After reading in the introduction that “ … this book is about all the anxieties that a speaker faces before he or she faces an audience,” a reader might assume that this is just another book about communication or public speaking. It is not. The author later warns that this is not “a course on public speaking or speechmaking.” Instead, “ … this book is about the art of preparation. It's about the steps you can take to present yourself, your ideas, and your visuals as effectively as possible.”

Research Article| May 01 1983 Some Significant Contributions to the History of Rhetoric: 1970–1982 Thomas Conley Thomas Conley Department of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1983) 1 (1): 93–108. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1983.1.1.93 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Thomas Conley; Some Significant Contributions to the History of Rhetoric: 1970–1982. Rhetorica 1 May 1983; 1 (1): 93–108. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1983.1.1.93 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1983, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1983 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

In making speeches or dealing with news media, engineers will be effective to the extent their language is understandable. Skill in avoiding the use of jargon can be developed with practice. Opportunities to talk to teachers are easily created and are especially valuable because of the teacher-student multiplier effect. A dual goal in public speaking is to tell the audience how you feel on an issue and to find out how the audience feels about it. Advice on dealing with news media is provided.

To teach an in-house public speaking course, the instructor defined the purposes of the course to: 1) make available the training in the skills needed to make an effective presentation, 2) select the effective visual aids to be used in the presentation, 3) learn effective techniques of body language, 4) organize facts and ideas for the presentation, 5) construct the presentation for maximum impact, 6) analyze an audience, 7) establish rapport with the audience and keep its attention, and 8) improve speech, gestures, delivery, and timing. In addition, the instructor must consider the following aspects of the course: the schedule, the size of the class, the number of sessions, the texts, the methods of instruction, and the evaluation of the course. Included are the course of study and the assignments.

Successful public speaking depends on careful preparation and proper delivery. The preparation involves understanding your audience (by asking certain questions and jotting down single-sentence answers) and knowing the physical setting for your talk (time, place, mood, and atmosphere). Writing the material calls for putting yourself in the position of the audience and asking, “What would I like to hear?” Other suggestions include (1) writing the conclusion first; (2) being graphic, current, and specific; and (3) using suspense, novelty, and humor.

These essays were originally presented on the program, Most Significant Passage in Aristotle's Rhetoric. The panel was sponsored by the American Branch of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, chaired by Richard Leo Enos of CarnegieMellon University, and convened during the Speech Communication Association Convention in Anaheim, California, November 1981. These synoptic views are intended to serve as a basis for discussion of one of the most significant theoretical statements in the history of rhetoric.

The classic rhetoricians divided the art of rhetoric into at least three main stages: invention, disposition , and elocution (also memoryand delivery for oratory). Today, we continue to recognize this tripartite division of the composing process but prefer to substitute a more modern taxonomy for the latinate terms: pre-writing , arrangement, and style. The advancements in rhetorical theory in the past decade and a half are impressive; however, despite this growing insight into the writing process, many of us who teach composition still seem to disregard observations made centuries ago by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. We are speaking specifically of the inattention paid to the first stage of the tripartite writing process: invention. It is a fad currently to attend conferences in order to discuss heuristics and the invention process, but it seems that most of us fail to do anything about prewriting in the classroom or writing center. Although we were encouraged by Tom Nash's description of invention-oriented methods used in several writing centers ("Hamlet, Polonius and the Writing Center," Writing Center Journal , vol. I, No. 1, 80), we sensed that these experiments with pre-writing were probably the exception not the rule.

Ten common errors cause most public speaking failures. A positive approach in three stages can increase your chance for success. Preparation: 1. Plan to have an effect; don't just be speech-giving-oriented. 2. Determine the audience's interests, motives, knowledge, attitudes, and values. 3. Be aware of your credibility with the audience. 4. Capture attention with a confident, motivating introduction. 5. Organize your information for understanding. 6. Plan the conclusion to again place your objective before the audience. Presentation: 7. Control stage fright and channel the energy into dynamic speaking. 8. Be physically active and purposeful with gestures; vary speech characteristics; be natural and direct. 9. Sense audience feedback and adjust to it. Preservation: 10. Prepare for questions from the audience.

Many current teaching practices in undergraduate technical communications are insensitive to students' career needs because they are based on mistaken notions concerning writing and the process of communication. The specific problem areas in current teaching practices include: the lack of emphasis on rewriting and on the cooperative element of technical communication, the overreliance on proscriptive strictures in graphics instruction, and the undue emphasis on large-group oratory in oral communications. Academic teaching methods need to be better informed by the practices and procedures of professional technical communicators in order to correct their mistaken notions and to more effectively meet students' career needs.

This paper illuminates a nonverbal dimension of public speaking: time. In this sense time has four aspects: order, cycle, depth, and rhythm. The specific ways time is thus used in communication are demonstrated. If used properly, these aspects of time blend into an effective communication tool, allowing for more meaningful message sharing between speaker and listener.

THE spectrum of public speaking ranges from dialog to formal, staged presentations. Although we may engage easily in casual conversation, almost any discourse that is scheduled or that involves more than a few people seems to give most of us cause for concern. Why?

One sign of effective public speaking is an alert audience. To gain and sustain that alertness and interest a speaker must he heard, his words must be intelligible, and his delivery should vary in pitch and pace. The message will be received and understood in proportion to the speaker's use of vocal variety and emphasis to simplify and clarify his principal points.

A person can overcome his fear of public speaking by using language with which he is comfortable, so that both he and his audience are relaxed He should not (1) ape pedantic speakers or those who indulge in gobbledygook, (2) be ambiguous, (3) use redundancies, (4) monounce words, (5) confuse word meanings, or (6) ignore changes in the English language. To choose exactly the right words to express his thoughts, a speaker needs a large vocabulary. The only way to acquire such a vocabulary is to read-widely, listen carefully, and practice assiduously each new word one encounters.

Some methods beyond the conventional public speaking art are presented which address the major deficiencies observed in the presentation of technical papers. Problems addressed are lack of excitement, poor control of time, unreadable visuals, bewildering complexity, poor question conduct, and abusing an invitation.

Public speakers whose primary responsibility is the giving of technical or scientific information need to acquaint themselves with an orderly and consistent design for organizing, supporting, and delivering an oral presentation so that they more effectively engage in dynamic communication with an audience. The elements of such a design are an analysis of audience interest in and knowledge of the topic, the role of speech in presenting highly complex technical or scientific language, and the principles of dynamic communication as they relate to audience perception and retention of information. This guide includes a comprehensive survey of the public speaking situation, suggestions for vocal delivery and scripting, and a checklist of common errors made in presenting factual material.

A major motivation is to achieve in man-machine interactions the efficiency of speech communication among humans. Continuous speech is more difficult to understand than are isolated words. Commercially available speech recognition systems of the latter type are highly successful despite their limited capability. To recognize continuous speech, more information is needed than is contained in acoustic waves alone. The linguistic and contextual knowledge that must be supplied or programmed into a computer to accomplish speech interpretation is the subject of several research activities which are described. Speech synthesis systems face similar problems but are further advanced.

In making speeches or dealing with news media, engineers will be effective to the extent their language is understandable. Skill in avoiding the use of jargon can be developed with practice. Opportunities to talk to teachers are easily created and are especially valuable because of the teacher-student multiplier effect. A dual goal in public speaking is to tell the audience how you feel on an issue and to find out how the audience feels about it. Advice on dealing with news media is provided.

Winston Churchill was not a “natural” orator but he overcame his handicaps so well that he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his writings and “brilliant oratory.” Seven lessons in speech making are abstracted from a study of his life and oratory: (1) Know the language; (2) listen to good speakers; (3) endure any handicap; (4) read good books; (5) use rhetorical devices; (6) prepare and practice; and (7) show feelings and personality.

In our efforts to more effectively communicate, the Freudian slip is one phenomenon that frequently reminds us that we are imperfect communicators. We don't always mean what we say or say what we mean. This paper is a sequel to “An Analysis of the Freudian Slip and Errors in Speech Communication,” which appeared in the October, 1972, issue of this journal. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the occurrence of the Freudian slip in reading and writing.

The Freudian slip is a common, yet little understood, phenomenon of speech communication. Though we can usually identify a slip easily, most of us are unfamiliar with how, why, and where the slip occurs. In all of his writings Freud never addressed himself to the Freduian slip per se. It is the Freudian account of id drive, however, that allows us to establish a working definition of the Freudian slip and investigate the differences between the slip and errors in speech. The central purpose of this article is to attempt to formulate a theory of the Freudian slip and speech errors in the context of the information theory model.