Visualize a general truth, depict someone's character trait, introduce a stereotype.
An anecdote is generally used to describe some abstract concept (e.g. a character trait) by using a short, one-dimensional story that conveys the meaning in a simpler and more imaginative way. Often humorous.
Despite being controversial, an appeal to authority used tactfully can make a strong, lasting impression in your audience.
By summoning a person known both to you and your audience, you have better chances to invite your audience to the world presented in your speech. Appeal to that person's behaviour or quote him or her. Your audience will identify that as a sign of being well-educated, well-read, and knowing the history of your topic.
Reference is an addres to a common context between you and your audience. It helps to establish some relation between the speaker and the audience.
A reference can be made to the venue your speech takes place on, common experience, common people and even to earlier parts of your speech.
An allusion is similar to a reference, if you are not going to name directly the thing in common, but still the message will be easy to anyone to understand.
It can be used to attach positive or negative connotations to anything, by finding some links between your topic and people known as virtuous or descpicable by your audience. Be sure not to make it comical, unless your goal is satire.
Consider making not too many references when discussing hard to understand topics, as they require some cognitive effort from your audience.
You can use this element in two ways:
... use a rule of thumb that a slide should perform at least one of the following functions:
Note that we encouraged you here to minimize the content on a single slide. However, this depends entirely on your audience and might not be the case.
When preparing your speech, try to find out from what perspective are you approaching your topic. Are you an expert? Are you discovering something that until now was unknown to you? What are your emotions?
Then try to find a voice that would be consistent with that perspective. Do you use the same voice for the whole duration of your speech?
Many writers advice not to use expostions, but they do not have 15 minutes to present all their ideas.
There are cases where it's advisable to use exposition. For example, you might need to make sure that your audience has all the general knowledge required to understand your speech. This way you can quickly go through all of your assumptions and required elements in a way that is not too time-consuming.
An exposition may be optional and can be opened with a question: "Do you need me to explain X before we can go further?" In case nobody raises a need for explanation, a section or the whole exposition can be skipped.
When beginning a story, describe its hero. Who he/she is, what are his/her goals and origin.
Then make a suggestion that the hero won't accomplish the goal without facing challenges, maybe even without making a sacrifice of something important to him/her. Mention that there are some human or natural powers in play that do not work in alignment with the hero.
This way further parts of your speech can focus on the road and challenges up ahead on the way to attain that goal.
A transition connects two parts of your speech.
Remember that you need to memorize all the transitions. You might even forget a transition between two parts of your speech. That's why transitions should not be used as a tool for maintaining cohesion of your speech, but conversely, your main points should follow a logical structure.
Consider if a transition is required in your speech because it contains a piece of critical new information for your audience. Try to avoid such transitions, as these are typically too short to contain new information.
Asking an open-ended question is composed of two actions:
Second of these is very hard. It is rather simple to make a mistake only to collect these responses that support your speech. However, noone likes their opinion being omitted and others often recognize such act as well.
Experienced speakers can accept all opinions and then discuss them on basis of content. This takes a lot of time and openness for arguments of people that do not agree with your ideas.
Remember to allocate twice as much time for open-ended questions as your initial hunch. And if the discussion would not stop there, direct further questions to a time and place after your speech.
A quote can perform one of the following functions:
A well put quote can improve audiences' impression of you - they might identify that as a sign of being well-educated and well-read. However, a quote cannot stand on its own, so it needs to be tightly coupled to your main points.
It's hard to remember contents of the speech - even if takes not more than three minutes. That's why every speech should be ended with a few most important conclusions in concise manner. By repetition, rephrasing and focusing on key points you will improve the changes of passing your message onto your audience.
In comparision to anecdote, a story is more personal and relates to you, to the hero or to someone that will interact with the hero.
At the beginning determine the goal of your story. How should it support your speech? It might depict a problem, conflict, ways to solve the problem, even show a different perspective on a problem.
A story doesn't need to make a general point. It suffices to only pinpoint an unrealized fragment of reality, describe rules that you need to adhere, or will direct a hero to the goal - even if they might need go back to square one after this story, they return back richer in wisdom.
A well told story will appeal to imagination of your audience, will help them understand the world of the story and gives them a way to discover their own ways how they would approach the events of this story.
After introducing new concepts, data, perspectives, consequences, you have a lot of loose threads that needs to be discussed in order to reveal deeper connections between them.
To present interactions between all these elements reserve some time to discuss how each of them influences others.
A simple form of gradation is saying I did it the first time, the second time, and the third time was the charm. It can be used in the following situations:
Gradation by its repetitive nature can focus attention of the audience on the content, not revealing too much at a time and also can make the repetitive pattern more memorable to the audience.
Consider this - do you want to use this gradation to induce emotion or to pass knowledge?
Before introducing a new concept to your audience, in the first place you need to gain an understanding of your own. The following can support you in that endeavour:
It's important to take a larger context into consideration, e.g. who does benefit from the concept? What problems do they have? What is their daily life? Are people open to the novelty of this concept? Or do they have their own reservations? Why?
During your speech and afterwards, be open to scepticism and respond to common questions and objections from your audience. If you can in any way visualize your topic using presentation slides, it might help as well.
In the Internet a knowledge pill is a form of multimedia, typically short in nature, explaining core concepts related to a topic.
During a speeech, a knowledge pill is a way of putting the most important knowledge in a way that could easily be noted down by the audience.
A rhetorical question is used to perform one of the following functions:
Every rhetorical question required attention. A question with unclear answers additionally push your audience out of their comfort zone and make them more interested in finding an answer to your question. It's just convenient that your speech is going to do that.
If a speech contains a thesis, this thesis must be supported by arguments.
Arguments can refer to different modes of persuasion - Aristotle pointed out three: pathos (simply put, emotions), ethos (simply put, your credibility and authority) and logos (data, logic - or tricks merely imitating logic).
It's worth to mention that arguments do not need to be logic-based in a formal sense. A good rule of thumb is the ARG rule (described by Trudy Govier) which says that an argument can be deduced from premises that meet the following criteria:
We recommend constructing arguments that use logic to infer some premise from statistics, data, and research - if that research was conducted in an impartial manner to minimize error (for example, by using scientific method).
At the same time, a well-narrated anecdotical evidence that taps into emotions can be of similar strength (in reception) to a logical argument. However it depends strongly on the target audience. Appeals to authority are similar in this perspective.
A decision which arguments and which types of arguments should be chosen depends on the goal, message, audience expectations. If the audience needs to make a decision on their own, it's desired to put more data and logical arguments. If the speech should motivate people to do some action, arguments relying on personal stories and emotions can persuade audience.
See also: argument with omitted preposition, argument from deduction, simple conclusion, present a fact.
In the same way, as words are reqired in your speech, lack of them could...
A mindful use of a pause in your speech can make its reception simpler to your audience and add a tension, a sense of gravity or drammatic power to the words.
A pause should be not longer as a few seconds (with exception of performances and hybrid forms, where a speech is mixed with theatre and other arts).
There should be not too many pauses in the speech. It's better to use two longer pauses for the whole of your speech rather than repeat them once a minute.
Make a gesture that will make your speech more dynamic but will remain consistent with your topic.
Typically you are going to leave 0 seconds in this part's duration field, as gestures typically take place during another part (such as a story, introduction of a concept, etc.)
By using speech, eye contact, stage movements and gestures simulate a real object, situation, person in a specific point on the stage. Just like you were putting a holographic projection on a stage.
Typically you are going to leave 0 seconds in this part's duration field, as on-stage images typically take place during another part (such as a story, introduction of a concept, etc.)
A success of on-stage image is based on the consistence of illusion and your performance. This is why this technique is one of the more difficult ones, as not only it requires you to have a great understanding of your speech, but also it requires you to be aware of all the images you've planted onto the stage. One inconsistency can shatter this image.
A self-reference is used to connect beginning and conclusion of a whole speech or its logically separated part. This gives a sense of closure to this fragment and makes the structure of a speech easier to follow for the audience.
You can use this element to enclose a set of other elements, e.g. a few anecdotes. Because of the self-referencing closure, these elements can be put aside and make room for later parts of the speech.
Oftentimes self-referencing is used when restating the thesis or when referring to a problem or question stated at the beginning. In this case, self-reference answers these questions and adds a sense of finality to the whole speech.
Also called leitmotiv, a term from music theory. In your speech it can take form of just one word, one sentence, a whole situation, a hero, some mental image that is repeated enough times during your speech to be memorized by the audience.
A leading motif should be simple and known to your audience, to avoid multipicating complexity of your speech. It also can be related to something your audience identifies with.
Many speeches refer to reality in some way. Even in fiction there is a notion of the represented world, which follows a set of rules and constraints. In both cases you can refer to them by using facts.
In the simplest case, it's real evidence - an item, document that cannot be discredited by aby of the parties involved. In a judicial speech these would consist of the items found on the place of an accident.
In an informative speech these might consist of the statistical data gathered from a large sample by a reputable institution (e.g. census data).
For a proper presentation of facts it's important to break them down into prime factors and to remove all evidence that do not affect your conclusions.
When you lay all the facts before your audience, they will have grounds to follow your reasoning, repeating your train of thoughts in their own heads and reaching the same conclusions on their own.
Skoncentruj się tu na zdolności do rozpowszechniania tej wiedzy dalej, odpowiadając bezpośrednio, albo pośrednio na pytanie Co powinien powiedzieć odbiorca Twojej mowy komuś, kto nie zna tematu?You are still responsible to make interpretation of the facts, as these typically do not lead directly to conclusions.
This element will typically be used in your conclusion. It is here that you paraphrase your whole speech into actionable points for your audience to follow. The speech up to this moment was explaining problems and possible solutions, but at this moment you are going to put the tools into the hands of your audience. You can call to do a specific thing, to stop doing a specific thing or to maintain status quo.
How to end with call to action? E.g.:
Focus on the power to spread the idea by using memorable, short sencences. Consider answering the question: What your audience should tell somebody who does not know anything about the topic?
Also known as signum.
A few conclusions following one another construct a chain of conclusions (sorites - a stack in Latin). These allow to gradually transform one premise into another in a way that is understandable for audience and avoid mental shortcuts.
Note that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so try to draw only strong conclusions that cannot be simply refuted. It's like multiplication of probabilities - one in two times one in three makes the whole only one in six. A chain of conclusions grows weaker with all of its weak claims and may result in you being perceived by your audience in a bad light.
Example: We've seen a smoke from a couple of streets away from here. There's probably a fire in there (conclusion). There might be people that need help (conclusion). Let's go there and find out (conclusion).
Conclusions are drawn from one premise and because of that these are simple and can be condensed in time.
A classical kind of a logical argument that was a precursor to formal logic. Also called a syllogism.
It is a kind of deduction from two (rarely more) premises that are assumed to be true. When used properly, a conclusion drawn from these premises will also be true. There are 24 valid forms (from 256 possible combinations) and we are not going to introduce them all here, but here are some examples worth mentioning:
When building a syllogism you start from your conclusion and find two premises, a major one and a minor one. A major premise is more general (as in above - every person...). A minor premise is smaller than the major one (as in above - every Pole). Premises can be written in the following forms: all X are Y; none X are Y; some X are Y; some X are not Y.
Below is a set of premises. We need to draw a conslusion that the accused was not on the crime scene at Saturday's night.
From these premises one can draw the following comclusions:
This is an element similar to argument from deduction, when one of the premises is deliberately omitted. Also called enthymeme. This omission serves a few purposes, when:
Enthymemes are similar to common themes (topos), which are the common knowledge, experiences, culture that connect you and your audience. Enthymemes are a form of reasoning based in common themes and other premises.
Used properly they can make the speech more dynamic, leave out all unimportant elements to your reasoning and focus on the main points and key information. This will make your speech more concise, less boring and will help in keeping audience engaged.
Example (exemplum in Latin) is a reference to events that are not directly related to the topic discussed, but may be used because one can draw similarities between them. If there is no such example in the world, you can make a visualisation of how would the things go given a set of assumtions related to the topic, and from then reason out consequences of these assumptions, decisions and issues that would happen given that the assumptions were true.
Search for similar events that happened in the past. These events might differ from your case in some assumptions (e.g. different countries and laws, smaller or bigger scale, experimental / production status). Do not be afraid to bring even some exotic examples as they can potentially help prove at least part of your reasoning.
You can also use these events to describe what has been done in the past. It can be a good ground to discuss why your solution is innovative and better than the competition.
This argument is based on a visualization of a world, where you make a few controlled changes and form a logic-based reasoning showing what would happen to this world under the changes implemented.
It's very similar to how science-fiction writers construct their stories. Make one or two key changes and let the consequences play out on their own. Try to find out how such change would affect people living in the near and far future - or if that change was introduced in the past, what has been changing until now? Are there benefits to these changes? Are there problems or issues to them?
When describing examples to your audience be ready to answer some questions and objections. Such speculation is often hard to predict all of the consequences and other people can draw conclusions on their own. If you want to deliberate on the best solution for a given problem all these objections should be somehow addressed.
You can focus on benefits of your solution or focus on losses and possible catastrophic consequences of not choosing your solution. Of course, do not overdrammatize here.
Consider putting your auditorium in the center of your visualization, how they would behave, how they would act. This allows for more interaction and engagement.
Emphasis helps to bring out arguments that support your matter. Its is achieved by deliberately giving more time to discuss supporting argumetns and to use more emotionally charged wording, rhetorical figures or idioms to strengthen some arguments and weaken others.
To emphasize consider:
Emphasis' function is to weaken or strengthen of an argument or a message to make it look more important, more proven or conversely more ridiculous as it is in reality. In informative speeches you can use emphasis to make your key points more significant, achieve better memory retention or simplify a hard topic.
By using unspoken presumptions you can steer the speech in your direction while supporting your argumentation at the same time. In order to do that, emphasize the circumstances that led to an event or are related to a person without mentioning them directly. This way your audience will draw similar presumptions as you without you speaking directly about them.
Then you can leave the presumption as it is or you can subvert audience's anticipation by claiming that the presumption they drawn is false. With an element of surprise you can use this effect in a powerful way to support your cause.
Examples:
Piling-up is a technique of using multiple phrases, words, idioms and sentences with different meanings but revolving around a central topic to present a specific a
Innymi formami ampflifikacji są: uwypuklenie, referencja/porównanie i domniemanie.
rgument in an imaginative way. This way it is less brain-intensive as a conclusion chain and thus, faster to present a single idea.It is a way to enforce cognitive effort in the audience for a moment which results in more focus on the idea and raises perceived importance of an argument. These words and sentences may be used gradually in order to make a strengthening or weakening impression.
It is important not to overuse piling-up techniques as even if it looks like you have a lot to say about the topic, it is still a single argument and your audience might notice that.