. C., and Alexander Todorov, “Predicting Political Elections from Rapid and Unreflective Face Judgments,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 46 (2007): 17948.

                    Encina, G. B., “Milgram’s Experiment on Obedience to Authority,” The Regents of the University of California, 2003, accessed June 6, 2012, http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm.

                    Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 280.

                    Sillars, A. L., “Attributions and Communication in Roommate Conflicts,” Communication Monographs 47, no. 3 (1980): 183.

                    4.4 Perceiving and Presenting Self

                    (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                     

                    Just as our perception of others affects how we communicate, so does our perception of ourselves. But what influences our self-perception? How much of ourselves is a product of our own making, and how much of it is constructed based on how others react to us? How do we present ourselves to others in ways that maintain our sense of self or challenge how others see us? 

                     

                    Self-Concept

                    Self-concept refers to the overall idea of who a person thinks they are. If I said, “Tell me who you are,” your answers would be clues as to how you see yourself, also known as your self-concept. Each person has an overall self-concept that might be encapsulated in a shortlist of overarching characteristics that they find important. But each person’s self-concept is also influenced by context, meaning we think differently about ourselves depending on the situation we are in. In some situations, personal characteristics, such as our abilities, personality, and other distinguishing features, will best describe who we are. You might consider yourself laid back, traditional, funny, open-minded, or driven, or you might label yourself a leader or a thrill-seeker. In other situations, our self-concept may be tied to a group or cultural membership. For example, you might consider yourself a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, a Southerner, or a member of the track team.

                     

                    2.3.0N

                    Men are more likely than women to include group memberships in their self-concept descriptions. Stefano Ravalli – In control – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

                     

                    Our self-concept is also formed through our interactions with others and their reactions to us. The concept of the looking glass self explains that we see ourselves reflected in other people’s reactions to us and then form our self-concept based on how we believe other people see us (Cooley, 1902). This reflective process of building our self-concept is based on what other people have actually said, such as “You’re a good listener,” and other people’s actions, such as coming to you for advice. These thoughts evoke emotional responses that feed into our self-concept. For example, you may think, “I’m glad that people can count on me to listen to their problems.”

                    We also develop our self-concept through comparisons to other people. Social comparison theory states that we describe and evaluate ourselves in terms of how we compare to other people. Social comparisons are based on two dimensions: superiority/inferiority and similarity/difference (Hargie, 2011). In terms of superiority and inferiority, we evaluate characteristics like attractiveness, intelligence, athletic ability, and so on. For example, you may judge yourself to be more intelligent than your brother or less athletic than your best friend, and these judgments are incorporated into your self-concept. This process of comparison and evaluation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can have negative consequences if our reference group isn’t appropriate. Reference groups are the groups we use for social comparison, and they typically change based on what we are evaluating. In terms of athletic ability, many people choose unreasonable reference groups with which to engage in social comparison. If you want to start an exercise routine, you may be discouraged by your difficulty keeping up with a trainer or running partner and judge yourself as inferior, which could negatively affect your self-concept. Using a reference group of people who have only recently started a fitness program but have shown progress could help maintain a more accurate and hopefully positive self-concept.

                    We also engage in social comparison based on similarity and difference. Since self-concept is context-specific, similarity may be desirable in some situations and difference more desirable in others. Factors like age and personality may influence whether or not we want to fit in or stand out. Although we compare ourselves to others throughout our lives, adolescent and teen years usually bring new pressure to be similar to or different from particular reference groups. Think of all the cliques in high school and how people voluntarily and involuntarily broke off into groups based on popularity, interest, culture, or grade level. Some kids in your high school probably wanted to fit in with and be similar to other people in the marching band but be different from the football players. Conversely, athletes were probably more apt to compare themselves, in terms of similar athletic ability, to other athletes rather than kids in show choir. But social comparison can be complicated by perceptual influences. As we learned earlier, we organize information based on similarity and difference, but these patterns don’t always hold true. Even though students involved in athletics and students involved in arts may seem very different, a dancer or singer may also be very athletic, perhaps even more so than a member of the football team. As with other aspects of perception, there are positive and negative consequences of social comparison.

                    We generally want to know where we fall in terms of ability and performance as compared to others, but what people do with this information and how it affects self-concept varies. Not all people feel they need to be at the top of the list, but some won’t stop until they get the high score on the video game or set a new school record in a track-and-field event. Some people strive to be the first chair in the clarinet section of the orchestra, while another person may be content to be the second chair. The education system promotes social comparison through grades and rewards such as honor rolls and dean’s lists. Although education and privacy laws prevent me from displaying each student’s grade on a test or paper for the whole class to see, I do typically report the aggregate grades, meaning the total number of As, Bs, Cs, and so on. This doesn’t violate anyone’s privacy rights, but it allows students to see where they fell in the distribution. This type of social comparison can be used as motivation. The student who was one of only three out of twenty-three to get a D on the exam knows that most of their classmates are performing better than they did, which may lead them to think, “If they can do it, I can do it.” But social comparison that isn’t reasoned can have negative effects and result in negative thoughts like “Look at how bad I did. Man, I’m stupid!” These negative thoughts can lead to negative behaviors because we try to maintain internal consistency, meaning we act in ways that match up with our self-concept. So if the student begins to question their academic abilities and then incorporates an assessment of a “bad student” into their self-concept, they may then behave in ways consistent with that, which is only going to worsen their academic performance. Additionally, a student might be comforted to learn that they aren't the only person who got a D and then not feel the need to try to improve since they have company. You can see in this example that evaluations we place on our self-concept can lead to cycles of thinking and acting. These cycles relate to self-esteem and self-efficacy, which are components of our self-concept.

                     

                    Self-Esteem

                    Self-esteem refers to the judgments and evaluations we make about our self-concept. While self-concept is a broad description of the self, self-esteem is more specifically an evaluation of the self (Byrne, 1996). If I again prompted you to “Tell me who you are” and then asked you to evaluate (label as good/bad, positive/negative, desirable/undesirable) each of the things you listed about yourself, I would get clues about your self-esteem. Like self-concept, self-esteem has general and specific elements. Generally, some people are more likely to evaluate themselves positively, while others are more likely to evaluate themselves negatively (Brockner, 1988). More specifically, our self-esteem varies across our life span and across contexts.

                     

                    2.3.1N

                    Self-esteem varies throughout our lives, but some people generally think more positively of themselves, and some people think more negatively. RHiNO NEAL – [trophy] – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                     

                    How we judge ourselves affects our communication and our behaviors, but not every negative or positive judgment carries the same weight. The negative evaluation of a trait that isn’t very important for our self-concept will likely not result in a loss of self-esteem. For example, I am not very good at drawing. While I appreciate drawing as an art form, I don’t consider drawing ability to be a very big part of my self-concept. If someone critiqued my drawing ability, my self-esteem wouldn’t take a big hit. I do consider myself a good teacher, however, and I have spent and continue to spend considerable time and effort on improving my knowledge of teaching and my teaching skills. If someone critiqued my teaching knowledge and/or abilities, my self-esteem would definitely be hurt. This doesn’t mean that we can’t be evaluated on something we find important. Even though teaching is very important to my self-concept, I am regularly evaluated on it. Every semester, I am evaluated by my students, and every year, I am evaluated by my dean, department chair, and colleagues. Most of that feedback is in the form of constructive criticism, which can still be difficult to receive, but when taken in the spirit of self-improvement, it is valuable and may even enhance our self-concept and self-esteem. In fact, in professional contexts, people with higher self-esteem are more likely to work harder based on negative feedback, are less negatively affected by work stress, are able to handle workplace conflict better, and are better able to work independently and solve problems (Brockner, 1988). Self-esteem isn’t the only factor that contributes to our self-concept; perceptions about our competence also play a role in developing our sense of self.

                    Self-Efficacy refers to the judgments people make about their ability to perform a task within a specific context (Bandura, 1997). As you can see in Figure 4.4.1, judgments about our self-efficacy influence our self-esteem, which influences our self-concept. The following example also illustrates these interconnections.

                     

                    Figure 4.4.1 Relationship between Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, and Self-Concept

                    2.3.2

                     

                    You did a good job on your first college speech. During a meeting with your professor, you indicate that you are confident going into the next speech and think you will do well. This skill-based assessment is an indication that you have a high level of self-efficacy related to public speaking. If you do well on the speech, the praise from your classmates and professor will reinforce your self-efficacy and lead you to positively evaluate your speaking skills, which will contribute to your self-esteem. By the end of the class, you likely think of yourself as a good public speaker, which may then become an important part of your self-concept. Throughout these points of connection, it’s important to remember that self-perception affects how we communicate, behave, and perceive other things. Your increased feeling of self-efficacy may give you more confidence in your delivery, which will likely result in positive feedback that reinforces your self-perception. You may start to perceive your professor more positively since you share an interest in public speaking, and you may begin to notice other people’s speaking skills more during class presentations and public lectures. Over time, you may even start to think about changing your major to communication or pursuing career options that incorporate public speaking, which would further integrate being “a good public speaker” into your self-concept. You can hopefully see that these interconnections can create powerful positive or negative cycles. While some of this process is under our control, some of it is also shaped by the people in our lives.

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. Make a list of characteristics that describe who you are (your self-concept). After looking at the list, see if you can come up with a few words that summarize the list to narrow in on the key features of your self-concept. Go back over the first list and evaluate each characteristic, for example noting whether it is something you do well/poorly, something that is good/bad, positive/negative, desirable/undesirable. Is the overall list more positive or more negative? After doing these exercises, what have you learned about your self-concept and self-esteem?

                     

                    References

                    Bandura, A., Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York, NY: W. H. Freeman, 1997).

                    Brockner, J., Self-Esteem at Work (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), 11.

                    Byrne, B. M., Measuring Self-Concept across the Life Span: Issues and Instrumentation (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996), 5.

                    Cooley, C., Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, NY: Scribner, 1902).

                    Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 261.

                    4.5 Perception Process

                    (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                     

                    As you can see from Figure 4.5.1, how you view something is also how you will describe and define it. Your perception of something will determine how you feel about it and how you will communicate about it. In the picture above, do you see it as a six or a nine? Why did you answer the way that you did?

                     

                    Figure 4.5.1 It’s All About Perception

                    the number six shown on the ground with two people on either side

                     

                     

                    Your perceptions affect who you are, and they are based on your experiences and preferences. If you have a horrible experience with a restaurant, you probably won’t go to that restaurant in the future. You might even tell others not to go to that restaurant based on your personal experience. Thus, it is crucial to understand how perceptions can influence others.

                    Sometimes the silliest arguments occur with others because we don’t understand their perceptions of things. Just like the illustration shows, it is important to make sure that you try and understand things from the other person's perspective.  In other words, put yourself in their shoes and see it from their perspective before jumping to conclusions or getting upset. That person might have a legitimate reason why they are not willing to concede with you.

                     

                    Perception

                    Many of our problems in the world occur due to perception, or the process of acquiring, interpreting, and organizing information that comes in through your five senses. When we don’t get all the facts, it is hard to make a concrete decision. We have to rely on our perceptions to understand the situation. In this section, you will learn tools that can help you understand perceptions and improve your communication skills. As you will see in many of the illustrations on perception, people can see different things. In some of the pictures, some might only be able to see one picture, but there might be others who can see both images, and a small amount might be able to see something completely different from the rest of the class.

                    Many famous artists over the years have played with people’s perceptions. Figures 4.5.2, 4.5.3, and 4.5.4 are examples of three artists’ use of twisted perceptions. Figure 4.5.2 was initially created by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin and is commonly called The Rubin Vase. Essentially, you have what appears to either be a vase (the white part) or two people looking at each other (the black part). This simple image is both two images and neither image at the same time. Figure 4.5.3 is Charles Allan Gilbert’s (1892) painting “All is Vanity.” In this painting, you can see a woman sitting staring at herself in the mirror. At the same time, the image is also a giant skull. Lastly, Figure 4.5.4 is William Ely Hill’s (1915) “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law,” which may have been loosely based on an 1888 German postcard. In Hill’s painting, you have two different images, one of a young woman and one of an older woman. The painting was initially published in an American humor magazine called Puck. The caption “They are both in this picture — Find them” ran alongside the picture. These visual images are helpful reminders that we don’t always perceive things in the same way as those around us. There are often multiple ways to view and understand the same set of events.

                     

                    Figure 4.5.2 The Rubin Vase – based on Edgar John Rubin’s (1915) “Vase Ambiguous Figure”

                    the silhouette of two faces looking at one another, with the blank space between them making the outline of a vase.

                     

                    Figure 4.5.3 Charles Allan Gilbert (1892) “All is Vanity”

                    a painting showing a woman at vanity looking in a mirror, but with the reflectioin the mirror also looks like a skull.

                     

                    Figure 4.5.4 William Ely Hill (1915) “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law”

                    a semi abstract drawing that shows a woman looking over shoulder, or if looked at differently, the chin of the woman also looks like the large nose of an older woman

                     

                     

                    When it comes to interpersonal communication, each time you talk to other people, you present a side of yourself. Sometimes this presentation is a true representation of yourself, and other times it may be a fake version of yourself. People present themselves how they want others to see them. Some people present themselves positively on social media, and they have wonderful relationships. Then, their followers or fans get shocked to learn when those images are not true to what is presented. If we only see one side of things, we might be surprised to learn that things are different. In this section, we will learn that the perception process has three stages: attending, organizing, and interpreting.

                     

                    Attending

                    The first step of the perception process is to select what information you want to pay attention to or focus on, which is called attending. You will pay attention to things based on how they look, feel, smell, touch, and taste. At every moment, you are obtaining a large amount of information. So, how do you decide what you want to pay attention to and what you choose to ignore? People will tend to pay attention to things that matter to them. Usually, we pay attention to things that are louder, larger, different, and more complex than what we ordinarily view.

                    When we focus on a particular thing and ignore other elements, we call it selective perception. For instance, when you are in love, you might pay attention to only that special someone and not notice anything else. The same thing happens when we end a relationship; we are devasted, and we might see how everyone else is in a great relationship while we aren’t.

                    There are some reasons why you pay attention to certain things more so than others.

                    The first reason why we pay attention to something is that it is extreme or intense. In other words, it stands out from the crowd and captures our attention, like an extremely good-looking person at a party or a big neon sign in a dark, isolated town. We can’t help but notice these things because they are exceptional or extraordinary in some way.

                    Second, we will pay attention to things that are different or contradicting. Commonly, when people enter an elevator, they face the doors. Imagine if someone entered the elevator and stood with their back to the elevator doors staring at you. You might pay attention to this person more than others because the behavior is unusual. It is something that you don’t expect, and that makes it stand out more to you. On another note, different could also be something that you are not used to or something that no longer exists for you. For instance, if you had someone very close to you pass away, then you might pay more attention to the loss of that person than to anything else. Some people grieve for an extended period because they were so used to having that person around, and things can be different since you don’t have them to rely on or ask for input.

                    The third thing that we pay attention to is something that repeats over and over again. Think of a catchy song or a commercial that continually repeats itself. We might be more alert to it since it repeats, compared to something that was only said once.

                    The fourth thing that we will pay attention to is based on our motives. If we have a motive to find a romantic partner, we might be more perceptive to other attractive people than normal because we are looking for romantic interests. Another motive might be to lose weight, and you might pay more attention to exercise advertisements and food selection choices compared to someone who doesn’t have the motive to lose weight. Our motives influence what we pay attention to and what we ignore.

                    The last thing that influences our selection process is our emotional state. If we are in an angry mood, then we might be more attentive to things that get us angrier. As opposed to if we are in a happy mood, we will be more likely to overlook a lot of negativity because we are already happy. Selecting doesn’t involve just paying attention to certain cues. It also means that you might be overlooking other things. For instance, people in love will think their partner is amazing and will overlook a lot of their flaws. This is normal behavior. We are so focused on how wonderful they are that we often will neglect the other negative aspects of their behavior.

                     

                    Organizing

                    Look again at the three images above. What were the first things that you saw when you looked at each picture? Could you see the two different images? Which image was more prominent? When we examine a picture or image, we engage in organizing it in our heads to make sense of it and define it. This is an example of organization. After we select the information that we are paying attention to, we have to make sense of it in our brains. This stage of the perception process is referred to as organization. We must understand that the information can be organized in different ways. After we attend to something, our brains quickly want to make sense of this data. We quickly want to understand the information that we are exposed to and organize it in a way that makes sense to us.

                    There are four types of schemes that people use to organize perceptions (Freeman & Ambady, 2011). First, physical constructs are used to classify people (e.g., young/old; tall/short; big/small). Second, role constructs are social positions (e.g., mother, friend, lover, doctor, teacher). Third, interaction constructs are the social behaviors displayed in the interaction (e.g., aggressive, friendly, dismissive, indifferent). Fourth, psychological constructs are the dispositions, emotions, and internal states of mind of the communicators (e.g., depressed, confident, happy, insecure). We often use these schemes to better understand and organize the information that we have received. We use these schemes to generalize others and to classify information.

                    Let’s pretend that you came to class and noticed that one of your classmates was wildly waving their arms in the air at you. This will most likely catch your attention because you find this behavior strange. Then, you will try to organize or make sense of what is happening. Once you have organized it in your brain, you will need to interpret the behavior.

                     

                    Interpreting

                    The final stage of the perception process is interpreting. In this stage of perception, you are attaching meaning to understand the data. So, after you select information and organize things in your brain, you have to interpret the situation. As previously discussed in the above example, your friend waves their hands wildly (attending), and you are trying to figure out what they are communicating to you (organizing). You will attach meaning (interpreting). Does your friend need help and is trying to get your attention, or does your friend want you to watch out for something behind you?

                    We interpret other people’s behavior daily. Walking to class, you might see an attractive stranger smiling at you. You could interpret this as flirtatious behavior or someone just trying to be friendly. Scholars have identified some factors that influence our interpretations (Adler et al., 1986). 

                    Personal Experience

                    First, personal experience impacts our interpretation of events. What prior experiences have you had that affect your perceptions? Maybe you heard from your friends that a particular restaurant was really good, but when you went there, you had a horrible experience, and you decided you never wanted to go there again. Even though your friends might try to persuade you to try it again, you might be inclined not to go, because your past experience with that restaurant was not good.

                    Another example might be a traumatic relationship breakup. You might have had a relational partner that cheated on you and left you with trust issues. You might find another romantic interest, but in the back of your mind, you might be cautious and interpret loving behaviors differently because you don’t want to be hurt again.

                    Involvement

                    Second, the degree of involvement impacts your interpretation. The more involved or deeper your relationship is with another person, the more likely you will interpret their behaviors differently compared to someone you do not know well. For instance, let’s pretend that you are a manager, and two of your employees come to work late. One worker just happens to be your best friend, and the other person is someone who just started, and you do not know them well. You are more likely to interpret your best friend’s behavior more altruistically than the other worker because you have known your best friend for a longer period. Besides, since this person is your best friend, this implies that you interact and are more involved with them compared to other friends.

                    Expectations

                    Third, the expectations that we hold can impact the way we make sense of other people’s behaviors. For instance, if you overheard some friends talking about a mean professor and how hostile they are in class, you might be expecting this to be true. Let’s say you meet the professor and attend their class; you might still have certain expectations about them based on what you heard. Even those expectations might be completely false, and you might still be expecting those allegations to be true.

                    Assumptions

                    Fourth, there are assumptions about human behavior. Imagine if you are a personal fitness trainer. Do you believe that people like to exercise or need to exercise? Your answer to that question might be based on your assumptions. If you are a person who is inclined to exercise, then you might think that all people like to work out. However, if you do not like to exercise but know that people should be physically fit, then you would more likely agree with the statement that people need to exercise. Your assumptions about humans can shape the way that you interpret their behavior. Another example might be that if you believe that most people would donate to a worthy cause, you might be shocked to learn that not everyone thinks this way. When we assume that all humans should act a certain way, we are more likely to interpret their behavior differently if they do not respond in a certain way.

                    Relational Satisfaction

                    Fifth, relational satisfaction will make you see things very differently. Relational satisfaction is how satisfied or happy you are with your current relationship. If you are content, then you are more likely to view all your partner’s behaviors as thoughtful and kind. However, if you are not satisfied with your relationship, then you are more likely to view their behavior as distrustful or insincere. Research has shown that unhappy couples are more likely to blame their partners when things go wrong compared to happy couples (Diamond & Hicks, 2012). 

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. Take a walk to a place you usually go to. Before taking your walk, mentally list everything that you will see on your walk. As you walk, notice everything on your path. What new things do you notice now that you are deliberately “attending” to your environment?
                    2. What affects your perception? Think about where you come from and your self-concept. How do these two factors impact how you see the world?
                    3. Look back at a previous text or email that you got from a friend. After reading it, do you have a different interpretation of it now compared to when you first got it? Why? Think about how interpretation can impact communication if you didn’t know this person. How does it differ?

                     

                    References

                    Adler, R. B., Rosenfeld, L. B., Towne, N., & Scott, M. (1986). Interplay: The process of interpersonal communication. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

                    Diamond, L. M., & Hicks, A. M. (2012). “It’s the economy, honey!” Couples’ blame attributions during the 2007–2009 economic crisis. Personal Relationships, 19(3), 586–600. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2011.01380.x

                    Freeman, J. B., & Ambady, N. (2011). A dynamic interactive theory of person construal. Psychological Review, 118(2), 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1037/a002232

                    4.6 Conflict Management

                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                     

                    To whom do you have the most conflict right now? If you still live at home with a parent or parents, you may have daily conflicts with your family as you try to balance your autonomy, or desire for independence, with the practicalities of living under your family’s roof. If you’ve recently moved into an apartment or house, you may be negotiating roommate conflicts as you adjust to living with someone you may not know very well. You probably also have experiences with conflict in romantic relationships, in the workplace, and maybe even at school. So think back and ask yourself, “How well do I handle conflict?” As with all areas of communication, we can improve if we have the background knowledge and the motivation to reflect on and enhance our communication skills.

                     

                    Examining Interpersonal Conflict

                    Interpersonal conflict occurs in interactions where there are real or perceived incompatible goals or opposing viewpoints. Interpersonal conflict may be expressed verbally or nonverbally along a continuum ranging from mild nonverbal silent treatment to a very loud shouting match. Interpersonal conflict is, however, distinct from interpersonal violence, which escalates beyond communication to include abuse. Domestic violence is a serious issue that goes beyond the conflict we will discuss.

                    While conflict may be uncomfortable and challenging, it doesn’t have to be negative. In fact, it is inevitable and can be helpful to our relationships. Since conflict is present in our personal and professional lives, the ability to manage conflict and negotiate desirable outcomes can help us be more successful at both. Whether you and your partner are trying to decide what brand of flat-screen television to buy or discussing the upcoming political election with your mother, the potential for conflict is present. In professional settings, the ability to engage in conflict management, sometimes called conflict resolution, is a necessary and valued skill.

                    Using strategies for managing conflict situations can make life more pleasant than letting a situation stagnate or escalate. The negative effects of poorly handled conflict could range from an awkward last few weeks of the semester with a college roommate to being fired from your job. There is no absolute right or wrong way to handle a conflict. Remember that being a competent communicator doesn’t mean that you follow a set of absolute rules. Rather, a competent communicator assesses multiple contexts and applies or adapts communication tools and skills to fit the situation.

                     

                    Strategies for Managing Conflict

                    When we ask others what they want to do when they experience conflict, most of the time, they say “resolve it.” While this is understandable, it is also important to understand that conflict is ongoing in all relationships, and our approach to conflict sometimes should be to “manage it” instead of always trying to “resolve it.”

                    One way to understand options for managing conflict is by knowing five major strategies people may use for managing conflict. As you read about each of these, you will see that some are likely to be more successful than others.

                     

                    clipboard_e8616c5b470dca8f56bb535b5787e9f6c.png

                    Five Styles of Interpersonal Conflict Management. Source: Adapted from M. Afzalur Rahim, “A Measure of Styles of Handling Interpersonal Conflict,” Academy of Management Journal 26, no. 2 (1983): 368–76.

                     

                    Competing

                    When people select the competing or the win-lose approach, they exhibit high concern for the self and low concern for the other person. The goal here is to win the conflict. This approach is often characterized by loud, forceful, and interrupting communication.  Too often, we avoid conflict because we believe the only other alternative is to try to dominate the other person. In relationships where we care about others or in conflicts at work, it’s no wonder this strategy can seem unappealing. Competing sometimes leads to aggression. Aggressive communication may involve insults, profanity, yelling, or threats of punishment if you do not get your way.  Although competing is not often the best strategy to use, it can be helpful to use the strategy when there will be a winner in the conflict/situation.

                    Avoiding

                    When people avoid a conflict, they may suppress feelings of frustration or walk away from a situation. This style of conflict management often indicates a low concern for self and a low concern for the other, and no direct communication about the conflict takes place. This is not always the case, however. In fact, there may be times when this is the best strategy. Take, for example, a heated argument between Ari and Pat. Pat is about to make a hurtful remark out of frustration but instead decides to avoid this argument until they can come back and discuss things in a calmer fashion. Or we may decide to avoid conflict for other reasons. If you view the conflict as having little importance to you, it may be better to ignore it. If the person you’re having conflict with will only be working in your office for a week, you may perceive a conflict to be temporary and choose to avoid it. Although there are times when avodance can be a helpful choice, in general, avoiding does not work. For one thing, you can not communicate. Even when we try to avoid conflict, we may intentionally or unintentionally give our feelings away through our verbal and nonverbal communication, such as rolling our eyes or sighing. Avoiding conflict can also cause resentment to build up in a relationship.  Consistent conflict avoidance over the long term generally has negative consequences for a relationship because neither person is willing to participate in the conflict management process.

                    Accommodating 

                    The accommodating conflict management style indicates a moderate degree of concern for self and others. Sometimes, this style is viewed as passive or submissive, in that someone complies with or obliges another without providing personal input. However, it could be that the person involved in the conflict values the relationship more than the issue. The context for and motivation behind accommodating play an important role in whether or not it is an appropriate strategy. For example, if there is little chance that your own goals can be attained, or if the relationship might be damaged if you insist on your own way, accommodating could be appropriate. On the other hand, if you constantly accommodate with little reciprocation by your partner, this style can be personally damaging.

                    Compromising

                    The compromising style is evident when both parties are willing to give up something in order to gain something else. It shows a moderate concern for self and the other. When environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill agreed to end her two-year-long tree-sit in Luna as a protest against the logging practices of Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO) and pay them $50,000 in exchange for their promise to protect Luna and not cut within a 20-foot buffer zone, she and PALCO reached a compromise. If one of the parties feels the compromise is unequal, they may be less likely to stick to it long term. When conflict is unavoidable, many times, people will opt for a compromise. One of the problems with compromise is that neither party fully gets their needs met. If you want Mexican food and your friend wants pizza, you might agree to compromise and go someplace that serves Mexican pizza. While this may seem like a good idea, you may have really been craving a burrito, and your friend may have really been craving a pepperoni pizza. In this case, while the compromise brought together two food genres, neither person got their desire met. Compromising may be a good strategy when there are time limitations or when prolonging a conflict may lead to relationship deterioration. Compromise may also be good when both parties have equal power or when other resolution strategies have not worked (Macintosh & Stevens, 2008).

                    Collaborating

                    Finally, collaborating demonstrates a high level of concern for both self and others. Using this strategy, individuals agree to share information, feelings, and creativity to try to reach a mutually acceptable solution that meets both of their needs. In our food example above, one strategy would be for both people to get the food they want, then take it on a picnic in the park. This way, both people are getting their needs met fully and in a way that extends beyond original notions of win-lose approaches for managing the conflict. The downside to this strategy is that it is very time-consuming and requires high levels of trust.

                     

                    Tips for Managing Interpersonal Conflict

                    • Do not view the conflict as a contest you are trying to win.
                    • Distinguish the person or people from the problem. (Don’t make it personal, and don’t engage in blaming and name-calling.)
                    • Determine what underlying needs may be driving the other person’s demands (sometimes needs can still be met in a different way).
                    • Identify areas of common ground or shared interests that you can work from to develop solutions.
                    • Ask questions to allow them to clarify and to help you understand their perspective.
                    • Listen carefully and provide verbal and nonverbal feedback.
                    • Remain flexible and realize there may be solutions yet to be discovered. 

                     

                    Exercises

                    1. How was conflict managed in your family while growing up? Was it viewed as positive or negative? How did those early messages and lessons about conflict shape your current attitudes?
                    2. Of the five conflict management strategies, is there one that you use more often than others? Why or why not? Do you think people are predisposed to one style over the others based on their personality or other characteristics? If so, what personality traits do you think would lead a person to each style?
                    3. It is helpful to know the most common ways we engage in conflict in order to enhance our conflict resolution skills. Take the Conflict Styles Assessment at the following link to learn more about your conflict style preferences: https://www.usip.org/public-education/students/conflict-styles-assessment. After you answer the questions, the assessment will give you the results. This assessment uses the term "Problem Solver" instead of Collaboration.  Share the results of your assessment in your assignment response.  Include each style and your numeric score for each.  Respond to all of the statements below in your assignment response. 

                      • Think of an area in your life where you experience conflict.  Please feel free to use an example from your service-learning, if you can. 
                      • Discuss how knowing your conflict style can help you deal with the conflict.
                      • Discuss how using the style with your lowest score could benefit you in your daily life.
                      • Discuss how knowing the styles of those you are in relationships with could be beneficial to conflict resolution.

                     

                      References

                      Survey of Communication Study. Authored by: Scott T Paynton and Linda K Hahn. Provided by: Humboldt State University. Located athttps://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_StudyLicenseCC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

                       

                      4.7 The Nature of Relationships

                      (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                       

                      Over the course of our lives, we will enter into and out of many different relationships. When it comes to dating, the average person has seven relationships before getting married (News Agencies, 2014). According to a study conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Evite (Gervis, 2019), the average American has:

                      • Three best friends
                      • Five good friends
                      • Eight people they like but don’t spend one-on-one time with
                      • 50 acquaintances
                      • 91 social media friends

                      We’ve all been in a wide range of relationships in our lives. This section is going to explore relationships by examining specific relationship characteristics and the nature of significant relationships.

                       

                      Relationship Characteristics

                      We all know that all relationships are not the same. We have people in our lives that we enjoy spending time with, like to support us, and/or assist us when needed. We will typically distance ourselves from people who do not provide positive feelings or outcomes for us. Thus, there are many characteristics in relationships that we have with others. These characteristics are duration, contact frequency, sharing, support, interaction variability, and goals (Gamble & Gamble, 2014). Some friendships last a lifetime, others last a short period. The length of any relationship is referred to as that relationship’s duration. People who grew up in small towns might have had the same classmate till graduation. This is due to the fact that the duration with each person is different. Some people we meet in college and we will never see them again. Hence, our duration with that person is short. Duration is related to the length of your relationship with that person.

                      Second, contact frequency is how often you communicate with the other person. There are people in our lives we have known for years but only talk to infrequently. The more we communicate with others, the closer our bond becomes to the other person. Sometimes people think duration is the real test of a relationship, but it also depends on how often you communicate with the other person.

                      The third relationship type is based on sharing. The more we spend time with other people and interact with them, the more we are likely to share information about ourselves. This type of sharing is information that is usually our private and very intimate details of our thoughts and feelings. We typically don’t share this information with a stranger. Once we develop a sense of trust and support with this person, we can begin to share more details.

                      The fourth characteristic is support. Think of the people in your life and who you would be able to call in case of an emergency. The ones that come to mind are the ones you know who would be supportive of you. They would support you if you needed help, money, time, or advice. Support is another relationship type because we know that not everyone can support us in the same manner. For instance, if you need relationship advice, you would probably pick someone who has relationship knowledge and would support you in your decision. Support is so important. It was found that a major difference between married and dating couples is that married couples were more likely to provide supportive communication behaviors to their partners than dating couples (Punyanunt-Carter, 2004). 

                      The fifth defining characteristic of relationships is interaction variability. When you have a relationship with another person, it is not defined by your interaction with them rather by the different types of conversations you can have with that person. When you were little, you probably knew that if you were to approach your mom, she might respond a certain way as opposed to your dad, who might respond differently. Hence, you knew that your interaction would vary. The same thing happens with your classmates because you don’t just talk about class with them. You might talk about other events on campus or social events. Therefore, our interactions with others are defined by the greater variability that we have with one person as opposed to another.

                      The last relationship characteristic is goals. In every relationship we enter into, we have certain expectations about that relationship. For instance, if your goal is to get closer to another person through communication, you might share your thoughts and feelings and expect the other person to do the same. If they do not, then you will probably feel like the goals in your relationship were not met because they didn’t share information. The same goes for other types of relationships. We typically expect that our significant other will be truthful, supportive, and faithful. If they break that goal, then it causes problems in the relationship and could end the relationship. Hence, in all our relationships, we have goals and expectations about how the relationship will function and operate.

                       

                      Significant Relationships

                      Think about all the relationships that you have in your life. Which ones are the most meaningful and significant for you? Why do you consider these relationships as the most notable one(s) for you? Your parents/guardians, teachers, friends, family members, and love interests can all serve as significant relationships for you. Significant relationships have a huge impact on our communication behaviors and our interpretation of these conversations. Significant relationships impact who we are and help us grow. These relationships can serve a variety of purposes in our lives.

                      Purposes of Relationships

                      Relationships can serve a variety of purposes: work, task, and social. First, relationships can be work-related. We might have a significant work relationship that helps us advance our professional careers. We might have work relationships that might support us in gaining financial benefits or better work opportunities. Second, we might have significant relationships because it is task-related. We may have a specific task that we need to accomplish with this other person. It might be a project or a mentorship. After the task is completed, then the relationship may end. For instance, a high school coach may serve as a significant relationship. You and your coach might have a task or plan to go to the state competition. You and your coach will work on ways to help you. However, after you complete high school and your task has ended, then you might keep in contact with the coach, or you may not since your competition (task) has ended. The last purpose is for social reasons. We may have social reasons for pursuing a relationship. These can include pleasure, inclusion, control, and/or affection. Each relationship that we have with another person has a specific purpose. We may like to spend time with a particular friend because we love talking to them. At the same time, we might like spending time with other friends because we know that they can help us become more involved with extracurricular activities.

                       

                      Exercises

                      1. Conduct an inventory of your relationships. Think of all the people in your life and how they meet each of the relationship characteristics. 

                       

                      References

                      Gamble, T. K.., & Gamble, M. W. (2014). Interpersonal communication: Building connections together. Sage.

                      Gervis, Z. (2019, May 9). Why the average American hasn’t made a new friend in five years. SWNS digital. https://tinyurl.com/yxtc2htg

                      News Agencies. (2014, January 1). Average woman will kiss 15 men and be heartbroken twice before meeting “The One,” study reveals. The Telegraph. https://tinyurl.com/sm5ufph

                      Punyanunt-Carter, N. M. (2004). Reported affectionate communication and satisfaction in marital and dating relationships. Psychological Reports, 166(3), 1049-1055. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.95.3f.1154-1160

                      4.8 Relationship Formation

                      (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                       

                      Have you ever wondered why people pick certain relationships over others? We can’t pick our family members, although I know some people wish they could. We can, however, select who our friends and significant others are in our lives. Throughout our lives, we pick and select people that we build a connection to and have an attraction towards. We tend to avoid certain people who we don’t find attractive.

                       

                      Understanding Attraction

                      Researchers have identified three primary types of attraction: physical, social, and task. Physical attraction refers to the degree to which you find another person aesthetically pleasing. What is deemed aesthetically pleasing can alter greatly from one culture to the next. We also know that pop culture can greatly define what is considered to be physically appealing from one era to the next. Think of the curvaceous ideal of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1950s as compared to the thin Halley Barry or Anne Hathaway. Although discussions of male physical attraction occur less often, they are equally impacted by pop culture. In the 1950s, you had solid men like Robert Mitchum and Marlon Brando as compared to the heavily muscled men of today like Joe Manganiello or Zac Efron.

                      The second type of attraction is social attraction, or the degree to which an individual sees another person as entertaining, intriguing, and fun to be around. We all have finite sources when it comes to the amount of time we have in a given day. We prefer to socialize with people that we think are fun. These people may entertain us, or they may just fascinate us. No matter the reason, we find some people more socially desirable than others. Social attraction can also be a factor of power. For example, in situations where there are kids in the “in-group” and those that are not. In this case, those that are considered popular hold more power and are perceived as being more socially desirable to associate with. This relationship becomes problematic when these individuals decide to use this social desirability as a tool or weapon against others.

                      The final type of attraction is task attraction, or people we are attracted to because they possess specific knowledge and/or skills that help us accomplish specific goals. The first part of this definition requires that the target of task attraction possess specific knowledge and/or skills. Maybe you have a friend who is good with computers who will always fix your computer when something goes wrong. Maybe you have a friend who is good at math and can tutor you. Of course, the purpose of these relationships is to help you accomplish your own goals. In the first case, you have the goal of not having a broken-down computer. In the second case, you have the goal of passing math. This is not to say that an individual may only be viewed as task attractive, but many relationships we form are because of task attraction in our lives.

                       

                      Reasons for Attraction

                      Now that we’ve looked at the basics of what attraction is. Let’s switch gears and talk about why we are attracted to each other. There are several reasons researchers have found for our attraction to others, including proximity, physicality, perceived gain, similarities and differences, and disclosure.

                      Physical Proximity

                      When you ask some people how they met their significant other, you will often hear proximity is a factor in how they met. Perhaps, they were taking the same class, or their families went to the same grocery store. These commonplaces create opportunities for others to meet and mingle. We are more likely to talk to people that we see frequently. 

                      Physical Attractiveness

                      In day-to-day interactions, you are more likely to pay attention to someone you find more attractive than others. Research shows that males place more emphasis on physical attractiveness than females (Samovar & Porter, 1995). Appearance is very important at the beginning of the relationship.

                      Perceived Gain

                      This type of relationship might appear to be like an economic model and can be explained by exchange theory (Stafford, 2008). In other words, we will form relationships with people who can offer us rewards that outweigh the costs. Rewards are the things we want to acquire. They could be tangible (e.g., food, money, clothes) or intangible (support, admiration, status). Costs are undesirable things that we don’t want to expend a lot of energy to do. For instance, we don’t want to have to constantly nag the other person to call us or spend a lot of time arguing about past items. A good relationship will have fewer costs and more rewards. A bad relationship will have more costs and fewer rewards. Often, when people decide to stay or leave a relationship, they will consider the costs and rewards in the relationship.

                      Costs and rewards are not the only factors in a relationship. Partners also consider alternatives in the relationship. For instance, Becky and Alan have been together for a few years. Alan adores Becky and wants to marry her, but he feels that there are some problems in the relationship. Becky has a horrible temper, she is pessimistic, and she is critical of him. Alan has gained some weight, and Becky has said some hurtful things to him. Alan knows that every relationship will have issues. He doesn’t know whether to continue this relationship and take it further or if he should end it.

                      His first alternative is called the comparison level (CL), which is the minimum standard that he is willing to tolerate. If Alan believes that it is ok for a person to say hurtful things to her or get angry, then Becky is meeting or exceeding his CL. However, if past romantic partners have never said anything hurtful towards him, then he would have a lower CL.

                      Alan will also consider another alternative, which is the comparison level of alternatives (CLalt), or the comparison between current relationship rewards and what he might get in another relationship. If he doesn’t want to be single, then he might have a lower CL of alternatives. If he has another potential mate who would probably treat him better, then he would have a higher level of alternatives. We use this calculation all the time in relationships. Often when people are considering the possibility to end a relationship, they will consider all alternatives rather than just focusing on costs and rewards.

                      Similarities and Differences

                      It feels comforting when someone who appears to like the same things you like also has other similarities to you. Thus, you don’t have to explain yourself or give reasons for doing things a certain way. People with similar cultural, ethnic, or religious backgrounds are typically drawn to each other for this reason. It is also known as similarity thesis. The similarity thesis basically states that we are attracted to and tend to form relationships with others who are similar to us (Adler et al., 2013). There are three reasons why similarity thesis works: validation, predictability, and affiliation. First, it is validating to know that someone likes the same things that we do. It confirms and endorses what we believe. In turn, it increases support and affection. Second, when we are similar to another person, we can make predictions about what they will like and not like. We can make better estimations and expectations about what the person will do and how they will behave. The third reason is due to the fact that we like others that are similar to us and thus they should like us because we are the same. Hence, it creates affiliation or connection with that other person.

                      However, there are some people who are attracted to someone completely opposite from who they are. This is where differences come into play. Differences can make a relationship stronger, especially when you have a relationship that is complimentary. In complementary relationships, each person in the relationship can help satisfy the other person’s needs. For instance, one person likes to talk, and the other person likes to listen. They get along great because they can be comfortable in their communication behaviors and roles. In addition, they don’t have to argue over who will need to talk. Another example might be that one person likes to cook, and the other person likes to eat. This is a great relationship because both people are getting what they like to do, and it complements each other’s talents. Usually, friction will occur when there are differences of opinion or control issues. For example, if you have someone who loves to spend money and the other person who loves to save money, it might be very hard to decide how to handle financial issues.

                      Disclosure

                      Sometimes we form relationships we others after we have disclosed something about ourselves to others. Disclosure increases liking because it creates support and trust between you and this other person. We typically don’t disclose our most intimate thoughts to a stranger. We do this behavior with people we are close to because it creates a bond with the other person.

                      Disclosure is not the only factor that can lead to forming relationships. Disclosure needs to be appropriate and reciprocal (Dindia, 2000). In other words, if you provide information, it must be mutual. If you reveal too much or too little, it might be regarded as inappropriate and can create tension. Also, if you disclose information too soon or too quickly in the relationship, it can create some negative outcomes.

                       

                      References

                      Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. B., & Proctor II, R. F. (2013). Interplay: The process of interpersonal communication. Oxford.

                      Dindia, K. (2000). Self-disclosure research: Advances through meta-analysis. In M. A. Allen, R. W. Preiss, B. M., Gayle, & N. Burrell (Eds.). Interpersonal communication research: Advances through meta-analysis (pp. 169-186). Erlbaum.

                      Samovar, L. A., & Porter, R. E. (1995). Communication between cultures (2nd ed.). Wadsworth, p. 188.

                      Stafford, L. (2008). Social exchange theories. In L. A. Baxter & D. O. Braithwaite (Eds.), Engaging theories in interpersonal communication: Multiple perspectives (pp. 377-389). Sage.

                      4.9 Stages of Relationships

                      (Content obtained from Interpersonal Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                       

                      Every relationship goes through various stages. Mark Knapp first introduced a series of stages through which relationships can progress (Knapp, 1984). This model was later modified by himself and coauthor Anita Vangelisti and created a model of relationships (Knapp & Vangelisti, 1992). They believe that we come together and we can come apart in stages. Relationships can get stronger or weaker. Most relationships go through some or all of these stages.

                       

                      Figure 4.9.1 Knapp and Vangelisti Model of Relationships

                      Coming together
                       

                       

                      Coming Together

                      Do you remember when you first met that special someone in your life? How did your relationship start? How did you two become closer? Every relationship has to start somewhere. It begins and grows. In this section, we will learn about the coming together stages, which include: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and then bonding.

                      Initiating

                      At the beginning of every relationship, we have to figure out if we want to put in the energy and effort to talk to the other person. If we are interested in pursuing the relationship, we have to let the other person know that we are interested in initiating a conversation.

                      There are different types of initiation. Sustaining is trying to continue the conversation. Networking is where you contact others for a relationship. An offering is where you present your interest in some manner. Approaching is where you directly make contact with the other person. We can begin a relationship in a variety of different ways.

                      Communication at this initiating stage is very brief. You might say hello and introduce yourself to the other person. You might smile or wink to let the other person know you are interested in making conversation with him or her. The conversation is very superficial and not very personal at all. At this stage, we are primarily interested in making contact.

                      Experimenting

                      After we have initiated communication with the other person, we go to the next stage, which is experimenting. At this stage, you are trying to figure out if you want to continue the relationship further. We are trying to learn more about the other person.

                      At this stage, interactions are very casual. You are looking for common ground or similarities that you share. You might talk about your favorite things, such as colors, sports, teachers, etc. Just like the name of the stage, we are experimenting and trying to figure out if we should move towards the next stage or not.

                      Intensifying

                      After we talk with the other person and decide that this is someone we want to have a relationship with, we enter the intensifying stage. We share more intimate and/or personal information about ourselves with that person. Conversations become more serious, and our interactions are more meaningful. At this stage, you might stop saying “I” and say “we.” So, in the past, you might have said to your partner, “I am having a night out with my friends.” It changes to “we are going to with my friends tonight.” We are becoming more serious about the relationship.

                      Integrating

                      The integrating stage is where two people truly become a couple. Before, they might have been dating or enjoying each other’s company, but in this stage, they are letting people know that they are exclusively dating each other. The expectations in the relationship are higher than they were before. Your knowledge of your partner has increased. The amount of time that you spend with each other is greater.

                      Bonding

                      The next stage is the bonding stage, where you reveal to the world that your relationship to each other now exists. It might be as simple as a Facebook post. For others, the bonding stage is where they get engaged and have an engagement announcement. Those who are very committed to the relationship might decide to have a wedding and get married. In every case, they are making their relationship a public announcement. They want others to know that their relationship is real.

                       

                      Coming Apart

                      Some couples can stay in committed and wonderful relationships. However, there are some couples that, after bonding, things seem to fall apart. No matter how hard they try to stay together, there is tension and disagreement. These couples go through a coming apart process that involves: differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating.

                      Differentiating

                      The differentiating stage is where both people are trying to figure out their own identities. Thus, instead of trying to say “we,” the partners will question, “How am I different?” In this stage, differences are emphasized, and similarities are overlooked.

                      As the partners differentiate themselves from each other, they tend to engage in more disagreements. The couples will tend to change their pronoun use from “our kitchen” becomes “my kitchen” or “our child” becomes “my child,” depending on what they want to emphasize.

                      Initially, in the relationship, we tend to focus on what we have in common with each other. After we have bonded, we are trying to deal with balancing our independence from the other person. If this cannot be resolved, then tensions will emerge, and it usually signals that your relationship is coming apart.

                      Circumscribing

                      The circumscribing stage is where the partners tend to limit their interactions with each other. Communication will lessen in quality and quantity. Partners try to figure out what they can and can’t talk about with each other so that they will not argue.

                      Partners might not spend as much time with each other at this stage. There are fewer physical displays of affection, as well. Intimacy decreases between the partners. The partners no longer desire to be with each other and only communicate when they have to.

                      Stagnating

                      The next stage is stagnating, which means the relationship is not improving or growing. The relationship is motionless or stagnating. Partners do not try to communicate with each other. When communication does occur, it is usually restrained and often awkward. The partners live with each other physically but not emotionally. They tend to distance themselves from the other person. Their enthusiasm for the relationship is gone. What used to be fun and exciting for the couple is now a chore.

                      Avoiding

                      The avoiding stage is where both people avoid each other altogether. They would rather stay away from each other than communicate. At this stage, the partners do not want to see each other or speak to each other. Sometimes, the partners will think that they don’t want to be in the relationship any longer.

                      Terminating

                      The terminating stage is where the parties decide to end or terminate the relationship. It is never easy to end a relationship. A variety of factors can determine whether to cease or continue the relationship. Time is a factor. Couples have to decide to end it gradually or quickly. Couples also have to determine what happens after the termination of the relationship. Besides, partners have to choose how they want to end the relationship. For instance, some people end the relationship via electronic means (e.g., text message, email, Facebook posting) or via face-to-face.

                      Final Thoughts on Coming Together

                      Not every relationship will go through each of the ten stages. Several relationships do not go past the experimenting stage. Some remain happy at the intensifying or bonding stage. When both people agree that their relationship is satisfying and each person has their needs met, then stabilization occurs. Some relationships go out of order as well. For instance, in some arranged marriages, the bonding occurs first, and then the couple goes through various phases. Some people jump from one stage into another. When partners disagree about what is optimal stabilization, then disagreements and tensions will occur.

                      In today’s world, romantic relationships can take on a variety of different meanings and expectations. For instance, “hooking up” or having “friends with benefits” are terms that people might use to describe the status of their relationship. Many people might engage in a variety of relationships but not necessarily get married. We know that relationships vary from couple to couple. No matter what the relationship type, couples decided to come together or come apart.

                       

                      Relationship Maintenance

                      You may have heard that relationships are hard work. Relationships need maintenance and care. Just like your body needs food, and your car needs gasoline to run, your relationships need attention as well. When people are in a relationship with each other, what makes a difference to keep people together is how they feel when they are with each other. Maintenance can make a relationship more satisfying and successful.

                      Daniel Canary and Laura Stafford stated that “most people desire long-term, stable, and satisfying relationships” (Canary & Stafford, 1994). To keep a satisfying relationship, individuals must utilize relationship maintenance behaviors. They believed that if individuals do not maintain their relationships, the relationships will weaken and/or end. “It is naïve to assume that relationships simply stay together until they fall apart or that they happen to stay together” (Canary & Stafford, 1994). 

                      Joe Ayres studied how individuals maintain their interpersonal relationships (Ayers, 1983). Through factor analysis, he identified three types of strategies. First, avoidance strategies are used to evade communication that might threaten the relationship. Second, balance strategies are used to maintain equality in the relationship so that partners do not feel under-benefited or over-benefited from being in the relationship. Third, direct strategies are used to evaluate and remind the partner of relationship objectives. It is worth noting that Joe Ayers found that relationship intent had a major influence on the perceptions of the relationship partners. If partners wanted to stay together, they would make more of an effort to employ maintenance strategies than deterioration strategies.

                      Laura Stafford and Daniel Canary (1991) found five key relationship maintenance behaviors. First, positivity is a relational maintenance factor used by communicating with their partners in a happy and supportive manner. Second, openness occurs when partners focus their communication on the relationship. Third, assurances are words that emphasize the partners’ commitment to the duration of the relationship. Fourth, networking is communicating with family and friends. Lastly, sharing tasks is doing work or household tasks. Later, Canary and his colleagues found two more relationship maintenance behaviors: conflict management and advice (Canary & Zelley, 2000). 

                       

                      Figure 4.9.2 Relationship Maintenance Behaviors

                      relationship maintenance behaviors

                       

                       

                      Additionally, Canary and Stafford (1994) also posited four propositions that serve as a conceptual framework for relationship maintenance research. The first proposition is that relationships will worsen if they are not maintained. The second proposition is that both partners must feel that there are equal benefits and sacrifices in the relationship for it to sustain. The third proposition states that maintenance behaviors depend on the type of relationship. The fourth proposition is that relationship maintenance behaviors can be used alone or as a mixture to affect perceptions of the relationship. Overall, these propositions illustrate the importance and effect that relationship maintenance behaviors can have on relationships.

                      Relationship maintenance is the stabilization point between relationship initiation and potential relationship destruction (Duck, 1988). There are two elements to relationship maintenance. First, strategic plans are intentional behaviors and actions used to maintain the relationship. Second, everyday interactions help to sustain the relationship. Most importantly, talk is the most important element in relationship maintenance (Duck, 1994). 

                       

                      MINDFULNESS ACTIVITY

                      image

                      Learning how to use mindfulness in our interpersonal relationships is one way to ensure healthy relationships. Lauren Korshak recommends using the RAIN method when interacting with one’s relational partners:

                      • Recognize: Nonjudgmentally recognize and name emotions you feel in the present moment.
                      • Allow: Acknowledge, accept, and allow your emotions to be as they are without trying to change them. Allowing does not mean you like what is happening, but that you allow it, dislike and all.
                      • Investigate with kindness: Ask yourself, “What am I experiencing inside my body? What is calling my attention? What does this feeling need from me?”
                      • Non-identification/nurture with self-compassion: Observe thoughts, feelings, and sensations without attaching to them. If you notice painful feelings, nurture them by placing a hand over your heart or speaking words of kindness, reassurance, and compassion, such as “I see you’re suffering,” or “I’m sorry,” or “I love you, I’m listening” (Korshak, 2019). 

                      For this activity, we want you to use the RAIN method in a conversation with your romantic partner or close friend. As an alternative variant, both of you can engage in the RAIN method and discuss a recent conflict you had. The goal is not to establish fault or a win-lose attitude but rather to learn to empathize with your partner and their perspective.

                       

                      Exercises

                      1. Find Internet clips that illustrate each of the coming together/coming apart stages. Show them to your class. Do you agree/disagree? 
                      2. Do a self-analysis of a relationship that you have been involved with or have witnessed. How did the two people come together and come apart? Did they go through all the stages? Why/why not?
                      3. Write down an example of each of the relationship maintenance strategies. Then, rank order in terms of importance to you. Why did you rank them the way that you did? Find a peer and compare your answers.

                       

                      References

                      Ayers, J. (1983). Strategies to maintain relationships: Their identification and perceived usages. Communication Quarterly, 31(1), 62-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/01463378309369487

                      Canary, D. J., & Stafford. L. (1994). Maintaining relationships through strategic and routine interaction. In D. J. Canary & L. Stafford (Eds.). Communication and relational maintenance (pp. 3-21). Academic Press.

                      Canary, D. J., & Zelley, E. D. (2000). Current research programs on relational maintenance behaviors. Communication Yearbook, 23, 305-340.

                      Duck, S. (1988). Relating to others. Dorsey Press.

                      Duck, S. (1994). Steady as (s)he goes: Relational maintenance as a shared meaning system. In D. J. Canary & L. Stafford (Eds.). Communication and relational maintenance (pp. 45-60). Academic Press.

                      Knapp, M. L. (1984). Interpersonal communication and human relationships. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

                      Knapp, M. L., & Vangelisti, A. L. (1992). Interpersonal communication and human behavior (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

                      Korshak, L. (2019). The mindful relationship: Easy exercises to make mindfulness a daily relationship practice. Rockridge Press.

                      Chapter 5: Intercultural Communication

                      Learning Objectives for Chapter 5: Intercultural Communication

                      • Define culture and interpersonal culture.  
                      • Explain and define the concepts of cultural contact and ways in which one communicates effectively, connects, and identifies with other cultures.   
                      • Examine the role of mass media, social media, and popular culture as it impacts cultural identities and awareness.  
                      • Analyze and evaluate the impact of negative and positive perceptions in society, as it relates to cultural competence and cultural awareness. (ex. racism, sexism, classism, gender identities, stereotypes, prejudices, etc.)  
                      • Analyze and explain how Persuasion is impacted by cultural values, beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes 
                      • Identify and analyze how culture and co-cultures impact communication effectiveness and communication competence.  
                      • Study and examine the significance and benefits of ethics and ethical behavior as it relates to intercultural communication.

                       

                      5.1 The Impact of Culture on Behavior

                      (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                       

                      Psychologists have used the term egocentric to describe a person who is self-focused and unable to imagine any other perspective than their own. Young children are naturally egocentric, assuming that everyone else thinks, perceives, and communicates as they do. To a certain extent, we remain egocentric even as we mature, and it can be very challenging to understand that varied perceptions, values, and beliefs exist which are equally valid as our own. However, to communicate effectively and to form satisfying personal and professional relationships, we must step away from our egotism and seek to understand the point of view of others, also known as the worldview of others. Learning about different worldviews can lead to our becoming provisional communicators.

                      Provisionalism is the ability to accept the diversity of perceptions and beliefs and to operate in a manner sensitive to that diversity. Being a provisional communicator does not mean we abandon our own beliefs and values, nor does it mean we have to accept all beliefs and values as correct. Instead, provisionalism leads us to seek to understand variations in human behaviors and to understand the field of experience out of which the other person operates. Provisionalism means:

                      • We interpret the communication and behavior based on our own life experiences, but then
                      • We stop and consider, “How was the message intended?” or “What other factors may be motivating this communication or behavior?”

                      An excellent place to start understanding the communication of others is with an understanding of the impact of culture.

                       

                      Culture 

                      Culture refers to the broad set of shared beliefs and values that form a collective vision of ourselves and others. The tools we use, the goods we buy, the foods we each, and the clothing we wear are all influenced by our culture. Our language, religion, laws, rules of social conduct, folklore, cultural icons, and the beliefs, norms, collective memories, attitudes, values, and practices that form our worldview and which help us relate to the world are also culturally determined. (Barrett). Culture is learned, and it can be so ingrained it becomes challenging to identify how it influences our thoughts and behaviors. 

                      Let’s begin our discussion of culture with our dominant or broad culture, which is usually but not always the country or nation of our upbringing. In the United States, most citizens place a high value on self-determination, believing each individual has a fundamental right to make choices that they deem best for them. As long as their actions do not harm others, they feel free to follow the life path of their own choosing. If others attempt to force them to act or think in certain ways, they tend to rebel. The United States is considered an individualistic culture because of this belief in self-determination. Other core values shared by most United States are equality, freedom of speech and religion, and competition. 

                      It is important to understand that other cultures may not value self-determination and individualism. Some countries emphasize doing what is best for the group (the family or the company, for instance). In such cultures, engaging in individual behaviors that reflect poorly on the group is a powerful social taboo. For example, in some Asian cultures, if a student performs poorly academically, it is seen as a reflection on the entire family, bringing shame to all. The pressures to succeed are based not on personal achievement but on maintaining the honor of the entire family. Contrast that to the United States, where students are generally seen as failing or succeeding on their own merit.

                       

                      An American man in a Chinese marketplace.

                      Keith in China. Source: Martin & Nakayama, 2018.

                       

                       

                      In the dominant U.S. culture, children are usually taught it is rude to stare at people, especially those markedly different from themselves. Extended gazes are unsettling and even offensive. This is not true, however, in all cultures. When Keith, pictured above, was in China several years ago, he had to acclimate to this cultural difference. Since he stood out as markedly different; lighter-skinned, bald, taller, and larger than the average Chinese, he would regularly catch people staring at him, and many were doing so quite openly and obviously. If he had simply interpreted this staring according to his own culture, he would have drawn the conclusion that Chinese people were very rude. Since Keith knew from various travel books of this cultural difference, he was able to understand their behavior was perfectly appropriate within the context of their culture. If he had not learned about the culture, he might have experienced even greater culture shock. This term refers to the discomfort felt when interacting in a new environment with few familiar cues to guide our communication behaviors (Martin & Nakayama, 2018).

                      Cultures do not have static sets of beliefs and values; instead, they evolve over time. In the U.S., we have seen large cultural shifts in the past 50 years. Sexual mores have changed quite dramatically, as have our attitudes about individual rights. While in the past, women were restricted to a narrow range of careers, today, we assume men and women are equally able to pursue the career of their choice. Attitudes toward minorities and immigrants continue to evolve. During the past ten years, the changes in attitudes toward sexuality and the civil rights of same-sex couples have been quite striking.  

                      Another important component of worldview is determined by an individual’s co-culture.

                       

                      Co-Culture

                      It is important to know that a broad culture, like the United States, India, and other countries or societies, will also have a number of smaller cultural groups, sometimes called co-cultures, operating within it. A co-culture is an identifiable group with its own unique traits operating within the larger culture. For example, Keith’s wife and her sister can talk for hours about all sorts of relationship issues with co-workers, with family members, and with friends while he finds such extensive conversations exhausting. Since female communication is normally more focused on relationship development and maintenance, such conversations are consistent with the feminine communication style. The masculine style is more focused on action and the bare details of events, who did what to whom, and not as focused on the nuances of relational dynamics. As someone who uses the masculine style, once Keith gets the basic details, he thinks he is informed and does not feel a need to dissect the smaller details of the event. Note that the masculine and feminine communication styles are not based on biology; men can use a feminine style, and women can use a masculine style.  

                      In the United States, various co-cultures exist, including those identified by

                      • Age or generation, such as Baby Boomers, Generation X, teens, senior citizens
                      • Race or ethnicity, such as Native Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, Whites
                      • Differing abilities, such as a person who is deaf, a wheelchair user, or a person with Down syndrome
                      • Sex, such as male or female
                      • Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation, such as binary or LGBTQ+
                      • Religion, such as Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and so on
                      • Affiliation or interests, such as NASCAR fans, gamers, or even gang members
                      • Region of the country or city, such as urban north, deep south
                      • Occupation
                      • And many more

                       

                      North Dakota State Senator Richard Marcellais
                      North Dakota State Senator Richard Marcellais. Source: “Romesha Reception 12” by North Dakota National Guard is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                       

                      Our verbal and nonverbal communication are influenced by our co-culture. Consider:

                      • The use of specific gestures, colors, and styles of dress in inner-city gangs;
                      • The classic Southern Accent;
                      • The use of regional sayings, such as “you betcha,” or “whatever” in rural Minnesota;
                      • The quiet nature of Native Americans who may prefer to listen and observe; and
                      • Use of terms such as popsoda, or coke to refer to carbonated beverages.

                       

                      A family in traditional wear at a Kwanzaa celebration
                      Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

                       

                      In your academic and work life, you will communicate with people from many different cultures and co-cultures. These variations in lifestyle, communication behaviors, values, beliefs, art, food, and such provide a rich quilt of human experience, and for the individual who can accept and appreciate these differences, it is an invigorating experience to move among them.

                       

                      Intercultural Communication

                      Intercultural communication occurs when two or more individuals who are from different cultures or co-cultures interact. Conducting business with a person from another country is one example of intercultural communication. Communication with a person from a different age group, ethnicity, or gender can also be considered intercultural communication. In other words, intercultural communication is human communication.   

                      The Council of Europe states the importance of intercultural communication very effectively:

                      Mutual understanding and intercultural competence are more important than ever today because through them we can address some of the most virulent problems of contemporary societies. Manifestations of prejudice, discrimination, and hate speech have become common, and political parties advocating extremist ideas have gained fresh momentum. These problems are linked to ... misunderstandings between people from different cultural backgrounds and affiliations. There is a felt urgency –  for education that allows citizens to live together in culturally diverse societies. The ability to understand and communicate with each other across all kinds of cultural divisions is a prerequisite for making such societies work. For this reason, intercultural education can make an essential contribution to peaceful coexistence. (Barrett)

                         

                        Exercises

                        1. Answer the question, “who are you.” In a group, discuss your answers. How many cultures or co-cultures could you identify during your discussion.
                        2. Media: Watch and discuss this video of an intercultural couple as they discuss how they negotiate cultural differences. Particularly, a Japanese man and a white U.S. American woman discuss their differences. What We Argue About| Japanese/American Marriage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0reQCDL968)
                        3. Media: Watch and discuss this video. Miles Best talks to an author about Black culture and how it is American culture. Language is discussed, as well as other parts of Black culture. Black Culture in the United States (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmdE_FlSfig)

                         

                        References

                        Barrett, Martyn, Michael Byram, Ildikò Lázár, Pascale Mompoint-Gaillard, Stavroula Philippou. Developing Intercultural Competence Through Educationhttps://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.ne...OHF5GGSLRBV4ZA. 16 Jan. 2013.

                        Bennett, M.J. (2011). A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. Intercultural Development Research Institute. Retrieved 4/4/2017 from www.idrinstitute.org/allegati...o_Bennett_DMIS 12pp_quotes_rev_2011.pdf

                        Verderber, K.S., & MacGeorge, E.L. (2016). Inter-Act: Interpersonal communication concepts, skills, and contexts. New York: Oxford University Press.

                        5.2 Understanding Cultural Differences

                        (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                         

                        In this section, we will look at cultural differences through the lenses of German psychologist Geert Hofstede, American anthropologist Edward Hall, and Scottish Business Professor Charles Tidwell. By gaining a rough understanding of different cultures, we can learn what to expect and how to interact with citizens of our diverse, multicultural society.

                         

                        Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture 

                        Psychologist Geert Hofstede published his cultural dimensions model at the end of the 1970s. Since then, it’s become an internationally recognized standard for understanding cultural differences. Hofstede studied people who worked for IBM in more than 50 countries and identified six dimensions that could distinguish one culture from another. These six dimensions are individualism vs. collectivism; high power distance vs. low power distance; high certainty avoidance vs. low certainly avoidance; long-term vs. short-term orientation; masculine vs. feminine; and indulgence vs. restraint.

                        Individualism and Collectivism

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of individualism and collectivism.
                         

                        Put simply, you can think of an individualistic culture as an I culture where members are able to make choices based on personal preference with little regard for others, except for close family or significant relationships. They can pursue their own wants and needs free from concerns about meeting social expectations. The United States is a highly individualistic culture. While we value the role of certain aspects of collectivism, such as government and social organizations, at our core, we strongly believe it is up to each person to find and follow their path in life.

                        In a highly collectivistic culture, a we culture, just the opposite is true. It is the role of individuals to fulfill their place in the overall social order. Personal wants and needs are secondary to the needs of society at large. There is immense pressure to adhere to social norms, and those who fail to conform risk social isolation, disconnection from family, and perhaps some form of banishment. China is typically considered a highly collectivistic culture. In China, multigenerational homes are common, and tradition calls for the oldest son to care for his parents as they age.

                        High Power-Distance and Low Power-Distance

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of High-Power and Low-Power Distance.
                         

                        Power is a normal feature of any relationship or society. How power is perceived, however, varies among cultures. In high power-distance cultures, the members accept some having more power and some having less power and accept that this power distribution is natural and normal. Those with power are assumed to deserve it, and likewise, those without power are assumed to be in their proper place. In such a culture, there will be a rigid adherence to the use of titles, “Sir,” “Ma’am,” “Officer,” “Reverend,” and so on. The directives of those with higher power are to be obeyed, with little question.

                        In low power-distance cultures, the distribution of power is considered far more arbitrary and viewed as a result of luck, money, heritage, or other external variables. Those in power are far more likely to be challenged in a low power-distance culture than they would in a high power-distance culture. A wealthy person is typically seen as more powerful in western cultures. Elected officials, like United States Senators, will be seen as powerful since they had to win their office by receiving majority support. However, individuals who attempt to assert power are often faced with those who stand up to them, question them, ignore them, or otherwise refuse to acknowledge their power. While some titles may be used, they will be used far less than in high power-distance culture. For example, in colleges and universities in the U.S., it is far more common for students to address their instructors on a first-name basis and engage in casual conversation on personal topics. In contrast, in a high power-distance culture like Japan, the students rise, and bow as the teacher enters the room, address them formally at all times, and rarely engage in any personal conversation.

                        High Uncertainty Avoidance and Low Uncertainty Avoidance

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of High and Low Uncertainty Avoidance.
                         

                        This index shows the degree to which people accept or avoid something that is strange, unexpected, or different from the status quo.

                        Societies with high uncertainty avoidance choose strict rules, guidelines, and behavior codes. They usually depend on absolute truths or the idea that only one truth decides all proper conduct. High uncertainty avoidance cultures limit change and place a very high value on history, doing things as they have been done in the past, and honoring stable cultural norms.

                        Low uncertainty avoidance cultures see change is seen as inevitable and normal. These cultures are more accepting of contrasting opinions or beliefs. Society is less strict, and lack of certainty is more acceptable. In a low uncertainty avoidance culture, innovation in all areas is valued. Businesses in the U.S. that can change rapidly, innovate quickly, and respond immediately to market and social pressures are seen as far more successful. Even though the U.S. is generally low in uncertainty avoidance, we can see some evidence of a degree of higher uncertainty avoidance related to certain social issues. As society changes, there are many who will decry the changes as they are “forgetting the past,” “dishonoring our forebears,” or “abandoning sacred traditions.” In the controversy over same-sex marriage, the phrase “traditional marriage” is used to refer to a two-person, heterosexual marriage, suggesting same-sex marriage is a violation of tradition. Changing social norms creates uncertainty, and for many, changes are very unsettling.

                        Long-Term Orientation and Short-Term Orientation 

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of Long-Term and Short-Term Orientation.
                         

                        People and cultures view time in different ways. For some, the “here and now” is paramount, and for others, “saving for a rainy day” is the dominant view.

                        In a long-term culture, significant emphasis is placed on planning for the future. For example, the savings rates in France and Germany are 2-4 times greater than in the U.S., suggesting cultures with more of a “plan ahead” mentality (Pasquali & Aridas, 2012). These long-term cultures see change and social evolution are normal, integral parts of the human condition.

                        In a short-term culture, emphasis is placed far more on the “here and now.” Immediate needs and desires are paramount, with longer-term issues left for another day. The U.S. falls more into this type. Legislation tends to be passed to handle immediate problems, and it can be challenging for lawmakers to convince voters of the need to look at issues from a long-term perspective. With the fairly easy access to credit, consumers are encouraged to buy now versus waiting. We see evidence of the need to establish “absolute Truth” in our political arena on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and gun control. Our culture does not tend to favor middle grounds in which truth is not clear-cut.

                        Masculine and Feminine 

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of Masculinity and Femininity.
                         

                        Expectations for gender roles are a core component of any culture. All cultures have some sense of what it means to be a “man” or a “woman.” Masculine cultures are traditionally seen as more aggressive and domineering, while feminine cultures are traditionally seen as more nurturing and caring.

                        In a masculine culture, such as the U.S., winning is highly valued. We respect and honor those who demonstrate power and high degrees of competence. Consider the role of competitive sports such as football, basketball, or baseball, and how the rituals of identifying the best are significant events. The 2017 Super Bowl had 111 million viewers (Huddleston, 2017), and the World Series regularly receives high ratings, with the final game in 2016 ending at the highest rating in ten years (Perez, 2016).

                        More feminine societies, such as those in the Scandinavian countries, will certainly have their sporting moments. However, the culture is far more structured to provide aid and support to citizens, focusing their energies on providing a reasonable quality of life for all (Hofstede, 2012b).

                        Indulgence and Restraint

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of indulgence and restraint.
                         

                        A more recent addition to Hofstede’s dimensions of culture, the indulgence/restraint continuum addresses the degree of rigidity of social norms of behavior. He states:

                        Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms (Hofstede, 2012a).

                        Indulgent cultures are comfortable with individuals acting on their more basic human drives. Sexual mores are less restrictive, and one can act more spontaneously than in cultures of restraint. Those in indulgent cultures will tend to communicate fewer messages of judgment and evaluation. Every spring, thousands of U.S. college students flock to places like Cancun, Mexico, to engage in a week of fairly indulgent behavior. Feeling free from the social expectations of home, many will engage in some intense partying, sexual activity, and fairly limitless behaviors.

                        Cultures of restraint, such as many Islamic countries, have rigid social expectations of behavior that can be quite narrow. Guidelines on dress, food, drink, and behaviors are rigid and may even be formalized in law. In the U.S., a generally indulgent culture, there are sub-cultures that are more restraint-focused. The Amish are highly restrained by social norms, but so too can be inner-city gangs. Areas of the country, like Utah with its large Mormon culture, or the Deep South with its large evangelical Christian culture, are more restrained than areas such as San Francisco or New York City. Rural areas often have more rigid social norms than do urban areas. Those in more restraint-oriented cultures will identify those not adhering to these norms, placing pressure on them, either openly or subtly, to conform to social expectations.

                         

                        Hall’s Cultural Variations

                        In addition to these six dimensions from Hofstede, anthropologist Edward T. Hall identified two more significant cultural variations (Raimo, 2008).

                        Monochronic and Polychronic

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of monochronic and polychronic cultures.
                         

                        Another aspect of variations in time orientation is the difference between monochronic and polychronic cultures. This refers to how people perceive and value time.

                        In a monochronic culture, like the U.S., time is viewed as linear, as a sequential set of finite time units. These units are a commodity, much like money, to be managed and used wisely; once the time is gone, it is gone and cannot be retrieved. Consider the language we use to refer to time: spending time, saving time, budgeting time, making time. These are the same terms and concepts we apply to money; time is a resource to be managed thoughtfully. Since we value time so highly, that means:

                        • Punctuality is valued. Since “time is money,” if a person runs late, they are wasting the resource.
                        • Scheduling is valued. Since time is finite, only so much is available; we need to plan how to allocate the resource. Monochronic cultures tend to let the schedule drive activity, much like money dictates what we can and cannot afford to do,
                        • Handling one task at a time is valued. Since time is finite and seen as a resource, monochronic cultures value fulfilling the time budget by doing what was scheduled. Compare this to a financial budget: funds are allocated for different needs, and we assume those funds should be spent on the item budgeted. In a monochronic culture, since time and money are virtually equivalent, adhering to the “time budget” is valued.
                        • Being busy is valued. Since time is a resource, we tend to view those who are busy as “making the most of their time;” they are seen as using their resources wisely.

                        In a polychronic culture like Spain, time is far, far more fluid. Schedules are more like rough outlines to be followed, altered, or ignored as events warrant. Relationship development is more important, and schedules do not drive activity. Multi-tasking is far more acceptable, as one can move between various tasks as demands change. In polychronic cultures, people make appointments, but there is more latitude for when they are expected to arrive. Someone's appointment may be at 10:15, but as long as they arrive sometime within the 10 o’clock hour, they are on time.

                        Consider a monochronic person attempting to do business in a polychronic culture. The monochronic person may expect meetings to start promptly on time, stay focused, and for work to be completed in a regimented manner to meet an established deadline. Yet those in a polychronic culture will not bring those same expectations to the encounter, sowing the seeds for some significant intercultural conflict.

                        High Context and Low Context 

                        This is a bar representing the two extremes of High and Low Context.
                         

                        The last variation in culture to consider is whether the culture is high context or low context. To establish a little background, consider how we communicate. When we communicate, we use a communication package consisting of all of our verbal and nonverbal communication. As you have learned, our verbal communication refers to our use of language, and our nonverbal communication refers to all other communication variables: body language, vocal traits, and dress.

                        In low-context cultures, verbal communication is given primary attention. The assumption is that people will say what they mean relatively directly and clearly. Little will be left for the receiver to interpret or imply. In the U.S., if someone does not want something, we expect them to say, “No.” While we certainly use nonverbal communication variables to get a richer sense of the meaning of the person’s message, we consider what they say to be the core, primary message. Those in a high-context culture find the directness of low-context cultures quite disconcerting, to the point of rudeness.

                        In high-context cultures, nonverbal communication is as important, if not more important, than verbal communication. How something is said is a significant variable in interpreting what is meant. Messages are often implied and delivered quite subtly. Japan is well known for the reluctance of people to use blunt messages, so they have far more subtle ways to indicate disagreement than a low-context culture. Those in low context cultures find these subtle, implied messages frustrating.

                        In summary, Hofstede’s Dimensions and Hall’s Cultural Variations give us some tools to use to identify, categorize, and discuss diversity in communication. As we learn to see these differences, we are better equipped to manage inter-cultural encounters, communicate more provisionally, and adapt to cultural variations.

                        Hofstede’s Dimensions and Hall’s Cultural Variations
                         

                        While intended to show only broad cultural differences, these eight variables also can be useful tools to identify variations among individuals within a given culture. We can use them to identify sources of conflict or tension within a given relationship, such as a marriage. For example, Keith tends to be a short-term oriented, indulgent, monochronic person, while his wife tends to be long-term oriented, restrained, and more polychronic. Needless to say, they frequently experience their own personal “culture clashes.”

                         

                        Tidwell’s Insights about Culture and Nonverbal Communication 

                        Dr. Charles Tidwell, professor of Intercultural Business Relations at Andrews University, has spent many years studying and teaching intercultural communication. He provides some valuable insights on cultural differences in dress, movements, gestures, eye contact, touch, and vocalizations. Following are notes published from his graduate course on Interpersonal Communication.

                        General Appearance and Dress

                        All cultures are concerned about how they look and make judgments based on looks and dress. Some Americans, for instance, appear almost obsessed with dress and personal attractiveness. But cultural standards on what is attractive in dress and on what constitutes modesty vary greatly. An interesting area to research is how clothing is used as a sign of status in different cultures.

                        Movements and Posture 

                        We send information on attitude toward a person by movements and posture (facing or leaning towards another), emotional states (tapping fingers, jiggling coins), and desire to control the environment (moving towards or away from a person). There are more than 700,000 possible motions we can make — so it is impossible to categorize them all! But just be aware that body movement and position are key ingredients in sending messages. Consider the following actions and note cultural differences:              

                        • Slouching (seen as rude in most Northern European areas)
                        • Hands in the pocket (disrespectful in Turkey)
                        • Sitting with legs crossed (offensive in Ghana, Turkey)
                        • Showing soles of feet. (offensive in Thailand, Saudi Arabia)
                        • Even in the U.S., there is a considerable difference in acceptable posture

                        Gestures  

                        It is impossible to catalog them all. But we need to recognize that an acceptable gesture in one’s own culture may be offensive in another. In addition, the amount of gesturing varies from culture to culture. Some cultures are animated; others are restrained. Restrained cultures often feel animated cultures lack manners and overall restraint. Animated cultures often feel restrained cultures lack emotion or interest. Even simple things like using hands to point and count differ. People in the U.S. point with the index finger, Germany with the little finger, and the Japanese with the entire hand (in fact, most Asians consider pointing with the index finger rude). In counting with the fingers, Germans use the thumb to indicate the number 1; the middle finger is the symbol for 1 in Indonesia.

                        Facial Expressions

                        While many facial expressions such as smiling, crying, or showing anger, sorrow, or disgust are recognized worldwide, the intensity varies from culture to culture. Many Asian cultures suppress facial expressions as much as possible. Many Mediterranean (Latino / Arabic) cultures exaggerate grief or sadness, while most American men hide grief or sorrow. Some see “animated” expressions as a sign of a lack of control. Too much smiling is viewed as a sign of shallowness in some cultures. Women smile more than men.

                        Eye Contact and Gaze

                        In the USA, eye contact indicates our degree of attention or interest, regulates interaction, communicates emotion, defines power and status, and has a central role in managing the impressions of others. Western cultures see direct eye to eye contact as positive and advise children to look a person in the eyes. But within the USA, differences exist. For example, African-Americans use more eye contact when talking and less when listening, with the reverse being true for Anglo-Americans.  

                        • Arabic cultures make prolonged eye contact and believe it shows interest and helps them understand the truthfulness of the other person. (A person who doesn’t reciprocate is seen as untrustworthy)
                        • Japan, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean — avoid eye contact to show respect.

                        Touch

                        Touch is culturally determined! The basic pattern is that cultures with high emotional restraint concepts (English, German, Scandinavian, Chinese, Japanese)  have little public touch; those which encourage emotion (Latino, Middle-East, Jewish) accept frequent touches. But each culture has a clear concept of what parts of the body one may not touch. The basic message of touch is to show affection or to control others  (i.e., hug, kiss, hit, kick). But rules for touch vary greatly, as shown below:

                        • Traditional Koreans (and many other Asian countries) don’t touch strangers., especially members of the opposite sex.  
                        • Islamic and Hindu Cultures:  typically don’t touch with the left hand. To do so is a social insult. The left hand is for toilet functions. It is mannerly in India to break your bread only with your right hand (sometimes difficult for non-Indians)
                        • Islamic cultures generally don’t approve of any touching between genders (even handshakes). But consider such touching (including hand-holding, hugs) between same-sex to be appropriate.
                        • Many Asians don’t touch the head. (The head houses the soul, and a touch puts it in jeopardy).

                        Vocalizations 

                        Vocal characterizers such as a laugh, cry, yell, moan, whine, belch, and yawn send different messages in different cultures. (Japan — giggling indicates embarrassment; India – belch indicates satisfaction)  Other vocal qualifiers (volume, pitch, rhythm, tempo, and tone) also vary. Loudness indicates strength in Arabic cultures, and softness indicates weakness; indicates confidence and authority to the Germans; indicates impoliteness to the Thais; indicates loss of control to the Japanese. (Generally, one learns not to “shout” in Asia for nearly any reason!). Loudness is gender-based as well: women tend to speak higher and more softly than men.

                         

                        5.3 Barriers to Intercultural Communication

                        (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                         

                        Most of us can appreciate the importance of intercultural communication, yet several stumbling blocks may get in the way of a positive intercultural communication experience. Some of the most common ones are anxiety, 

                         

                        Anxiety

                        It is not unusual to experience some level of discomfort in communicating with individuals from other cultures or co-cultures. It may be that we feel as though we will do or say the wrong thing. This can make the interaction awkward or can lead us to avoid opportunities for intercultural communication. Although not as detrimental as ethnocentrism or stereotypes, anxiety can prevent us from making intercultural connections that will enrich our lives.

                         

                        Assumption of Similarities

                        Although you know differently, many people mistakenly assume that simply being human makes everyone alike. However, as we’ve discussed, values, beliefs, and attitudes can vary vastly from culture to culture. Those who assume a person from another cultural background is just like them will often misread or misinterpret and perhaps even be offended by any intercultural encounter. In intercultural communication, assume differences in communication style will exist that you may be unaware of. It is important to avoid interpreting another individual’s behavior through your own cultural lens.

                         

                        Ethnocentrism

                        Where did you start reading on this page? The top left corner. Why not the bottom right corner or the top right one? In English, we read left to right, from the top of the page to the bottom. But not everyone reads the same. If you read and write Arabic or Hebrew, you will proceed from right to left. Neither is right or wrong, simply different. Americans tend to say that people from England drive on the “wrong” side of the road, rather than on the “other” side. You may find it hard to drive on the other side of the road while visiting England, but for people in the United Kingdom, it is normal and natural. A high level of appreciation for one’s own culture can be healthy; a shared sense of community pride, for example, connects people in a society. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures and could cause misunderstanding and conflict. Ethnocentrism assumes our culture or co-culture is superior to or more important than others and evaluates all other cultures against it. To dismantle ethnocentrism, we must recognize that our views of the world, what we consider right and wrong, normal or weird, are largely influenced by our cultural standpoint and that our cultural standpoint is not everyone’s cultural standpoint. This ethnocentric bias has received some challenge recently in United States’ schools as teachers make efforts to create a multicultural classroom by incorporating books, short stories, and traditions from non-dominant groups.

                        Ethnocentrism shows up in large and small ways. A “small” way might be in disdain for other cultures’ or co-cultures’ food preferences. Some individuals express disgust at other cultures’ eating meat from a dog or guinea pig, for example, while they don’t question their own habit of eating cows or pigs. A “large” and one of the most horrific examples of ethnocentrism in history can be seen is in the Nazi’s elevation of the Aryan race in World War II and the corresponding killing of Jews, Gypsies, gays and lesbians, and other non-Aryan groups. 

                         

                        Stereotypes

                        Stereotypes are oversimplified ideas about groups of people. Stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation — almost any characteristic. They may be positive, such as all Asian students are good at math, but are most often negative, such as all overweight people are lazy. Stereotyping is a generalization that doesn’t take individual differences into account.  

                        Stereotypes are frequently expressed on TV, in movies, chat rooms and blogs, and in conversations with friends and family. Further research has found that stereotypes are often used outside of our awareness, making it very difficult to correct them. And when we are distracted or under time pressure, these tendencies become even more powerful (Stangor & Duan, 1991). Still, it’s crucial to try to recognize our own stereotypic thinking. Treating individuals according to rigid stereotypic beliefs is detrimental to all aspects of the communication process and can lead to prejudice and discrimination.

                         

                        Prejudice 

                        Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group, such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, religion, sexual orientation, profession, and many more (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). An example of prejudice is having a negative attitude toward people who are not born in the United States and disliking them because of their status as “foreigners.”

                        Because it is often difficult to recognize our own prejudices, several tests have been created to help us recognize our own “implicit” or hidden biases. The most well-known implicit measure of prejudice—the Implicit Association Test (IAT)—is frequently used to assess stereotypes and prejudice (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2007). In the IAT, participants are asked to classify stimuli that they view on a computer screen into one of two categories by pressing one of two computer keys, one with their left hand and one with their right hand. Furthermore, the categories are arranged such that the responses to be answered with the left and right buttons either “fit with” (match) the stereotype or do not “fit with” (mismatch) the stereotype.  

                         

                        A screenshot shows a portion of the Implicit Associations Test
                        IAT (Implicit Association Test) is designed to test a person’s reaction time (measured in milliseconds) to an array of stimuli that are presented on the screen. This particular item tests an individual’s unconscious reaction towards members of various ethnic groups. [Image: Courtesy of Anthony Greenwald from Project Implicit]. You can take the test at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/indexrk.htm.

                         

                        When our prejudices and stereotypes are unchallenged, they can lead to action in the forms of discrimination and even violence. Racial discrimination is discrimination against an individual based solely on membership in a specific racial group. There have been a number of shocking highly publicized instances in which African-Americans were killed by vigilantes or law enforcement, one of the more disturbing being the case of George Floyd. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for over 8 minutes; almost 3 of those minutes were after Floyd was unconscious. (Dovidio et al., 2010). And in late 2020, “the United Nations issued a report that detailed “an alarming level” of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian Americans.” According to a Pew Research Report, “32% of Asian adults say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them...with the majority of Asian adults (81%) saying violence against them is increasing. (Pew Research Center, Ap. 11, 2021)  Mexican Americans and other Latinx groups are also targets, both of citizens and police. (Dovidio et al., 2010) 

                        Discussions about stereotypes, prejudice, racism, and discrimination are unsettling to some. However, we must recognize these attributes in ourselves and others before we can take steps to challenge and change their existence.

                           

                          Exercises

                          For Discussion

                          1. Have you ever felt as though you were stereotyped? Explain when this happened and how it made you feel. Have you ever been guilty of stereotyping others, perhaps unintentionally?
                          2. Discuss examples of stereotypes you have read about or seen in media.
                          3. If you would like to develop more understanding of prejudice, see some of the short videos at undertandingprejudice.org at this link:https://secure.understandingprejudice.org/multimedia/
                          4. What are some forms of discrimination other than racial discrimination? Have you ever experienced or witnessed what you thought was discrimination? Explain.

                          Activities: Experiencing Intercultural Barriers Through Media

                          1. Activity 1: When watching the following video, notice all of the stereotypes people who are native to Alaska face and think about how you’d approach a conversation with someone from the area. Try to consider the situation from another perspective.
                          2. What People Get Wrong About Alaska Natives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDU4PkSqWsQ
                          3. Multimedia: Comedian and news anchor Trevor Noah discusses trying a taco for the first time. More importantly, look at the misunderstanding that happens in the use of language in the clip. Think about whether you may have had misunderstandings like these with friends from other cultures. Trevor Noah: That’s Racist - Tacoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDk5ajNDgZc&list=TLPQMTEwMTIwMjBTkibtm_xuXQ&index=2
                          4. Multimedia: Biracial actresses from Sister, Sister discuss their marriages. One of the twins is married to an African American man, and the other is married to a white man. Think about your own experience with interracial couples or even your own experience being part of an interracial couple. How do you react when you hear such things? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngwvHYqYGS0
                          5. Ethnocentrism and Mobility - Read the article “The Inevitability of Ethnocentrism Revisited: Ethnocentrism Diminishes As Mobility Increases,” located at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4672305/. What does the article say about in-group and out-groups? How does mobility reduce out-group hostility? Does traveling help reduce ethnocentrism?

                           

                          References

                          Chung, L. (2019). Crossing boundaries: Cross-cultural communication. In K. D. Keith (Ed.), Cross-cultural psychology: Contemporary themes and perspectives (pp. 400-420). Wiley.

                          Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday.

                          Intercultural Conflict Management. Butte College, 10 Sept. 2020, https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/58206

                          Ruiz, Neil, Khadidijah Edwards, and Mark Lopez. Pew Research Center, 21 April 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...hem-is-rising/

                          5.4 Cultural Communication Competence

                          (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                           

                          Hofstede, Hall, and Tidwell’s insights are particularly helpful in understanding broad cultural differences. However, we are also engaged in intercultural communication when we are communicating with people of a different race, age, and gender than our own. In this section, we will share thoughts on co-cultural communication and explain the characteristics of intercultural communication competence.

                           

                          Co-Cultural Communication

                          Hofstede, Hall, and Tidwell’s insights are particularly helpful in understanding broad cultural differences. However, we are also engaged in intercultural communication when we are communicating with people of different races, ages, and genders than our own. When you are communicating with what you perceive as a different co-culture than your own, here are some things to keep in mind.

                          Age or Generational Differences

                          Age and generational differences show up in family relationships, in the classroom, and in the workplace. For example, teenage children and their parents or grandparents may have differences of opinion about many issues. Remember the “OK, Boomer” phenomenon from 2019? This phrase was used whenever younger people wanted to ignore or dismiss something a person of an older generation said. Can you think of behaviors or even words that may be demeaning to people of a different generation than your own? 

                          Race 

                          Sometimes individuals don’t communicate with people of different races because they haven’t experienced such friendships before, and so there is uncertainty. Talk with people from different races backgrounds, and ask about experiences. With people who are of different backgrounds, listen and then believe their experience, and understand privilege. Even things as simple as the emoji for a thumbs up tend to be first in a white skin tone, but brown skin tone emojis exist as well. Know that bias can creep into conversations, but understand that, apologize for it, and make a commitment to change behaviors.

                          Gender

                          Think critically about your own attitudes toward gender roles. Just because a woman takes on more traditionally feminine roles in a relationship doesn’t mean it’s wrong unless she doesn’t want to do so. It’s not wrong if a male and female attend a movie together and the male cries, but the female doesn’t. Remember, self-expression can come in different modes for people.

                          Differing Abilities 

                          People who have a disability should be addressed as you would address anyone else. If someone appears to have cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair, and has an attendant to help facilitate communication, converse and make eye contact with the person using the wheelchair, not with the attendant. When someone who you perceive to have Down syndrome orders food at a restaurant, ask that person, not others, what they want. Expect people with a disability to be able to function independently until they ask for help. When someone who is blind is walking down the hall, don’t grab their arm. Rather, if it appears if they need help, ask them if they need it. When communicating with a person who is deaf, make lots of eye contact, and feel free to write something down on paper if other ways of communicating aren’t working. Sign language interpreters often help in larger-group situations; however, once again, make eye contact and converse with the person who is deaf, not with the interpreter.

                           

                          Developing Intercultural Communication Competence

                          The best intercultural communicators are open-minded people who are genuinely interested in other cultures, who take the time to learn about other cultures and co-cultures, and who take the opportunity to engage with and listen to others. Intercultural communication competence is a combination of attitudes, knowledge, understanding, and skills applied that allows us to:

                          • understand and respect people who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations from ourselves, 
                          • interact appropriately, effectively, and respectfully with them,
                          • establish positive and constructive relationships, and
                          • understand our own multiple cultural affiliations and how these affiliations may affect our own attitudes and behaviors.

                          Taking the time to learn about other cultures can improve intercultural competence. Many people begin by asking questions or doing research on a particular culture or co-culture. Food is also a great way to find out about a culture, so consider visiting international restaurants. Find out if an international club exists at your college and, if so, join it. Participating in study abroad programs is yet another way to learn about different cultures. 

                           

                          Exercises

                          1. Select and watch one of these videos on bridging cultural differences. https://www.ted.com/playlists/411/bridging_cultural_differences  After you select a video, write and submit your answers to the following questions:
                            • Explain why you selected this video. For example, what about the video drew your attention?
                            • What specific culture or co-culture did the speaker in the video represent?
                            • What were the most important points that the speaker made or attempted to make in this video? What did you learn as a result?
                            • What is your reaction to this video? In what way might you use this knowledge or understanding you gained?
                          2. Think of suggestions you might add to those for the Co-Cultural Communication section. Was a co-culture that has been left out that you think should be added? Explain.
                          3. American Dream Quiz: A recent quiz was created about “privilege” to determine how many roadblocks people have encountered on their search for the American Dream. Do the quiz, located at https://movingupusa.com/calc/. What was your score, and were you surprised? How many of the things that you consider roadblocks have been within your control?
                          4. Teen Vogue asks six women about Halloween costumes that co-opt their cultures. See their answers and views on cultural appropriation here: https://youtu.be/d6Y5cARFJw8.

                           

                          References

                          Karasawa, M., Curhan, K. B., Markus, H. R., Kitayama, S. S., Love, G. D., Radler, B. T. & Ruff, C. D. (2011). Cultural perspectives on aging and well-being: A comparison of Japan and the U.S. Int J Aging Hum Dev. 73(1): Pp. 73–98.

                          Rockson, T. (2019). Use your difference to make a difference: How to connect and communicate in a cross-cultural world. Wiley.

                          Tidwell, Charles, Ph.D. Dean Emeritus. Notes are from BSAD560, Intercultural Business Relations, a graduate course offered as an elective in the MBA program at Andrews University. Andrews University. 

                          Working with cross-cultural couples: Unexplored issues in therapy [Video file]. (2018). Retrieved February 8, 2020, from https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlayl...55&xtid=183978

                          5.5 The Ethics Pyramid

                          (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                           

                          Ethics Today

                          Every day, people around the world make ethical decisions regarding public speech. Is it ever appropriate to lie to a group of people if it’s in the group’s best interest? As a speaker, should you use evidence within a speech that you are not sure is correct if it supports the speech’s core argument? As a listener, should you refuse to listen to a speaker with whom you fundamentally disagree? These three examples represent ethical choices speakers and listeners face in the public speaking context. We will explore what it means to be both an ethical speaker and an ethical listener. 

                           

                          ethics drawing

                          Dannon Loveland – ETHICS – CC BY 2.0.

                           

                          The word “ethics” can mean different things to different people. Whether it is an ethical lapse in business or politics or a disagreement about medical treatments and end-of-life choices, people come into contact with ethical dilemmas regularly. Speakers and listeners of public speech face numerous ethical dilemmas as well. What kinds of support material and sources are ethical to use? How much should a speaker adapt to an audience without sacrificing their own views? What makes a speech ethical?

                           

                          Figure 5.5.1 Ethical Pyramid

                          An Ethical Pyramid: Ends, Means, and Intent

                           

                          Elspeth Tilley, a public communication ethics expert from Massey University, proposes a structured approach to thinking about ethics (Tilley, 2005). Her ethics pyramid involves three basic concepts: intent, means, and ends. Figure 5.5.1 illustrates the Tilley pyramid.

                           

                          Intent

                          According to Tilley, the first major consideration to be aware of when examining the ethicality of something is the issue of intent. To be an ethical speaker or listener, it is important to begin with ethical intentions. For example, if we agree that honesty is ethical, it follows that ethical speakers will prepare their remarks with the intention of telling the truth to their audiences. Similarly, if we agree that it is ethical to listen with an open mind, it follows that ethical listeners will be intentional about letting a speaker make their case before forming judgments.

                          One option for assessing intent is to talk with others about how ethical they think a behavior is; if you get a variety of answers, it might be a sign that the behavior is not ethical and should be avoided. A second option is to check out existing codes of ethics. Many professional organizations, including the Independent Computer Consultants Association, American Counseling Association, and American Society of Home Inspectors, have codes of conduct or ethical guidelines for their members. Individual corporations such as Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Intel, and ConocoPhillips also have ethical guidelines for how their employees should interact with suppliers or clients. Even when specific ethical codes are not present, you can apply general ethical principles, such as whether a behavior is beneficial for the majority or whether you would approve of the same behavior if you were listening to a speech instead of giving it.

                          In addition, it is important to be aware that people can engage in unethical behavior unintentionally. For example, suppose we agree that it is unethical to take someone else’s words and pass them off as your own—a behavior known as plagiarism. What happens if a speaker makes a statement that they believe they thought of on their own, but they forgot they heard the statement on the radio? The plagiarism was unintentional, but does that make it ethical?

                           

                          Means

                          Tilley describes the means you use to communicate with others as the second level of the ethics pyramid. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003), “means” are the tools or behaviors we employ to achieve the desired outcome. We must realize that there is a range of possible behavioral choices for any situation and that some choices are good, some are bad, and some fall in between.

                          For example, suppose you want your friend Marty to spend an hour reviewing a draft of your speech according to criteria, such as audience appropriateness, adequate research, strong support of assertions, and dynamic introduction and conclusion. What means might you use to persuade Marty to do you this favor? You might explain that you value Marty’s opinion and will gladly return the favor the next time Marty is preparing a speech (good means), or you might threaten to tell a professor that Marty cheated on a test (bad means). While both of these means may lead to the same end—having Marty agree to review your speech—one is clearly more ethical than the other.

                           

                          Ends

                          The final part of the ethics pyramid is the ends. According to McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond (McCroskey, Wrench, & Richmond, 2003), ends are those outcomes that you desire to achieve. Examples of ends might include persuading your audience to make a financial contribution for your participation in Relay for Life, persuading a group of homeowners that your real estate agency would best meet their needs, or informing your fellow students about newly required university fees. Whereas the means are the behavioral choices we make, the ends are the results of those choices.

                          Like intentions and means, ends can be good or bad, or they can fall into a gray area where it is unclear just how ethical or unethical they are. For example, suppose a city council wants to balance the city’s annual budget. Balancing the budget may be a good end, assuming that the city has adequate tax revenues and areas of discretionary spending for nonessential services for the year in question. However, voters might argue that balancing the budget is a bad end if the city lacks these things for the year in question. In that case, balancing the budget would require raising taxes, curtailing essential city services, or both.

                          When examining ends, we need to think about both the source and the receiver of the message or behavior. Some end results could be good for the source but bad for the receiver, or vice versa. Suppose, for example, that a club is raffling off dancing lessons. You buy a ten-dollar raffle ticket. However, you later think it over and realize you have no desire to take dancing lessons and that if you should win the raffle, you will never take the lessons. The club has gained ten dollars—a good end—but you have lost ten dollars—a bad end. Again, the ethical standards you and your audience expect to be met will help in deciding whether a particular combination of speaker and audience ends is ethical.

                           

                          Thinking through the Pyramid

                          Ultimately, understanding ethics is a matter of balancing all three parts of the ethical pyramid: intent, means, and ends. When thinking about the ethics of a given behavior, Tilley recommends asking yourself three basic questions:

                          1. “Have I discussed the ethicality of the behavior with others and come to a general consensus that the behavior is ethical?”
                          2. “Does the behavior adhere to known codes of ethics?”
                          3. “Would I be happy if the outcomes of the behavior were reversed and applied to me?” (Tilley, 2005)

                          While you do not need to ask yourself these three questions before enacting every behavior as you go through a day, they do provide a useful framework for thinking through a behavior when you are not sure whether a given action or statement may be unethical. Ultimately, understanding ethics is a matter of balancing all three parts of the ethical pyramid: intent, means, and ends. 

                           

                          References

                          McCroskey, J. C., Wrench, J. S., & Richmond, V. P. (2003). Principles of public speaking. Indianapolis, IN: The College Network.

                          Tilley, E. (2005). The ethics pyramid: Making ethics unavoidable in the public relations process. Journal of Mass Media Ethics20, 305–320.

                          5.6 Ethics in Public Speaking

                          (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                           

                          The study of ethics in human communication is hardly a recent endeavor. One of the earliest discussions of ethics in communication (and particularly in public speaking) was conducted by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus. In the centuries since Plato’s time, an entire subfield within the discipline of human communication has developed to explain and understand communication ethics.

                           

                          Communication Code of Ethics

                          In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication (see the text box). Ultimately, the NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication.

                           

                          National Communication Association Credo for Ethical Communication

                          Questions of right and wrong arise whenever people communicate. Ethical communication is fundamental to responsible thinking, decision making, and the development of relationships and communities within and across contexts, cultures, channels, and media. Moreover, ethical communication enhances human worth and dignity by fostering truthfulness, fairness, responsibility, personal integrity, and respect for self and others. We believe that unethical communication threatens the quality of all communication and consequently the well-being of individuals and the society in which we live. Therefore we, the members of the National Communication Association, endorse and are committed to practicing the following principles of ethical communication:

                          • We advocate truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication.
                          • We endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision-making fundamental to a civil society.
                          • We strive to understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.
                          • We promote access to communication resources and opportunities as necessary to fulfill human potential and contribute to the well-being of families, communities, and society.
                          • We promote communication climates of caring and mutual understanding that respect the unique needs and characteristics of individual communicators.
                          • We condemn communication that degrades individuals and humanity through distortion, intimidation, coercion, and violence, and through the expression of intolerance and hatred.
                          • We are committed to the courageous expression of personal convictions in pursuit of fairness and justice.
                          • We advocate sharing information, opinions, and feelings when facing significant choices while also respecting privacy and confidentiality.
                          • We accept responsibility for the short- and long-term consequences of our own communication and expect the same of others.

                          Source: http://www.natcom.org/Default.aspx?id=134&terms=Credo

                           

                          Applying the NCA Credo to Public Speaking

                          The NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is designed to inspire discussions of ethics related to all aspects of human communication. For our purposes, we want to think about each of these principles in terms of how they affect public speaking.

                          We Advocate Truthfulness, Accuracy, Honesty, and Reason as Essential to the Integrity of Communication

                           

                          A woman crossing her fingers behind her back

                          Carmella Fernando – Promise? – CC BY 2.0.

                           

                          As public speakers, one of the first ethical areas we should be concerned with is information honesty. While there are cases where speakers have blatantly lied to an audience, it is more common for speakers to prove a point by exaggerating, omitting facts that weigh against their message, or distorting information. We believe that speakers build a relationship with their audiences and that lying, exaggerating, or distorting information violates this relationship. Ultimately, a speaker will be more persuasive by using reason and logical arguments supported by facts rather than relying on emotional appeals designed to manipulate the audience.

                          It is also important to be honest about where all your information comes from in a speech. As speakers, examine your information sources and determine whether they are biased or have hidden agendas. For example, you are not likely to get accurate information about nonwhite individuals from a neo-Nazi website. While you may not know all your sources of information firsthand, you should attempt to find objective sources that do not have an overt or covert agenda that skews the argument you are making.

                          The second part of information honesty is to fully disclose where we obtain the information in our speeches. As ethical speakers, it is important to always cite your sources of information within the body of a speech. Whether you conducted an interview or read a newspaper article, you must tell your listeners where the information came from. Using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is called plagiarism. The word “plagiarism” stems from the Latin word plagiaries, or kidnapper. The American Psychological Association states in its publication manual that ethical speakers do not claim “words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due” (American Psychological Association, 2001).

                          In the previous sentence, we placed quotation marks around the sentence to indicate that the words came from the American Psychological Association and not from us. When speaking informally, people sometimes use “air quotes” to signal direct quotations—but this is not a recommended technique in public speaking. Instead, speakers need to verbally tell an audience when they are using someone else’s information. The consequences for failing to cite sources during public speeches can be substantial. When Senator Joseph Biden was running for president of the United States in 1988, reporters found that he had plagiarized portions of his stump speech from British politician Neil Kinnock. Biden was forced to drop out of the race as a result. More recently, the student newspaper at Malone University in Ohio alleged that the university president, Gary W. Streit, had plagiarized material in a public speech. Streit retired abruptly as a result.

                          Even if you are not running for president of the United States or serving as a college president, citing sources is important to you as a student. Many universities have policies that include dismissal from the institution for student plagiarism of academic work, including public speeches. Failing to cite your sources might result, at best, in lower credibility with your audience and, at worst, in a failing grade on your assignment or expulsion from your school. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of giving credit to the speakers and authors whose ideas we pass on within our own speeches and writing.

                          Speakers tend to fall into one of three major traps with plagiarism. The first trap is failing to tell the audience the source of a direct quotation. In the previous paragraph, we used a direct quotation from the American Psychological Association; if we had not used the quotation marks and clearly listed where the cited material came from, you, as a reader, wouldn’t have known the source of that information. To avoid plagiarism, you always need to tell your audience when you are directly quoting information within a speech.

                          The second plagiarism trap public speakers fall into is paraphrasing what someone else said or wrote without giving credit to the speaker or author. For example, you may have read a book and learned that there are three types of schoolyard bullying. In the middle of your speech, you talk about those three types of schoolyard bullying. If you do not tell your audience where you found that information, you are plagiarizing. Typically, the only information you do not need to cite is information that is general knowledge. General knowledge is information that is publicly available and widely known by a large segment of society. For example, you would not need to provide a citation within a speech for the name of Delaware’s capital. Although many people do not know the capital of Delaware without looking it up, this information is publicly available and easily accessible, so assigning credit to one specific source is not useful or necessary.

                          The third plagiarism trap that speakers fall into is re-citing someone else’s sources within a speech. To explain this problem, let’s look at a brief segment from a research paper written by Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam:

                          The main character on the hit Fox television show House, Dr. Gregory House, has one basic mantra, “It’s a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what” (Shore & Barclay, 2005). This notion that “everybody lies” is so persistent in the series that t-shirts have been printed with the slogan. Surprisingly, research has shown that most people do lie during interpersonal interactions to some degree. In a study conducted by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975), the researchers had 130 participants record their own conversations with others. After recording these conversations, the participants then examined the truthfulness of the statements within the interactions. Only 38.5% of the statements made during these interactions were labeled as “completely honest.”

                          In this example, we see that the authors of this paragraph cited information from two external sources: Shore and Barclay and Tummer, Edgley, and Olmstead. These two groups of authors are given credit for their ideas. The authors make it clear that they did not produce the television show House or conduct the study that found that only 38.5 percent of statements were completely honest. Instead, these authors cited information found in two other locations. This type of citation is appropriate.

                          However, if a speaker read the paragraph and said the following during a speech, it would be plagiarism: “According to Wrench DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam, in a study of 130 participants, only 38.5 percent of the responses were completely honest.” In this case, the speaker is attributing the information cited to the authors of the paragraph, which is not accurate. If you want to cite the information within your speech, you need to read the original article by Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead and cite that information yourself.

                          There are two main reasons we do this. First, Wrench, DiMartino, Ramirez, Oviedio, and Tesfamariam may have mistyped the information. Suppose the study by Turner, Edgley, and Olstead really actually found that 58.5 percent of the responses were completely honest. If you cited the revised number (38.5 percent) from the paragraph, you would be further spreading incorrect information.

                          The second reason we do not re-cite someone else’s sources within our speeches is that it’s intellectually dishonest. You owe your listeners an honest description of where the facts you are relating came from, not just the name of an author who cited those facts. It is more work to trace the original source of a fact or statistic, but by doing that extra work, you can avoid this plagiarism trap.

                          We Endorse Freedom of Expression, Diversity of Perspective, and Tolerance of Dissent to Achieve the Informed and Responsible Decision Making Fundamental to a Civil Society

                          This ethical principle affirms that a civil society depends on the freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent and that informed and responsible decisions can only be made if all members of society are free to express their thoughts and opinions. Further, it holds that diverse viewpoints, including those that disagree with accepted authority, are important for the functioning of a democratic society.

                          If everyone only listened to one source of information, then we would be easily manipulated and controlled. For this reason, we believe that individuals should be willing to listen to a range of speakers on a given subject. As listeners or consumers of communication, we should realize that this diversity of perspectives enables us to be more fully informed on a subject. Imagine voting in an election after listening only to the campaign speeches of one candidate. The perspective of that candidate would be so narrow that you would have no way to accurately understand and assess the issues at hand or the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing candidates. Unfortunately, some voters do limit themselves to listening only to their candidate of choice and, as a result, base their voting decisions on incomplete—and, not infrequently, inaccurate—information.

                          Listening to diverse perspectives includes being willing to hear dissenting voices. Dissent is by nature uncomfortable, as it entails expressing opposition to authority, often in very unflattering terms. Legal scholar Steven H. Shiffrin has argued in favor of some symbolic speech (e.g., flag burning) because we as a society value the ability of anyone to express their dissent against the will and ideas of the majority (Shiffrin, 1999). Ethical communicators will be receptive to dissent, no matter how strongly they may disagree with the speaker’s message, because they realize that a society that forbids dissent cannot function democratically.

                          Ultimately, honoring free speech and seeking out a variety of perspectives is very important for all listeners.

                          We Strive to Understand and Respect Other Communicators before Evaluating and Responding to Their Messages

                          This is another ethical characteristic that is specifically directed at receivers of a message. As listeners, we often let our perceptions of a speaker’s nonverbal behavior—their appearance, posture, mannerisms, eye contact, and so on—determine our opinions about a message before the speaker has said a word. We may also find ourselves judging a speaker based on information we have heard about them from other people. Perhaps you have heard from other students that a particular teacher is a really boring lecturer or is really entertaining in class. Even though you do not have personal knowledge, you may prejudge the teacher and their message based on the information you have been given from others. The NCA credo reminds us that to be ethical listeners, we need to avoid such judgments and instead make an effort to listen respectfully; only when we have understood a speaker’s viewpoint are we ready to begin forming our opinions of the message.

                          Listeners should try to objectively analyze the content and arguments within a speech before deciding how to respond. Especially when we disagree with a speaker, we might find it difficult to listen to the content of the speech and, instead, work on creating a rebuttal the entire time the speaker is talking. When this happens, we do not strive to understand the speaker and do not respect the speaker.

                          Of course, this does not just affect the listener in the public speaking situation. As speakers, we are often called upon to evaluate and refute potential arguments against our positions. While we always want our speeches to be as persuasive as possible, we do ourselves and our audiences a disservice when we downplay, distort, or refuse to mention important arguments from the opposing side. Fairly researching and evaluating counterarguments is an important ethical obligation for the public speaker.

                          We Promote Access to Communication Resources and Opportunities as Necessary to Fulfill Human Potential and Contribute to the Well-Being of Families, Communities, and Society

                          Human communication is a skill that can and should be taught. We strongly believe that you can become a better, more ethical speaker. One of the reasons the authors of this section teach courses in public speaking and write about public speaking is that we, as communication professionals, have an ethical obligation to provide others, including students like you, with resources and opportunities to become better speakers.

                          We Promote Communication Climates of Caring and Mutual Understanding That Respect the Unique Needs and Characteristics of Individual Communicators

                          Speakers need to take a two-pronged approach when addressing any audience: caring about the audience and understanding the audience. When you, as a speaker, truly care about your audience’s needs and desires, you avoid setting up a manipulative climate. This is not to say that your audience will always perceive their own needs and desires in the same way you do, but if you make an honest effort to speak to your audience in a way that has their best interests at heart, you are more likely to create persuasive arguments that are not just manipulative appeals.

                          Second, it is important for a speaker to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding. To do this, you should first learn as much as possible about your audience, a process called audience analysis.

                          To create a climate of caring and mutual respect, it is important for us as speakers to be open with our audiences so that our intentions and perceptions are clear. Nothing alienates an audience faster than a speaker with a hidden agenda unrelated to the stated purpose of the speech. One of our coauthors once listened to a speaker give a two-hour talk, allegedly about workplace wellness, which actually turned out to be an infomercial for the speaker’s weight-loss program. In this case, the speaker clearly had a hidden (or not-so-hidden) agenda, which made the audience feel disrespected.

                          We Condemn Communication That Degrades Individuals and Humanity through Distortion, Intimidation, Coercion, and Violence and through the Expression of Intolerance and Hatred

                          This ethical principle is very important for all speakers. Hopefully, intimidation, coercion, and violence will not be part of your public speaking experiences, but some public speakers have been known to call for violence and incite mobs of people to commit atrocities. Thus distortion and expressions of intolerance and hatred are of special concern when it comes to public speaking.

                          Distortion occurs when someone purposefully twists information in a way that detracts from its original meaning. Unfortunately, some speakers take information and use it in a manner that is not in the spirit of the original information. One place we see distortion frequently is in the political context, where politicians cite a statistic or the results of a study and either completely alter the information or use it in a deceptive manner. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (http://www.factcheck.org), and the St. Petersburg Times’s Politifact (http://www.politifact.com) are nonpartisan organizations devoted to analyzing political messages and demonstrating how information has been distorted.

                          Expressions of intolerance and hatred that are to be avoided include using ageist, heterosexist, racist, sexist, and any other form of speech that demeans or belittles a group of people. Hate speech from all sides of the political spectrum in our society is detrimental to ethical communication. As such, we as speakers should be acutely aware of how an audience may perceive words that could be considered bigoted. For example, suppose a school board official involved in budget negotiations used the word “shekels” to refer to money, which they believe the teachers’ union should be willing to give up (Associated Press, 2011). The remark would be likely to prompt accusations of anti-Semitism and distract listeners from any constructive suggestions the official might have for resolving budget issues. Although the official might insist that they meant no offense, they damaged the ethical climate of the budget debate by using a word associated with bigotry.

                          At the same time, it is important for listeners to pay attention to expressions of intolerance or hatred. Extremist speakers sometimes attempt to disguise their true agendas by avoiding bigoted “buzzwords” and using mild-sounding terms instead. For example, a speaker advocating the overthrow of a government might use the term “regime change” instead of “revolution”; similarly, proponents of genocide in various parts of the world have used the term “ethnic cleansing” instead of “extermination.” By listening critically to the gist of a speaker’s message as well as the specific language they use, we can see how that speaker views the world.

                          We Are Committed to the Courageous Expression of Personal Convictions in Pursuit of Fairness and Justice

                          We believe that finding and bringing to light situations of inequality and injustice within our society is important. Public speaking has been used throughout history to point out inequality and injustice, from Patrick Henry arguing against the way the English government treated the American colonists and Sojourner Truth describing the evils of slavery to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Army Lt. Dan Choi’s speeches arguing that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” is unjust. Many social justice movements have started because young public speakers have decided to stand up for what they believe is fair and just.

                          We Advocate Sharing Information, Opinions, and Feelings When Facing Significant Choices While Also Respecting Privacy and Confidentiality

                          This ethical principle involves balancing personal disclosure with discretion. It is perfectly normal for speakers to want to share their own personal opinions and feelings about a topic; however, it is also important to highlight information within a speech that represents your own thoughts and feelings. Your listeners have a right to know the difference between facts and personal opinions.

                          Similarly, we have an obligation to respect others’ privacy and confidentiality when speaking. If information is obtained from printed or publicly distributed material, it’s perfectly appropriate to use that information without getting permission, as long as you cite it. However, when you have a great anecdote one of your friends told you in confidence or access to information that is not available to the general public, it is best to seek permission before using the information in a speech.

                          This ethical obligation even has legal implications in many government and corporate contexts. For example, individuals who work for the Central Intelligence Agency are legally precluded from discussing their work in public without prior review by the agency. And companies such as Google also have policies requiring employees to seek permission before engaging in public speaking in which sensitive information might be leaked.

                          We Accept Responsibility for the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Our Own Communication and Expect the Same of Others

                          The last statement of NCA’s ethical credo may be the most important one. We live in a society where a speaker’s message can literally be heard around the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to our global communication networks. Extreme remarks made by politicians, media commentators, and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, can unexpectedly “go viral” with regrettable consequences. It is not unusual to see situations where a speaker talks hatefully about a specific group, but when one of the speaker’s listeners violently attacks a member of the group, the speaker insists that they had no way of knowing that this could possibly have happened. Washing one’s hands of responsibility is unacceptable: all speakers should accept responsibility for the short-term and long-term consequences of their speeches. Although it is certainly not always the speaker’s fault if someone commits an act of violence, the speaker should take responsibility for their role in the situation. This process involves being truly reflective and willing to examine how one’s speech could have tragic consequences.

                          Furthermore, attempting to persuade a group of people to take any action means you should make sure that you understand the consequences of that action. Whether you are persuading people to vote for a political candidate or just encouraging them to lose weight, you should know what the short-term and long-term consequences of that decision could be. While our predictions of short-term and long-term consequences may not always be right, we have an ethical duty to at least think through the possible consequences of our speeches and the actions we encourage.

                           

                          Practicing Ethical Public Speaking

                          Thus far in this section, we’ve introduced you to the basics of thinking through the ethics of public speaking. Knowing about ethics is essential, but even more important to being an ethical public speaker is putting that knowledge into practice by thinking through possible ethical pitfalls prior to standing up and speaking out. Table 5.6.1 is a checklist to help you think through some of these issues.

                          Table 5.6.1 Public Speaking Ethics Checklist

                          Instructions: For each of the following ethical issues, check either “true” or “false.”TrueFalse
                          1.I have knowingly added information within my speech that is false.  
                          2.I have attempted to persuade people by unnecessarily tapping into emotion rather than logic.  
                          3.I have not clearly cited all the information within my speech.  
                          4.I do not know who my sources of information are or what makes my sources credible.  
                          5.I wrote my speech based on my own interests and really haven’t thought much about my audience.  
                          6.I haven’t really thought much about my audience’s needs and desires.  
                          7.I have altered some of the facts in my speech to help me be more persuasive.  
                          8.Some of the language in my speech may be considered bigoted.  
                          9.My goal is to manipulate my audience to my point of view.  
                          10.I sometimes blend in my personal opinions when discussing actual facts during the speech.  
                          11.My personal opinions are just as good as facts, so I don’t bother to distinguish between the two during my speech.  
                          12.I’ve used information in my speech from a friend or colleague that probably shouldn’t be repeated.  
                          13.I’m using information in my speech that a source gave me even though it was technically “off the record.”  
                          14.It’s just a speech. I really don’t care what someone does with the information when I’m done speaking.  
                          15.I haven’t really thought about the short- or long-term consequences of my speech.  
                          Scoring: For ethical purposes, all your answers should have been “false.”

                           

                          References 

                          American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author, p. 349.

                          Associated Press. (2011, May 5). Conn. shekel shellacking. New York Post.

                          Shiffrin, S. H. (1999). Dissent, injustice and the meanings of America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

                           

                          5.7 Foundations of Culture and Identity

                          (Content obtained from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                           

                          Culture is a complicated word to define, as there are at least six common ways that culture is used in the United States. For the purposes of exploring the communicative aspects of culture, we will define culture as the ongoing negotiation of learned and patterned beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. Unpacking the definition, we can see that culture shouldn’t be conceptualized as stable and unchanging. Culture is “negotiated,” culture is dynamic, and cultural changes can be tracked and analyzed to better understand why our society is the way it is. The definition also points out that culture is learned, which accounts for the importance of socializing institutions like family, school, peers, and the media. Culture is patterned in that there are recognizable widespread similarities among people within a cultural group. There is also a deviation from and resistance to those patterns by individuals and subgroups within a culture, which is why cultural patterns change over time. Last, the definition acknowledges that culture influences our beliefs about what is true and false, our attitudes, including our likes and dislikes, our values regarding what is right and wrong, and our behaviors. It is from these cultural influences that our identities are formed.

                           

                          Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

                          Ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” Recall from our earlier discussion of self-concept that we develop a sense of who we are based on what is reflected back on us from other people. Our parents, friends, teachers, and the media help shape our identities. While this happens from birth, most people in Western societies reach a stage in adolescence where maturing cognitive abilities and increased social awareness lead them to begin to reflect on who they are. This begins a lifelong process of thinking about who we are now, who we were before, and who we will become (Tatum, B. D., 2000). Our identities make up an important part of our self-concept and can be broken down into three main categories: personal, social, and cultural identities (see Table 5.7.1) 

                          We must avoid the temptation to think of our identities as constant. Instead, our identities are formed through processes that started before we were born and will continue after we are gone; therefore, our identities aren’t something we achieve or complete. Two related but distinct components of our identities are our personal and social identities (Spreckels, J. & Kotthoff, H., 2009). Personal identities include the components of self that are primarily intrapersonal and connected to our life experiences. For example, I consider myself a puzzle lover, and you may identify as a fan of hip-hop music. Our social identities are the components of self that are derived from involvement in social groups with which we are interpersonally committed.

                           

                          image of group of people

                          Pledging a fraternity or sorority is an example of a social identity. Adaenn – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                           

                          For example, we may derive aspects of our social identity from our family or from a community of fans for a sports team. Social identities differ from personal identities because they are externally organized through membership. Our membership may be voluntary (Greek organization on campus) or involuntary (family) and explicit (we pay dues to our labor union) or implicit (we purchase and listen to hip-hop music). There are innumerous options for personal and social identities. While our personal identity choices express who we are, our social identities align us with particular groups. Through our social identities, we make statements about who we are and who we are not.

                           

                          Table 5.7.1 Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

                          PersonalSocialCultural
                          Antique CollectorMember of Historical SocietyIrish American
                          Dog LoverMember of Humane SocietyMale/Female
                          CyclistFraternity/Sorority MemberGreek American
                          SingerHigh School Music TeacherMultiracial
                          ShyBook Club MemberHeterosexual
                          Athletic Gay/Lesbian

                           

                          Personal identities may often change as people have new experiences and develop new interests and hobbies. Current interest in online video games may give way to an interest in graphic design. Social identities do not change as often because they take more time to develop, as you must become interpersonally invested. For example, if an interest in online video games leads someone to become a member of an MMORPG, or a massively multiplayer online role-playing game community, that personal identity has led to a social identity that is now interpersonal and more entrenched. Cultural identities are based on socially constructed categories that teach us a way of being and include expectations for social behavior or ways of acting (Yep, G. A., 2002). Since we are often a part of them since birth, cultural identities are the least changeable of the three. The ways of being and the social expectations for behavior within cultural identities do change over time, but what separates them from most social identities is their historical roots (Collier, M. J., 1996). For example, think of how ways of being and acting have changed for African Americans since the civil rights movement. Additionally, common ways of being and acting within a cultural identity group are expressed through communication. In order to be accepted as a member of a cultural group, members must be acculturated, essentially learning and using a code that other group members will be able to recognize. We are acculturated into our various cultural identities in obvious and less obvious ways. We may literally have a parent or friend tell us what it means to be a man or a woman. We may also unconsciously consume messages from popular culture that offer representations of gender.

                          Any of these identity types can be ascribed or avowed. Ascribed identities are personal, social, or cultural identities that are placed on us by others, while avowed identities are those that we claim for ourselves (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Sometimes people ascribe an identity to someone else based on stereotypes. You may see a person who likes to read science-fiction books, watches documentaries, has glasses, and collects Star Trek memorabilia and label them as a nerd. If the person doesn’t avow that identity, it can create friction, and that label may even hurt the other person’s feelings. But ascribed and avowed identities can match up. To extend the previous example, there has been a movement in recent years to reclaim the label nerd and turn it into a positive, and a nerd subculture has been growing in popularity. For example, MC Frontalot, a leader in the nerdcore hip-hop movement, says that being branded a nerd in school was terrible, but now he raps about “nerdy” things like blogs to sold-out crowds (Shipman, 2007). We can see from this example that our ascribed and avowed identities change over the course of our lives, and sometimes they match up and sometimes do not.

                          Although some identities are essentially permanent, the degree to which we are aware of them, also known as salience, changes. The intensity with which we avow an identity also changes based on context. For example, an African American may not have difficulty deciding which box to check on the demographic section of a survey. But if an African American becomes President of a college’s Black Student Union, they may more intensely avow their African American identity, which has now become more salient. If they studied abroad in Africa during their junior year, they might be ascribed an identity of American by their new African friends rather than African American. For the Africans, their visitor’s identity as American is likely more salient than the identity as someone of African descent. If someone is biracial or multiracial, they may change their racial identity as they engage in an identity search. One intercultural communication scholar writes of his experiences as an “Asianlatinoamerican” (Yep, 2002). He notes repressing his Chinese identity as an adolescent living in Peru and then later embracing his Chinese identity and learning about his family history while in college in the United States. This example shows how even national identity fluctuates. Obviously, one can change nationality by becoming a citizen of another country, although most people do not. My identity as a US American became very salient for me for the first time in my life when I studied abroad in Sweden. 

                          Throughout modern history, cultural and social influences have established dominant and nondominant groups (Allen, 2011). Dominant identities historically had and currently have more resources and influence, while nondominant identities historically had and currently have fewer resources and influence. It’s important to remember that these distinctions are being made at the societal level, not the individual level. There are obviously exceptions, with people in groups considered nondominant obtaining more resources and power than a person in a dominant group. However, the overall trend is that difference based on cultural groups has been institutionalized, and exceptions do not change this fact. Because of this uneven distribution of resources and power, members of dominant groups are granted privileges while nondominant groups are at a disadvantage. The main nondominant groups must face various forms of institutionalized discrimination, including racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism. As we will discuss later, privilege and disadvantage, like similarity and difference, are not “all or nothing.” No two people are completely different or completely similar, and no one person is completely privileged or completely disadvantaged.

                           

                          Identity Development

                          There are multiple models for examining identity development. Given our focus on how difference matters, we will examine similarities and differences in nondominant and dominant identity formation. While the stages in this model help us understand how many people experience their identities, identity development is complex, and there may be variations. We must also remember that people have multiple identities that intersect with each other. So, as you read, think about how circumstances may be different for an individual with multiple nondominant and/or dominant identities.

                           

                          Nondominant Identity Development

                          There are four stages of nondominant identity development (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). The first stage is unexamined identity, which is characterized by a lack of awareness of or lack of interest in one’s identity. For example, a young woman who will later identify as a lesbian may not yet realize that a nondominant sexual orientation is part of her identity. Also, a young African American man may question his teachers or parents about the value of what he’s learning during Black History Month. When a person’s lack of interest in their own identity is replaced by an investment in a dominant group’s identity, they may move to the next stage, which is conformity.

                          In the conformity stage, an individual internalizes or adopts the values and norms of the dominant group, often in an effort not to be perceived as different. Individuals may attempt to assimilate into the dominant culture by changing their appearance, their mannerisms, the way they talk, or even their name. Moises, a Chicano man, interviewed in a research project about identities, narrated how he changed his “Mexican sounding” name to Moses, which was easier for his middle-school classmates and teachers to say (Jones Jr., 2009). He also identified as white instead of Mexican American or Chicano because he saw how his teachers treated the other kids with “brown skin.” Additionally, some gay or lesbian people in this stage of identity development may try to “act straight.” In either case, some people move to the next stage of resistance and separation when they realize that despite their efforts, they are still perceived as different and not included in the dominant group.

                          In the resistance and separation stage, an individual with a nondominant identity may shift away from the conformity of the previous stage to engage in actions that challenge the dominant identity group. Individuals in this stage may also actively try to separate themselves from the dominant group, interacting only with those who share their nondominant identity. For example, there has been a Deaf culture movement in the United States for decades. This movement includes people who are hearing impaired and believe that their use of a specific language, American Sign Language (ASL), and other cultural practices constitutes a unique culture, which they symbolize by capitalizing the D in Deaf (Allen, 2011).

                           

                          image of interpreter

                          Many hearing-impaired people in the United States use American Sign Language (ASL), which is recognized as an official language. Quinn Dombrowski – ASL interpreter – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                           

                          While this is not a separatist movement, a person who is hearing impaired may find refuge in such a group after experiencing discrimination from hearing people. Staying in this stage may indicate a lack of critical thinking if a person endorses the values of the nondominant group without question.

                          The integration stage marks a period where individuals with a nondominant identity have achieved a balance between embracing their own identities and valuing other dominant and nondominant identities. Although there may still be residual anger from the discrimination and prejudice they have faced, they may direct this energy into positive outlets such as working to end discrimination for their own or other groups. Moises, the Chicano man I mentioned earlier, now works to support the Chicano community in his city and also has actively supported gay rights and women’s rights.

                           

                          Dominant Identity Development

                          Dominant identity development consists of five stages (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). The unexamined stage of dominant identity formation is similar to nondominant in that individuals in this stage do not think about their or others’ identities. Although they may be aware of differences—for example, between races and genders—they either don’t realize there is a hierarchy that treats some people differently than others, or they don’t think the hierarchy applies to them. For example, a white person may take notice that a person of color was elected to a prominent office. However, theymay not see the underlying reason that it is noticeable—namely, that the overwhelming majority of our country’s leaders are white. Unlike people with a nondominant identity who usually have to acknowledge the positioning of their identity due to discrimination and prejudice they encounter, people with dominant identities may stay in the unexamined stage for a long time.

                          In the acceptance stage, a person with a dominant identity passively or actively accepts that some people are treated differently than others but doesn’t do anything internally or externally to address it. In the passive acceptance stage, we must be cautious not to blame individuals with dominant identities for internalizing racist, sexist, or heterosexist “norms.” The socializing institutions we discussed earlier (family, peers, media, religion, and education) often make oppression seem normal and natural. For example, I have had students who struggle to see that they are in this stage say things like, “I know that racism exists, but my parents taught me to be a good person and see everyone as equal.” While this is admirable, seeing everyone as equal doesn’t make it so. And people who insist that we are all equal may claim that minorities are exaggerating their circumstances or “whining” and just need to “work harder” or “get over it.” The person making these statements acknowledges difference but doesn’t see their privilege or the institutional perpetuation of various “-isms.” Although I’ve encountered many more people in the passive state of acceptance than the active state, some may progress to an active state where they acknowledge inequality and are proud to be in the “superior” group. In either case, many people never progress from this stage. If they do, it’s usually because of repeated encounters with individuals or situations that challenge their acceptance of the status quo, such as befriending someone from a nondominant group or taking a course related to culture.

                          The resistance stage of dominant identity formation is a major change from the previous in that an individual acknowledges the unearned advantages they are given and feels guilt or shame about it. Having taught about various types of privilege for years, I’ve encountered many students who want to return their privilege or disown it. These individuals may begin to disassociate with their own dominant group because they feel like a curtain has been opened, and their awareness of the inequality makes it difficult for them to interact with others in their dominant group. But it’s important to acknowledge that becoming aware of your white privilege, for instance, doesn’t mean that every person of color is going to want to accept you as an ally, so retreating to them may not be the most productive move. While moving to this step is a marked improvement in regards to becoming a more aware and socially just person, getting stuck in the resistance stage isn’t productive because people are often retreating rather than trying to address injustice. For some, deciding to share what they’ve learned with others who share their dominant identity moves them to the next stage.

                          People in the redefinition stage revise negative views of their identity held in the previous stage and begin to acknowledge their privilege and try to use the power they are granted to work for social justice. They realize that they can claim their dominant identity as heterosexual, able-bodied, male, white, and so on, and perform their identity in ways that counter norms. A male participant in a research project on identity said the following about redefining his male identity:

                          I don’t want to assert my maleness the same way that maleness is asserted all around us all the time. I don’t want to contribute to sexism. So I have to be conscious of that. There’s that guilt. But then, I try to utilize my maleness in positive ways, like when I’m talking to other men about male privilege (Jones, Jr., 2009).

                          The final stage of dominant identity formation is integration. This stage is reached when redefinition is complete, and people can integrate their dominant identity into all aspects of their life, finding opportunities to educate others about privilege while also being a responsive ally to people in nondominant identities. As an example, some heterosexual people who find out a friend or family member is gay or lesbian may have to confront their dominant heterosexual identity for the first time, which may lead them through these various stages. As a sign of integration, some may join an organization like PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), where they can be around others who share their dominant identity as heterosexuals but also empathize with their loved ones.

                           

                          image of march

                          Heterosexual people with gay family members or friends may join the group PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) as a part of the redefinition and/or integration stage of their dominant identity development. Jason Riedy – Atlanta Pride Festival parade – CC BY 2.0.

                           

                          Knowing more about various types of identities and some common experiences of how dominant and nondominant identities are formed prepares us to delve into more specifics about why difference matters.

                           

                          Difference Matters

                          Whenever we encounter someone, we notice similarities and differences. While both are important, it is often the differences that are highlighted and that contribute to communication troubles. We don’t only see similarities and differences on an individual level. In fact, we also place people into in-groups and out-groups based on the similarities and differences we perceive. This is important because we then tend to react to someone we perceive as a member of an out-group based on the characteristics we attach to the group rather than the individual (Allen, 2011). In these situations, it is more likely that stereotypes and prejudice will influence our communication. Learning about difference and why it matters will help us be more competent communicators. The flip side of emphasizing difference is to claim that no differences exist and that you see everyone as a human being. Rather than trying to ignore difference and see each person as a unique individual, we should know the history of how differences came to be so socially and culturally significant and how they continue to affect us today.

                          Culture and identity are complex. You may be wondering how some groups came to be dominant and others nondominant. These differences are not natural, which can be seen as we unpack how various identities have changed over time in the next section. There is, however, an ideology of domination that makes it seem natural and normal to many that some people or groups will always have power over others (Allen, 2011). In fact, hierarchy and domination, although prevalent throughout modern human history, were likely not the norm among early humans. So one of the first reasons difference matters is that people and groups are treated unequally, and better understanding how those differences came to be can help us create a more just society. Difference also matters because demographics and patterns of interaction are changing.

                          In the United States, the population of people of color is increasing and diversifying, and visibility for people who are gay or lesbian and people with disabilities has also increased. The 2010 Census shows that the Hispanic and Latino/a populations in the United States are now the second largest group in the country, having grown 43 percent since the last census in 2000 (Saenz, 2011). By 2030, racial and ethnic minorities will account for one-third of the population (Allen, 2011). Additionally, legal and social changes have created a more open environment for sexual minorities and people with disabilities. These changes directly affect our interpersonal relationships. The workplace is one context where changing demographics have become increasingly important. Many organizations are striving to comply with changing laws by implementing policies aimed at creating equal access and opportunity. Some organizations are going further than legal compliance to try to create inclusive climates where diversity is valued because of the interpersonal and economic benefits it has the potential to produce.

                          Getting Real: Diversity Training

                          Businesses in the United States spend $200 to $300 million a year on diversity training, but is it effective? (Vedantam, 2008) If diversity training is conducted to advance a company’s business goals and out of an understanding of the advantages that a diversity of background and thought offer a company, then the training is more likely to be successful. Many companies conduct mandatory diversity training based on a belief that they will be in a better position in court if a lawsuit is brought against them. However, research shows that training that is mandatory and undertaken only to educate people about the legal implications of diversity is ineffective and may even hurt diversity efforts. A commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace environment must include a multipronged approach. Experts recommend that a company put a staff person in charge of diversity efforts, and some businesses have gone as far as appointing a “chief diversity officer” (Cullen, 2007). The US Office of Personnel Management offers many good guidelines for conducting diversity training: create learning objectives related to the mission of the organization, use tested and appropriate training methods and materials, provide information about course content and expectations to employees ahead of training, provide the training in a supportive and non-coercive environment, use only experienced and qualified instructors, and monitor/evaluate training and revise as needed (US Office of Personnel Management, 2011). With these suggestions in mind, the increasingly common “real-world” event of diversity training is more likely to succeed.

                          1. Have you ever participated in any diversity training? If so, what did you learn or take away from the training? Which of the guidelines listed did your training do well or poorly on?
                          2. Do you think diversity training should be mandatory or voluntary? Why?
                          3. From what you’ve learned so far in this book, what communication skills are important for a diversity trainer to have?

                             

                            We can now see that difference matters due to the inequalities that exist among cultural groups and due to changing demographics that affect our personal and social relationships. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles that may impede our valuing of difference (Allen, 2011). Individuals with dominant identities may not validate the experiences of those in nondominant groups because they do not experience the oppression directed at those with nondominant identities. Further, they may find it difficult to acknowledge that not being aware of this oppression is due to the privilege associated with their dominant identities. Because of this lack of recognition of oppression, members of dominant groups may minimize, dismiss, or question the experiences of nondominant groups and view them as “complainers” or “whiners.” Recall from our earlier discussion of identity formation that people with dominant identities may stay in the unexamined or acceptance stages for a long time. Being stuck in these stages makes it much more difficult to value difference.

                            Members of nondominant groups may have difficulty valuing difference due to negative experiences with the dominant group, such as not having their experiences validated. Both groups may be restrained from communicating about difference due to norms of political correctness, which may make people feel afraid to speak up because they may be perceived as insensitive or racist. All these obstacles are common, and they are valid. However, as we will learn later, developing intercultural communication competence can help us gain new perspectives, become more mindful of our communication, and intervene in some of these negative cycles.

                             

                            Exercises

                            1. List some of your personal, social, and cultural identities. Are there any that relate? If so, how? For your cultural identities, which ones are dominant and which ones are nondominant? What would a person who looked at this list be able to tell about you?
                            2. Describe a situation in which someone ascribed an identity to you that didn’t match your avowed identities. Why do you think the person ascribed the identity to you? Were there any stereotypes involved?
                            3. Getting integrated: Review the section that explains why difference matters. Discuss the ways in which difference may influence how you communicate in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, and personal. 

                             

                            References

                            Allen, B. J., Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity, 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2011), 4.

                            Collier, M. J., “Communication Competence Problematics in Ethnic Friendships,” Communication Monographs 63, no. 4 (1996): 318.

                            Cullen, L. T., “Employee Diversity Training Doesn’t Work,” Time, April 26, 2007, accessed October 5, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1615183,00.html.

                            Jones Jr., R. G., “Communicating Queer Identities through Personal Narrative and Intersectional Reflexivity” (Ph.D. diss., University of Denver, 2009), 130–32.

                            Martin, J. N., and Thomas K. Nakayama, Intercultural Communication in Contexts, 5th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2010), 166.

                            Saenz, A., “Census Data Shows a Changed American Landscape,” ABC News, March 21, 2011, accessed October 9, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/census-data-reveals-changed-american-landscape/story?id=13206427.

                            Shipman, T., “Nerds Get Their Revenge as at Last It’s Hip to Be Square,” The Sunday Telegraph, July 22, 2007, 35.

                            Spreckels, J. and Helga Kotthoff, “Communicating Identity in Intercultural Communication,” in Handbook of Intercultural Communication, eds. Helga Kotthoff and Helen Spencer-Oatey (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), 415–19.

                            Tatum, B. D., “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’” in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, eds. Maurianne Adams, Warren J. Blumfeld, Rosie Casteneda, Heather W. Hackman, Madeline L. Peters, Ximena Zuniga (New York: Routledge, 2000), 9.

                            US Office of Personnel Management, “Guidelines for Conducting Diversity Training,” Training and Development Policy, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.opm.gov/hrd/lead/policy/divers97.asp#PART%20B.

                            Vedantam, S., “Most Diversity Training Ineffective, Study Finds,” The Washington Post, January 20, 2008, accessed October 5, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011901899_pf.html.

                            Yep, G. A., “My Three Cultures: Navigating the Multicultural Identity Landscape,” in Intercultural Communication: Experiences and Contexts, eds. Judith N. Martin, Lisa A. Flores, and Thomas K. Nakayama (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 61.

                            5.8 Exploring Specific Cultural Identities

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            We can get a better understanding of current cultural identities by unpacking how they came to be. By looking at history, we can see how cultural identities that seem to have existed forever actually came to be constructed for various political and social reasons and how they have changed over time. Communication plays a central role in this construction. As we have already discussed, our identities are relational and communicative; they are also constructed. Social constructionism is a view that argues the self is formed through our interactions with others and in relation to social, cultural, and political contexts (Allen, 2011). In this section, we’ll explore how the cultural identities of race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability have been constructed in the United States and how communication relates to those identities. There are other important identities that could be discussed, like religion, age, nationality, and class. Although they are not given their own section, consider how those identities may intersect with the identities discussed next.

                             

                            Race

                            Would it surprise you to know that human beings, regardless of how they are racially classified, share 99.9 percent of their DNA? This finding by the Human Genome Project asserts that race is a social construct, not a biological one. The American Anthropological Association agrees, stating that race is the product of “historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances” (Allen, 2011). Therefore, we’ll define race as a socially constructed category based on differences in appearance that has been used to create hierarchies that privilege some and disadvantage others.

                             

                            8.2.1N

                            There is actually no biological basis for racial classification among humans, as we share 99.9 percent of our DNA. Evelyn – friends – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Race didn’t become a socially and culturally recognized marker until European colonial expansion in the 1500s. As Western Europeans traveled to parts of the world previously unknown to them and encountered people who were different from them, a hierarchy of races began to develop that placed lighter-skinned Europeans above darker-skinned people. At the time, newly developing fields in natural and biological sciences took an interest in examining the new locales, including plant and animal life, natural resources, and native populations. Over the next three hundred years, science that we would now undoubtedly recognize as flawed, biased, and racist legitimated notions that native populations were less evolved than white Europeans, often calling them savages. In fact, there were scientific debates as to whether some of the native populations should be considered human or animal. Racial distinctions have been based largely on phenotypes or physiological features such as skin color, hair texture, and body/facial features. Western “scientists” used these differences as “proof” that native populations were less evolved than the Europeans, which helped justify colonial expansion, enslavement, genocide, and exploitation on massive scales (Allen, 2011). Even though there is a consensus among experts that race is social rather than biological, we can’t deny that race still has meaning in our society and affects people as if it were “real.”

                            Given that race is one of the first things we notice about someone, it’s important to know how race and communication relate (Allen, 2011). Discussing race in the United States is difficult for many reasons. One is due to uncertainty about language use. People may be frustrated by their perception that labels change too often or be afraid of using an “improper” term and being viewed as racially insensitive. It is important, however, that we not let political correctness get in the way of meaningful dialogues and learning opportunities related to difference. Learning some of the communicative history of race can make us more competent communicators and open us up to more learning experiences.

                            Racial classifications used by the government and our regular communication about race in the United States have changed frequently, which further points to the social construction of race. Currently, the primary racial groups in the United States are African American, Asian American, European American, Latinx, and Native American, but a brief look at changes in how the US Census Bureau has defined race clearly shows that this hasn’t always been the case (see Table 5.8.1). In the 1900s alone, there were twenty-six different ways that race was categorized on census forms (Allen, 2011). The way we communicate about race in our regular interactions has also changed, and many people are still hesitant to discuss race for fear of using “the wrong” vocabulary.

                             

                            Table 5.8.1 Racial Classifications in the US Census

                            Year(s)Development
                            1790No category for race
                            1800sRace was defined by the percentage of African “blood.” Mulatto was one black and one white parent, quadroon was one-quarter African blood, and octoroon was one-eighth.
                            1830–1940The term color was used instead of race.
                            1900Racial categories included white, black, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. Census takers were required to check one of these boxes based on visual cues. Individuals did not get to select a racial classification on their own until 1970.
                            1950The term color was dropped and replaced by race.
                            1960, 1970Both race and color were used on census forms.
                            1980–2010Race again became the only term.
                            2000Individuals were allowed to choose more than one racial category for the first time in census history.
                            2010The census included fifteen racial categories and an option to write in races not listed on the form.

                            Source: Adapted from Brenda J. Allen, Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011), 71–72.

                             

                            The five primary racial groups noted previously can still be broken down further to specify a particular region, country, or nation. For example, Asian Americans are diverse in terms of country and language of origin and cultural practices. While the category of Asian Americans can be useful when discussing broad trends, it can also generalize among groups, which can lead to stereotypes. You may find that someone identifies as Chinese American or Korean American instead of Asian American. In this case, the label further highlights a person’s cultural lineage. We should not assume, however, that someone identifies with their cultural lineage, as many people have more in common with their US American peers than a culture that may be one or more generations removed.

                            History and personal preference also influence how we communicate about race. Culture and communication scholar Brenda Allen notes that when she was born in 1950, her birth certificate included an N for Negro. Later she referred to herself as colored because that’s what people in her community referred to themselves as. During and before this time, the term black had negative connotations and would likely have offended someone. There was a movement in the 1960s to reclaim the word black, and the slogan “black is beautiful” was commonly used. Brenda Allen acknowledges the newer label of African American but notes that she still prefers black. The terms colored and Negro are no longer considered appropriate because they were commonly used during a time when black people were blatantly discriminated against. Even though that history may seem far removed to some, it is not to others. Currently, the terms African American and black are frequently used, and both are considered acceptable. The phrase people of color is acceptable for most and is used to be inclusive of other racial minorities. If you are unsure what to use, you could always observe how a person refers to themselves, or you could ask for their preference. In any case, a competent communicator defers to and respects the preference of the individual.

                            The label Latin American generally refers to people who live in Central American countries. Although Spain colonized much of what is now South and Central America and parts of the Caribbean, the inhabitants of these areas are now much more diverse. Depending on the region or country, some people primarily trace their lineage to the indigenous people who lived in these areas before colonization, to a Spanish and indigenous lineage, or to other combinations that may include European, African, and/or indigenous heritage. Latina and Latino (or Latinx to refer to any gender) are labels that are preferable to Hispanic for many who live in the United States and trace their lineage to South and/or Central America and/or parts of the Caribbean. Scholars who study Latina/o identity often use the label Latina/o in their writing to acknowledge women who avow that identity label (Calafell, 2007). In verbal communication, you might say “Latina” when referring to a particular female or “Latino” when referring to a particular male of Latin American heritage. When referring to the group as a whole, you could say “Latinas and Latinos” or “Lantinx” instead of just “Latinos,” which would be more gender-inclusive. While Hispanic is used by the US Census, it refers primarily to people of Spanish origin, which doesn’t account for the diversity of background of many Latinx. The term Hispanic also highlights the colonizer’s influence over the indigenous, which erases a history that is important to many. Additionally, there are people who claim Spanish origins and identify culturally as Hispanic but racially as white. Labels such as Puerto Rican or Mexican American, which further specify region or country of origin, may also be used. Just as with other cultural groups, if you are unsure of how to refer to someone, you can always ask for and honor someone’s preference.

                            The history of immigration in the United States also ties to the way that race has been constructed. The metaphor of the melting pot has been used to describe the immigration history of the United States but doesn’t capture the experiences of many immigrant groups (Allen, 2011). Generally, immigrant groups who were white or light-skinned, and spoke English were better able to assimilate or melt into the melting pot. But immigrant groups that we might think of as white today were not always considered so. Irish immigrants were discriminated against and even portrayed as black in cartoons that appeared in newspapers. In some Southern states, Italian immigrants were forced to go to black schools, and it wasn’t until 1952 that Asian immigrants were allowed to become citizens of the United States. All this history is important because it continues to influence communication among races today.

                             

                            Interracial Communication

                            Race and communication are related in various ways. Racism influences our communication about race and is not an easy topic for most people to discuss. Today, people tend to view racism as overt acts such as calling someone a derogatory name or discriminating against someone in thought or action. However, there is a difference between racist acts, which we can attach to an individual, and institutional racism, which is not as easily identifiable. It is much easier for people to recognize and decry racist actions than it is to realize that racist patterns and practices go through societal institutions, which means that racism exists and doesn’t have to be committed by any one person. As competent communicators and critical thinkers, we must challenge ourselves to be aware of how racism influences our communication at individual and societal levels.

                            We tend to make assumptions about people’s race based on how they talk, and often these assumptions are based on stereotypes. Dominant groups tend to define what is correct or incorrect usage of a language, and since language is so closely tied to identity, labeling a group’s use of a language as incorrect or deviant challenges or negates part of their identity (Yancy, 2011). We know there isn’t only one way to speak English, but there have been movements to identify a standard. This becomes problematic when we realize that “standard English” refers to a way of speaking English that is based on white, middle-class ideals that do not match up with the experiences of many. When we create a standard for English, we can label anything that deviates from that “nonstandard English.” Differences between standard English and what has been called “Black English” have gotten national attention through debates about whether or not instruction in classrooms should accommodate students who do not speak standard English. Education plays an important role in language acquisition, and class relates to access to education. In general, whether someone speaks standard English themselves or not, they tend to negatively judge people whose speech deviates from the standard.

                            Another national controversy has revolved around the inclusion of Spanish in common language use, such as Spanish as an option at ATMs or other automated services, and Spanish language instruction in school for students who don’t speak or are learning to speak English. As was noted earlier, the Latinx population in the United States is growing fast, which has necessitated the inclusion of Spanish in many areas of public life. This has also created a backlash, which some scholars argue is tied more to the race of the immigrants than the language they speak and a fear that white America could be engulfed by other languages and cultures (Speicher, 2002). This backlash has led to a revived movement to make English the official language of the United States.

                             

                            image

                            The “English only” movement of recent years is largely a backlash targeted at immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries. Wikimedia Commons – public domain. Courtesy of www.CGPGrey.com.

                             

                            The US Constitution does not stipulate a national language, and Congress has not designated one either. While nearly thirty states have passed English-language legislation, it has mostly been symbolic, and court rulings have limited any enforceability (Zuckerman, 2010). The Linguistic Society of America points out that immigrants are very aware of the social and economic advantages of learning English and do not need to be forced. They also point out that the United States has always had many languages represented, that national unity hasn’t rested on a single language, and that there are actually benefits to having a population that is multilingual (Linguistic Society of America, 2011). Interracial communication presents some additional verbal challenges.

                            Code-switching involves changing from one way of speaking to another between or within interactions. Some people of color may engage in code-switching when communicating with dominant group members because they fear they will be negatively judged. Adopting the language practices of the dominant group may minimize perceived differences. This code-switching creates a dual linguistic consciousness in which people are able to maintain their linguistic identities with their in-group peers but can still acquire tools and gain access needed to function in a dominant society (Yancy, 2011). White people may also feel anxious about communicating with people of color out of fear of being perceived as racist. In other situations, people in dominant groups may spotlight nondominant members by asking them to comment on or educate others about their race (Allen, 2011). For example, I once taught at a private university that was predominantly white. Students of color talked to me about being asked by professors to weigh in on an issue when discussions of race came up in the classroom. While a professor may have been well-intentioned, spotlighting can make a student feel conspicuous, frustrated, or defensive. Additionally, I bet the professors wouldn’t think about asking a white, male, or heterosexual student to give the perspective of their whole group.

                             

                            Gender

                            When we first meet a newborn baby, we ask whether it’s a boy or a girl. This question illustrates the importance of gender in organizing our social lives and our interpersonal relationships. A Canadian family became aware of the deep emotions people feel about gender and the great discomfort people feel when they can’t determine gender when they announced to the world that they were not going to tell anyone the gender of their baby, aside from the baby’s siblings. Their desire for their child, named Storm, to be able to experience early life without the boundaries and categories of gender brought criticism from many (Davis & James, 2011). Conversely, many parents consciously or unconsciously “code” their newborns in gendered ways based on our society’s associations of pink clothing and accessories with girls and blue with boys. While it’s obvious to most people that colors aren’t gendered, they take on new meaning when we assign gendered characteristics of masculinity and femininity to them. Just like race, gender is a socially constructed category. While it is true that there are biological differences between who we label male and female, the meaning our society places on those differences is what actually matters in our day-to-day lives. And the biological differences are interpreted differently around the world, which further shows that although we think gender is a natural, normal, stable way of classifying things, it is actually not. There is a long history of appreciation for people who cross gender lines in Native American and South Central Asian cultures, to name just two.

                            You may have noticed I use the word gender instead of sex. That’s because gender is an identity based on internalized cultural notions of masculinity and femininity, constructed through communication and interaction. There are two important parts of this definition to unpack. First, we internalize notions of gender-based on socializing institutions, which helps us form our gender identity. Then we attempt to construct that gendered identity through our interactions with others, which is our gender expression. Sex is based on biological characteristics, including external genitalia, internal sex organs, chromosomes, and hormones (Wood, 2005). While the biological characteristics between men and women are obviously different, it’s the meaning that we create and attach to those characteristics that makes them significant. The cultural differences in how that significance is ascribed are proof that “our way of doing things” is arbitrary. For example, cross-cultural research has found that boys and girls in most cultures show both aggressive and nurturing tendencies, but cultures vary in terms of how they encourage these characteristics between genders. In a group in Africa, young boys are responsible for taking care of babies and are encouraged to be nurturing (Wood, 2005).

                            Gender has been constructed over the past few centuries in political and deliberate ways that have tended to favor men in terms of power. And various academic fields joined in the quest to “prove” there are “natural” differences between men and women. While the “proof” they presented was credible to many at the time, it seems blatantly sexist and inaccurate today. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, scientists who measured skulls, also known as craiometrists, claimed that men were more intelligent than women because they had larger brains. Leaders in the fast-growing fields of sociology and psychology argued that women were less evolved than men and had more in common with “children and savages” than adult (white) males (Allen, 2011). Doctors and other decision-makers like politicians also used women’s menstrual cycles as evidence that they were irrational or hysterical and, therefore, couldn’t be trusted to vote, pursue higher education, or be in a leadership position. These are just a few of the many instances of how knowledge was created by seemingly legitimate scientific disciplines that we can now clearly see served to empower men and disempower women. This system is based on the ideology of patriarchy, which is a system of social structures and practices that maintains the values, priorities, and interests of men as a group (Wood, 2005). One of the ways patriarchy is maintained is by its relative invisibility. While women have been the focus of much research on gender differences, males have been largely unexamined. Men have been treated as the “generic” human being to which others are compared. But that ignores the fact that men have a gender, too. Masculinities studies have challenged that notion by examining how masculinities are performed.

                            There have been challenges to the construction of gender in recent decades. Since the 1960s, scholars and activists have challenged established notions of what it means to be a man or a woman. The women’s rights movement in the United States dates back to the 1800s when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 (Wood, 2005). Although most women’s rights movements have been led by white, middle-class women, there was overlap between those involved in the abolitionist movement to end slavery and the beginnings of the women’s rights movement. Although some of the leaders of the early women’s rights movement had class and education privileges, they were still taking a risk by organizing and protesting. Black women were even more at risk, and Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave, faced those risks often and gave a much-noted extemporaneous speech at a women’s rights gathering in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, which came to be called “Ain’t I a Woman?” (Wood, 2005) Her speech highlighted the multiple layers of oppression faced by black women. You can watch actress Alfre Woodard deliver an interpretation of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vr_vKsk_h8

                            Feminism as an intellectual and social movement advanced women’s rights and our overall understanding of gender. Feminism has gotten a bad reputation based on how it has been portrayed in the media and by some politicians. When I teach courses about gender, I often ask my students to raise their hands if they consider themselves feminists. I usually only have a few, if any, who do. I’ve found that students I teach are hesitant to identify as a feminist because of the connotations of the word. However, when I ask students to raise their hand if they believe women have been treated unfairly and that there should be more equity, most students raise their hands. Gender and communication scholar Julia Wood has found the same trend and explains that a desire to make a more equitable society for everyone is at the root of feminism. She shares comments from a student that capture this disconnect: (Wood, 2005)


                            I would never call myself a feminist because that word has so many negative connotations. I don’t hate men or anything, and I’m not interested in protesting. I don’t want to go around with hacked-off hair and no makeup and sit around bashing men. I do think women should have the same kinds of rights, including equal pay for equal work. But I wouldn’t call myself a feminist.

                            It’s important to remember that there are many ways to be a feminist and to realize that some of the stereotypes about feminism are rooted in sexism and homophobia, in that feminists are reduced to “men haters” and often presumed to be lesbians. The feminist movement also gave some momentum to the transgender rights movement. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression do not match the gender they were assigned by birth. Transgender people may or may not seek medical intervention like surgery or hormone treatments to help match their physiology with their gender identity. The term transgender includes other labels such as transsexualtransvestitecross-dresser, and intersex, among others. Terms like hermaphrodite and she-male are not considered appropriate. As with other groups, it is best to allow someone to self-identify first and then honor their preferred label. If you are unsure of which pronouns to use when addressing someone, you can use gender-neutral language, or you can use the pronoun that matches with how they are presenting. If someone has long hair, makeup, and a dress on, but you think their biological sex is male due to other cues, it would be polite to address them with female pronouns since that is the gender identity they are expressing.

                            Gender as a cultural identity has implications for many aspects of our lives, including real-world contexts like education and work. Schools are primary grounds for socialization, and the educational experience for males and females is different in many ways from preschool through college. Although not always intentional, schools tend to recreate the hierarchies and inequalities that exist in society. Given that we live in a patriarchal society, there are communicative elements present in school that support this (Allen, 2011). For example, teachers are more likely to call on and pay attention to boys in a classroom, giving them more feedback in the form of criticism, praise, and help. This sends an implicit message that boys are more worthy of attention and valuable than girls. Teachers are also more likely to lead girls to focus on feelings and appearance and boys to focus on competition and achievement. The focus on appearance for girls can lead to anxieties about body image. Gender inequalities are also evident in the administrative structure of schools, which puts men in positions of authority more than women. While women make up 75 percent of the educational workforce, only 22 percent of superintendents and 8 percent of high school principals are women. Similar trends exist in colleges and universities, with women only accounting for 26 percent of full professors. These inequalities in schools correspond to larger inequalities in the general workforce. While there are more women in the workforce now than ever before, they still face a glass ceiling, which is a barrier to promotion to upper management. Many of my students have been surprised at the continuing pay gap that exists between men and women. In 2010, women earned about seventy-seven cents to every dollar earned by men (National Committee on Pay Equity, 2011). To put this into perspective, the National Committee on Pay Equity started an event called Equal Pay Day. In 2011, Equal Pay Day was on April 11. This signifies that for a woman to earn the same amount of money a man earned in a year, she would have to work more than three months extra, until April 11, to make up for the difference (National Committee on Pay Equity, 2011).

                             

                            Sexuality

                            While race and gender are two of the first things we notice about others, sexuality is often something we view as personal and private. Although many people hold the view that a person’s sexuality should be kept private, this isn’t a reality for our society. One only needs to observe popular culture and media for a short time to see that sexuality permeates much of our public discourse.

                            Sexuality relates to culture and identity in important ways that extend beyond sexual orientation, just as race is more than the color of one’s skin and gender is more than one’s biological and physiological manifestations of masculinity and femininity. Sexuality isn’t just physical; it is social in that we communicate with others about sexuality (Allen, 2011). Sexuality is also biological in that it connects to physiological functions that carry significant social and political meaning like puberty, menstruation, and pregnancy. Sexuality connects to public health issues like sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and teen pregnancy. Sexuality is at the center of political issues like abortion, sex education, and gay and lesbian rights. While all these contribute to sexuality as a cultural identity, the focus in this section is on sexual orientation.

                            The most obvious way sexuality relates to identity is through sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s primary physical and emotional sexual attraction and activity. The terms we most often use to categorize sexual orientation are heterosexualgaylesbian, and bisexual. Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are sometimes referred to as sexual minorities. While the term sexual preference has been used previously, sexual orientation is more appropriate since preference implies a simple choice. Although someone’s preference for a restaurant or actor may change frequently, sexuality is not as simple. The term homosexual can be appropriate in some instances, but it carries with it a clinical and medicalized tone. As you will see in the timeline that follows, the medical community has a recent history of “treating homosexuality” with means that most would view as inhumane today. So many people prefer a term like gay, which was chosen and embraced by gay people, rather than homosexual, which was imposed by a then discriminatory medical system.

                            The gay and lesbian rights movement became widely recognizable in the United States in the 1950s and continues on today, as evidenced by prominent issues regarding sexual orientation in national news and politics. National and international groups like the Human Rights Campaign advocate for rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) communities. While these communities are often grouped together within one acronym (GLBTQ), they are different. Gays and lesbians constitute the most visible of the groups and receive the most attention and funding. Bisexuals are rarely visible or included in popular cultural discourses or in social and political movements. Transgender issues have received much more attention in recent years, but transgender identity connects to gender more than it does to sexuality. Last, queer is a term used to describe a group that is diverse in terms of identities but usually takes a more activist and, at times, a radical stance that critiques sexual categories. While queer was long considered a derogatory label and still is by some, the queer activist movement that emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s reclaimed the word and embraced it as a positive. As you can see, there is a diversity of identities among sexual minorities, just as there is variation within races and genders.

                            As with other cultural identities, notions of sexuality have been socially constructed in different ways throughout human history. Sexual orientation didn’t come into being as an identity category until the late 1800s. Before that, sexuality was viewed in more physical or spiritual senses that were largely separate from a person’s identity. Table 5.8.2 traces some of the developments relevant to sexuality, identity, and communication that show how this cultural identity has been constructed over the past 3,000 years.

                             

                            Table 5.8.2 Developments Related to Sexuality, Identity, and Communication

                            Year(s)Development
                            1400 BCE–565 BCEDuring the Greek and Roman era, there was no conception of sexual orientation as an identity. However, sexual relationships between men were acceptable for some members of society. Also, at this time, Greek poet Sappho wrote about love between women.
                            533Byzantine Emperor Justinian makes adultery and same-sex sexual acts punishable by death.
                            1533Civil law in England indicates the death penalty can be given for same-sex sexual acts between men.
                            1810Napoleonic Code in France removes all penalties for any sexual activity between consenting adults.
                            1861England removes the death penalty for same-sex sexual acts.
                            1892The term heterosexuality is coined to refer to a form of “sexual perversion” in which people engage in sexual acts for reasons other than reproduction.
                            1897Dr. Magnus Hirschfield founds the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Berlin. It is the first gay rights organization.
                            1900–1930Doctors “treat” homosexuality with castration, electro-shock therapy, and incarceration in mental hospitals.
                            1924The first gay rights organization in the United States, the Chicago Society for Human Rights, is founded.
                            1933–44Tens of thousands of gay men are sent to concentration camps under Nazi rule. The prisoners are forced to wear pink triangles on their uniforms. The pink triangle was later reclaimed as a symbol of gay rights.
                            1934The terms heterosexuality and homosexuality appear in Webster’s dictionary with generally the same meaning the terms hold today.
                            1948American sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s research reveals that more people than thought have engaged in same-sex sexual activity. His research highlights the existence of bisexuality.
                            1969On June 27, patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York City fight back as police raid the bar (a common practice used by police at the time to harass gay people). “The Stonewall Riot,” as it came to be called, was led by gay, lesbian, and transgender patrons of the bar, many of whom were working-class and/or people of color.
                            1974The American Psychiatric Association removes its reference to homosexuality as a mental illness.
                            1999The Vermont Supreme Court rules that the state must provide legal rights to same-sex couples. In 2000, Vermont becomes the first state to offer same-sex couples civil unions.
                            2003The US Supreme Court rules that Texas’s sodomy law is unconstitutional, which effectively decriminalizes consensual same-sex relations.
                            2011The US military policy “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is repealed, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly.

                            Source: Adapted from Brenda J. Allen, Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011), 117–25; and University of Denver Queer and Ally Commission, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer History,” Queer Ally Training Manual, 2008.

                             

                            Ability

                            There is resistance to classifying ability as a cultural identity because we follow a medical model of disability that places disability as an individual and medical rather than social and cultural issue. While much of what distinguishes able-bodied and cognitively able from disabled is rooted in science, biology, and physiology, there are important sociocultural dimensions. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines an individual with a disability as “a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment” (Allen, 2011). An impairment is defined as “any temporary or permanent loss or abnormality of a body structure or function, whether physiological or psychological” (Allen, 2011). This definition is important because it notes the social aspect of disability in that people’s life activities are limited and the relational aspect of disability in that the perception of a disability by others can lead someone to be classified as such. Ascribing the identity of disabled to a person can be problematic. If there is a mental or physical impairment, it should be diagnosed by a credentialed expert. If there isn’t an impairment, then the label of disabled can have negative impacts, as this label carries social and cultural significance. People are tracked into various educational programs based on their physical and cognitive abilities, and there are many cases of people being mistakenly labeled disabled who were treated differently despite their protest of the ascribed label. Students who did not speak English as a first language, for example, were—and perhaps still are—sometimes put into special education classes.

                            Ability, just as the other cultural identities discussed, has institutionalized privileges and disadvantages associated with it. Ableism is the system of beliefs and practices that produces a physical and mental standard that is projected as normal for a human being and labels deviations from it abnormal, resulting in unequal treatment and access to resources. Ability privilege refers to the unearned advantages that are provided for people who fit the cognitive and physical norms (Allen, 2011). I once attended a workshop about ability privilege led by a man who was visually impaired. He talked about how, unlike other cultural identities that are typically stable over a lifetime, ability fluctuates for most people. We have all experienced times when we are more or less able.

                            Perhaps you broke your leg and had to use crutches or a wheelchair for a while. Getting sick for a prolonged period of time also lessens our abilities, but we may fully recover from any of these examples and regain our ability privilege. Whether you’ve experienced a short-term disability or not, the majority of us will become less physically and cognitively able as we get older.

                            Statistically, people with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the United States, with an estimated 20 percent of people five years or older living with some form of disability (Allen, 2011). Medical advances have allowed some people with disabilities to live longer and more active lives than before, which has led to an increase in the number of people with disabilities. This number could continue to increase, as we have thousands of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with physical disabilities or psychological impairments such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

                             

                            8.2.3N

                            As recently disabled veterans integrate back into civilian life, they will be offered assistance and accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Wounded Warrior Regiment – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                             

                            As disability has been constructed in US history, it has intersected with other cultural identities. For example, people opposed to “political and social equality for women cited their supposed physical, intellectual, and psychological flaws, deficits, and deviations from the male norm.” They framed women as emotional, irrational, and unstable, which was used to put them into the “scientific” category of “feeblemindedness,” which led them to be institutionalized (Carlson, 2001). Arguments supporting racial inequality and tighter immigration restrictions also drew on notions of disability, framing certain racial groups as prone to mental retardation, mental illness, or uncontrollable emotions and actions. See 5.7.3 for a timeline of developments related to ability, identity, and communication. These thoughts led to a dark time in US history, as the eugenics movement sought to limit the reproduction of people deemed as deficient.

                             

                            Table 5.7.3 Developments Related to Ability, Identity, and Communication

                            Year(s)Development
                            400 BCEThe Greeks make connections between biology, physiology, and actions. For example, they make a connection between epilepsy and a disorder of the mind but still consider the source to be supernatural or divine.
                            30–480People with disabilities are viewed with pity by early Christians and thought to be so conditioned because of an impurity that could possibly be addressed through prayer.
                            500–1500As beliefs in the supernatural increase during the Middle Ages, people with disabilities are seen as manifestations of evil and are ridiculed and persecuted.
                            1650–1789During the Enlightenment, the first large-scale movements toward the medical model are made, as science and medicine advance and society turns to a view of human rationality.
                            1900sThe eugenics movement in the United States begins. Laws are passed to sterilize the “socially inadequate,” and during this time, more than sixty thousand people were forcibly sterilized in thirty-three states.
                            1930sPeople with disabilities become the first targets of experimentation and mass execution by the Nazis.
                            1970sThe independent living movement becomes a prominent part of the disability rights movement.
                            1990The Americans with Disabilities Act is passed through Congress and signed into law.

                            Source: Maggie Shreve, “The Movement for Independent Living: A Brief History,” Independent Living Research Utilization, accessed October 14, 2011, http://ilru.org/html/publications/infopaks/IL_paradigm.doc.

                             

                            During the early part of the 1900s, the eugenics movement was the epitome of the move to rehabilitate or reject people with disabilities (Allen, 2005). This was a brand of social engineering that was indicative of strong public support in the rationality of science to cure society’s problems (Allen, 2011). A sterilization law written in 1914 “proposed to authorize sterilization of the socially inadequate,” which included the “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and dependent” (Lombardo, 2011). During the eugenics movement in the United States, more than sixty thousand people in thirty-three states were involuntarily sterilized (Allen, 2011). Although the eugenics movement as it was envisioned and enacted then is unthinkable today, some who have studied the eugenics movement of the early 1900s have issued warnings that a newly packaged version of eugenics could be upon us. As human genome mapping and DNA manipulation become more accessible, advanced genetic testing could enable parents to eliminate undesirable aspects or enhance desirable characteristics of their children before they are born, creating “designer children” (Spice, 2005).

                            Much has changed for people with disabilities in the United States in the past fifty years. The independent living movement (ILM) was a part of the disability rights movement that took shape along with other social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The ILM calls for more individual and collective action toward social change by people with disabilities. Some of the goals of the ILM include reframing disability as a social and political rather than just a medical issue, a shift toward changing society rather than just rehabilitating people with disabilities, a view of accommodations as civil rights rather than charity, and more involvement by people with disabilities in the formulation and execution of policies relating to them (Longmore, 2003). As society better adapts to people with disabilities, there will be more instances of interability communication taking place.

                            Interability communication is communication between people with differing ability levels; for example, a hearing person communicating with someone who is hearing impaired or a person who doesn’t use a wheelchair communicating with someone who uses a wheelchair. Since many people are unsure of how to communicate with a person with disabilities, here are “Ten Commandments of Etiquette for Communicating with People with Disabilities” to help you in communicating with persons with disabilities: (US Department of Labor)

                            1. When talking with a person with a disability, speak directly to that person rather than through a companion or sign-language interpreter.
                            2. When introduced to a person with a disability, it is appropriate to offer to shake hands. People with limited hand use or an artificial limb can usually shake hands. (Shaking hands with the left hand is an acceptable greeting.)
                            3. When meeting a person who is visually impaired, always identify yourself and others who may be with you. When conversing in a group, remember to identify the person to whom you are speaking.
                            4. If you offer assistance, wait until the offer is accepted. Then listen to or ask for instructions.
                            5. Treat adults as adults. Address people who have disabilities by their first names only when extending the same familiarity to all others. (Never patronize people who use wheelchairs by patting them on the head or shoulder.)
                            6. Leaning on or hanging on to a person’s wheelchair is similar to leaning or hanging on to a person and is generally considered annoying. The chair is part of the personal body space of the person who uses it.
                            7. Listen attentively when you’re talking with a person who has difficulty speaking. Be patient and wait for the person to finish, rather than correcting or speaking for the person. If necessary, ask short questions that require short answers, a nod, or a shake of the head. Never pretend to understand if you are having difficulty doing so. Instead, repeat what you have understood and allow the person to respond. The response will clue you in and guide your understanding.
                            8. When speaking with a person who uses a wheelchair or a person who uses crutches, place yourself at eye level in front of the person to facilitate the conversation.
                            9. To get the attention of a person who is deaf, tap the person on the shoulder or wave your hand. Look directly at the person and speak clearly, slowly, and expressively to determine if the person can read your lips. Not all people who are deaf can read lips. For those who do lip read, be sensitive to their needs by placing yourself so that you face the light source and keep hands, cigarettes, and food away from your mouth when speaking.
                            10. Relax. Don’t be embarrassed if you happen to use accepted, common expressions such as “See you later” or “Did you hear about that?” that seem to relate to a person’s disability. Don’t be afraid to ask questions when you’re unsure of what to do.

                             

                            References

                            Allen, B. J., Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2005), 145.

                            Allen, B. J., Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity, 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2011), 12.

                            Allen, G. E., “Social Origins of Eugenics,” Eugenics Archive, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list2.pl.

                            Calafell, B. M., Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 1–9.

                            Carlson, L., “Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation,” Hypatia 16, no. 4 (2001): 127.

                            Davis, L., and Susan Donaldson James, “Canadian Mother Raising Her ‘Genderless’ Baby, Storm, Defends Her Family’s Decision,” ABC News, May 30, 2011, accessed October 12, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/genderless-baby-controversy-mom -defends-choice-reveal-sex/story?id=13718047.

                            Linguistic Society of America, “Resolution: English Only,” December 28, 1986, accessed October 12, 2011, http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-english.cfm.

                            Lombardo, P., “Eugenic Sterilization Laws,” Eugenics Archive, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/list2.pl.

                            Longmore, P. K., Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2003), 114.

                            National Committee on Pay Equity, “Wage Gap over Time,” accessed October 12, 2011, http://www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html.

                            Speicher, B. L., “Problems with English-Only Policies,” Management Communication Quarterly 15, no. 4 (2002): 621.

                            Spice, B., “Duquesne Focuses on the Perils of Modern’ Eugenics’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 7, 2005, accessed October 16, 2011, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05038/453781.stm.

                            Wood, J. T., Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomas Wadsworth, 2005), 19.

                            Yancy, G., “The Scholar Who Coined the Term Ebonics: A Conversation with Dr. Robert L. Williams,” Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 10, no. 1 (2011): 41–51.

                            US Department of Labor. (n.d.) “Effective Interaction: Communication with and about People with Disabilities in the Workplace,” accessed November 5, 2012, http://www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/fact/effectiveinteraction.htm#.UJgp8RjqJJ8.

                            Zuckerman, M. A., “Constitutional Clash: When English-Only Meets Voting Rights,” Yale Law and Policy Review 28 (2010): 353–54.

                             

                            Chapter 6: Group Communication

                            Learning Objectives for Chapter 6: Group Communication

                            • Identify the basic principles of group communication, including characteristics, functions, and types. 
                            • Explain the aids and barriers to small group communication for decision-making and problem solving. 
                            • Identify and use different conflict management styles.  
                            • Identify and use different leadership styles.  
                            • Engage in productive self and team evaluations. 

                             

                            6.1 Understanding Small Groups

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication sections 15.1 and 15.2, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            When you think of small groups, you probably think of the much dreaded “group assignment” that you’ve endured in high school and college. You are less likely to think of the numerous other groups to which you belong that bring more positive experiences, such as your family and friendship groups or shared-interest groups. Group communication scholars are so aware of this common negative sentiment toward group communication that they coined the term grouphate to describe it (Sorensen, 1981). Small groups, however, aren’t just entities meant to torture students; they have served a central purpose in human history and evolution. Groups make it easier for us to complete a wide variety of tasks; help us establish meaningful social bonds; and help us create, maintain, and change our sense of self (Hargie, 2001, p. 433). Negative group experiences are often exacerbated by a lack of knowledge about group communication processes. We are just expected to know how to work in groups without much instruction or practice. This lack of knowledge about group communication can lead to negative group interactions, which creates a negative cycle that perpetuates further negative experiences. Fortunately, as with other areas of communication, instruction in group communication can improve people’s skills and increase people’s satisfaction with their group experiences.

                            The communication skills most often discussed are directed toward dyadic communication, meaning that they are applied in two-person interactions. While many of these skills can be transferred to and used in small group contexts, the more complex nature of group interaction necessitates some adaptation and some additional skills. Small group communication refers to interactions among three or more people who are connected through a common purpose, mutual influence, and a shared identity. In this section, we will learn about the characteristics, functions, and types of small groups.

                             

                            Characteristics of Small Groups

                            Different groups have different characteristics, serve different purposes, and can lead to positive, neutral, or negative experiences. While our interpersonal relationships primarily focus on relationship building, small groups usually focus on some sort of task completion or goal accomplishment. A college learning community focused on math and science, a campaign team for a state senator, and a group of local organic farmers are examples of small groups that would all have a different size, structure, identity, and interaction pattern.

                            Size of Small Groups

                            There is no set number of members for the ideal small group. A small group requires a minimum of three people (because two people would be a pair or dyad), but the upper range of group size is contingent on the purpose of the group. When groups grow beyond fifteen to twenty members, it becomes difficult to consider them a small group based on the previous definition. An analysis of the number of unique connections between members of small groups shows that they are deceptively complex. For example, within a six-person group, there are fifteen separate potential dyadic connections, and a twelve-person group would have sixty-six potential dyadic connections (Hargie, 2011). As you can see, when we double the number of group members, we more than double the number of connections, which shows that network connection points in small groups grow exponentially as membership increases. So, while there is no set upper limit on the number of group members, it makes sense that the number of group members should be limited to those necessary to accomplish the goal or serve the purpose of the group. Small groups that add too many members increase the potential for group members to feel overwhelmed or disconnected.

                            Structure of Small Groups

                            Internal and external influences affect a group’s structure. In terms of internal influences, member characteristics play a role in initial group formation. For instance, a person who is well informed about the group’s task and/or highly motivated as a group member may emerge as a leader and set into motion internal decision-making processes, such as recruiting new members or assigning group roles, that affect the structure of a group (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Different members will also gravitate toward different roles within the group and will advocate for certain procedures and courses of action over others. External factors such as group size, task, and resources also affect group structure. Some groups will have more control over these external factors through decision-making than others. For example, a commission that is put together by a legislative body to look into ethical violations in athletic organizations will likely have less control over its external factors than a self-created weekly book club.

                             

                            13.1.0N

                            A self-formed study group likely has a more flexible structure than a city council committee. William Rotza – Group – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Group structure is also formed through formal and informal network connections. In terms of formal networks, groups may have clearly defined roles and responsibilities or a hierarchy that shows how members are connected. The group itself may also be a part of an organizational hierarchy that networks the group into a larger organizational structure. This type of formal network is especially important in groups that have to report to external stakeholders. These external stakeholders may influence the group’s formal network, leaving the group little or no control over its structure. Conversely, groups have more control over their informal networks, which are connections among individuals within the group and among group members and people outside of the group that aren’t official. For example, a group member’s friend or relative may be able to secure a space to hold a fundraiser at a discounted rate, which helps the group achieve its task. Both types of networks are important because they may help facilitate information exchange within a group and extend a group’s reach in order to access other resources.

                            Size and structure also affect communication within a group (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). In terms of size, the more people in a group, the more issues with scheduling and coordination of communication. Remember that time is an important resource in most group interactions and a resource that is usually strained. Structure can increase or decrease the flow of communication. Reachability refers to the way in which one member is or isn’t connected to other group members. For example, the “Circle” group structure in Figure 6.1.1 shows that each group member is connected to two other members. This can make coordination easy when only one or two people need to be brought in for a decision. In this case, Erik and Callie are very reachable by Winston, who could easily coordinate with them. However, if Winston needed to coordinate with Bill or Stephanie, he would have to wait on Erik or Callie to reach that person, which could create delays. The circle can be a good structure for groups who are passing along a task and in which each member is expected to progressively build on the others’ work. A group of scholars coauthoring a research paper may work in such a manner, with each person adding to the paper and then passing it on to the next person in the circle. In this case, they can ask the previous person questions and write with the next person’s area of expertise in mind. The “Wheel” group structure in Figure 6.1.1 shows an alternative organization pattern. In this structure, Tara is very reachable by all members of the group. This can be a useful structure when Tara is the person with the most expertise in the task or the leader who needs to review and approve work at each step before it is passed along to other group members. But Phillip and Shadow, for example, wouldn’t likely work together without Tara being involved.

                             

                            Figure 6.1.1. Small Group Structures

                            image

                             

                            Looking at the group structures, we can make some assumptions about the communication that takes place in them. The wheel is an example of a centralized structure, while the circle is decentralized. Research has shown that centralized groups are better than decentralized groups in terms of speed and efficiency (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). But decentralized groups are more effective at solving complex problems. In centralized groups like the wheel, the person with the most connections, person C, is also more likely to be the leader of the group or at least have more status among group members, largely because that person has a broad perspective of what’s going on in the group. The most central person can also act as a gatekeeper. Since this person has access to the most information, which is usually a sign of leadership or status, they consciously decide to limit the flow of information. But in complex tasks, that person could become overwhelmed by the burden of processing and sharing information with all the other group members. The circle structure is more likely to emerge in groups where collaboration is the goal, and a specific task and course of action aren’t required under time constraints. While the person who initiated the group or has the most expertise in regards to the task may emerge as a leader in a decentralized group, the equal access to information lessens the hierarchy and potential for gatekeeping that is present in the more centralized groups.

                            Interdependence

                            Small groups exhibit interdependence, meaning they share a common purpose and a common fate. If the actions of one or two group members lead to a group deviating from or not achieving their purpose, then all members of the group are affected. Conversely, if the actions of only a few of the group members lead to success, then all members of the group benefit. This interdependence among group members reveals how groups can be classified as systems, a set of interconnected parts working together to form a whole (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011). Systems rely on input, throughput, and output. When individuals join a group, they bring a whole host of resources into the group setting. This input is everything from personality to past experiences to knowledge. Groups then “use” this input in the process of throughput. During throughput, as group members communicate with one another, they turn the input into output, which are the results of the group’s interactions. 

                            Because all members are interconnected, all actions (and nonactions) will affect the outcomes or output of group interaction. This ripple effect acts like a “chain reaction that spreads across the entire system” (Rothwell, 2016, p. 42). Just as a pebble dropped in a lake will form ripples across the entire lake, anything brought into the group will affect the entire group. For example, in my teamwork class, students work in groups to investigate nonprofits in our area. In one group, several members had volunteered for a local nonprofit. The information they were able to share with the group gave them a unique perspective and added to their presentation because the personal stories rippled through the group, giving them more information about the particular nonprofit; however, the ripple effect does not always result in positivity. Take our recent COVID-19 pandemic – sickness rippled through our society, resulting in sickness and death for more than 940,000 people living in the United States (CDC, 2022).

                            This ripple effect is one major reason that college students dislike group assignments. They feel a loss of the control and independence that they have when they complete an assignment alone. This concern is valid in that their grades might suffer because of the negative actions of someone else, or their hard work may go to benefit the group member who just skated by. Group meeting attendance is a clear example of the interdependent nature of group interaction. Many of us have arrived at a group meeting only to find half of the members present. In some cases, the group members who show up have to leave and reschedule because they can’t accomplish their tasks without the other members present. Group members who attend meetings but withdraw or don’t participate can also derail group progress. Although it can be frustrating to have your job, grade, or reputation partially dependent on the actions of others, the interdependent nature of groups can also lead to higher-quality performance and output, especially when group members are accountable for their actions.

                            Shared Identity

                            The shared identity of a group manifests in several ways. Groups may have official charters or mission and vision statements that lay out the identity of a group. For example, the Girl Scout mission states that “Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place” (Girl Scouts, 2012). The mission of this large organization influences the identities of the thousands of small groups called troops. Group identity is often formed around a shared goal and/or previous accomplishments, which adds dynamism to the group as it looks toward the future and back on the past to inform its present. Shared identity can also be exhibited through group names, slogans, songs, handshakes, clothing, or other symbols. At a family reunion, for example, matching t-shirts specially made for the occasion, dishes made from recipes passed down from generation to generation, and shared stories of family members that have passed away help establish a shared identity and social reality.

                            A key element of the formation of shared identity within a group is the establishment of the in-group as opposed to the out-group. The degree to which members share in the in-group identity varies from person to person and group to group. Even within a family, some members may not attend a reunion or get as excited about the matching t-shirts as others. Shared identity also emerges as groups become cohesive, meaning they identify with and like the group’s task and other group members. The presence of cohesion and a shared identity leads to a building of trust, which can also positively influence productivity and members’ satisfaction.

                             

                            Functions of Small Groups

                            Why do we join groups? Even with the challenges of group membership that we have all faced, we still seek out and desire to be a part of numerous groups. In some cases, we join a group because we need a service or access to information. We may also be drawn to a group because we admire the group or its members. Whether we are conscious of it or not, our identities and self-concepts are built on the groups with which we identify. So, to answer the earlier question, we join groups because they function to help us meet instrumental, interpersonal, and identity needs.

                            Groups Meet Instrumental Needs

                            Groups have long served the instrumental needs of humans, helping with the most basic elements of survival since ancient humans first evolved. Groups helped humans survive by providing security and protection through increased numbers and access to resources. Today, groups are rarely such a matter of life and death, but they still serve important instrumental functions. Labor unions, for example, pool efforts and resources to attain material security in the form of pay increases and health benefits for their members, which protects them by providing a stable and dependable livelihood. Individual group members must also work to secure the instrumental needs of the group, creating a reciprocal relationship. Members of labor unions pay dues that help support the group’s efforts. Some groups also meet our informational needs. Although they may not provide material resources, they enrich our knowledge or provide information that we can use to then meet our own instrumental needs. Many groups provide referrals to resources or offer advice. For example, several consumer protection and advocacy groups have been formed to offer referrals for people who have been the victim of fraudulent business practices. Whether a group forms to provide services to members that they couldn’t get otherwise, advocate for changes that will affect members’ lives, or provide information, many groups meet some type of instrumental need.

                            Groups Meet Interpersonal Needs

                            Group membership meets interpersonal needs by giving us access to inclusion, control, and support. In terms of inclusion, people have a fundamental drive to be a part of a group and to create and maintain social bonds. As we’ve learned, humans have always lived and worked in small groups. Family and friendship groups, shared-interest groups, and activity groups all provide us with a sense of belonging and being included in an in-group. People also join groups because they want to have some control over a decision-making process or to influence the outcome of a group. Being a part of a group allows people to share opinions and influence others. Conversely, some people join a group to be controlled because they don’t want to be the sole decision-maker or leader and instead want to be given a role to follow.

                            Just as we enter into interpersonal relationships because we like someone, we are drawn toward a group when we are attracted to it and/or its members. Groups also provide support for others in ways that supplement the support that we get from significant others in interpersonal relationships. Some groups, like therapy groups for survivors of sexual assault or support groups for people with cancer, exist primarily to provide emotional support. While these groups may also meet instrumental needs through connections and referrals to resources, they fulfill the interpersonal need for belonging, which is a central human need.

                            Groups Meet Identity Needs

                            Our affiliations are building blocks for our identities because group membership allows us to use reference groups for social comparison—in short, identifying us with some groups and characteristics and separating us from others. Some people join groups to be affiliated with people who share similar or desirable characteristics in terms of beliefs, attitudes, values, or cultural identities. For example, people may join the National Organization for Women because they want to affiliate with others who support women’s rights or a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because they want to affiliate with African Americans, people concerned with civil rights, or a combination of the two. Group memberships vary in terms of how much they affect our identity, as some are more prominent than others at various times in our lives. While religious groups as a whole are too large to be considered small groups, the work that people do as a part of a religious community—as a lay leader, deacon, member of a prayer group, or committee—may have deep ties to a person’s identity.

                             

                            13.1.2N

                            Group membership helps meet our interpersonal needs by providing an opportunity for affection and inclusion. Lostintheredwoods – Spiral of Hands – CC BY-ND 2.0.

                             

                            The prestige of a group can initially attract us because we want that group’s identity to “rub off” on our own identity. Likewise, the achievements we make as group members can enhance our self-esteem, add to our reputation, and allow us to create or project certain identity characteristics to engage in impression management. For example, a person may take numerous tests to become a part of Mensa, which is an organization for people with high IQs, for no material gain but for the recognition or sense of achievement that the affiliation may bring. Likewise, people may join sports teams, professional organizations, and honor societies for a sense of achievement and affiliation. Such groups allow us opportunities to better ourselves by encouraging further development of skills or knowledge. For example, a person who used to play the oboe in high school may join the community band to continue to improve on their ability.

                             

                            Types of Small Groups

                            There are many types of small groups, but the most common distinction made between types of small groups is that of task-oriented and relational-oriented groups (Hargie, 2011). Task-oriented groups are formed to solve a problem, promote a cause, or generate ideas or information (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 1995). In such groups, like a committee or study group, interactions and decisions are primarily evaluated based on the quality of the final product or output. The three main types of tasks are production, discussion, and problem-solving tasks (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Groups faced with production tasks are asked to produce something tangible from their group interactions, such as a report, design for a playground, musical performance, or fundraiser event. Groups faced with discussion tasks are asked to talk through something without trying to come up with a right or wrong answer. Examples of this type of group include a support group for people with HIV/AIDS, a book club, or a group for new fathers. Groups faced with problem-solving tasks have to devise a course of action to meet a specific need. These groups also usually include a production and discussion component, but the end goal isn’t necessarily a tangible product or a shared social reality through discussion. Instead, the end goal is a well-thought-out idea. Task-oriented groups require honed problem-solving skills to accomplish goals, and the structure of these groups is more rigid than that of relational-oriented groups.

                            Relational-oriented groups are formed to promote interpersonal connections and are more focused on quality interactions that contribute to the well-being of group members. Decision-making is directed at strengthening or repairing relationships rather than completing discrete tasks or debating specific ideas or courses of action. All groups include task and relational elements, so it’s best to think of these orientations as two ends of a continuum rather than as mutually exclusive. For example, although a family unit works together daily to accomplish tasks like getting the kids ready for school and friendship groups may plan a surprise party for one of the members, their primary and most meaningful interactions are still relational.

                            To more specifically look at the types of small groups that exist, we can examine why groups form. Some groups are formed based on interpersonal relationships. Our family and friends are considered primary groups, or long-lasting groups that are formed based on relationships and include significant others. These are the small groups in which we interact most frequently. They form the basis of our society and our individual social realities. Kinship networks provide important support early in life and meet physiological and safety needs, which are essential for survival. They also meet higher-order needs such as social and self-esteem needs. When people do not interact with their biological family, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, they can establish fictive kinship networks, which are composed of people who are not biologically related but fulfill family roles and help provide the same support.

                            We also interact in many secondary groups, which are characterized by less frequent face-to-face interactions, less emotional and relational communication, and more task-related communication than primary groups (Barker, 1991). While we are more likely to participate in secondary groups based on self-interest, our primary-group interactions are often more reciprocal or other-oriented. For example, we may join groups because of a shared interest or need.

                            Groups formed based on shared interest include social groups and leisure groups such as a group of independent film buffs, science fiction fans, or bird watchers. Some groups form to meet the needs of individuals or of a particular group of people. Examples of groups that meet the needs of individuals include study groups or support groups like a weight loss group. These groups are focused on individual needs, even though they meet as a group, and they are also often discussion-oriented. Service groups, on the other hand, work to meet the needs of individuals but are task-oriented. Service groups include Habitat for Humanity and Rotary Club chapters, among others. Still, other groups form around a shared need, and their primary task is advocacy. For example, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis is a group that was formed by a small group of eight people in the early 1980s to advocate for resources and support for the still relatively unknown disease that would later be known as AIDS. Similar groups form to advocate for everything from a stop sign at a neighborhood intersection to the end of human trafficking.

                            As we already learned, other groups are formed primarily to accomplish a task. Teams are task-oriented groups in which members are especially loyal and dedicated to the task and other group members (Larson & LaFasto, 1989). In professional and civic contexts, the word team has become popularized as a means of drawing on the positive connotations of the term—connotations such as “high-spirited,” “cooperative,” and “hardworking.” Scholars who have spent years studying highly effective teams have identified several common factors related to their success. Successful teams have (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005)

                            • clear and inspiring shared goals,
                            • a results-driven structure,
                            • competent team members,
                            • a collaborative climate,
                            • high standards for performance,
                            • external support and recognition, and
                            • ethical and accountable leadership.

                            Increasingly, small groups and teams are engaging in more virtual interaction. Virtual groups take advantage of new technologies and meet exclusively or primarily online to achieve their purpose or goal. Some virtual groups may complete their task without ever being physically face-to-face. Virtual groups bring with them distinct advantages and disadvantages.

                             

                            Advantages and Disadvantages of Small Groups

                            As with anything, small groups have their advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of small groups include shared decision-making, shared resources, synergy, and exposure to diversity. It is within small groups that most of the decisions that guide our country, introduce local laws, and influence our family interactions are made. In a democratic society, participation in decision-making is a key part of citizenship. Groups also help in making decisions involving judgment calls that have ethical implications or the potential to negatively affect people. Individuals making such high-stakes decisions in a vacuum could have negative consequences given the lack of feedback, input, questioning, and proposals for alternatives that would come from group interaction. Group members also help expand our social networks, which provide access to more resources. A local community-theater group may be able to put on a production with a limited budget by drawing on these connections to get set-building supplies, props, costumes, actors, and publicity in ways that an individual could not. The increased knowledge, diverse perspectives, and access to resources that groups possess relate to another advantage of small groups—synergy.

                            Synergy refers to the potential for gains in performance or heightened quality of interactions when complementary members or member characteristics are added to existing ones (Larson Jr., 2010). Because of synergy, the final group product can be better than what any individual could have produced alone. When I worked in housing and residence life, I helped coordinate a “World Cup Soccer Tournament” for the international students that lived in my residence hall. As a group, we created teams representing different countries around the world, made brackets for people to track progress and predict winners, got sponsors, gathered prizes, and ended up with a very successful event that would not have been possible without the synergy created by our collective group membership. The members of this group were also exposed to international diversity that enriched our experiences, which is also an advantage of group communication.

                            Participating in groups can also increase our exposure to diversity and broaden our perspectives. Although groups vary in the diversity of their members, we can strategically choose groups that expand our diversity, or we can unintentionally end up in a diverse group. When we participate in small groups, we expand our social networks, which increases the possibility of interacting with people who have different cultural identities than ourselves. Since group members work together toward a common goal, shared identification with the task or group can give people with diverse backgrounds a sense of commonality that they might not have otherwise. Even when group members share cultural identities, the diversity of experience and opinion within a group can lead to broadened perspectives as alternative ideas are presented, and opinions are challenged and defended. One of my favorite parts of facilitating a class discussion is when students with different identities and/or perspectives teach one another things in ways that I could not on my own. This example brings together the potential of synergy and diversity. People who are more introverted or just avoid group communication and voluntarily distance themselves from groups—or are rejected from groups—risk losing opportunities to learn more about others and themselves.

                             

                            13.1.3N

                            A social loafer is a dreaded group member who doesn’t do their share of the work, expecting that others in the group won’t notice or will pick up the slack. Henry Burrows – Sleeping On The Job – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                             

                            There are also disadvantages to small group interaction. In some cases, one person can be just as or more effective than a group of people. Think about a situation in which a highly specialized skill or knowledge is needed to get something done. In this situation, one very knowledgeable person is probably a better fit for the task than a group of less knowledgeable people. Group interaction also has a tendency to slow down the decision-making process. Individuals connected through a hierarchy or chain of command often work better in situations where decisions must be made under time constraints. When group interaction does occur under time constraints, having one “point person” or leader who coordinates action and gives final approval or disapproval on ideas or suggestions for actions is best.

                            One final disadvantage of groups, especially if the group must make decisions, is engagement in groupthink, a negative group phenomenon. Groupthink is characterized by a lack of critical evaluation of proposed ideas or courses of action that results from high levels of cohesion and/or high conformity pressures (Janis, 1972). We can better understand groupthink by examining its causes and effects. When group members fall victim to groupthink, the effect is the uncritical acceptance of decisions or suggestions for plans of action to accomplish a task or goal. Group meetings that appear to go smoothly with only positive interaction among happy, friendly people may seem ideal, but these actions may be symptomatic of groupthink (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). 

                            Groupthink happens when people rush to an agreement or fear arguments with other members. Decisions made as a result of groupthink may range from a poorly thought-out presentation method that bores the audience to a mechanical failure resulting in death. Two primary causes of groupthink are high levels of cohesion and excessive conformity pressures. When groups exhibit high levels of social cohesion, members may be reluctant to criticize or question another group member’s ideas or suggestions for fear that it would damage the relationship. When group members have a high level of task cohesion, they may feel invincible and not critically evaluate ideas. High levels of cohesion may actually lessen conformity pressures since group members who identify strongly with the group’s members and mission may not feel a need to question the decisions or suggestions made by others. For those who aren’t blinded by the high levels of cohesion, internal conformity pressures may still lead them to withhold criticism of an idea because the norm is to defer to decisions made by organization leaders or a majority of group members. External conformity pressures because of impending reward or punishment, time pressures, or an aggressive leader are also factors that can lead to groupthink.

                            To avoid groupthink, groups should (Hargie, 2011)

                            1. divvy up responsibilities between group members, so decision-making power isn’t in the hands of a few
                            2. track contributions of group members in such a way that each person’s input and output is recorded so that they can be discussed
                            3. encourage and reward the expression of minority and dissenting opinions
                            4. allow members to submit ideas prior to a discussion so that opinions aren’t swayed by members who propose ideas early in a discussion
                            5. question each major decision regarding its weaknesses and potential negative consequences relative to competing decisions (encourage members to play “devil’s advocate”)
                            6. have decisions reviewed by an outside party that wasn’t involved in the decision-making process
                            7. have a “reflection period” after a decision is made and before it is implemented, during which group members can express reservations or second thoughts about the decision
                               

                            Group communication also presents interpersonal challenges. A common problem is coordinating and planning group meetings due to busy and conflicting schedules. Some people also have difficulty with the other-centeredness and self-sacrifice that some groups require. The interdependence of group members that we discussed earlier can also create some disadvantages. Group members may take advantage of the anonymity of a group and engage in social loafing, meaning they contribute less to the group than other members or than they would if working alone (Karau & Williams, 1993). Social loafers expect that no one will notice their behaviors or that others will pick up their slack. It is this potential for social loafing that makes many students and professionals dread group work, especially those who have a tendency to cover for other group members to prevent the social loafer from diminishing the group’s productivity or output.

                             

                            References

                            Adler, R. B., and Jeanne Marquardt Elmhorst, Communicating at Work: Principles and Practices for Businesses and the Professions, 8th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2005), 248–50.

                            Ahuja, M. K., and John E. Galvin, “Socialization in Virtual Groups,” Journal of Management 29, no. 2 (2003): 163.

                            Barker, D. B., “The Behavioral Analysis of Interpersonal Intimacy in Group Development,” Small Group Research 22, no. 1 (1991): 79.

                            Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID Data Tracker (Feb. 27, 2022). https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker

                            Comer, D. R., “Organizational Newcomers’ Acquisition of Information from Peers,” Management Communication Quarterly 5, no. 1 (1991): 64–89.

                            Ellis, D. G., and B. Aubrey Fisher, Small Group Decision Making: Communication and the Group Process, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 57.

                            Girl Scouts, “Facts,” accessed July 15, 2012, http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/facts.

                            Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2011).

                            Janis, I. L., Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascos (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1972).

                            Karau, S. J., and Kipling D. Williams, “Social Loafing: A Meta-Analytic Review and Theoretical Integration,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, no. 4 (1993): 681.

                            Larson, C. E., and Frank M. J. LaFasto, TeamWork: What Must Go Right/What Must Go Wrong (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), 73.

                            Larson Jr., J. R., In Search of Synergy in Small Group Performance (New York: Psychology Press, 2010).

                            Littlejohn, S.W., & Foss, F.A. (2011). Theories of human communication. Waveland Press.

                            McKay, M., Martha Davis, and Patrick Fanning, Messages: Communication Skills Book, 2nd ed. (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 1995), 254.

                            Myers, S. A., and Alan K. Goodboy, “A Study of Grouphate in a Course on Small Group Communication,” Psychological Reports 97, no. 2 (2005): 385.

                            Rothwell, J.D. (2016). In mixed company: Communicating in small groups and teams. Cengage Learning.

                            Susan M. Sorensen, “Group-Hate: A Negative Reaction to Group Work,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Minneapolis, MN, May, 1981.

                            Walther, J. B., and Ulla Bunz, “The Rules of Virtual Groups: Trust, Liking, and Performance in Computer-Mediated Communication,” Journal of Communication 55, no. 4 (2005): 830.

                            Weimer, M., “Why Students Hate Groups,” The Teaching Professor, July 1, 2008, accessed July 15, 2012, http://www.teachingprofessor.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/why-students-hate-groups.

                            6.2 Small Group Development

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            Small groups have to start somewhere. Even established groups go through changes as members come and go, as tasks are started and completed, and as relationships change. In this section, we will learn about the stages of group development, which are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). As with most models of communication phenomena, although we order the stages and discuss them separately, they are not always experienced in a linear fashion. Additionally, some groups don’t experience all five stages, may experience stages multiple times, or may experience more than one stage at a time.

                             

                            Forming

                            During the forming stage, group members begin to reduce the uncertainty associated with new relationships and/or new tasks through initial interactions that lay the foundation for later group dynamics. Groups return to the forming stage as group members come and go over the life span of a group. Although there may not be as much uncertainty when one or two new people join a group as there is when a group first forms, groups spend some time in the forming stage every time group membership changes.

                            Given that interpersonal bonds are likely not yet formed and people are unfamiliar with the purpose of the group or task at hand, there are high levels of uncertainty. Early stages of role negotiation begin, and members begin to determine goals for the group and establish rules and norms. Group cohesion also begins to form during this stage. Group cohesion refers to the commitment of members to the purpose of the group and the degree of attraction among individuals within the group (Hargie, 2011). The cohesion that begins in this stage sets the group on a trajectory influenced by group members’ feelings about one another and their purpose or task. Groups with voluntary membership may exhibit high levels of optimism about what the group can accomplish. Although optimism can be motivating, unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment, making it important for group members to balance optimism with realism. Groups with assigned or mandatory membership may include members that carry some degree of resentment toward the group itself or the goals of the group. These members can start the group off on a negative trajectory that will lessen or make group cohesiveness difficult. Groups can still be successful if these members are balanced out by others who are more committed to and positive in regards to the purpose of the group.

                            Many factors influence how the forming stage of group development plays out. The personalities of the individuals in the group, the skills that members bring, the resources available to the group, the group’s size, and the group’s charge all contribute to the creation of the early tone of and climate within a group (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). For example, more dominant personalities may take early leadership roles in the group that can affect subsequent decisions. Group members’ diverse skill sets and access to resources can also influence the early stages of role differentiation. In terms of size, the bonding that begins in the forming stage becomes difficult when the number of people within the group prevents every person from having a one-on-one connection with every other member of the group. Also, in larger groups, more dominant members tend to assert themselves as leaders and build smaller coalitions within the group, which can start the group on a trajectory toward more conflict during the upcoming storming stage (Ellis & Fisher, 1994).

                            When a group receives an external charge, meaning that the goal or purpose of the group is decided by people outside the group, there may be less uncertainty related to the task dimensions of the group. Additionally, decisions about what roles people will play, including group leaders, and other decisions about the workings of the group may come from the outside, which reduces some of the uncertainty inherent in the forming stage. Relational uncertainty can also be diminished when group members have preexisting relationships or familiarity with each other. Although the decreased uncertainty may be beneficial at this stage, too much-imposed structure from the outside can create resentment or a feeling of powerlessness among group members. So a manageable amount of uncertainty is actually a good thing for group cohesion and productivity.

                             

                            Storming

                            During the storming stage of group development, conflict emerges as people begin to perform their various roles, have their ideas heard, and negotiate where they fit in the group’s structure. The uncertainty present in the forming stage begins to give way as people begin to occupy specific roles and the purpose, rules, and norms of a group become clearer. Conflict develops when some group members aren’t satisfied with the role that they or others are playing or the decisions regarding the purpose or procedures of the group. For example, if a leader begins to emerge or is assigned during the forming stage, some members may feel that the leader is imposing their will on other members of the group. As we will learn in our section on group leadership, leaders should expect some degree of resentment from others who wanted to be the leader, have interpersonal conflicts with the leader, or just have general issues with being led.

                            Although the word storming and the concept of conflict have negative connotations, conflict can be positive and productive. Just like storms can replenish water supplies and make crops grow, storming can lead to group growth. While conflict is inevitable and should be experienced by every group, a group that gets stuck at the storming stage will likely not have much success in completing its task or achieving its purpose. Influences from outside the group can also affect the conflict in the storming stage. Interpersonal conflicts that predate the formation of the group may distract the group from the more productive idea- or task-oriented conflict that can be healthy for the group and increase the quality of ideas, decision making, and output.

                             

                            13.2.0N

                            Although we often have negative connotations of storming and conflict, the group conflict that happens in this stage is necessary and productive. Benjamen Benson – Lightning Storm – CC BY 2.0.

                             

                            Norming

                            During the norming stage of group development, the practices and expectations of the group are solidified, which leads to more stability, productivity, and cohesion within the group. Members are being socialized to the group rules and norms during this stage. Group rules are explicitly stated guidelines for members and may refer to things like expected performance levels or output, attitudes, or dress codes. Rules may be communicated through verbal instructions, employee handbooks, membership policies, or codes of conduct (Hargie, 2011). Group norms, on the other hand, are implicitly or “indirectly indicated by uniformities in the behavior and attitudes of members” (Rothwell, 2013, p. 90). In short, group norms help set the tone for what group members ought to do and how they ought to behave (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). 

                            During this stage, members are learning both technical and social knowledge (Ahuja & Galvin, 2003). Technical knowledge focuses on skills and information needed to complete a task, and social knowledge focuses on behavioral norms that guide interaction. Each type of information is usually conveyed through a combination of formal and informal means. Technical knowledge can be fairly easily passed along through orientations, trainings, manuals, and documents because this content is often fairly straightforward. Social knowledge is more ambiguous and is usually conveyed through informal means or passively learned by members through observation. To return to our earlier terminology, technical knowledge relates more to group rules, and social knowledge relates more to group norms. Companies and social organizations socialize new members in different ways. Social knowledge maybe conveyed in interactions that are separate from official group time. For example, literally socializing as a group is a good way to socialize group members. Many large and successful businesses encourage small groups within the company to socialize outside of work time in order to build cohesion and group solidarity. Group norms provide members with a sense of predictability that helps reduce uncertainty and increase a sense of security for one’s place within the group. They also guide group members’ involvement with the group, help create a shared social reality, and allow the group to function in particular ways without having actual people constantly educating, monitoring, and then correcting member behaviors (Hargie, 2011). Of course, the degree to which this is successful depends on the buy-in from group members.

                            Many implicit norms are derived from social norms that people follow in their everyday life. Norms within the group about politeness, lateness, and communication patterns are typically similar to those in other contexts. Sometimes a norm needs to be challenged because it is not working for the group, which could lead a group back to the storming stage. Other times, group members challenge norms for no good reason, which can lead to punishment for the group member or create conflict within the group. 

                            At this stage, there is a growing consensus among group members as to the roles that each person will play, the way group interactions will typically play out, and the direction of the group. Leaders that began to emerge have typically gained the support of other group members, and group identity begins to solidify. The group may now be recognizable by those on the outside, as slogans, branding, or patterns of interaction become associated with the group. This stage of group development is key for the smooth operation of the group. Norms bring a sense of predictability and stability that can allow a group to move on to the performing stage of group development. Norms can also bring with them conformity pressures that can be positive or negative. In general, people go along with a certain amount of pressure to conform out of a drive to avoid being abnormal, which is a natural part of our social interaction (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Too much pressure, however, can lead people to feel isolated and can create a negative group climate.

                             

                            Performing

                            During the performing stage of group development, group members work relatively smoothly toward the completion of a task or achievement of a purpose. Although interactions in the performing stage are task-focused, the relational aspects of group interaction provide underlying support for the group members. Socialization outside of official group time can serve as a needed relief from the group’s task. During task-related interactions, group members ideally begin to develop a synergy that results from the pooling of skills, ideas, experiences, and resources. Synergy is positive in that it can lead group members to exceed their expectations and perform better than they could individually. Glitches in the group’s performance can lead the group back to previous stages of group development. Changes in membership, member roles, or norms can necessitate a revisiting of aspects of the forming, storming, or norming stages. One way to continue to build group cohesion during the performing stage is to set short-term attainable group goals. Accomplishing something, even if it’s small, can boost group morale, which in turn boosts cohesion and productivity.

                             

                            Adjourning

                            The adjourning stage of group development occurs when a group dissolves because it has completed its purpose or goal, membership is declining, support for the group no longer exists, or it is dissolved because of some other internal or external cause. Some groups may live on indefinitely and not experience the adjourning stage. Other groups may experience so much conflict in the storming stage that they skip norming and performing and dissolve before they can complete their task. For groups with high social cohesion, adjourning may be a difficult emotional experience. However, group members may continue interpersonal relationships that formed even after the group dissolves. In reality, many bonds, even those that were very close, end up fading after the group disbands. This doesn’t mean the relationship wasn’t genuine; interpersonal relationships often form because of proximity and shared task interaction. Once that force is gone, it becomes difficult to maintain friendships, and many fade away. For groups that had negative experiences, the adjourning stage may be welcomed.

                            To make the most out of the adjourning stage, it is important that there be some guided and purposeful reflection. Many groups celebrate their accomplishments with a party or ceremony. Even groups that had negative experiences or failed to achieve their purpose can still learn something through reflection in the adjourning stage that may be beneficial for future group interactions. Often, group members leave a group experience with new or more developed skills that can be usefully applied in future group or individual contexts. Even groups that are relational rather than task-focused can increase members’ interpersonal, listening, or empathetic skills or increase cultural knowledge and introduce new perspectives.

                             

                            References

                            Ahuja, M. K., and John E. Galvin, “Socialization in Virtual Groups,” Journal of Management 29, no. 2 (2003).

                            Ellis, D. G., and B. Aubrey Fisher, Small Group Decision Making: Communication and the Group Process, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 14.

                            Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2011), 445.

                            Rothwell, J. D. (2013). In mixed company: Communicating in small groups and teams. Cengage Publishing: Boston.

                            Tuckman, B. W., and Mary Ann C. Jensen, “Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited,” Group and Organizational Studies 2, no. 4 (1977): 419–27.

                            6.3 Small Group Dynamic

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            Any time a group of people comes together, new dynamics are put into place that differ from the dynamics present in our typical dyadic interactions. The impressions we form about other people’s likeability and the way we think about a group’s purpose are affected by the climate within a group that is created by all members. Groups also develop norms, and new group members are socialized into a group’s climate and norms just as we are socialized into larger social and cultural norms in our everyday life. The pressure to conform to norms becomes more powerful in group situations, and some groups take advantage of these forces with positive and negative results. Last, the potential for productive and destructive conflict increases as multiple individuals come together to accomplish a task or achieve a purpose. This section explores the dynamics mentioned previously in order to better prepare you for future group interactions.

                             

                            Group Cohesion and Climate

                            When something is cohesive, it sticks together, and the cohesion within a group helps establish an overall group climate. Group climate refers to the relatively enduring tone and quality of group interaction that is experienced similarly by group members. To better understand cohesion and climate, we can examine two types of cohesion: task and social.

                            Task cohesion refers to the commitment of group members to the purpose and activities of the group. Social cohesion refers to the attraction and liking among group members. Ideally, groups would have an appropriate balance between these two types of cohesion relative to the group’s purpose, with task-oriented groups having higher task cohesion and relational-oriented groups having higher social cohesion. Even the most task-focused groups need some degree of social cohesion, and vice versa, but the balance will be determined by the purpose of the group and the individual members. For example, a team of workers from the local car dealership may join a local summer softball league because they’re good friends and love the game. They may end up beating the team of faculty members from the community college who joined the league just to get to know each other better and have an excuse to get together and drink beer in the afternoon. In this example, the players from the car dealership exhibit high social and task cohesion, while the faculty exhibit high social but low task cohesion.

                            Cohesion benefits a group in many ways and can be assessed through specific group behaviors and characteristics. Groups with an appropriate level of cohesiveness (Hargie, 2011)

                            • set goals easily;
                            • exhibit a high commitment to achieving the purpose of the group;
                            • are more productive;
                            • experience fewer attendance issues;
                            • have group members who are willing to stick with the group during times of difficulty;
                            • have satisfied group members who identify with, promote, and defend the group;
                            • have members who are willing to listen to each other and offer support and constructive criticism; and
                            • experience less anger and tension.

                            Appropriate levels of group cohesion usually create a positive group climate since group climate is affected by members’ satisfaction with the group. Climate has also been described as group morale. Following are some qualities that contribute to a positive group climate and morale (Marston & Hecht, 1988):

                            • Participation. Group members feel better when they feel included in the discussion and a part of the functioning of the group.
                            • Messages. Confirming messages help build relational dimensions within a group, and clear, organized, and relevant messages help build task dimensions within a group.
                            • Feedback. Positive, constructive, and relevant feedback contribute to the group climate.
                            • Equity. Aside from individual participation, group members also like to feel as if participation is managed equally within the group and that appropriate turn-taking is used.
                            • Clear and accepted roles. Group members like to know how status and hierarchy operate within a group. Knowing the roles isn’t enough to lead to satisfaction, though—members must also be comfortable with and accept those roles.
                            • Motivation. Member motivation is activated by perceived connection to and relevance of the group’s goals or purpose.

                             

                            13.3.0N

                            Cohesion and shared identity help create symbolic convergence as group members develop a group identity and shared social reality. Ram K – Watching the big game – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                             

                            Socializing Group Members

                            Group socialization refers to the process of teaching and learning the norms, rules, and expectations associated with group interaction and group member behaviors. Group norms, rules, and cohesion can only be created and maintained through socialization (Ahuja & Galvin, 2003). It is also through socialization that a shared identity and social reality develops among group members, but this development is dependent on several factors. For example, groups with higher levels of cohesion are more likely to have members that “buy into” rules and norms, which aids in socialization. The need for socialization also changes throughout a group’s life span. If membership in a group is stable, long-term members should not need much socialization. However, when new members join a group, existing members must take time to engage in socialization. When a totally new group is formed, socialization will be an ongoing process as group members negotiate rules and procedures, develop norms, and create a shared history over time.

                            The information exchanged during socialization can be broken down into two general categories: technical and social knowledge (Ahuja & Galvin, 2003). Technical knowledge focuses on skills and information needed to complete a task, and social knowledge focuses on behavioral norms that guide interaction. Each type of information is usually conveyed through a combination of formal and informal means. Technical knowledge can be fairly easily passed along through orientations, training, manuals, and documents because this content is often fairly straightforward. Social knowledge is more ambiguous and is usually conveyed through informal means or passively learned by new members through observation. To return to our earlier terminology, technical knowledge relates more to group rules, and social knowledge relates more to group norms.

                            Companies and social organizations socialize new members in different ways. A new training cohort at an established company may be given technical rule-based information in the form of a manual, a history of the organization, and an overview of the organizational culture to help convey social knowledge about group norms. Members of some small groups like fraternities or professional organizations have to take pledges or oaths that may convey a mixture of technical and social knowledge. Social knowledge may be conveyed in interactions that are separate from official group time. For example, literally socializing as a group is a good way to socialize group members. Many large and successful businesses encourage small groups within the company to socialize outside of work time in order to build cohesion and group solidarity.

                            Socialization continues after initial membership through the enforcement of rules and norms. When someone deviates from the rules and norms and is corrected, it serves as a reminder for all other members and performs a follow-up socializing function. Since rules are explicitly stated and documented, deviation from the rules can have consequences ranging from verbal warnings to temporary or permanent separation from the group and fines or other sanctions. And although norms are implicit, deviating from them can still have consequences. Even though someone may not actually verbally correct the deviation, the self-consciousness, embarrassment, or awkwardness that can result from such deviations is often enough to initiate corrective actions. Group norms can be so implicit that they are taken for granted and operate under group members’ awareness.

                            Group rules and norms provide members with a sense of predictability that helps reduce uncertainty and increase a sense of security for one’s place within the group. They also guide group members’ involvement with the group, help create a shared social reality, and allow the group to function in particular ways without having actual people constantly educating, monitoring, and then correcting member behaviors (Hargie, 2011). Of course, the degree to which this is successful depends on the buy-in from group members.

                             

                            Group Pressures

                            There must be some kind of motivating force present within groups in order for the rules and norms to help govern and guide a group. Without such pressure, group members would have no incentive to conform to group norms or buy into the group’s identity and values. In this section, we will discuss how rules and norms gain their power through internal and external pressures and how these pressures can have positive and negative effects. 

                             

                            13.3.1N

                            Even though group members are different, failure to conform to the group’s identity could create problems. Airwolfhound – Odd one out – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                             

                            Internal Pressure to Conform

                            Even though group members are different, failure to conform to the group’s identity could create problems. In general, some people are more likely to accept norms and rules than others, which can influence the interaction and potential for conflict within a group. While some people may feel a need for social acceptance that leads them to accept a norm or rule with minimal conformity pressure, others may actively resist because they have a valid disagreement or because they have an aggressive or argumentative personality (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Such personality traits are examples of internal pressures that operate within the individual group member and act as a self-governing mechanism. When group members discipline themselves and monitor their own behavior, groups need not invest in as many external mechanisms to promote conformity. Deviating from the group’s rules and norms that a member internalized during socialization can lead to self-imposed feelings of guilt or shame that can then initiate corrective behaviors and discourage the member from going against the group. 

                            External Pressures To Conform

                            Group policies, rewards or punishments, or other forces outside of individual group members also exert conformity pressure. In terms of group policies, groups that have an official admission process may have a probation period during which new members’ membership is contingent on them conforming to group expectations. Deviation from expectations during this “trial period” could lead to expulsion from the group. Supervisors, mentors, and other types of group leaders are also agents that can impose external pressures toward conformity. These group members often have the ability to provide positive or negative reinforcement in the form of praise or punishment, which are clear attempts to influence behavior. Conformity pressure can also stem from external forces when the whole group stands to receive a reward or punishment based on its performance, which ties back to the small group characteristic of interdependence. 

                            Effects of Conformity

                            Although these pressures may seem negative, they also have positive results. Groups that exert an appropriate and ethical amount of conformity pressure typically have higher levels of group cohesion, which as we learned leads to increased satisfaction with group membership, better relationships, and better task performance. Groups with a strong but healthy level of conformity also project a strong group image to those outside the group, which can raise the group’s profile or reputation (Hargie, 2011). Pressures toward conformity, of course, can go too far, as is evidenced in tragic stories of people driven to suicide because they felt they couldn’t live up to the conformity pressure of their group and people injured or killed enduring hazing rituals that take expectations for group conformity to unethical and criminal extremes.

                             

                            Group Conflict

                            Conflict can appear in indirect or direct forms within group interactions, just as it can in interpersonal interactions. Group members may openly question each other’s ideas or express anger toward or dislike for another person. Group members may also indirectly engage in conflict communication through innuendo, joking, or passive-aggressive behavior. Although we often view conflict negatively, conflict can be beneficial for many reasons. When groups get into a rut, lose creativity, or become complacent, conflict can help get a group out of a bad or mediocre routine. Conversely, conflict can lead to lower group productivity due to strain on the task and social dimensions of a group. There are three main types of conflict within groups: procedural, substantive, and interpersonal (Fujishin, 2001). Each of these types of conflict can vary in intensity, which can affect how much the conflict impacts the group and its members.

                             

                            Procedural Conflict

                            Procedural conflict emerges from disagreements or trouble with the mechanics of group operations. In this type of conflict, group members differ in their beliefs about how something should be done. Procedural conflict can be handled by a group leader, especially if the leader puts group procedures into place or has the individual power to change them. If there is no designated leader or the leader doesn’t have the sole power to change procedures (or just wants input from group members), proposals can be taken from the group on ways to address a procedural conflict to initiate a procedural change. A vote to reach a consensus or majority can also help resolve procedural conflict.

                             

                            13.3.2N

                            Procedural conflict can often be resolved with a group vote. Pixabay – CC0 Public Domain.

                             

                            Substantive Conflict

                            Substantive conflict focuses on group members’ differing beliefs, attitudes, values, or ideas related to the purpose or task of the group. Rather than focusing on questions of how, substantive conflicts focus on questions of what. Substantive conflicts may emerge as a group tries to determine its purpose or mission. As members figure out how to complete a task or debate which project to start on next, there will undoubtedly be differences of opinion on what something means, what is acceptable in terms of supporting evidence for a proposal, or what is acceptable for a goal or performance standard. Leaders and other group members shouldn’t rush to close this type of conflict down. As we learned in our earlier discussion of groupthink, open discussion and debate regarding ideas and suggestions for group actions can lead to higher-quality output and may prevent groupthink. Leaders who make final decisions about substantive conflict for the sake of moving on run the risk of creating a win/lose competitive climate in which people feel like their ideas may be shot down, which could lead to less participation. To resolve this type of conflict, group members may want to do research to see what other groups have done in similar situations, as additional information often provides needed context for conflict regarding information and ideas. Once the information is gathered, weigh all proposals and try to discover common ground among perspectives. Civil and open discussions that debate the merits of an idea are more desirable than a climate in which people feel personally judged for their ideas.

                             

                            Interpersonal Conflict

                            Interpersonal conflict emerges from conflict between individual members of the group. Whereas procedural conflict deals with how and substantive conflict deals with what, interpersonal conflict deals with who. Such conflict can be completely irrelevant to the functioning or purpose of the group, perhaps focusing instead on personality differences. Interpersonal conflict can be the result of avoided or improperly handled procedural or substantive conflict that festers and becomes personal rather than task-focused. This type of conflict can also result from differences in beliefs, attitudes, and values (when such differences are taken personally rather than substantively); different personalities; or different communication styles. While procedural and substantive conflicts may be more easily expressed because they do not directly address a person, interpersonal conflict may slowly build as people avoid openly criticizing or confronting others. Passive-aggressive behavior is a sign that interpersonal conflict may be building under the surface, and other group members may want to intervene to avoid escalation and retaliation. Leaders can also meet with people involved in interpersonal conflict privately to help them engage in perception checking and act as mediators if needed. While people who initiate procedural or substantive conflict may be perceived by other group members as concerned about the group’s welfare and seen as competent in their ability to notice areas on which the group could improve, people who initiate interpersonal conflict are often held in ill-regard by other group members (Ellis & Fisher, 1994).

                             

                            Primary and Secondary Tensions

                            Relevant to these types of conflict are primary and secondary tensions that emerge in every group (Bormann & Borman, 1988). When the group first comes together, members experience primary tension, which is tension based on the uncertainty that is a natural part of initial interactions. It is only after group members begin to “break the ice” and get to know each other that the tension can be addressed and group members can proceed with the forming stage of group development. Small talk and politeness help group members manage primary tensions, and there is a relatively high threshold for these conflicts because we have all had experiences with such uncertainty when meeting people for the first time, and many of us are optimistic that a little time and effort will allow us to get through the tensions. Since some people are more comfortable initiating conversation than others, it’s important for more extroverted group members to include less talkative members. Intentionally or unintentionally excluding people during the negotiation of primary tensions can lead to unexpected secondary tensions later on. During this stage, people are also less direct in their communication, using more hedges and vague language than they will later in the group process. The indirect communication and small talk that characterize this part of group development aren’t a waste of time, as they help manage primary tensions and lay the foundation for future interactions that may involve more substantive conflict.

                            Secondary tension emerges after groups have passed the forming stage of group development and begin to have conflict over member roles, differing ideas, and personality conflicts. These tensions are typically evidenced by less reserved and less polite behavior than primary tensions. People also have a lower tolerance threshold for secondary tensions, because rather than being an expected part of initial interaction, these conflicts can be more negative and interfere with the group’s task performance. Secondary tensions are inevitable and shouldn’t be feared or eliminated. It’s not the presence or absence of secondary tension that makes a group successful or not; it’s how it handles the tensions when they emerge. A certain level of secondary tension is tolerable, not distracting, and can actually enhance group performance and avoid groupthink. When secondary tensions rise above the tolerance threshold and become distracting, they should be released through direct means such as diplomatic confrontation or indirect means such as appropriate humor or taking a break. While primary tensions eventually disappear (at least until a new member arrives), secondary tensions will come and go and may persist for longer periods of time. For that reason, we will now turn to a discussion of how to manage conflict in group interaction.

                             

                            Managing Conflict in Small Groups

                            Some common ways to manage conflict include clear decision-making procedures, third-party mediation, and leader facilitation (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Commonly used methods for decision-making, such as majority vote, can help or hurt conflict management efforts. While an up-and-down vote can allow a group to finalize a decision and move on, members whose vote fell on the minority side may feel resentment toward other group members. This can create a win/lose climate that leads to further conflict. Having a leader who makes ultimate decisions can also help move a group toward completion of a task, but conflict may only be pushed to the side and left not fully addressed. Third-party mediation can help move a group past a conflict and may create fewer feelings of animosity since the person mediating and perhaps making a decision isn’t a member of the group. In some cases, the leader can act as an internal third-party mediator to help other group members work productively through their conflict.

                            Tips for Managing Group Conflict (Ellis & Fisher, 1994)

                            1. Clarify the issue at hand by getting to the historical roots of the problem. Keep in mind that perception leads us to punctuate interactions differently, so it may be useful to know each person’s perspective of when, how, and why the conflict began.
                            2. Create a positive discussion climate by encouraging and rewarding active listening.
                            3. Discuss needs rather than solutions. Determine each person’s needs to be met and goals for the outcome of the conflict before offering or acting on potential solutions.
                            4. Set boundaries for discussion and engage in gatekeeping to prevent unproductive interactions like tangents and personal attacks.
                            5. Use “we” language to maintain existing group cohesion and identity, and use “I” language to help reduce defensiveness.

                             

                            Advantages and Disadvantages of Conflict

                            Remember that a complete lack of conflict in a group is a bad sign, as it indicates either a lack of activity or a lack of commitment on the part of the members (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Conflict, when properly handled, can lead a group to have a better understanding of the issues they face. For example, substantive conflict brings voice to alternative perspectives that may not have been heard otherwise. Additionally, when people view conflict as healthy, necessary, and productive, they can enter into a conflict episode with an open mind and an aim to learn something. This is especially true when those who initiate substantive conflict are able to share and defend their views in a competent and civil manner. Group cohesion can also increase as a result of a well-managed conflict. Occasional experiences of tension and unrest followed by resolutions make groups feel like they have accomplished something, which can lead them to not dread conflict and give them the confidence to productively deal with it the next time.

                            Conflict that goes on for too long or is poorly handled can lead to decreased cohesiveness. Group members who try to avoid a conflict can still feel anger or frustration when the conflict drags on. Members who consistently take task-oriented conflict personally and escalate procedural or substantive conflict to interpersonal conflict are especially unpopular with other group members. Mishandled or chronic conflict can eventually lead to the destruction of a group or to a loss of members as people weigh the costs and rewards of membership (Ellis & Fisher, 1994). Hopefully, a skilled leader or other group members can take on conflict resolution roles in order to prevent these disadvantages of conflict. 

                             

                            References

                            Ahuja, M. K., and John E. Galvin, “Socialization in Virtual Groups,” Journal of Management 29, no. 2 (2003): 163.

                            Bormann, E. G. “Symbolic Convergence Theory: A Communication Formulation,” Journal of Communication, 35, no. 4 (1985): 128–38.

                            Bormann, E. G., and Nancy C. Borman, Effective Small Group Communication, 4th ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Burgess Publishing, 1988), 72.

                            Campo, S., Gretchen Poulos, and John W. Sipple, “Prevalence and Profiling: Hazing among College Students and Points of Intervention,” American Journal of Health Behavior 29, no. 2 (2005): 138.

                            Cimino, A., “The Evolution of Hazing: Motivational Mechanisms and the Abuse of Newcomers,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 11, no. 3–4 (2011): 235.

                            Daniel, L. J., and Charles R. Davis, “What Makes High-Performance Teams Excel?” Research Technology Management 52, no. 4 (2009): 40–41.

                            du Chatenier, E., Jos A. A. M. Verstegen, Harm J. A. Biemans, Martin Mulder, and Onno S. W. F. Omta, “Identification of Competencies in Open Innovation Teams,” Research and Development Management 40, no. 3 (2010): 271.

                            Ellis, D. G., and B. Aubrey Fisher, Small Group Decision Making: Communication and the Group Process, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 133.

                            Fujishin, R., Creating Effective Groups: The Art of Small Group Communication (San Francisco, CA: Acada Books, 2001): 160–61.

                            Griffin, E., A First Look at Communication Theory, 7th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 28.

                            Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2011), 445.

                            Jain, A. K., Jon M. Thompson, Joseph Chaudry, Shaun McKenzie, and Richard W. Schwartz, “High-Performance Teams for Current and Future Physician Leaders: An Introduction,” Journal of Surgical Education 65 (2008): 145.

                            Marston, P. J. and Michael L. Hecht, “Group Satisfaction,” in Small Group Communication, 5th ed., eds. Robert Cathcart and Larry Samovar (Dubuque, IA: Brown, 1988), 236–46.

                            Richardson, B. K., Zuoming Wang, and Camille A. Hall, “Blowing the Whistle against Greek Hazing: The Theory of Reasoned Action as a Framework for Reporting Intentions,” Communication Studies 63, no. 2 (2012): 173.

                            Solansky, S. T., “Team Identification: A Determining Factor of Performance,” Journal of Managerial Psychology 26, no. 3 (2011): 250.

                            6.4 Leadership and Small Group Communication

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication sections 16.1 and 16.2, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            What makes a good leader? What are some positive and negative roles that people play in groups? How do groups solve problems and make decisions in order to accomplish their task? We will begin to answer those questions because leadership and group member roles influence the performance of small groups. Whether you consider yourself a leader or not, all members of a group can perform leadership functions, and being familiar with these behaviors can improve your group’s performance. Likewise, knowing the various roles that typically emerge in a group can help you better understand a group’s dynamics and hopefully improve your overall group experience.

                            Leadership is one of the most studied aspects of group communication. Scholars in business, communication, psychology, and many other fields have written extensively about the qualities of leaders, theories of leadership, and how to build leadership skills. It’s important to point out that although a group may have only one official leader, other group members play important leadership roles. Making this distinction also helps us differentiate between leaders and leadership (Hargie, 2011). The leader is a group role that is associated with a high-status position and may be formally or informally recognized by group members. Leadership is a complex of beliefs, communication patterns, and behaviors that influence the functioning of a group and move a group toward the completion of its task. A person in the role of leader may provide no or poor leadership. Likewise, a person who is not recognized as a “leader” in the title can provide excellent leadership. In the remainder of this section, we will discuss some approaches to the study of leadership, leadership styles, and leadership and group dynamics.

                             

                            Why and How People Become Leaders

                            Throughout human history, some people have grown into, taken, or been given positions as leaders. Many early leaders were believed to be divine in some way. In some indigenous cultures, shamans are considered leaders because they are believed to be bridges that can connect the spiritual and physical realms. Many early kings, queens, and military leaders were said to be approved by a god to lead the people. Today, many leaders are elected or appointed to positions of power, but most of them have already accumulated much experience in leadership roles. Some leaders are well respected, some are feared, some are hated, and many elicit some combination of these reactions. This brief overview illustrates the centrality of leadership throughout human history, but it wasn’t until the last hundred years that leadership became an object of systematic study.

                            Before we move onto specific approaches to studying leadership, let’s distinguish between designated and emergent leaders. In general, some people gravitate more toward leadership roles than others, and some leaders are designated while others are emergent (Hargie, 2011). Designated leaders are officially recognized in their leadership role and may be appointed or elected by people inside or outside the group. Designated leaders can be especially successful when they are sought out by others to fulfill and are then accepted in leadership roles. On the other hand, some people seek out leadership positions not because they possess leadership skills and have been successful leaders in the past but because they have the drive to hold and wield power. Many groups are initially leaderless and must either designate a leader or wait for one to emerge organically. Emergent leaders gain status and respect through engagement with the group and its task and are turned to by others as a resource when leadership is needed. Emergent leaders may play an important role when a designated leader unexpectedly leaves. We will now turn our attention to three common perspectives on why some people are more likely to be designated leaders than others and how leaders emerge in the absence of or in addition to a designated leader.

                             

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                            A group leader may be formally designated by someone inside or outside the group or may emerge naturally during early group meetings. New City Church – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                             

                            Leaders Emerge Because of Their Traits

                            The trait approach to studying leadership distinguishes leaders from followers based on traits or personal characteristics (Pavitt, 1999). Some traits that leaders, in general, share are related to physical appearance, communication ability, intelligence, and personality (Cragan & Wright, 1991). In terms of physical appearance, designated leaders tend to be taller and more attractive than other group members. This could be because we consciously and/or subconsciously associate a larger size (in terms of height and build, but not body fat) with strength and strength with good leadership. As far as communication abilities, leaders speak more fluently, have a more confident tone, and communicate more often than other group members. Leaders are also moderately more intelligent than other group members, which is attractive because leaders need good problem-solving skills. Interestingly, group members are not as likely to designate or recognize an emergent leader that they perceive to be exceedingly more intelligent than them. Last, leaders are usually more extroverted, assertive, and persistent than other group members. These personality traits help get these group members noticed by others, and expressivity is often seen as attractive and as a sign of communication competence.

                            The trait approach to studying leaders has provided some useful information regarding how people view ideal leaders, but it has not provided much insight into why some people become and are more successful leaders than others. The list of ideal traits is not final because excellent leaders can have few, if any, of these traits, and poor leaders can possess many. Additionally, these traits are difficult to change or control without much time and effort. Because these traits are enduring, there isn’t much room for people to learn and develop leadership skills, which makes this approach less desirable for communication scholars who view leadership as a communication competence. Rather than viewing these traits as a guide for what to look for when choosing your next leader, view them as traits that are made meaningful through context and communication behaviors.

                            Leaders Emerge Because of the Situation

                            The emergent approach to studying leadership considers how leaders emerge in groups that are initially leaderless and how situational contexts affect this process (Pavitt, 1999). The situational context that surrounds a group influences what type of leader is best. Situations may be highly structured, highly unstructured, or anywhere in between (Cragan & Wright, 1991). Research has found that leaders with a high task orientation are likely to emerge in both highly structured contexts like a group that works to maintain a completely automated factory unit and highly unstructured contexts like a group that is responding to a crisis. Relational-oriented leaders are more likely to emerge in semistructured contexts that are less formal and in groups composed of people who have specific knowledge and are therefore be trusted to do much of their work independently (Fiedler, 1967). For example, a group of local business owners who form a group for professional networking would likely prefer a leader with a relational-oriented style since these group members are likely already leaders in their own right and therefore might resent a person who takes a rigid task-oriented style over a more collegial style.

                            Leaders emerge differently in different groups, but there are two stages common to each scenario (Bormann & Bormann, 1988). The first stage only covers a brief period, perhaps no longer than a portion of one meeting. During this first stage, about half of the group’s members are eliminated from the possibility of being the group’s leader. Remember that this is an informal and implicit process—not like people being picked for a kickball team or intentionally vetted. But there are some communicative behaviors that influence who makes the cut to the next stage of informal leader consideration. People will likely be eliminated as leader candidates if they do not actively contribute to initial group interactions, if they contribute but communicate poorly, if they contribute but appear too rigid or inflexible in their beliefs, or if they seem uninformed about the task of the group.

                            The second stage of leader emergence is where a more or less pronounced struggle for leadership begins. In one scenario, a leader candidate picks up an ally in the group who acts as a supporter or lieutenant, reinforcing the ideas and contributions of the candidate. If there are no other leader candidates or the others fail to pick up a supporter, the candidate with the supporter will likely become the leader. In a second scenario, there are two leader candidates who both pick up supporters and who are both qualified leaders. This leads to a more intense and potentially prolonged struggle that can actually be uncomfortable for other group members. Although the two leader candidates don’t overtly fight with each other or say, “I should be leader, not you!” they both take strong stances in regards to the group’s purpose and try to influence the structure, procedures, and trajectory for the group. Group members not involved in this struggle may not know who to listen to, which can lead to low task and social cohesion and may cause a group to fail. In some cases, one candidate-supporter team will retreat, leaving a clear leader to step up. But the candidate who retreated will still enjoy a relatively high status in the group and be respected for vying for leadership. The second-place candidate may become a nuisance for the new emergent leader, questioning their decisions. Rather than excluding or punishing the second-place candidate, the new leader should give them responsibilities within the group to make use of the group member’s respected status.

                            Leaders Emerge Based on Communication Skill and Competence

                            This final approach to the study of leadership is considered a functional approach because it focuses on how particular communication behaviors function to create the conditions of leadership. This last approach is the most useful for communication scholars and for people who want to improve their leadership skills because leadership behaviors (which are learnable and adaptable) rather than traits or situations (which are often beyond our control) are the primary focus of study. As we’ve already learned, any group member can exhibit leadership behaviors, not just a designated or emergent leader. Therefore leadership behaviors are important for all of us to understand even if we don’t anticipate serving in leadership positions (Cragan & Wright, 1991).

                            The communication behaviors that facilitate effective leadership encompass three main areas of group communication, including task, procedural, and relational functions. Although any group member can perform leadership behaviors, groups usually have patterns of and expectations for behaviors once they get to the norming and performing stages of group development. Many groups only meet one or two times, and in these cases, it is likely that a designated leader will perform many of the functions to get the group started and then step in to facilitate as needed.

                            Leadership behaviors that contribute to a group’s task-related functions include providing, seeking, and evaluating information. Leaders may want to be cautious about contributing ideas before soliciting ideas from group members since the leader’s contribution may sway or influence others in the group, therefore diminishing the importance of varying perspectives. Likewise, a leader may want to solicit evaluation of ideas from members before providing their own judgment. In group situations where creativity is needed to generate ideas or solutions to a problem, the task leader may be wise to facilitate brainstorming and discussion.

                             

                            14.1.1N

                            A group leader with high communication competence can facilitate brainstorming and group discussion to enhance the creativity and quality of group members’ ideas. Luca Mascaro – Brainstorming – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                             

                            This can allow the leader to keep their eye on the “big picture” and challenge group members to make their ideas more concrete or discuss their implications beyond the group without adding their own opinion. To review, some of the key leadership behaviors that contribute to the task-related functions of a group include the following (Cragan & Wright, 1991):

                            • Contributing ideas
                            • Seeking ideas
                            • Evaluating ideas
                            • Seeking idea evaluation
                            • Visualizing abstract ideas
                            • Generalizing from specific ideas

                            Leadership behaviors that contribute to a group’s procedural-related functions help guide the group as it proceeds from idea generation to implementation. Some leaders are better at facilitating and managing ideas than they are at managing the administrative functions of a group. So while a group leader may help establish the goals of the group and set the agenda, another group member with more experience in group operations may step in to periodically revisit and assess progress toward completion of goals and compare the group’s performance against its agenda. It’s also important to check in between idea-generating sessions to clarify, summarize, and gauge the agreement level of group members. A very skilled and experienced leader may take primary responsibility for all these behaviors, but it’s often beneficial to share them with group members to avoid becoming overburdened. To review, some of the key leadership behaviors that contribute to the procedural functions of a group include the following (Cragan & Wright, 1991):

                            • Goal setting
                            • Agenda making
                            • Clarifying
                            • Summarizing
                            • Verbalizing consensus
                            • Generalizing from specific ideas

                            Leadership behaviors that contribute to a group’s relational functions include creating a participative and inclusive climate, establishing norms of reflection and self-analysis, and managing conflict. By encouraging participation among group members, a leader can help quell people who try to monopolize the discussion and create an overall climate of openness and equality. Leaders want to make sure that people don’t feel personally judged for their ideas and that criticism remains idea-centered, not person-centered. A safe and positive climate typically leads to higher-quality idea generation and decision-making. Leaders also encourage group members to metacommunicate or talk about the group’s communication. This can help the group identify and begin to address any interpersonal or communication issues before they escalate and divert the group away from accomplishing its goal. A group with a well-established participative and inclusive climate will be better prepared to handle conflict when it emerges. Remember that conflict, when handled competently, can enhance group performance. Leaders may even instigate productive conflict by playing devil’s advocate or facilitating civil debate of ideas. To review, some of the key leadership behaviors that contribute to the relational functions of a group include the following (Cragan & Wright, 1991):

                            • Regulating participation
                            • Climate making
                            • Instigating group self-analysis
                            • Resolving conflict
                            • Instigating productive conflict

                             

                            Leadership Styles

                            Given the large amount of research done on leadership, it is not surprising that there are several different ways to define or categorize leadership styles. In general, effective leaders do not fit solely into one style in any of the following classifications. Instead, they are able to adapt their leadership style to fit the relational and situational context (Wood, 1977). One common way to study leadership style is to make a distinction among autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leaders (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939). These leadership styles can be described as follows:

                            • Autocratic leaders set policies and make decisions primarily on their own, taking advantage of the power present in their title or status to set the agenda for the group.
                            • Democratic leaders facilitate group discussion and like to take input from all members before making a decision.
                            • Laissez-faire leaders take a “hands-off” approach, preferring to give group members freedom to reach and implement their own decisions.

                            While this is a frequently cited model of leadership styles, we will focus in more detail on a model that was developed a few years after this one. I choose to focus on this later model because it offers some more specifics in terms of the communicative elements of each leadership style. The four leadership styles used in this model are directive, participative, supportive, and achievement-oriented (House & Mitchell, 1974).

                            Directive Leaders

                            Directive leaders help provide psychological structure for their group members by clearly communicating expectations, keeping a schedule and agenda, providing specific guidance as group members work toward the completion of their task, and taking the lead on setting and communicating group rules and procedures. Although this is most similar to the autocratic leadership style mentioned before, it is more nuanced and flexible. The originators of this model note that a leader can be directive without being seen as authoritarian. To do this, directive leaders must be good motivators who encourage productivity through positive reinforcement or reward rather than through the threat of punishment.

                             

                            14.1.2N

                            Directive leaders provide structure and clear expectations for their group. To be effective, they must be skilled motivators. The Open University – Speaker – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            A directive leadership style is effective in groups that do not have a history and may require direction to get started on their task. It can also be the most appropriate method during crisis situations in which decisions must be made under time constraints or other extraordinary pressures. When groups have an established history and are composed of people with unique skills and expertise, a directive approach may be seen as “micromanaging.” In these groups, a more participative style may be the best option.

                            Participative Leaders

                            Participative leaders work to include group members in the decision-making process by soliciting and considering their opinions and suggestions. When group members feel included, their personal goals are more likely to align with the group and organization’s goals, which can help productivity. This style of leadership can also aid in-group member socialization, as the members feel like they get to help establish group norms and rules, which affects cohesion and climate. When group members participate more, they buy into the group’s norms and goals more, which can increase conformity pressures for incoming group members. As we learned earlier, this is good to a point, but it can become negative when the pressures lead to unethical group member behavior. In addition to consulting group members for help with decision-making, participative leaders also grant group members more freedom to work independently. This can lead group members to feel trusted and respected for their skills, which can increase their effort and output.

                            The participative method of leadership is similar to the democratic style discussed earlier, and it is a style of leadership practiced in many organizations that have established workgroups that meet consistently over long periods of time. US companies began to adopt a more participative and less directive style of management in the 1980s after organizational scholars researched teamwork and efficiency in Japanese corporations. Japanese managers included employees in decision-making, which blurred the line between the leader and other group members and enhanced productivity. These small groups were called quality circles because they focused on group interaction intended to improve quality and productivity (Cragan & Wright, 1991).

                            Supportive Leaders

                            Supportive leaders show concern for their followers’ needs and emotions. They want to support group members’ welfare through a positive and friendly group climate. These leaders are good at reducing the stress and frustration of the group, which helps create a positive climate and can help increase group members’ positive feelings about the task and other group members. As we will learn later, some group roles function to maintain the relational climate of the group, and several group members often perform these role behaviors. With a supportive leader as a model, such behaviors would likely be performed as part of established group norms, which can do much to enhance social cohesion. Supportive leaders do not provide unconditionally positive praise. They also competently provide constructive criticism in order to challenge and enhance group members’ contributions.

                            A supportive leadership style is more likely in groups that are primarily relational rather than task-focused. For example, support groups and therapy groups benefit from a supportive leader. While maintaining positive relationships is an important part of any group’s functioning, most task-oriented groups need to spend more time on tasks than social functions in order to efficiently work toward the completion of their task. Skilled directive or participative leaders of task-oriented groups would be wise to employ supportive leadership behaviors when group members experience emotional stress to prevent relational stress from negatively impacting the group’s climate and cohesion.

                            Achievement-Oriented Leaders

                            Achievement-oriented leaders strive for excellence and set challenging goals, constantly seeking improvement and exhibiting confidence that group members can meet their high expectations. These leaders often engage in systematic social comparison, keeping tabs on other similar high-performing groups to assess their expectations and the group’s progress. This type of leadership is similar to what other scholars call transformational or visionary leadership and is often associated with leaders like former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, talk show host and television network CEO Oprah Winfrey, former president Bill Clinton, and business magnate turned philanthropist Warren Buffett. Achievement-oriented leaders are likely less common than the other styles, as this style requires a high level of skill and commitment on the part of the leader and the group. Although rare, these leaders can be found at all levels of groups ranging from local school boards to Fortune 500 companies. Certain group dynamics must be in place in order to accommodate this leadership style. Groups for which an achievement-oriented leadership style would be effective are typically intentionally created and are made up of members who are skilled and competent in regard to the group’s task. In many cases, the leader is specifically chosen because of their reputation and expertise, and even though the group members may not have a history of working with the leader, the members and leader must have a high degree of mutual respect.

                             

                            Leadership and Power

                            Leaders help move group members toward the completion of their goals using various motivational strategies. The types of power leaders draw on to motivate have long been a topic of small group study. A leader may possess or draw on any of the following five types of power to varying degrees: legitimate, expert, referent, information, and reward/coercive (French Jr. & Raven, 1959). Effective leaders do not need to possess all five types of power. Instead, competent leaders know how to draw on other group members who may be better able to exercise a type of power in a given situation.

                            Legitimate Power

                            The very title of leader brings with it legitimate power, which is the power that flows from the officially recognized position, status, or title of a group member. For example, the leader of the “Social Media Relations Department” of a retail chain receives legitimate power through the title “director of social media relations.” It is important to note, though, that being designated as someone with status or a position of power doesn’t mean that the group members respect or recognize that power. Even with a title, leaders must still earn the ability to provide leadership. Of the five types of power, however, the leader alone is most likely to possess legitimate power.

                            Expert Power

                             

                            14.1.3N

                            A group member with expertise in an area relevant to the group’s task may draw on expert power to lead the group. For example, a transplant surgeon may lead a team of other doctors and nurses during the surgery, while a critical care nurse may take the lead during post-surgery recovery. UCD School of Medicine – Surgery Image 2 – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Expert power comes from knowledge, skill, or expertise that a group member possesses, and other group members do not. For example, even though all the workers in the Social Media Relations Department have experience with computers, the information technology (IT) officer has expert power when it comes to computer networking and programming. Because of this, even though the director may have a higher status, they must defer to the IT officer when the office network crashes. A leader who has legitimate and expert power may be able to take a central role in setting the group’s direction, contributing to problem-solving, and helping the group achieve its goal. In groups with a designated leader who relies primarily on legitimate power, a member with a significant amount of expert power may emerge as an unofficial secondary leader.

                            Referent Power

                            Referent power comes from the attractiveness, likeability, and charisma of the group member. As we learned earlier, more physically attractive people and more outgoing people are often chosen as leaders. This could be due to their referent power. Referent power also derives from a person’s reputation. A group member may have referent power if they are well respected outside of the group for previous accomplishments or even because they are known as a dependable and capable group member. Like legitimate power, the fact that a person possesses referent power doesn’t mean they have the talent, skill, or other characteristics needed to actually lead the group. A person could just be likable but have no relevant knowledge about the group’s task or leadership experience. Some groups actually desire this type of leader, especially if the person is meant to attract external attention and serve as more of a “figurehead” than a regularly functioning group member. For example, a group formed to raise funds for a science and nature museum may choose a former mayor, local celebrity, or NASA astronaut as their leader because of their referent power. In this situation, it would probably be best for the group to have a secondary leader who attends to task and problem-solving functions within the group.

                            Information Power

                            Information power comes from a person’s ability to access information that comes through informal channels and well-established social and professional networks. We have already learned that information networks are an important part of a group’s structure and can affect a group’s access to various resources. When a group member is said to have “know-how,” they possess information power. The knowledge may not always be official, but it helps the group solve problems and get things done. Individuals develop information power through years of interacting with others, making connections, and building and maintaining interpersonal and instrumental relationships. For example, the group formed to raise funds for the science and nature museum may need to draw on informal information networks to get leads on potential donors, to get information about what local science teachers would recommend for exhibits, or to book a band willing to perform for free at a fundraising concert.

                            Reward and Coercive Power

                            The final two types of power, reward and coercive, are related. Reward power comes from the ability of a group member to provide a positive incentive as a compliance-gaining strategy, and coercive power comes from the ability of a group member to provide a negative incentive. These two types of power can be difficult for leaders and other group members to manage because their use can lead to interpersonal conflict. Reward power can be used by nearly any group member if they give another group member positive feedback on an idea, an appreciation card for hard work, or a pat on the back. Because of limited resources, many leaders are frustrated by their inability to give worthwhile tangible rewards to group members, such as prizes, bonuses, or raises. Additionally, the use of reward power may seem corny or paternalistic to some or may arouse accusations of favoritism or jealousy among group members who don’t receive the award.

                            Coercive power, since it entails punishment or negative incentive, can lead to interpersonal conflict and a negative group climate if it is overused or used improperly. While any leader or group member could make threats to others, leaders with legitimate power are typically in the best position to use coercive power. In such cases, coercive power may manifest in loss of pay and/or privileges, being excluded from the group, or being fired (if the group work is job-related). In many volunteer groups or groups that lack formal rules and procedures, leaders have a more difficult time using coercive power since they can’t issue official punishments. Instead, coercive power will likely take the form of interpersonal punishments such as ignoring group members or excluding them from group activities.

                             

                            References

                            Bormann, E. G., and Nancy C. Bormann, Effective Small Group Communication, 4th ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Burgess CA, 1988), 130–33.

                            Cragan, J. F., and David W. Wright, Communication in Small Group Discussions: An Integrated Approach, 3rd ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1991), 120.

                            Deutschman, A., “Exit the King,” The Daily Beast, September 21, 2011, accessed August 23, 2012, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/steve-jobs-american-genius.html.

                            Fiedler, F. E., A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).

                            French Jr., J. R. P., and Bertram Raven, “The Bases of Social Power,” in Studies in Social Power, ed. Dorwin Cartwright (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1959), 150–67.

                            Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 456.

                            House, R. J., and Terrence R. Mitchell, “Path-Goal Theory of Leadership,” Journal of Contemporary Business 3 (1974): 81–97.

                            Lewin, K., Ronald Lippitt, and Ralph K. White, “Patterns of Aggressive Behavior in Experimentally Created ‘Social Climates,’” Journal of Social Psychology 10, no. 2 (1939): 269–99.

                            Pavitt, C., “Theorizing about the Group Communication-Leadership Relationship,” in The Handbook of Group Communication Theory and Research, ed. Lawrence R. Frey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), 313.

                            Wood, J. T., “Leading in Purposive Discussions: A Study of Adaptive Behavior,” Communication Monographs 44, no. 2 (1977): 152–65.

                            6.5 Group Member Roles

                            (Content obtained from Introduction to Speech Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            Just as leaders have been long studied as a part of group communication research, so too have group member roles. Group roles are more dynamic than leadership roles in that a role can be formal or informal and played by more than one group member. Additionally, one group member may exhibit various role behaviors within a single group meeting or play a few consistent roles over the course of their involvement with a group. Some people’s role behaviors result from their personality traits, while other people act out a certain role because of a short-term mood, as a reaction to another group member, or out of necessity. Group communication scholars have cautioned us not to always think of these roles as neatly bounded all-inclusive categories. After all, we all play multiple roles within a group and must draw on multiple communication behaviors in order to successfully play them. When someone continually exhibits a particular behavior, it may be labeled as a role, but even isolated behaviors can impact group functioning. In this section, we will discuss the three categories of common group roles that were identified by early group communication scholars. These role categories include task-related roles, maintenance roles, and individual roles that are self-centered or unproductive for the group (Benne & Sheats, 1948).

                             

                            Task-Related Roles and Behaviors

                            Task roles and their related behaviors contribute directly to the group’s completion of a task or achievement of its goal or purpose. Task-related roles typically serve leadership, informational, or procedural functions. In this section, we will discuss the following roles and behaviors: task leader, expediter, information provider, information seeker, gatekeeper, and recorder.

                            Task Leader

                            Within any group, there may be a task leader who has a high group status because of their maturity, problem-solving abilities, knowledge, and/or leadership experience, and skills and functions primarily to help the group complete its task (Cragan & Wright, 1991). This person may be a designated or emergent leader, but in either case, task leaders tend to talk more during group interactions than other group members and also tend to do more work in the group. Depending on the number of tasks a group has, there may be more than one task leader, especially if the tasks require different sets of skills or knowledge. Because of the added responsibilities of being a task leader, people in these roles may experience higher levels of stress. A task leader’s stresses, however, may be lessened through some of the maintenance role behaviors that we will discuss later.

                            Task-leader behaviors can be further divided into two types: substantive and procedural (Pavitt, 1999). The substantive leader is the “idea person” who communicates “big picture” thoughts and suggestions that feed group discussion. The procedural leader is the person who gives the most guidance, perhaps following up on the ideas generated by the substantive leader. A skilled and experienced task leader may be able to perform both of these roles, but when the roles are filled by two different people, the person considered the procedural leader is more likely than the substantive leader to be viewed by members as the overall group leader. This indicates that task-focused groups assign more status to the person who actually guides the group toward the completion of the task (a “doer”) than the person who comes up with ideas (the “thinker”).

                            Expediter

                            The expediter is a task-related role that functions to keep the group on track toward completing its task by managing the agenda and setting and assessing goals in order to monitor the group’s progress. An expediter doesn’t push group members mindlessly along toward the completion of their task; an expediter must have a good sense of when a topic has been sufficiently discussed or when a group’s extended focus on one area has led to diminishing returns. In such cases, the expediter may say, “Now that we’ve had a thorough discussion of the pros and cons of switching the office from PCs to Macs, which side do you think has more support?” or “We’ve spent half of this meeting looking for examples of what other libraries have done and haven’t found anything useful. Maybe we should switch gears so we can get something concrete done tonight.”

                             

                            14.2.0N

                            An expediter in a restaurant keeps the food flowing from the kitchen to the diners in a timely and orderly fashion, just as the expediter in a group keeps the group on an agenda. Lester Guijarro – chefs – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                             

                            If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you’re probably familiar with an expediter’s role in the kitchen. The person working “expo” helps make sure that the timing on all the dishes for a meal works out and that each plate is correct before it goes out to the table. This is by no means an easy job since some entrées cook quicker than others, and not everyone orders their burger the same way. So the expediter helps make order out of chaos by calling the food out to the kitchen in a particular order that logically works so that all the food will come up at the same time. Once the food is up, they also check what’s on the plate against what’s on the ticket to make sure it matches. Expediting in a restaurant and in a small group is like a dance that requires some flexible and creative thinking and an ability to stick to a time frame and assess progress. To avoid the perception that group members are being rushed, a skilled expediter can demonstrate good active-listening skills by paraphrasing what has been discussed and summarizing what has been accomplished in such a way that makes it easier for group members to see the need to move on.

                            Information Provider

                            The role of information provider includes behaviors that are more evenly shared than in other roles, as ideally, all group members present new ideas, initiate discussions of new topics, and contribute their own relevant knowledge and experiences. When group members are brought together because they each have different types of information, early group meetings may consist of group members taking turns briefing each other on their area of expertise. In other situations, only one person in the group may be chosen because of their specialized knowledge, and this person may be expected to be the primary information provider for all other group members. For example, I was asked to serve on a university committee that is reviewing our undergraduate learning goals. Since my official role is to serve as the “faculty expert” on the subcommittee related to speaking, I played a more central information-provider function for our group during most of our initial meetings. Since other people on the subcommittee weren’t as familiar with speaking and its place within the higher education curriculum, it made sense that information-providing behaviors were not as evenly distributed in this case.

                            Information Seeker

                            The information seeker asks for more information, elaboration, or clarification on items relevant to the group’s task. The information sought may include factual information or group member opinions. In general, information seekers ask questions for clarification, but they can also ask questions that help provide an important evaluative function. Most groups could benefit from more critically oriented information-seeking behaviors. As our discussion of groupthink notes, critical questioning helps increase the quality of ideas and group outcomes and helps avoid groupthink. By asking for more information, people have to defend (in a nonadversarial way) and/or support their claims, which can help ensure that the information being discussed is credible, relevant, and thoroughly considered. When information seeking or questioning occurs as a result of poor listening skills, it risks negatively impacting the group. Skilled information providers and seekers are also good active listeners. They increase all group members’ knowledge when they paraphrase and ask clarifying questions about the information presented.

                            Gatekeeper

                            The gatekeeper manages the flow of conversation in a group in order to achieve an appropriate balance so that all group members get to participate in a meaningful way. The gatekeeper may prompt others to provide information by saying something like, “Let’s each share one idea we have for a movie to show during Black History Month.” They may also help correct an imbalance between members who have provided much information already and members who have been quiet by saying something like, “Aretha, we’ve heard a lot from you today. Let’s hear from someone else. Beau, what are your thoughts on Aretha’s suggestion?” Gatekeepers should be cautious about “calling people out” or at least making them feel that way. Instead of scolding someone for not participating, they should be invitational and ask a member to contribute to something specific instead of just asking if they have anything to add. Since gatekeepers make group members feel included, they also service the relational aspects of the group.

                            Recorder

                            The recorder takes notes on the discussion and activities that occur during a group meeting. The recorder is the only role that is essentially limited to one person at a time since, in most cases, it wouldn’t be necessary or beneficial to have more than one person recording. At less formal meetings, there may be no recorder, while at formal meetings, there is almost always a person who records meeting minutes, which are an overview of what occurred at the meeting. Each committee will have different rules or norms regarding the level of detail within and availability of the minutes. While some group’s minutes are required by law to be public, others may be strictly confidential. Even though a record of a group meeting may be valuable, the role of the recorder is often regarded as a low-status position since the person in the role may feel or be viewed as subservient to the other members who are able to more actively contribute to the group’s functioning. Because of this, it may be desirable to have the role of the recorder rotate among members (Cragan & Wright, 1991).

                             

                            14.2.1N

                            The recorder writes and/or types notes during group meetings in order to document the discussion and other interactions. Chung Ho Leung – Note Taking – CC BY-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Maintenance Roles and Behaviors

                            Maintenance roles and their corresponding behaviors function to create and maintain social cohesion and fulfill the interpersonal needs of group members. All these role behaviors require strong and sensitive interpersonal skills. The maintenance roles we will discuss in this section include social-emotional leader, supporter, tension releaser, harmonizer, and interpreter.

                            Social-Emotional Leader

                            The social-emotional leader within a group may perform a variety of maintenance roles and is generally someone who is well-liked by the other group members and whose role behaviors complement but don’t compete with the task leader. The social-emotional leader may also reassure and support the task leader when they become stressed. In general, the social-emotional leader is a reflective thinker who has good perception skills that they use to analyze the group dynamics and climate and then initiate the appropriate role behaviors to maintain a positive climate. Unlike the role of task leader, this isn’t a role that typically shifts from one person to another. While all members of the group perform some maintenance role behaviors at various times, the socioemotional leader reliably functions to support group members and maintain a positive relational climate. Social-emotional leadership functions can actually become detrimental to the group and lead to less satisfaction among members when the maintenance behaviors being performed are seen as redundant or as too distracting from the task (Pavitt, 1999).

                            Supporter

                            The role of supporter is characterized by communication behaviors that encourage other group members and provide emotional support as needed. The supporter’s work primarily occurs in one-on-one exchanges that are more intimate and in-depth than the exchanges that take place during full group meetings. While many group members may make supporting comments publicly at group meetings, these comments are typically superficial and/or brief. A supporter uses active empathetic listening skills to connect with group members who may seem down or frustrated by saying something like, “Tayesha, you seemed kind of down today. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Supporters also follow up on previous conversations with group members to maintain the connections they’ve already established by saying things like, “Alan, I remember you said your mom is having surgery this weekend. I hope it goes well. Let me know if you need anything.” The supporter’s communication behaviors are probably the least noticeable of any of the other maintenance roles, which may make this group member’s efforts seem overlooked. Leaders and other group members can help support the supporter by acknowledging their contributions.

                            Tension Releaser

                            The tension releaser is someone who is naturally funny and sensitive to the personalities of the group and the dynamics of any given situation and who uses these qualities to manage the frustration level of the group. Being funny is not enough to fulfill this role, as jokes or comments could indeed be humorous to other group members but be delivered at an inopportune time, which ultimately creates rather than releases tension. The healthy use of humor by the tension releaser performs the same maintenance function as the empathy employed by the harmonizer or the social-emotional leader, but it is less intimate and is typically directed toward the whole group instead of just one person. The tension releaser may start serving their function during the forming stage of group development when primary tensions are present due to the typical uncertainties present during initial interactions. The tension releaser may help “break the ice” or make others feel at ease during the group’s more socially awkward first meetings. When people make a failed attempt to release tension, they may be viewed as a joker, which is a self-centered role we will learn more about later.

                            Harmonizer

                            The harmonizer role is played by group members who help manage the various types of group conflict that emerge during group communication. They keep their eyes and ears open for signs of conflict among group members and ideally intervene before it escalates. For example, the harmonizer may sense that one group member’s critique of another member’s idea wasn’t received positively, and they may be able to rephrase the critique in a more constructive way, which can help diminish the other group member’s defensiveness. Harmonizers also deescalate conflict once it has already started—for example, by suggesting that the group take a break and then mediating between group members in a side conversation. These actions can help prevent conflict from spilling over into other group interactions. In cases where the whole group experiences conflict, the harmonizer may help lead the group in perception-checking discussions that help members see an issue from multiple perspectives. For a harmonizer to be effective, it’s important that they be viewed as impartial and committed to the group as a whole rather than to one side of an issue or one person or faction within the larger group. A special kind of harmonizer that helps manage cultural differences within the group is the interpreter.

                             

                            14.2.2N

                            An interpreter is a group member who has cultural sensitivity and experience interacting with multiple cultures and can help facilitate intercultural interactions within a group. Laura – Estrenando cabina – CC BY 2.0.

                             

                            Interpreter

                            An interpreter helps manage the diversity within a group by mediating intercultural conflict, articulating common ground between different people, and generally creating a climate where difference is seen as an opportunity rather than as something to be feared. Just as an interpreter at the United Nations acts as a bridge between two different languages, the interpreter can bridge identity differences between group members. Interpreters can help perform the other maintenance roles discussed with a special awareness of and sensitivity toward cultural differences. While a literal interpreter would serve a task-related function within a group, this type of interpreter may help support a person who feels left out of the group because they have a different cultural identity than the majority of the group. Interpreters often act as allies to people who are different even though the interpreter doesn’t share their specific cultural identity. The interpreter may help manage conflict that arises as a result of diversity, in this case, acting as an ambassador or mediator. Interpreters, because of their cultural sensitivity, may also take a proactive role to help address conflict before it emerges—for example, by taking a group member aside and explaining why their behavior or comments may be perceived as offensive.

                             

                            Negative Roles and Behaviors

                            Group communication scholars began exploring the negative side of group member roles more than sixty years ago (Benne & Sheats, 1948). Studying these negative roles can help us analyze group interactions and potentially better understand why some groups are more successful than others. It’s important to acknowledge that we all perform some negative behaviors within groups but that those behaviors do not necessarily constitute a role. A person may temporarily monopolize a discussion to bring attention to their idea. If that behavior gets the attention of the group members and makes them realize they were misinformed or headed in a negative direction, then that behavior may have been warranted. Negative behaviors can be enacted with varying degrees of intensity and regularity, and their effects may range from mild annoyance to group failure. In general, the effects grow increasingly negative as they increase in intensity and frequency. While a single enactment of a negative role behavior may still harm the group, regular enactment of such behaviors would constitute a role, and playing that role is guaranteed to negatively impact the group. We will divide our discussion of negative roles into self-centered and unproductive roles.

                            Self-Centered Roles

                            The behaviors associated with all the self-centered roles divert attention from the task to the group member exhibiting the behavior. Although all these roles share in their quest to divert attention, they do it in different ways and for different reasons. The self-centered roles we will discuss are the central negative, monopolizer, self-confessor, insecure compliment seeker, and joker (Cragan & Wright, 1991).

                            Central Negative

                            The central negative argues against most of the ideas and proposals discussed in the group and often emerges as a result of a leadership challenge during group formation. The failed attempt to lead the group can lead to feelings of resentment toward the leader and/or the purpose of the group, which then manifest in negative behaviors that delay, divert, or block the group’s progress toward achieving its goal. This scenario is unfortunate because the central negative is typically a motivated and intelligent group member who can benefit the group if properly handled by the group leader or other members. Group communication scholars suggest that the group leader or leaders actively incorporate central negatives into group tasks and responsibilities to make them feel valued and to help diminish any residual anger, disappointment, or hurt feelings from the leadership conflict (Bormann & Bormann, 1988). Otherwise, the central negative will continue to argue against the proposals and decisions of the group, even when they may be in agreement. In some cases, the central negative may unintentionally serve a beneficial function if their criticisms prevent groupthink.

                            Monopolizer

                            The monopolizer is a group member who makes excessive verbal contributions, preventing equal participation by other group members. In short, monopolizers like to hear the sound of their own voice and do not follow typical norms for conversational turn-taking. There are some people who are well-informed, charismatic, and competent communicators who can get away with impromptu lectures and long stories, but monopolizers do not possess the magnetic qualities of such people. A group member’s excessive verbal contributions are more likely to be labeled as monopolizing when they are not related to the task or when they provide unnecessary or redundant elaboration. Some monopolizers do not intentionally speak for longer than they should. Instead, they think they are making a genuine contribution to the group. These folks likely lack sensitivity to nonverbal cues, or they would see that other group members are tired of listening or annoyed. Other monopolizers just like to talk and don’t care what others think. Some may be trying to make up for a lack of knowledge or experience. This type of monopolizer is best described as a dilettante or an amateur who tries to pass themselves off as an expert.

                            There are some subgroups of behaviors that fall under the monopolizer’s role. The “stage hog” monopolizes discussion with excessive verbal contributions and engages in one-upping and narcissistic listening. One-upping is a spotlight-stealing strategy in which people try to verbally “out-do” others by saying something like, “You think that’s bad? Listen to what happened to me!” They also listen to others in order to find something they can connect back to themselves, not to understand the message. The stage hog is like the diva that refuses to leave the stage to let the next performer begin. Unlike a monopolizer, who may engage in their behaviors unknowingly, stage hogs are usually aware of what they’re doing.

                             

                            14.2.3N

                            A monopolizer makes excessive verbal contributions and holds the floor without allowing others to speak. Kev-shine – Business man point – CC BY 2.0.

                             

                            The “egghead” monopolizes the discussion with excessive contributions that are based on actual knowledge but that exceed the level of understanding of other group members or the needs of the group (Cragan & Wright, 1999). The egghead is different from the dilettante monopolizer discussed earlier because this person has genuine knowledge and expertise on a subject, which may be useful to the group. But like the monopolizer and stage hog, the egghead’s excessive contributions draw attention away from the task, slow the group down, and may contribute to a negative group climate. The egghead may be like an absentminded professor who is smart but lacks the social sensitivity to tell when they have said enough and is now starting to annoy other group members. This type of egghead naively believes that other group members care as much about the subject as they do. The second type of egghead is more pompous and monopolizes the discussion to flaunt their intellectual superiority. While the first type of egghead may be tolerated to a point by the group and seen as eccentric but valuable, the second type of egghead is perceived more negatively and more quickly hurts the group. In general, the egghead’s advanced knowledge of a subject and excessive contributions can hurt the group’s potential for synergy since other group members may defer to the egghead expert, which can diminish the creativity that comes from outside and nonexpert perspectives.

                            Self-Confessor

                            The self-confessor is a group member who tries to use group meetings as therapy sessions for issues not related to the group’s task. Self-confessors tend to make personal self-disclosures that are unnecessarily intimate. While it is reasonable to expect that someone experiencing a personal problem may want to consult with the group, especially if that person has formed close relationships with other group members, a self-confessor consistently comes to meetings with drama or a personal problem. A supporter or gatekeeper may be able to manage some degree of self-confessor behavior, but a chronic self-confessor is likely to build frustration among other group members, which can lead to interpersonal conflict and a lack of cohesion and productivity. Most groups develop a norm regarding how much personal information is discussed during group meetings, and some limit such disclosures to the time before or after the meeting, which may help deter the self-confessor.

                            Insecure Compliment Seeker

                            The insecure compliment seeker wants to know that they are valued by the group and seeks recognition that is often not task-related. For example, they don’t want to be told they did a good job compiling a report; they want to know that they’re a good person or attractive or smart—even though they might not be any of those things. In short, they try to get validation from their relationships with group members—validation that they may be lacking in relationships outside the group. Or they may be someone who continually seeks the approval of others or tries to overcompensate for insecurity through excessive behaviors aimed at eliciting compliments. For example, if a group member wears a tight-fitting t-shirt in hopes of drawing attention to their physique but doesn’t receive any compliments from the group, they may say, “My partner said they could tell I’ve been working out. What do you think?”

                            Joker

                            The joker is a person who consistently uses sarcasm, plays pranks, or tells jokes, which distracts from the overall functioning of the group. In short, the joker is an incompetent tension releaser. Rather than being seen as the witty group member with good timing, the joker is seen as the “class clown.” Like the insecure compliment seeker, the joker usually seeks attention and approval because of underlying insecurity. A group’s leader may have to intervene and privately meet with a person engaging in joker behavior to help prevent a toxic or unsafe climate from forming. This may be ineffective, though, if a joker’s behaviors are targeted toward the group leader, which could indicate that the joker has a general problem with authority. In the worst-case scenario, a joker may have to be expelled from the group if their behavior becomes violent, offensive, illegal, or otherwise unethical.

                            Unproductive Roles

                            There are some negative roles in group communication that do not primarily function to divert attention away from the group’s task to a specific group member. Instead, these unproductive roles just prevent or make it more difficult for the group to make progress. These roles include the blocker, withdrawer, aggressor, and doormat.

                            Blocker

                            The blocker intentionally or unintentionally keeps things from getting done in the group. Intentionally, a person may suggest that the group look into a matter further or explore another option before making a final decision even though the group has already thoroughly considered the matter. They may cite a procedural rule or suggest that input be sought from additional people in order to delay progress. Behaviors that lead to more information gathering can be good for the group, but when they are unnecessary, they are blocking behaviors. Unintentionally, a group member may set blocking behaviors into motion by missing a meeting or not getting their work done on time. People can also block progress by playing the airhead role, which is the opposite of the egghead role discussed earlier. An airhead skirts their responsibilities by claiming ignorance when they actually understand or intentionally performs poorly on a task so the other group members question their intellectual abilities to handle other tasks (Cragan & Wright, 1999). Since exhibiting airhead behaviors gets a person out of performing tasks, they can also be a tactic of a withdrawer, which we will discuss next.

                             

                            14.2.4N

                            A blocker prevents the group from progressing toward the completion of its task by creating barriers, suggesting unnecessary work, or avoiding group members. Kev-shine – Business man phone – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Withdrawer

                            A withdrawer mentally and/or physically removes themselves from group activities and only participates when forced to. When groups exceed five members, the likelihood of having a member exhibit withdrawer behaviors increases. For example, a member may attend meetings and seemingly pay attention but not contribute to discussions or not volunteer to take on tasks, but instead waiting on other members to volunteer first. Withdrawers are often responsible for the social loafing that makes other group members dread group work. A member may also avoid eye contact with other group members, sit apart from the group, or orient their body away from the group to avoid participation. Withdrawers generally do not exhibit active listening behaviors. At the extreme, a group member may stop attending group meetings completely. Adopting a problem-solving model that requires equal participation, starting to build social cohesion early, and choosing a meeting space and seating arrangement that encourages interactivity can help minimize withdrawing behaviors. Gatekeepers, supporters, and group leaders can also intervene after early signs of withdrawing to try to reengage the group member.

                            Aggressor

                            An aggressor exhibits negative behaviors such as putting others’ ideas down, attacking others personally when they feel confronted or insecure, competing unnecessarily to “win” at the expense of others within the group, and being outspoken to the point of distraction. An aggressor’s behaviors can quickly cross the fine line between being abrasive or dominant and being unethical. For example, a person vigorously defending a position that is relevant and valid is different from a person who claims others’ ideas are stupid but has nothing to contribute. As with most behaviors, the aggressor’s fall into a continuum based on their intensity. On the more benign end of the continuum is assertive behavior, toward the middle is aggressive behavior, and on the unethical side is bullying behavior. At their worst, an aggressor’s behaviors can lead to shouting matches or even physical violence within a group. Establishing group rules and norms that set up a safe climate for discussion and include mechanisms for temporarily or permanently removing a group member who violates that safe space may proactively prevent such behaviors.

                            Doormat

                            While we all need to take one for the team sometimes or compromise for the sake of the group, the doormat is a person who is chronically submissive to the point that it hurts the group’s progress (Cragan & Wright, 1999). Doormat behaviors include quickly giving in when challenged, self-criticism, and claims of inadequacy. Some people who exhibit doormat behaviors may have difficulty being self-assured and assertive, may be conflict-avoidant, or may feel that their behaviors will make other group members like them. Other people play the martyr and make sure to publicly note their “sacrifices” for the group, hoping to elicit praise or attention. If their sacrifices aren’t recognized, they may engage in further negative behaviors such as whining and/or insecure compliment seeking.

                             

                            References

                            Benne, K. D., and Paul Sheats, “Functional Roles of Group Members,” Journal of Social Issues 4, no. 2 (1948): 41–49.

                            Bormann, E. G., and Nancy C. Bormann, Effective Small Group Communication, 4th ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Burgess CA, 1988).

                            Cragan, J. F., and David W. Wright, Communication in Small Group Discussions: An Integrated Approach, 3rd ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1991), 147.

                            Pavitt, C., “Theorizing about the Group Communication-Leadership Relationship,” in The Handbook of Group Communication Theory and Research, ed. Lawrence R. Frey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), 317.

                            Chapter 7: Public Speaking

                            Learning Objectives for Chapter 7: Public Speaking 

                            • Develop the ability to stand before an audience and deliver ideas clearly, effectively, and with a mastery over fear.   
                            • Learn to organize and create speech outlines.
                            • Learn the four methods of delivery: impromptu, extemporaneous, speaking from a manuscript, and speaking from memory.  
                            • Analyze and understand the importance of the audience as they consider speech topics and delivery techniques. 
                            • Use visual aids to enhance speech delivery.

                             

                            7.1 Overcoming Anxiety

                            (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                             

                            If you feel fear, anxiety, or discomfort when confronted with the task of speaking in front of an audience, you are not alone. National polls consistently show that public speaking is among Americans’ top fears (Bodie, 2010). Yet, since we all have to engage in some form of public speaking, this is a fear that many people must face regularly. Effectively managing speaking anxiety has many positive effects on your speech. One major area that can improve with less anxiety is delivery. Although speaking anxiety is natural and normal, it can interfere with verbal and nonverbal delivery, which makes a speech less effective.

                             

                            Sources of Speaking Anxiety

                            Aside from the self-reported data in national surveys that rank the fear of public speaking high for Americans, decades of research conducted by communication scholars shows that communication apprehension is common among college students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Communication apprehension (CA) is fear or anxiety experienced by a person due to real or perceived communication with another person or persons. CA is a more general term that includes multiple forms of communication, not just public speaking. CA can be further broken down into two categories. Trait CA refers to a general tendency to experience anxiety related to communication, in essence incorporating it into a person’s personality. State CA refers to anxiety related to communication that occurs in a particular situation and time (Bodie, 2010). Of college students, 15 to 20 percent experience high trait CA, meaning they are generally anxious about communication. Seventy percent of college students experience some trait CA, which means that addressing communication anxiety in a class like the one you’re taking now stands to benefit the majority of students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). Whether CA is a personal trait or not, we all occasionally experience state CA. Think about the jitters you get before a first date, a job interview, or the first day of school. The novelty or uncertainty of some situations is a common trigger for communication anxiety, and public speaking is a novel and uncertain situation for many.

                            Public speaking anxiety is a type of CA that produces physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions in people when faced with a real or imagined presentation (Bodie, 2010). Physiological responses to public speaking anxiety include increased heart rate, flushing of the skin or face, and sweaty palms, among other things. These reactions are the result of natural chemical processes in the human body. The fight or flight instinct helped early humans survive threatening situations. When faced with a ferocious saber-toothed tiger, for example, the body releases adrenaline, cortisol, and other hormones that increase heart rate and blood pressure to get more energy to the brain, organs, and muscles to respond to the threat. We can be thankful for this evolutionary advantage, but our physiology hasn’t caught up with our new ways of life. Our body doesn’t distinguish between the causes of stressful situations, so facing down an audience releases the same hormones as facing down a wild beast.

                             

                            10.1.0N.jpg
                            The root of public speaking anxiety is the fight or flight instinct that is triggered when we face a fear. While we can’t eliminate anxiety, we can change how we cognitively process it. Practical Cures – Anxiety – CC BY 2.0.

                             

                            Cognitive reactions to public speaking anxiety often include intrusive thoughts that can increase anxiety: “People are judging me,” “I’m not going to do well,” and “I’m going to forget what to say.” These thoughts are reactions to the physiological changes in the body but also bring in the social/public aspect of public speaking in which speakers fear being negatively judged or evaluated because of their anxiety. The physiological and cognitive responses to anxiety lead to behavioral changes. All these thoughts may lead someone to stop their speech and return to their seat or leave the classroom. Anticipating these reactions can also lead to avoidance behavior where people intentionally avoid situations where they will have to speak in public.

                             

                            Addressing Public Speaking Anxiety

                            While we can’t stop the innate physiological reactions related to anxiety from occurring, we do have some control over how we cognitively process them and the behaviors that result. Research on public speaking anxiety has focused on three key ways to address this common issue: systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, and skills training (Bodie, 2010). In addition, it is important to address the physical manifestations of speaking anxiety.

                            Systematic Desensitization

                            Although systematic desensitization may sound like something that would be done to you while strapped down in the basement of a scary hospital, it actually refers to the fact that we become less anxious about something when we are exposed to it more often (Bodie, 2010). As was mentioned earlier, the novelty and uncertainty of public speaking are a source of many people’s anxiety. So becoming more familiar with public speaking by doing it more often can logically reduce the novelty and uncertainty of it.

                            Systematic desensitization can result from imagined or real exposure to anxiety-inducing scenarios. In some cases, an instructor leads a person through a series of relaxation techniques. Once relaxed, the person is asked to imagine a series of scenarios, including speech preparation and speech delivery. This is something you could also try to do on your own before giving a speech. Imagine yourself going through the process of preparing and practicing a speech, then delivering the speech, then returning to your seat, which concludes the scenario. Aside from this imagined exposure to speaking situations, taking a communication course like this one is a great way to directly engage in systematic desensitization. Almost all my students report that they have less speaking anxiety at the end of a semester than when they started, which is at least partially due to the fact they were forced to engage with speaking more than they would have done if they weren’t taking the class.

                            Cognitive Restructuring

                            Cognitive restructuring entails changing the way we think about something. A first step in restructuring how we deal with public speaking anxiety is to cognitively process through our fears to realize that many of the thoughts associated with public speaking anxiety are irrational (Allen, Hunter & Donohue, 2009). For example, people report a fear of public speaking over a fear of snakes, heights, financial ruin, or even death. It’s irrational to think that the consequences of giving a speech in public are more severe than getting bit by a rattlesnake, falling off a building, or dying. People also fear being embarrassed because they mess up or are evaluated negatively. Well, you can’t literally die from embarrassment, and in reality, audiences are very forgiving and overlook or don’t even notice many errors that we, as speakers, may dwell on. Once we realize that the potential negative consequences of giving a speech are not as dire as we think they are, we can move on to other cognitive restructuring strategies.

                            Communication-orientation modification therapy (COM therapy) is a type of cognitive restructuring that encourages people to think of public speaking as a conversation rather than a performance (Motley, 2009). Many people have a performance-based view of public speaking. This can easily be seen in the language that some students use to discuss public speaking. They say that they “rehearse” their speech, deal with “stage fright,” then “perform” their speech on a “stage.” I like to remind my students that there is no stage at the front of our classroom; it is a normal floor. To get away from a performance orientation, we can reword the previous statements to say that they “practice” their speech, deal with “public speaking anxiety,” then “deliver” their speech from the front of the room. Viewing public speaking as a conversation also helps with confidence. After all, you obviously have some conversation skills, or you wouldn’t have made it to college. We engage in conversations every day. We don’t have to write everything we’re going to say out on a notecard, we don’t usually get nervous or anxious in regular conversations, and we’re usually successful when we try. Even though we don’t engage in public speaking as much, we speak to others in public all the time. Thinking of public speaking as a type of conversation helps you realize that you already have accumulated experiences and skills that you can draw from, so you aren’t starting from scratch.

                             

                            10.1.1N.jpg
                            Thinking of public speaking as a conversation with an audience rather than a performance for an audience can help reduce speaking anxiety. The Open University – Speech – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                             

                            Last, positive visualization is another way to engage in cognitive restructuring. Speaking anxiety often leads people to view public speaking negatively. They are more likely to judge a speech they gave negatively, even if it was good. They’re also likely to set up negative self-fulfilling prophecies that will hinder their performance in future speeches. To effectively use positive visualization, it’s best to engage first in some relaxation exercises such as deep breathing or stretching, which we will discuss more later, and then play through vivid images in your mind of giving a successful speech. This should be done a few times before giving the actual speech. Students sometimes question the power of positive visualization, thinking that it sounds corny. Ask an Olympic diver what their coach says to do before jumping off the diving board, and the answer will probably be, “Coach says to imagine completing a perfect 10 dive.” Likewise, a Marine sharpshooter would likely say their commanding officer says to imagine hitting the target before pulling the trigger. In both instances, positive visualization is being used in high-stakes situations. If it’s good enough for Olympic athletes and snipers, it’s good enough for public speakers.

                            Skills Training

                            Skills training is a strategy for managing public speaking anxiety that focuses on learning skills that will improve specific speaking behaviors. These skills may relate to any part of the speech-making process, including topic selection, research and organization, delivery, and self-evaluation. Skills training, like systematic desensitization, makes the public speaking process more familiar for a speaker, which lessens uncertainty. In addition, targeting specific areas and then improving on them builds more confidence, leading to more improvement. Feedback is important to initiate and maintain this positive cycle of improvement. You can use the constructive criticism that you get from your instructor and peers in this class to target specific areas of improvement. Self-evaluation is also an important part of skills training. Make sure to evaluate yourself within the context of your assignment or job and the expectations for the speech. Don’t get sidetracked by a small delivery error if the expectations for content far outweigh the expectations for delivery. Combine your self-evaluation with the feedback from your instructor, boss, and/or peers to set specific and measurable goals, and then assess whether or not you meet them in subsequent speeches. Once you achieve a goal, mark it off your list and use it as a confidence booster. If you don’t achieve a goal, figure out why and adjust your strategies to try to meet it in the future.

                             

                            Physical Relaxation Exercises

                            Suggestions for managing speaking anxiety typically address its cognitive and behavioral components, while the physical components are left unattended. As we learned earlier, we can’t block these natural and instinctual responses. We can, however, engage in physical relaxation exercises to counteract the general physical signs of anxiety caused by cortisol and adrenaline release, which include increased heart rate, trembling, flushing, high blood pressure, and vocalized pauses.

                            Some breathing and stretching exercises release endorphins, which are your body’s natural antidote to stress hormones. Deep breathing is a proven way to release endorphins. It also provides a general sense of relaxation and can be done discretely, even while waiting to speak. To get the benefits of deep breathing, you must breathe into your diaphragm. The diaphragm is the muscle below your lungs that helps you breathe and stand up straight, which makes it a good muscle for a speaker to exercise. To start, breathe in slowly through your nose, filling the bottom parts of your lungs up with air. While doing this, your belly should pooch out. Hold the breath for three to five full seconds, and then let it out slowly through your mouth. After doing this only a few times, many students report that they can actually feel the flooding of endorphins, which creates a brief “light-headed” feeling. Once you have practiced and are comfortable with the technique, you can do this before you start your speech, and no one sitting around you will even notice. You might also want to try this technique during other stressful situations. Deep breathing before dealing with an angry customer or loved one or before taking a test can help you relax and focus.

                             

                            10.1.2N.jpg
                            Discretely stretching your wrists and calf muscles is a good way to relieve anxiety and get your energy flowing while waiting to speak. Public Domain Pictures – public domain.

                             

                            Stretching is another way to quickly and effectively release endorphins. Very old exercise traditions like yoga, tai chi, and Pilates teach the idea that stretching is a key component of having a healthy mind and spirit. Exercise, in general, is a good stress reliever, but many of us don’t have the time or willpower to do it. We can, however, all take time to do some stretching. Simple and discrete stretches can help get the body’s energy moving around, which can make a speaker feel more balanced and relaxed. Our blood and our energy/stress tend to pool in our legs, especially when we’re sitting. The following stretch can help manage the physical manifestations of anxiety while waiting to speak. Start with both feet flat on the floor. Raise your back heels off the floor and flex and release your calf muscles. You can flex and release your calves once before putting your heels back down and repeating, or you can flex a few times on each repetition. Doing this three to five times should sufficiently get your blood and energy moving around. Stretching your wrists can also help move energy around in your upper body since our huge amounts of typing and using other electronic controllers put a lot of stress on this intersection of muscles, tendons, and bones. Point one hand up at the wrist joint as if you were waving at someone. Then use your other hand to pull, gently, the hand that’s pointing up back toward your elbow. Stop pulling once you feel some tension. Hold the hand there for a few seconds and release. Then point the hand down at the wrist joint like you’re pointing at something on the floor, and use the other hand to push the hand back toward your elbow. Again, stop pushing when you feel the tension, hold the stretch for a few seconds, and release. You can often do this stretch discretely as well while waiting to speak.

                             

                            Vocal Warm-Up Exercises

                            Vocal warm-up exercises are a good way to warm up your face and mouth muscles, which can help prevent some of the pausing or stuttering issues that occur when speaking. Newscasters, singers, and other professional speakers use vocal warm-ups.

                            Sample Vocal Warm-Ups

                            • Purse your lips together and make a motorboat sound. Hold it for ten seconds and repeat. “BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.”
                            • Clench your teeth and say, “N, N, N, N,” to stretch your cheek muscles.
                            • Say “Mum” five times, and open your mouth and eyes wide each time you say it.
                            • Say “Puh” five times, making sure to use your diaphragm to enunciate the h.
                            • Say “Red Rover” ten times, overenunciating each r.
                            • Say “Wilbur” ten times, overenunciating the w and r.
                            • Say “Bumblebee” ten times, enunciating each b.
                            • Say “Red letter, yellow letter” five times, making sure to distinctly pronounce each word.
                            • Say “Selfish shellfish” five times, making sure to distinctly pronounce each word.
                            • Say “Unique New York” five times, enunciating the q and k.

                             

                            Top Ten Ways to Reduce Speaking Anxiety

                            As you can see in this section, many factors contribute to speaking anxiety, and there are many ways to address it. The following is a list of the top ten ways to reduce speaking anxiety that I developed with my colleagues, which helps review what we’ve learned.

                            1. Remember, you are not alone. Public speaking anxiety is common, so don’t ignore it—confront it.
                            2. Remember, you can’t literally “die of embarrassment.” Audiences are forgiving and understanding.
                            3. Remember, it always feels worse than it looks.
                            4. Take deep breaths. It releases endorphins, which naturally fight the adrenaline that causes anxiety.
                            5. Look the part. Dress professionally to enhance confidence.
                            6. Channel your nervousness into positive energy and motivation.
                            7. Start your outline and research early. Better information = higher confidence.
                            8. Practice and get feedback from a trusted source. (Don’t just practice for your cat.)
                            9. Visualize success through positive thinking.
                            10. Prepare, prepare, prepare! Practice is a speaker’s best friend.

                             

                            “Getting Critical”: How Much Emphasis Should We Place on Delivery?

                            Take some time to think about the balance between the value of content and delivery in a speech. We know it’s important to have solid content and to have an engaging and smooth delivery to convey that content, but how should each category be weighted and evaluated? Most people who have made it to college can put the time and effort into following assignment guidelines to put together a well-researched and well-organized speech. But some people are naturally better at delivering speeches than others. Some people are more extroverted, experience less public speaking anxiety, and are naturally more charismatic than others. Sometimes a person’s delivery and charisma might distract an audience away from critically evaluating the content of their speech. Charismatic and well-liked celebrities and athletes, for example, are used to endorse products and sell things to the public. We may follow their advice because we like them, instead of basing our choice on their facts or content. Aristotle, Cicero, and other notable orators instructed that delivery should be good enough to present the material effectively but not so good or so bad that it draws attention to itself. But in today’s celebrity culture, the bling or packaging is sometimes more valued than the contents. This leads us to some questions that might help us unpack the sometimes tricky relationship between content and delivery.

                            1. Do you think worries about content or delivery contribute more to speaking anxiety? Explain your choice.
                            2. How should someone be evaluated who works hard to research, organize, and write a speech but doesn’t take the time to practice to have a good delivery? What if they practice but still don’t deliver the speech well on speech day?
                            3. How should we evaluate a speaker who delivers an engaging speech that gets the audience laughing and earns a big round of applause but doesn’t verbally cite sources or present well-organized ideas?
                            4. Is it ethical for someone to use their natural charisma or speaking abilities to win over an audience rather than rely on their speech content’s merit and strength? In what speaking situations would this be more acceptable? Less acceptable?

                             

                              Exercises

                              1. Test your speaking anxiety using McCroskey’s “Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety” (PRPSA). You can access the scale here: http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/measures/prpsa.htm. Follow the directions to determine your score. Do you agree with the result? Why or why not?
                              2. Of the strategies for managing public speaking anxiety listed in this section (systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, skills training, physical relaxation exercises), which do you think would be most useful for you and why?
                              3. When you take a communication course like this one, you are automatically engaging in some skills training. What are some public speaking skills that you are already good at? What are some skills that you should work on? Write out three goals you would like to accomplish for your next speech that focus on improving your public speaking skills.

                               

                              References

                              Allen, M., John E. Hunter, and William A. Donohue, “Meta-analysis of Self-Report Data on the Effectiveness of Public Speaking Anxiety Treatment Techniques,” Communication Education 38, no. 1 (2009): 54–76.

                              Bodie, G. D., “A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety,” Communication Education 59, no. 1 (2010): 70.

                              Motley, M. T., “COM Therapy,” in Avoiding Communication: Shyness, Reticence, and Communication Apprehension, eds. John A. Daly, James C. McCroskey, Joe Ayres, Tim Hopf, and Debbie M. Ayers Sonandre (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009), 379–400.

                              Priem, J. S., and Denise Haunani Solomon, “Comforting Apprehensive Communicators: The Effects of Reappraisal and Distraction on Cortisol Levels among Students in a Public Speaking Class,” Communication Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2009): 260.

                              7.2 Foundations: Choosing Your Topic

                              (Content obtained from Competent Communication, sections 10.1 and 10.3, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                               

                              General Purpose

                              The first step when developing a speech involves determining the general purpose of the speech. Speeches have traditionally been seen to have one of three broad purposes: to inform, to persuade, and— Well, to be honest, different words are used for the third kind of speech purpose: to inspire, to amuse, to please, to delight, or to entertain. We will just use “to entertain” as the overall term here.

                              Your instructor will most likely assign you an informative and persuasive speech, and then perhaps one more. The third one might be a special occasion speech, such as a tribute (commemorative), an after-dinner speech, a toast, or a eulogy. These four types of speeches fit into the category of “to entertain.” It should be understood that these three purposes are not necessarily exclusive of the others. A speech designed to be persuasive can also be informative and entertaining, even if neither of those is the main purpose. To further demonstrate this, look at the examples below in Table 7.2.1.

                               

                              Table 7.2.1: General Purposes and Speech Topics

                              To InformTo PersuadeTo Entertain
                              Civil rights movementGun controlComedic monologue
                              Renewable energyPrivacy rightsMy craziest adventure
                              Reality televisionPrison reformA “roast”

                               

                              Some of the topics listed above could fall into another category depending on how the speaker approached the topic, or they could contain elements of both. For example, you may have to inform your audience about your topic in one main point before you can persuade them, or you may include some entertaining elements in an informative or persuasive speech to help make the content more engaging for the audience. There should not be elements of persuasion included in an informative speech since persuading is contrary to the objective approach that defines an informative speech. In any case, while there may be some overlap between topics, most speeches can be placed into one of the categories based on the overall content of the speech.

                               

                              Choosing a Topic

                              Once you have been assigned your general purpose, you can begin the process of choosing a topic. In this class, you may be given the option to choose any topic for your informative or persuasive speech, but in most academic, professional, and personal settings, there will be some parameters set that will help guide your topic selection. Speeches in future classes will likely be organized around the content being covered in the class. Speeches delivered at work will usually be directed toward a specific goal, such as welcoming new employees, informing about changes in workplace policies, or presenting quarterly sales figures. We are also usually compelled to speak about specific things in our personal lives, like addressing a problem at our child’s school by speaking out at a school board meeting. In short, it’s not often that you’ll be starting from scratch when you begin to choose a topic.

                               

                              Figure 7.2.1: Brainstorming and Narrowing a Topic

                              888654e5c539903ce68d6de45f56762d.jpg
                              University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing - Chapter 9: Preparing a Speech – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                               

                              Whether you’ve received parameters that narrow your topic range or not, the first step in choosing a topic is brainstorming. Brainstorming involves generating many potential topic ideas in a fast-paced and non-judgmental manner. Brainstorming can take place multiple times as you narrow your topic. For example, you may begin by brainstorming a list of your personal interests that can then be narrowed down to a speech topic. It makes sense that you will enjoy speaking about something that you care about or find interesting. The research and writing will be more interesting, and the delivery will be easier since you won’t have to fake enthusiasm for your topic. Speaking about something you’re familiar with and interested in can also help you manage speaking anxiety. Figure 7.2.1 shows how brainstorming works in stages. A list of topics that interest the speaker is on the top row. The speaker can brainstorm subtopics for each idea to see which one may work the best. In this case, the speaker could decide to focus their informative speech on three common ways people come to own dogs: through breeders, pet stores, or shelters.

                              Overall you can follow these tips as you select and narrow your topic:

                              1. Brainstorm topics that you are familiar with, interest you, and/or are currently topics of discussion.
                              2. Choose a topic appropriate for the assignment/occasion.
                              3. Choose a topic that you can make relevant to your audience.
                              4. Choose a topic that you have the resources to research (access to information, people to interview, etc.).

                               

                              Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement

                              Once you have brainstormed, narrowed, and chosen your topic, you can begin to draft your specific purpose statement. Your specific purpose is a one-sentence statement that includes the objective you want to accomplish in your speech. You do not speak aloud your specific purpose during your speech; you use it to guide your researching, organizing, and writing. A good specific purpose statement is audience-centered, agrees with the general purpose, addresses one main idea, and is realistic. This formula will help you in putting together your specific purpose statement:

                              Specific Communication Word (inform, explain, demonstrate, describe, define, persuade, convince, prove, argue)

                              Target Audience (my classmates, the members of the Social Work Club, my coworkers)

                              The Content (how to bake brownies, that Macs are better than PCs)

                              Each of these parts of the specific purpose is important. The first two parts make sure you are clear on your purpose and know specifically who will be hearing your message. However, we will focus on the last part here. The content part of the specific purpose statement must first be singular and focused, and the content must match the purpose. The word “and” really should not appear in the specific purpose statement since that would make it seem that you have two purposes and two topics. Obviously, the specific purpose statement’s content must be very narrowly defined and, well, specific. One mistake beginning speakers often make is to try to “cover” too much material. They tend to speak about the whole alphabet, A-Z on a subject, instead of just “T” or “L.” This comes from an emphasis on the topic more than the purpose and from not keeping audience and context in mind. In other words, go deep (specific), not broad. 

                              Second, the content must match the focus of the purpose word. A common error is to match an informative purpose with a persuasive content clause or phrase. For example,

                              To explain to my classmates why term life insurance is a better option than whole life insurance policies.

                              To inform my classmates about how the recent Supreme Court decision on police procedures during arrests is unconstitutional.

                              Sometimes it takes an unbiased second party to see where your content and purpose may not match.

                              Third, the specific purpose statement should be relevant to the audience. How do the purpose and its topic touch upon their lives, wallets, relationships, careers, etc.? It is also a good idea to keep in mind what you want the audience to walk away with or what you want them to know, to be able to do, to think, to act upon, or to respond to your topic—your outcome or result.

                              For example, “to explain to my classmates the history of NASA” would be far too much material, and the audience may be unsure of its relevance. A more specific one such as “to inform my classmates about the decline of the Shuttle program” would be more manageable and closer to their experience. It would also reference two well-known historical tragedies involving the Shuttle program, the Challenger Disaster in 1986 and the Columbia Explosion in 2003. Here are several examples of specific purpose statements. Notice how they meet the standards of being singular, focused, relevant, and consistent.

                              To inform my classmates of the origin of the hospice movement.

                              To describe to my coworkers the steps to apply for retirement.

                              To define for a group of new graduate students the term “academic freedom.”

                              To explain to the Lions Club members the problems faced by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

                              To persuade the members of the Greek society to take the spring break trip to Daytona Beach.

                              To motivate my classmates to engage in the college’s study abroad program.

                              To convince my classroom audience that they need at least seven hours of sleep per night to do well in their studies.

                              Now that you understand the basic form and function of a specific purpose statement, let’s look at how the same topic for a different audience will create a somewhat different specific purpose statement. Public speaking is not a “one-size-fits-all” proposition. Let’s take the subject of participating in the study abroad program. How would you change your approach if you were addressing first-semester freshmen instead of first-semester juniors? Or if you were speaking to high school students in one of the college’s feeder high schools? Or if you were asked to share your experiences with a local civic group that gave you a partial scholarship to participate in the program? You would have slightly different specific purpose statements, although your experience and basic information are all the same.

                              For another example, let’s say that one of your family members has benefitted from being in the Special Olympics, and you have volunteered for two years at the local event. You could give a tribute (commemorative speech) about the work of Special Olympics (with the purpose to inspire), an informative speech on the scope or history of the Special Olympics, or a persuasive speech on why audience members should volunteer at next year’s event. “Special Olympics” is a keyword for every specific purpose, but the statements would otherwise be different.

                              Despite all the information given about specific purpose statements so far, the next thing you read will seem strange: Never start your speech by saying your specific purpose to the audience. In a sense, it is just for you and the instructor. For you, it’s like a note you might tack on the mirror or refrigerator to keep you on track. For the instructor, it’s a way for them to know you are accomplishing both the assignment and what you set out to do. Avoid the temptation to default to saying it at the beginning of your speech. It will seem awkward and repetitive.

                               

                              Formulating a Central Idea Statement

                              While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be (preferably at the end of the introductory section of your speech). The statement that contains or summarizes a speech’s main points is commonly known as the central idea statement (or just the central idea) or sometimes “the thesis statement.” 

                              That said, is the central idea statement the very same thing as the thesis sentence in an essay? Yes, in that both are letting the audience know without a doubt your topic, purpose, direction, angle, and/or point of view. No, in that the rules for writing a “thesis” or central idea statement in a speech are not as strict as in an essay. For example, it is acceptable in a speech to announce the topic and purpose, although it is usually not the most artful or effective way to do it. You may say,

                              “In this speech, I will try to motivate you to join me next month as a volunteer at the regional Special Olympics.”

                              That would be followed by a preview statement of what the speaker’s arguments or reasons for participating will be, such as,

                              “You will see that it will benefit the community, the participants, and you individually.”

                              So, you don’t want to just repeat your specific purpose in the central idea statement, but you do want to provide complete information. Also, unlike the formal thesis of your English essays, the central idea statement in a speech can and should use personal language (I, me, we, us, you, your, etc.) and should attempt to be attention-getting and audience-focused. And importantly, just like a formal thesis sentence, it must be a complete, grammatical sentence.

                              The point of your central idea statement in terms of your audience is to reveal and clarify the points you will be addressing in your speech, more commonly known as your main points, to fulfill your specific purpose. However, as you are processing your ideas and approach, you may still be working on them. Sometimes those main points will not be clear to you immediately. As much as we would like these writing processes to be straightforward, sometimes we find that we have to revise our original approach. This is why preparing a speech the night before you are giving it is a really, really bad idea. You need lots of time for the preparation and then the practice.

                              Sometimes you will hear the writing process referred to as “iterative.” This word means, among other things, that a speech or document is not always written in the same order as the audience finally experiences it. You may have noticed that we have not said anything about the introduction of your speech yet. Even though that is the first thing the audience hears, it may be one of the last parts you actually compose. It is best to consider your speech flexible as you work on it and to be willing to edit and revise. If your instructor asks you to turn the outline in before the speech, you should be clear on how much you can revise after that. Otherwise, it helps to know that you can keep editing your speech until you deliver it, especially while you practice.

                               

                              Audience listens at Startup School

                               “Audience listens at Startup School” by Robert Scoble is licensed under CC BY 2.0

                               

                              Here are some examples of pairs of specific purpose statements and central idea statements.

                              Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.

                              Central Idea: When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.

                               

                              Specific Purpose: To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.

                              Central Idea: Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

                               

                              Specific Purpose: To persuade my political science class that labor unions are no longer a vital political force in the U.S.

                              Central Idea: Although for decades in the twentieth-century labor unions influenced local and national elections, in this speech, I will point to how their influence has declined in the last thirty years.

                               

                              Specific Purpose: To motivate my audience to oppose the policy of drug testing welfare recipients.

                              Central Idea: Many voices are calling for welfare recipients to go through mandatory, regular drug testing, but this policy is unjust, impractical, and costly, and fair-minded Americans should actively oppose it.

                               

                              Specific Purpose: To explain to my fellow civic club members why I admire Representative John Lewis.

                              Central Idea: John Lewis has my admiration for his sacrifices during the Civil Rights movement and his service to Georgia as a leader and U.S. Representative.

                               

                              Specific Purpose: To describe how makeup is done for the TV show The Walking Dead.

                              Central Idea: The wildly popular zombie show The Walking Dead achieves incredibly scary and believable makeup effects, and in the next few min

                               

                              Notice that in all of the above examples that neither the specific purpose nor the central idea ever exceeds one sentence. You may divide your central idea and the preview of the main points into two sentences or three sentences, depending on what your instructor directs.

                               

                              Problems to Avoid with Specific Purpose and Central Idea Statements

                              The first problem many students have in writing their specific purpose statement has already been mentioned: specific purpose statements sometimes try to cover far too much and are too broad. For example:

                              To explain to my classmates the history of ballet.

                              Aside from the fact that this subject may be difficult for everyone in your audience to relate to, it is enough for a three-hour lecture, maybe even a whole course. You will probably find that your first attempt at a specific purpose statement will need refining. These examples are much more specific and much more manageable, given the limited amount of time you will have.

                              To explain to my classmates how ballet came to be performed and studied in the U.S.

                              To explain to my classmates the difference between Russian and French ballet.

                              To explain to my classmates how ballet originated as an art form in the Renaissance.

                              To explain to my classmates the origin of the ballet dancers’ clothing.

                              The second problem with specific purpose statements is the opposite of being too broad, in that some specific purposes statements are so focused that they might only be appropriate for people who are already extremely interested in the topic or experts in a field:

                              To inform my classmates of the life cycle of a new species of lima bean (botanists, agriculturalists).

                              To inform my classmates about the Yellow 5 ingredient in Mountain Dew (chemists, nutritionists).

                              To persuade my classmates that JIF Peanut Butter is better than Peter Pan. (organizational chefs in large institutions)

                              The third problem happens when the “communication verb” in the specific purpose does not match the content; for example, persuasive content is paired with “to inform” or “to explain.” If you resort to the word “why” in the thesis, it is probably persuasive.

                              To inform my audience why capital punishment is unconstitutional. (This cannot be informative since it is taking a side)

                              To persuade my audience about the three types of individual retirement accounts. (This is not persuading the audience of anything, just informing)

                              To inform my classmates that Universal Studios is a better theme park than Six Flags over Georgia. (This is clearly an opinion, hence persuasive)

                              The fourth problem exists when the content part of the specific purpose statement has two parts and thus uses “and.” A good speech follows the KISS rule—Keep It Simple, Speaker. One specific purpose is enough. These examples cover two different topics.

                              To explain to my audience how to swing a golf club and choose the best golf shoes.

                              To persuade my classmates to be involved in the Special Olympics and vote to fund better classes for the intellectually disabled.

                              To fix this problem, you will need to select one of the topics in these examples and speak on just that:

                              To explain to my audience how to swing a golf club.

                              OR

                              To explain to my audience how to choose the best golf shoes.

                              Of course, the value of this topic depends on your audience’s interest in golf and your own experience as a golfer.

                              The fifth problem with both specific purpose and central idea statements is related to formatting. Some general guidelines need to be followed in terms of how you write out these elements of your speech:

                              • Do not write either statement as a question.
                              • Always use complete sentences for central idea statements and infinitive phrases (that is, “to …..”) for the specific purpose statement.
                              • Only use concrete language (“I admire Beyoncé for being a talented performer and businesswoman”), and avoid subjective or slang terms (“My speech is about why I think Beyoncé is the bomb”) or jargon and acronyms (“PLA is better than CBE for adult learners.”

                              Finally, the sixth problem occurs when the speech just gets off track of the specific purpose statement, in that it starts well but veers in another direction. This problem relates to the challenge of developing coherent main points, what might be called “the Roman numeral points” of the speech. The specific purpose usually determines the main points and the relevant structure. For example, if the specific purpose is:

                              To inform my classmates of the five stages of grief as described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

                              There is no place in this speech for a biography of Dr. Kubler-Ross, arguments against this model of grief, therapies for those undergoing grief, or steps for the audience to take to get counseling. All of those are different specific purposes. The main points would have to be the five stages, in order, as Dr. Kubler-Ross defined them.

                              There are also problems to avoid in writing the central idea statement. As mentioned above, remember that:

                              • The specific purpose and central idea statements are not the same things, although they are related.
                              • The central idea statement should be clear and not complicated or wordy; it should “stand out” to the audience. As you practice delivery, you should emphasize it with your voice.
                              • The central idea statement should not be the first thing you say but should follow the steps of a good introduction.

                              One last word. You should be aware that all aspects of your speech are constantly going to change as you move toward actually giving your speech. The exact wording of your central idea may change, and you can experiment with different versions for effectiveness. However, your specific purpose statement should not change unless there is a really good reason, and in some cases, your instructor will either discourage that, forbid it, or expect to be notified. There are many aspects to consider in the seemingly simple task of writing a specific purpose statement and its companion, the central idea statement. Writing good ones at the beginning will save you some trouble later in the speech preparation process. 

                               

                              Exercises

                              1. Pay attention to the news (in the paper, on the Internet, television, or radio). Identify two informative and two persuasive speech topics that are based on current events.
                              2. What if your informative speech has the specific purpose statement: To explain the biological and lifestyle cause of Type II diabetes. The assignment is a seven-minute speech, and when you practice it the first time, it is thirteen minutes long. Should you adjust the specific purpose statement? How?

                               

                              References

                              Career Cruising, “Marketing Specialist,” Career Cruising: Explore Careers, accessed January 24, 2012, http://www.careercruising.com.

                              Greenwell, D., “You Might Not ‘Like’ Facebook So Much after Reading This…” The Times (London), sec. T2, January 13, 2012, 4–5.

                              Siegel, D. L., Timothy J. Coffey, and Gregory Livingston, The Great Tween Buying Machine (Chicago, IL: Dearborn Trade, 2004).

                              Solomon, M. R., Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006), 10–11.

                              Tucker, Barbara; Barton, Kristin; Burger, Amy; Drye, Jerry; Hunsicker, Cathy; Mendes, Amy; and LeHew, Matthew, “Exploring Public Speaking: 4th Edition” (2019). Communication Open Textbooks. 1. https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/communication-textbooks/1 - CC BY-NC 2.0

                              7.3 Speech Delivery: Methods

                              (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                               

                               
                              Student Speaker Leighanne Oh_6056136566_l.jpg

                              “Student Speaker Leighanne Oh_6056136566_l.jpg” by NCSSMphotos is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                               

                              The Importance of Delivery

                              Good delivery is meant to augment your speech and help convey your information to the audience. Anything that potentially distracts your audience means that fewer people will be informed, persuaded, or entertained by what you have said. Practicing your speech in an environment that closely resembles the actual situation that you will be speaking in will better prepare you for what to do and how to deliver your speech when it really counts.

                              Speaking in public has more formality than talking. During a speech, you should present yourself professionally. This doesn’t necessarily mean you must wear a suit or “dress up” unless your instructor asks you to. However, it does mean making yourself presentable by being well-groomed and wearing clean, appropriate clothes. It also means being prepared to use language correctly and appropriately for the audience and the topic, to make eye contact with your audience, and to look like you know your topic very well.

                              While speaking has more formality than talking, it has less formality than reading. Speaking allows for flexibility, meaningful pauses, eye contact, small changes in word order, and vocal emphasis. Reading is a more or less exact replication of words on paper without the use of any nonverbal interpretation. Speaking, as you will realize if you think about excellent speakers you have seen and heard, provides a more animated message.

                               

                              Methods of Speech Delivery

                              What follows are four methods of delivery that can help you balance between too much and too little formality when giving a speech. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, but you will most likely want to focus on the extemporaneous approach since that is probably what your instructor will want from you.

                              Impromptu Speaking

                              Impromptu speaking is the presentation of a short message without advance preparation. You have probably done impromptu speaking many times in informal, conversational settings. Self-introductions in group settings are examples of impromptu speaking: “Hi, my name is Steve, and I’m a volunteer with the Homes for the Brave program.” Another example of impromptu speaking occurs when you answer a question such as, “What did you think of the movie?” Your response has not been preplanned, and you are constructing your arguments and points as you speak. Even worse, you might find yourself going into a meeting, and your boss says, “I want you to talk about the last stage of the project,” and you have no warning.

                              The advantage of this kind of speaking is that it’s spontaneous and responsive in an animated group context. The disadvantage is that the speaker is given little or no time to contemplate the central theme of their message. As a result, the message may be disorganized and difficult for listeners to follow.

                              Here is a step-by-step guide that may be useful if you are called upon to give an impromptu speech in public:

                              1. Take a moment to collect your thoughts and plan the main point or points you want to make.
                              2. Thank the person for inviting you to speak. Do not make comments about being unprepared, called upon at the last moment, on the spot, or uneasy. No one wants to hear that, and it will embarrass others and yourself.
                              3. Deliver your message, making your main point as briefly as you can while still covering it adequately and at a pace that your listeners can follow.
                              4. Stay on track. Answer the question or prompt as given; resist the temptation to go elsewhere.
                              5. If you can, use a structure, using numbers if possible: “Two main reasons . . .” or “Three parts of our plan. . .” or “Two side effects of this drug. . .” Past, present, and future or East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast are common structures.
                              6. Thank the person again for the opportunity to speak.
                              7. Stop talking (it is easy to “ramble on” when you don’t have something prepared). If in front of an audience, don’t keep talking as you move back to your seat

                              Impromptu speeches are generally most successful when they are brief and focus on a single point.

                              Manuscript Speaking

                              Speaking from a written or printed document that contains the entirety of a speech is known as manuscript delivery. Manuscript delivery can be the best choice when a speech has complicated information and/or the contents of the speech are going to be quoted or published. A manuscript speech may also be appropriate at a more formal affair (like a funeral) when your speech must be said exactly as written in order to convey the proper emotion or decorum the situation deserves. Despite the fact that most novice speakers are not going to find themselves in that situation, many are drawn to this delivery method because of the security they feel with having everything they’re going to say in front of them. Unfortunately, the security of having every word you want to say at your disposal translates to a poorly delivered and unengaging speech. Unless the speaker has rehearsed the reading as a complete performance animated with vocal expression and gestures (well-known authors often do this for book readings), the presentation tends to be dull. Keeping one’s eyes glued to the script prevents eye contact with the audience. For this kind of “straight” manuscript speech to hold the audience’s attention, the audience must be already interested in the message and speaker before the delivery begins. 

                              It is worth noting that professional speakers, actors, news reporters, and politicians often read from an autocue device, such as a teleprompter, especially when appearing on television, where eye contact with the camera is crucial. Almost all politicians who give televised addresses use teleprompters. In Figure 7.3.1, you can see President Obama’s teleprompter system.

                               

                              Figure 7.3.1: President Obama’s Teleprompter System

                              1f69a7b210e1774008d347619c6dd756-1.jpg
                              Newscasters and politicians frequently use teleprompters so they can use manuscript delivery but still engage with the audience. Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                               

                              You may not even notice them, as the technology has improved to give the illusion that a speaker is engaged with the audience and delivering a speech from memory. The Plexiglas sheets on poles that surround the president during the inauguration and State of the Union addresses are cleverly hidden teleprompters. Even these useful devices can fail. A quick search for “teleprompter fail” on YouTube will yield many examples of politicians and newscasters who probably wish they had a paper backup of their speech. Since most of us will likely not have opportunities to speak using a teleprompter, great care should be taken to ensure that the delivery is effective. Success in this medium depends on two factors: (1) the speaker is already an accomplished public speaker who has learned to use a conversational tone while delivering a prepared script, and (2) the speech is written in a style that sounds conversational and in spoken rather than written, edited English, for example, with shorter sentences and clearer transitions. To make the delivery seem more natural, print the speech out in a larger-than-typical font, triple-space between lines so you can easily find your place, use heavier-than-normal paper so it’s easy to pick up and turn the pages as needed, and use a portfolio so you can carry the manuscript securely.

                              Memorized Speaking

                              Memorized speaking is the exact recitation of a written message that the speaker has committed to memory. Actors, of course, recite from memory whenever they perform from a script. The advantage of memorization is that it enables the speaker to maintain eye contact with the audience throughout the speech. Being free of notes means that you can move freely around the stage and use your hands to make gestures. If your speech uses visual aids, this freedom is even more of an advantage. However, when a speaker’s anxiety level spikes at the beginning of their speech and their minds go blank for a minute, many admit they should have chosen a different delivery method. When using any of the other delivery methods, speakers still need to rely on their memory. An impromptu speaker must recall facts or experiences related to their topic, and speakers using a manuscript want to have some of their content memorized so they do not read their entire speech to their audience. The problem with memorized delivery overall is that it puts too much responsibility on our memory, which we all know from experience is fallible.

                              When memorizing, most people use rote memorization techniques, which entail reading and then reciting something over and over until it is committed to memory. One major downfall of this technique is its effect on your speaking rate. When we memorize this way, we end up going over the early parts of a speech many more times than the later parts. As you memorize one sentence, you add on another, and so on. Unless you also plan and memorize every vocal cue (the subtle but meaningful variations in speech delivery, which can include the use of pitch, tone, volume, and pace), gesture, and facial expression, your presentation will be flat and uninteresting, and even the most fascinating topic will suffer. You might end up speaking in a monotone or a sing-song repetitive delivery pattern. You might also present your speech in a rapid “machine-gun” style that fails to emphasize the most important points.

                              Rote memorization tasks that many of us had to do in school have left their mark on our memorized delivery. Being made to recite the pledge of allegiance, the preamble to the Constitution, and so on didn’t enhance our speaking abilities. Many speech students who use memorization remind give off the same sound of school children flatly going through the motions of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s the “going through the motions” impression that speakers should want to avoid. Also, if you lose your place during a speech and start trying to ad-lib, the contrast in your style of delivery will alert your audience that something is wrong. If you go completely blank during the presentation, it will be extremely difficult to find your place and keep going. Obviously, memorizing a typical seven-minute classroom speech takes a great deal of time and effort, and if you aren’t used to memorizing, it is very difficult to pull off. Realistically, you probably will not have the time necessary to give a completely memorized speech. However, if you practice adequately, you will approach the feeling of being fully memorized while still keeping with what your teacher wants, extemporaneous speaking.

                               

                              9fe87fc394e5ce0e0862fc9614372cf3-1.jpg

                              Memorized delivery is a good option for people like tour guides, who need to move while speaking and be interactive with an audience. John Lambert Pearson –” listening” to adam – CC BY 2.0.

                              In summary, We only recommend memorized delivery in cases where the speech is short (only one to two minutes), the speech is personal (like a brief toast), or the speech will be repeated numerous times (like a tour guide’s spiel), and even in these cases, it may be perfectly fine to have notes. Many students think that their anxiety and/or delivery challenges will be fixed if they just memorize their speech only to find that they are more anxious and have more problems.

                              Extemporaneous Speaking

                              Extemporaneous speaking is the presentation of a carefully planned and rehearsed speech, spoken in a conversational manner using brief notes. By using notes rather than a full manuscript, the extemporaneous speaker can establish and maintain eye contact with the audience and assess how well they are understanding the speech as it progresses. And since you will be graded (to some degree) on establishing and maintaining eye contact with your audience, extemporaneous speaking can be extremely beneficial in that regard. Without all the words on the page to read, you have little choice but to look up and make eye contact with your audience. In some cases, your instructor will require you to prepare strong preparation and speaking (notes) outlines as a foundation for your speech.

                              This delivery style brings together many of the strengths of the previous three methods. Since you only internalize and memorize the main structure of a speech, you don’t have to worry as much about the content and delivery seeming stale. Extemporaneous delivery brings in some of the spontaneity of impromptu delivery but still allows a speaker to carefully plan, like a manuscript, the overall structure of a speech and incorporate supporting materials that include key facts, quotations, and paraphrased information. Speaking extemporaneously has some advantages. It promotes the likelihood that you, the speaker, will be perceived as knowledgeable and credible since you know the speech well enough that you don’t need to read it. In addition, your audience is likely to pay better attention to the message because it is engaging both verbally and nonverbally. It also allows flexibility; you are working from the strong foundation of an outline, but if you need to delete, add, or rephrase something at the last minute or to adapt to your audience, you can do so. The outline also helps you be aware of main ideas vs. subordinate ones.

                              When preparing a speech that you will deliver extemporaneously, you will want to start practicing your speech early and then continue to practice as you revise your content. Investing quality time and effort into the speech-outlining process helps with extemporaneous delivery. As you put together your outline, you are already doing the work of internalizing the key structure of your speech. Read parts of your outline aloud as you draft them to help ensure they are written in a way that makes sense and is easy for you to deliver. By the time you complete the formal, full-sentence outline, you should have already internalized much of the key information in your speech. Now, you can begin practicing with the full outline. As you become more comfortable with the content of your full outline, start to convert it into your speaking outline. Take out information that you know well and replace it with a keyword or key phrase that prompts your memory. You’ll probably want to leave key quotes, facts, and other paraphrased information, including your verbal source citation information, on your delivery outline so you make sure to include it in your speech. Once you’ve converted your full outline into your speaking outline, practice it a few more times, making sure to take some time between each practice session so you don’t inadvertently start to memorize the speech word for word. The final product should be a confident delivery of a well-organized and structured speech that is conversational and adaptable to various audiences and occasions.

                              Adequate preparation cannot be achieved the day before you’re scheduled to speak, so be aware that if you want to present a credibly delivered speech, you will need to practice many times.

                               

                              Practicing Your Delivery

                              There is no foolproof recipe for good delivery. Each of us is unique, and we each embody different experiences and interests. This means each person has an approach or a style that is effective for them. This further means that anxiety can accompany even the most carefully researched and interesting message. But there are some techniques you can use to minimize that anxious feeling and put yourself in the best possible position to succeed on speech day.

                              If you’ve ever watched your favorite college football team practice, you may have noticed that sometimes obnoxiously loud crowd noise is blaring over the speaker system in the stadium. The coaches know that the crowd, whether home or away, will be raucous and noisy on game day. So, to prepare, they practice in as realistic an environment as possible. You need to prepare for your speech in a similar way. What follows are some general tips you should keep in mind, but they all essentially derive from one very straight-forward premise:

                              Practice your speech beforehand, at home or elsewhere, the way you will give it in class.

                               

                              10.2.2N.jpg
                              You can practice your speech in front of a mirror to gauge your use of facial expressions and gestures. In addition, practice in front of a couple of people for feedback. Tschlunder – Mirror – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                               

                              Practice Your Speech Out Loud

                              We sometimes think that the purpose of practicing a speech is to learn the words and be prepared for what we will need to say. Certainly, that is part of it, but the practice also lets you know where potential problems lie. For example, if you only read your speech in your head or whisper the words quietly, you’re not really practicing what you will be doing in front of the class. Since you will be speaking with a normal volume for your assignment, you need to practice that way, even at home. Not only will this help you learn the speech, but it will help identify any places where you tend to mispronounce or stumble over words. Also, sentences on paper do not always translate well to the spoken medium. Practicing out loud allows you to actually hear where your sentences and phrases are awkward, unnatural, or too long and allows you to correct them before getting up in front of the audience. 

                              Practice Your Speech Standing Up

                              In all the time that the authors of this book have been teaching speech, not once have either of us come into a classroom and seen a bed behind the lectern for students to speak from. This is to say that when you practice at home, lying on your bed reading your speech really only prepares you for one thing: lying on a bed reading a speech. Since you will be standing in front of your class, you need to practice that way. As we mention in more detail below, the default position for delivering a speech is with your feet shoulder-width apart, and your knees slightly bent. Practicing this way will help develop muscle memory and will make it feel more natural when you are doing it for real. We also suggest you wear the same shoes you will be wearing on the day of your speech.

                              Practice Your Speech with a Lectern

                              One of the biggest challenges with practicing a speech as you’re going to give it is usually the fact that most of us don’t own a lectern. This is problematic since you don’t want to practice giving your speech while holding your notes in front of you because that is what will feel comfortable when you give your speech for real. So the solution is to practice your speech while standing behind something that approximates the lectern you will have in your classroom. Sometimes this may be a kitchen counter or maybe even a dresser you pull away from the wall. One particularly creative idea that has been used in the past is to pull out an ironing board and stand behind that. The point is that you want to get experience standing behind something and resting your speech on it.

                              Of course, if you really want to practice with an actual lectern, it might be worth the time to see if your classroom is empty later in the day or find out if another classroom has the same type of lectern in it. Practicing with the “real thing” is always ideal.

                              Practice Your Speech with an Audience

                              Obviously, on the day you give your speech, you will have an audience of your fellow students and your professor watching you. The best way to prepare for the feeling of having someone watch you while giving a speech is to have someone watch you while you practice giving a speech. We don’t mean a collection of stuffed animals arranged on your bed or locking your pets in the room with you, but actual human beings. Ask your parents, siblings, friends, or significant other to listen to you while running through what you will say. Not only will you get practice in front of an audience, but they may be able to tell you about any parts that were unclear or problems you might encounter when you give it for a grade.

                              Not to overcomplicate the issue, but remember that when you speak to your class, you will have an entire room full of people watching. Therefore, if you only have one person watching you practice, be sure to simulate an entire audience by looking around the room and not focusing on just that one person. When you give your speech for real, you will want to make eye contact with the people on the left side of the room as well as the right; with the people in the front as well as in the back. You also want the eye contact to be around five seconds long, not just a glance; the idea is that you are talking to individuals, not just a glob of people. During practice, it may help to pick out some strategically placed objects around the room to occasionally focus on just to get into the habit of looking around more often.

                               

                              Stopwatch
                              “Stopwatch” by mrlerone is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

                               

                              Practice Your Speech for Time

                              You will undoubtedly be given a time limit for each of your speeches, and points will probably be deducted from your grade if you go over or under that time. Therefore, you want to make sure you are well within time. As a general rule, if your speech window is 5-7 minutes, your ideal speech time is going to be 6 minutes; this gives you an extra 60 seconds in the beginning in case you talk very fast and race through it, and 60 seconds on the back end in case you get lost or want to add something at the last minute. If you practice at home and your 5-7 minute speech lasts 5:06, you are probably going to be in trouble on speech day. Most likely, your nerves will cause you to speak slightly faster and put you under the 5:00 mark. If your times are vastly different, you may have to practice four or more times.

                              When practicing your speech at home, it is a good idea to time yourself at least three times. This way, you can see if you are generally coming in around the same time and feel pretty good that it is an accurate reflection of how long you will speak. Conversely, if during your three rehearsals your times are 5:45, 5:12, and 6:37, then that is a clear indicator that you need to be more consistent in what you are saying and doing.

                              Although we are using examples of practicing for classroom speeches, the principle is even more important for non-classroom speeches. One of the authors had to give a very important presentation about the college to an accreditation board. She practiced about 15 times to make sure the time was right, that her transitions made sense, that she was fluid, and that the presentational slides and her speech matched. Each time something improved.

                              Practice Your Speech by Recording Yourself

                              There is nothing that gets us to change what we’re doing or correct a problem more quickly than seeing ourselves doing something we don’t like on video. Your instructor may record your speech in class and have you critique it afterward, but it may be more helpful to do that in advance of giving your speech. By watching yourself, you will notice all the small things you do that might prove to be distracting and affect your grade during the actual speech. Many times students aren’t aware that they have low energy or a monotone/monorate voice, or that they bounce, sway, pull at their clothes, play with hair or jewelry, or make other unusual and distracting movements. At least, they don’t know this until they see themselves doing it. Since we are generally our own harshest critics, you will be quick to notice any flaws in your speech and correct them.

                              It is important enough that it deserves reiterating:

                              Practice your speech beforehand, at home or elsewhere, the way you will give it in class.

                              Following these steps will not only prepare you better for delivering the speech, but they may also help reduce anxiety since you will feel more familiar with the situation you find yourself in when faced with a speaking engagement. Additionally, the more you speak publicly, whether for practice or in front of a live audience, the more fluid you will become for later speeches.

                               

                              Exercises

                              1. Which delivery methods have you used before? Which did you like the best and why? Which delivery method would you most prefer a speaker to use if you were an audience member and why?
                              2. Have you ever had any “surprises” come up during a speech that you could have prevented with more effective practice sessions? If so, explain. If not, list some surprises that good practice sessions could help prevent.

                              7.4 Speech Delivery: Body Language and Voice

                              (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                               

                              The interplay between the verbal and nonverbal components of your speech can either bring the message vividly to life or confuse or bore the audience. Therefore, it is best that you neither overdramatize your speech delivery behaviors nor downplay them. This is a balance achieved through rehearsal, trial and error, and experience. One way to think of this is in terms of Figure 7.4.1: you don’t want to overdo the delivery because you might distract your audience by looking hyper or overly animated. Conversely, someone whose delivery is too understated (meaning they don’t move their hands or feet at all) looks unnatural and uncomfortable, which can also distract. Just like Goldilocks, you want a delivery that is “just right.” This middle ground between too much and too little is a much more natural approach to public speaking delivery. 

                               

                              Figure 7.4.1: The Goldilocks Paradigm of Delivery

                              Being frantic when you speak is too much, being soporific is too little, try and be just right.
                               

                               

                              Nonverbal Delivery

                              Many speakers are more nervous about physical delivery than vocal delivery. Putting our bodies on the line in front of an audience often makes us feel more vulnerable than putting our voice out there. Yet most audiences are not as fixated on our physical delivery as we think they are. Knowing this can help relieve some anxiety, but it doesn’t give us a free pass when it comes to physical delivery. We should still practice for physical delivery that enhances our verbal message. Audience members primarily take in information through their eyes and ears. Beyond the actual words of your speech, the nonverbal communication that accompanies your verbal messages affects your credibility.

                              Gestures

                              Gestures are any arm and hand movements used during your speech. We all use hand gestures while we speak, but we didn’t even take a class in matching verbal communication with the appropriate gestures; we have just internalized these norms over time based on observation and put them into practice. By this point in your life, you have a whole vocabulary of hand movements and gestures that spontaneously come out while you’re speaking. Some of these gestures are emphatic, and some are descriptive (Koch, 2007).

                              Emphatic gestures are the most common hand gestures we use, and they function to emphasize our verbal communication and often relate to the emotions we verbally communicate. Pointing with one finger or all the fingers straight out is an emphatic gesture. We can even bounce that gesture up and down to provide more emphasis. Moving the hand in a circular motion in front of our chest with the fingers spread apart is a common emphatic gesture that shows excitement and often accompanies an increased rate of verbal speaking. We make this gesture more emphatic by using both hands. Descriptive gestures function to illustrate or refer to objects rather than emotions. We use descriptive gestures to indicate the number of something by counting with our fingers or the size, shape, or speed of something. Our hands and arms are often the most reliable and easy-to-use visual aids a speaker can have. While it can be beneficial to plan a key gesture or two in advance, it is generally best to gesture spontaneously in a speech, just as you would during a regular conversation.

                              It may sound funny, but due to speech anxiety, we have seen more than one student unknowingly incorporate “jazz hands” (shaking your hands at your sides with fingers opened wide) at various points in their speech. While certainly an extreme example, this and behaviors like it can easily become distracting. At the other end of the scale, people who don’t know what to do with their hands or use the “too little” sometimes hold their arms stiffly at their sides, behind their backs, or in their pockets, all of which can also look unnatural and distracting.

                              However, with all that said, if you have nothing else to do with your hands, such as meaningful gestures, the default position for them is to be resting gently on the sides of the lectern (see Figure 7.4.2 and 7.4.3). You don’t want to grip the lectern tightly, but resting them on the edges keeps them in a position to move your notes on if you need to or use them to gesture. As stated above, you want to practice this way beforehand so you are used to speaking this way when you come to class.

                               

                              Figure 7.4.2

                              Woman standing at a transparent lectern

                               

                              Figure 7.4.3

                              Showing the proper positioning of hands at the sides of the lectern

                               

                              Figure 7.4.4

                              Positioning of the feet, parallel and separated as wide as the shoulders

                               

                              Feet

                              Sometimes the movement of the whole body, instead of just gesturing with hands, is appropriate in a speech. Just like your hands, a lot of nervous energy is going to try to work its way out of your body through your feet. On the “too much” end, this is most common when people start “dancing” behind the lectern. Another variation is twisting feet around each other or the lower leg. On the other end are those who put their feet together, lock their knees, and never move from that position. Both of these options look unnatural and, therefore, will prove to be distracting to your audience. Locking your knees can also lead to loss of oxygen in your brain, not a good state to be in because it can cause you to faint.

                              The default position for your feet, then, is to have them shoulder-width apart with your knees slightly bent (see Figure 7.4.4). Again, you want to look and feel natural, so it is fine to adjust your weight or move out from behind the lectern, but constant motion (or perpetual stillness) will not lead to a good overall delivery.

                              These two sections on gestures and feet mention “energy.” Public speakers need to look energetic—not hyperactive, but engaged and upbeat about communicating their message. Slumping, low and unvarying pitch and rate, and lack of gestures telegraph “I don’t care” to an audience.

                              Objects

                              There is a very simple rule when it comes to what you should bring with you to the lectern when you give your speech: Only bring to the lectern what you absolutely need to give the speech. Anything else you have with you will only serve as a distraction for both you and the audience. For the purposes of this class, the only objects you should need to give your speech are whatever materials you are speaking from and possibly a visual aid if you are using one. Beyond that, don’t bring pens, laptops, phones, lucky charms, or notebooks with you to the lectern. These extra items can ultimately become a distraction themselves when they fall off the lectern or get in your way. Some students like to bring their electronic tablet, laptop computer, or cell phone with them, but there are some obvious disadvantages to these items, especially if you don’t turn the ringer on your cell phone off. Cell phones are not usually large enough to serve as presentation notes; we’ve seen students squint and hold the phone up to their faces.

                              Not only do you need to be aware of what you bring with you, but you should also be aware of what you have on your person as well. Sometimes, in the course of dressing for a speech, we can overlook simple issues that can cause problems while speaking. Some of these can include:

                              • Jewelry that ‘jingles’ when you move, such as heavy bracelets;
                              • Uncomfortable shoes or shoes that you are not used to (don’t make speech day the first time you try wearing high heels);
                              • Anything with fringe, zippers, or things hanging off it. They might become irresistible to play with while speaking;
                              • For those with longer hair, remember that you will be looking down at your notes and then looking back up. Don’t be forced to “fix” your hair or tuck it behind your ear every time you look up. Use a barrette, hairband, or some other method to keep your hair totally out of your face so that the audience can see your eyes, and you won’t have to adjust your hair constantly. It can be very distracting to an audience to watch a speaker pull hair from their face after every sentence.

                              The Lectern and Posture

                              Extra movements caused by anxiety are called nonverbal adaptors, and most of them manifest as distracting movements or gestures. Nonverbal adaptors, such as foot-tapping, wringing hands, playing with a paper clip, twirling hair, jingling change in a pocket, scratching, etc., can definitely detract from a speaker’s message and credibility. Conversely, a confident posture and purposeful gestures and movement can enhance both.

                              A lectern is a tool for you to use that should ultimately make your speech easier to give, and you need to use it that way. On the “too much” end, some people want to trick their audience into thinking they are not nervous by leaning on the podium in a relaxed manner, sometimes going so far as to actually begin tipping the podium forward. Your lectern is NOT part of your skeletal system to prop you up, so don’t do this. On the “too little” end are those who are afraid to touch it, worried that they will use it incorrectly or somehow knock it over (you won’t!).

                              As always, you want the “Goldilocks” middle ground. Just rest your notes and hands on it, but don’t lean on the lectern or “hug” it. Practicing with a lectern (or something similar to a lectern) will eliminate most of your fears about using it.

                              Posture is the position we assume with our bodies, either intentionally or out of habit. The lectern use is related to posture. Most of us let gravity pull us down. One of the muscle memory tricks of public speaking is to roll your shoulders back. Along with making your shoulder muscles feel better, doing so with feet apart and knees bent, rolling your shoulders back will lead to a more credible physical presence—you’ll look taller and more energetic. You’ll also feel better, and you’ll have a larger lung capacity for breathing to support your tone and volume. In a formal speaking situation, it’s important to have an erect posture that communicates professionalism and credibility. However, a military posture of standing at attention may feel and look unnatural in a typical school or business speech. In informal settings, it may be appropriate to lean on a table or lectern or even sit among your audience members.

                              .

                              8b68fce22f794664414e01dfa5e50463.jpg
                              Government and military leaders use an erect posture to communicate confidence and professionalism during public appearances. Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

                               

                              Facial Expressions

                              Remember, it’s a good thing for audience members to look at you because it means they’re paying attention and interested. Audiences look for facial expressions of the speaker or cues about the tone and content of the speech seen on the face. Facial expressions can help bring a speech to life when used by a speaker to communicate emotions and demonstrate enthusiasm for the speech. We tend to use facial expressions naturally and without conscious effort when engaging in day-to-day conversations. Yet many speakers’ expressive faces turn “deadpan” when they stand in front of an audience. Some people naturally have more expressive faces than others—think about the actor Jim Carey’s ability to contort his face as an example. But we can also consciously control and improve on our facial expressions to be more effective speakers. As with other components of speech delivery, becoming a higher self-monitor and increasing your awareness of your typical delivery habits can help you understand, control, and improve your delivery. Although you shouldn’t only practice your speech in front of a mirror, doing so can help you get an idea of how expressive or unexpressive your face is while delivering your speech. 

                               

                              10.4.0N.jpg
                              Facial expressions are key for conveying emotions and enthusiasm in a speech. Jeff Wasson – Immutable Law Of The Universe #2 – CC BY 2.0.

                               

                              Facial expressions help set the emotional tone for a speech, and it is important that your facial expressions stay consistent with your message. In order to set a positive tone before you start speaking, briefly look at the audience and smile. A smile is a simple but powerful facial expression that can communicate friendliness, openness, and confidence. Facial expressions communicate a range of emotions and are also associated with various moods or personality traits. For example, combinations of facial expressions can communicate that a speaker is tired, excited, angry, confused, frustrated, sad, confident, smug, shy, or bored, among other things. Even if you aren’t bored, for example, a slack face with little animation may lead an audience to think that you are bored with your own speech, which isn’t likely to motivate them to be interested. So make sure your facial expressions are communicating an emotion, mood, or personality trait that you think your audience will view favorably. Also, make sure your facial expressions match the content of your speech. When delivering something lighthearted or humorous, a smile, bright eyes, and slightly raised eyebrows will nonverbally enhance your verbal message. When delivering something serious or somber, a furrowed brow, a tighter mouth, and even a slight head nod can enhance that message. If your facial expressions and speech content are not consistent, your audience could become confused by the conflicting messages, which could lead them to question your honesty and credibility.

                               

                              “Getting Competent”: Improving Facial Expressions

                              My very first semester teaching, I was required by my supervisor to record myself teaching and evaluate what I saw. I was surprised by how serious I looked while teaching. My stern, expressionless face was due to my anxiety about being a beginning teacher and my determination to make sure I covered the content for the day. I didn’t realize that it was also making me miss opportunities to communicate how happy I was to be teaching and how passionate I was about the content. I just assumed those things would come through in my delivery. I was wrong. The best way to get an idea of the facial expressions you use while speaking is to record your speech using a computer’s webcam, much like you would look at and talk to the computer when using Skype or another video-chat program. The first time you try this, minimize the video window once you’ve started recording so you don’t get distracted by watching yourself. Once you’ve recorded the video, watch the playback and take notes on your facial expressions. Answer the following questions:

                              1. Did anything surprise you? Were you as expressive as you thought you were?
                              2. What facial expressions did you use throughout the speech?
                              3. Where did your facial expressions match with the content of your speech? Where did your facial expressions not match with the content of your speech?
                              4. Where could you include more facial expressions to enhance your content and/or delivery?

                              You can also have a friend watch the video and give you feedback on your facial expressions to see if your assessment matches theirs. Once you’ve assessed your video, re-record your speech and try to improve your facial expressions and delivery. Revisit the previous questions to see if you improved.

                               

                              Eye Contact

                              We tend to look at a person’s face when we are listening to them. Again, this often makes people feel uncomfortable and contributes to their overall speaking anxiety. Many speakers don’t like the feeling of having “all eyes” on them, even though having a room full of people avoiding making eye contact with you would be much more awkward.

                              As we’ve said consistently throughout this book, your audience is the single biggest factor that influences every aspect of your speech. And since eye contact is how you establish and maintain a rapport with your audience during your speech, it is an extremely important element of your delivery. Your professor may or may not indicate a standard for how much eye contact you need during the speech, such as 50%, but they will absolutely want to see you making an effort to engage your audience by looking directly at them. Eye contact has the power to make people feel welcome/unwelcome, comfortable/uncomfortable, listened to / ignored, and so on. As a speaker, eye contact can also be used to establish credibility and hold your audience’s attention. We often interpret a lack of eye contact to mean that someone is not credible or not competent, and as a public speaker, you don’t want your audience thinking either of those things.

                              What is important to note here is that you want to establish genuine eye contact with your audience and not “fake” eye contact. There have been a lot of techniques generated for “faking” eye contact, and none of them look natural. For example, these are not good ideas:

                              • Three points on the back wall – You may have heard that instead of making eye contact, you can just pick three points on the back wall and look at those. What ends up happening, though, is you look like you are staring off into space, and your audience will spend the majority of your speech trying to figure out what you are looking at. To avoid this, look around the entire room, including the front, back, left, and right sides of the space.
                              • The swimming method – This happens when someone is reading their speech and looks up quickly and briefly to try to make it seem like they are making eye contact, not unlike a swimmer who pops their head out of the water for a breath before going back under. Eye contact is more than just physically moving your head; it is about looking at your audience and establishing a connection. In general, your eye contact should last at least five seconds at a time and should be with individuals throughout the room.
                              • The stare down – Since you will, to some degree, be graded on your eye contact, some students think (either consciously or not) that the best way to ensure they get credit for establishing eye contact is to always and exclusively look directly at their professor. While we certainly appreciate the attention, we want to see that you are establishing eye contact with your entire audience, not just one person. Also, this behavior is uncomfortable for the instructor.

                              Eye contact holds attention because an audience member who knows the speaker is making regular eye contact will want to reciprocate that eye contact to show that they are paying attention. This will also help your audience remember the content of your speech better because acting like we’re paying attention actually leads us to pay attention and better retain information.

                              Norms for eye contact vary among cultures. Therefore it may be difficult for speakers from countries that have higher power distances or are more collectivistic to get used to the idea of making direct and sustained eye contact during a speech. In these cases, it is important for the speaker to challenge themselves to integrate some of the host culture’s expectations and for the audience to be accommodating and understanding of the cultural differences.

                              Tips for Having Effective Eye Contact

                              1. Once in front of the audience, establish eye contact before you speak.
                              2. Make slow and deliberate eye contact, sweeping through the whole audience from left to right.
                              3. Despite what high school speech teachers or others might have told you, do not look over the audience’s heads, at the back wall, or the clock. Unless you are in a huge auditorium, it will just look to the audience like you are looking over their heads.
                              4. Do not just make eye contact with one or a few people that you know or that look friendly. Also, do not just make eye contact with your instructor or boss. Even if it’s comforting for you as the speaker, it is usually awkward for the audience member.
                              5. Try to memorize your opening and closing lines so you can make full eye contact with the audience. This will strengthen the opening and closing of your speech and help you make a connection with the audience.

                              Personal Appearance

                              Looking like a credible and prepared public speaker will make you feel more like one and will make your audience more likely to perceive you as such. This applies to all speaking contexts: academic, professional, and personal. Although the standards for appropriate personal appearance vary between contexts, meeting them is key. You may have experienced a time when your vocal and physical delivery suffered because you were not “dressed the part.” “Dressing the part” makes you feel more confident, which will come through in your delivery. Ideally, you should also be comfortable in the clothes you’re wearing. If the clothes are dressy, professional, and nice but ill-fitting, then the effect isn’t the same. Avoid clothes that are too tight or too loose. “Looking the part” is just as important as “dressing the part,” so make sure you are cleaned and groomed in a way that’s appropriate for the occasion. The following “Getting Real” box goes into more detail about professional dress in a variety of contexts.

                              No matter what professional field you go into, you will need to consider the importance of personal appearance. Although it may seem petty or shallow to put so much emphasis on dress and appearance, impressions matter, and people make judgments about our personality, competence, and credibility based on how we look. In some cases, you may work somewhere with a clearly laid out policy for personal dress and appearance. In many cases, the suggestion is to follow guidelines for “business casual.” Despite the increasing popularity of this notion over the past twenty years, people’s understanding of what business casual means is not consistent (Cullen, 2008). The formal dress codes of the mid-1900s, which required employees to wear suits and dresses, gave way to the trend of business casual dress, which seeks to allow employees to work comfortably while still appearing professional (Heathfield, S. M., 2012). While most people still dress more formally for job interviews or high-stakes presentations, the day-to-day dress of working professionals varies. Here are some tips for maintaining “business casual” dress and appearance:

                              • Things to generally avoid: jeans, hats, flip-flops, exposed underwear, exposed stomachs, athletic wear, heavy cologne/perfume, and chewing gum.
                              • General dress guidelines: dress pants, khaki pants, skirt, dress, button-up shirt, blouse, collared polo shirt tucked in with a belt, and dress shoes; jacket and/or tie are optional.
                              • Finishing touches. Make sure shoes are neat and polished, not scuffed or dirty; clothes should be pressed, not wrinkled; make sure fingernails are clean and trimmed/groomed; and remove any lint, dog hair, and so on from clothing.

                              Obviously, these are general guidelines, and there may be exceptions. It’s always a good idea to see if your place of business has a dress code or at least guidelines. If you are uncertain whether or not something is appropriate, most people recommend erring on the side of caution and choosing something else. While consultants and professionals usually recommend sticking to dark colors such as black, navy, and charcoal and/or light colors such as white, khaki, and tan, it is OK to add something that expresses your identity and makes you stand out, like a splash of color or a nice accessory like a watch, eyeglasses, or a briefcase. In fact, in the current competitive job market, employers want to see that you are serious about the position, can fit in with the culture of the organization, and are confident in who you are (Verner, 2008).

                              1. What do you think is the best practice to follow when dressing for a job interview?
                              2. In what professional presentations would you want to dress formally? Business casual? Casual?
                              3. Aside from the examples listed previously, what are some other things to generally avoid, in terms of dress and appearance, when trying to present yourself as a credible and competent communicator/speaker?
                              4. In what ways do you think you can conform to business-casual expectations while still preserving your individuality?

                                 

                                Verbal Delivery

                                Vocal delivery includes components of speech delivery that relate to your voice. Incorporating vocal variety in terms of volume, pitch, rate, and pauses is key to being a successful speaker. Our voice is important to consider when delivering our speech for two main reasons. First, vocal delivery can help us engage and interest the audience. Second, vocal delivery helps ensure that our ideas are communicated clearly. We have all had the displeasure of listening to an unengaging speaker. Even though the person may care about their topic, an unengaging delivery that doesn’t communicate enthusiasm will translate into a lack of interest for most audience members. Although a speaker can be visually engaging by incorporating movement and gestures, a flat or monotone vocal delivery can be sedating or even annoying.

                                Volume

                                Volume refers to the relative softness or loudness of your voice. The proper volume for a given speaking engagement usually falls on the scale in Figure 7.4.1. If you speak too softly (“too little” volume), your audience will struggle to hear and understand you and may give up trying to listen. If you speak with “too much” volume, your audience may feel that you are yelling at them or at least feel uncomfortable with you shouting. The volume you use should fit the size of the audience and the room.

                                When speaking in a typically sized classroom or office setting that seats about twenty-five people, using a volume a few steps above a typical conversational volume is usually sufficient. When speaking in larger rooms, you will need to project your voice. You may want to look for nonverbal cues from people in the back rows or corners, like leaning forward or straining to hear and adjust your volume accordingly. Obviously, in some settings, a microphone will be necessary to be heard by the entire audience. Softer speakers are sometimes judged as meek, which may lead to lowered expectations for the speech or less perceived credibility. Louder speakers may be seen as overbearing or annoying, which can lead audience members to disengage from the speaker and message. Be aware of the volume of your voice and, when in doubt, increase your volume a notch since beginning speakers are more likely to have an issue of speaking too softly rather than too loudly.

                                 

                                10.3.0N.jpg
                                Speak a couple of steps above your regular volume for speeches that occur in typically sized classrooms or meeting rooms that seat twenty to forty people. A microphone may be necessary for larger groups or rooms. Speaker at Podium – CC BY 2.0.

                                 

                                Public speaking relies on the voice for interest, credibility, audibility, and clarity. The British Prime Minister of the 19th century was quoted saying, “There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.” While that seems exaggerated today, a public speaker at any level cannot ignore the energy, loudness, and clarity in their voice. There are four steps to voice production: breathing (produced by the lungs, which are largely responsible for the vocal characteristic of volume); phonation (the production of the sound in the vocal folds, which close and vibrate to produce sound for speaking as the air is exhaled over them; phonation creates pitch); resonation (a type of amplification of the sound in the larynx, oral cavity, and nasal cavity, which creates the characteristic of quality); and articulation, which produces the sounds of language others can understand and is responsible for rate and for being understood.

                                The visual in Figure 7.4.5 shows a cutaway of these parts of the anatomy. Your instructor may give you more directions on maximizing the power of your voice to achieve more variety and power. We have all listened to a low-energy, monotone, monorate speaker and know how hard it is, so you should pay attention to your recording, perhaps by closing your eyes and just listening to see if your voice is flat and lifeless.

                                 

                                Figure 7.4.5

                                File:Blausen 0872 UpperRespiratorySystem.png
                                "File:Blausen 0872 UpperRespiratorySystem.png" by BruceBlaus. Blausen.com staff (2014). ‘Medical gallery of Blausen Medical 2014’. WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 2002-4436. is licensed under CC BY 3.0

                                 

                                Pitch

                                Pitch is the relative highness or lowness of your voice, and like everything, you can have too much or too little (with regard to the variation of it). Too much pitch variation occurs when people “sing” their speeches, and their voices oscillate between very high pitched and very low pitched. While uncommon, this is sometimes attributed to nerves. More common is too little variation in pitch, which is known as being monotone.

                                Delivering a speech in a monotone manner is usually caused by reading too much; generally, the speaker’s focus is on saying the words correctly (because they have not practiced). They forget to speak normally to show their interest in the topic, as we would in everyday conversation. Changing our pitch is a good way to communicate enthusiasm and indicate emphasis or closure. In general, our pitch goes up when we are discussing something exciting. Our pitch goes down slightly when we emphasize a serious or important point. Lowering the pitch is also an effective way to signal transitions between sections of your speech or the end of your speech, which cues your audience to applaud and avoids an awkward ending.

                                For most people, changing pitch isn’t a major issue, but if you think it might be for you, ask the people in your practice audience what they think. You can also record yourself practicing your speech to help determine if the amount of pitch variety and enthusiasm you think you convey while speaking actually comes through. Generally, if we are interested in and passionate about communicating our thoughts, we are not likely to be monotone. We are rarely monotone when talking to friends and family about matters of importance to us, so pick topics you care about.

                                Rate

                                The rate of speaking refers to how fast or slow you speak. Too little rate (i.e., speaking too slowly) will make it sound like you may not fully know your speech or what you are talking about and will ultimately cost you some credibility with your audience. It may also result in the audience being bored and losing focus on what you are saying. Speaking slowly may lead the audience to infer that the speaker is uninterested, uninformed, or unprepared to present their own topic. These negative assumptions, whether they are true or not, are likely to hurt the credibility of the speaker. Rate is one reason you should try to record yourself, even if just audio on your phone, beforehand and be mindful of time when you practice. Your voice’s rate will affect the time it takes to give the speech.

                                By contrast, too much rate (i.e., speaking too fast) can be overly taxing on an audience’s ability to keep up with and digest what you are saying. It sometimes helps to imagine that your speech is a jog or run that you and your friends (the audience) are taking together. You (as the speaker) are setting the pace based on how quickly you speak. If you start sprinting, it may be too difficult for your audience to keep up, and they may give up halfway through. Some people naturally speak faster than others, which is fine, but we can all alter our rate of speaking with practice. If you find that you are a naturally fast speaker, make sure that you do not “speed talk” through your speech when practicing it. As always, recording and timing your speech during practice helps. You can also include reminders to “slow down” on your speaking outline.

                                You especially will want to maintain a good, deliberate rate at the beginning of your speech because your audience will be getting used to your voice. We have all called a business where the person answering the phone mumbles the name of the business in a rushed way. We aren’t sure if we called the right number. Since the introduction is designed to get the audience’s attention and interest in your speech, you will want to focus on clear delivery there. Regulating rate is another reason why video-recording yourself can be so helpful because we often do not realize how fast we speak.

                                Pauses

                                The common misconception for public speaking students is that pausing during your speech is bad, but that isn’t necessarily true. You pause in normal conversations, so you shouldn’t be afraid of pausing while speaking. This is especially true if you are making a particularly important point or want for a statement to have a more powerful impact: you will want to give the audience a moment to digest what you have said.

                                For example, consider the following statement: “Because of issues like pollution and overpopulation, in 50 years the earth’s natural resources will be so depleted that it will become difficult for most people to obtain enough food to survive.” Following a statement like this, you want to give your audience just a brief moment to fully consider what you are saying. Hopefully, they will think something along the lines of What if I’m still alive then? or What will my children do? and become more interested in hearing what you have to say.

                                Of course, there is such a thing as pausing too much, both in terms of frequency and length. Someone who pauses too often (after each sentence) may come off seeming like they don’t know their speech very well. Someone who pauses too long (more than a few seconds) runs the risk of the audience feeling uncomfortable or, even worse, becoming distracted or letting their attention wander. We are capable of processing words more quickly than anyone can speak clearly, which is one of the reasons listening is difficult. Pauses should be controlled to maintain the attention of the audience.

                                Vocalized pauses

                                At various points during your speech, you may find yourself in need of a brief moment to collect your thoughts or prepare for the next section of your speech. At those moments, you will be pausing, but we don’t always like to let people know that we’re pausing. So what many of us do in an attempt to “trick” the audience is fill in those pauses with sounds so that it appears that we haven’t actually paused. These are known as vocalized pauses or sometimes “fillers.” Another term for them is “nonfluencies.”

                                Everyone uses vocalized pauses to some degree, but not everyone’s vocalized pauses are problematic. This obviously becomes an issue when the vocalized pauses become distracting due to their overuse. We have little doubt that you can remember a time when you were speaking to someone who said the word “like” after every three words, and you became focused on it. One of your authors remembers attending a wedding and (inadvertently) began counting the number of times the best man said “like” during his toast (22 was the final count). The most common vocalized pause is “uh,” but then there are others. Can you think of any?

                                The bad news here is that there is no quick fix for getting rid of your vocalized pauses. They are so ingrained into all of our speech patterns that getting rid of them is a challenge. However, there is a two-step process you can employ to begin eliminating them. First, you need to identify what your particular vocalized pause is. Do you say “um,” “well,” or “now” before each sentence? Do you finish each thought with, “you know?” Do you use “like” before every adjective (as in “he was like so unhappy”)?

                                After figuring out what your vocalized pause is, the second step is to carefully and meticulously try to catch yourself when you say it. If you hear yourself saying “uh,” remind yourself, I need to try not to say that. Catching yourself and being aware of how often you use vocalized pauses will help you begin the process of reducing your dependence on them and hopefully get rid of them completely. If you do lose your train of thought, having a brief silent pause is better than injecting a vocalized pause because the audience may not even notice the pause or may think it was intentional.

                                Common Causes of Vocalized Pauses

                                • Lack of preparation. Effective practice sessions are the best way to prevent these.
                                • Not writing for speaking. If you write your speech the way you’ve been taught to write papers, you will have these vocalized pauses. You must translate the written words into something easier for you to present orally. To do this, read your speech aloud and edit as you write to make sure your speech is easy for you to speak.
                                • A poorly prepared speaking outline. Whether it is on paper or note cards, sloppy writing, unorganized bullet points, or incomplete/insufficient information on a speaking outline leads to these.
                                • Distractions. Audience members and the external environment are unpredictable. Hopefully, audience members will be polite and will silence their phones, avoid talking while the speaker is presenting, and avoid moving excessively. There could also be external noise that comes through a door or window. A speaker can also be distracted by internal noise, such as thinking about other things.

                                Vocal Variety

                                Overall, the lesson to take away from this section on vocal delivery is that variety is key. Vocal variety includes changes in your rate, volume, and pitch that can make you look more prepared, seem more credible, and be able to engage your audience better. Employing vocal variety is not something that takes natural ability or advanced skills training. It is something that beginning speakers can start working on immediately, and everyone can accomplish. The key is to become aware of how you use your voice when you speak, and the best way to do this is to record yourself. We all use vocal variety naturally without thinking about it during our regular conversations, and many of us think that this tendency will translate over to our speaking voices. This is definitely not the case for most beginning speakers. Unlike in your regular conversations, it will take some awareness and practice to use vocal variety in speeches. Since it’s something anyone can do, improving in this area will add to your speaking confidence, which usually translates into better speeches and better grades further on.

                                Articulation

                                Articulation refers to the clarity of sounds and words we produce. If someone is articulate, they speak words clearly, and speakers should strive to speak clearly. Poor articulation results when speakers do not speak clearly. For example, a person may say dinnt instead of didn’t, gonna instead of going towanna instead of want to, or hunnerd instead of hundred. Unawareness and laziness are two common challenges to articulation. As with other aspects of our voice, many people are unaware that they regularly have errors in articulation. Recording yourself speaking and then becoming a higher self-monitor are effective ways to improve your articulation. Laziness, on the other hand, requires a little more motivation to address. Some people just get in the habit of not articulating their words well. Both mumbling and slurring are examples of poor articulation. In more informal settings, this type of speaking may be acceptable, but in a formal setting, it will be negatively received, which will hurt a speaker’s credibility. Perhaps the promise of being judged more favorably, which may help a person become more successful, is enough to motivate a mumbler to speak more clearly.

                                When combined with a low volume, poor articulation becomes an even greater problem. When you notice that you have trouble articulating a particular word, you can either choose a different word to include in your speech or repeat it a few times in a row in the days leading up to your speech to get used to saying it.

                                Pronunciation

                                Unlike articulation, which focuses on the clarity of words, pronunciation refers to speaking words correctly, including the proper sounds of the letters and the proper emphasis. Mispronouncing words can damage a speaker’s credibility, especially when the correct pronunciation of a word is commonly known. I have actually heard someone presenting on the topic of pronunciation mispronounce the word pronunciation, saying “pro-NOUN-ciation” instead of “pro-NUN-ciation.” In such a case, it would not be unwarranted for the audience to question the speaker’s expertise on the subject.

                                We all commonly run into words that we are unfamiliar with and therefore may not know how to pronounce. Here are three suggestions when faced with this problem. The first is to look the word up in an online dictionary. Many dictionaries have a speaker icon with their definitions, and when you click on it, you can hear the correct pronunciation of a word. Some words have more than one pronunciation—for example, Caribbean—so choosing either of the accepted pronunciations is fine. Just remember to consistently use that pronunciation to avoid confusing your audience. If a word doesn’t include audio pronunciation, you can usually find the phonetic spelling of a word, which is the word spelled out the way it sounds. There will occasionally be words that you can’t locate in a dictionary. These are typically proper nouns or foreign words. In this case, you can “phone-a-friend.” Call up the people you know who have large vocabularies or are generally smart when it comes to words, and ask them if they know how to pronounce them. If they do, and you find them credible, you’re probably safe to take their suggestion. The third option is to “fake it ’til you make it,” and it should only be used as a last resort. If you can’t find the word in a dictionary and your smart friends don’t know how to pronounce it, it’s likely that your audience will also be unfamiliar with the word. In that case, using your knowledge of how things are typically pronounced, decide on a pronunciation that makes sense and confidently use it during your speech. Most people will not question it. In the event that someone does correct you on your pronunciation, thank them for correcting you and adjust your pronunciation.

                                The ten items listed above represent the major delivery issues you will want to be aware of when giving a speech, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. There is, however, one final piece of delivery advice we would like to offer. We know that no matter how hard you practice and how diligent you are in preparing for your speech, you are most likely going to mess up some aspect of your speech when you give it in class, at least a little. That’s normal. Everyone does it. The key is to not make a big deal about it or let the audience know you messed up. The odds are that they will never even realize your mistake if you don’t tell them there was a mistake. Saying something like “I can’t believe I messed that up” or “Can I start over?” just telegraphs to the audience your mistake. In fact, you have most likely never heard a perfect speech delivered in your life. It is likely that you just didn’t realize that the speaker missed a line or briefly forgot what they wanted to say.

                                Practice your speech beforehand, at home or elsewhere, the way you will give it in class.

                                Since you know you are likely going to make some sort of mistake in class, use your practice time at home to work on how you will deal with those mistakes. If you say a word incorrectly or start reading the wrong sentence, don’t go back and begin that section anew. That’s not what you would do in class, so just correct yourself and move on. If you practice dealing with your mistakes at home, you will be better prepared for the inevitable errors that will find their way into your speech in class.

                                A final thought on practice. We have all heard, “Practice makes perfect.” That is not always true. Practice makes permanent; the actions become habitual. If you practice incorrectly, your performance will be incorrect. Be sure your practice is correct.

                                 

                                Exercises

                                1. Identify three goals related to delivery that you would like to accomplish in this course. What strategies/tips can you use to help achieve these goals?
                                2. What nonverbal adaptors have you noticed that others use while speaking? Are you aware of any nonverbal adaptors that you have used? If so, what are they?
                                3. Getting integrated: Identify some steps that speakers can take to ensure that their dress and physical appearance enhance their credibility. How might expectations for the dress and physical appearance vary from context to context (academic, professional, personal, and civic)?
                                4. Record yourself practicing your speech. How does your speech sound in terms of vocal variety? Cite specific examples.
                                5. Listen to your recorded speech again. How would you evaluate your articulation and pronunciation? Cite specific examples.
                                6. Over the course of a day, take note of verbal fillers that you tend to use. List them here so you can be a higher self-monitor and begin to notice and lessen your use of them.

                                 

                                References

                                Cullen, L. T., “What (Not) to Wear to Work,” Time, June 9, 2008, 49.

                                Heathfield, S. M., “Dress for Success: A Business Casual Dress Code,” About.com, accessed February 7, 2012, http://humanresources.about.com/od/workrelationships/a/dress_code.htm.

                                Koch, A., Speaking with a Purpose, 7th ed. (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2007), 105.

                                Verner, A., “Interview? Ditch the Navy Suit,” The Globe and Mail, December 15, 2008, L1.

                                7.5 Analyzing Your Audience and Situation

                                (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                 

                                The Importance of Audience Analysis

                                You are not using the speech to dump a large amount of content on the audience; you are making that content important, meaningful, and applicable to them. Additionally, the way the audience perceives you and your connection to them—such as whether there is mutual trust and respect—will largely determine your success with the audience. The speaker must respect the audience as well, and the audience should trust the speaker. To know how to do this, you have to gather insight into your audience through a process called audience analysis.

                                 

                                Demographic Characteristics

                                When we use the term, we mean looking at the audience first by its demographic characteristics and then by their internal psychological traits. “Demo-” comes from the Greek root word demos meaning “people,” and “-graphic” means description or drawing. Demographic characteristics describe the outward characteristics of the audience. We discuss eleven of them below though there are multiple variations on these topics.

                                Let’s look at three guidelines before we talk about specific audience traits: 

                                • Be careful not to stereotype on the basis of a demographic characteristic. 

                                Stereotyping is generalizing about a group of people and assuming that because a few persons in that group have a characteristic, all of them do. If someone were sitting near campus and saw two students drive by in pickup trucks and said, “All students at that college drive pickup trucks,” that would be both stereotyping. At the same time, one should not totalize about a person or group of persons. Totalizing is taking one characteristic of a group or person and making that the “totality” or sum total of what that person or group is. Totalizing often happens to persons with disabilities; for example, the disability is seen as the totality of that person or all that person is about. This can be both harmful to the relationship and ineffective as a means of communicating. Avoiding stereotyping and totalizing is important because you cannot assume everything about an audience based on just one demographic characteristic. 

                                • Not all demographics are created equal, and not all of them are important in every situation.

                                When parents come to a PTA meeting, they are concerned about their children and playing the important role of “parent,” rather than being concerned about their profession. 

                                • There are two ways to think about demographic characteristics: positively and negatively.

                                In a positive sense, the demographic characteristics tell you what might motivate or interest the audience or even bind them together as a group. In a negative sense, the demographic characteristic might tell you what subjects or approaches to avoid. Understanding your audience is not a game of defensive tic-tac-toe but a means of relating to them.

                                There is one more point to be made about demographic characteristics before they are listed and explained. In a country of increasing diversity, demographic characteristics are dynamic. People change as the country changes. What was true about demographic characteristics—and even what was considered a demographic characteristic—has changed in the last fifty years. For example, the number of Internet users in 1980 was minuscule (mostly military personnel). 

                                 

                                9.1.1N.jpg
                                Good speakers should always assume a diversity of backgrounds and opinions among their audience members. TEDx UniversityofTulsa – Audience – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                                 

                                Common Demographic Characteristics

                                Age

                                In American culture, we have traditionally ascribed certain roles, behaviors, motivations, interests, and concerns to people of certain ages. Young people are concerned about career choices; people over 60 are concerned about retirement. People go to college from the age of 18 to about 24. Persons 50 years old have raised their children and are “empty nesters.” These neat categories still exist for many, but in some respects, they seem outdated.

                                Therefore, knowing that your audience is 18, 30, 55, or 70 is important, but it is just one of many factors. In your classroom audience, for example, you may find 30-year-old returning, nontraditional college students, young entrepreneurs, 17-year-old dual enrollment students, and veterans who have done three or four tours in the Middle East as well as 18- or 19-year old traditional college students.

                                Gender

                                This area is open to misunderstanding as much as any other. Despite stereotypes, not all women have fifty pairs of shoes with stiletto heels in their closets, and not all men love football. In almost all cases, you will be speaking to a “mixed” audience of men and women, so you will have to keep both groups in mind.  

                                According to Deborah Tannen (2007), a scholar of linguistics and a well-known author, men and women in the United States have divergent communication styles. 

                                According to Tannen, women tend to communicate more inductively; they prefer to give lots of details and then move toward a conclusion. Positive differences in gender communication indicate that women listen better, interrupt less, and collaborate more. Negative stereotypes are women tend to be less direct, to ask more questions, to use “hedges” and qualifiers (“it seems to me,” “I may be wrong, but…”), and to apologize more, often unnecessarily. To men, it may seem that a female speaker is unsure or lacks confidence, whereas the female speaker is doing it out of habit or thinks it sounds open-minded and diplomatic. Tannen calls women’s style of communication “rapport” style, whereas she labels male communication as more of a “report” style. 

                                 

                                Senator Pia Cayetano

                                “Senator Pia Cayetano” by roger_alcantara is licensed under CC BY 2.0
                                 

                                Male speakers, on the other hand, are more deductive and direct; they state their point, give limited details to back it up, and then move on. Men may be less inclined to ask questions and qualify what they say; they might not see any reason to add unnecessary fillers. Men also may tend toward basic facts, giving some the impression they are less emotional in their communication, which is a stereotype. Finally, men are socialized to “fix” things and may give advice to women when it is not really needed or wanted.

                                This section on gender has taken a typical, traditional “binary” approach. Today, more people openly identify as a gender other than traditionally male or female. Even those of us who identify as strictly male or female do not fully follow traditional gender roles. This is an area for growing sensitivity. At the same time, the purpose, subject, and context of the speech will probably define how and whether you address the demographic characteristic of gender.

                                Age and gender are the two main ways we categorize people: a teenage boy, an elderly lady, a middle-aged man, a young mother. 

                                Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

                                Race, ethnicity, and culture are often lumped together; at the same time, these categorizations can be controversial. We will consider race, ethnicity, and culture in one section because of their interrelationship, although they are distinct categories. We might think in terms of a few racial groups in the world: Caucasian, African, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American. Each one of these has many ethnicities. Caucasians have ethnicities of Northern European, Arab, some South Asian people groups, Mediterranean, etc. Then each ethnicity has cultures. Mediterranean ethnicities include Greek, Italian, Spanish, etc., and then each of these has subcultures and so on. It should be noted that many social scientists today reject the idea of race as a biological reality altogether and see it as a social construct. This means it is a view of humanity that has arisen over time and affects our thinking about others.

                                Unfortunately, dividing these categories and groups is not that easy, and these categories are almost always clouded by complicated political and personal concerns. Most audiences will be heterogeneous, or a mixture of different types of people and demographic characteristics, as opposed to homogeneous, very similar in many characteristics (a group of single, 20-year-old, white female nursing students at your college). Therefore, be sensitive to your audience members’ identification with a culture. As mentioned in a previous example, focus as much on the positives—what that culture values—rather than what the culture does not like or value.

                                Religion

                                Religion, casually defined as beliefs and practices about the transcendent, deity, and the meaning of life, can be thought of as an affiliation and as a life commitment. According to polls, due to either family or choice, a majority of Americans (although the percentage is shrinking) have some kind of religious affiliation, identity, or connection. It may simply be where they were christened as an infant, but it is a connection—“I’m in that group.” About 23% of Americans are being called “nones” because they do not claim a formal religious affiliation (Pew Research, 2015).

                                Group Affiliation

                                Without getting into a sociological discussion, we can note that one demographic characteristic and source of identity for some is group affiliation. To what groups do the audience members predominantly belong? Sometimes it will be useful to know if the group is mostly Republican, Democrat, members of a union, members of a professional organization, and so on. In many cases, your reason for being the speaker is connected to the group identity. Again, be mindful of what the group values and what binds the audience together.

                                Region

                                Region relates to where the audience members live. We can think of this in two ways. We live in regions of the country: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Rocky Mountain region, Northwest, and West Coast. These regions can be broken down even more, such as coastal Southeastern states. Americans, especially in the East, are very conscious of their state or region and identify with it a great deal.

                                The second way to think about region is as “residence” or whether the audience lives in an urban area, the suburbs, or a rural area. If you live in the city, you probably do not think about being without a cell phone or Internet service, but many people in rural areas do not take those for granted. The clubs that students in rural high schools belong to might be very different from what a student in a city would join.

                                Occupation

                                Occupation may be a demographic characteristic that is central to your presentation. For the most part, in the US, we choose our occupations because they reflect our values, interests, and abilities, and as we associate with colleagues in that occupation, those values, interests, and abilities are strengthened. You are probably in college to enter a specific career that you believe will be economically beneficial and personally fulfilling. We sometimes spend more time at work than any other activity except sleeping. Messages that acknowledge the importance, diversity, and reasons for occupations will be more effective. At the same time, if you are speaking to an audience with different occupations, do not use jargon from one specific occupation.

                                Education

                                The next demographic characteristic is education, which is closely tied to occupation and is often, though not always, a matter of choice. In the United States, education usually reflects what kind of information and training a person has been exposed to, but it does not necessarily reflect intelligence. An individual with a bachelor’s degree in physics or computer science will probably know a great deal more about those fields than someone with a Ph.D. in English. Having a certain credential is supposed to be a guarantee of having learned a set of knowledge or attained certain skills. Some persons, especially employers, tend to see achieving a credential such as a college degree as the person’s having the “grit” to finish an academic program (Duckworth, 2016). We are also generally proud of our educational achievements, so they should not be disregarded.

                                Socio-Economic Level

                                Socio-economic level, another demographic characteristic, is also tied to occupation and education in many cases. We expect certain levels of education or certain occupations to make more money. While you cannot know the exact pay of your audience members, you should be careful about references that would portray your own socio-economic level as superior/inferior to their own. 

                                Sexual Orientation

                                The next few demographic characteristics are more personal and may not seem important to your speech topic, but then again, they may be the most important for your audience. Sexual orientation, usually referred to by the letters LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, Intersex, Asexual...), is a characteristic not listed in speech textbooks forty years ago. As acceptance of people of various sexual orientations and lifestyles becomes more common, we can expect that these differences will lead to people feeling free to express who they are and not be confined to traditional gender roles or stereotypes. For this reason, it is useful to employ inclusive language, such as “partner” or “spouse.”

                                Family Status

                                Family status, such as whether the audience members are married, single, divorced, or have children or grandchildren, may be very important to the concerns and values of your audience and even the reason the audience is brought together. For example, young parents could be gathered to listen to a speaker because they are concerned about the health and safety of children in the community. Getting married and/or having a child often creates a major shift in how persons view the world, responsibilities, and priorities. A speaker should be aware if they are talking to single, married, divorced, or widowed persons and if the audience members are parents, especially with children at home.

                                Does this section on demographic characteristics leave you wondering, “With all this diversity, how can we even think about an audience?” If so, do not feel alone in that thought. As diversity increases, audience understanding and adaptation become more difficult. To address this concern, you should keep in mind the primary reason the audience is together and the demographic characteristics they have in common—their common bonds. Knowing these facts will help you find ways to choose topics, select approaches and sources for those topics, know when you should explain an idea in more detail, avoid strategies that would become barriers to communicating with the audience, and/or include personal examples to which the audience members can relate.

                                 

                                Psychographic Characteristics

                                Whereas demographic characteristics describe the “facts” about the people in your audience and are focused on the external, psychographic characteristics explain the inner qualities. Although there are many ways to think about this topic, here the ones relevant to a speech will be explored: beliefs, attitudes, needs, and values. As you can see in Figure 7.5.1, we can think of our attitudes, beliefs, and values as layers that make up our perception and knowledge.

                                 

                                Figure 7.5.1: Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

                                0ec6d93080b4f4b66e88e72cdaadb51c.jpg

                                University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing - Chapter 9: Preparing a Speech – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                                 

                                 

                                Attitudes

                                At the outermost level, attitudes are our likes and dislikes, and they are easier to influence than beliefs or values because they are often reactionary. Attitude is defined as a stable positive or negative response to a person, idea, object, or policy (Bem 1970). More specifically, Myers (2012) defines it as “a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward someone or something, exhibited in one’s beliefs, feelings, or intended behavior” (p. 36). How do you respond when you hear the name of a certain singer, movie star, political leader, sports team, or law in your state? Your response will be either positive or negative, or maybe neutral if you are not familiar with the object of the attitude. Where did that attitude come from? Psychologists and communication scholars study attitude formation and change probably as much as any other subject and have found that attitude comes from experiences, peer groups, beliefs, rewards, and punishments.

                                Do not confuse attitude with “mood.” Attitudes are stable; if you respond negatively to Brussels sprouts today, you probably will a week from now. That does not mean they are unchangeable, only that they change slowly and in response to certain experiences, information, or strategies. Changing attitudes is a primary task of public speakers because attitudes are the most determining factor in what people actually do. In other words, attitudes lead to actions, and interestingly, actions lead to and strengthen attitudes.

                                Beliefs

                                We may hold a “belief” that regular daily exercise is a healthy activity, but that does not mean we will have a positive “attitude” toward it. There may be other attitudes that compete with the belief, such as “I do not like to sweat” or “I don’t like exercising alone.” Also, we may not act upon a belief because we do not feel there is a direct, immediate benefit from it, or we may not believe we have time right now in college. If we have a positive “attitude” toward exercise, we will more likely engage in it than if we only “believe” it is generally healthy.

                                Daryl Bem (1970) defined beliefs as “statements we hold to be true.” Notice this definition does not say the beliefs are true, only that we hold them to be true, and as such, they determine how we respond to the world around us. Stereotypes are a kind of belief: we believe all the people in a certain group are “like that” or share a trait. Beliefs are not confined to the religious realm but touch all aspects of our experience. Sports fans believe certain things about their favorite teams. Republicans and Democrats believe certain, usually different, principles about how the government should be run.

                                Beliefs, according to Bem, come essentially from our experience and from sources we trust. For example, a person may believe everyone should take public speaking because, in their own experience, the course helped them be successful in college and a career. Another person may believe that corporal punishment is good for children because their own parents–whom they love and trust–spanked them after their misbehavior.

                                Therefore, beliefs are hard to change—not impossible, just difficult. Beliefs are harder to change based on the level of each of these characteristics of belief:

                                • stability—the longer we hold them, the more stable or entrenched they are;
                                • centrality—they are in the middle of our identity, self-concept, or “who we are”;
                                • saliency—we think about them a great deal; and
                                • strength—we have a great deal of intellectual or experiential support for the belief, or we engage in activities that strengthen the beliefs.

                                Beliefs can have varying levels of stability, centrality, salience, and strength. An educator’s beliefs about the educational process and importance of education would be strong (support from everyday experience and reading sources of information), central (how they make their living and defines their work), salient (they spend every day thinking about it), and stable (especially if they have been an educator a long time). Beliefs can be changed, but it is not a quick process.

                                Values

                                As you can see, attitude and belief are somewhat complex “constructs,” but fortunately, the next two are more straightforward. (A construct is “a tool used in psychology to facilitate understanding of human behavior; a label for a cluster of related but co-varying behaviors” [Rogelberg, 2007].) Values are goals we strive for and what we consider important and desirable. However, values are not just basic wants. A person may want a vintage sports car from the 1960s and may value it because of the amount of money it costs, but the vintage sports car is not a value; it represents a value of either

                                • nostalgia (the person’s parents owned one in the 1960s, and it represents good times),
                                • display (the person wants to show it off and get “oohs” and “ahs”),
                                • materialism (the person believes the adage that the one who dies with the most toys wins),
                                • aesthetics and beauty (the person admires the look of the car and enjoys maintaining the sleek appearance),
                                • prestige (the person has earned enough money to enjoy and show off this kind of vehicle), or
                                • physical pleasure (the driver likes the feel of driving a sports car on the open road).

                                Therefore we can engage in the same behavior but for different values; one person may participate in a river cleanup because they value the future of the planet; another may value the appearance of the community in which they live; another just because friends are involved, and they value relationships. A few years ago, political pundits coined the term “values voters,” usually referring to social conservatives, but this is a misnomer because almost everyone votes and otherwise acts upon their values—what is important to the individual.

                                Needs

                                The fourth psychographic characteristic, needs, are important deficiencies that we are motivated to fulfill. You may already be familiar with the well-known diagram known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943). It is commonly discussed in the fields of management, psychology, and health professions. A version of it is shown in Figure 7.5.2. (Some recent versions show it with eight levels.) It is one way to think about needs. In trying to understand human motivation, Maslow theorized that as our needs represented at the base of the pyramid are fulfilled, we move up the hierarchy to fulfill other types of needs (McLeod, 2014).

                                According to Maslow’s theory, our most basic physiological or survival needs must be met before we move to the second level, which is safety and security. When our needs for safety and security are met, we move up to relationship or connection needs, often called “love and belongingness.” The fourth level up is esteem needs, which could be thought of as achievement, accomplishment, or self-confidence. The highest level, self-actualization, is achieved by those who are satisfied and secure enough in the lower four that they can make sacrifices for others. Self-actualized persons are usually thought of as altruistic or charitable. Maslow also believed that studying motivation was best done by understanding psychologically healthy individuals, and he also used child development to construct his model. (Maslow is not without his critics; see Neher, 1991).

                                 

                                Figure 7.5.2: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

                                From the lowest level Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is Physiological, (breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostatis, excretion), Safety (security, employment, resources, morality, family, health, property), Love/belonging ( friendship, family, intimacy), Esteem (Self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect) and Self-actualization (Morality, creativity, problem solving, acceptance of facts)

                                Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                                 

                                In another course, you might go into more depth about Maslow’s philosophy and theory, but the key point to remember here is that your audience members are experiencing both “felt” and “real” needs. They may not even be aware of their needs. In a persuasive speech, one of your tasks is to show the audience that needs exist that they might not know about. For example, gasoline sold in most of the US has ethanol, a plant-based product, added to it, usually about 10%. Is this beneficial or detrimental for the planet, the engine of the car, or consumers’ wallets? Your audience may not even be aware of ethanol, its benefits, and the problems it can cause.

                                A “felt” need is another way to think about strong “wants” that the person believes will fulfill or satisfy them even if the item is not necessary for survival. For example, one humorous depiction of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (seen on Facebook) has the words “wifi” scribbled at the bottom of the pyramid. Another meme has “coffee” scribbled at the bottom of the hierarchy. As great as wifi and coffee are, they are not crucial to human survival, either individually or collectively, but we do want them so strongly that they operate like needs.

                                So, how do these psychographic characteristics operate in preparing a speech? They are most applicable to a persuasive speech, but they do apply to other types of speeches as well. What are your audience’s informational needs? What beliefs or attitudes do they have that could influence your choice of topic, sources, or examples? How can you make them interested in the speech by appealing to their values? The classroom speeches you give will allow you a place to practice audience analysis based on demographic and psychographic characteristics, and that practice will aid you in future presentations in the workplace and community.

                                 

                                Situational Factors of Audience Analysis

                                The “facts about” and “inner qualities” (demographic and psychographic characteristics) of the audience influence your approach to any presentation. The situation (place and time) of the speech also influences the audience. What follows are some questions to consider when planning your presentation.

                                1. How much time do I have for the presentation? In most cases, you will have little control over the time limits. In class, the instructor assigns a five- to six-minute speech; at work, there may be an understood twenty-minute presentation rule in the organization since attention can diminish after a certain length. You might be asked to speak to a community group for your company and be told that you have thirty minutes—that seems like a long time, but if you are really passionate about the subject, that time can go quickly.

                                Knowing the time limit for a speech does three things for the speaker. First, it lets them know how much of a given topic can realistically be covered. Secondly, the speaker must practice being sure that the content actually fits in the time given, so the practice leads to a better speech. Third, time limits impose discipline and focus on the speaker.

                                In reference to practice, let’s dispel the myth that “practice makes perfect” myth. It is possible to practice incorrectly, so in that case, practice will make permanent, not perfect. There is a right way and a wrong way to practice a speech, musical instrument, or sport.

                                2. What time of the day is the presentation? An audience at 8:00 in the morning is not the same as at 2:00 p.m. An audience on Monday at 10:00 a.m. is not the same as at 3:00 Friday afternoon. The time of your presentation may tell you a great deal about how to prepare. For example, if the audience is likely to be tired, you might want to get them physically active or talking to each other during a part of the speech, especially if it is a longer presentation.

                                3. Why is the audience gathered? In the case of your communication class, everyone is there, of course, because they want a grade and because they are students at the college. However, they also have career and educational goals. In other contexts, the audience is there because of common interest, commitment, or responsibility. What is it? Everything you do in the speech should be relevant to that reason for their being there.

                                 

                                9.1.2N.jpg
                                When you speak in a classroom or at a business meeting, you may have a captive audience. Presbyterian Women – Business Meeting – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                                 

                                4. What is the physical space like? Straightforward, with the audience in rows and hard seats, as in a classroom? A typical boardroom with a long table and a dozen or more chairs around it? Big sofas and armchairs, where the audience might get too comfortable and drowsy? Can the speaker walk around and get closer to the audience? Does the speaker have to stay behind a lectern or on a platform? Is there audiovisual equipment? Is the room well-lit? Sometimes you will have no control over the physical space, especially in the speech classroom, but you should try to exert all the control you possibly can in other situations. Even the temperature of the room or outside noise can affect your speech’s effectiveness. Just closing the door can make a world of difference in the physical space and its effect on the audience

                                5. Related to number 4 is “How large will the audience be?” Ten people or one hundred? This factor will probably affect your delivery the most. You may need to increase your volume in a venue with a large audience, or you might have to use a microphone, which could limit walking around and getting close to the group. On the other hand, you might want to directly interact with the audience if it is a smaller, more intimate number of people. The size of the audience will also affect your choice of visual aids.

                                6. What does the audience expect? Why were you asked to speak to them? Again, in the class, you will have certain specifications for the presentations, such as type of speech, length, kinds of sources used, and presentation aids or lack of them. In other contexts, you will need to ask many questions to know the context fully.

                                Knowing these details about the audience can greatly impact how successful you are as a speaker, and not knowing them can potentially have adverse effects. For example, a professor was asked to speak to the faculty of another college about 120 miles away on the subject of research about teaching college students. Because the campus she was visiting was a branch campus, she assumed (always dangerous) that only the faculty on that small branch campus would be present. Actually, the faculty of the whole college—over 400 instructors in a college of over 21,000 students—showed up. Although the speaker was very conscious of time limits (30 minutes), subject matter, needs of the audience, and expectations, the change in the size of the expected audience was a shock.

                                It all went well because she was an experienced speaker, but she was a little embarrassed to realize she had not asked the actual size of the audience. Of course, the auditorium was much larger than she expected, the slides she planned to use were inappropriate, and she could not walk around. Instead, she was “stuck” behind a lectern. This is all to say that the importance of knowing your audience and taking the time to prepare based on that knowledge can make your speech go much more smoothly, and not doing so can lead to unexpected complications.

                                 

                                Exercises 

                                1. Getting integrated: Why do some people dread public speaking or just want to avoid it? Identify some potential benefits of public speaking in academic, professional, personal, and civic contexts that might make people see public speaking in a different light. 
                                2. Conduct some preliminary audience analysis of your class and your classroom. What are some demographics that might be useful for you to consider? What might be some attitudes, beliefs, and values people have that might be relevant to your speech topics? What situational factors might you want to consider before giving your speech? 

                                 

                                References

                                Career Cruising, “Marketing Specialist,” Career Cruising: Explore Careers, accessed January 24, 2012, http://www.careercruising.com

                                Greenwell, D., “You Might Not ‘Like’ Facebook So Much after Reading This…” The Times (London), sec. T2, January 13, 2012, 4–5.

                                Siegel, D. L., Timothy J. Coffey, and Gregory Livingston, The Great Tween Buying Machine (Chicago, IL: Dearborn Trade, 2004).

                                Solomon, M. R., Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006), 10–11.

                                7.6 Presentation Aids

                                (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                 

                                What Are Presentation Aids?

                                Presentation aids are resources beyond the spoken words and delivery that a speaker uses to enhance the message conveyed to the audience. The type of presentation aids that speakers most typically make use of is visual aids: pictures, diagrams, charts and graphs, maps, and the like. Audible aids include musical excerpts, audio speech excerpts, and sound effects. A speaker may also use fragrance samples or food samples as olfactory (sense of smell) or gustatory (sense of taste) aids. Finally, presentation aids can be three-dimensional objects, animals, and people; they can also change over a period of time, as in the case of a how-to demonstration.

                                As you can see, the range of possible presentation aids is almost unlimited. However, all presentation aids have one thing in common: To be effective, each presentation aid a speaker uses must be a direct, uncluttered example of a specific element of the speech. Understandably, someone presenting a speech about Abraham Lincoln might want to include a photograph of him, but because everyone already knows what Lincoln looked like, the picture would not contribute much to the message unless, perhaps, the message was specifically about the changes in Lincoln’s appearance during his time in office.

                                Other visual artifacts are more likely to deliver information more directly relevant to the speech—a diagram of the interior of Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was assassinated, a facsimile of the messy and much-edited Gettysburg Address, or a photograph of the Lincoln family, for example. The key is that each presentation aid must directly express an idea in your speech.

                                Moreover, presentation aids must be used at the time when you are presenting the specific ideas related to the aid. For example, if you are speaking about coral reefs and one of your supporting points is about the location of the world’s major reefs, it would make sense to display a map of these reefs while you’re talking about location. If you display it while you are explaining what coral actually is or describing the kinds of fish that feed on a reef, the map will not serve as a useful visual aid—in fact, it’s likely to be a distraction.

                                To be effective, presentation aids must also be easy to use and easy for the listeners to see and understand. We will present some principles and strategies to help you incorporate effective presentation aids into your speech. We will begin by discussing the functions that good presentation aids fulfill. Next, we will explore some of the many types of presentation aids and how best to design and utilize them. We will also describe various media that can be used for presentation aids. We will conclude with tips for successful preparation, and the use of presentation aids in a speech.

                                 

                                Functions of Presentation Aids

                                Why should you use presentation aids? If you have prepared and rehearsed your speech adequately, shouldn’t a good speech with a good delivery be enough to stand on its own? While it is true that impressive presentation aids will not rescue a poor speech, a good speech can often be made even better by the strategic use of presentation aids. Presentation aids can fulfill several functions: they can serve to improve your audience’s understanding of the information you are conveying, enhance audience memory and retention of the message, add variety and interest to your speech, and enhance your credibility as a speaker. Let’s examine each of these functions.

                                Improving Audience Understanding

                                Human communication is a complex process that often leads to misunderstandings. If you are like most people, you can easily remember incidents when you misunderstood a message or when someone else misunderstood what you said to them. Misunderstandings happen in public speaking as they do in everyday conversations.

                                One reason for misunderstandings is the fact that perception and interpretation are highly complex individual processes. Most of us have seen the image in which, depending on your perception, you see either the outline of a vase or the facial profiles of two people facing each other. Or perhaps you have seen the image of the woman who may or may not be young, depending on your frame of reference at the time. This shows how interpretations can differ, and it means that your presentations must be based on careful thought and preparation to maximize the likelihood that your listeners will understand your presentations as you intend them to do so.

                                As a speaker, one of your basic goals is to help your audience understand your message. To reduce misunderstanding, presentation aids can be used to clarify or emphasize.

                                Clarifying

                                Clarification is important in a speech because if some of the information you convey is unclear, your listeners will come away puzzled or possibly even misled. Presentation aids can help clarify a message if the information is complex or if the point being made is a visual one.

                                Emphasizing

                                When you use a presentational aid for emphasis, you impress your listeners with the importance of an idea. In a speech on water conservation, you might try to show the environmental proportions of the resource. When you use a conceptual drawing like the one in Figure 7.6.1, you show that if the world water supply were equal to ten gallons, only ten drops would be available and drinkable for human or household consumption. This drawing is effective because it emphasizes the scarcity of useful water and thus draws attention to this important information in your speech.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.1: Planetary Water Supply

                                An image showing that if the world water supply were equal to ten gallons

                                Source: Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking

                                 

                                Aiding Retention and Recall

                                The second function that presentation aids can serve is to increase the audience’s chances of remembering your speech. An article by the U.S. Department of Labor (1996) summarized research on how people learn and remember. The authors found that “83% of human learning occurs visually, and the remaining 17% through the other senses—11% through hearing, 3.5% through smell, 1% through taste, and 1.5% through touch.”

                                For this reason, exposure to an image can serve as a memory aid to your listeners. When your graphic images deliver information effectively, and when your listeners understand them clearly, audience members are likely to remember your message long after your speech is over. Moreover, people often can remember information that is presented in sequential steps more easily than if that information is presented in an unorganized pattern. When you use a presentation aid to display the organization of your speech (such as can be done with PowerPoint slides), you will help your listeners to observe, follow, and remember the sequence of information you conveyed to them. This is why some instructors display a lecture outline for their students to follow during class and why a slide with a preview of your main points can be helpful as you move into the body of your speech.

                                An added plus of using presentation aids is that they can boost your memory while you are speaking. Using your presentation aids while you rehearse your speech will familiarize you with the association between a given place in your speech and the presentation aid that accompanies that material.

                                Adding Variety and Interest

                                The third function of presentation aids is simply to make your speech more interesting. For example, wouldn’t a speech on varieties of roses have a greater impact if you accompanied your remarks with a picture of each rose? You can imagine that your audience would be even more enthralled if you had the ability to display an actual flower of each variety in a bud vase. Similarly, if you were speaking to a group of gourmet cooks about Indian spices, you might want to provide tiny samples of spices that they could smell and taste during your speech.

                                Enhancing a Speaker’s Credibility

                                Presentation aids alone will not be enough to create a professional image. As we mentioned earlier, impressive presentation aids will not rescue a poor speech. Even if you give a good speech, you run the risk of appearing unprofessional if your presentation aids are poorly executed. Conversely, a high-quality presentation will contribute to your professional image. This means that in addition to containing important information, your presentation aids must be clear, clean, uncluttered, organized, and large enough for the audience to see and interpret correctly. Misspellings and poorly designed presentation aids can damage your credibility as a speaker.

                                In addition, make sure that you give proper credit to the source of any presentation aids that you take from other sources. Using a statistical chart or a map without proper credit will detract from your credibility, just as using a quotation in your speech without credit would. This situation will usually take place with digital aids such as PowerPoint slides. The source of a chart or the data shown in a chart form should be cited at the bottom of the slide.

                                If you focus your efforts on producing presentation aids that contribute effectively to your meaning and look professional, your audience will most likely appreciate your efforts and pay close attention to your message. That attention will help them learn or understand your topic in a new way and will thus help the audience see you as a knowledgeable, competent, and credible speaker. With the prevalence of digital communication, the audience’s expectation of quality visual aids has increased.

                                 

                                Avoiding Problems with Presentation Aids

                                Using presentation aids can come with some risks. However, with a little forethought and adequate practice, you can choose presentation aids that enhance your message and boost your professional appearance in front of an audience. One principle to keep in mind is to use only as many presentation aids as necessary to present your message or to fulfill your classroom assignment. The number and the technical sophistication of your presentation aids should never overshadow your speech.

                                Another important consideration is technology. Keep your presentation aids within the limits of the working technology available to you. Whether or not your classroom technology works on the day of your speech, you will still have to present. What will you do if the computer file containing your slides is corrupted? What will you do if the easel is broken? What if you had counted on stacking your visuals on a table that disappears right when you need it? Or the Internet connection is down for a YouTube video you plan to show?

                                You must be prepared to adapt to an uncomfortable and scary situation. This is why we urge students to go to the classroom well ahead of time to test the equipment and ascertain the condition of the items they’re planning to use. As the speaker, you are responsible for arranging the things you need to make your presentation aids work as intended. Carry a roll of masking tape so you can display your poster even if the easel is gone. Test the computer setup. Have your slides on a flash drive AND send them to yourself as an attachment or upload them to a Cloud service. Has an alternative plan been prepared in case there is some glitch that prevents your computer-based presentation aids from being usable? And of course, you must know how to use the technology.

                                More important than the method of delivery is the audience’s ability to see and understand the presentation aid. It must deliver clear information, and it must not distract from the message. Avoid overly elaborate presentation aids. Instead, simplify as much as possible, emphasizing the information you want your audience to understand.

                                Another thing to remember is that presentation aids do not “speak for themselves.” When you display a visual aid, you should explain what it shows, pointing out and naming the most important features. If you use an audio aid such as a musical excerpt, you need to tell your audience what to listen for. Similarly, if you use a video clip, it is up to you as the speaker to point out the characteristics in the video that support the point you are making—but probably beforehand, so you are not speaking over the video. At the same time, a visual aid should be quickly accessible to the audience. This is where simplicity comes in. Just as in the organization of a speech, you would not want to use 20 main points, but more like 3-5, you should limit categories of information on a visual aid.

                                 

                                Types of Presentation Aids

                                Now that we’ve explored some basic hints for preparing visual aids, let’s look at the most common types of visual aids: charts, graphs, representations, objects/models, and people.

                                Charts

                                A chart is commonly defined as a graphical representation of data (often numerical) or a sketch representing an ordered process. Whether you create your charts or do research to find charts that already exist, it is important for them to exactly match the specific purpose of your speech.

                                Statistical Charts

                                For most audiences, statistical charts must be kept as simple as possible, and they must be explained. These charts are useful for compiling and cross-referencing larger amounts of information. The combination of rows and columns allows you to create headers and then divide them up into units, categories, dates, and so on. Medical information is put into charts so that periods of recorded information, such as vital signs, can be updated and scanned by doctors and nurses. They are also good for combining text and numbers, and they are easy to make with word processing software like Microsoft Word or spreadsheet software like Excel. Think of presenting your department’s budget and spending at the end of a business quarter. You could have headers in the columns with the various categories and itemized deductions in the rows ending with a final total for each column. The statistical chart in Figure 7.6.2 is from a study examining the effects of maternal smoking on a range of congenital birth defects. Unless you are familiar with statistics, this chart may be very confusing. When visually displaying information from a quantitative study, you need to make sure that you understand the material and can successfully and simply explain how one should interpret the data. If you are unsure about the data yourself, then you should probably not use this type of information. This is definitely an example of a visual aid that, although it delivers a limited kind of information, does not speak for itself. On the other hand, if you are presenting to an upper-level or graduate class in health sciences or professionals in health occupations, this chart would be appropriate. As with all other principles of public speaking, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.2: Birth Weight Chi-Square

                                A chart showing  the statistical relationship between congenital abnormalities and health problems
                                Source: Woods, S. E., & Raju, U. (2001).

                                 

                                Sequence-of-Steps Charts

                                Sequence-of-steps charts are also useful when you are trying to explain a process that involves several steps. The two visual aids in Figure 7.6.3 both depict the process of cell division called mitosis using a sequence-of-steps chart, but they each deliver different information. The first chart lacks labels to indicate the different phases of cell division. Although the first chart has more visual detail and may look more scientific, the missing information may confuse your audience. In the second chart, each phase is labeled with a brief explanation of what is happening, which can help your audience understand the process.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.3: Steps in Cell Reproduction

                                An image showing in detail the multiple steps in cell reproduction without labels
                                A simpler image showing the multiple steps in cell reproduction but with labels for each step

                                Source: Images courtesy of LadyofHats, and the National Institutes of Health.

                                 

                                Decision Trees

                                Decision trees are useful for showing the relationships between ideas. The example in Figure 7.6.4 shows how a decision tree could be used to determine whether to use open-source textbook material. As with the other types of charts, you want to be sure that the information in the chart is relevant to the purpose of your speech and that each question and decision is clearly labeled. This particular tree is pertinent to this textbook, which is an open educational resource drawing from other open educational resources, and the decision tree shows some of the processes the authors went through to decide on the content of this text.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.4: Open Educational Resource Decision Tree

                                A decision tree printed over the image of a tree

                                Source: Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

                                 

                                Graphs

                                Strictly speaking, a graph may be considered a type of chart, but graphs are so widely used that we will discuss them separately. A graph is a pictorial representation of the relationships of quantitative data using dots, lines, bars, pie slices, and the like. Graphs show how one factor (such as size, weight, number of items) varies in comparison to other items. Whereas a statistical chart may report the mean ages of individuals entering college, a graph would show how the mean age changes over time. A statistical chart may report the number of computers sold in the United States, while a graph will use bars or lines to show their breakdown by operating systems such as Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

                                Public speakers can show graphs using a range of different formats. Some of those formats are specialized for various professional fields. Very complex graphs often contain too much information that is not related to the purpose of a student’s speech. If the graph is cluttered, it becomes difficult to comprehend. In this section, we’re going to analyze the common graphs speakers utilize in their speeches: line graphs, bar graphs, pie graphs, and pictographs.

                                Line Graph

                                A line graph is designed to show trends over time. In Figure 7.6.5, we see a line graph depicting the fall of Enron’s stock price from August 2000 to January 2002. Notice that although it has some steep rises, the line has an overall downward trend, clearly depicting the plummeting of Enron’s stock price. This is far more effective in showing the relationship of numbers than a chart (as in Figure 7.6.6) or reading the numbers aloud.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.5: Enron’s Stock Price

                                Line graph showing the fall of Enron's stock

                                Source: Image courtesy of Nehrams 2020.

                                 

                                 

                                Bar Graph

                                Bar graphs are useful for showing the differences between quantities. They can be used for population demographics, fuel costs, math ability in different grades, and many other kinds of data. The graph in Figure 7.6.6 is well-designed. It is relatively simple and is carefully labeled, making it easy for the speaker to guide the audience through the recorded numbers of each type of death. The bar graph is designed to show the difference between rates of suicides and homicides across various age groups. When you look at the data, the first grouping clearly shows that eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds are more likely to die because of homicide than any of the other age groups.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.6: Suicide vs. Homicide

                                bar graph showing difference

                                Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

                                 

                                The graph in Figure 7.6.7 is a complicated bar graph depicting the disparity between the so-called “haves” and the “have nots” within the United States. On the left-hand side of the graph, you can see that the Top 20% of people within the United States account for 84.7% of all of the wealth and 50.1% of all of the income. On the other hand, those in the bottom 40% account for only 0.2% of the wealth and 12.1% of the actual income.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.7: Distribution of Income and Wealth in the United States

                                A graph depicting the disparity between the so-called “haves” and the “have nots”

                                Source: Wolff, E. N. (2007). Recent trends in household wealth in the United States: Rising debt and the middle-class squeeze (Working Paper No. 502). Retrieved from the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

                                 

                                While the graph is very well designed, it presents a great deal of information. For example, it shows “wealth” and “income” for several groups; however, these are related but different concepts. In a written publication, readers will have time to sit and analyze the graph, but in a speaking situation, audience members need to be able to understand the information in a graph very quickly. For that reason, this graph is probably not as effective for speeches like the one in Figure 7.6.6).

                                Pie Graph

                                In a pie graph, each piece of the pie corresponds to a percentage of the whole, and the size of the pie varies with the size of the percentage. As with other charts and tables, most office software programs now easily make pie charts. They should be simplified as much as possible without eliminating important information. As with other graphs, the sections of the pie need to be plotted proportionally. In the pie graph shown in Figure 7.6.8, we see a clear and proportional chart that has been color-coded. Color-coding is useful when it’s difficult to fit the explanations in the actual sections of the graph; in that case, you need to include a legend, or key, to indicate what the colors in the graph mean. In this graph, audience members can see very quickly that falls are the primary reason children receive concussions. However, the pie graph in Figure 7.6.9 is jumbled, illegible, confusing, and overwhelming in every way. The use of the flags doesn’t help. Overall, this graph simply contains too much information and is more likely to confuse an audience than help them understand something.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.8: Causes of Concussions in Children

                                Pie chart

                                Source: akasport.org

                                 

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.9: Largest Economies

                                Confusing pie chart

                                Source: Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

                                 

                                Graphs can present challenges in being effective but also in being ethical. To be both ethical and effective, you need a good understanding of what statistics mean, and you need to create or use graphs that show amounts clearly. If you were showing a bar graph and the bottom number on the graph was 37% rather than starting with 0%, that would result in a visually bigger difference than what really exists (see Figure 7.6.10).

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.10: Should Britain leave the EU? - Example

                                File:EU 3.png

                                “File:EU 3.png” by Vasyl 10 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

                                 

                                Diagrams

                                Diagrams are drawings or sketches that outline and explain the parts of an object, process, or phenomenon that cannot be readily seen. Like graphs, diagrams can be considered a type of chart, as in the case of organizational charts and process flow charts. Diagrams are good alternatives to pictures when you only need to point out certain things that may be difficult to see in a photograph.

                                When you use a diagram, be sure to explain each part of the phenomenon, paying special attention to elements that are complicated or prone to misunderstanding. In the example shown, you might want to color-code the parts of the brain, like in Figure 7.6.11. 

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.11: Brain

                                9.2.9N.png

                                Wikimedia Commons – public domain

                                 

                                Maps

                                Maps are extremely useful if the information is clear and limited. There are all kinds of maps, including population, weather, ocean current, political, and economic maps, so you should find the right kind for your speech. Choose a map that emphasizes the information you need to deliver. The map is shown in Figure 7.6.12 is simple, showing clearly the geographic location of Nigeria. This can be extremely valuable for some audiences who might not be able to name and locate countries on the continent of Africa. The map also shows the relative size of Nigeria compared to its neighbors.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.12: Map of Africa with Nigerian Emphasis

                                A map of Africa with Nigeria colored in red and the rest of the countries in white.

                                Source: Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

                                 

                                Photographs

                                Pictures can be useful when you need to show an exact replication of what you’re speaking about. Sometimes a photograph or a drawing is the best way to show an unfamiliar but important detail. Figure 7.6.13 is a photograph of a wigwam, a dwelling used by Native Americans in the North East. Audiences expect high-quality photographs now, and as with all presentation aids, they should enhance the speech and not just “be there.” It is common to put stock photographs on PowerPoint slides as “clip art,” but they should be relevant and not detract from the message of the slide. Pictures can also connect to your audience on a personal level, especially if they evoke audience emotions. Think about the use of pictures in television commercials asking for donations or sponsorships. Organizations like Save the Children and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals successfully use pictures of malnourished children or abused animals to pull at the heartstrings of viewers. A series of well-chosen and themed pictures can have a meaningful impact on an audience. Although some pictures can be effectively presented when printed out on standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ printer paper using a black and white printer, others will need to be enlarged and/or printed in color, which will cost some money. You can often avoid this by incorporating a picture into a PowerPoint presentation, as the picture will be projected large enough for people to see. We will discuss PowerPoint in more detail later.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.13: Native American House - Wigwam

                                Two wigwams surrounded by sagebrush in the desert.

                                “Native American House - Wigwam” by Ananth Narayan S is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                                 

                                Video or Audio Recordings

                                Another very useful type of presentation aid is a video or audio recording. Whether it is a short video from a website such as YouTube or Vimeo, a segment from a song, or a piece of a podcast, a well-chosen video or audio recording may be a good choice to enhance your speech. Imagine, for example, that you’re giving a speech on how Lap-Band surgeries help people lose weight. One of the sections of your speech could explain how the Lap-Band works, so you could easily show a forty-three-second video available on YouTube to demonstrate the part of the surgery. Maybe you could include a recording of a real patient explaining why they decided to get the Lap-Band.

                                There is one major warning to using audio and video clips during a speech: do not forget that they are supposed to be aids to your speech, not the speech itself. In addition, be sure to avoid these five mistakes that speakers often make when using audio and video clips:

                                • Avoid choosing clips that are too long for the overall length of the speech. Your instructor can give you some guidelines for how long video and audio clips should be for the speeches in your class if they are allowed (and make sure they are).
                                • Practice with the audio or video equipment before speaking. If you are unfamiliar with the equipment, you’ll look foolish trying to figure out how it works. This fiddling around will not only take your audience out of your speech but also harm your credibility. It also wastes valuable time. Finally, be sure that the speakers on the computer are on and at the right volume level.
                                • Cue the clip to the appropriate place before beginning your speech. We cannot tell you the number of times we’ve seen students spend valuable speech time trying to find a clip on YouTube or a DVD. You need to make sure your clip is ready to go before you start speaking. 
                                • In addition to cueing the clip to the appropriate place, the browser window should be open and ready to go. If there are advertisements before the video, be sure to have the video cued to play after the ad. The audience should not have to sit through a commercial. There is a website called TubeChop that can allow you to cut a segment out of a YouTube video, then create a new link. It has limitations but can be useful.
                                • The audience must be given context before a video or audio clip is played, specifically what the clip is and why it relates to the speech. At the same time, the video should not repeat what you have already said but add to it.
                                • One useful strategy for incorporating video is to play a video without audio and speak along with the video, acting as a narrator. This allows the speaker to have more control over the visual aid and to adapt it and make it more relevant to a specific topic and audience.
                                • Additionally, video editing software like Final Cut and iMovie are readily available to college students and relatively easy to use. Some simple editing to cut together various clips that are meaningful or adding an introductory title or transitions can go a long way toward making your video look professional.

                                Objects or Models

                                Three-dimensional objects or models that represent an idea can be useful as a visual aid for a speech. Objects refer to anything you could hold up and talk about during your speech. If you’re talking about the importance of not using plastic water bottles, you might hold up a plastic water bottle and a stainless steel water bottle as examples.

                                Models, on the other hand, are re-creations of physical objects that you cannot have readily available with you during a speech. If you’re giving a speech on heart murmurs, you may be able to show how heart murmurs work by holding up a model of the human heart. 

                                Tips for Using Objects Effectively

                                1. Make sure your objects are large enough for the audience to see.
                                2. Do not pass objects around, as it will be distracting.
                                3. Hold your objects up long enough for the audience to see them.
                                4. Do not talk to your object, wiggle or wave it around, tap on it, or obstruct the audience’s view of your face with it.
                                5. Practice with your objects so your delivery will be fluent and there won’t be any surprises.

                                People

                                Speakers can often use their own bodies to demonstrate facets of a speech. If your speech is about ballroom dancing or ballet, you might use your body to demonstrate the basic moves in the cha-cha or the five basic ballet positions.

                                In some cases, such as for a demonstration speech, you might want to ask someone else to serve as your presentation aid. You should arrange ahead of time for a person (or persons) to be an effective aid—do not assume that an audience member will volunteer on the spot. If you plan to demonstrate how to immobilize a broken bone, your volunteer must know ahead of time that you will touch them as much as necessary to splint the break.

                                You must also make certain that they will arrive dressed presentably and that they will not draw attention away from your message through their appearance or behavior. The transaction between you and your human presentation aid must be appropriate, especially if you are going to demonstrate something like a dance step. In short, make sure your helper will know what is expected of them and consents to it.

                                Finally, before you decide to use an animal as a presentation aid, ask yourself if you could make your point equally well with a picture, model, diagram, or other representation of the animal in question.

                                Using Presentation Slides

                                Ever since the 1990s and the mainstreaming of personal computer technology, speakers have had the option of using slide presentation software to accompany their speeches and presentations. The most commonly known one is PowerPoint, although there are several others:

                                • Prezi, available at www.prezi.com 
                                • Slide Rocket, available at www.sliderocket.com
                                • Google Slides, available in Google Drive and useful for collaborative assignments
                                • Keynote, the Apple presentation slide software on MACs
                                • Impress, an Open Office product (http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html)
                                • PrezentIt
                                • Adobe Acrobat Presenter
                                • ThinkFree

                                Creating Quality Slide Shows

                                Slides should show the principles of good design, which include unity, emphasis or focal point, scale and proportion, balance, and rhythm (Lauer & Pentak, 2000). Presenters should also pay attention to tone and usability. With those principles in mind, here are some tips for creating and then using presentation software.

                                Unity and Consistency

                                Generally, it is best to use a single font for the text on your visuals so that they look like a unified set. Or you can use two different fonts in a consistent way, such as having all headings and titles in the same font and all bullet points in the same font. Additionally, the background should probably remain consistent, whether you choose one of the many design templates or if you just opt for background color.

                                The adage, “Keep It Simple, Speaker,” definitely applies to presentation slides in terms of unity. Each slide should have one message, one photo, one graphic. The audience members should know what they are supposed to look at on the slide. A phrase to remember about presentation slides and the wide range of design elements available is “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

                                Focal Point and Visibility

                                Several points should be made about how to make sure the audience sees what they need to see on the slides.

                                1. It is essential to make sure the information is large enough for the audience to see, and since the display size may vary according to the projector you are using, this is another reason for practicing in advance with the equipment you intend to use.
                                2. High contrast between the text and slides is extremely important (see Figure 7.6.14). White fonts against very dark backgrounds and black fonts against very light backgrounds are probably your safest bet here. Remember that the way it looks on your computer screen is not exactly how it will look when projected—the light is coming from a different place. Avoid words on photos.
                                3. Also, in terms of visibility, most experts say that sans serif fonts such as Arial, Tahoma, and Verdana are better for reading from screens than serif fonts such as Times New Roman, Bookface, Georgia, or Garamond. Merriam-Webster (2018) defines “serif” as “any of the short lines stemming from and at an angle to the upper and lower ends of the strokes of a letter.” Serifs are additions to the letters on different fonts that give them a different appearance and help the flow of the eye when reading.

                                 

                                Figure 7.6.14: Sample Slide for Critique

                                A quotation written out in red letters on top of a blue background

                                 

                                How does the slide in Figure 7.6.14 stack up beside these rules for visibility? You probably noticed that slide is a “fail” in terms of high contrast between the font and background and the use of a block of text not broken up for easy reading. The audience would feel like they are supposed to read it but not be able to. Also, since the text is a quotation from John Dewey, the text should have quotation marks around it.

                                Scale and Proportion

                                Although there are several ways to think about scale and proportion, we will discuss three here. First, bullet points. Bullet points infer that the items in the bulleted list are equal, and the sequence doesn’t matter. If you want to communicate order or sequence or priority, use numbers. Do not mix outline points or numerical points with bullet points. Also, you should not put your outline (Roman numerals, etc.) on the slide.

                                Bullet points should be short—not long, full sentences—but at the same time should be long enough to mean something. In a speech on spaying and neutering pets, the bullet point “pain” may be better replaced with “Pet feels little pain.” Second, when you are designing your slides, it is best to choose a template and stick with it. If you input all your graphics and material and then change the template, the format of the slide will change, in some cases dramatically, and you will have distorted graphics and words covered up. You will then have to redesign each slide, which can be unnecessarily time-consuming.

                                The third aspect of scale and proportion is the relationship between the graphics and text in terms of size. This aspect is discussed below in the next section on “Balance.” Also, a graphic should be surrounded by some space and not just take up the whole slide.

                                Balance

                                In general, you want symmetrical slides.

                                • Use a consistent theme with limited variation in font style and font size.
                                • You don’t want too much “white space” below the text, leaving an imbalance between the text and graphics. The graphic should not go up into the title, and the title should be centered.
                                • The slides should not have full sentences or paragraphs. Break the text up into bullet points. Limit content to no more than six lines of text or six bullet points per slide.
                                • The graphic(s) should be sized appropriately for the slide (pulling the image from the corner to maintain picture quality).
                                • Avoid slides that are too “busy.” Don’t have too much text or too many images

                                Rhythm in Presenting

                                The rhythm of your slide display should be reasonably consistent—you would not want to display a dozen different slides in the first minute of a five-minute presentation and then display only one slide per minute for the rest of the speech. Timing them so that the audience can actually take them in is important. Presenters often overdo the number of slides, thinking they will get a better grade, but too many slides just cause overkill.

                                If you can obtain a remote mouse to change slides, that can help you feel independent of the mouse attached to the computer. However, you have to practice with the remote “clicker.” But if you have to use the mouse to change the slide, keep your hands off of it between clicks. We have seen students wiggle the little arrow all over the screen. It is extremely annoying.

                                Whether using a remote “clicker” or the attached mouse, you must attend to the connection between what is on the screen and what you are actually talking about at the moment. Put reminders in your notes about when you need to change slides during your speech.

                                For better or worse, we have become very screen-oriented in our communication, largely because screens change often, and that changing teaches us to expect new stimuli, which we crave. If the screen is up, but you are not talking about what is on the screen, it is very confusing to the audience. To avoid this, some presenters put a black slide between slides in the presentation so that hitting the forward key gives the same effect, but hitting it again takes them to a new screen.

                                In fact, a basic presentation rule is to only show your visual aid when you are talking about it and remove it when you are no longer talking about it. Some other practical considerations are as follows:

                                1. Be sure the file is saved in a format that will be “readable” on the computer where you are presenting. A common example is that a Keynote presentation (Apple) does not open on all PCs. You can save Keynote as a .ppt file for use on a PC. Likewise, if you choose to use Prezi or other web-based presentation software, you will need a strong, reliable Internet connection to show the slides.
                                2. A very strong temptation for speakers is to look at the projected image rather than the audience during the speech. This practice cuts down on eye contact, of course, and is distracting for the audience. Two solutions for that are to print your notes from the presentation slides and/or use the slides as your note structure. Also, remember that if the image is on the computer monitor in front of you, it is on the screen behind you.
                                3. Always remember—and this cannot be emphasized enough—technology works for you, not you for the technology. The presentation aids are aids, not the speech itself.
                                4. If you are using a video or audio clip from an Internet source, it is probably best to hyperlink the URL on one of the slides rather than minimize the program and change to the Internet site. You can do this by highlighting a keyword on the slide, right-clicking to find “hyperlink,” and then pasting the URL there. Although you can also embed video in a PowerPoint, it makes the file extremely large, and that may cause problems of its own.
                                5. Finally, it is common for speakers to think, “the slide changes, so the audience knows there is a change, so I don’t need a verbal transition.” Please do not fall into this trap. Verbal transitions are just as, and maybe more, necessary for a speech using slides.

                                 

                                Exercises

                                Which kind of presentation aid would be most useful for the following?

                                1. data on how the average American family uses its income
                                2. discussing the number of wind turbines in five Midwestern states
                                3. explaining the changes in enrollment of minority students at your college over 20 year
                                4. a speech on the chambers of the human heart
                                5. a speech on the differences between North and South Korea
                                6. a speech on the Sutton Hoo archeological dig in England

                                 

                                  Chapter 8: Types of Speeches

                                  Learning Objectives for Chapter 8: Types of Speeches

                                  • Learn to organize and create speech outlines.   
                                  • Utilize various persuasion techniques in verbal communication.  
                                  • Define the three rhetorical appeals to the audience.  

                                   

                                  8.1 Informative Speech

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  Many people would rather go see an impassioned political speech or a comedic monologue than a lecture. Although informative speaking may not be the most exciting form of public speaking, it is the most common. Reports, lectures, training seminars, and demonstrations are all examples of informative speaking. That means you are more likely to give and listen to informative speeches in a variety of contexts. Some organizations, like consulting firms, and career fields, like training and development, are solely aimed at conveying information. College alumni have reported that out of many different speech skills, informative speaking is the most important (Verderber, 1991). Since your exposure to informative speaking is inevitable, why not learn how to be a better producer and consumer of informative messages?

                                   

                                  11.1.0N.jpg

                                  Monash University – Surgery Workshop 2012 – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                                   

                                  Informative Speaking Defined

                                  Very simply, an informative speech can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts. Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily. Secondly, an informative speech does not attempt to convince the audience that one thing is better than another. It does not advocate a course of action. Consider the following statement: George Washington was the first President of the United States.

                                  This statement is irrefutable, meaning a statement or claim that cannot be argued. If you asked one hundred history professors and read one hundred history textbooks, the professors and textbooks would all say the same thing: Washington was the first president. No expert, reliable source, or person with any common sense would argue about this.

                                  (Someone at this point might say, “No, John Hanson was the first president.” However, he was the President under the Articles of Confederation for a short period—November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782—not under our present Constitution. This example shows the importance of stating your facts clearly and precisely and being able to cite their origins.)

                                  Therefore, an informative speech should not incorporate opinion. This can be the tricky part of developing an informative speech, because some opinion statements sometimes sound like facts (since they are generally agreed upon by many people), but are really opinions.

                                  Additionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you “spin” the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners. Even if you are informing the audience about differences in views on controversial topics, you should simply and clearly explain the issues. This is not to say, however, that the audience’s needs and interests have nothing to do with the informative speech. We come back to the WIIFM principle (“What’s in it for me?) because even though an informative speech is fact-based, it still needs to relate to people’s lives in order to maintain their attention.

                                  The question may arise here, “If we can find anything on the Internet now, why bother to give an informative speech?” The answer lies in the unique relationship between audience and speaker found in the public speaking context. The speaker can choose to present information that is of most value to the audience. Secondly, the speaker is not just overloading the audience with data. As we have mentioned before, that’s not really a good idea because audiences cannot remember great amounts of data and facts after listening. The focus of the content is what matters. This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speaking is not a good way to “dump data” on the audience, but to make information meaningful.

                                  Finally, although we have stressed that the informative speech is fact-based and does not have the purpose of persuasion, information still has an indirect effect on someone. If a classmate gives a speech on correctly using the Heimlich Maneuver to help a choking victim, the side effect (and probably desired result) is that the audience would use it when confronted with the situation.

                                   

                                  Avoiding Persuasion

                                  We should avoid thinking of informing and persuading as dichotomous, meaning that it’s either one or the other. It’s more accurate to think of informing and persuading as two poles on a continuum, as in Figure 8.1.1 (Olbricht, 1968). Most persuasive speeches rely on some degree of informing to substantiate the reasoning. And informative speeches, although meant to secure the understanding of an audience, may influence audience members’ beliefs, attitudes, values, or behaviors.

                                   

                                  Figure 8.1.1: Continuum of Informing and Persuading

                                  fbf5f24fb9a1f0c73f3a5f7583086f5f-2.jpg

                                   

                                  Speakers can look to three areas to help determine if their speech is more informative or persuasive: speaker purpose, function of information, and audience perception (Verderber, 1991). First, for informative speaking, a speaker’s purpose should be to create understanding by sharing objective, factual information. The specific purpose and thesis statements help establish a speaker’s goal and purpose and can serve as useful reference points to keep a speech on track. When reviewing your specific purpose and thesis statement, look for words like should/shouldn’t, good/bad, and right/wrong, as these often indicate a persuasive slant in the speech.

                                  Second, information should function to clarify and explain in an informative speech. Supporting materials shouldn’t function to prove a thesis or to provide reasons for an audience to accept the thesis, as they do in persuasive speeches. Although informative messages can end up influencing the thoughts or behaviors of audience members, that shouldn’t be the goal.

                                  Third, an audience’s perception of the information and the speaker helps determine whether a speech is classified as informative or persuasive. The audience must perceive that the information being presented is not controversial or disputed, which will lead audience members to view the information as factual. The audience must also accept the speaker as a credible source of information. Being prepared, citing credible sources, and engaging the audience help to establish a speaker’s credibility. Last, an audience must perceive the speaker to be trustworthy and not have a hidden agenda. Avoiding persuasion is a common challenge for informative speakers, but it is something to consider, as violating the speaking occasion may be perceived as unethical by the audience. Be aware of the overall tone of your speech by reviewing your specific purpose and thesis to make sure your speech isn’t tipping from informative to persuasive.

                                   

                                  11.1.7N.jpg

                                  Hans Splinter – balance – CC BY-ND 2.0.

                                   

                                  Avoid Faux or Fake Informative Speech Topics

                                  Sometimes students think that because something sounds like an informative speech topic, it is one. This happens a lot with political issues that are usually partisan in nature. Some students may feel that the speech topic “To inform my audience why William Henry Harrison was a bad president” sounds factual, but really this is an opinion. Similarly, a number of topics that include conspiracy and paranormal subject matter are usually mistaken for good informative topics as well.

                                   

                                  Conspiracy van
                                  “Conspiracy van” by mag3737 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

                                   

                                  The problem here, as you have probably already guessed, is that these facts are not irrefutable. Not every single person who sees something unknown in the sky will agree it is an alien spacecraft, and there can be little doubt that not everyone who claims to have been abducted by a UFO is telling the truth. This isn’t to say that you can’t still do an informative speech on alien sites. For example, two viable options are “To inform my audience about the SETI Project” or “To inform my audience of the origin of the Area 51 conspiracy.” However, these types of speeches can quickly devolve into opinion if you aren’t careful, which would then make them persuasive speeches. Even if you start by trying to be objective, unless you can present each side equally, it will end up becoming a persuasive speech. Additionally, when a speaker picks such a topic, it is often because of a latent desire to persuade the audience about them.

                                   

                                  Pick a Specific or Focused Topic

                                  Perhaps one of the biggest and most common misconceptions students have about informative speech topics is that the topic needs to be broad in order to fill the time requirements for the speech. It is not uncommon for a student to propose an informative speech topic such as “To inform my audience about the history of music.” How is that topic even possible? When does the history of music even begin? The thinking here is that this speech will be easy to research and write since there is so much information available. But the opposite is actually true. A topic that is this broad makes doing research even harder.

                                  Let’s consider the example of a student who proposes the topic “To inform my audience about the Civil War.” The Civil War was, conservatively speaking, four years long, resulted in over 750,000 casualties, and arguably changed the course of human history. So to think that it is possible to cover all of that in five to seven minutes is unrealistic. Also, a typical college library has hundreds of books dealing with the Civil War. How will you choose which ones are best suited to use for your speech?

                                  The better approach, in this case, is to be as specific as possible. A revised specific purpose for this speech might be something like “To inform my audience about the Gettysburg Address.” This topic is much more compact (the Gettysburg Address is only a few minutes long), and doing research will now be exponentially easier—although you will still find hundreds of sources on it. 

                                  Instead of looking through all the books in your campus library on the Civil War, searching through the library’s databases and catalog for material on the Gettysburg Address will yield a much more manageable number of books and articles. It may sound counterintuitive, but selecting a speech topic that is very specifically focused will make the research and writing phases of the informative speech much easier.

                                   

                                  Researching an Informative Speech Topic

                                  Having sharp research skills is a fundamental part of being a good informative speaker. Since informative speaking is supposed to convey factual information, speakers should take care to find sources that are objective, balanced, and credible. Periodicals, books, newspapers, and credible websites can all be useful sources for informative speeches. Aside from finding credible and objective sources, informative speakers also need to take time to find engaging information. This is where sharp research skills are needed to cut through all the typical information that comes up in the research process to find novel information. Novel information is atypical or unexpected, but it takes more skill and effort to locate. Even seemingly boring informative speech topics like the history of coupons can be brought to life with information that defies the audience’s expectations. A student recently delivered an engaging speech about coupons by informing us that coupons have been around for 125 years, are most frequently used by wealthier and more educated households, and that a coupon fraud committed by an Italian American businessman named Charles Ponzi was the basis for the term Ponzi scheme, which is still commonly used today.

                                   

                                  11.1.3N.jpg
                                  To avoid boring an audience, effective informative speakers possess good research skills and the ability to translate information to be engaging and relevant for an audience. Niall Kennedy – Sleep – CC BY-NC 2.0.

                                   

                                  As was mentioned earlier, the goal of informative speaking is to teach your audience. An audience is much more likely to remain engaged when they are actively learning. This is like a balancing act. You want your audience to be challenged enough by the information you are presenting to be interested, but not so challenged that they become overwhelmed and shut down. You should take care to consider how much information your audience already knows about a topic. Be aware that speakers who are very familiar with their speech topic tend to overestimate their audience’s knowledge about the topic. It’s better to engage your topic at a level slightly below your audience’s knowledge level than above. Most people won’t be bored by a brief review, but many people become lost and give up listening if they can’t connect to the information right away or feel it’s over their heads.

                                  A good informative speech leaves the audience thinking long after the speech is done. Try to include some practical “takeaways” in your speech. I’ve learned many interesting and useful things from the informative speeches my students have done. Some of the takeaways are more like trivia information that is interesting to share—for example, how prohibition led to the creation of NASCAR. Other takeaways are more practical and useful—for example, how to get wine stains out of clothing and carpet or explanations of various types of student financial aid.

                                   

                                  Avoiding Information Overload

                                  Many informative speakers have a tendency to pack a ten-minute speech with as much information as possible. This can result in information overload, which is a barrier to effective listening that occurs when a speech contains more information than an audience can process. Editing can be a difficult task, but it’s an important skill to hone, because you will be editing more than you think. Whether it’s reading through an e-mail before you send it, condensing a report down to an executive summary, or figuring out how to fit a client’s message on the front page of a brochure, you will have to learn how to discern what information is best to keep and what can be thrown out. In speaking, being a discerning editor is useful because it helps avoid information overload. While a receiver may not be attracted to a brochure that’s covered in text, they could take the time to read it, and reread it, if necessary. Audience members cannot conduct their own review while listening to a speaker live. Unlike readers, audience members can’t review words over and over (Verderber, 1991). Therefore competent speakers, especially informative speakers who are trying to teach their audience something, should adapt their message to a listening audience. To help avoid information overload, adapt your message to make it more listenable.

                                  Although the results vary, research shows that people only remember a portion of a message days or even hours after receiving it (Janusik, 2012). If you spend 100 percent of your speech introducing new information, you have wasted approximately 30 percent of your time and your audience’s time. Information overload is a barrier to effective listening, and as good speakers, we should be aware of the limitations of listening and compensate for that in our speech preparation and presentation. I recommend that my students follow a guideline that suggests spending no more than 30 percent of your speech introducing new material and 70 percent of your speech repackaging that information. I specifically use the word repackaging and not repeating. Simply repeating the same information would also be a barrier to effective listening, since people would just get bored. Repackaging will help ensure that your audience retains most of the key information in the speech. Even if they don’t remember every example, they will remember the main underlying point.

                                  Avoiding information overload requires a speaker to be a good translator of information. To be a good translator, you can compare an unfamiliar concept with something familiar, give examples from real life, connect your information to current events or popular culture, or supplement supporting material like statistics with related translations of that information. These are just some of the strategies a good speaker can use. While translating information is important for any oral presentation, it is especially important when conveying technical information. Being able to translate complex or technical information for a lay audience leads to more effective informing because the audience feels like they are being addressed on their level and don’t feel lost or “talked down to.” 

                                   

                                  11.1.8N.jpg
                                  Comparing the turbulent formation of the solar system to the collisions of bumper bars and spinning rides at an amusement park makes the content more concrete. Alexander Svensson – Ferris Wheel – CC BY 2.0.

                                   

                                  Engaging Your Audience

                                  As a speaker, you are competing for the attention of your audience against other internal and external stimuli. Getting an audience engaged and then keeping their attention is a challenge for any speaker, but it can be especially difficult when speaking to inform. As was discussed earlier, once you are in the professional world, you will most likely be speaking informatively about topics related to your experience and expertise. Some speakers fall into the trap of thinking that their content knowledge is enough to sustain them through an informative speech or that their position in an organization means that an audience will listen to them and appreciate their information despite their delivery. Content expertise is not enough to be an effective speaker. A person must also have speaking expertise (Verderber, 1991). Effective speakers, even renowned experts, must still translate their wealth of content knowledge into information that is suited for oral transmission, audience-centered, and well organized. 

                                  Audience members are more likely to stay engaged with a speaker they view as credible. So complementing good supporting material with a practiced and fluent delivery increases credibility and audience engagement. In addition, as we discussed earlier, good informative speakers act as translators of information. Repackaging information into concrete familiar examples is also a strategy for making your speech more engaging. Understanding relies on being able to apply incoming information to life experiences.

                                  Repackaging information is also a good way to appeal to different learning styles, as you can present the same content in various ways, which helps reiterate a point. While this strategy is useful with any speech, since the goal of informing is teaching, it makes sense to include a focus on learning within your audience adaptation. There are three main learning styles that help determine how people most effectively receive and process information: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (Fleming, 2012). Visual learners respond well to information presented via visual aids, so repackage information using text, graphics, charts, and other media. Public speaking is a good way to present information for auditory learners who process information well when they hear it. Kinesthetic learners are tactile; they like to learn through movement and “doing.” Asking for volunteers to help with a demonstration, if appropriate, is a way to involve kinesthetic learners in your speech. You can also have an interactive review activity at the end of a speech, much like many teachers incorporate an activity after a lesson to reinforce the material.

                                   

                                  Exercises

                                  1. Getting integrated: How might you use informative speaking in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, personal, and civic?
                                  2. Brainstorm potential topics for your informative speech and identify which topic category each idea falls into. Are there any risks of persuading for the topics you listed? If so, how can you avoid persuasion if you choose that topic?

                                   

                                  References

                                  Fleming, N., “The VARK Helpsheets,” accessed March 6, 2012, http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=helpsheets.

                                  Janusik, L., “Listening Facts,” accessed March 6, 2012, d1025403.site.myhosting.com/f.org/Facts.htm.

                                  Olbricht, T. H., Informative Speaking (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1968), 1–12.

                                  Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed March 6, 2012, http://www.oed.com.

                                  The Past in Pictures, “Teaching Using Movies: Anachronisms!” accessed March 6, 2012, www.thepastinthepictures.wild.ctoryunit!.htm.

                                  Scholasticus K, “Anachronism Examples in Literature,” February 2, 2012, accessed March 6, 2012, www.buzzle.com/articles/anachronism-examples-in-literature.html.

                                  Society for Technical Communication, “Defining Technical Communication,” accessed March 6, 2012, http://www.stc.org/about-stc/the-profession-all-about-technical-communication/defining-tc.

                                  Verderber, R., Essentials of Informative Speaking: Theory and Contexts (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991), 3.

                                  Vuong, A., “Wanna Read That QR Code? Get the Smartphone App,” The Denver Post, April 18, 2011, accessed March 6, 2012, http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17868932.

                                  8.2 Types of Informative Speeches

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  Choosing an Informative Speech Topic

                                  Being a successful informative speaker starts with choosing a topic that can engage and educate the audience. Your topic choices may be influenced by the level at which you are speaking. Informative speaking usually happens at one of three levels: formal, vocational, and impromptu (Verderber, 1991). Formal informative speeches occur when an audience has assembled specifically to hear what you have to say. Being invited to speak to a group during a professional meeting, a civic gathering, or a celebration gala brings with it high expectations. Many more people deliver informative speeches at the vocational level, as part of their careers. Teachers spend many hours lecturing, which is a common form of informative speaking. In addition, human resources professionals give presentations about policy changes and provide training for new employees, technicians in factories convey machine specifications and safety procedures, and servers describe how a dish is prepared in their restaurant. Last, we all convey information daily in our regular interactions. When we give directions to a campus building, summarize the latest episode of Euphoria for our friend who missed it, or explain a local custom to an international student, we are engaging in impromptu informative speaking.

                                  Whether at the formal, vocational, or impromptu level, informative speeches can emerge from a range of categories, which include objects, people, events, processes, concepts, and issues. An extended speech at the formal level may include subject matter from several of these categories, while a speech at the vocational level may convey detailed information about a process, concept, or issue relevant to a specific career.

                                   

                                  11.1.1N.jpg
                                  Subjects of informative speaking at the vocational level usually relate to a speaker’s professional experience or expertise. Peter Long – Business Meeting – CC BY 2.0.

                                   

                                  Since we don’t have time to research or organize content for impromptu informative speaking, these speeches may provide a less detailed summary of a topic within one of these categories. A broad informative speech topic could be tailored to fit any of these categories. As you draft your specific purpose and thesis statements, think about which category or categories will help you achieve your speech goals, and then use them to guide your research. Figure 8.2.1 includes an example of how a broad informative subject area like renewable energy can be adapted to each category as well as additional sample topics.

                                   

                                  Figure 8.2.1: Sample Informative Speech Topics by Category

                                   
                                  CategoryRenewable Energy ExampleOther Examples
                                  Objects and PlacesBiomass gasifierTarot cards, star-nosed moles, Washington Monument
                                  PeopleAl GoreJennifer Lopez, Bayard Rustin, the Amish
                                  ConceptsSustainabilityMachismo, intuition, Wa (social harmony)
                                  EventsEarth DayPi Day, Take Back the Night, 2012 presidential election
                                  ProcessesConverting wind to energyScrapbooking, animal hybridization, Academy Awards voting
                                  Categories or DivisionsTypes of Renewable EnergyDog Breeds, Types of Chocolate, Car Styles

                                   

                                  While the topics to choose from for informative speeches are nearly limitless, they can generally be pared down into five broad categories. Understanding the type of informative speech you will be giving can help you figure out the best way to organize, research, and prepare for it, as discussed below.

                                   

                                  Type 1: Objects and Places

                                  A common approach to selecting an informative speech topic is to discuss the history or development of something. With so much human knowledge available via the Internet, finding information about the origins and evolution of almost anything is much easier than it has ever been (with the disclaimer that there are quite a few websites out there with false information). With that in mind, some of the areas that a historical informative speech could cover would include:

                                  Objects

                                  (Example: the baseball). Someone at some point in history was the first to develop what is considered modern baseball. Who was it? What was it originally made of? How did it evolve into the baseball that is used by Major League Baseball today?

                                  Places

                                  (Example: your school). There is a specific year that your school opened, a specific number of students who were initially enrolled, and name and mission changes. All of these facts can be used to provide an overall understanding of the school and its history. 

                                   

                                  Type 2: People

                                  Speeches about people focus on real or fictional individuals who are living or dead. These speeches require in-depth biographical research; an encyclopedia entry is not sufficient. Introduce a new person to the audience or share little-known or surprising information about a person we already know. Although we may already be familiar with the accomplishments of historical figures and leaders, audiences often enjoy learning the “personal side” of their lives.

                                   

                                  Type 3: Concepts

                                  (Example: democracy). Speeches about concepts are less concrete than speeches about objects or people, as they focus on ideas or notions that may be abstract or multifaceted. A concept can be familiar to us, like equality, or could literally be a foreign concept like qi (or chi), which is the Chinese conception of the energy that flows through our bodies. It is possible to provide facts on a concept or idea, although in some cases the information may be less precise. For example, while no one can definitively point to a specific date or individual who first developed the concept of democracy, it is known to have been conceived in ancient Greece (Raaflaub, Ober, & Wallace, 2007). By looking at the civilizations and cultures that adopted forms of democracy throughout history, it is possible to provide an audience with a better understanding of how the idea has been shaped into what it has become today. 

                                  With concepts, you will want to do two things. First, define the aspects of the concept using methods, like classification and differentiation. Secondly, make your concept concrete, real, and specific for your audience with vivid examples. Use the strategies discussed in this book for making content relevant and proxemic (physically and emotionally close) to your audience to help make abstract concepts more concrete.

                                  If your concept connects to a disputed subject or a matter of concern for society, you must provide objective and balanced information concerning this issue. Speakers must view themselves as objective reporters rather than commentators to avoid tipping the balance of the speech from informative to persuasive. Rather than advocating for a particular position, the speaker should seek to teach or raise the awareness of the audience on both sides of the issue.

                                   

                                  Type 4: Events

                                  Speeches about events focus on past occasions or ongoing occurrences. A particular day in history, an annual observation, or a seldom occurring event can each serve as interesting informative topics. As with speeches about people, it’s important to provide a backstory for the event, but avoid rehashing commonly known information.

                                   

                                  Type 5: Processes

                                  (Examples of process speech topics would be baking chocolate chip cookies, throwing a baseball; how a nuclear reactor works; how a bill works its way through Congress).

                                  Process speeches are sometimes referred to as demonstration or “how-to” speeches because they often entail demonstrating something. These speeches require you to provide steps that will help your audience understand how to accomplish a specific task or process. However, these speeches can be tricky in that there are rarely universally agreed upon (i.e. irrefutable) ways to do anything. 

                                  There is a second type of process speech that focuses not on how the audience can achieve a result, such as changing the oil in their cars or cooking something, but on how a process is achieved. The goal is understanding and not performance. After a speech on how to change a car tire, the audience members could probably do it (they might not want to, but they would know the steps). However, after a speech on how a bill goes through Congress, the audience would understand this important part of democracy but not be ready to serve in Congress.

                                   

                                  11.1.2NN.jpg
                                  Informative speeches about processes provide steps of a procedure, such as how to make homemade cheese. Joel Kramer – curdle – CC BY 2.0.

                                   

                                  Type 6: Categories or Divisions

                                  Sometimes an informative speech topic doesn’t lend itself to a specific type of approach, and in those cases, the topics tend to fall into a “general” category of informative speeches. For example, if a student wanted to give an informative speech on the four “C’s” of diamonds (cut, carat, color, and clarity), they certainly wouldn’t approach it as if they were providing the history of diamonds, nor would they necessarily be informing anyone on “how to” shop for or buy diamonds or how diamonds are mined. The approach, in this case, would simply be to inform an audience of the four “C’s” and what they mean. Other examples of this type of informative speech would be positions in playing volleyball or the customs to know when traveling in China.

                                   

                                  Conclusion

                                  As stated above, identifying the type of informative speech being given can help in several ways (conducting research, writing the introduction and conclusion), but perhaps the biggest benefit is that the type of informative speech being given will help determine, to some degree, the organizational pattern that will need to be used. For example, a How-To speech must be in chronological order. There really isn’t a way (or reason) to present a How-To speech other than how the process is done in a time sequence. That is to say, for a speech on how to bake chocolate chip cookies, getting the ingredients (Main Point 1) must come before mixing the ingredients (Main Point 2), which must come before baking them (Main Point 3). Putting them in any other order will only confuse the audience

                                  Similarly, most Histories and Biographies will be organized chronologically, but not always. It makes sense to explain the history of baseball from when it was first developed to where it is today, but certain approaches to Histories and Biographies can make that irrelevant. For an informative speech on Benjamin Franklin, a student might choose as their three main points: 1) His time as a printer, 2) His time as an inventor, 3) His time as a diplomat. These main points are not in strict chronological order because Franklin was a printer, inventor, and diplomat at the same time during periods of his whole life. However, this example would still be one way to inform an audience about him without using the chronological organizational pattern.

                                  As for general informative speeches, since the topics that can be included in this category are very diverse and cover a range of subject matter, the way they are organized will be varied as well. However, if the topic is “types of” something or “kinds of” something, the organizational pattern would be topical; if it were the layout of a location, such as the White House, it would be spatial (organized based on the locations of the main points).

                                   

                                  Exercise

                                  1. Choose one broad subject and come up with a speech topic for each of the six categories. Then explain the organizational method you would use for each.

                                   

                                  References

                                  Verderber, R., Essentials of Informative Speaking: Theory and Contexts (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991), 3.

                                  8.3 Persuasion

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, sections 16.1, 16.2, and 16.4, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  When your instructor announced on the syllabus or in class that you would be required to give a persuasive speech for this class, what was your reaction? “Oh, good, I’ve got a great idea,” or, “Oh, no!”? For many people, there is something a little uncomfortable about the word “persuasion.” It often gets paired with ideas of seduction, manipulation, force, lack of choice, or inducement as well as more positive concepts such as encouragement, influence, urging, or logical arguments. You might get suspicious if you think someone is trying to persuade you. You might not appreciate someone telling you to change your viewpoints. On the other hand, you might not think you have any beliefs, attitudes, values, or positions that are worth advocating for in front of an audience.

                                  However, if you think of persuasion simply as a formal speech with the purpose of getting people to do something they do not want to do, then you will miss the value of learning persuasion and its accompanying skills of appeal, argument, and logic. Persuasion is something you do every day, in various forms. Convincing a friend to go see the latest movie instead of staying in to watch TV; giving your instructor a reason to give you an extension on an assignment (do not try that for this speech, though!); writing a cover letter and resume and going through an interview for a job—all of these and so many more are examples of persuasion. In fact, it is hard to think of life without the everyday give-and-take of persuasion.

                                  You may also be thinking, “I’ve given an informative speech. What’s the difference?” While we will refer to all of the content of the preceding chapters as it walks you through the steps of composing your persuasive speech, there is a difference. Although your persuasive speech will involve information—probably even as much as in your informative speech—the key difference is the word “change.” Think of it like this:

                                  INFORMATION + CHANGE = PERSUASION

                                  You will be using the information for the purpose of changing something. First, we try to change the audience’s beliefs, attitudes, and actions, and second, possibly the context they act upon. In the next section, we will investigate the persuasive act and then move on to the barriers to persuasion.

                                  Persuasion can be defined in two ways for two purposes. The first (Lucas, 2015) is “the process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or actions” (p. 306). This is a good, simple, straightforward definition to start with, although it does not encompass the complexity of persuasion. This definition does introduce us to what could be called a “scaled” way of thinking about persuasion and change.

                                   

                                  Figure 8.3.1: Persuasion Continuum

                                  Screen Shot 2019-09-06 at 6.47.41 PM.png
                                   

                                   

                                  Think of persuasion as a continuum or line going in both directions (see Figure 8.3.1). Your audience members, either as a group or individually, are sitting somewhere on that line in reference to your central idea statement or what we are going to call a proposition. In your speech, you are proposing the truth or validity of an idea, one which the audience may not find true or acceptable. Sometimes the word “claim” is used for proposition or central idea statement in a persuasive speech because you are claiming an idea is true or an action is valuable.

                                  For example, your proposition might be, “The main cause of climate change is human activity.” In this case, you are not denying that natural forces, such as volcanoes, can affect the climate, but you are claiming that climate change is mainly due to pollution and other harmful things humans have done to the environment. To be an effective persuasive speaker, one of your first jobs after coming up with this topic would be to determine where your audience “sits” on the continuum in Figure 8.3.1.

                                  • +3 means strongly agree to the point of making lifestyle choices to lessen climate change (such as riding a bike instead of driving a car, recycling, eating certain kinds of foods, and advocating for government policy changes).
                                  • +2 means agree but not to the point of acting upon it or only acting on it in small ways.
                                  • +1 as mildly in favor of your proposition; that is, they think it’s probably true, but the issue doesn’t affect them personally.
                                  • 0 means neutral, no opinion, or feeling too uninformed to make a decision.
                                  • -1 means mildly opposed to the proposition but willing to listen to those with whom they disagree.
                                  • -2 means disagreement to the point of dismissing the idea pretty quickly.
                                  • -3 means strong opposition to the point that the concept of climate change itself is not even listened to or acknowledged as a valid subject.

                                  Since everyone in the audience is somewhere on this line or continuum, persuasion, in this case, means moving them to the right, somewhere closer to +3. Thinking about persuasion this way has three values:

                                  • You can visualize and quantify where your audience “sits.”
                                  • You can accept the fact that any movement toward +3 or to the right is a win.
                                  • You can see that trying to change an audience from -3 to +3 in one speech is just about impossible. Therefore, you will be able to take a reasonable approach. In this case, if you knew most of the audience was at -2 or -3, your speech would be about the science behind climate change in order to open their minds to its possible existence. However, that audience is not ready to hear about its being caused mainly by humans or what action should be taken to reverse it.

                                  You might also ask if it is possible to persuade to the negative, for example, to argue against something or try to move the audience to be opposed to something. In this case, you would be trying to move your audience to the left on the continuum rather than to the right. Yes, it is possible to do so, but it might confuse the audience. Also, you might want to think in terms of phrasing your proposition so that it is favorable as well as reasonable. For example, “Elderly people should not be licensed to drive” could be replaced with “Drivers over the age of 75 in our state should be required to pass a vision and health test every two years to renew a driver’s license.” The first one is not clear (what is “elderly?”), reasonable (no license at all?), or positive (based on restriction) in approach. The second is specific, reasonable, doable, and positive.

                                  It should also be added that the proposition is assumed to be controversial. By that, it is meant that some people in the audience disagree with your proposition or at least have no opinion; they are not “on your side.” It would be foolish to give a speech when everyone in the audience totally agrees with you at the beginning of the speech. For example, trying to convince your classroom audience that attending college is a good idea is a waste of everyone’s time since, for one reason or another, everyone in your audience has already made that decision. That is not persuasive.

                                  Those who disagree with your proposition but are willing to listen are called the target audience. These are the members of your audience on whom you are truly focusing your persuasion. At the same time, the audience members not part of your target are those who are extremely opposed to your position to the point that they probably will not give you a fair hearing. Finally, some members of your audience may already agree with you, although they don’t know why.

                                  To go back to our original definition, “the process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or actions,” and each of these purposes implies a different approach.

                                  • Creating is moving an audience from 0 to +1, +2, or +3. You only really “create” something when it does not already exist, meaning the audience’s attitude will be a 0 since they have no opinion. In creating, you have to first engage the audience that there is a vital issue at stake. Then you must provide arguments in favor of your claim to give the audience a basis for belief.
                                  • Reinforcing is moving the audience from +1 toward +3 in the hope that they take action (since the real test of belief is whether people act on it). In reinforcing, the audience already agrees with your proposal but needs steps and pushes (nudges) to become active.
                                  • Changing is moving from -1 or –2 to +1 or higher. In changing, you must first be credible, provide evidence for your side and also show why the audience’s current beliefs are mistaken or wrong in some way.

                                  However, this simple definition from Lucas, while it gets to the core of “change” that is inherent in persuasion, could be improved with some attention to the ethical component and the “how” of persuasion. For that purpose, let’s look at Perloff’s (2003) definition of persuasion: A symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behavior regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice. (p. 8)

                                  There are several important factors in this definition. First, notice that persuasion is symbolic, which means it uses language or other symbols (even graphics can be symbols) rather than force or other means. Second, notice that it is an attempt, not always fully successful. Third, there is an “atmosphere of free choice,” in that the persons being persuaded can choose not to believe or act. And fourth, notice that the persuader is “trying to convince others to change.” Modern psychological research has confirmed that the persuader does not change the audience directly. The process that the human mind goes through while it listens to a persuasive message is like a silent, mental dialogue the audience is having with the speaker’s ideas. The audience members, as individuals, eventually convince themselves to change based on the “symbols” used by the speaker. According to Lucas, you must anticipate possible objections the audience will raise to your point of view and answer them in your speech. You cannot convert skeptical listeners unless you deal directly with the reasons for their skepticism.

                                  Some of this may sound like splitting hairs, but these are important points. The fact that an audience has free choice means that they are active participants in their own persuasion and that they can choose whether the speaker is successful. This factor calls on the student speaker to be ethical and truthful. Sometimes students will say, “It is just a class assignment, so I can lie in this speech,” but that is not a fair or respectful way to treat your classmates.

                                  Further, the basis of your persuasion is language; even though “a picture is worth a thousand words,” you want to focus on communicating through words. Also, Perloff’s definition distinguishes between “attitude” and “behavior,” meaning that an audience may be persuaded to think, feel, or act. Finally, persuasion is a process. Successful persuasion actually takes a while. One speech can be effective, but additional messages influence the listener in the long run.

                                   

                                  Ethos

                                  In addition to understanding how your audience feels about the topic you are addressing, you will need to take steps to help them see you as credible and interesting. The audience’s perception of you as a speaker is influential in determining whether or not they will choose to accept your proposition. Aristotle called this element of the speech ethos, which closely relates to the English words ethics/ethical. He taught speakers to establish credibility with the audience by appearing to have good moral character, common sense, and concern for the audience’s well-being.

                                  While there are many things speakers can do to build their ethos throughout the speech, “assessments of ethos often reflect superficial first impressions,” and these first impressions linger long after the speech has concluded (Zarefsky, 2005, p.14). This means that what you wear and how you behave, even before opening your mouth, can go far in shaping your ethos. Be sure to dress appropriately for the occasion and setting in which you speak. Also, work to appear confident but not arrogant, and be sure to maintain enthusiasm about your topic throughout the speech. Give great attention to the crafting of your opening sentences because they will set the tone for what your audience should expect of your personality as you proceed.

                                  I covered two presidents, LBJ and Nixon, who could no longer convince, persuade, or govern, once people had decided they had no credibility; but we seem to be more tolerant now of what I think we should not tolerate. ~ Helen Thomas

                                   

                                  Logos

                                  Another way to enhance your ethos, and your chances of persuading the audience, is to use sound arguments. In a persuasive speech, the argument will focus on the reasons for supporting your specific purpose statement. This argumentative approach is what Aristotle referred to as logos, or the logical means of proving an argument (Braet, 1992).

                                  When offering an argument, you begin by making an assertion that requires a logical leap based on the available evidence (Campbell & Huxman, 2009). One of the most popular ways of understanding how this process works was developed by British philosopher Stephen Toulmin (Herrick, 2011). Toulmin explained that basic arguments tend to share three common elements: claim, data, and warrant. The claim is an assertion that you want the audience to accept. Data refers to the preliminary evidence on which the claim is based. For example, if I saw large gray clouds in the sky, I might make a claim that “it is going to rain today.” The gray clouds (data) are linked to rain (claim) by the warrant, an often unstated general connection that large gray clouds tend to produce rain. The warrant is a connector that, if stated, would likely begin with “since” or “because.” In our rain example, if we explicitly stated all three elements, the argument would go something like this: There are large gray clouds in the sky today (data). Since large gray clouds tend to produce rain (warrant), it is going to rain today (claim). However, in our regular encounters with argumentation, we tend to only offer the claim and (occasionally) the warrant.

                                  To strengthen the basic argument, you will need backing for the claim. Backing provides foundational support for the claim (Herrick, 2011) by offering examples, statistics, testimony, or other information which further substantiates the argument. To substantiate the rain argument we have

                                  just considered, you could explain that the color of a cloud is determined by how much light the water in the cloud is reflecting. A thin cloud has tiny drops of water and ice crystals that scatter light, making it appear white. Clouds appear gray when they are filled with large water droplets, which are less able to reflect light (Brill, 2003).

                                  Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. ~ Leonard Nimoy

                                   

                                  Table 8.3.2: The Toulmin Model Basic Argument

                                  Basic Argument

                                  data

                                  I had a hard time finding a place to park on campus today.

                                  claim

                                  The school needs more parking spaces.

                                  warrant

                                  If I can’t find a place to park, there must be a shortage of spaces.

                                  Argument With Backing

                                  data

                                  Obesity is a serious problem in the US.

                                  claim

                                  US citizens should be encouraged to eat less processed foods.

                                  warrant

                                  Processed foods contribute to obesity more than natural or unprocessed foods.

                                  backing

                                  “As a rule, processed foods are more ‘energy dense’ than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening” (Pollan, 2007).

                                   

                                  The elements that Toulmin identified (see Table 8.3.2) may be arranged in a variety of ways to make the most logical argument. As you reason through your argument, you may proceed inductively, deductively, or causally toward your claim. Inductive reasoning moves from specific examples to a more general claim. For example, if you read online reviews of a restaurant chain called Walt’s Wine & Dine and you noticed that someone reported feeling sick after eating at a Walt’s, and another person reported that the Walt’s they visited was understaffed, and another commented that the tables in the Walt’s they ate at had crumbs left on them, you might conclude (or claim) that the restaurant chain is unsanitary. To test the validity of a general claim, Beebe and Beebe (2003) encourage speakers to consider whether there are “enough specific instances to support the conclusion,” whether the specific instances are typical, and whether the instances are recent (p.384).

                                  The opposite of inductive reasoning is deductive reasoning, moving from a general principle to a claim regarding a specific instance. In order to move from general to specific, we tend to use syllogisms. A syllogism begins with a major (or general) premise, then moves to a minor premise, then concludes with a specific claim. For example, if you know that all dogs bark (major premise), and your neighbor has a dog (minor premise), you could then conclude that your neighbor’s dog barks (specific claim). To verify the accuracy of your specific claim, you must verify the truth and applicability of the major premise. What evidence do you have that all dogs bark? Is it possible that only most dogs bark? Next, you must also verify the accuracy of the minor premise. If the major premise is truly generalizable and both premises are accurate, your specific claim should also be accurate.

                                  Your reasoning may also proceed causally. Causal reasoning examines related events to determine which one caused the other. You may begin with a cause and attempt to determine its effect. For example, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, scientists explained that because many animals in the Gulf were nesting and reproducing at the time, the spill could wipe out “an entire generation of hundreds of species” (Donovan, 2010, para. 2). Their argument reasoned that the spill (cause) would result in species loss (effect). Two years later, the causal reasoning might be reversed. If we saw species loss in the Gulf (effect), we could reason that it was a result of the oil spill (cause). Both of these claims rely on the evidence available at the time. To make the first claim, scientists not only offered evidence that animals were nesting and reproducing, but they also looked at the effects of an oil spill that occurred 21 years earlier in Alaska (Donovan, 2010). To make the second claim, scientists could examine dead animals washing up on the coast to determine whether their deaths were caused by oil.

                                   

                                  Pathos

                                  While we have focused heavily on logical reasoning, we must also recognize the strong role that emotions play in the persuasive process. Aristotle called this element of the speech pathos. Pathos draws on the emotions, sympathies, and prejudices of the audience to appeal to their non-rational side (Beebe & Beebe, 2003; Reike, Sillars, & Peterson, 2009). Human beings are constantly in some emotional state, which means that tapping into an audience’s emotions can be vital to persuading them to accept your proposition (Dillard & Meijnders, 2002).

                                  One of the most helpful strategies in appealing to your audience’s emotions is to use clear examples that illustrate your point, called emotional appeals. Emotional Appeals can be crafted verbally, nonverbally, or visually. To offer a verbal illustration, you could tell a compelling story. For example, when fundraising for breast cancer research, Nancy Brinker, creator of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has plenty of compelling statistics and examples to offer. Yet, she regularly talks about her sister, explaining:

                                  Susan G. Komen fought breast cancer with her heart, body and soul. Throughout her diagnosis, treatments, and endless days in the hospital, she spent her time thinking of ways to make life better for other women battling breast cancer instead of worrying about her own situation. That concern for others continued even as Susan neared the end of her fight (Komen National, n.d.).

                                  Brinker promised her sister that she would continue her fight against breast cancer. This story compels donors to join her fight.

                                  Speakers can also tap into emotions using nonverbal behaviors to model the desired emotion for their audience. In the summer of 2012, the US House of Representatives debated holding the Attorney General in contempt for refusing to release documents concerning a controversial gun-tracking operation. Arguing for a contempt vote, South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy did not simply state his claim. Instead, he raised his voice, slowed his pace, and used hand motions to convey anger with what he perceived as deception on the part of the Attorney General (Gowdy, 2012). His use of volume, tone, pace, and hand gestures enhanced the message and built anger in his audience.

                                  Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                  In addition to verbal and nonverbal illustrations, visual imagery can enhance the emotional appeal of a message. For example, we have all heard about the dangers of drugs, and there are multiple campaigns that attempt to prevent people from even trying them. However, many young adults experiment with drugs under the assumption that they are immune from the negative effects if they only use the drug recreationally. To counter this assumption regarding methamphetamines, the Montana Meth project combines controversial statements with graphic images on billboards to evoke fear of the drug (see www.methproject. org /ads/print/ for some disturbing examples). Young adults may have heard repeated warnings that meth is addictive and that it has the potential to cause sores, rotten teeth, and extreme weight loss, but Montana Meth Project’s visual display is more compelling because it turns the audience’s stomach, making the message memorable. This image, combined with the slogan, “not even once,” conveys the persuasive point without the need for other forms of evidence and rational argument.

                                  Appeals to fear, like those in the Montana Meth Project ads, have proven effective in motivating people to change a variety of behaviors. However, speakers must be careful with their use of this emotion. Fear appeals tend to be more effective when they appeal to a high-level fear, such as death, and they are more effective when offered by speakers with a high level of perceived credibility (Beebe & Beebe, 2003). Fear appeals are also more persuasive when the speaker can convince the audience they have the ability to avert the threat. If audiences doubt their ability to avoid or minimize the threat, the appeal may backfire (Witte & Allen, 2000).

                                  I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

                                  David Brooks (2011) argues that “emotions are not separate from reason, but they are the foundation of reason because they tell us what to value” (para. 2). Those values are at the core of fostering a credible ethos. All of Aristotle’s strategies, ethos, logos, and pathos are interdependent. The most persuasive speakers will combine these strategies to varying degrees based on their specific purpose and audience.

                                  In addition to considering their topic and persuasive strategy, speakers must take care to ensure that their message is ethical. Persuasion is often confused with another kind of communication that has similar ends but different methods—coercion. Like persuasion, coercion is a process whereby thoughts or behaviors are altered. But in coercive acts, deceptive or harmful methods propel the intended changes, not reason. Strong and Cook (1992) contrasted the two: “persuasion uses argument to compel power to give way to reason while coercion uses force to compel reason to give way to power” (p. 7). The “force” that Strong and Cook mention frequently manifests as promises for reward or punishment, but sometimes it arises as physical or emotional harm. Think of almost any international crime film you have seen, and you are likely to remember a scene where someone was compelled to out their compatriots by way of force. Jack Bauer, the protagonist in the American television series 24, became an infamous character by doing whatever it took to get captured criminals to talk. Although dramatic as an example, those scenes where someone is tortured in an effort to produce evidence offer a familiar reference when thinking about coercion. To avoid coercing an audience, speakers should use logical and emotional appeals responsibly.

                                  The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. ~ Carl Jung

                                   

                                  Top 10 Logical Fallacies. Source: Mometrix Academy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IawIjqOJBU8&t=8s)

                                   

                                  Persuasive speakers must be careful to avoid using fallacies in their reasoning. Fallacies are errors in reasoning that occur when a speaker fails to use appropriate or applicable evidence for their argument. There are a wide variety of fallacies, and it is not possible to list them all here. However, speakers should watch for four common categories of fallacies: “fallacies of faulty assumption,” which occur when the speaker reasons based on a problematic assumption; “fallacies directed to the person,” which occur when the speaker focuses on the attributes of an individual opponent rather than the relevant arguments; “fallacies of case presentation,” which occur when the speaker mischaracterizes the issue; and “fallacies of suggestion,” which occur when the speaker implies or suggests an argument without fully developing it. See Table 8.3.3.

                                  There are some positive steps you can take to avoid these pitfalls of persuasive speaking and ensure that you are presenting your message in the most ethical manner. We have already discussed some of these, such as offering credible evidence for your arguments and showing concern for the audience’s well-being. However, you should also offer a transparent goal for your speech. Even with a hostile audience, where you may wait until later in the speech to provide the specific purpose statement, you should be forthcoming about your specific purpose. In fact, be truthful with your audience throughout the speech.

                                   

                                  Table 8.3.3: Examples of Fallacies

                                  Fallacies of Faulty Assumption

                                  False Cause

                                  This fallacy occurs when one assumes that two events that happened in chronological order are connected (Post hoc, ergo propter hoc)

                                  It is cloudy outside, and I feel sick. Cloudy days make me sick.

                                  The school board voted to buy new picnic tables for the lunchroom. Many students were out sick the following day. The students must be upset about the picnic tables.

                                  BandwagonThis fallacy occurs when one assumes that the popular opinion is the correct path or the truth.

                                  Everyone takes out a loan to buy a car, so you should too.

                                  None of the cool kids wear helmets when they ride bikes. You should take yours off.

                                  Begging the QuestionThis fallacy occurs when one declares the conclusion inside the premise of their argument, i.e., a type of circular argument.

                                  Lion King is an excellent film because it has excellent animation.

                                  Marijuana is good for you because it is natural.

                                  Hasty GeneralizationThis fallacy occurs when one declares a conclusion without sufficient evidence.College dropouts always make excellent business leaders. Just look at Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. They all dropped out and went on to create powerful companies.
                                  Slippery SlopeThis fallacy occurs when one assumes extreme consequences and an unalterable conclusion without sufficient evidence.NYC wants to legislate the Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule, limiting drinks to less than 24 oz for health reasons. Where will the denial of our freedom of choice end? Meat servings? Imposing curfews? Mandatory mask-wearing?
                                  Straw ManThis fallacy occurs when one argues against a false or distorted version of the opposition’s claim.

                                  Parent: Your curfew is at 10 pm tonight.

                                  Teenager: But the party doesn’t even start until 9:00.

                                  Parent: It’s a school night, so you need to be home by 10:00.

                                  Teenager: You just want me to be unpopular! You don’t care about my happiness!

                                  Fallacies Directed to the Person

                                  Ad HominemThis fallacy occurs when one attacks the opposition itself versus the claims or argument at hand. 

                                  We should reject President Obama’s health care legislation because it is socialism.

                                  We should ignore Donald Trump’s opposition to tax hikes because he’s just rich and selfish.

                                  Poisoning the WellThis fallacy occurs when one attacks the opposition or its claims before the opposition is allowed to speak.

                                  Before the defense makes their closing statement, keep in mind that their client has not said one truthful word throughout the trial.

                                  My opponent is going to try to manipulate you into thinking her plan is better for the city.

                                  Appeal to FlatteryThis fallacy occurs when one attempts to use compliments in order for one to side with them.

                                  First, I wanted to tell you that this is my favorite class. I tell all my friends how much I love it. I just think I deserve a better grade on my exam.

                                  You are such a generous person, and I know you’ll want to donate to this cause.

                                  Fallacies of Case Presentation

                                  Non SequiturThis fallacy occurs when one’s argument does not follow or connect logically to its given premise (i.e., not sequential).

                                  I don’t plan to vote today because I am moving next week.

                                  You should clean your room because I am going to do the laundry.

                                  Red HerringThis fallacy occurs when one distracts or attempts to mislead the audience from the argument at hand.

                                  I should not be fined for parking in a red zone when there are so many people out there committing real crimes like robbery and murder.

                                  War is wrong, but in times of crisis, we should support the president.

                                  Appeal to Misplaced AuthorityThis fallacy occurs when one uses testimony from an authority who is not an authority on the subject at hand.

                                  This diet is the best one for people with my health condition; Oprah said so.

                                  I want to visit the Museum of Modern Art. My English professor says they have the best collection anywhere!

                                  Fallacies of Suggestion

                                  ParalepsisThis fallacy occurs when one claims to omit something or say they will not dwell on something, but because they bring it up, they are emphasizing it.

                                  I’m not saying he cheated; he just did uncharacteristically well on that exam.

                                  If she wants to work for a crook, that’s her business.

                                  Either-OrThis fallacy occurs when one provides only two options from which to choose, and the options are mutually exclusive, and in fact, many compromises exist. (i.e. false dilemma)

                                  Either you’re with us or against us.

                                  Love it or leave it.

                                  ArrangementThis fallacy occurs when one creates a false impression by ordering, associating, or grouping items of evidence in a misleading way.

                                  I have so much to do today. I have to get my car fixed, finish a paper, take a nap, and pick my mom up from the airport.

                                  So many highly respected musicians will be there: Paul McCartney, Elton John, LMFAO, Billy Joel . . .

                                   

                                  It is appropriate to use fictional scenarios to demonstrate your point but tell the audience that is what you are doing. You can accomplish this by introducing fictional examples with the phrase “hypothetically” or “imagine” to signal that you are making it up (Beebe & Beebe, 2003). Additionally, be sure to offer a mix of logical and emotional appeals. Blending these strategies ensures that you have evidence to back up emotional claims and that you are sensitive to the audiences’ emotional reactions to your logical claims. Attending to both aspects will help you be more ethical and more persuasive.

                                  The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity. ~ Zig Ziglar

                                  8.4 Types of Persuasive Speeches

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  In a sense, constructing your persuasive speech is the culmination of the skills you have learned already. In another sense, you are challenged to think somewhat differently. While the steps of analyzing your audience, formulating your purpose and central idea, applying evidence, considering ethics, framing the ideas in appropriate language, and then practicing delivery will, of course, apply, you will need to consider some expanded options about each of these steps.

                                   

                                  Formulating a Proposition

                                  As mentioned before, when thinking about a central idea statement in a persuasive speech, we use the term “proposition.” Persuasive speeches have one of three types of propositions, which determine your overall approach. Before you move on, you need to determine what type of proposition you should have (based on the audience, context, issues involved in the topic, and assignment for the class).

                                  Proposition of Fact

                                  Speeches with this type of proposition attempt to establish the truth of a statement. The core of the proposition is not whether something is morally right and wrong or what should be done about the topic but whether a statement is supported by evidence or not. These propositions are not facts such as “the chemical symbol for water is H20” or “Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 with 53% of the vote.” Propositions or claims of fact are statements over which persons disagree, and there is evidence on both sides, although probably more on one than the other. Some examples of propositions of fact are:

                                  • Converting to solar energy can save homeowners money.
                                  • John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, working alone.
                                  • Experiments using animals are essential to the development of many life-saving medical procedures.
                                  • Climate change has been caused by human activity.
                                  • Granting tuition tax credits to the parents of children who attend private schools will perpetuate educational inequality.
                                  • Watching violence on television causes violent behavior in children.
                                  • William Shakespeare did not write most of the plays attributed to him.
                                  • John Doe committed the crime of which he is accused.

                                  Notice that in none of these are any values—good or bad—mentioned. Perpetuating segregation is not portrayed as good or bad, only as an effect of a policy. Of course, most people view educational inequality negatively, just as they view life-saving medical procedures positively. But the point of these propositions is to prove with evidence the truth of a statement, not its inherent value or what the audience should do about it. In fact, in some propositions of fact, no action response would even be possible, such as the proposition listed above that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy.

                                  Propositions of Value

                                  It is likely that you or some of your classmates will give speeches with propositions of value. When the proposition has a word such as “good,” “bad,” “best,” “worst,” “just,” “unjust,” “ethical,” “unethical,” “moral,” “immoral,” “beneficial,” “harmful,” “advantageous,” or “disadvantageous,” it is a proposition of value. Some examples include:

                                  • Hybrid cars are the best form of automobile transportation available today.
                                  • Homeschooling is more beneficial for children than traditional schooling.
                                  • The War in Iraq was not justified.
                                  • Capital punishment is morally wrong.
                                  • Mascots that involve Native American names, characters, and symbols are demeaning.
                                  • A vegan diet is the healthiest one for adults.

                                  Propositions of value require a first step: defining the “value” word. If a war is unjustified, what makes a war “just” or “justified” in the first place? That is a fairly philosophical question. What makes a form of transportation “best” or “better” than another? Isn’t that a matter of personal approach? For different people, “best” might mean “safest,” “least expensive,” “most environmentally responsible,” “stylish,” “powerful,” or “prestigious.” Obviously, in the case of the first proposition above, it means “environmentally responsible.” It would be the first job of the speaker, after introducing the speech and stating the proposition, to explain what “best form of automobile transportation” means. Then the proposition would be defended with separate arguments.

                                  Propositions of Policy

                                  These propositions are easy to identify because they almost always have the word “should” in them. These propositions call for a change in policy or practice (including those in a government, community, or school), or they can call for the audience to adopt a certain behavior. Speeches with propositions of policy can be those that call for passive acceptance and agreement from the audience and those that try to instigate the audience to action, to actually do something immediately or in the long-term.

                                  • Our state should require mandatory recertification of lawyers every ten years.
                                  • The federal government should act to ensure clean water standards for all citizens.
                                  • The federal government should not allow the use of technology to choose the sex of an unborn child.
                                  • The state of Georgia should require drivers over the age of 75 to take a vision test and present a certificate of good health from a doctor before renewing their licenses.
                                  • Wyeth Daniels should be the next governor of the state.
                                  • Young people should monitor their blood pressure regularly to avoid health problems later in life.

                                  As mentioned before, the proposition determines the approach to the speech, especially the organization. The exact phrasing of the proposition should be carefully done to be reasonable, positive, and appropriate for the context and audience. In this next section, we will examine organizational factors for speeches with propositions of fact, value, and policy.

                                   

                                  Organization Based on Type of Proposition

                                  Organization for a Proposition of Fact

                                  If your proposition is one of fact, you will do best to use a topical organization. Essentially that means that you will have two to four discrete, separate arguments in support of the proposition. For example:

                                  Proposition: Converting to solar energy can save homeowners money.

                                  I. Solar energy can be economical to install.

                                  A. The government awards grants.

                                  B. The government gives tax credits.

                                  II. Solar energy reduces power bills.

                                  III. Solar energy requires less money for maintenance.

                                  IV. Solar energy works when the power grid goes down.

                                  Here is the first draft of another outline for a proposition of fact:

                                  Proposition: Experiments using animals are essential to the development of many life-saving medical procedures.

                                  I. Research of the past shows many successes from animal experimentation.

                                  II. Research on humans is limited for ethical and legal reasons.

                                  III. Computer models for research have limitations.

                                  However, these outlines are just preliminary drafts because preparing a speech of fact requires a great deal of research and understanding of the issues. A speech with a proposition of fact will almost always need an argument or section related to the “reservations,” refuting the arguments that the audience may be preparing in their minds, their mental dialogue. So the second example needs revision, such as:

                                  I. The first argument in favor of animal experimentation is the record of successful discoveries from animal research.

                                  II. A second reason to support animal experimentation is that research on humans is limited for ethical and legal reasons.

                                  III. Animal experimentation is needed because computer models for research have limitations.

                                  IV. Many people today have concerns about animal experimentation.

                                  A. Some believe that all experimentation is equal.

                                  1. There is experimentation for legitimate medical research.

                                  2. There is experimentation for cosmetics or shampoos.

                                  B. Others argue that the animals are mistreated.

                                  1. There are protocols for the treatment of animals in experimentation.

                                  2. Legitimate medical experimentation follows the protocols.

                                  C. Some believe the persuasion of certain advocacy groups like PETA.

                                  1. Many of the groups that protest animal experimentation have extreme views.

                                  2. Some give untrue representations.

                                  To complete this outline, along with the introduction and conclusion, there would need to be quotations, statistics, and facts with sources provided to support both the pro-arguments in Main Points I-III and the refutation of the misconceptions about animal experimentation in Sub-points A-C under Point IV.

                                  Organization for a Proposition of Value

                                  A persuasive speech that incorporates a proposition of value will have a slightly different structure. As mentioned earlier, a proposition of value must first define the “value” word for clarity and provide a basis for the other arguments of the speech. The second or middle section would present the defense or “pro” arguments for the proposition based on the definition. The third section would include a refutation of the counterarguments or “reservations.” The following outline draft shows a student trying to structure a speech with a value proposition. Keep in mind it is abbreviated for illustrative purposes and thus incomplete as an example of what you would submit to your instructor, who will expect more detailed outlines for your speeches.

                                  Proposition: Hybrid cars are the best form of automotive transportation available today.

                                  I. Automotive transportation that is best meets three standards. (Definition)

                                  A. It is reliable and durable.

                                  B. It is fuel-efficient and thus cost-efficient.

                                  C. It is therefore environmentally responsible.

                                  II. Studies show that hybrid cars are durable and reliable. (Pro-Argument 1)

                                  A. Hybrid cars have 99 problems per 100 cars versus 133 problems per 100 conventional cars, according to TrueDelta, a car analysis website much like Consumer Reports.

                                  B. J.D. Powers reports hybrids also experience 11 fewer engine and transmission issues per 100 vehicles than gas-powered vehicles.

                                  III. Hybrid cars are fuel-efficient. (Pro-Argument 2)

                                  A. The Toyota Prius gets 48 mpg on the highway and 51 mpg in the city.

                                  B. The Ford Fusion hybrid gets 47 mpg in the city and in the country.

                                  IV. Hybrid cars are environmentally responsible. (Pro-Argument 3)

                                  A. They only emit 51.6 gallons of carbon dioxide every 100 miles.

                                  B. Conventional cars emit 74.9 gallons of carbon dioxide every 100 miles.

                                  C. The hybrid produces 69% of the harmful gas exhaust that a conventional car does.

                                  V. Of course, hybrid cars are relatively new to the market, and some have questions about them. (Reservations)

                                  A. Don’t the batteries wear out, and aren’t they expensive to replace?

                                  1. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  2. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  B. Aren’t hybrid cars only good for certain types of driving and drivers?

                                  1. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  2. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  C. Aren’t electric cars better?

                                  1. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  2. Evidence to address this misconception.

                                  Organization for a Proposition of Policy

                                  The most common types of outline organization for speeches with propositions of policy are problem-solution or problem-cause-solution. Typically we do not feel any motivation to change unless we are convinced that some harm, problem, need, or deficiency exists, and even more, that it affects us personally. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”As mentioned before, some policy speeches look for passive agreement or acceptance of the proposition. Some instructors call this type of policy speech a “think” speech since the persuasion is just about changing the way your audience thinks about a policy.

                                  On the other hand, other policy speeches seek to move the audience to do something to change a situation or to get involved in a cause, and these are sometimes called a “do” speech since the audience is asked to do something. This second type of policy speech (the “do” speech) is sometimes called a “speech to actuate.” Although a simple problem-solution organization with only two main points is permissible for a speech of actuation, you will probably do well to utilize the more detailed format called Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.

                                  This format, designed by Alan Monroe (1951), who wrote a popular speaking textbook for many years, is based on John Dewey’s reflective thinking process. It seeks to go in-depth with the many questions an audience would have in the process of listening to a persuasive speech. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence involves five steps, which should not be confused with the main points of the outline. Some steps in Monroe’s Motivated Sequence may take two points.

                                  1. Attention. This is the introduction, where the speaker brings attention to the importance of the topic as well as their own credibility and connection to the topic. This step will include the central idea and preview.
                                  2. Need. Here the problem is defined and defended. This step may be divided into two main points, such as the problem and its causes, since logically a solution should address the underlying causes as well as the external effects of a problem. It is important to make the audience see the severity of the problem, and how it affects them, their family, or their community. The harm or need can be physical, financial, psychological, legal, emotional, educational, social, or a combination. It will have to be supported by evidence.
                                  3. Satisfaction. A need calls for satisfaction in the same way a problem requires a solution. This step could also, in some cases, take up two main points. Not only does the speaker present the solution and describe it, but they must also defend that it works and will address the causes of the problem as well as the symptoms.
                                  4. Visualization. This step looks to the future either positively or negatively. If positive, the benefits from enacting or choosing the solution are shown. If negative, the disadvantages of not doing anything to solve the problem are shown. There may be times when it is acceptable to skip this step, especially if time is limited. The purpose of visualization is to motivate the audience by revealing future benefits or through fear appeals by showing future harms.
                                  5. Action. This can be the conclusion, although if the speaker really wants to spend time on moving the audience to action, the action step should be a full main point and the conclusion saved for summary and a dramatic ending. In the action step, the goal is to give specific steps for the audience to take as soon as possible to move toward solving the problem. Whereas the satisfaction step explains the solution overall, the action step gives concrete ways to begin making the solution happen.

                                  The more concrete you can make the action step, the better. Research shows that people are more likely to act if they know how accessible the action can be. For example, if you want students to be vaccinated against the chickenpox virus (which can cause a serious disease called shingles in adults), you can give them directions to and hours for a clinic or health center where vaccinations at a free or discounted price can be obtained.

                                  In some cases for speeches of policy, no huge problem needs solving. Or, there is a problem, but the audience already knows about it and is convinced that the problem exists and is important. In those cases, a format called “comparative advantages” is used, which focuses on how one possible solution is better than other possible ones. The organizational pattern for this kind of proposition might be topical:

                                  I. This policy is better because…

                                  II. This policy is better because…

                                  III. This policy is better because…

                                  If this sounds a little like a commercial that is because advertisements often use comparative advantages to show that one product is better than another. Here is an example:

                                  Proposition: Owning the Barnes and Noble Nook is more advantageous than owning the Amazon Kindle.

                                  I. The Nook allows owners to trade and loan books to other owners or people who have downloaded the Nook software, while the Kindle does not.

                                  II. The Nook has a color-touch screen, while the Kindle’s screen is black and grey and non-interactive.

                                  III. The Nook’s memory can be expanded through microSD, while the Kindle’s memory cannot be upgraded.

                                   

                                  Building Upon Your Persuasive Speech’s Arguments

                                  Once you have constructed the key arguments and order of points (remembering that if you use topical order, to put your strongest or most persuasive point last), it is time to be sure your points are well supported. In a persuasive speech, there are some things to consider about evidence.

                                  First, your evidence should be from sources that the audience will find credible. If you can find the same essential information from two sources but know that the audience will find the information more credible from one source than another, use and cite the information from the more credible one. For example, if you find the same statistical data on Wikipedia and the U.S. Department of Labor’s website, cite the U.S. Department of Labor (your instructor will probably not accept the Wikipedia site anyway). Audiences also accept information from sources they consider unbiased or indifferent. Gallup polls, for example, have been considered reliable sources of survey data because, unlike some organizations, Gallup does not have a cause (political or otherwise) it is supporting.

                                  Secondly, your evidence should be new to the audience. In other words, the best evidence is that which is from credible sources that the audience has not heard before (Reinard, 1988; McCroskey, 1969). If they have heard it before and discounted it, they will not consider your argument well supported. An example is telling people who smoke that smoking will cause lung cancer. Everyone in the U.S. has heard that thousands of times, but 14% of the population still smokes, which is about one in seven (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017)). Many of those who smoke have not heard the information that really motivates them to quit yet, and of course, quitting is very difficult. Additionally, new evidence is more attention-getting, and you will appear more credible if you tell the audience something new (as long as you cite it well) than if you use the “same old, same old” evidence they have heard before.

                                  Third, in order to be effective and ethical, your supporting evidence should be relevant and not used out of context, and fourth, it should be timely and not out of date.

                                  After choosing the evidence and apportioning it to the correct parts of the speech, you will want to consider the use of metaphors, quotations, rhetorical devices, and narratives that will enhance the language and “listenability” of your speech. Narratives are especially good for introduction and conclusions, to get attention, and to leave the audience with something dramatic. You might refer to the narrative in the introduction again in the conclusion to give the speech a sense of finality.

                                  Next, you will want to decide if you should use any type of presentation aid for the speech. The decision to use visuals such as PowerPoint slides or a video clip in a persuasive speech should take into consideration the effect of the visuals on the audience and the time allotted for the speech (as well as your instructor’s specifications). The charts, graphs, or photographs you use should be focused and credibly done.

                                  One of your authors remembers a speech by a student about using seat belts (which is, by the way, an overdone topic). What made the speech effective, in this case, were photographs of two totaled cars, both of which the student had been driving when they crashed. The devastation of the wrecks and his ability to stand before us and give the speech because he had worn his seat belt were effective (although it didn’t say much for his driving ability). If you wanted an audience to donate to disaster relief after an earthquake in a foreign country, a few photographs of the destruction would be effective, and perhaps a map of the area would be helpful. But in this case, less is more. Too many visual aids will likely distract from your overall speech claim.

                                  Finally, since you’ve already had experience in class giving at least one major speech prior to this one, your delivery for the persuasive speech should be especially strong. Since delivery does affect credibility (Burgoon, Birk, & Pfau, 1990), you want to be able to connect visually as you make your appeals. You want to be physically involved and have vocal variety when you tell dramatic narratives that emphasize the human angle on your topic. If you do use presentation slides, you want them to work seamlessly, using black screens when the visuals are not necessary.

                                   

                                  Conclusion

                                  Your persuasive speech in class, as well as in real life, is an opportunity to share a passion or cause that you believe will matter to society and help the audience live a better life. Even if you are initially uncomfortable with the idea of persuasion, we use it all the time in different ways. Choose your topic based on your own commitment and experience, look for quality evidence, craft your proposition so that it will be clear and audience-appropriate, and put the finishing touches on it with an eye toward enhancing your logos, ethos, and pathos.

                                   

                                  Something to Think About

                                   

                                   

                                  Go to YouTube and look for “Persuasive Speeches by College Students.” There are quite a few. Here’s one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNr7Fx-SM1Y. Do you find this speech persuasive? Why or why not? Based on the content of this section, what did the speaker do correctly or perhaps not so correctly that affected their persuasiveness?

                                   

                                  For more information on Monroe's Motivated Sequence: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/Southwest_Tennessee_Community_College/Competent_Communication/16%3A_Persuasive_Speaking/16.05%3A_Constructing_a_Persuasive_Speech/16.5.01%3A_Monroe's_Motivated_Sequence_extended

                                  Chapter 9: Developing Speech Content

                                  Learning Objectives for Chapter 9: Developing Speech Content

                                  • Learn to organize and create speech outlines. 
                                  • Learn and use research tools to find evidence to support a speech and to avoid plagiarism.   
                                  • Learn to cite appropriate documentation with the written text and during the speech delivery.   
                                  • Use visual aids to enhance speech delivery.  

                                   

                                  9.1 Research

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  We live in an age where access to information is more convenient than ever before. The days of photocopying journal articles in the stacks of the library or looking up newspaper articles on microfilm are over for most. Yet, even though we have all this information at our fingertips, research skills are more important than ever. Our challenge now is not accessing information but discerning what information is credible and relevant. Even though it may sound inconvenient to have to physically go to the library, students who researched the digital revolution did not have to worry as much about discerning. If you found a source in the library, you could be assured of its credibility because a librarian had subscribed to or purchased that content. When you use Internet resources like Google or Wikipedia, you have no guarantees about some of the content that comes up.

                                   

                                  The Research Process

                                  It’s good to speak or choose a topic with which you are already familiar. So existing knowledge forms the first step of your research process. Depending on how familiar you are with a topic, you will need to do more or less background research before you actually start incorporating sources to support your speech. Background research is just a review of summaries available for your topic that helps refresh or create your knowledge about the subject. It is not the more focused and academic research that you will actually use to support and verbally cite in your speech. Figure 9.1.1 illustrates the research process. Note that you may go through some of these steps more than once.

                                   

                                  Figure 9.1.1: Research Process

                                  831fc4bcbf137a2eefca0649ae99ea59.jpg
                                  University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing - Chapter 9: Preparing a Speech – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                                   

                                  Doing research involves more than finding a few books or articles on a topic; a researcher’s job is to find useful, relevant, and reliable information, which can be challenging. 

                                  Primary and Secondary Sources

                                  You may hear sources described as either “primary” or “secondary,” and understanding this distinction can help you assess what types of information are useful for your various needs.

                                  A primary source is original and firsthand. This has different meanings depending on the context but generally refers to the product of someone’s original work, such as the results of a scientist’s study or an author’s novel. You may access published primary sources in introductory college courses like this one, and you will definitely do so as you progress in your discipline. Keep in mind that primary sources are generally factual rather than analysis or interpretation, although not in all cases.

                                  In your research, you more frequently use secondary sources, which are articles, books, and websites that involve analysis or interpretation of primary sources. While a scientific study would be a primary source, a magazine article about the findings of that study would be considered a secondary source.

                                  Whether you use a primary or a secondary source depends on our purpose, topic, audience, and context. If you engage in undergraduate research in your junior or senior year and present at a conference, you will be expected to have some primary research. However, for most of your college work, you will be looking for reliable secondary sources. One way to assess the quality of a secondary source is to look at its references or bibliography. A reliable source will cite other sources to support its claims. Likewise, a well-researched speech will provide support for its argument by using evidence obtained from reliable sources. See Figure 9.1.2 for examples of primary sources by discipline. 

                                   

                                  Figure 9.1.2: Source Examples by Discipline

                                  source type by field
                                   

                                   

                                  Most researchers begin their work by evaluating the current information that exists on their topic. They may look at a combination of primary and secondary sources during this process. Their goal is to find out what is currently known about a topic and where the research may be headed. Students completing a research-based assignment will begin much the same way.

                                   

                                  Accessing Information Through a Library

                                  Your first step for research in college should be library resources, not Google, Bing, or other general search engines. In most cases, you can still do your library research from the comfort of a computer, which makes it as accessible as Google but gives you much better results. Excellent and underutilized resources at college and university libraries are reference librarians. Reference librarians are information-retrieval experts. At most colleges and universities, you can find a reference librarian who has at least a master’s degree in library and information sciences, and at some larger or specialized schools, reference librarians have doctoral degrees. Research can be a maze, and reference librarians can help you navigate the maze. There may be dead ends, but there’s always another way around to reach the end goal. Unfortunately, many students hit their first dead end and give up or assume that there’s not enough research out there to support their speech. Trust us, if you’ve thought of a topic to do your speech on, someone else has thought of it, too, and people have written and published about it. Reference librarians can help you find that information. We recommend that you meet with a reference librarian face-to-face and take your assignment sheet and topic idea with you. In most cases, students report that they came away with more information than they needed, which is good because you can then narrow that down to the best information. If you can’t meet with a reference librarian face-to-face, many schools now offer the option to do a live chat with a reference librarian, and you can also contact them by e-mail or phone.

                                   

                                  9.2.1N.jpg
                                  College and university libraries are often at the cutting edge of information retrieval for academic research. Andre Vandal – The Morrin College Library – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

                                   

                                  The library plays an important role for researchers because materials in libraries have been selected for the information needs of their users. College and university libraries provide resources to support the academic programs of study at their institutions.

                                  The Library Catalog

                                  Aside from the human resources available in the library, the library catalog is a good place to begin searching. Since it will allow you to search the library’s collection of books, periodicals, and media, you will have access to a lot of material that broadly covers your topic, and the information you find will help you as you work to narrow the scope of your research. Many libraries have a unique or branded name for their catalog and provide online search functionality. One helpful feature of the catalog’s search tool is the ability to sort and refine search results by date, format, author, and other filter options. Additionally, library catalogs allow users to link to electronic books, videos, and other resources directly. These resources can be quite helpful since users do not need to come to the library building, nor are these resources available only during library hours. You can usually browse your library’s physical collection through an online catalog search. A trip to the library to browse is especially useful for books. Since most university libraries use the Library of Congress classification system, books are organized by topic. That means if you find a good book using the online catalog and go to the library to get it, you should take a moment to look around that book because the other books in that area will be topically related.

                                  Searching Databases

                                  You’re already familiar with using search engines (like Google), but did you know that these tools only give you access to information that companies and people have shared for free? The content freely available online only represents a fraction of that which actually exists.

                                  A lot of the information that isn’t free is protected by paywalls. You may have tried to read an article online but weren’t able to see the full text because you were asked to pay. This can be frustrating when the content is useful for research! Fortunately, you have access to online databases through your library.

                                  Library databases are available 24/7 and provide users with access to the full text of eBooks and articles from periodicals, works that are published on a regular, ongoing basis, such as newspapers, magazines, academic journals, and books from around the world. The content in library databases is available because libraries have paid to subscribe to the publications they offer. For the library user, this information is free—but you will have to search the library’s databases to access it. You can also use electronic resources such as library databases. Of course, libraries also house stores of physical resources like DVDs, books, academic journals, newspapers, and popular magazines.

                                  Note that if you are trying to use library databases remotely (not via a wired connection to the library’s actual network), such as from home or on a business’s free Wi-Fi network, you will probably be asked to log in to verify y that you are an authorized user of the library’s materials. Because the library has paid to access these subscription resources, they protect access by asking users to verify their status. Your library can help if you aren’t sure how to log in or experience difficulty when trying to do so.

                                  While databases index newspapers and popular magazines, college-level researchers especially benefit from their inclusion of articles published in academic journals. Almost all content in academic journals is peer-reviewed. The authors of journal articles are experts in their subject areas and after having conducted research on their topic, write up the results in an article that they submit for publication to a scholarly journal (a periodical whose target audience is other experts in that discipline).

                                  Before the editor approves the publication of an article in their journal, they send it to other scholars who are experts in the subject area. The other scholars, peers of the original author, then read the articles and evaluate them according to the standards of that discipline. Only after an article has passed the peer review process can it be published in an academic journal.

                                  Something you may have wondered is whether the terms “scholarly,” “peer-reviewed,” and “academic” have different meanings when used to describe articles or the journals in which they are published. The answer is no. These terms are used interchangeably.

                                  Historically, academic journals were primarily available in print, but today most readers access them online. When looking at a search results page, it can be challenging to figure out which articles are from popular magazines and which are from scholarly journals. Fortunately, most databases have a filter that lets you limit your results by publication type. As you continue to use the search function in databases, you will notice that it’s possible to put additional controls on the displayed results, allowing you to sort and refine.

                                  Filtering your results is just one way to ensure that you find the information you need. Another option is to modify your search technique. The easiest way to do this is to put search phrases in quotation marks. If you’re looking for information about attention deficit disorder, using “attention deficit disorder” ensures that the three words stay together in the order in which you have typed them. This can be very helpful to optimize the relevance of your search results. Without quotation marks, the database will look for the words attention, deficit, and disorder. You can also combine search terms using Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT), try changing the search parameters, using truncation (to find similar words with the same root; typing medica* will give you results including medical, medically, medication, medications, etc.), or searching with subject headings. An example of a search using some advanced techniques is shown in Figure 9.1.3 clarifies how different disciplines may categorize primary vs. secondary sources.

                                   

                                  Figure 9.1.3: Advanced Search Techniques

                                  Boolen operator example
                                   

                                   

                                  Other Library Services and Resources

                                  A library’s online search tools allow you to search their extensive holdings. Know that you can (and should) ask for help if you have problems or questions. Remember that librarians are research experts and can help you to find information, select a topic, refine your search, cite your sources, and much more!

                                  Did you know?

                                  Many libraries offer resource-sharing services, which allow you to borrow items your library does not have available. The delivery can take a few days, so be sure to order items at least a week before you need them!

                                   

                                  Research on the Internet

                                  Many of the techniques you use to improve your library searches can help you online too. Keeping phrases together with quotation marks works on many sites, and you can use the minus sign (-) to filter out search terms you’d prefer not to be included. Date range filters and other limiters are also available, helping you narrow your search down even further.

                                  Finding information online is relatively simple, so the challenge researchers face is determining what information is useful and whether it’s credible. A quick assessment is easy, and here are a few questions to guide you:

                                  • Is the information current relative to your needs? Information in a rapidly-changing field like science or medicine can quickly become outdated. Even social science research is time-sensitive. Laws and demographics can change quickly, and you’ll want to be sure the information you’re using is up-to-date.
                                  • Does the information address your topic? You may not find any single source that directly addresses all facets of your approach to a topic. You can, however, use information from multiple sources to support different parts of your work.
                                  • Who is the source of information? The advice of an expert in a subject may be more valuable than the opinion of a layperson or an unqualified source. On the other hand, a salesperson may know a lot about their product, but their perspective is informed by their goal of making a sale. With this in mind, you may ask yourself, why was this information created?

                                  The trustworthiness of information you find on the Internet can be harder yet to discern. While a source may have a current date listed, seem to offer relevant information, and claim to be an expert, it’s important to go beyond the information they give about themselves and verify that you can believe that they are honestly representing themselves and the information they offer.

                                  Some advice on how to effectively evaluate online information is offered by Washington State University Professor Michael Caulfield, who suggests doing the following:

                                  • Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research. Dubious claims can quickly be debunked with a Google search. Some websites that are dedicated to fact-checking include FactCheck.org, Politifact, and Snopes. The first two are focused on political claims, while the third addresses stories from various sources.
                                  • Go upstream to the source: Go “upstream” to the source of the claim. Most web content is not original. Get to the source to understand the trustworthiness of the information. You can achieve this by identifying where the information originated. If an article is describing a scientific study, tracking down the original study may reveal that its significant findings weren’t accurately represented.
                                  • Read laterally: Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source (publication, author, etc.). The truth is in the network. While some sources may claim to be experts in their subject areas, it may turn out that other experts in the field consider that source questionable.
                                  • Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions. If you feel that you are overwhelmed by the amount of information or can’t tell if sources are actually still relevant to your topic, it might be time to start over or seek assistance.

                                  There are many “tests” or “sets of criteria” that you can find in textbooks and on websites for deciding if a website is reliable. Words and concepts such as currency, authority, accessing only certain domain names (.org or .edu as opposed to .com), and inclusion of a bibliography or references section are common. Another is writing style: does the writing style show bias (such as the use of name-calling or loaded language) or poor grammar and editing? These are all good signs that your site may have an agenda beyond the fair presentation of facts. However, your site may seem to pass muster at first sight but not really provide what you need. That is why we have included the advice from Dr. Caulfield here. For more information on this topic, check out:

                                  Wikipedia

                                  One common source that many students have questions about using is Wikipedia. Most of us use Wikipedia or similar sites to look up the answers to pressing questions such as “Was Val Kilmer in the film Willow?” or “When is the next solar eclipse?” However, it is unlikely that your instructor will be satisfied with your using evidence from Wikipedia (or other Wiki-type sites).

                                   

                                  cc895e2226d689ccd029deb6f42a586e.jpg
                                  Wikipedia’s open format also means it doesn’t generally meet the expectations for credible, scholarly research. Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0.

                                   

                                  Wikipedia revolutionized how many people retrieve information and pioneered an open-publishing format that allowed a community of people to post, edit, and debate content. While this is an important contribution to society, Wikipedia is not considered a scholarly or credible source. Like other encyclopedias, Wikipedia should not be used in college-level research because it is not a primary source. In addition, since its content can be posted and edited by anyone, we cannot be sure of the credibility of the content. There is no guarantee that what you read will be up-to-date or correct. Sometimes Wikipedia pages display inaccurate information, including hoax articles or prank edits. Even though there are self-appointed “experts” who monitor and edit some of the information on Wikipedia, we cannot verify their credentials or the review process that information goes through before it’s posted.

                                  When it comes down to it, Wikipedia is a good place to go to obtain basic information, general knowledge, personal research, developing news stories, or trivia about your subject. You should access the primary source, footnote citation references at the bottom of the page (if there are any) to look for information elsewhere. But saying to an audience, “my source for the information in this speech is Wikipedia,” will probably do little to convince your audience that you are knowledgeable and have done adequate research for the speech.

                                   

                                  Types of Sources

                                  Keeping in mind the considerations discussed in this section will help you select online sources for use in your work. They will also help you as you navigate the breadth of information on and offline in your daily life. We have already discussed most of these as available through your library database, but let’s look specifically at these different types of sources that may be relevant to your speech topic. These include periodicals, newspapers, books, reference tools, interviews, and websites. You must know how to evaluate the credibility of each type of source material.

                                  Periodicals

                                  Periodicals include magazines and journals, as they are published periodically. Many library databases can access periodicals from around the world and from years past. A common database is Academic Search Premier (a similar version is Academic Search Complete). Many databases, like this one, allow you to narrow your search terms, which can be very helpful as you try to find good sources that are relevant to your topic. 

                                  Within your search results, you will need to distinguish between magazines and academic journals. In general, academic journals are considered more scholarly and credible than magazines because most of the content in them is peer-reviewed. The peer-review process is the most rigorous form of review, which takes several months to years and ensures that the information that is published has been vetted and approved by numerous experts on the subject. Academic journals are usually affiliated with professional organizations rather than for-profit corporations, and neither authors nor editors are paid for their contributions. For example, the Quarterly Journal of Speech is one of the oldest journals in communication studies and is published by the National Communication Association.

                                   

                                  9.2.2N.jpeg
                                  The National Communication Association publishes several peer-reviewed academic journals. The National Communication Association’s office in Washington DC, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0.

                                   

                                  As mentioned earlier, most databases have a filter that lets you limit your results to “peer-reviewed.” There are also subject-specific databases you can use to find periodicals. For example, Communication and Mass Media Complete is a database that includes articles from hundreds of journals related to communication studies. It may be acceptable for you to include magazine sources in your speech, but you should still consider the credibility of the source. Magazines like Scientific American and Time are generally more credible and reliable than sources like People or Entertainment Weekly.

                                  Newspapers and Books

                                  Newspapers and books can be excellent sources but must still be evaluated for relevance and credibility. Newspapers are good for topics that are developing quickly, as they are updated daily. While there are well-known newspapers of record like the New York Times, smaller local papers can also be credible and relevant if your speech topic doesn’t have national or international reach. You can access local, national, and international newspapers through electronic databases like LexisNexis. If a search result comes up that doesn’t have a byline with an author’s name or an organization like the Associated Press or Reuters cited, then it might be an editorial. Editorials may also have bylines, which make them look like traditional newspaper articles even though they are opinion-based. It is important to distinguish between news articles and editorials because editorials are usually not objective and do not go through the same review process that a news story does before it’s published. It’s also important to know the background of your paper. Some newspapers are more tabloid-focused or may be published by a specific interest group that has an agenda and biases. So it’s usually better to go with a newspaper that is recognized as the newspaper of record for a particular area.

                                  Books are good for a variety of subjects and are useful for in-depth research that you can’t get as regularly from newspapers or magazines. Edited books with multiple chapters by different authors can be especially good to get a variety of perspectives on a topic.

                                   

                                  97ed9b84412e0a3cb0a133125d14f78b.jpg

                                  Don’t assume that you can’t find a book relevant to a topic that is fairly recent since books may be published within a year of a major event. Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 2.0.

                                   

                                  To evaluate the credibility of a book, you’ll want to know some things about the author. You can usually find this information at the front or back of the book. If an author is a credentialed and recognized expert in their area, the book will be more credible. But just because someone wrote a book on a subject doesn’t mean they are the most credible source. For example, a quick search online brings up many books related to public speaking that are written by people who have no formal training in communication or speech. While they may have the public speaking experience that can help them get a book deal with a certain publisher, that alone wouldn’t qualify them to write a textbook, as textbook authors are expected to be credentialed experts—that is, people with experience and advanced training/degrees in their area. The publisher of a book can also be an indicator of credibility. Books published by university/academic presses (University of Chicago Press, Duke University Press) are considered more credible than books published by trade presses (Penguin, Random House) because they are often peer-reviewed and they are not primarily profit-driven.

                                  Reference Tools

                                  Unfortunately, many college students are reluctant to give up their reliance on reference tools like dictionaries and encyclopedias. While reference tools like dictionaries and encyclopedias are excellent for providing a speaker with a background on a topic, they should not be the foundation of your research unless they are academic and/or specialized.

                                  Dictionaries are handy tools when we aren’t familiar with a particular word. However, citing a dictionary like Webster’s as a source in your speech is often unnecessary. Webster’s Dictionary is only useful when you need to do something in passing, like challenge a Scrabble word, but it isn’t the best source for college-level research. You will inevitably come upon a word that you don’t know while doing research. Most good authors define the terms they use within the content of their writing. In that case, it’s better to use the author’s definition than a dictionary definition. Also, citing a dictionary doesn’t show deep research skills; it only shows an understanding of alphabetical order. So ideally, you would quote or paraphrase the author’s definition rather than turn to a general dictionary like Webster’s. If you must turn to a dictionary, you should look for an academic dictionary like The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is the most comprehensive dictionary in the English language, with more than twenty volumes. You can’t access the OED for free online, but most libraries pay for a subscription that you can access as a student or patron. While the OED is an academic dictionary, it is not specialized, and you may need a specialized dictionary when dealing with very specific or technical terms. The Dictionary of Business and Economics is an example of an academic and specialized dictionary.

                                  Many students have relied on encyclopedias for research in high school, but most encyclopedias, like World BookEncarta, or Britannica, are not primary sources. Instead, they are examples of secondary sources that aggregate or compile research done by others in a condensed summary. As noted earlier, reference sources like encyclopedias are excellent resources to get you informed about the basics of a topic, but at the college level, primary sources are expected. Many encyclopedias are Internet-based, which makes them convenient, but they are still not primary sources, and their credibility should be even more scrutinized. As with dictionaries, there are some encyclopedias that are better suited for college research. The Encyclopedia of Black America and the Encyclopedia of Disaster Relief are examples of specialized academic reference sources that will often include, in each entry, an author’s name and credentials and more primary source information.

                                  Websites

                                  We already know that utilizing library resources can help you automatically filter out content that may not be scholarly or credible since the content in research databases is selected and restricted. However, some information may be better retrieved from websites. Even though both research databases and websites are electronic sources, two key differences between them may impact their credibility. First, most of the content in research databases is or was printed but has been converted to digital formats for easier and broader access. In contrast, most of the content on websites has not been printed. Although not always the case, the exceptions to this are documents in PDF form found on web pages. You may want to do additional research or consult with your instructor to determine if that can count as a printed source. Second, most of the content on research databases has gone through editorial review, which means a professional editor or a peer editor has reviewed the material to make sure it is credible and worthy of publication. Most content on websites is not subjected to the same review process, as just about anyone with Internet access can self-publish information on a personal website, blog, wiki, or social media page. So what sort of information may be better retrieved from websites, and how can we evaluate the credibility of a website?

                                  Most well-known organizations have official websites where they publish information related to their mission. If you know there is an organization related to your topic, you may want to see if they have an official website. It is almost always better to get information from an official website because it is then more likely to be considered primary source information. However, keep in mind that organizations may have a bias or a political agenda that affects the information they put out. If you do get information from an official website, make sure to include that in your verbal citation to help establish your credibility. Official reports are also often best found on websites, as they rarely appear in their full form in periodicals, books, or newspapers. Government agencies, nonprofits, and other public service organizations often compose detailed and credible reports on a wide variety of topics.

                                   

                                  dede391edab6062dd6219cdce258f428.jpg

                                  The US Census Bureau’s official website is a great place to find current and credible statistics related to population numbers and demographic statistics. U.S. Census Bureau – public domain.

                                   

                                  As we mentioned earlier, you must evaluate the credibility of a website by determining the site’s accountability. By accountability, we mean determining who is ultimately responsible for the content put out and whose interests the content meets. The more information that is included on a website, the better able you will be to determine its accountability. Ideally, all or most of the following information would be included: organization/agency name, author’s name and contact information, the date the information was posted or published, name and contact information of the person in charge of web content (i.e., web editor or webmaster), and a link to information about the organization/agency/business mission. While all this information doesn’t have to be present to warrant the use of the material, the less accountable information is available, the more you should scrutinize the information. You can also begin to judge the credibility of a website by its domain name. Some common domain names are .com.net.org.edu.mil, and .gov. For each type of domain, there are questions you may ask that will help you evaluate the site’s credibility. You can see a summary of these questions in Table 9.1.4. Note that some domain names are marked as “restricted,” and others aren’t. When a domain is restricted, .mil, for example, a person or group wanting to register that domain name has to prove that their content is appropriate for the guidelines of the domain name. Essentially, this limits access to the information published on those domain names, which increases the overall credibility.

                                   

                                  Table 9.1.4: Website Domain Names and Credibility

                                   
                                  Domain NamePurposeRestricted?Questions to Ask
                                  .com, .netCommercialNoIs the information posted for profit? Is the information posted influenced by advertisers?
                                  .orgMostly non-commercial organizationsNoWhat is the mission of the organization? Who is responsible for the content? Is the information published to enhance public knowledge or to solicit donations?
                                  .eduHigher educationYesWho published the information? (the institution or an administrator, faculty member, staff member, or student)
                                  .milUS militaryYesMost information on .mil sites will be credible since it is not published for profit, and only limited people have access to post information.
                                  .govUS governmentYesMost information on .gov sites will be credible since it is not published for profit, and only limited people have access to post information.

                                   

                                  Conducting Your Own Research

                                  Up to this point, we have discussed finding sources (both primary and secondary) that have been published. It is also possible for you to use some truly firsthand information in your speeches by conducting your own primary research.

                                  Surveys

                                  One type of primary research you can use is surveys. Your instructor may ask you to construct a short survey or questions used to learn something about your audience before the speech. A survey can be helpful if the questions are well-written and if the survey is not too long.

                                  For the most part, a survey should use objective questions. That means questions with a few predetermined answers for the survey-takers to choose from, such as multiple-choice, true-false, I agree/Neutral/I disagree, or yes-no. If the researcher wants to construct a multiple-choice question, they must try to provide all the reasonable options.

                                  For example, if a student wanted to give a speech about why consumers should not buy gas with ethanol and used this question:

                                  What grade of gas do you buy for your car? Regular, Medium, High Octane/Premium

                                  The survey writer left out the option of “diesel” and failed to account for students who don’t own or drive a car, who are unsure what grade of gasoline they buy, or who buy more than one grade of gasoline.

                                  Another misstep to avoid is asking open-ended questions. If you wanted to know what grocery store in the area your audience patronized, this question would not be ideal: 

                                  At which grocery store does your family shop?

                                  _______________________

                                  This alternate version would be more useful and easy to interpret: 

                                  At which of these grocery stores does your family shop?

                                  • Food City
                                  • Target
                                  • Publix
                                  • Kroger
                                  • Save-a-Lot
                                  • Walmart
                                  • Shoprite
                                  • Other: ______________________

                                  Allowing the people taking your survey to select more than one of the responses is best since few people shop at just one store. Or you could phrase the question, “At which of these grocery stores does your family spend most of its money?” There would only be one answer in that case, and it would tell you more specific information.

                                  The criteria for what constitutes a “short” survey are fluid, but five questions would probably be enough to let you know what you need. A survey taker might become tired of answering a long list of questions. Other things to keep in mind when writing questions are to avoid using too vague or too personal questions because respondents may not know how or may not want to answer. Furthermore, to get honest responses, it helps to write questions in an unbiased way. “Do you favor raising the minimum wage in our state to $15.00 per hour?” is more balanced than “Do you believe that business owners in our state should be required to treat their employees better by having to raise their minimum wage to a more reasonable and fair $15.00 per hour?” You also would not want to insult your survey takers with questions such as “Do you agree that all math majors are antisocial?”

                                  Finally, you will administer the survey. There are many free online tools for surveys; two popular options are Survey Monkey and Google Forms. These are easy to use and helpful for short surveys (you might need to pay a fee for longer surveys or send surveys to many people). You can also conduct surveys in person, but that takes longer and would not be anonymous, meaning people may be less likely to answer honestly. Finally, your instructor may ask you to make paper copies and pass them around the class.

                                  You can use a variety of means to conduct surveys. Using surveys is valuable because knowing your audience’s level of knowledge and their attitudes about your topic ahead of time can help create an audience-centered speech.

                                  Interviews

                                  When interviewing for a speech, you should access a person who has expertise in or direct experience with your speech topic. If you follow the suggestions for choosing a topic that was mentioned earlier, you may already know something about your speech topic and may have connections to people who would be good interview subjects. Previous employers, internship supervisors, teachers, community leaders, or even relatives may be appropriate interviewees, given your topic. If you do not have a connection to someone you can interview, you can often find someone via the Internet who would be willing to answer some questions. Many informative and persuasive speech topics relate to current issues, and most current issues have organizations that represent their needs. For an informative speech on ageism or a persuasive speech on lowering the voting age, a quick Internet search for “youth rights” leads you to the webpage for the National Youth Rights Association. Like most organization web pages, you can click on the “Contact Us” link to get information about leaders in the organization. You could also connect to members of the group through Facebook and interview young people who are active in the organization. For example, if you are going to give a speech about the effects of the No Child Left Behind policy or the Common Core standards, it makes sense to talk to an elementary school principal for their knowledge and expertise on the issue.

                                  Once you have identified a good interviewee, you will want to begin researching and preparing your questions. Open-ended questions cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no” and can provide descriptions and details that will add to your speech. Quotes and paraphrases from your interview can add a personal side to a topic or at least convey potentially complicated information in a more conversational and interpersonal way.

                                  Closed questions can be answered with one or two words and can provide a starting point to get to more detailed information if the interviewer has prepared follow-up questions. Unless the guidelines or occasion for your speech suggest otherwise, you should balance your interview data with the other sources in your speech. Don’t let your references to the interview take over your speech.

                                   

                                  9.2.5N.jpg
                                  Even if you record an interview, take some handwritten notes and make regular eye contact with the interviewee to show that you are paying attention. David Davies – Interviews – CC BY-SA 2.0.

                                   

                                  Tips for Conducting Interviews

                                  1. Do preliminary research to answer basic questions. Many people and organizations have information available publicly. Don’t waste interview time asking questions like “What year did your organization start?” when you can find that on the website.
                                  2. Plan questions ahead of time. Even if you know the person, treat it as a formal interview so you can be efficient.
                                  3. Ask open-ended questions that can’t be answered with only a yes or no. Questions that begin with how and why are generally more open-ended than doing and did questions. Make sure you have follow-up questions ready.
                                  4. Use the interview to ask for the personal side of an issue that you may not be able to find in other resources. Personal narratives about experiences can resonate with an audience.
                                  5. Make sure you are prepared. If interviewing in person, have paper, pens, and a recording device if you’re using one. Test your recording device ahead of time. If interviewing over the phone, make sure you have good service so you don’t drop the call and that you have enough battery power on your phone. When interviewing on the phone or via video chat, make sure distractions (e.g., barking dogs) are minimized.
                                  6. Whether the interview is conducted face-to-face, over the phone, or via video (e.g., Skype), you must get permission to record. Recording can be useful as it increases accuracy and the level of detail taken away from the interview. Most smartphones have free apps now that allow you to record face-to-face or phone conversations.
                                  7. Whether you record or not, take written notes during the interview. Aside from writing the interviewee’s responses, you can also take note of follow-up questions that come to mind or notes on the nonverbal communication of the interviewee.
                                  8. Mention ahead of time if you think you’ll have follow-up questions, so the interviewee can expect further contact.
                                  9. Reflect and expand on your notes soon after the interview. It’s impossible to transcribe everything during the interview, but you will remember much of what you didn’t have time to write down and can add it.
                                  10. Follow up with a thank-you note. People are busy, and thanking them for their time and the information they provided will be appreciated.

                                   

                                  Exercises

                                  1. Getting integrated: Identify some ways that research skills are helpful in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, personal, and civic.
                                  2. Go to the library webpage for your school. What are some resources that will be helpful for your research? Identify at least two library databases and at least one reference librarian. If you need help with research, what resources are available?
                                  3. What are some websites that you think are credible for doing college-level research? Why? What are some websites that are not credible? Why?

                                  9.2 Supporting Materials

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  As you are researching for your speeches, we discussed that it is not a totally linear process. It would be nice if the process was like following a recipe, but it loops back and forth as you move toward crafting something that will effectively present your ideas and research. Even as you practice, you will make small changes to your basic outline since the way something looks on paper, and the way it sounds are sometimes different. For example, long sentences may look intelligent on paper, but they are hard to say in one breath and hard for the audience to understand. You will also find it necessary to use more repetition or restatement in oral delivery.

                                  This section is about what you are searching for in your research, supporting materials. We will discuss: what they are, what they do, and how to use them effectively. Hopefully, you have already been thinking about how to support your ideas when you were finding a topic and crafting a central idea. Supporting material also relates directly to the previously mentioned presentation aids. Whereas presentation aids are visual or auditory supporting materials, here we will deal with verbal supporting materials.

                                  Using your supporting materials effectively is essential because, as an audience, we crave detail and specifics. Let’s say you are discussing going out to eat with a group of friends. You suggest a certain restaurant, and your friends make a comment about the restaurant that you have not heard or don’t accept at face value, so you ask in some way for an explanation, clarification, or proof. If they say, “Their servers are really rude,” you might ask, “What did they do?” If they say, “Their food is delicious,” you might ask, “What dish is good?” Likewise, if they say, “The place is nasty,” you will want to know what their health rating is or why your friends made this statement. We want to know specifics and are not satisfied with vagueness. Thinking about who your audience is and what they know and would like to know will help you tailor your information. Also, try to incorporate proxemic information, meaning information that is geographically relevant to your audience. For example, if delivering a speech about prison reform to an audience made up of Californians, citing statistics from North Carolina prisons would not be as proxemic as citing information from California prisons. The closer you can get the information to the audience, the better.

                                  Supporting material can be thought of as the specifics that make your ideas, arguments, assertions, points, or concepts real and concrete. Sometimes supporting materials are referred to as the “meat” on the bones of the outline, but we also like to think of them as pegs you create in the audience’s mind to hang the ideas on. Another even more useful idea is to think of them as pillars or supports for a bridge. Without these supports, the bridge would just be a piece of concrete that would not hold up once cars start to cross it. Similarly, the points and arguments you are making in your speech may not hold up without the material to “support” what you are saying.

                                   

                                  Strength
                                  “Strength” by hernanpba is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

                                   

                                  Of course, all supporting materials are not considered equal. Some are better at some functions or for some speeches than others. In general, there are two basic ways to think about the role of supporting materials. Either they:

                                  1. clarify, explain, or provide specifics (and therefore understanding) for the audience, or
                                  2. prove and back up arguments and therefore persuade the audience.

                                  Of course, some can do both.

                                  You might ask, how much supporting material is enough? The time you are allowed or required to speak will largely determine that. The supporting materials are found in the subpoints of your outline (A, B, etc.) and sub-subpoints (1, 2, etc.) You can see clearly on the outline how many you have and can omit one if time constraints demand that. However, in our experience as public speaking instructors, we find that students often struggle with having enough supporting materials. We often comment on a student’s speech that we wanted the student to answer more of the “what, where, who, how, why, and when” questions and add more description, proof, or evidence because their ideas were vague.

                                  Students often struggle with the difference between the “main idea” and “supporting ideas.” For example, in this list, you will quickly recognize a commonality.

                                  • Chocolate
                                  • Vanilla
                                  • Strawberry
                                  • Butter Pecan

                                  Of course, they are popular flavors of ice cream. The main idea is “Popular Flavors of Ice Cream,” and the individual flavors are supporting materials to clarify the main idea; they “hold” it up for understanding and clarification. If the list were:

                                  • Rocky Road
                                  • Honey Jalapeno Pickle
                                  • Banana Split
                                  • Chocolate
                                  • Wildberry Lavender

                                  You would recognize two or three as ice cream flavors (not as popular), but #2 and #5 do not seem to fit the list (Covington, 2013). But you still recognize them as types of something and infer from the list that they have to do with ice cream flavors. “Ice cream flavors” is the general subject, and the flavors are the particulars.

                                  Those examples were easy. Let’s look at this one. One of the words in this list is the general, and the rest are the particulars.

                                  • Love
                                  • Emotion
                                  • Sadness
                                  • Disgust
                                  • Tolerance

                                  Emotion is a general category, and the list here shows specific emotions. Here is another:

                                  • Spaying helps prevent uterine infections and breast cancer.
                                  • Pets who live in states with high rates of spaying/neutering live longer.
                                  • Your pet’s health is positively affected by being spayed or neutered.
                                  • Spaying lessens the increased urge to roam.
                                  • Male pets who are neutered eliminate their chances of getting testicular and prostate cancer.

                                  Which one is the main point (the general idea), and which are the supporting points that include evidence to prove the main point? You should see that the third bullet point (“Your pet’s health is positively affected . . .”) would be a main point or argument in a persuasive speech on spaying or neutering your pet. The basic outline for the speech might look something like this:

                                  • Spaying or neutering your pet is good for public health.
                                  • Spaying or neutering your pet is good for your pet’s health.
                                  • Spaying or neutering your pet is good for your family’s life and budget.

                                  Of course, each of the four supporting points in this example (“helps uterine cancer in female pets, “etc.) cannot just be made up. The speaker would need to refer to or cite reliable statistics or testimony from veterinarians, researchers, public health organizations, and humane societies. For that reason, here is the more specific support which you would use in a speech to be ethical and credible. Notice that the subpoints and sub-subpoints in this example use statistics and specific details to support the claims being made and provides sources.

                                  2. Spaying or neutering your pet is good for your pet’s health.

                                  A. Spaying helps prevent uterine infections and breast cancer, which is fatal in about 50 percent of dogs and 90 percent of cats, as found in the online article “Top Ten Reasons to Spay or Neuter Your Pet,” written in 2015 and posted on the website for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

                                  B. The article also states that pets who live in the states with the highest rates of spaying/neutering also live the longest.

                                  1. According to Natalie DiBlasio, writing for USA Today on May 7, 2013, in Mississippi, the lowest-ranking state for pet longevity, 44% of the dogs are not neutered or spayed.
                                  2. She goes on to say that other issues affecting pet longevity have to do with climate, heartworm, and the income of owners.

                                  C. The Human Society of America’s website features the August 2014 article, “Why You Should Spay/Neuter Your Pet,” which states that spaying lessens their urge to roam, exposure to fights with other animals, getting struck by cars, and other mishaps.

                                  D. Also, according to the same article, male pets who are neutered eliminate their chances of getting testicular and prostate cancer.

                                  With all the sources available to you through reliable Internet and published sources, finding information is not difficult. Recognizing supporting information from the general idea you are trying to support or prove is more difficult, as is providing an adequate citation.

                                  Along with clarifying and proving, supporting materials, especially narrative ones, also make your speech much more interesting and attention-getting. Ultimately, you will be perceived as a more credible speaker if you provide clarifying, probative (proof-giving and logical), and interesting supporting materials.

                                   

                                  Types of Supporting Materials

                                  Essentially, there are seven types of supporting materials: examples, narratives, definitions, descriptions, historical and scientific facts, statistics, and testimony. Each provides a different type of support, and you will want to choose the supporting materials that best help you make the point you want to get across to your audience. 

                                  Examples

                                  This type of supporting material is the first and easiest to use but also easy to forget. Examples are almost always short but concrete, specific instances to illuminate a concept. They are designed to give audiences a reference point. If you were describing a type of architecture, you would obviously show visual aids of it and give verbal descriptions of it, but you could say, “You pass an example of this type of architecture every time you go downtown—City Hall.” An example is a cited case that is representative of a larger whole. Examples are especially beneficial when presenting information that an audience may not be familiar with. An example must be quickly understandable, something the audience can pull out of their memory or experience quickly.

                                  You may pull examples directly from your research materials, making sure to cite the source. The following is an example used in a speech about the negative effects of standardized testing: “Standardized testing makes many students anxious, and even ill. On March 14, 2002, the Sacramento Bee reported that some standardized tests now come with instructions indicating what teachers should do with a test booklet if a student throws up on it.”

                                  You may also cite examples from your personal experience, if appropriate: “I remember being sick to my stomach while waiting for my SAT to begin.”

                                  You may also use hypothetical examples, which can be useful when you need to provide an example that is extraordinary or goes beyond most people’s direct experience. Capitalize on this opportunity by incorporating vivid descriptions into the example that appeal to the audience’s senses. Always make sure to indicate when you are using a hypothetical example, as it would be unethical to present an example as real when it is not. Including the word “imagine,” or something similar in the first sentence of the example can easily do this.

                                  Whether real or hypothetical, examples used as supporting material can be brief or extended. Brief examples are usually one or two sentences, as you can see in the following hypothetical example:

                                  “Imagine that your child, little sister, or nephew has earned good grades for the past few years of elementary school, loves art class, and also plays on the soccer team. You hear the unmistakable sounds of crying when they come home from school, and you find out that art and soccer have been eliminated because students did not meet the federal guidelines for performance on standardized tests.”

                                  Brief examples are useful when the audience is already familiar with a concept or during a review. Extended examples, sometimes called illustrations, are several sentences long and can be effective in introductions or conclusions to get the audience’s attention or leave a lasting impression. It is important to think about relevance and time limits when considering using an extended illustration. Since most speeches are given within time constraints, you want to make sure the extended illustration is relevant to your speech purpose and thesis and that it doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of the speech. If a brief example or series of brief examples would convey the same content and create the same tone as the extended example, then, obviously, go with brevity.

                                  The key to effectively using examples in your speeches is this: what is an example to you may not be an example to your audience if they have a different experience. Experienced speakers cannot use the same examples or pop culture references they used in class twenty years earlier. Television shows from twenty years ago are pretty meaningless to audiences today. Time and age are not the only reasons an example may not work with the audience. If you are a huge soccer fan speaking to a group who barely knows soccer, using a well-known soccer player as an example of perseverance or overcoming discrimination in the sports world may not communicate. It may only leave the audience members scratching their heads.

                                  Additionally, one good, appropriate example is worth several less apt ones. Keep in mind that in the distinction between supporting materials that prove, those that clarify, and those that do both, examples are used to clarify.

                                  Narratives

                                  Narratives are stories or anecdotes that are useful in speeches to interest the audience and clarify, dramatize, and emphasize ideas. They have, if done well, strong emotional power. They can be used in the introduction, the body, and the conclusion of the speech. They can be short, as anecdotes usually are. Think of the stories you often see in Readers’ Digest, human interest stories on the local news, or what you might post on Facebook about a bad experience you had at the DMV. They could be longer, although they should not take up large portions of the speech.

                                  Narratives can be personal, literary, historical, or hypothetical.

                                  Personal narratives can be helpful in situations where you desire to:

                                  • Relate to the audience on a human level, especially if they may see you as competent but not really similar or connected to them.
                                  • Build your credibility by mentioning your experience with a topic.

                                  Of course, personal narratives must be true. They must also not portray you as more competent, experienced, brave, intelligent, etc. than you are; in other words, along with being truthful in using personal narratives, you should be reasonably humble.

                                  An example of a literary narrative might be one of Aesop’s fables, a short story by O’Henry, or an appropriate tale from another culture. Keep in mind that because of their power, stories tend to be remembered more than other parts of the speech. Do you want the story to overshadow your content? Scenes from films would be another example of a literary narrative, but as with examples, you must consider the audience’s frame of reference and if they will have seen the film.

                                  Historical narratives (sometimes called documented narratives) have power because they can also prove an idea as well as clarify one. In using these, you should treat them as fact and therefore give a citation as to where you found the historical narrative. By “historical,” we do not mean the story refers to something that happened many years ago, only that it has happened in the past, and there were witnesses to validate the happening.

                                  If you were trying to argue for the end to the death penalty because it leads to unjust executions, one good example of a person who was executed and then found innocent afterward would be both emotional and probative. Here, be careful of using theatrical movies as your source of historical narrative. Hollywood likes to change history to make the story they want. For example, many people think Braveheart is historically accurate, but it is off on many key points—even the kilts, which were not worn by the Scots until the 1600s.

                                   

                                  Moving Stories
                                  “Moving Stories” by Het Nieuwe Instituut is licensed under CC BY 2.0

                                   

                                  Hypothetical narratives are ones that could happen but have not yet. To be effective, they should be based on reality. Here are two examples:

                                  Picture this incident: You are standing in line at the grocery checkout, reading the headlines on the Star and National Enquirer for a laugh, checking your phone. Then, the middle-aged person in front of you grabs their shoulder and falls to the ground, unconscious. What would you do in a situation like this? While it has probably never happened to you, people have medical emergencies in public many times a day. Would you know how to respond?

                                  Imagine yourself in this situation. It is 3:00 in the morning. You are awakened from a pretty good sleep by a dog barking loudly in the neighborhood. You get up and see green lights coming into your house from the backyard. You go in the direction of the lights and unlock your back door, and there, right beside your deck, is an alien spaceship. The door opens, and visitors from another planet come out and invite you in, and for the next hour, you tour their ship. You can somehow understand them because their communication abilities are far advanced from ours. Now, back to reality. If you were in a foreign country, you would not be able to understand a foreign language unless you had studied it. That is why you should learn a foreign language in college.

                                  Obviously, the second is so “off-the-wall” that the audience would be wondering about the connection, although it definitely does attract attention. If using a hypothetical narrative, be sure that it is clear that the narrative is hypothetical, not factual. Because of their attention-getting nature, hypothetical narratives are often used in introductions.

                                  Definitions

                                  When we use the term “definition” here as supporting material, we are not talking about something you can easily find in the dictionary or from the first thing that comes up on Google. First, using a dictionary definition does not really show your audience that you have researched a topic (anyone can look up a definition in a few seconds). Secondly, does the audience need a definition of a word like “love,” “bravery,” or “commitment?” They may consider it insulting for you to provide them with the definition of those words.

                                  To define means to set limits on something; defining a word is setting limits on what it means, how the audience should think about the word, and/or how you will use it. You only need to define words that would be unfamiliar to the audience or words that you want to use in a specialized way.

                                  You need to anticipate audience confusion and define legal, medical, military, technical, or other forms of “jargon” or “slang.” Some of these words may be in foreign languages, such as Latin (habeas corpus, quid pro quo). Some of them may be acronyms; CBE is a term being used currently in higher education that means “Competency-Based Education.” That is part of a definition, but not a full one—what is “competency-based education?” To answer that question, you should do your best to find an officially accepted definition and cite it.

                                  You may want to use a stipulated definition early in your speech. In this case, you clearly tell the audience how you are going to use a word or phrase in your speech. “When I use the phrase ‘liberal democracy’ in this speech, I am using it in the historical sense of a constitution, representative government, and elected officials, not in the sense of any particular issues that are being debated today between progressives and conservatives.”

                                  This is a helpful technique and makes sure your audience understands you, but you would only want to do this for terms that have confusing or controversial meanings for some. Keep in mind that repeating a definition verbatim from a dictionary often leads to fluency hiccups because definitions are not written to be read aloud. It’s a good idea to put the definition into your own words (still remembering to cite the original source) to make it easier for you to deliver.

                                  Classification and Differentiation

                                  This is a fancy way of saying, “X is a type of Y, but it is different from the other Ys in that . . .” “A bicycle is a type of vehicle that has two wheels, handlebars instead of a steering wheel, and is powered by the feet of the driver.” Obviously, you know what a bicycle is, and it does not need defining, so here are some better examples:

                                  Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) is a (type of) surgical procedure that (how is it different) involves the placement of an adjustable silicone belt around the upper portion of the stomach using a laparoscope. The band can be tightened by adding saline to fill the band, like blowing air into a doughnut-shaped balloon. The band is connected to a port that is placed under the skin of the abdomen. This port is used to introduce or remove saline into the band.

                                  Gestational diabetes is a (type of) diabetic condition (how is it different) that appears during pregnancy and usually goes away after the birth of the baby.

                                  Social publishing platforms are a (type of) social medium where (how is it different) long and short-form written content can be shared with other users.

                                  Operational Definitions

                                  Operational definitions give examples of an action or idea to define it. If we were to define “quid pro quo sexual harassment” operationally, we might use a hypothetical narrative of a female employee who is pressured by her supervisor to date him and told she must go out with him socially to get a promotion. Operational definitions do not have to be this dramatic, but they do draw a picture and answer the question, “What does this look like in real life?” rather than using synonyms to define.

                                  Definition by Contrast or Comparison

                                  You can define a term or concept by comparison or telling what it is similar to or different from. This method requires the audience to have an understanding of whatever you are using as the point of contrast or comparison. When alcoholism or drug addiction is defined as a disease, that is a comparison. Although not caused by a virus or bacteria, addiction disorder has other qualities that are disease-like.

                                  When you are defining, by contrast, you are pointing out how a concept or term is distinct from another, more familiar one. For example, “pop culture” is defined as different from “high culture” in that, traditionally, popular culture has been associated with people of lower socioeconomic status (i.e., less wealth or education). High culture, on the other hand, is associated with the “official” culture of the more highly educated within the upper classes. Here, the definition of popular culture is clarified by highlighting the differences between it and high culture.

                                  A similar form of definition by contrast is defining by negation, which is stipulating what something is not. This famous quotation from Nelson Mandela is an example: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Here, Mandela is helping us draw limits around a concept by saying what it is not.

                                  Analogies involve a comparison of ideas, items, or circumstances. When you compare two things that actually exist, you are using a literal analogy—for example, “Germany and Sweden are both European countries that have had nationalized health care for decades.” Another type of literal comparison is a historical analogy. In Mary Fisher’s now famous 1992 speech to the Republican National Convention, she compared the silence of many US political leaders regarding the HIV/AIDS crisis to that of many European leaders in the years before the Holocaust.

                                  A figurative analogy compares things that are not normally related, often relying on metaphor, simile, or other figurative language devices. In the following example, wind and revolution are compared: “Just as the wind brings changes in the weather, so does revolution bring change to countries.”

                                  When you compare differences, you are highlighting contrast—for example, “Although the United States is often thought of as the most medically advanced country in the world, other Western countries with nationalized health care have lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies.” To use analogies effectively and ethically, you must choose ideas, items, or circumstances to compare that are similar enough to warrant the analogy. The more similar the two things you’re comparing, the stronger your support. If an entire speech on nationalized health care was based on comparing the United States and Sweden, then the analogy isn’t too strong since Sweden has approximately the same population as the state of North Carolina. Using the analogy without noting this large difference would be misrepresenting your supporting material. You could disclose the discrepancy and use other forms of supporting evidence to show that despite the population difference, the two countries are similar in other areas to strengthen your speech.

                                  Descriptions

                                  The key to description is to think in terms of the five senses: sight (visual; how does the thing look in terms of color, size, shape), hearing (auditory; volume, musical qualities), taste (gustatory; sweet, bitter, salty, sour, gritty, smooth, chewy), smell (olfactory; sweet, rancid, fragrant, aromatic, musky), and feel (tactile; rough, silky, nubby, scratchy). The words kinesthetic (movement of the body) and organic (feelings related to the inner workings of the body) can be added to those senses to describe an internal physical feeling, such as straining muscles or pain (kinesthetic) and nausea or feelings of heightened emotions (organic).

                                  Description as a method of support also depends on details or answering the five questions of what, where, how, who, when. To use description, you must dig deeper into your vocabulary and think concretely. This example shows that progression.

                                  • Furniture
                                  • A chair
                                  • A lounge chair
                                  • An Art Deco lounge chair
                                  • An old green velvet upholstered wooden Art Deco lounge chair. 
                                  • An old green velvet upholstered wooden Art Deco lounge chair with several scratches on the legs.

                                  As you add more description, two things happen. The “camera focus” becomes clearer, but you also add tone or attitude. A recliner is one thing, but who buys a lime green velvet recliner? And someone sat in it, smoked, and was sloppy about it. In this case, the last line is probably too much description unless you want to paint a picture of a careless person with an odd taste in furniture.

                                   

                                  SOLD: Art Deco chair, paired with settee
                                  “SOLD: Art Deco chair, paired with settee” by TheLivingRoominKenmore is licensed under CC BY 2.0

                                   

                                  A description is useful as supporting material in terms of describing processes. Describing processes requires detail and not taking for granted what the audience already knows. Some instructors use the “peanut butter sandwich” example to make this point: How would you describe making peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone who had never seen a sandwich, peanut butter, or jelly? You would need to put yourself in their shoes to describe the process and not assume they know that the peanut butter and jelly go on the inside, facing surfaces of the bread and that two pieces of bread are involved.

                                  Historical and Scientific Fact

                                  This type of supporting material is useful for clarification but is especially useful for proving a point. President John Adams is quoted as saying, “Facts are stubborn things,” but that does not mean everyone accepts every fact as a fact or that everyone is capable of distinguishing a fact from an opinion. A fact is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “The place most people in the world tend to think their opinions reside.” This is a humorous definition but often true about how we approach facts. The meaning of “fact” is complicated by the context in which it is being used. The National Center for Science Education (2008) defines fact this way:

                                  In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as ‘true.’ Truth in science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.

                                  Another source explains fact this way:

                                  [Fact is] a truth known by actual experience or observation. The hardness of iron, the number of ribs in a squirrel’s body, the existence of fossil trilobites, and the like are all facts. Is it a fact that electrons orbit around atomic nuclei? Is it a fact that Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar? Is it a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow? None of us has observed any of these things - the first is an inference from a variety of different observations, the second is reported by Plutarch and other historians who lived close enough in time and space to the event that we trust their report, and the third is an inductive inference after repeated observations. (“Scientific Thought: Facts, Hypotheses, Theories, and all that stuff”)

                                  Without getting into a philosophical dissertation on the meaning of truth, for our purposes, facts are pieces of information with established “backup.” You can cite who discovered the fact and how other authorities have supported it. Some facts are so common that most people don’t know where they started—who actually discovered that the water molecule is two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen (H2O)? But we could find out if we wanted to (it was, by the way, the 18th-century chemist Henry Cavendish). In using scientific and historical facts in your speech, do not take citations for granted. If it is a fact worth saying and a fact new to the audience, assume you should cite the source of the fact, getting as close to the original as possible.

                                  Also, the difference between a historical narrative (mentioned above) and a historical fact has to do with length. A historical fact might just be a date, place, or action, such as “President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981, in front of Washington, D.C. Hilton Hotel.” A historical narrative would go into much more detail and add dramatic elements, such as this assassination attempt from the point of view of Secret Service agents.

                                  Statistics

                                  Statistics are misunderstood. First, the meaning of the term is misunderstood. Statistics are not just numbers or numerical facts. The essence of statistics is the collection, analysis, comparison, and interpretation of numerical data, understanding its comparison with other numerical data. For example, it is a numerical fact that the population of the US, according to the 2010 census, was 308,700,000. This is a 9.7% increase from the 2000 census; this comparison is a statistic. However, for the purpose of simplicity, we will deal with both numerical facts and real statistics in this section.

                                  Statistics are very credible in our society, as evidenced by their frequent use by news agencies, government offices, politicians, and academics. As a speaker, you can capitalize on the power of statistics if you use them appropriately. Unfortunately, statistics are often misused by speakers who intentionally or unintentionally misconstrue the numbers to support their argument without examining the context from which the statistic emerged. All statistics are contextual, so plucking a number out of a news article or a research study and including it in your speech without taking the time to understand the statistic is unethical.

                                  Although statistics are popular as supporting evidence, they can also be boring. There will inevitably be people in your audience who are not good at processing numbers. Even people who are good with numbers have difficulty processing a series of statistics presented orally. Remember that we have to adapt our information to listeners who don’t have the luxury of pressing a pause or rewind button. For these reasons, it’s a good idea to avoid using too many statistics and to use startling examples when you do use them. Startling statistics should defy our expectations. When you give the audience a large number that they would expect to be smaller or vice versa, you will be more likely to engage them, as the following example shows: “Did you know that 1.3 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity? That’s about 20 percent of the world’s population according to a 2009 study on the International Energy Agency’s official website.”

                                  You should also repeat key statistics at least once for emphasis. In the previous example, the first time we hear the statistic “1.3 billion,” we don’t have any context for the number. Translating that number into a percentage in the next sentence repeats the key statistic, which the audience now has context for, and repackages the information into a percentage, which some people may better understand. You should also round long numbers up or down to make them easier to speak. Make sure that rounding the number doesn’t distort its significance. Rounding 1,298,791,943 to 1.3 billion, for example, makes the statistic more manageable and doesn’t alter the basic meaning. It is also beneficial to translate numbers into something more concrete for visual or experiential learners by saying, for example, “That’s equal to the population of four Unites States of America.” While it may seem easy to throw some numbers in your speech to add to your credibility, it takes more work to make them impactful, memorable, and effective.

                                  Statistics are also misunderstood because the science of statistics is difficult. Even terms like mean, median, and mode often confuse people. Before you can use statistics in a speech, you should have a basic understanding of them.

                                  Mean is the same as the mathematical average, something you learned to do early in math classes. Add up the figures and divide by the number of figures. 

                                  The median, however, is the middle number in a distribution. If all salaries of ballplayers in MLB were listed from highest to lowest, the one in the exact middle of the list would be the median. You can tell from this that it probably will not be the same as the average, and it rarely is; however, the terms “median” and “mean” are often interchanged carelessly. Mode is the name for the most frequently occurring number in the list. As an example, Figure 9.2.1 is a list of grades from highest to lowest that students might make on a midterm in a class. The placement of mean, median, and mode are noted.

                                  Percentages have to do with ratios. There are many other terms you would be introduced to in a statistics class, but the point remains: be careful of using a statistic that sounds impressive unless you know what it represents. There is an old saying about “figures don’t lie, but liars figure” and another, “There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians.” These sayings are exaggerations, but they point out that we are inundated with statistical information and often do not know how to process it. Another thing to watch when using numerical facts is not to confuse your billions and your millions. There is a big difference. If you say that 43 billion people in the US are without adequate health care, you will probably confuse your audience since the population of the planet is around 7 billion!

                                   

                                  Figure 9.2.1: Mean, Median, and Mode

                                  clipboard_e942d91802fa8b49fc025554836a9c56e.png

                                   

                                  In using statistics, you are probably going to use them as proof more than an explanation. Statistics are considered a strong form of proof. Here are some guidelines for using them effectively in a presentation.

                                  1. Use statistics as support, not as the main point. The audience may cringe or tune you out for saying, “Now I’d like to give you some statistics about the problem of gangs in our part of the state.” That sounds as exciting as reading the telephone book! Use the statistics to support an argument. “Gang activity is increasing in our region. For example, it is increasing in the three major cities. Mainsville had 450 arrests for gang activity this year alone, up 20% from all of last year.” This example ties the numerical fact (450 arrests) and the statistical comparison (up 20%) to an argument. The goal is to weave or blend the statistics seamlessly into the speech, not have them stand alone as a section of the speech.
                                  2. Always provide the source of the statistic. In the previous example, it should read, “According to a report published on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s website, Mainsville had 450 arrests . . .” There are a number of “urban myth” statistics floating around that probably have a basis in some research done at some point in time, but that research was outlived by the statistic. An audience would have reason to be skeptical if you cannot provide the name of the researcher or organization that backs up the statistics and numerical data. By the way, it is common for speakers and writers to say “According to research” or “According to studies.” This tag is essentially meaningless and actually a logical fallacy. Give a real source to support your argument.
                                  3. In regard to sources, depend on the reliable ones. Figure 9.2.2, originally published in Wrench, Goding, Johnson, and Attias (2011), lists valid websites providing statistical information.
                                  4. Do not overuse statistics. While there is no hard and fast rule on how many to use, there are other good supporting materials, and you would not want to depend on statistics alone. You want to choose the statistics and numerical data that will strengthen your argument the most and drive your point home. Statistics can have emotional power as well as probative value if used sparingly.
                                  5. Use graphs to display the most important statistics. If you are using presentation software such as PowerPoint, you can create your own basic pie, line, or bar graphs, or you can borrow one and put a correct citation on the slide. However, you do not need to make a graph for every single statistic. 
                                  6. Explain your statistics as needed, but do not make your speech a statistics lesson. Explain the context of the statistics. If you say, “My blog has 500 subscribers” to a group of people who know little about blogs, that might sound impressive, but is it? You can also provide a story of an individual and then tie the individual into the statistic. After telling a story of the daily struggles of a young mother with multiple sclerosis, you could follow up with “This is just one story in the 400,000 people who suffer from MS in the United States today, according to National MS Society.”
                                  7. If you do your own survey or research and use numerical data from it, explain your methodology. “In order to understand the attitudes of freshmen at our college about the subject of open-source textbooks, I polled 150 first-year students, only three of whom were close friends, asking them this question: ‘Do you agree that our college should encourage the faculty to use open-source textbooks?’ Seventy-five percent of them indicated that they agreed with the statement.”
                                  8. It goes without saying that you will use the statistic ethically, that there will be no distortion of what the statistic means. However, it is acceptable and a good idea to round up numerical data to avoid overwhelming the audience. Earlier, we used the example of the US census, stating the population in 2010 was 308.7 million. That is a rounded figure. The actual number was 308,745,538, but saying “almost 309 million” or “308.7 million” will serve your purposes and not be unethical.
                                  9. Additionally, do not make statistics mean what they do not mean. Otherwise, you would be pushing the boundaries on ethics. In the example about your survey of students, if you were to say, “75% of college freshmen support . . . .” That is not what the research said. Seventy-five percent of the students you surveyed indicated agreement, but since your study did not meet scientific standards regarding the size of the sample and how you found the sample, you can only use the information in relation to students in your college, not the whole country. One of the authors had a statistics professor who often liked to say, “Numbers will tell you whatever you want if you torture them long enough,” meaning you can always twist or manipulate statistics to meet your goals if you want to.
                                  10. An effective technique with numerical data is to use physical comparisons. “The National Debt is 17 trillion dollars. What does that mean? It means that every American citizen owes $55,100.” “It means that if the money were stacked as hundred dollar bills, it would go to . . .” Or another example, “There are 29 million Americans with diabetes. That is 9.3%. In terms closer to home, of the 32 people in this classroom, 3 of us would have diabetes.” Of course, in this last example, the class may not be made up of those in risk groups for diabetes, so you would not want to say, “Three of us have diabetes.” It is only a comparison for the audience to grasp the significance of the topic.
                                  11. Finally, because statistics can be confusing, slow down when you say them, give more emphasis, and gesture to help the audience grasp them.

                                   

                                  Figure 9.2.2: Statistics-Oriented Websites

                                  WebsiteType of Information
                                  http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htmBureau of Labor Statistics provides links to a range of websites for labor issues related to a vast range of countries.
                                  http://bjs.govThe Bureau of Justice Statistics provides information on crime statistics in the United States.
                                  http://www.census.govUS Census Bureau provides a wide range of information about people living in the United States.
                                  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/National Center for Health Statistics is a program conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides information on a range of health issues in the United States.
                                  http://www.stats.orgSTATS is a nonprofit organization that helps people understand quantitative data. It also provides a range of data on its website.
                                  http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/Roper Center for Public Opinion provides data related to a range of issues in the United States.
                                  http://www.nielsen.comNielsen provides data on consumer use of various media forms.
                                  http://www.gallup.comGallup provides public opinion data on a range of social and political issues in the United States and around the world.
                                  http://www.adherents.comAdherents provides both domestic and international data related to religious affiliation.
                                  http://people-press.orgPew Research Center provides public opinion data on a range of social and political issues in the United States and around the world.

                                   

                                  Testimony

                                  Testimony is quoted information from people with direct knowledge about a subject or situation. You use some quotations because they are funny, compelling, or attention-getting. They work well as openings to introductions. Other types of testimony are more useful for proving your arguments. Testimony can also give an audience insight into the feelings or perceptions of others. We normally think in terms of the testimonies of people in courtrooms and other types of hearings. Lawyers know that juries want to hear testimony from experts, eyewitnesses, and friends and family. Speech audiences are similar.

                                  47d9cde6404122df5e42f2d16c5fe108.jpg
                                  Congressional hearings often draw on expert and lay testimony to provide a detailed understanding of an event or issue. Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

                                   

                                  When Toyota cars were malfunctioning and being recalled in 2010, mechanics and engineers were called to testify about the technical specifications of the car (expert testimony), and car drivers like the soccer mom who recounted the brakes on her Prius suddenly failing while she was driving her kids to practice were also called (peer testimony). When using testimony, make sure you indicate whether it is expert or peer by sharing with the audience the context of the quote. Share the credentials of experts (education background, job title, years of experience, etc.) to add to your credibility or give some personal context for the peer testimony (eyewitness, personal knowledge, etc.).

                                  Testimony is the words of others. You might think of them as quoted material. Obviously, all quoted material or testimony is not the same. You use some quotations because they are funny, compelling, or attention-getting. They work well as openings to introductions. Other types of testimony are more useful for proving your arguments. Testimony can also give an audience insight into the feelings or perceptions of others. Testimony is basically divided into two categories: expert and peer.

                                  Expert Testimony

                                  Expert testimony is from people who are credentialed or recognized experts in a given subject. What is an expert? Here is a quotation of the humorous kind: An expert is “one who knows more and more about less and less” (Nicholas Butler). Actually, an expert for our purposes is someone with recognized credentials, knowledge, education, and/or experience in a subject. Experts spend time studying the facts and putting facts together. They may not be scholars who publish original research but they have in-depth knowledge. They may have certain levels of education, or they have real-world experience in the topic.

                                  For example, one of the authors is attending a quilt show this week to talk to experts in quilting. This expertise was gained through years of making, preserving, reading about, and showing quilts, even if they never took Quilting 101 in college. To quote an expert on expertise, “To be an expert, someone needs to have considerable knowledge on a topic or considerable skill in accomplishing something” (Weinstein, 1993). In using expert testimony, you should follow these guidelines:

                                  • Use the expert’s testimony in their relevant field, not outside of it. A person may have a Nobel Prize in economics, but that does not make them an expert in biology.
                                  • Provide at least some of the expert’s relevant credentials.
                                  • Choose experts to quote whom your audience will respect and/or whose name or affiliations they will recognize as credible.
                                  • Make it clear that you are quoting the expert testimony verbatim or paraphrasing it. If verbatim, say “Quote . . . end of quote” (not unquote—you cannot unquote someone).
                                  • If you interviewed the expert yourself, make that clear in the speech also. “When I spoke with Dr. Mary Thompson, principal of Park Lake High School, on October 12, they informed me that . . .”

                                  Expert testimony is one of your strongest supporting materials to prove your arguments, but in a sense, by clearly citing the source’s credentials, you are arguing that your source is truly an expert (if the audience is unfamiliar with them) in order to validate their information.

                                  Peer Testimony

                                  Peer testimony is often a recounting of a person’s experiences, which is more subjective. Any quotation from a friend, family member, or classmate about an incident or topic would be peer testimony. It is useful in helping the audience understand a topic from a personal point of view. For example, in the spring of 2011, a devastating tornado came through the town where one of the authors and many of their students live. One of those students gave a dramatic personal experience speech in class about surviving the tornado in a building that was destroyed and literally disappeared. They survived because she and her coworkers at their chain restaurant were able to get to safety in the freezer. While she may not have had an advanced degree in a field related to tornadoes or the destruction they can cause, this student certainly had a good deal of knowledge on the subject based on her experience of surviving a tornado. However, do not present any old testimony of a peer or friend as if it were expert or credentialed.

                                   

                                  Exercises

                                  1. Getting integrated: Identify some ways that research skills are helpful in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, personal, and civic.
                                  2. Go to the library webpage for your school. What are some resources that will be helpful for your research? Identify at least two library databases and at least one reference librarian. If you need help with research, what resources are available?
                                  3. What are some websites that you think are credible for doing college-level research? Why? What are some websites that are not credible? Why?

                                  9.3 Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  What to Do With All These Sources

                                  Once you have found your sources, you will start by reading them. Taking notes as you work will help you identify notable themes and make connections between your sources. Be sure to keep good track of where you get information as you work so you can cite it!

                                  Citation is an integral part of academic work. Since research builds on the work of others, acknowledging those who contributed is essential to academic integrity. The format of your citations will depend on the disciplinary context because there are many styles. Students should check which citation style their instructor requires and find out if there are requirements for the type and/or several sources as well.

                                  You might wonder if you should cite every piece of information you find and use in your work. Some information is considered “common knowledge,” and if it is, it usually does not have to be cited. Usually, we think of this as the general kind of historical or scientific information found in encyclopedias, such as that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But common knowledge goes a little further. Generally, if over half of the sources you’re using have the same piece of information, you can consider that common knowledge. What you should cite is unique knowledge, the information you find in one source.

                                  A better approach, however, is to find out the source of the “common knowledge.” For example, if you were researching “sexual harassment” and found the common legal definition in all your sources, you should find out the source of that legal definition rather than considering it “common knowledge.” Citing its source is important both for ethical reasons and credibility reasons.

                                  By this point, you’re probably exhausted after looking at countless sources, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. Most public speaking teachers will require you to turn in either a bibliography or a “Works Cited” page with your speeches. Most students are familiar with this sort of citation, but in this section, we’re going to focus on “oral citations” (also known as “verbal citations” or “internal citations” in your English class.) We’re also going to discuss plagiarism and how to avoid it.

                                   

                                  Citing Sources in a Speech

                                  Once you have decided what sources best help you explain important terms and ideas in your speech or help you build your arguments, it’s time to place them into your speech. In this section, we’re going to quickly talk about using your research effectively within your speeches. Citing sources within a speech is a three-step process: set up the citation, give the citation, and explain the citation.

                                  First, you want to set up your audience for the citation. The setup is one or two sentences that are general statements that lead to the specific information you are going to discuss from your source. Here’s an example: “Workplace bullying is becoming an increasing problem for US organizations.” Notice that this statement doesn’t provide a specific citation yet, but the statement introduces the basic topic.

                                  Second, you want to deliver the source; whether it is a direct quotation or a paraphrase of information from a source doesn’t matter at this point. A direct quotation is when you cite the actual words from a source with no changes. To paraphrase is to take a source’s basic idea and condense it using your own words. Here’s an example of both:

                                  Direct QuotationIn a 2009 report titled Bullying: Getting Away With It, the Workplace Bullying Institute wrote, “Doing nothing to the bully (ensuring impunity) was the most common employer tactic (54%).”
                                  ParaphraseAccording to a 2009 study by the Workplace Bullying Institute titled Bullying: Getting Away With It, when employees reported bullying, 54 percent of employers did nothing at all.

                                  You’ll notice that in both of these cases, we started by citing the author of the study—in this case, the Workplace Bullying Institute. We then provided the title of the study. You could also provide the name of the article, book, podcast, movie, or other sources. In the direct quotation example, we took information right from the report. In the second example, we summarized the same information (Workplace Bullying Institute, 2009).

                                  Let’s look at another example of direct quotations and paraphrases, this time using a person, rather than an institution, as the author.

                                  Direct QuotationIn her book The Elements of Library Research: What Every Student Needs to Know, Mary George, senior reference librarian at Princeton University’s library, defines insight as something that “occurs at an unpredictable point in the research process and leads to the formulation of a thesis statement and argument. Also called an ‘Aha’ moment or focus.”
                                  ParaphraseIn her book The Elements of Library Research: What Every Student Needs to Know, Mary George, senior reference librarian at Princeton University’s library, tells us that insight is likely to come unexpectedly during the research process; it will be an “aha!” moment when we suddenly have a clear vision of the point we want to make.

                                  Notice that the same basic pattern for citing sources was followed in both cases.

                                  The final step in correct source citation within a speech is the explanation. One of the biggest mistakes of novice public speakers (and research writers) is that they include a source citation and then do nothing with the citation at all. Instead, take the time to explain the quotation or paraphrase it to put it into the context of your speech. Do not let your audience draw their own conclusions about the quotation or paraphrase. Instead, help them make the connections you want them to make. Here are two examples using the examples above:

                                  Bullying ExampleClearly, organizations need to be held accountable for investigating bullying allegations. If organizations do not voluntarily improve their handling of this problem, the legal system may be required to step in and enforce sanctions for bullying, much as it has done with sexual harassment.
                                  Aha! ExampleAs many of us know, reaching that “aha!” moment does not always come quickly, but there are definitely some strategies one can take to help speed up this process.

                                  Notice how in both of our explanations, we took the source’s information and then added to the information to direct it for our specific purpose. In the case of the bullying citation, we then propose that businesses should either adopt workplace bullying guidelines or face legal intervention. In the case of the “aha!” example, we turn the quotation into a section on helping people find their thesis or topic. In both cases, we were able to use the information to further our speech.

                                  In Figure 9.3.1, you will see examples of how to take what you might use in your written citation and change it to a properly spoken “oral citation.”

                                   

                                  Figure 9.3.1: Verbal Source Citations

                                  Proper Written Source CitationProper Oral Attribution
                                  “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life” (Jobs, 2005).In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
                                  “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (Pollan, 2009, p.1).

                                  Michael Pollan offers three basics guidelines for healthy eating in his book, In Defense of Food. He advises readers to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

                                  “The Assad regime’s escalating violence in Syria is an affront to the international community, a threat to regional security, and a grave violation of human rights. . . . this group should take concrete action along three lines: provide emergency humanitarian relief, ratchet up pressure on the regime, and prepare for a democratic transition” (Clinton, 2012).

                                  In her February 24 speech to the Friends of Syria People meeting, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, warned that Assad was increasing violence against the Syrian people and violating human rights. She called for international action to help the Syrian people through humanitarian assistance, political pressure, and support for a future democratic government.

                                  “Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team” (Obama, 2009).In his 2009 “Back to School” speech President Obama encouraged students to participate in school activities like student government and debate in order to try out the skills necessary for a leadership position in the government.
                                  “Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism” by Sarah Stone Watt, The Public Speaking Project is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

                                   

                                  Using Sources Ethically

                                  The last section is about using sources in an ethical manner. Whether you are using primary or secondary research, there are five basic ethical issues you need to consider.

                                  Avoid Plagiarism

                                  First and foremost, if the idea isn’t yours, you need to cite where the information came from during your speech. Having the citation listed on a bibliography or reference page is only half of the correct citation. You must provide correct citations for all your sources within the speech as well. In a very helpful book called Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Guide to Writing Your Own Work, Menager-Beeley and Paulos provide a list of twelve strategies for avoiding plagiarism (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009):

                                  1. Do your own work, and use your own words. One of the goals of a public speaking class is to develop skills that you’ll use in the world outside academia. When you are in the workplace and the “real world,” you’ll be expected to think for yourself, so you might as well start learning this skill now.
                                  2. Allow yourself enough time to research the assignment. One of the most commonly cited excuses students give for plagiarism is that they didn’t have enough time to do the research. The more complete your research strategy is from the very beginning, the more successful your research endeavors will be in the long run. Remember, not having adequate time to prepare is no excuse for plagiarism.
                                  3. Keep careful track of your sources. A common mistake that people can make is that they forget where the information came from when they start creating the speech itself. Chances are you’re going to look at dozens of sources when preparing your speech, and it is very easy to suddenly find yourself believing that a piece of information is “common knowledge” and not citing that information within a speech. When you keep track of your sources, you’re less likely to inadvertently lose sources and not cite them correctly.
                                  4. Take careful notes. However you decide to keep track of the information you collect (old-fashioned pen and notebook or a computer software program), the more careful your note-taking is, the less likely you’ll find yourself inadvertently not citing information or citing the information incorrectly. It doesn’t matter what method you choose for taking research notes, but whatever you do, you need to be systematic to avoid plagiarizing.
                                  5. Assemble your thoughts, and make it clear who is speaking. When creating your speech, you need to make sure that you clearly differentiate your voice in the speech from the voice of specific authors of the sources you quote. The easiest way to do this is to set up a direct quotation or a paraphrase, as we’ve described in the preceding sections. Remember, audience members cannot see where the quotation marks are located within your speech text, so you need to clearly articulate with words and vocal tone when you are using someone else’s ideas within your speech.
                                  6. If you use an idea, a quotation, paraphrase, or summary, then credit the source. We can’t reiterate it enough: if it is not your idea, you need to tell your audience where the information came from. Giving credit is especially important when your speech includes a statistic, an original theory, or a fact that is not common knowledge.
                                  7. Learn how to cite sources correctly both in the body of your paper and in your List of Works Cited (Reference or Bibliography Page). Most public speaking teachers will require that you turn in either a bibliography or reference page on the day you deliver a speech. Many students make the mistake of thinking that the bibliography or reference page is all they need to cite information, and then they don’t cite any of the material within the speech itself. A bibliography or reference page enables a reader or listener to find those sources after the fact, but you must also correctly cite those sources within the speech itself; otherwise, you are plagiarizing.
                                  8. Quote accurately and sparingly. A public speech should be based on factual information and references, but it shouldn’t be a string of direct quotations strung together. Experts recommend that no more than 10 percent of a paper or speech be direct quotations (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). When selecting direct quotations, always ask yourself if the material could be paraphrased in a manner that would make it clearer for your audience. If the author wrote a sentence in a way that is just perfect, and you don’t want to tamper with it, then by all means, directly quote the sentence. But if you’re just quoting because it’s easier than putting the ideas into your own words, this is not a legitimate reason for including direct quotations.
                                  9. Paraphrase carefully. Modifying an author’s words in this way is not simply a matter of replacing some of the words with synonyms. Instead, as Howard and Taggart explain in Research Matters, “paraphrasing force[s] you to understand your sources and to capture their meaning accurately in original words and sentences” (Howard & Taggart, 2010). Incorrect paraphrasing is one of the most common forms of inadvertent plagiarism by students. First and foremost, paraphrasing is putting the author’s argument, intent, or ideas into your own words.
                                  10. Do not patchwrite (patchspeak). Menager-Beeley and Paulos define patchwriting as consisting “of mixing several references together and arranging paraphrases and quotations to constitute much of the paper. In essence, the student has assembled others’ work with a bit of embroidery here and there but with little original thinking or expression” (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). Just as students can patchwrite, they can also engage in patchspeaking. In patchspeaking, students rely completely on taking quotations and paraphrases and weaving them together in a manner that is devoid of the student’s original thinking.
                                  11. Summarize, don’t auto-summarize. Some students have learned that most word processing features have an auto-summary function. The auto-summary function will take a ten-page document and summarize the information into a short paragraph. When someone uses the auto-summary function, the words that remain in the summary are still those of the original author, so this is not an ethical form of paraphrasing.
                                  12. Do not rework another student’s paper (speech) or buy paper mill papers (speech mill speeches). In today’s Internet environment, there are a number of storehouses of student speeches on the Internet. Some of these speeches are freely available, while other websites charge money for getting access to one of their canned speeches. Whether you use a speech that is freely available or pay money for a speech, you are engaging in plagiarism. This is also true if the main substance of your speech was copied from a web page. Any time you try to present someone else’s ideas as your own during a speech, you are plagiarizing.

                                  Avoid Academic Fraud

                                  While there are numerous websites where you can download free speeches for your class, this is tantamount to fraud. If you didn’t do the research and write your own speech, then you are fraudulently trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. In addition to being unethical, many institutions have student codes that forbid such activity. Penalties for academic fraud can be as severe as suspension or expulsion from your institution.

                                  Don’t Mislead Your Audience

                                  If you know a source is clearly biased, and you don’t spell this out for your audience, then you are purposefully trying to mislead or manipulate your audience. Instead, if the information may be biased, tell your audience that the information may be biased and allow your audience to decide whether to accept or disregard the information.

                                  Give Author Credentials

                                  You should always provide the author’s credentials. In a world where anyone can say anything and have it published on the Internet or even publish it in a book, we have to be skeptical of the information we see and hear. For this reason, it’s very important to provide your audience with background about the credentials of the authors you cite.

                                  Use Primary Research Ethically

                                  Lastly, if you are using primary research within your speech, you need to use it ethically as well. For example, if you tell your survey participants that the research is anonymous or confidential, then you need to make sure that you maintain their anonymity or confidentiality when you present those results. Furthermore, you also need to be respectful if someone says something is “off the record” during an interview. We must always maintain the privacy and confidentiality of participants during primary research unless we have their express permission to reveal their names or other identifying information.

                                   

                                  Exercises

                                  1. Find a direct quotation within a magazine article. Paraphrase that direct quotation. Then attempt to paraphrase the entire article as well. How would you cite each of these orally within the body of your speech?
                                  2. Which of Menager-Beeley and Paulos (2009) twelve strategies for avoiding plagiarism do you think you need the most help with right now? Why? What can you do to overcome and avoid that pitfall?

                                   

                                  References

                                  American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. See also American Psychological Association. (2010). Concise rules of APA Style: The official pocket style guide from the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

                                  Howard, R. M., & Taggart, A. R. (2010). Research matters. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, p. 131.

                                  Menager-Beeley, R., & Paulos, L. (2009). Understanding plagiarism: A student guide to writing your own work. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 5–8.

                                  Modern Language Association. (2009). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (7th ed.). New York, NY: Modern Language Association.

                                  Stone Watt, Sarah. “Supporting Your Ideas.” Public Speaking: The Virtual Text, edited by The Public Speaking Project.org, The Public Speaking Project, 2011, p. 7.12, publicspeakingproject.org/PDF%20Files/supporting%20web1%20gs.pdf.

                                  Workplace Bullying Institute. (2009). Bullying: Getting away with it WBI Labor Day Study—September 2009. Retrieved July 14, 2011, from http://www.workplacebullying.org/res/WBI2009-B-Survey.html

                                  9.4 Organizing Your Outlines

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  A solid full-sentence preparation outline helps your audience understand your message because they will be able to follow your reasoning. Remember that live audiences for oral communications lack the ability to “rewind” your message to figure out what you said, so it is critically important to help the audience follow your reasoning as it reaches their ears.

                                  In order for your speech to be as effective as possible, it needs to be organized into logical patterns. Information will need to be presented in a way your audience can understand. This is especially true if you already know a great deal about your topic. You will need to take careful steps to include pertinent information your audience might not know and to explain relationships that might not be evident to them. Using a standard outline format, you can make decisions about your main points, the specific information you will use to support those points, and the language you will use. Without an outline, your message is liable to lose logical integrity. It might even deteriorate into a list of bullet points with no apparent connection to each other except the topic, leaving your audience relieved when your speech is finally over.

                                  A full-sentence outline lays a strong foundation for your message. This is called a preparation outline. It will call on you to have one clear and specific purpose for your message. Writing your specific purpose in clear language serves you well. It helps you frame a clear, concrete central idea. It helps you exclude irrelevant information. It helps you focus only on information that directly bears on your thesis. It reduces the amount of research you must do. It suggests what kind of supporting evidence is needed, so less effort is expended in trying to figure out what to do next. It helps both you and your audience remember the central message of your speech.

                                  The benefits of creating the Preparation Outline are as follows:

                                  • Test the scope of content

                                  • Assess logical ordering of information

                                  • Evaluate the relevance of supporting ideas.

                                  • Shows the balance and proportion of a speech

                                  • Blueprint for Notes during the Speech

                                  Although we recommend writing a full-sentence outline during the speech preparation phase, it should only serve as the blueprint for creating the shortened outline that you will use for delivery. This is called a speaking outline. If you were to use the full-sentence outline when delivering your speech, you would do a great deal of reading, which would limit your ability to give eye contact and use gestures, hurting your connection with your audience. For this reason, we recommend writing short phrases and keywords on 4 × 6 notecards or a sheet of paper or two to use when you deliver your speech. The good news is that your three main points suggest how you should prepare your notecards.

                                   

                                  Patterns of Organization

                                  At this point, then, you should see how much your audience needs organization. You also know that as you do research, you will group together similar pieces of information from different sources in your research. As you group your research information, you will want to make sure that your content is adhering to your specific purpose statement and will look for ways that your information can be grouped together into categories.

                                  Interestingly, there are some standard ways of organizing these categories, which are called “patterns of organization.” In each of the examples below, you will see how the specific purpose gives shape to the organization of the speech and how each one exemplifies one of the six main organizational patterns. In each example, only the three to five main sections or “points” (Roman numerals) are given, without the other essential parts of the outline. Please note that these are simple, basic outlines for example purposes, and your instructor will, of course, expect much more content from the outline you submit for class.

                                   

                                  Chronological

                                  Specific Purpose: To describe to my classmates the four stages of rehabilitation in addiction recovery

                                  1. The first stage is acknowledging the problem and entering treatment.
                                  2. The second stage is early abstinence, a difficult period in the rehabilitation facility.
                                  3. The third stage is maintaining abstinence after release from the rehab facility.
                                  4. The fourth stage is advanced recovery after a period of several years.

                                  The example above uses what is termed the chronological pattern of organization. Chronological always refers to time order. Since the specific purpose is about stages, it is necessary to put the four stages in the right order. It would make no sense to put the fourth stage second and the third stage first. However, chronological time can be long or short. If you were giving a speech about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, that period would cover several decades; if you were giving a speech about the process to change the oil in your car, that process takes less than an hour. The process described in the speech example above would also be long-term, that is, one taking several years. The commonality is the order of the information.

                                  In addition, chronological speeches that refer to processes can be given for two reasons. First, they can be for understanding. The speech about recovery is to explain what happens in the addiction recovery process, but the actual process may never really happen to the audience members. That understanding may also lead them to more empathy for someone in recovery. Second, chronological or process speeches can be for action and instruction. For a speech about changing the oil in a car, your purpose is that the audience could actually change the oil in their cars after listening to the speech.

                                  One of the problems with chronological speeches is that you would not want just a list of activities. It is important to chunk the information into three to five groups so that the audience has a framework. For example, in a speech about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, your “grouping” or “chunking” might be:

                                  1. The movement saw African-Americans struggling for legal recognition before the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
                                  2. The movement was galvanized and motivated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
                                  3. The movement saw its goals met in the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

                                  It would be easy in the case of the Civil Rights Movement to list the many events that happened over more than two decades, but that could be overwhelming for the audience. In this outline, the audience is focused on the three events that pushed it forward rather than the persons involved in the movement. You could give a speech with a focus on people, but it would be different and probably less chronological and more topical (see below).

                                  We should say here that, realistically, the example given above is still too broad. It would be useful, perhaps, for an audience with almost no knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, but too basic and not really informative for other audiences. One of the Roman numeral points would probably be a more specific focus.

                                   

                                  Spatial

                                  You can see that chronological is a highly-used organizational structure since one of the ways our minds work is through time orientation—past, present, future. Another common thought process is movement in space or direction, which is called the spatial pattern. For example:

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the three regional cooking styles of Italy.

                                  1. In the mountainous region of the North, the food emphasizes cheese and meat.
                                  2. In the middle region of Tuscany, the cuisine emphasizes grains and olives.
                                  3. In the southern region and Sicily, the diet is based on fish and seafood. In this example, the content is moving from northern to southern Italy, as the word “regional” would indicate.

                                  Here is a good place to note that grouping or “chunking” in a speech helps simplicity and meets the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Speaker). If you were to actually study Italian cooking in-depth, sources would say there are twenty regions. But “covering” twenty regions in a speech is not practical, and while the regions would be distinct for a “foodie” or connoisseur of Italian cooking, for a beginner or general audience, three is a good place to start. You could, at the end of the speech, note that a more in-depth study would show the twenty regions, but that in your speech, you have used three regions to show the similarities of the twenty regions rather than the small differences.

                                  For a more localized example:

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the layout of King Tut’s pyramid

                                  1. The first chamber of the tomb was an antechamber.
                                  2. The second chamber of the tomb was the annex.
                                  3. The third chamber of the tomb was the burial chamber.
                                  4. The last chamber of the tomb was the treasury. (Lucas, 2012)

                                  For an even more localized example:

                                  Specific Purpose: To describe to my Anatomy and Physiology class the three layers of the human skin

                                  1. The outer layer is the epidermis, which is the outermost barrier of protection.
                                  2. The second layer beneath is the dermis.
                                  3. The third layer closest to the bone is the hypodermis, made of fat and connective tissue.

                                  The key to spatial organization is to be logical in progression rather than jumping around, as in this example:

                                  1. The Native Americans of Middle Georgia were primarily the Creek nation.
                                  2. The Native Americans of North Georgia were of the Cherokee tribe nation.
                                  3. The Native Americans of South Georgia were mostly of the Hitchiti and Oconee tribes.

                                  It makes more sense to start at the top of the state and move down (south) or start at the bottom and move up rather than randomly discuss unconnected areas.

                                   

                                  Topical/Parts of the Whole

                                  The topical organizational pattern is probably the most all-purpose in that many speech topics could use it. Many subjects will have main points that naturally divide into “types of,” “kinds of,” “sorts of,” or “categories of.” Other subjects naturally fall into “parts of the whole.” However, as mentioned previously, you want to keep your categories simple, clear, distinct, and at five or fewer.

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my freshmen students the concept of SMART goals

                                  1. SMART goals are specific and clear.
                                  2. SMART goals are measurable.
                                  3. SMART goals are attainable or achievable.
                                  4. SMART goals are relevant and worth doing.
                                  5. SMART goals are time-bound and doable within a time period.

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain the four characteristics of quality diamonds

                                  1. Valuable diamonds have the characteristic of cut.
                                  2. Valuable diamonds have the characteristic of carat.
                                  3. Valuable diamonds have the characteristic of color.
                                  4. Valuable diamonds have the characteristic of clarity

                                  Specific Purpose: To describe to my audience the four main chambers of the human heart

                                  1. The first chamber in the blood flow is the right atrium.
                                  2. The second chamber in the blood flow is the right ventricle.
                                  3. The third chamber in the blood flow is the left atrium.
                                  4. The fourth chamber in the blood flow and then out to the body is the left ventricle.

                                  At this point in discussing organizational patterns and looking at these examples, two points should be made about them and about speech organization in general.

                                  First, you might look at the example about the chambers of the heart and say, “But couldn’t that be chronological, too, since that’s the order of the blood flow procedure?” Yes, it could. There will be times when a specific purpose could work with two different organizational patterns. In this case, it’s just a matter of emphasis. This speech emphasizes the anatomy of the heart; if the speech’s specific purpose were “To explain to my classmates the flow of blood through the chambers of the heart,” the organizational pattern would be chronological but very similar (However, since the blood goes to the lungs to be oxygenated before coming back to the left atrium, that might alter the pattern some).

                                  Another principle of organization to think about when using topical organization is “climax” organization. That means putting your strongest argument or most important point last when applicable. For example:

                                  Specific purpose: To defend before my classmates the proposition that capital punishment should be abolished in the United States.

                                  1. Capital punishment does not save money for the justice system.
                                  2. Capital punishment does not deter crime in the United States historically.
                                  3. Capital punishment has resulted in many unjust executions.

                                  In most people’s minds, “unjust executions” is a bigger reason to end a practice than the cost, since an unjust execution means the loss of an innocent life and a violation of our principles. If you believe Main Point 3 is the strongest argument of the three, putting it last builds up to a climax.

                                   

                                  Cause/Effect Pattern

                                  If the specific purpose mentions words such as “causes,” “origins,” “roots of,” “foundations,” “basis,” “grounds,” or “source,” it is a causal order; if it mentions words such as “effects,” “results,” “outcomes,” “consequences,” or “products,” it is effect order. If it mentions both, it would be cause/effect order. This example shows a cause/effect pattern:

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the causes and effects of schizophrenia

                                  1. Schizophrenia has genetic, social, and environmental causes.
                                  2. Schizophrenia has educational, relational, and medical effects.

                                  It should be noted, however, that a specific purpose like this example is very broad and probably not practical for your class speeches; it would be better to focus on just causes or effects, or even just one type of cause (such as genetic causes of schizophrenia) or one type of effect (relational or social). These two examples show a speech that deals with causes only and effects only, respectively.

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my fellow Biology 1107 students the origin of the West Nile Virus epidemic in the US

                                  1. The West Nile Virus came from a strain in a certain part of Africa.
                                  2. The West Nile Virus resulted from mosquitoes being imported through fruits.
                                  3. The West Nile Virus became more prominent due to floods in the Southeast.

                                  Specific Purpose: To describe to my classmates the effects of a diagnosis of autism on a child’s life

                                  1. An autism diagnosis will affect the child’s educational plan.
                                  2. An autism diagnosis will affect the child’s social existence.
                                  3. An autism diagnosis will affect the child’s family relationships.

                                   

                                  Problem-Solution Pattern

                                  The principle behind the problem-solution pattern is that if you explain a problem to an audience, you should not leave them hanging without solutions. Problems are discussed for understanding and to do something about them.

                                  Additionally, when you want to persuade someone to act, the first reason is usually that something is wrong! Even if you want your friends to go out to get some dinner, and they have recently eaten, you will probably be less successful because there is no problem for them—they are not hungry. Then you would have to come up with a new problem, such as you will miss their presence, which they may or may not see as a problem for them.

                                   

                                  Students' Achievements Inspire U.S. Ambassador
                                  “Students’ Achievements Inspire U.S. Ambassador” by U.S. Embassy Jerusalem is licensed under CC BY 2.0

                                   

                                  In another real-life example, let’s say you want the members of the school board to provide more funds for music at the three local high schools in your county. What is missing because music or arts are not funded? What is the problem?

                                  Specific Purpose: To persuade the members of the school board to take action to support the music program at the school.

                                  1. There is a problem with eliminating extracurricular music programs in high schools.

                                    A. Students who do not have extracurricular music in their lives have lower SAT scores.

                                    B. Schools that do not have extracurricular music programs have more gang violence and juvenile delinquency.

                                  2. The solution is to provide $200,000 in the budget to sustain extracurricular music in our high schools.

                                    A. $120,000 would go to bands.

                                    B. $80,000 would go to choral programs.

                                  Of course, this is a simple outline, and you would need to provide evidence to support the arguments, but it shows how problem-solution works. Psychologically, it makes more sense to use problem-solution rather than solution-problem. The audience will be more motivated to listen if you address needs, deficiencies, or problems in their lives rather than giving them solutions first.

                                   

                                  Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern

                                  A variation of the problem-solution pattern, and one that sometimes requires more in-depth exploration of an issue, is the “problem-cause-solution” pattern. If you were giving a speech on the future extinction of certain animal species, it would be insufficient to just explain that numbers of species are about to become extinct. Your second point would logically have to explain the cause behind this happening. Is it due to climate change, some type of pollution, encroachment on habitats, disease, or some other reason? In many cases, you can’t really solve a problem without first identifying what caused the problem. This is similar to the organizational pattern called Monroe’s Motivated Sequence (German, Gronbeck, Ehninger & Monroe, 2012). Monroe’s Motivated Sequence requires a discussion of cause to create a logical speech.

                                  Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that the age to obtain a driver’s license in the state of Georgia should be raised to 18.

                                  1. There is a problem in this country with young drivers getting into serious automobile accidents leading to many preventable deaths.
                                  2. One of the primary causes of this is younger drivers’ inability to remain focused and make good decisions due to incomplete brain development.
                                  3. One solution that will help reduce the number of young drivers involved in accidents would be to raise the age for obtaining a diver’s license to 18.

                                   

                                  Comparative Advantages

                                   The goal of this speech is to compare items side-by-side and show why one of them is more advantageous than the other. For example, let’s say that you’re giving a speech on which e-book reader is better: Amazon.com’s Kindle or Barnes and Nobles’ Nook. Here’s how you could organize this speech:

                                  Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that the Nook is more advantageous than the Kindle

                                  Main Points:

                                  1. The Nook allows owners to trade and loan books to other owners or people who have downloaded the Nook software, while the Kindle does not.

                                  2. The Nook has a color-touch screen, while the Kindle’s screen is black and grey and noninteractive.

                                  3. The Nook’s memory can be expanded through microSD, while the Kindle’s memory cannot be upgraded.

                                  As you can see from this speech’s organization, the simple goal of this speech is to show why one thing has more positives than something else. Obviously, when you are demonstrating comparative advantages, the items you are comparing the need to be functional equivalents—or, as the saying goes, you cannot compare apples to oranges.

                                   

                                  Monroe’s Motivated Sequence (Persuasive Speech)

                                  Monroe’s Motivated Sequence is a five-step organization pattern that attempts to persuade an audience by making a topic relevant, using positive and/or negative motivation, and including a call to action. The five steps are (1) attention, (2) need, (3) satisfaction, (4) visualization, and (5) action (Monroe & Ehninger, 1964).

                                  The attention step is accomplished in the introduction to your speech. Whether your entire speech is organized using this pattern or not, any good speaker begins by getting the attention of the audience. 

                                  After getting the audience’s attention, you will want to establish that there is a need for your topic to be addressed. You will want to cite credible research that points out the seriousness or prevalence of an issue. In the attention and need steps, it is helpful to use supporting material that is relevant and proxemic to the audience.

                                  Once you have set up the need for the problem to be addressed, you move on to the satisfaction step, where you present a solution to the problem. You may propose your own solution if it is informed by your research and reasonable. You may also propose a solution that you found in your research.

                                  The visualization step is next and incorporates positive and/or negative motivation as a way to support the relationship you have set up between the need and your proposal to satisfy the need. You may ask your audience to visualize a world where things are better because they took your advice and addressed this problem. This capitalizes on positive motivation. You may also ask your audience to visualize a world where things are worse because they did not address the issue, which is a use of negative motivation. Now that you have hopefully persuaded your audience to believe the problem is worthy of addressing, proposed a solution, and asked them to visualize potential positive or negative consequences, you move to the action step.

                                  The action step includes a call to action where you as basically saying, “Now that you see the seriousness of this problem, here’s what you can do about it.” The call to action should include concrete and specific steps an audience can take. Your goal should be to facilitate the call to action, making it easy for the audience to complete. Instead of asking them to contact their elected officials, you could start an online petition and make the link available to everyone. You could also bring the contact information for officials that represent that region so the audience doesn’t have to look them up on their own. Although this organizing pattern is more complicated than the others, it offers a proven structure that can help you organize your supporting materials and achieve your speech goals.

                                   

                                  Additional Principles of Organization

                                  It is possible that you may use more than one of these organizational patterns within a single speech. For example, the main points of your speech could be one organizational pattern and the subpoints a different one. In the spatial example above about the Native American nations of Georgia, the subpoints might be chronological (emphasizing their development over time), or they could be topical (explaining aspects of their culture).

                                  You should also note that in all of the examples to this point (which have been kept simple for the purpose of explanation), each main point is relatively equal in emphasis; therefore, the time spent on each should be equal as well. While you are not obliged to spend exactly the same amount of time on each main point, the time spent (and the importance of the main point) should be about the same. You would not want your first Main Point to be 30 seconds long, the second one to be 90 seconds, and the third 3 minutes. For example:

                                  Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the rules of baseball

                                  1. Baseball has rules about equipment.
                                  2. Baseball has rules about the number of players.
                                  3. Baseball has rules about play.

                                  Main Point 2 is not really equal in importance to the other two. There is a great deal you could say about the equipment and even more about the rules of play, but the number of players would take you about ten seconds to say. If Main Point 2 were “Baseball has rules about the positions on the field,” that would make more sense and be closer in the level of importance to the other two.

                                  To give another example, let’s say you want to give a commemorative (or tribute) speech about a local veteran whom you admire.

                                  1. James Owens is an admirable person because he earned the Silver Star in the Korean War.
                                  2. James Owens is an admirable person because he served our community as a councilman for 25 years.
                                  3. James Owens is an admirable person because he rescued five puppies who were abandoned in his backyard.

                                  Although Main Point 3 is a good thing to do, it’s really not equal to Main Points 1 and 2 in importance or in the amount of time you would need to spend on it.

                                  Earlier, we said that organizing a speech involves grouping, labeling, and order. Let’s address labeling here. You will also notice that in most of the examples so far, the main points are phrased using a similar sentence structure. For example, “The first chamber in the blood flow is…” “The second chamber in the blood flow is…” This simple repetition of sentence structure is called parallelism, a technique useful for speakers and helpful for the audience in remembering information. It is not absolutely necessary to use it and will not always be relevant, but parallelism should be used when appropriate and effective.

                                  In relation to the way each main point is written, notice that they are full grammatical sentences, although sometimes short and simple. For purposes of preparation, this is a good habit, and your instructor will probably require you to write your main points in full sentences. Your instructor may also expect you to write your subpoints in complete sentences as well, but they will discuss that with you. 

                                  Finally, in the way you phrase the main points, be sure they are adequately labeled and clearly explain your content. Students are often tempted to write main points as directions to themselves, “Talking about the health department” or “Mention the solution.” This is not helpful for you, nor will your instructor be able to tell what you mean by those phrases. “The health department provides many services for low-income residents,” says something we can all understand.

                                  9.5 Outline: The Introduction

                                  (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                   

                                  Can you imagine how strange a speech would sound without an introduction? Or how jarring it would be if, after making a point, a speaker just walked off the podium and sat down? You would most likely be pretty confused, and the takeaway from that speech—even if the content was really good—would likely be, “I was confused” or “That was a weird speech.”  

                                  This is just one of the reasons all speeches need introductions and conclusions. Introductions and conclusions serve to frame the speech and give it a clearly defined beginning and end. They help the audience to see what is to come in the speech and then let them mentally prepare for the end. In doing this, introductions and conclusions provide a “preview/review” of your speech as a means to reiterate to your audience what you are talking about.

                                  Since speeches are auditory and live, you need to make sure the audience remembers what you are saying. So one of the primary functions of an introduction is to preview what you will be covering in your speech, and one of the main roles of the conclusion is to review what you have covered. It may seem like you are repeating yourself and saying the same things over and over, but that repetition ensures that your audience understands and retains what you are saying.

                                  The challenge, however, is that there is much more that a speaker must do in their introduction and conclusion than just preview or review their topic and main points. The roles that introductions and conclusions fulfill are numerous and, when done correctly, can make your speech stronger. The challenge with all this, though, is that the introduction and conclusion aren’t what your audience wants or needs to hear; that is primarily contained in the body section, where the bulk of your research and information will be housed. So to that end, the introduction and conclusion need to be relatively short and to the point.

                                  The general rule is that the introduction and conclusion should each be about 10% of your total speech, leaving 80% for the body section. You can extend the introduction to 15% if there is a good reason to, so 10-15% of the speech time is a good guideline. Let’s say that your informative speech has a time limit of 5-7 minutes: if we average that out to 6 minutes, that gives us 360 seconds. Ten to fifteen percent of 360 is 36-54, meaning your full introduction—which includes the thesis and preview—should come in at about a minute. That isn’t to say that your speech instructor will be timing you and penalize you for hitting the 60-second mark, but rather to highlight the fact that you need to be economical with your time. An introduction or conclusion of a 6-minute speech that lasts 90 seconds is taking up 25% of your speech, leaving much less time for the body.

                                  Consequently, there are some common errors to avoid in introductions:

                                  • rambling and meandering, not getting to the point;
                                  • speaking to become comfortable;
                                  • saying the specific purpose statement, especially as first words;
                                  • choosing a technique that hurts credibility, such as pedantic (defining words like “love”) or a method that is not audience-centered;
                                  • beginning to talk as you approach the platform or lectern—reach your destination, pause, smile, and begin;
                                  • reading your introduction from your notes; it is vital to establish eye contact during the introduction, so knowing it very well is important;
                                  • talking too fast; let your audience get used to your voice by speaking emphatically and clearly.

                                  As we have mentioned before, it is best to write your introduction after you have a clear sense of the body of your presentation. The challenge to introductions is that there is a lot you need to get done in that 10%-15%, and all of it is vital to establishing yourself as a knowledgeable and credible speaker.

                                  A common concern many students have as the date of their first major speech approaches is “I don’t know how I should start my speech.” What they are really saying is they aren’t sure what words will be memorable, attention-capturing, and clever enough to get their audience interested or, on a more basic level, sound good. This is a problem most speakers have since the first words you say, in many ways, set the tone for the rest of your speech. There may not be anyone “best” way to start a speech, but we can provide some helpful guidelines that will make starting a speech much easier.

                                  With that in mind, there are five basic elements that you will want to incorporate into your introduction. And while you have some leeway to structure your introduction in a way that best fits with your speech, and you wouldn’t necessarily do all of these in the order below, the following order of these five elements is fairly standard. Unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise, it is probably a pretty good order for you to use.

                                   

                                  Element 1: Get the Audience’s Attention

                                  The first major purpose of an introduction is to gain your audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say. While many audiences may be polite and not talk while you’re speaking, actually getting them to listen to what you are saying is a completely different challenge. Let’s face it—we’ve all tuned someone out at some point because we weren’t interested in what they had to say. If you do not get the audience’s attention at the outset, it will only become more difficult to do so as you continue speaking.

                                  That’s why every speech should start with an attention-getter or some sort of statement or question that piques the audience’s interest in what you have to say at the very start of a speech. Sometimes these are called “grabbers.” The first words out of your mouth should be something that will perk up the audience’s ears. Starting a speech with “Hey everybody. I’m going to talk to you today about soccer” already sounds boring and has not tried to engage the individuals in the audience who don’t care about soccer. Once your audience has deemed your speech to be boring, trying to inform, persuade, or entertain them becomes exponentially more difficult. So let’s briefly discuss what you can do to capture your audience’s attention from the onset.

                                  First, when selecting an attention-getting device, you want to make sure that the option you choose is actually appropriate and relevant to your specific audience. Different audiences will have different backgrounds and knowledge, so you should use your audience analysis to determine whether specific information you plan on using would be appropriate for a specific audience. For example, if you’re giving a speech on family units to a group of individuals over the age of sixty-five, starting your speech with a reference to the television show Gossip Girl may not be the best idea because the audience may be unfamiliar with that show.

                                  You will also want to choose an attention-getting device appropriate for your speech topic. Ideally, your attention-getting device should have a relevant connection to your speech. Imagine if a speaker pulled condoms out of their pocket, yelled “Free sex!” and threw the condoms at the audience at the beginning of a speech about the economy. While this may clearly get the audience’s attention, this isn’t really a good way to prepare an audience for a speech about the stock market. To help you out, below, we have listed a number of different attention-getters that you may find useful for opening your speech.

                                  Anecdotes and Narratives

                                  An anecdote is a brief account or story of an interesting or humorous event. Notice the emphasis here is on the word “brief.” A common mistake speakers make when telling an anecdote is to make the anecdote too long. An example of an anecdote used in a speech about the pervasiveness of technology might look something like this:

                                  In July 2009, a high school girl named Miranda Becker was walking along the main boulevard near her home on Staten Island, New York, typing in a message on her cell phone. Not paying attention to the world around her, she took a step and fell right into an open manhole.

                                  Notice that the anecdote is short and has a clear point. From here, the speaker can begin to make their point about how technology is controlling our lives.

                                  The second type of anecdote is a parable or fable. A parable or fable is an allegorical anecdote designed to teach general life lessons. The most widely known parables for most Americans are those given in the Bible, and the best-known fables are Aesop’s Fables (http://www.umass.edu/aesop/index.php). So if you decide your speech will focus on the benefits of remaining in college for more than four years in order to obtain multiple degrees, you may want to adopt some version of “The Tortoise and The Hare” as your attention-getter.

                                  It is sometimes helpful to begin your speech in a way that your audience finds familiar since this can make them feel more connected to your speech. This may be particularly helpful for topics with which your audience is unfamiliar. One of the best and easiest ways to do this is to begin with a story that your audience is likely to have heard before. These types of stories come in a number of forms, but the most common ones include fables, tall tales, ghost stories, parables, fairy tales, myths, and legends.

                                  Two primary issues that you should be aware of often arise with using stories as attention-getters. First, you shouldn’t let your story go on for too long. If you are going to use a story to begin your speech, you need to think of it more in terms of summarizing the story rather than actually reciting the entire thing. Even a relatively simple story like “The Tortoise and the Hare” can take a couple of minutes to get through in its entirety, so you’ll need to cut it down to the main points or highlights. The second issue with using stories as attention-getters is that the story must in some way relate to your speech. If you begin your speech by recounting the events in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” your speech will in some way need to deal with finding balance or coming to a compromise about a matter. If your story doesn’t relate to your topic, you will likely confuse your audience, and they may spend the remainder of your speech trying to figure out the connection rather than listening to what you have to say.

                                  A personal story is another option here. You may consider starting your speech with a story about yourself that is relevant to your topic. Some of the best speeches are ones that come from personal knowledge and experience. If you are an expert or have firsthand experience related to your topic, sharing this information with the audience is a great way to show that you are credible during your attention-getter. For example, if you had gastric bypass surgery and you wanted to give an informative speech about the procedure, you could introduce your speech in this way:

                                  In the fall of 2015, I decided that it was time that I took my life into my own hands. After suffering for years with the disease of obesity, I decided to take a leap of faith and get a gastric bypass in an attempt to finally beat the disease.

                                  If you use a personal example, don’t get carried away with the focus on yourself and your own life. Your speech topic is the purpose of the attention-getter, not the other way around. Another pitfall in using a personal example is that it may be too personal for you to maintain your composure. For example, a student once started a speech about their grandmother by stating, “My grandmother died of cancer at 3:30 this morning.” The student then proceeded to cry nonstop for five minutes. While this is an extreme example, we strongly recommend that you avoid any material that could get you upset while speaking. When speakers have an emotional breakdown during their speech, audience members stop listening to the message and become very uncomfortable. They may empathize with the distraught speaker, but the effectiveness has been diminished in other ways.

                                  Startling Statement/Statistic/Fact

                                  Another way to start your speech is to surprise your audience with startling information about your topic. Often, startling statements come in the form of statistics and strange facts. The goal of a good startling statistic is that it surprises the audience and gets them engaged in your topic. For example, if you’re giving a speech about oil conservation, you could start by saying, “A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel.” You could start a speech on the psychology of dreams by noting, “The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.” A strange fact, on the other hand, is a statement that does not involve numbers but is equally surprising to most audiences. For example, you could start a speech on the gambling industry by saying, “There are no clocks in any casinos in Las Vegas.” You could start a speech on the Harlem Globetrotters by saying, “In 2000, Pope John Paul II became the most famous honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.” All four of these examples came from a great website for strange facts (www. strangefacts.com).

                                  Although startling statements are fun, it is important to use them ethically. First, make sure that your startling statement is factual. The Internet is full of startling statements and claims that are simply not factual, so when you find a statement you’d like to use, you have an ethical duty to ascertain its truth before you use it and to provide a reliable citation. Second, make sure that your startling statement is relevant to your speech and not just thrown in for shock value. We’ve all heard startling claims made in the media that are clearly made for purposes of shock or fear-mongering, such as “Do you know what common household appliance could kill you? We’ll tell you at 11:00.” As speakers, we have an ethical obligation to avoid playing on people’s emotions in this way.

                                  A Rhetorical Question

                                  A rhetorical question is a question to which no actual reply is expected. For example, a speaker talking about the history of Mother’s Day could start by asking the audience, “Do you remember the last time you told your mom you loved her?” In this case, the speaker does not expect the audience to shout out an answer but rather to think about the questions as the speech goes on.

                                  Reference to Audience or Appeal to Self-Interest

                                  Your audience is the single most important factor in crafting your speech, so it makes sense that one approach to opening your speech is to make a direct reference to the audience. In this case, the speaker has a clear understanding of the audience and points out that there is something unique about the audience that should make them interested in the speech’s content. Here’s an example:

                                  As students at Dalton State, you and I know the importance of selecting a major that will benefit you in the future. In today’s competitive world, we need to study a topic that will help us be desirable to employers and provide us with lucrative and fulfilling careers. That’s why I want you all to consider majoring in communication.

                                  In this example, the speaker reminds the audience of their shared status as Dalton State students and uses the common ground to acknowledge the importance of selecting a major that will benefit them in the future. 

                                  Quotation

                                  Another way to capture your listeners’ attention is to use the words of another person that relate directly to your topic. Maybe you’ve found a really great quotation in one of the articles or books you read while researching your speech. If not, you can also use a number of Internet or library sources that compile useful quotations from noted individuals. Quotations are a great way to start a speech, so let’s look at an example that could be used during the opening of a commencement address:

                                  The late actress, fashion icon, and social activist Audrey Hepburn once noted that “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”

                                  If you use a quotation as your attention getter, be sure to give the source first (as in this example) so that it isn’t mistaken as your own wording.

                                  Reference to Current Events

                                  Referring to a current news event that relates to your topic is often an effective way to capture attention, as it immediately makes the audience aware of how relevant the topic is in today’s world. For example, consider this attention getter for a persuasive speech on frivolous lawsuits:

                                  On January 10 of this year, Scott Anthony Gomez, Jr., and a fellow inmate escaped from a Pueblo, Colorado, jail. During their escape, the duo attempted to rappel from the roof of the jail using a makeshift ladder of bed sheets. During Gomez’s attempt to scale the building, he slipped, fell forty feet, and injured his back. After being quickly apprehended, Gomez filed a lawsuit against the jail for making it too easy for him to escape.

                                  In this case, the speaker is highlighting a news event that illustrates what a frivolous lawsuit is, setting up the speech topic of a need for change in how such lawsuits are handled.

                                  Historical Reference

                                  You may also capture your listeners’ attention by referring to a historical event related to your topic. Obviously, this strategy is closely related to the previous one, except that instead of a recent news event, you are reaching further back in history to find a relevant reference. For example, if you are giving a speech on the perception of modern music as crass or having no redeeming values, you could refer back to Elvis Presley and his musical breakout in the 1950s as a way of making a comparison:

                                  During the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley introduced the United States to a new genre of music: rock and roll. Initially viewed as distasteful, Presley was himself chastised for his gyrating dance moves and flashy style. Today he is revered as “The King of Rock n Roll.” So when we criticize modern artists for being flamboyant or over the top, we may be ridiculing some of the most important musical innovators we will know in our lifetimes.

                                  In this example, the speaker is evoking the audience’s knowledge of Elvis to raise awareness of similarities to current artists that may be viewed today as he was in the 1950s.

                                  Humor

                                  Humor is another effective method for gaining an audience’s attention. Humor is an amazing tool when used properly. We cannot begin to explain all the facets of humor, but we can say that humor is a great way of focusing an audience on what you are saying. However, humor is a double-edged sword. If you do not wield the sword carefully, you can turn your audience against you very quickly.

                                  When using humor, you really need to know your audience and understand what they will find humorous. One of the biggest mistakes a speaker can make is to use some form of humor that the audience either doesn’t find funny or, worse, finds offensive. We recommend that you test out the humor of any kind on a sample of potential audience members prior to actually using it during a speech. As with other attention-getting devices, you need to make sure your humor is relevant to your topic. You also want to make sure that the leap from your attention-getter to your topic isn’t too complicated for your audience, or the attention-getter will backfire.

                                  This list of attention-getting devices represents a thorough, but not necessarily exhaustive, range of ways that you can begin your speech. 

                                  The best attention-getters are

                                  • concrete (they bring up or refer to real experiences);
                                  • novel (they use material that is new or that the audience is unlikely to have heard before);
                                  • movement-oriented (don’t spend too long in the introduction because the audience will wonder where you are headed);
                                  • need-oriented (your attention getter and introduction, in general, should relate to the needs or interests of the audience).

                                  Other factors like suspense (introduce a story and finish it at the end) or conflict (telling a story with strong opposing forces and tension) can also be used.

                                   

                                  Element 2: Establish or Enhance Your Credibility

                                  Whether you are informing, persuading, or entertaining an audience, one of the things they will be expecting is for you to know what you are talking about. So the second element of an introduction is to let your audience know that you are a knowledgeable and credible source for this information. To do this, you will need to explain how you know what you know about your topic.

                                  For some people, this will be simple. If you are informing your audience how a baseball is thrown, and you have played baseball since you were eight years old, that makes you a fairly credible source. You probably know what you are talking about. So let us know that by saying something like, “Having played baseball for over ten years, including two years as the starting pitcher on my high school’s varsity team, I can tell you about the ways that pitchers use to throw different kinds of balls in a baseball game.” With regard to persuasive speaking, if you are trying to convince your audience to join Big Brothers Big Sisters and you have been volunteering for years, let them know: “I’ve been serving with Big Brothers Big Sisters for the last two years, and I can tell you that the experience is very rewarding.” By telling your audience you volunteer, you are saying to them, “I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.” If you do it (and have done it for two years), then it must be a good experience.

                                  However, you may be speaking on a subject with which you have no history of credibility. If you are just curious about when streetlights were installed at intersections and why they are red, yellow, and green, you can do that. But you will still need to give your audience some sort of reason to trust your knowledge. Since you were required to do research, you are at least more knowledgeable on the subject than anyone else in the class. In this case, you might say, “After doing some research and reading several books on the subject, I want to share what I’ve learned about the history and evolution of traffic lights in America.”

                                   

                                  Element 3: Establish Rapport

                                  The next element of your introduction will be to establish rapport with your audience. Rapport is basically a relationship or connection you make with your audience. In everyday life, we say that two people have a rapport when they get along really well and are good friends. In your introduction, you will want to explain to your audience why you are giving them this information and why it is important to them (answering the WIIFM question). You will be making a connection through this shared information and explaining to them how it will benefit them. One of the best examples of rapport we have seen came from an informative speech on the poet Lord Byron:

                                  You may be asking yourselves why you need to know about Lord Byron. If you take Humanities 1202 as I did last semester, you will be discussing his life and works, so after this speech, you will have a good basis for the class material.

                                  What is important here is that this speaker used audience analysis techniques to determine the demographic make-up of their audience and determine what would motivate them to listen. Knowing that they are all college students, she enticed them to listen with the suggestion that this information would benefit them in a future class they might take.

                                  Another important thing to note here is that there is not necessarily a right or wrong way to establish rapport with your audience. You, as the speaker, must determine what you think will work best and help make a connection. Take, for example, an informative speech on “how to throw a baseball.” How would you establish rapport with your audience on that topic? Maybe you choose to focus on the age of your audience and note that they are all relatively young and that some of them are already parents. You might say, “A lot of people in this room have or may have children someday, and if you decide you want to throw a ball with them or help them with sports, here are three steps you can use to teach them how to throw a baseball.” Will everyone in the class have kids someday? Probably not, but it is reasonable to guess that most of your audience will relate to this approach based on demographic analysis.

                                   

                                  Element 4: Preview Your Topic/Purpose/Central Idea

                                  The fourth major function of an introduction after getting the audience’s attention is to reveal the purpose of your speech to your audience. Have you ever sat through a speech wondering what the basic point was? Have you ever come away after a speech and had no idea what the speaker was talking about? An introduction should make the topic, purpose, and central idea clear.

                                  When previewing your topic in the introduction, be explicit with regard to exactly what your topic is. Spell it out for them if you have to. While it may not be great writing, the sentence “I’d like to tell you about how to properly change your car’s oil” is clear and leaves no doubt what your speech will be about.

                                  While not a hard and fast rule, you will probably also want to avoid having the audience “guess” what your topic is through clues. Consider the following topic reveal:

                                  Today I’d like to talk to you about a man who overcame great adversity to become the President of the United States. During his time in office, he faced increasing opposition from conservative voices in government, as well as some dissension among his own party, all while being thrust into a war he didn’t want.

                                  As an attention-getter, this may not be bad, but what it doesn’t do is reveal the topic. The speaker, at this point, might assume the audience has clearly figured out who this speech is about and moved on. Unfortunately, the above passage could refer to either Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama, and members of the audience might either be confused or disappointed when they figure out the speech isn’t covering what they thought it was.

                                  It should also be noted here that at no point in your introduction do you ever want to read your specific purpose statement as a way of revealing your topic. Your specific purpose is included in your outline for your instructor’s sake and to keep you on track during preparation. The language used in the specific purpose (“To inform my audience…”) is too awkward to be actually read aloud.

                                   

                                  Element 5: Preview Your Main Points

                                  Just like previewing your topic, previewing your main points helps your audience know what to expect throughout the course of your speech and prepares them for what you are going to speak on. Your preview of the main points should be clear and easy to follow so that there is no question in your audience’s minds about what they are. Long, complicated, or verbose main points can get confusing. Be succinct and simple: “Today, in our discussion of Abraham Lincoln’s life, we will look at his birth, his role as president, and his assassination.” From that, there is little question as to what specific aspects of Lincoln’s life the speech will cover. However, if you want to be extra sure they get it, you can always enumerate them by using signposts: “In discussing how to make chocolate chip cookies, first we will cover what ingredients you need, second we will talk about how to mix them, and third we will look at baking them.”

                                  What these five elements do is prepare your audience for the bulk of the speech (i.e., the body section) by letting them know what they can expect, why they should listen, and why they can trust you as a speaker. Having all five elements starts your speech off on much more solid ground than you would get without having them.

                                   

                                  Examples of Introductions

                                  Below you will find examples of informative and persuasive introductions. Notice that each contains the five elements necessary for a good intro: an attention-getter, the reveal and relate statement, the speaker’s credibility, the central idea, and the clearly articulated main points (the preview statement). An important point to mention about the introduction is that the parts should flow or “bridge” into each other. You do not want to have a disconnect or a disrupted narrative. 

                                  Informative Speech Introductions

                                  Topic: Allergies

                                  My parents knew that something was really wrong when my mom received a call from my home economics teacher saying that she needed to get to the school immediately and pick me up. This was all because of an allergy, something that everyone in this room is either vaguely or extremely familiar with. Allergies affect a large number of people, and three very common allergies include pet and animal allergies, seasonal allergies, and food allergies. All three of these allergies take control over certain areas of my life, as all three types affect me, starting when I was just a kid and continuing today [attention-getter]. Because of this, I have done extensive research on the subject,[credibility], and would like to share some of what I’ve learned with all of you today. Whether you just finished your freshman year of college, you are a new parent, or you have kids that are grown and out of the house, allergies will most likely affect everyone in this room at some point, [rapport] so it will benefit you all to know more about them, specifically the three most common sources of allergies and the most recent approaches to treating them [purpose and preview].

                                  Topic: Seasonal Affective Disorder (See if you can identify the parts on this one.)

                                  When winter is approaching and the days are getting darker and shorter, do you feel a dramatic reduction in energy, or do you sleep longer than usual during the fall or winter months? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you might be one of the millions of people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. For most people, these problems do not cause great suffering in their life, but for an estimated six percent of the United States population, these problems can result in major suffering. As a student in the registered nursing program here at Dalton State, I became interested in SAD after learning more about it and want to share this information with all of you in case you recognize some of these symptoms in yourself or someone you love. In order to fully understand SAD, it is important to look at the medical definition of SAD, the symptoms of this disorder, and the measures that are commonly used to ease symptoms.

                                  Persuasive Speech Introduction

                                  Topic: Term Life Insurance

                                  You have cried silent tears and uttered desperate prayers, but as you watch the medical team unhook the tubes, turn off the heart monitor and shoot furtive, helpless glances your way, you face the unmistakable reality that

                                  cancer has won, and you are left with unimaginable grief, despair and yes, financial burden. Most of us would not choose to cause our loved ones financial pain on top of the emotional pain of our deaths, but by failing to plan for their financial needs, that is exactly what we do. I have learned a lot about life insurance in my research for this presentation, from taking a thirteen-week course about financial matters and from the experience of purchasing a term life insurance policy just last year. I know most of you probably have not thought much about life insurance, but someday each and every one of us in this room will pass away, and somebody is going to have to pay for our funerals. Term life insurance is affordable, protects those you love from the financial devastation of your uninsured death, and reinforces your commitment to their financial and emotional well-being while you are living. Let’s examine the definition of term life insurance and then its benefits.

                                   

                                    9.6 Outline: The Body

                                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                     

                                    When creating a speech, it’s important to remember that speeches have three clear parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction establishes the topic and whets your audience’s appetite, and the conclusion wraps everything up at the end of your speech. The real “meat” of your speech happens in the body. In this section, we’re going to discuss how to think strategically about the body of your speech.

                                    We like the word strategic because it refers to determining what is important or essential to the overall plan or purpose of your speech. Too often, new speakers just throw information together and stand up and start speaking. When that happens, audience members are left confused and the reason for the speech may get lost. To avoid being seen as disorganized, we want you to start thinking critically about the organization of your speech. In this section, we will discuss how to take your speech from a specific purpose to creating the main points of your speech.

                                     

                                    What Is Your Specific Purpose?

                                    Before we discuss how to determine the main points of your speech, we want to revisit your speech’s specific purpose. Recall that a speech can have one of three general purposes: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.

                                    The general purpose refers to the broad goal for creating and delivering the speech. The specific purpose, on the other hand, starts with one of those broad goals (inform, persuade, or entertain) and then further informs the listener about the whowhatwhenwherewhy, and how of the speech.

                                    The specific purpose is stated as a sentence incorporating the general purpose, the specific audience for the speech, and a prepositional phrase that summarizes the topic. Suppose you are going to give a speech about using open-source software. Here are three examples (each with a different general purpose and a different audience):

                                    General PurposeSpecific Purpose
                                    To informTo inform a group of school administrators about the various open-source software packages that could be utilized in their school districts
                                    To persuadeTo persuade a group of college students to make the switch from Microsoft Office to the open-source office suite OpenOffice

                                    To entertain

                                    To entertain members of a business organization with a mock eulogy of for-pay software giants as a result of the proliferation of open-source alternatives

                                    In each of these three examples, you’ll notice that the general topic is the same—open-source software—but the specific purpose is different because the speech has a different general purpose and a different audience. Before you can think strategically about organizing the body of your speech, you need to know what your specific purpose is. If you have not yet written a specific purpose for your current speech, please go ahead and write one now.

                                     

                                    From Specific Purpose to Main Points

                                    Once you’ve written down your specific purpose, you can now start thinking about the best way to turn that specific purpose into a series of main
                                    points. The main points are the key ideas you present to enable your speech to accomplish its specific purpose. In this section, we’re going to discuss how to determine your main points and how to organize those main points into a coherent, strategic speech.

                                     

                                    How Many Main Points Do I Need?

                                    While there is no magic number for how many main points a speech should have, speech experts generally agree that the fewer the number of main points the better. First and foremost, experts on the subject of memory have consistently shown that people don’t tend to remember very much after they listen to a message or leave a conversation. [1] While many different factors can affect a listener’s ability to retain information after a speech, how the speech is organized is an important part of that process. [2] For the speeches you will be delivering in a typical public speaking class, you will usually have just two or three main points. If your speech is less than three minutes long, then two main points will probably work best. If your speech is between three and ten minutes in length, then it makes more sense to use three main points.

                                    You may be wondering why we are recommending only two or three main points. The reason comes straight out of the research on listening. According to LeFrancois, people are more likely to remember information that is meaningful, useful, and of interest to them; different or unique; organized; visual; and simple. [3] Two or three main points are much easier for listeners to remember than ten or even five. In addition, if you have two or three main points, you’ll be able to develop each one with examples, statistics, or other forms of support. Including support for each point will make your speech more interesting and more memorable for your audience.

                                     

                                    Narrowing Down Your Main Points

                                    When you write your specific purpose and review the research you have done on your topic, you will probably find yourself thinking of quite a few points that you’d like to make in your speech. Whether that’s the case or not, we recommend taking a few minutes to brainstorm and develop a list of points. In brainstorming, your goal is simply to think of as many different points as you can, not to judge how valuable or important they are. What information does your audience need to know to understand your topic? What information does your speech need to convey to accomplish its specific purpose? Consider the following example:

                                    Specific Purpose

                                    To inform a group of school administrators about the various open-source software packages that could be utilized in their school districts

                                    Brainstorming List of Points

                                    Define open-source software.

                                    Define educational software.

                                    List and describe the software commonly used by school districts.

                                    Explain the advantages of using open-source software.

                                    Explain the disadvantages of using open-source software.

                                    Review the history of open-source software.

                                    Describe the value of open-source software.

                                    Describe some educational open-source software packages.

                                    Review the software needs of my specific audience.

                                    Describe some problems that have occurred with open-source software.

                                    Now that you have brainstormed and developed a list of possible points, how do you go about narrowing them down to just two or three main ones? Remember, your main points are the key ideas that help build your speech. When you look over the preceding list, you can then start to see that many of the points are related to one another. Your goal in narrowing down your main points is to identify which individual, potentially minor points can be combined to make main points. This process is called chunking because it involves taking smaller chunks of information and putting them together with like chunks to create more fully developed chunks of information. Before reading our chunking of the preceding list, see if you can determine three large chunks out of the list (note that not all chunks are equal). 

                                    Specific Purpose

                                    To inform a group of school administrators about the various open-source software packages that could be utilized in their school districts

                                    Main Point 1

                                    School districts use the software in their operations.

                                    Define educational software.

                                    List and describe the software commonly used by school districts.

                                    Main Point 2

                                    What is open-source software?

                                    Define open-source software.

                                    Review the history of open-source software.

                                    Describe the value of open-source software.

                                    Explain the disadvantages of using open-source software.

                                    Describe some problems that have occurred with open-source software.

                                    Main Point 3

                                    Name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider.

                                    Review the software needs of my specific audience.

                                    Describe some educational open-source software packages.

                                    You may notice that in the preceding list, the number of subpoints under each of the three main points is a little disjointed or the topics don’t go together clearly. That’s all right. Remember that these are just general ideas at this point. It’s also important to remember that there is often more than one way to organize a speech. Some of these points could be left out and others developed more fully, depending on the purpose and audience. We’ll develop the preceding main points more fully in a moment.

                                     

                                    Helpful Hints for Preparing Your Main Points

                                    Now that we’ve discussed how to take a specific purpose and turn it into a series of main points, here are some helpful hints for creating your main points.

                                    Uniting Your Main Points

                                    Once you’ve generated a possible list of main points, you want to ask yourself this question: “When you look at your main points, do they fit together?” For example, if you look at the three preceding main points (school districts use the software in their operations; what is open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider), ask yourself, “Do these main points help my audience understand my specific purpose?”

                                    Suppose you added a fourth main point about open-source software for musicians—would this fourth main point go with the other three? Probably not. While you may have a strong passion for open-source music software, that main point is extraneous information for the speech you are giving. It does not help accomplish your specific purpose, so you’d need to toss it out.

                                    Keeping Your Main Points Separate

                                    The next question to ask yourself about your main points is whether they overlap too much. While some overlap may happen naturally because of the singular nature of a specific topic, the information covered within each main point should be clearly distinct from the other main points. Imagine you’re giving a speech with the specific purpose “to inform my audience about the health reasons for eating apples and oranges.” You could then have three main points: that eating fruits is healthy, that eating apples is healthy, and that eating oranges is healthy. While the two points related to apples and oranges are clearly distinct, both of those main points would probably overlap too much with the first point “that eating fruits is healthy,” so you would probably decide to eliminate the first point and focus on the second and third. On the other hand, you could keep the first point and then develop two new points giving additional support to why people should eat fruit.

                                    Balancing Main Points

                                    One of the biggest mistakes some speakers make is to spend most of their time talking about one of their main points, completely neglecting their other main points. To avoid this mistake, organize your speech so as to spend roughly the same amount of time on each main point. If you find that one of your main points is simply too large, you may need to divide that main point into two main points and consolidate your other main points into a single main point. Let’s see if our preceding example is balanced (school districts use the software in their operations; what is open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider). What do you think? Obviously, the answer depends on how much time a speaker will have to talk about each of these main points. If you have an hour to talk, then you may find that these three main points are balanced. However, you may also find them wildly unbalanced if you only have five minutes to speak because five minutes is not enough time to even explain what open-source software is. If that’s the case, then you probably need to rethink your specific purpose to ensure that you can cover the material in the allotted time.

                                    Creating Parallel Structure for Main Points

                                    Another major question to ask yourself about your main points is whether or not they have a parallel structure. By parallel structure, we mean that you should structure your main points so that they all sound similar. When all your main points sound similar, it’s simply easier for your audiences to remember your main points and retain them for later. Let’s look at our sample (school districts use the software in their operations; what is open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider). Notice that the first and third main points are statements, but the second one is a question. Basically, we have an example here of main points that are not parallel in structure. You could fix this in one of two ways. You could make them all questions: what are some common school district software programs; what is open-source software; and what are some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider. Or you could turn them all into statements: school districts use the software in their operations; define and describe open-source software; name some specific open-source software packages that may be appropriate for these school administrators to consider. Either of these changes will make the grammatical structure of the main points parallel.

                                    Maintaining Logical Flow of Main Points

                                    The last question you want to ask yourself about your main points is whether the main points make sense in the order you’ve placed them. The next section goes into more detail of common organizational patterns for speeches, but for now, we want you to just think logically about the flow of your main points. When you look at your main points, can you see them as progressive, or does it make sense to talk about one first, another one second, and the final one last? If you look at your order, and it doesn’t make sense to you, you probably need to think about the flow of your main points. Often, this process is an art and not a science. But let’s look at a couple of examples.

                                    School Dress Codes Example

                                    Main Point 1

                                    History of school dress codes

                                    Main Point 2

                                    Problems with school dress codes

                                    Main Point 3

                                    Eliminating school dress codes

                                    Rider Law Legislation

                                    Main Point 1

                                    Why should states have rider laws?

                                    Main Point 2

                                    What are the effects of a lack of rider laws?

                                    Main Point 3

                                    What is rider law legislation?

                                    When you look at these two examples, what are your immediate impressions of the two examples? In the first example, does it make sense to talk about history, and then the problems, and finally how to eliminate school dress codes? Would it make sense to put history as your last main point? Probably not. In this case, the main points are in a logical sequential order. What about the second example? Does it make sense to talk about your solution, then your problem, and then define the solution? Not really! What order do you think these main points should be placed in for a logical flow? Maybe you should explain the problem (lack of rider laws), then define your solution (what is rider law legislation), and then argue for your solution (why states should have rider laws). Notice that in this example you don’t even need to know what “rider laws” are to see that the flow didn’t make sense.

                                     

                                    Exercises

                                    1. Generate a specific purpose for your current speech. Conduct a brainstorming activity where you try to think of all the possible points you could possibly make related to your specific purpose. Once you’ve finished creating this list, see if you can find a meaningful pattern that helps you develop three main points.
                                    2. Pair up with a partner. Take the three main points you developed in the previous exercise, exchange papers with your partner, and ask them to see whether or not they are united, separate, balanced, parallel, and logical. You do the same for your partner’s main points. If they are not, what can you or your partner do to fix your main points?

                                     

                                    9.7 Outline: The Conclusion

                                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                     

                                    One of the main roles of the conclusion is to review what you have covered while being short and to the point. Remember, your conclusion should be about 10% of your total speech. 

                                    In terms of the conclusions, be careful NOT to:

                                    • signal the end multiple times: no “multiple conclusions” or saying “As I close” more than once;
                                    • ramble: if you signal the end, end;
                                    • talk as you leave the platform or lectern; and
                                    • indicate with facial expression or body language that you were not happy with the speech.

                                    Similar to the introduction, the conclusion has three specific elements that you will want to incorporate in order to make it as strong as possible. Given the nature of these elements and what they do, these should generally be incorporated into your conclusion in the order they are presented below. 

                                     

                                    Element 1: Signal the End

                                    The first thing a good conclusion does is signal the end of a speech. You may be thinking that telling an audience that you’re about to stop speaking is a “no brainer,” but many speakers really don’t prepare their audience for the end. When a speaker just suddenly stops speaking, the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead, you want to make sure that audiences are left knowledgeable and satisfied with your speech. In a way, it gives them time to begin mentally organizing and cataloging all the points you have made for further consideration later.

                                    Generally, the easiest way to signal that it is the end of your speech is to begin your conclusion with the words, “In conclusion.” Similarly, “In summary” or “To conclude” work just as well. While these may seem very blunt ways of communicating the end of your speech to the audience, you want it to be extremely clear to everyone that you are wrapping things up. Certainly, you can choose to employ more elegant, interesting, or creative language here, but you then run the risk of the audience not catching on to the fact that your speech is ending.

                                    On the other hand, saying “In conclusion” (and definitely saying it more than once) can have an unintended negative effect. The audience may figure you are finished and turn you off, sort of like how we get up and leave during the credits in a movie. Therefore, you can also go straight to the summary, which is Element 2.

                                     

                                    Element 2: Restate Main Points

                                    In the introduction of a speech, you delivered a preview of your main points; now, in the conclusion, you will deliver a review. One of the biggest differences between written and oral communication is the necessity of repetition in oral communication (the issue of “planned redundancy” again). When you preview your main points in the introduction, effectively discuss and make transitions to your main points during the body of the speech, and finally, review the main points in the conclusion, you increase the likelihood that the audience will understand and retain your main points after the speech is over. Remember, your English instructor can re-read your essays as many times as they want, but your audience – and your instructor – only have one opportunity to catch and remember the points you are trying to get across in your speech.

                                    Because you are trying to remind the audience of your main points, you want to be sure not to bring up any new material or ideas. For example, if you said, “There are several other issues related to this topic, such as…but I don’t have time for them,” that would make the audience confused and perhaps wonder why you did not address those in the body section. Or if you were giving a persuasive speech on wind energy and you ended with, “Wind energy is the energy of the future, but there are still a few problems with it, such as noise and killing lots of birds,” you are bringing up a counter-argument that should have been dealt with in the body of the speech.

                                    This is a good place to remind you that the introduction, preview, transitions, and conclusion are for helping the audience be interested and prepared to listen, retain, and follow your speech. The conclusion is too late for that. The hard-core facts and content are in the body. If you are tempted to cram lots of material into the conclusion, that is not the place for it, nor is it the place to provide the important steps to a solution.

                                    As you progress as a public speaker, you will want to work on rephrasing your summary statement so that it does not sound like an exact repeat of the preview. For example, if your preview was:

                                    The three arguments in favor of medical marijuana that I will present are that it would make necessary treatments available to all, it would cut down on the costs to law enforcement, and it would bring revenue to state budgets.

                                    Your summary might be:

                                    In the minutes we’ve had together, I have shown you that approving medical marijuana in our state will greatly help persons with a variety of chronic and severe conditions. Also, funds spent on law enforcement to find and convict legitimate marijuana users would go down as revenues from medical marijuana to the state budget would go up.

                                     

                                    Element 3: Clincher

                                    The third element of your conclusion is the clincher or something memorable with which to conclude your speech. The clincher is sometimes referred to as a Concluding Device. These are the very last words you will say in your speech, so you need to make them count. This is the last thing your audience will hear, so you want to make it good. In a certain way, you might think of your speech as a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant: the introduction is the appetizer that gets everyone ready for the main course, the body section is the “meat and vegetables,” and the conclusion is like dessert. But have you ever had a nice meal that ended with a dessert that didn’t really taste good? Regardless of how good the rest of the meal was, you probably walked away thinking, It was okay, but I just remember not liking it at the end. A good clincher prevents your audience from thinking that way and, in fact, can even make an audience remember a speech more favorably.

                                    In many ways, the clincher is like the inverse of the attention-getter. You want to start the speech off with something strong, and you want to end the speech with something strong. To that end, similar to what we discussed above with attention-getters, there are a number of ways you can make your clincher strong and memorable.

                                    Conclude with a Challenge

                                    One way you can end your speech is with a challenge. A challenge is a call to engage in some kind of activity that requires a special effort. In a speech on the necessity of fund-raising, a speaker could conclude by challenging the audience to raise 10 percent more than their original projections. In a speech on eating more vegetables, you could challenge your audience to increase their current intake of vegetables by two portions daily. In both of these challenges, audience members are being asked to go out of their way to do something different that involves effort on their part.

                                    In a challenge, try to make it aspirational but reasonable. The challenge should be something they can strive for but not see as something impossible. Two or three more servings a day of fruits and vegetables is reasonable, but six probably would be seen as too much.

                                    In the same category as a challenge, probably the most common persuasive concluding device is the appeal for action or the call to action. In essence, the appeal for action occurs when a speaker asks their audience to engage in a specific behavior. When a speaker concludes by asking the audience “to do” something, the speaker wants to see an actual change. Whether the speaker appeals for people to eat more fruit, buy a car, vote for a candidate, oppose the death penalty, get more sleep, or sing more in the shower, the speaker is asking the audience to engage in action.

                                    One specific type of appeal for action is the immediate call to action. Whereas some appeals ask for people to engage in behavior in the future, the immediate call to action asks people to engage in behavior right now. If a speaker wants to see a new traffic light placed at a dangerous intersection, they may conclude by asking all the audience members to sign a digital petition right then and there, using a computer the speaker has made available. For a speech on eating more vegetables, pass out raw veggies and dip at the conclusion of the speech; someone giving a speech on petitioning a lawmaker for a new law could provide audience members with a prewritten e-mail they can send to the lawmaker.

                                    If you are giving a persuasive speech about a solution to a problem, you should not relegate the call to action to the very end of the speech. It should probably be a main point where you can deal with the steps and specifics of the solution in more detail. For example, perhaps a speaker has been discussing the problems associated with the disappearance of art education in the United States. The speaker could then propose a solution of creating more community-based art experiences for school children as a way to fill this gap. Although this can be an effective conclusion, speakers must ask themselves whether the solution should be discussed in more depth as a stand-alone main point within the body of the speech so that audience concerns about the proposed solution may be addressed.

                                    Conclude with a Quotation

                                    Another way you can conclude a speech is by providing a quotation relevant to the speech topic. When using a quotation, you need to think about whether your goal is to end on a persuasive note or an informative note. Some quotations will have a clear call to action, while other quotations summarize or provoke thought. For example, let’s say you are delivering an informative speech about dissident writers in the former Soviet Union. You could end by citing this quotation from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason, no regime has ever loved great writers.”

                                    Notice that this quotation underscores the idea of writers as dissidents, but it doesn’t ask listeners to put forth the effort to engage in any specific thought process or behavior. If, on the other hand, you were delivering a persuasive speech urging your audience to sponsor a child in a developing country for $40 per month, you might use this quotation by Forest Witcraft:

                                    “A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

                                    In this case, the quotation leaves the audience with the message that monetary sacrifices are worth taking, that they make our lives worthwhile, and that the right thing to do is to go ahead and make that sacrifice.

                                    Conclude by Visualizing the Future

                                    The purpose of a conclusion that refers to the future is to help your audience imagine the future you believe can occur. If you are giving a speech on the development of video games for learning, you could conclude by depicting the classroom of the future where video games are perceived as true learning tools. More often, speakers use visualization of the future to depict how society or how individual listeners’ lives would be different if the speaker’s persuasive attempt worked. For example, if a speaker proposes that a solution to illiteracy is hiring more reading specialists in public schools, the speaker could ask their audience to imagine a world without illiteracy. In this use of visualization, the goal is to persuade the audience to adopt the speaker’s point of view. By showing that the speaker’s vision of the future is a positive one, the conclusion should help to persuade the audience to help create this future.

                                    Conclude by Inspiration

                                    By definition, the word inspire means to affect or arouse someone. Both affect and arouse have strong emotional connotations. The ultimate goal of an inspirational concluding device is similar to an “appeal for action,” but the ultimate goal is more lofty or ambiguous; the goal is to stir someone’s emotions in a specific manner. This is done by sharing a story, poem, or quotation that appeals to the audience’s basic values and therefore appeals to emotions. Stories or allusions to “underdogs” who overcame obstacles to achieve something worthwhile or those who make sacrifices for the good of others can help inspire. You probably know of such stories (Olympic athletes and a well-known figure such as Captain Sullenberger are examples) that would be of value, as long as they are relevant to your topic and purpose. Poetry is sometimes used to inspire, but you want to use a short passage (eight lines or less) of poetry that is clear to the audience.

                                    Conclude with a Question

                                    Another way you can end a speech is to ask a rhetorical question that forces the audience to ponder an idea. Maybe you are giving a speech on the importance of the environment, so you end the speech by saying, “Think about your children’s future. What kind of world do you want them raised in? A world that is clean, vibrant, and beautiful—or one that is filled with smog, pollution, filth, and disease?” Notice that you aren’t actually asking the audience to verbally or nonverbally answer the question; the goal of this question is to force the audience into thinking about what kind of world they want for their children.

                                    Refer Back to the Introduction

                                    This method provides a good sense of closure to the speech and can be one of the most effective methods. If you started the speech with a startling statistic or fact, such as “Last year, according to the official website of the American Humane Society, four million pets were euthanized in shelters in the United States,” in the end, you could say, “Remember that shocking number of four million euthanized pets? With your donation of time or money to the Northwest Georgia Rescue Shelter, you can help lower that number in our region.”

                                    Conclude with an Anecdote or Personal Story

                                    As with your attention-getter, a brief story can be a strong way to conclude. However, it must be relevant and not go on too long. Combining this method and the previous one, you might finish telling a story that you started in the introduction as your clincher. This method is probably better with persuasive speeches where you want to end with a strong emotional appeal.

                                    Conclude with Reference to the Audience or Audience’s Self-Interest

                                    The last concluding device involves a direct reference to your audience. This concluding device is used when a speaker attempts to answer the basic audience question, “What’s in it for me?” (the WIIFM question). The goal of this concluding device is to spell out the direct benefits a behavior or thought change has for audience members. For example, a speaker talking about stress reduction techniques could conclude by clearly listing all the physical health benefits stress reduction offers (e.g., improved reflexes, improved immune system, improved hearing, reduction in blood pressure). In this case, the speaker is clearly spelling out why audience members should care about the topic and what’s in it for them.

                                    Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

                                    As you read through the above possible ways to conclude a speech, hopefully, you noticed that some of the methods are more appropriate for persuasive speeches, and others are more appropriate for informative speeches. An appeal to action, for example, may not be appropriate for an informative speech since asking your audience to do something often borders on persuasion, which isn’t what an informative speech is intended to do. Similarly, if your persuasive speech is on the importance of voting in the next local election, an appeal to action clincher would probably be one of your stronger options.

                                     

                                    Examples of Conclusions

                                    Informative Speech Conclusion

                                    Topic: Anxiety

                                    Anxiety is a complex emotion that afflicts people of all ages and social backgrounds and is experienced uniquely by each individual. We have seen that there are multiple symptoms, causes, and remedies, all of which can often be related either directly or indirectly to cognitive behaviors. While most people do not enjoy anxiety, it seems to be part of the universal human experience, so realize that you are not alone but also realize that you are not powerless against it. With that said, the following quote, attributed to an anonymous source, could not be more true, “Worry does not relieve tomorrow of its stress; it merely empties today of its strength.”

                                    Persuasive Speech Conclusion

                                    Topic: Adopting a Rescue Animal

                                    I believe you should adopt a rescue animal because it helps stop forms of animal cruelty, you can add a healthy companion to your home, and it is a relatively simple process that can save a life. Each and every one of you should go to your nearest animal shelter, which may include the Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care, the Humane Society of NWGA in Dalton, the Murray County Humane Society, or the multiple other shelters in the area to bring a new animal companion into your life. I’ll leave you with a paraphrased quote from Deborah Jacobs’s article “Westminster Dog Show Junkie” on Forbes.com: “You may start out thinking that you are rescuing the animal, and ultimately find that the animal rescues you right back.”

                                     

                                    9.8 Outline: Transition Techniques

                                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                     

                                    Have you ever been listening to a speech or a lecture and found yourself thinking, “I am so lost!” or “Where the heck is this speaker going?” Chances are one of the reasons you weren’t sure what the speaker was talking about was that the speaker didn’t effectively keep the speech moving. When we are reading and encounter something we don’t understand, we have the ability to reread the paragraph and try to make sense of what we’re trying to read. Unfortunately, we are not that lucky when it comes to listening to a speaker. We cannot pick up our universal remote and rewind the person. For this reason, speakers need to really think about how they keep a speech moving so that audience members are easily able to keep up with the speech. In this section, we’re going to look at four specific techniques speakers can use that make following a speech much easier for an audience: transitions, internal previews, internal summaries, and signposts.

                                     

                                    Transitions between Main Points 

                                    A transition is a phrase or sentence that indicates that a speaker is moving from one main point to another main point in a speech. Basically, a transition is a sentence where the speaker summarizes what was said in one point and previews what is going to be discussed in the next point. Let’s look at some examples:

                                    • Now that we’ve seen the problems caused by the lack of adolescent curfew laws, let’s examine how curfew laws could benefit our community.

                                    • Thus far, we’ve examined the history and prevalence of alcohol abuse among Native Americans, but it is the impact that this abuse has on the health of Native Americans that is of the greatest concern.

                                    • Now that we’ve thoroughly examined how these two medications are similar to one another, we can consider the many clear differences between the two medications.

                                    • Although he was one of the most prolific writers in Great Britain prior to World War II, Winston Churchill continued to publish during the war years as well.

                                    You’ll notice that in each of these transition examples, the beginning phrase of the sentence indicates the conclusion of a period of time (now that, thus far). Figure 9.8.1 contains a variety of transition words that will be useful when keeping your speech moving.

                                     

                                    Figure 9.8.1: Transition Words

                                     

                                    Addition

                                    also, again, as well as, besides, coupled with, following this, further, furthermore, in addition, in the same way, additionally, likewise, moreover, similarly

                                    Consequence

                                    accordingly, as a result, consequently, for this reason, for this purpose, hence, otherwise, so then, subsequently, therefore, thus, thereupon, wherefore

                                    Generalizing

                                    as a rule, as usual, for the most part, generally, generally speaking, ordinarily, usually

                                    Exemplifying

                                    chiefly, especially, for instance, in particular, markedly, namely, particularly, including, specifically, such as

                                    Illustration

                                    for example, for instance, for one thing, as an illustration, illustrated with, as an example, in this case

                                    Emphasis

                                    above all, chiefly, with attention to, especially, particularly, singularly

                                    Similarity

                                    comparatively, coupled with, correspondingly, identically, likewise, similar, moreover, together with

                                    Exception

                                    aside from, barring, besides, except, excepting, excluding, exclusive of, other than, outside of, save

                                    Restatement

                                    in essence, in other words, namely, that is, that is to say, in short, in brief, to put it differently

                                    Contrast and Comparison

                                    contrast, by the same token, conversely, instead, likewise, on the one hand, on the other hand, on the contrary, nevertheless, rather, similarly, yet, but, however, still, nevertheless, in contrast

                                    Sequence

                                    at first, first of all, to begin with, in the first place, at the same time, for now, for the time being, the next step, in time, in turn, later on, meanwhile, next, then, soon, the meantime, later, while, earlier, simultaneously, afterward, in conclusion, with this in mind

                                    Common Sequence Patterns

                                    first, second, third, etc.

                                    generally, furthermore, finally

                                    in the first place, also, lastly

                                    in the first place, pursuing this further, finally

                                    to be sure, additionally, lastly

                                    in the first place, just in the same way, finally

                                    basically, similarly, as well

                                    Summarizing

                                    after all, all in all, all things considered, briefly, by and large, in any case, in any event, in brief, in conclusion, on the whole, in short, in summary, in the final analysis, in the long run, on balance, to sum up, to summarize, finally

                                    Diversion

                                    by the way, incidentally

                                    Direction

                                    here, there, over there, beyond, nearly, opposite, under, above, to the left, to the right, in the distance

                                    Location

                                    above, behind, by, near, throughout, across, below, down, off, to the right, against, beneath, in back of, onto, under, along, beside, in front of, on top of, among, between, inside, outside, around, beyond, into, over

                                     

                                    Beyond transitions, there are several other techniques that you can use to clarify your speech organization for your audience. The next sections address several of these techniques, including internal previews, internal summaries, and signposts.

                                     

                                    Internal Previews

                                    An internal preview is a phrase or sentence that gives an audience an idea of what is to come within a section of a speech. An internal preview works similarly to the preview that a speaker gives at the end of a speech introduction, quickly outlining what they are going to talk about (i.e., the speech’s three main body points). In an internal preview, the speaker highlights what they are going to discuss within a specific main point during a speech.

                                    Ausubel was the first person to examine the effect that internal previews had on the retention of oral information. Basically, when a speaker clearly informs an audience what they are going to be talking about in a clear and organized manner, the audience listens for those main points, which leads to higher retention of the speaker’s message. Let’s look at a sample internal preview:

                                    To help us further understand why recycling is important, we will first explain the positive benefits of recycling and then explore how recycling can help our community.

                                    When an audience hears that you will be exploring two different ideas within this main point, they are ready to listen for those main points as you talk about them. In essence, you’re helping your audience keep up with your speech. Rather than being given alone, internal previews often come after a speaker has transitioned to that main topic area. Using the previous internal preview, let’s see it along with the transition to that main point.

                                    Now that we’ve explored the effect that a lack of consistent recycling has on our community let’s explore the importance of recycling for our community (transition). To help us further understand why recycling is important, we will first explain the positive benefits of recycling and then explore how recycling can help our community (internal preview).

                                    While internal previews are definitely helpful, you do not need to include one for every main point of your speech. In fact, we recommend that you use internal previews sparingly to highlight only main points containing relatively complex information.

                                     

                                    Internal Summaries

                                    Whereas an internal preview helps an audience know what you are going to talk about within a main point at the beginning, an internal summary is delivered to remind an audience of what they just heard within the speech. In general, internal summaries are best used when the information within a specific main point of a speech was complicated. To write your own internal summaries, look at the summarizing transition words in Figure 9.8.1. Let’s look at an example.

                                    To sum up, school bullying is a definite problem. Bullying in schools has been shown to be detrimental to the victim’s grades, the victim’s scores on standardized tests, and the victim’s future educational outlook.
                                    In this example, the speaker was probably talking about the impact that bullying has on an individual victim educationally. Of course, an internal summary can also be a great way to lead into a transition to the next point of a speech. We have explored how bullying in schools has been shown to be detrimental to the victim’s grades, the victim’s scores on standardized tests, and the victim’s future educational outlook (internal summary). Therefore, schools need to implement campus-wide, comprehensive antibullying programs (transition).

                                    While not sounding like the more traditional transition, this internal summary helps readers summarize the content of that main point. The sentence that follows then leads to the next major part of the speech, which is going to discuss the importance of antibullying programs.

                                     

                                    Signposts

                                    Have you ever been on a road trip and watched the green rectangular mile signs pass you by? Fifty miles to go. Twenty-five miles to go. One mile to go. Signposts within a speech function the same way. A signpost is a guide a speaker gives their audience to help the audience keep up with the content of a speech. If you look at Figure 9.8.1 and look at the “common sequence patterns,” you’ll see a series of possible signpost options. In essence, we use these short phrases at the beginning of a piece of information to help our audience members keep up with what we’re discussing. For example, if you were giving a speech whose main point was about the three functions of credibility, you could use internal signposts like this:

                                    • The first function of credibility is competence.

                                    • The second function of credibility is trustworthiness.

                                    • The final function of credibility is caring/goodwill.

                                    Signposts are simply meant to help your audience keep up with your speech, so the more simplistic your signposts are, the easier it is for your audience to follow. In addition to helping audience members keep up with a speech, signposts can also be used to highlight specific information the speaker thinks is important. Where the other signposts were designed to show the way (like highway markers), signposts that call attention to specific pieces of information are more like billboards. Words and phrases that are useful for highlighting information can be found in Figure 9.8.1 under the category “emphasis.” All these words are designed to help you call attention to what you are saying so that the audience will also recognize the importance of the information.

                                     

                                    Exercises

                                    1. Using the main points you created earlier, create clear transitions between each main point. Look at the possible transition words in Figure 9.8.1. See which words are best suited for your speech. Try your transitions out on a friend or classmate to see if the transition makes sense to other people.

                                    2. Take your most complicated main point and create an internal preview for that main point and then end the point with an internal summary.

                                    3. Think about your current speech. Where can you use signposts to help focus your audience’s attention? Try at least two different ways of phrasing your signposts, and then decide which one is better to use.

                                    9.9 Outline Examples

                                    (Content obtained from Competent Communication, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

                                     

                                    Informative Speech Outline

                                    Title: Going Green in the World of Education

                                    General Purpose: To inform

                                    Specific Purpose: By the end of my speech, the audience will be able to describe some ways in which schools are going green.

                                    Thesis Statement: The green movement has transformed school buildings, how teachers teach, and the environment in which students learn.

                                    Introduction

                                    Attention Getter: Did you know that attending or working at a green school can lead students and teachers to have fewer health problems? Did you know that allowing more daylight into school buildings increases academic performance and can lessen attention and concentration challenges? Well, the research I will cite in my speech supports both of these claims, and these are just two of the many reasons why more schools, both grade schools and colleges, are going green.

                                    Introduction of Topic: Today, I’m going to inform you about the green movement that is affecting many schools.

                                    Credibility and Relevance: Because of my own desire to go into the field of education, I decided to research how schools are going green in the United States. But it’s not just current and/or future teachers that will be affected by this trend. As students at Eastern Illinois University, you are already asked to make “greener” choices. Whether it’s the little signs in the dorm rooms that ask you to turn off your lights when you leave the room, the reusable water bottles that were given out on move-in day, or even our new Renewable Energy Center, the list goes on and on. Additionally, younger people in our lives, whether they be future children, younger siblings, or relatives, will likely be affected by this continuing trend.

                                    Preview Statement: In order to better understand what makes a “green school,” we need to learn about how K–12 schools are going green, how college campuses are going green, and how these changes affect students and teachers.

                                    Transition: I’ll begin with how K–12 schools are going green.

                                    Body

                                    I. According to the “About Us” section on their official website, the US Green Building Council was established in 1993 with the mission to promote sustainability in the building and construction industry, and it is this organization that is responsible for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, which is a well-respected green building certification system.

                                    A. While homes, neighborhoods, and businesses can also pursue LEED certification, I’ll focus today on K–12 schools and college campuses.

                                    1. It’s important to note that principles of “going green” can be applied to the planning of a building from its first inception or be retroactively applied to existing buildings.

                                    a. A 2011 article by Ash in Education Week notes that the pathway to creating a greener school is flexible based on the community and its needs.

                                         i. In order to garner support for green initiatives, the article recommends that local leaders like superintendents, mayors, and college administrators become involved in the green movement.

                                         ii. Once local leaders are involved, the community, students, parents, faculty, and staff can be involved by serving on a task force, hosting a summit or conference, and implementing lessons about sustainability into everyday conversations and school curricula.

                                    b. The US Green Building Council’s website also includes a tool kit with a lot of information about how to “green” existing schools.

                                    2. Much of the efforts to green schools have focused on K–12 schools and districts, but what makes a school green?

                                    a. According to the US Green Building Council’s Center for Green Schools, green school buildings conserve energy and natural resources.

                                         i. For example, Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins, Colorado, was built in 2006 and received LEED certification because it has automatic light sensors to conserve electricity and uses wind energy to offset nonrenewable energy use.

                                         ii. To conserve water, the school uses a pond for irrigation, has artificial turf on athletic fields, and installed low-flow toilets and faucets.

                                         iii. According to the 2006 report by certified energy manager Gregory Kats titled “Greening America’s Schools,” a LEED-certified school uses 30–50 percent less energy, 30 percent less water, and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent compared to a conventional school.

                                    b. The Center for Green Schools also presents case studies that show how green school buildings also create healthier learning environments.

                                         i. Many new building materials, carpeting, and furniture contain chemicals that are released into the air, which reduces indoor air quality.

                                         ii. So green schools purposefully purchase materials that are low in these chemicals.

                                         iii. Natural light and fresh air have also been shown to promote a healthier learning environment, so green buildings allow more daylight in and include functioning windows.

                                    Transition: As you can see, K–12 schools are becoming greener; college campuses are also starting to go green.

                                    II. Examples from the University of Denver and Eastern Illinois University show some of the potential for greener campuses around the country.

                                    A. The University of Denver is home to the nation’s first “green” law school.

                                    1. According to the Sturm College of Law’s website, the building was designed to use 40 percent less energy than a conventional building through the use of movement-sensor lighting; high-performance insulation in the walls, floors, and roof; and infrared sensors on water faucets and toilets.

                                    2. Electric car recharging stations were also included in the parking garage, and the building has extra bike racks and even showers that students and faculty can use to freshen up if they bike or walk to school or work.

                                    B. Eastern Illinois University has also made strides toward a more green campus.

                                    1. Some of the dining halls on campus have gone “trayless,” which, according to a 2009 article by Calder in the journal Independent School has the potential to dramatically reduce the amount of water and chemical use since there are no longer trays to wash, and also helps reduce food waste since people take less food without a tray.

                                    2. The biggest change on campus has been the opening of the Renewable Energy Center in 2011, which according to EIU’s website, is one of the largest biomass renewable energy projects in the country.

                                    a. The Renewable Energy Center uses slow-burn technology to use wood chips that are a byproduct of the lumber industry that would normally be discarded.

                                    b. This helps reduce our dependency on our old coal-fired power plant, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

                                    c. The project was the first known power plant to be registered with the US Green Building Council and is on track to receive LEED certification.

                                    Transition: All these efforts to go green in K–12 schools and on college campuses will obviously affect students and teachers at the schools.

                                    III. The green movement affects students and teachers in a variety of ways.

                                    A. Research shows that going green positively affects a student’s health.

                                    1. Many schools are literally going green by including more green spaces such as recreation areas, gardens, and greenhouses, which according to a 2010 article in the Journal of Environmental Education by University of Colorado professor Susan Strife has been shown to benefit a child’s cognitive skills, especially in the areas of increased concentration and attention capacity.

                                    2. Additionally, the report I cited earlier, “Greening America’s Schools,” states that the improved air quality in green schools can lead to a 38 percent reduction in asthma incidents and that students in “green schools” have 51 percent less chance of catching a cold or the flu compared to children in conventional schools.

                                    B. Standard steps taken to green schools can also help students academically.

                                    1. The report “Greening America’s Schools” notes that a recent synthesis of fifty-three studies found that more daylight in the school building leads to higher academic achievement.

                                    2. The report also provides data that show how a healthier environment in green schools leads to better attendance and that in Washington, DC, and Chicago, schools improved their performance on standardized tests by 3–4 percent.

                                    C. Going green can influence teachers’ lesson plans as well their job satisfaction and physical health.

                                    1. There are several options for teachers who want to “green” their curriculum.

                                    a. According to the article in Education Week that I cited earlier, the Sustainability Education Clearinghouse is a free online tool that provides K–12 educators with the ability to share sustainability-oriented lesson ideas.

                                    b. The Center for Green Schools also provides resources for all levels of teachers, from kindergarten to college, that can be used in the classroom.

                                    2. The report “Greening America’s Schools” claims that the overall improved working environment that a green school provides leads to higher teacher retention and less teacher turnover.

                                    3. Just as students see health benefits from green schools, so do teachers, as the same report shows that teachers in these schools get sick less, resulting in a decrease of sick days by 7 percent.

                                    Conclusion

                                    Transition to conclusion and summary of importance: In summary, the going-green era has impacted every aspect of education in our school systems.

                                    Review of main points: From K–12 schools to college campuses like ours, to the students and teachers in the schools, the green movement is changing the way we think about education and our environment.

                                    Closing statement: As Glenn Cook, the editor in chief of the American School Board Journal, states on the Center for Green Schools’s website, “The green schools movement is the biggest thing to happen to education since the introduction of technology to the classroom.”

                                    Works Cited

                                    Ash, K. (2011). “Green schools” benefit budgets and students, report says. Education Week30(32), 10.

                                    Calder, W. (2009). Go green, save green. Independent School68(4), 90–93.

                                    The Center for Green Schools. (n.d.). K–12: How. Retrieved from http://www.centerforgreenschools.org/main-nav/k-12/buildings.aspx

                                    Eastern Illinois University. (n.d.). Renewable Energy Center. Retrieved from www.eiu.edu/sustainability/eiu_renewable.php

                                    Kats, G. (2006). Greening America’s Schools: Costs and benefits. A Capital E Report. Retrieved from http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=2908

                                    Strife, S. (2010). Reflecting on environmental education: Where is our place in the green movement? Journal of Environmental Education41(3), 179–191. doi:10.1080/00958960903295233

                                    Sturm College of Law. (n.d.). About DU law: Building green. Retrieved from www.law.du.edu/index.php/about/building-green

                                    USGBC. (n.d.). About us. US Green Building Council. Retrieved from https://new.usgbc.org/about

                                     

                                     

                                    Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

                                    Specific purpose: To persuade my audience to donate time or money 

                                    (ATTENTION STEP) 
                                    I. Gain attention: Take a second to think about back when you were 19 years old. Your whole life was ahead of you....maybe you were a star athlete just graduating high school, maybe you grew up in a happy family surrounded with pride because your father and older brother both dedicated their lives to protecting our country. Now take a second to imagine waking up one morning without your left arm. How would you put your pants on? How would you tie your shoelaces? How would you simply cut a piece of chicken? In the blink of an eye, anyone’s life can completely change, and these new life-changing challenges can be a difficult reminder of what we take for granted every day. 

                                    II. State your Topic: I am here to take a minute of your time to talk about the Wounded Warrior Project 

                                    III. Establish importance to the audience: Whether or not you support our country fighting in wars, the fact is that there are certain people on this earth that can simply not turn down the call that their country needs them, and that will never change. Wars have been going on since the beginning of time, but today, luckily, more soldiers are surviving their injuries than ever before. This has a lot to do with advanced technology in medicine, and we are now seeing triple the amputations than ever before. However, these heroes still have a long road ahead of them. 

                                    IV. Establish your credibility: Volunteering my time to charities across the country has become quite a passion for me, and I have personally spent over 100 hours researching multiple charities and volunteering for multiple causes.  

                                    V: Preview:  (a reference to the problem, solution, and the need for them to take action): I want to share some knowledge about a great charity and tell about how that charity helps people in need every day to encourage you to volunteer or donate your time and money to the Wounded Warrior Project.  

                                    BODY- 
                                    Transition: Let’s discuss why our help is needed. 

                                    (NEED STEP) 
                                    I. According to herosmile.com, an estimated 400,000 people of the 1.9 million veterans engaged in combat suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress from their deployment in Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. (statistic) 

                                    A.Post-traumatic stress can lead to many problems like unemployment, homelessness, spousal abuse, and substance abuse if untreated. (example)  

                                    B. On June 27th of this year, I found an example on the Raytheon.com website entitled “Beyond Backpacks: The Story of Wounded Warrior Project” that showed multiple examples of programs that are used to help these veterans. These programs have helped 17,000 veterans to date with everything from filing benefits claims and leadership summits to post-traumatic stress, as discussed earlier. (statistic) 

                                    Transition: Now, let’s look into how these programs are really helping. 

                                    (SATISFACTION STEP) 
                                    II. The “Independence Program” will help veterans get closer to true independence through additional medical care, therapy, and multiple assistance programs. (definition) 

                                    A. According to an article called “Helping wounded veterans move from surviving to thriving” that was written by Leo Shane III for stripes.com, the Wounded Warrior Project will set aside 30 million dollars this year to help 300 injured veterans.

                                    B. 10 million will go to 250 veterans with brain injuries, missing limbs, and other serious injuries. 20 million will be set up in a trust for the long-term support of 40 families, ensuring independent living for at least 20 years. (example) 

                                    Transition: Let’s think about some of the families facing these new challenges every day. 

                                    (VISUALIZATION STEP) 
                                    III.  Among those being helped by people’s donations is Matt Keil, who has been a quadriplegic since a sniper shot him in the neck while serving in Iraq. He now lives at home in Colorado with his 3-year-old twins and wife, Tracy, who now stays at home as their 24-hour caregiver.  

                                    A. Her biggest fear is that if she dies, Matt and the kids will be separated. 

                                    B. She comments that “He’s capable of raising them, but not alone.” She goes on to say, “He can handle finances and make household decisions. But because of his injuries, he can’t feed himself. He can’t pick them up. He can’t be in the house alone with them” day-to-day. (testimony) 

                                    Transition: So now that we have discussed how they help, you are probably thinking, how can I help? 
                                      
                                    (ACTION STEP) 
                                    IV. Even though money is tight for a lot of us, there are ways to volunteer our time as well. 

                                    A. Anyone can go to woundedwarriorproject.org and volunteer their time by simply writing a letter of appreciation or encouragement to a veteran that is facing these new challenges every day. (description) 

                                    B. Donations are also accepted on the same site. Any amount will help, whether big or small. 


                                    CONCLUSION 
                                    Summary: Thanking someone for their service to our country is one thing, but showing them that you are now willing to help them is a much more powerful thing. 

                                    Response:  If anything I have said has inspired you to help, please do not wait until next week or next month because real people are dealing with real problems today. 

                                    Closure:  As I stated earlier, even if you do not support our country fighting in wars, that still does not change the fact that people are in need and those people are fighting to live a normal life, and those people can still use our help.