Assignment:
The focus on public speaking tactics will continue to increase in this fourth session. You will expand your ability to open and close talks. You will also gain tactics to capture not only your audience's engaged attention but also their interest throughout the talk by using vocal variety, stories and other tactics.
Here is an opportunity to try out some of the public speaking tactics that you have been learning. Prepare a short talk about something that you learned and that might be interesting to your classmates. Typically written manuscripts do not work well when they are read. In this case it is not likely that you will present the talk verbally. However think as if that is what you would have to do. What do you know that might be interesting to others? It could be a destination, a way to do something that others have not tried, even a way to talk yourself out of a speeding ticket, something about a sport, a hobby, a talent, an experience or how to make something. It is your choice.
Evaluation Criteria for Preparing a Talk in Writing
1. Prepare a short talk about something you think will be of interest to your audience. Use the tactics that you have learned.
2. Your opening should demonstrate that you have a way to engage your audience with one of the techniques you learned online or in class.
3. The opening ideally will include something that interests the audience in your topic.
4. Be sure to provide a clear topic as you would verbally introduce it along with the predicted order of two or three main ideas that you will organize around so that your audience knows where you are going with the talk.
5. Provide a talk that is written or would be delivered in such a way that your audience can "see" the ideas that you talking about by using words that paint a picture or tell a compelling story.
6. The start of your closing should be signaled to your audience by using a word or words like "so in conclusion" or "finally" or "in the end" or others that create the signal that the end is near.
7. Restate your main ideas to remind your audience of what you promised in the opening predicted order and then finish by ending with either a call to action or a benefit that the audience will gain if they follow your idea or do what you have told them.
8. Take some time to practice what you wrote and experiment with vocal variety that includes pauses, changes in volume or changes in the pace of how fast you are speaking.