speech it means

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Meaning of speech in English

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speech noun ( SAY WORDS )

• She suffers from a speech defect .
• From her slow , deliberate speech I guessed she must be drunk .
• Freedom of speech and freedom of thought were both denied under the dictatorship .
• As a child , she had some speech problems .
• We use these aids to develop speech in small children .
• a problem shared is a problem halved idiom
• banteringly
• bull session
• chew the fat idiom
• conversation
• conversational
• put the world to rights idiom
• take/lead someone on/to one side idiom
• tête-à-tête

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

speech noun ( FORMAL TALK )

• talk She will give a talk on keeping kids safe on the internet.
• lecture The lecture is entitled "War and the Modern American Presidency".
• presentation We were given a presentation of progress made to date.
• speech You might have to make a speech when you accept the award.
• address He took the oath of office then delivered his inaugural address.
• oration It was to become one of the most famous orations in American history.
• Her speech was received with cheers and a standing ovation .
• She closed the meeting with a short speech.
• The vicar's forgetting his lines in the middle of the speech provided some good comedy .
• Her speech caused outrage among the gay community .
• She concluded the speech by reminding us of our responsibility .
• call for papers
• extemporize
• maiden speech
• presentation
• talk at someone

speech | American Dictionary

Speech noun ( talking ), examples of speech, collocations with speech.

These are words often used in combination with speech .

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

Translations of speech

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Word of the Day

a bitter pill (to swallow)

something that is very unpleasant but must be accepted

Sitting on the fence (Newspaper idioms)

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Definition of speech

• declamation

Examples of speech in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'speech.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English speche , from Old English sprǣc, spǣc ; akin to Old English sprecan to speak — more at speak

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing speech

• acceptance speech
• figure of speech
• freedom of speech
• part of speech

speech community

• polite speech
• free speech
• hate speech
• visible speech
• stump speech
• speech therapy
• speech impediment
• speech form

Dictionary Entries Near speech

Cite this entry.

“Speech.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/speech. Accessed 31 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of speech, medical definition, medical definition of speech, legal definition, legal definition of speech, more from merriam-webster on speech.

Nglish: Translation of speech for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of speech for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about speech

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the faculty or power of speaking ; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture: Losing her speech made her feel isolated from humanity.

the act of speaking: He expresses himself better in speech than in writing.

something that is spoken ; an utterance, remark, or declaration: We waited for some speech that would indicate her true feelings.

a form of communication in spoken language, made by a speaker before an audience for a given purpose: a fiery speech.

any single utterance of an actor in the course of a play, motion picture, etc.

the form of utterance characteristic of a particular people or region; a language or dialect.

manner of speaking, as of a person: Your slovenly speech is holding back your career.

a field of study devoted to the theory and practice of oral communication.

Archaic . rumor .

Origin of speech

Synonym study for speech, other words for speech, other words from speech.

• self-speech, noun

Words Nearby speech

• speculum metal
• speech center
• speech clinic
• speech community
• speech correction

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use speech in a sentence

Kids are interacting with Alexas that can record their voice data and influence their speech and social development.

The attorney general delivered a controversial speech Wednesday.

For example, my company, Teknicks, is working with an online K-12 speech and occupational therapy provider.

Instead, it would give tech companies a powerful incentive to limit Brazilians’ freedom of speech at a time of political unrest.

However, the president did give a speech in Suresnes, France, the next day during a ceremony hosted by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Those are troubling numbers, for unfettered speech is not incidental to a flourishing society.

There is no such thing as speech so hateful or offensive it somehow “justifies” or “legitimizes” the use of violence.

We need to recover and grow the idea that the proper answer to bad speech is more and better speech .

Tend to your own garden, to quote the great sage of free speech , Voltaire, and invite people to follow your example.

The simple, awful truth is that free speech has never been particularly popular in America.

Alessandro turned a grateful look on Ramona as he translated this speech , so in unison with Indian modes of thought and feeling.

And so this is why the clever performer cannot reproduce the effect of a speech of Demosthenes or Daniel Webster.

He said no more in words, but his little blue eyes had an eloquence that left nothing to mere speech .

After pondering over Mr. Blackbird's speech for a few moments he raised his head.

Albinia, I have refrained from speech as long as possible; but this is really too much!

British Dictionary definitions for speech

/ ( spiːtʃ ) /

the act or faculty of speaking, esp as possessed by persons : to have speech with somebody

( as modifier ) : speech therapy

that which is spoken; utterance

a talk or address delivered to an audience

a person's characteristic manner of speaking

a national or regional language or dialect

linguistics another word for parole (def. 5)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Definition of speech noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

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Chapter Nine – Organizing the Body of your Speech

Creating the Body of a Speech

In a series of important and ground-breaking studies conducted during the 1950s and 1960s, researchers started investigating how a speech’s organization was related to audience perceptions of those speeches. The first study, conducted by Raymond Smith in 1951, randomly organized the parts of a speech to see how audiences would react. Not surprisingly, when speeches were randomly organized, the audience perceived the speech more negatively than when audiences were presented with a speech with clear, intentional organization. Smith also found that audiences who listened to unorganized speeches were less interested in those speeches than audiences who listened to organized speeches (Smith, 1951). Thompson furthered this investigation and found that unorganized speeches were also harder for audiences to recall after the speech. Basically, people remember information from speeches that are clearly organized—and forget information from speeches that are poorly organized (Thompson, 1960). A third study by Baker found that when audiences were presented with a disorganized speaker, they were less likely to be persuaded, and saw the disorganized speaker as lacking credibility (Baker, 1965).

These three very important studies make the importance of organization very clear. When speakers are not organized they are not perceived as credible and their audiences view the speeches negatively, are less likely to be persuaded, and don’t remember specific information from the speeches after the fact.

We start this chapter discussing these studies because we want you to understand the importance of speech organization on real audiences. If you are not organized, your speech will never have its intended effect. In this chapter, we are going to discuss the basics of organizing the body of your speech.

Determining Your Main Ideas

Matt Wynn –  Lightbulb!  – CC BY 2.0.

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  who ,  what ,  when ,  where ,  why , 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):

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. 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.

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. 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:

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).

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 (Bostrom & Waldhart, 1988). 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 (Dunham, 1964; Smith, 1951; Thompson, 1960). 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 (LeFrancois, 1999). 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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.

Using Common Organizing Patterns

Twentyfour Students –  Organization makes you flow  – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Previously in this chapter we discussed how to make your main points flow logically. This section is going to provide you with a number of organizational patterns to help you create a logically organized speech. The first organizational pattern we’ll discuss is topical.

By far the most common pattern for organizing a speech is by categories or topics . The topical organizational pattern is a way to help the speaker arrange the message in a consistent fashion. The goal of a topical organization is to create categories (or chunks) of information that go together to help support your original specific purpose. Let’s look at an example.

In this case, we have a speaker trying to persuade a group of high school juniors to apply to attend Generic University. To persuade this group, the speaker has divided the information into three basic categories: what it’s like to live in the dorms, what classes are like, and what life is like on campus. Almost anyone could take this basic speech and specifically tailor the speech to fit their university or college. The main points in this example could be rearranged and the organizational pattern would still be effective because there is no inherent logic to the sequence of points. Let’s look at a second example.

In this speech, the speaker is talking about how to find others online and date them. Specifically, the speaker starts by explaining what Internet dating is; then the speaker talks about how to make Internet dating better for audience members; and finally, the speaker ends by discussing some negative aspects of Internet dating. Again, notice that the information is chunked into three topics and that the second and third could be reversed and still provide a logical structure for your speech

Comparison/Contrast

Another method for organizing main points is the comparison/contrast pattern. While this pattern clearly lends itself easily to two main points, you can also create a third point by giving basic information about what is being compared and what is being contrasted. Let’s look at two examples; the first one will be a two-point example and the second a three-point example.

If you were using the comparison/contrast pattern for persuasive purposes, in the preceding examples, you’d want to make sure that when you show how Drug X and Drug Y differ, you clearly state why Drug X is clearly the better choice for physicians to adopt. In essence, you’d want to make sure that when you compare the two drugs, you show that Drug X has all the benefits of Drug Y, but when you contrast the two drugs, you show how Drug X is superior to Drug Y in some way.

The spatial organizational pattern arranges information according to how things fit together in physical space. This pattern is best used when your main points are oriented to different locations that can exist independently. The basic reason to choose this format is to show that the main points have clear locations. We’ll look at two examples here, one involving physical geography and one involving a different spatial order.

If you look at a basic map of the United States, you’ll notice that these groupings of states were created because of their geographic location to one another. In essence, the states create three spatial territories to explain.

Now let’s look at a spatial speech unrelated to geography.

In this example, we still have three basic spatial areas. If you look at a model of the urinary system, the first step is the kidney, which then takes waste through the ureters to the bladder, which then relies on the sphincter muscle to excrete waste through the urethra. All we’ve done in this example is create a spatial speech order for discussing how waste is removed from the human body through the urinary system. It is spatial because the organization pattern is determined by the physical location of each body part in relation to the others discussed.

Chronological

The chronological pattern places the main idea in the time order in which items appear—whether backward or forward. Here’s a simple example.

In this example, we’re looking at the writings of Winston Churchill in relation to World War II (before, during, and after). By placing his writings into these three categories, we develop a system for understanding this material based on Churchill’s own life. Note that you could also use reverse chronological order and start with Churchill’s writings after World War II, progressing backward to his earliest writings.

Biographical

As you might guess, the biographical organizational pattern is generally used when a speaker wants to describe a person’s life—either a speaker’s own life, the life of someone they know personally, or the life of a famous person. By the nature of this speech organizational pattern, these speeches tend to be informative or entertaining; they are usually not persuasive. Let’s look at an example.

In this example, we see how Brian Warner, through three major periods of his life, ultimately became the musician known as Marilyn Manson.

In this example, these three stages are presented in chronological order, but the biographical pattern does not have to be chronological. For example, it could compare and contrast different periods of the subject’s life, or it could focus topically on the subject’s different accomplishments.

The causal pattern is used to explain cause-and-effect relationships. When you use a causal speech pattern, your speech will have two basic main points: cause and effect. In the first main point, typically you will talk about the causes of a phenomenon, and in the second main point you will then show how the causes lead to either a specific effect or a small set of effects. Let’s look at an example.

In this case, the first main point is about the history and prevalence of drinking alcohol among Native Americans (the cause). The second point then examines the effects of Native American alcohol consumption and how it differs from other population groups.

However, a causal organizational pattern can also begin with an effect and then explore one or more causes. In the following example, the effect is the number of arrests for domestic violence.

In this example, the possible causes for the difference might include stricter law enforcement, greater likelihood of neighbors reporting an incident, and police training that emphasizes arrests as opposed to other outcomes. Examining these possible causes may suggest that despite the arrest statistic, the actual number of domestic violence incidents in your city may not be greater than in other cities of similar size.

Problem-Cause-Solution

Another format for organizing distinct main points in a clear manner is the p roblem-cause-solution pattern. In this format you describe a problem, identify what you believe is causing the problem, and then recommend a solution to correct the problem.

In this speech, the speaker wants to persuade people to pass a new curfew for people under eighteen. To help persuade the civic group members, the speaker first shows that vandalism and violence are problems in the community. Once the speaker has shown the problem, the speaker then explains to the audience that the cause of this problem is youth outside after 10:00 p.m. Lastly, the speaker provides the mandatory 10:00 p.m. curfew as a solution to the vandalism and violence problem within the community. The problem-cause-solution format for speeches generally lends itself to persuasive topics because the speaker is asking an audience to believe in and adopt a specific solution.

Selecting an Organizational Pattern

Each of the preceding organizational patterns is potentially useful for organizing the main points of your speech. However, not all organizational patterns work for all speeches. For example, as we mentioned earlier, the biographical pattern is useful when you are telling the story of someone’s life. Some other patterns, particularly comparison/contrast and problem-cause-solution, are well suited for persuasive speaking. Your challenge is to choose the best pattern for the particular speech you are giving.

You should be aware that it is also possible to combine two or more organizational patterns to meet the goals of a specific speech. For example, you might wish to discuss a problem and then compare/contrast several different possible solutions for the audience. Such a speech would thus be combining elements of the comparison/contrast and problem-cause-solution patterns. When considering which organizational pattern to use, you need to keep in mind your specific purpose as well as your audience and the actual speech material itself to decide which pattern you think will work best.

Keeping Your Speech Moving

Chris Marquardt –  REWIND  – CC BY-SA 2.0.

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 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). The table below contains a variety of transition words that will be useful when keeping your speech moving.

Table 9.1  Transition Words

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 will talk about (i.e., the speech’s three main body points). In an internal preview, speakers highlight 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 retention of oral information (Ausubel, 1968). Essentially, when speakers clearly inform an audience what they will talk 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 communi ty.

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 Table 9.1. 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.

In this section, 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.

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. Speakers use signposts to guide their audience through the content of a speech. If you look at Table 9.1 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 Table 9.1 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.

Note from the author, Gruber: As we have previously stated, organization is integral to your audience understanding your message, and thus, being influenced by it. A clear organizational pattern with connectives, such as transitions and summaries, creates a clear and memorable message.

Finally, we sometimes get funny looks when we suggest you write the body of your speech  before  your Introduction & Conclusion. The natural thought may be “The introduction comes first, so I should write  it first.” However, consider the objectives of the Introduction, as described in the next chapter, and you’ll understand why you should always write the body first and then  the introduction and conclusion.

• Baker, E. E. (1965). The immediate effects of perceived speaker disorganization on speaker credibility and audience attitude change in persuasive speaking. Western Speech, 29 , 148–161.
• Smith, R. G. (1951). An experimental study of the effects of speech organization upon attitudes of college students. Speech Monographs, 18 , 292–301.
• Thompson, E. C. (1960). An experimental investigation of the relative effectiveness of organizational structure in oral communication.  Southern Speech Journal, 26 , 59–69.
• Bostrom, R. N., & Waldhart, E. S. (1988). Memory models and the measurement of listening.  Communication Education, 37 , 1–13.
• Dunham, J. R. (1964).  Voice contrast and repetition in speech retention  (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from:  http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses .
• LeFrancois, G. R. (1999).  Psychology for teaching (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Smith, R. G. (1951). An experimental study of the effects of speech organization upon attitudes of college students.  Speech Monographs, 18 , 292–301.
• Ausubel, D. P. (1968).  Educational psychology . New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
• https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-lying-on-bed-while-using-laptop-4066041/
• https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-led-signage-on-the-wall-942317/

Sections of this chapter were adapted from Stand up, Speak Out: The practice and ethics of public speaking. Stand up, Speak out  by University of Minnesota is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Principles of Public Speaking Copyright © 2022 by Katie Gruber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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9 Delivering a Speech

Introduction

9.1 Managing Public Speaking Anxiety

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. Seventy percent of college students experience some CA, which means that addressing communication anxiety in a class like the one you are taking now stands to benefit the majority of students (Priem & Solomon, 2009). 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 situation that is novel and uncertain 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 released adrenaline, cortisol, and other hormones that increased heart rate and blood pressure to get more energy to the brain, organs, and muscles in order to respond to the threat. We can be thankful for this evolutionary advantage, but our physiology has not caught up with our new ways of life. Our body does not distinguish between the causes of stressful situations, so facing down an audience releases the same hormones as facing down a wild beast.

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 cannot 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).

Although systematic desensitization may sound like something 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 is a source for many people’s anxiety. So becoming more familiar with public speaking by speaking 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 engage directly in systematic desensitization. Almost all 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 engaged with speaking more than they would have done if they were not 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 dire than getting bit by a rattlesnake, falling off a building, or dying. People also fear being embarrassed because they mess up. Well, you cannot literally die from embarrassment, and in reality, audiences are very forgiving and overlook or do not 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.” There is no stage at the front of the 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 would not have made it to college. We engage in conversations every day. We do not have to write everything we are going to say out on a note card, we do not usually get nervous or anxious in regular conversations, and we are usually successful when we try. Even though we do not 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 are not starting from scratch.

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 are also likely to set up negative self-fulfilling prophecies that will hinder their performance in future speeches. To use positive visualization, it is best to engage first in some relaxation exercises such as deep breathing or stretching, and then play through vivid images in your mind of giving a successful speech. Do this 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 his or her coach says to do before jumping off the diving board and the answer will probably be “Coach says to image completing a perfect 10 dive.” Likewise a Marine sharpshooter would likely say his 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 is good enough for Olympic athletes and snipers, it is good enough for public speakers.

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, which can in turn lead 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. Do not 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 do not 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. While we cannot block these natural and instinctual responses, we can 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 speech disfluency.

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. In order 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 a flooding of endorphins, which creates a brief “light-headed” feeling. Once you practice 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.

Stretching is another way to 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 do not have the time or willpower to do it. However, we can take time to do some stretching. Obviously, it would be distracting for the surrounding audience if a speaker broke into some planking or Pilates just before his or her speech. 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 have a tendency to pool in our legs, especially when we are sitting.

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 fluency issues that occur when speaking. Newscasters, singers, and other professional speakers use vocal warm-ups. I lead my students in vocal exercises before speeches, which also helps lighten the mood. We all stand in a circle and look at each other while we go through our warm-up list. For the first warm-up, we all make a motorboat sound, which makes everybody laugh. The full list of warm-ups follows and contains specific words and exercises designed to warm up different muscles and different aspects of your voice. After going through just a few, you should be able to feel the blood circulating in your face muscles more. It is a surprisingly good workout!

Top Ten Ways to Reduce Speaking Anxiety

Many factors contribute to speaking anxiety. There are also 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 have learned.

• Remember, you are not alone. Public speaking anxiety is common, so do not ignore it—confront it.
• Remember, you cannot literally “die of embarrassment.” Audiences are forgiving and understanding.
• Remember, it always feels worse than it looks.
• Take deep breaths. It releases endorphins, which naturally fight the adrenaline that causes anxiety.
• Look the part. Dress professionally to enhance confidence.
• Channel your nervousness into positive energy and motivation.
• Start your outline and research early. Better information = higher confidence.
• Practice and get feedback from a trusted source. (Do not just practice for your cat.)
• Visualize success through positive thinking.
• Prepare, prepare, prepare! Practice is a speaker’s best friend.

9.2 Delivery Methods and Practice Sessions

There are many decisions to make during the speech-making process. Making informed decisions about delivery can help boost your confidence and manage speaking anxiety. In this section, we will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of various delivery methods. We will also learn how to make the most of your practice sessions.

Delivery Methods

Different speaking occasions call for different delivery methods. While it may be acceptable to speak from memory in some situations, lengthy notes may be required in others. The four most common delivery methods are impromptu, manuscript, memorized, and extemporaneous.

Impromptu Delivery

When using impromptu delivery , a speaker has little to no time to prepare for a speech (LibreTexts, 2021). This means there is little time for research, audience analysis, organizing, and practice. For this reason, impromptu speaking often evokes higher degrees of speaking anxiety than other delivery types. Although impromptu speaking arouses anxiety, it is also a good way to build public speaking skills. Using some of the exercises for managing speaking anxiety discussed earlier in this chapter can help a speaker manage the challenges of impromptu speaking (LibreTexts, 2021). Only skilled public speakers with much experience are usually able to “pull off” an impromptu delivery without looking unprepared. Otherwise, a speaker who is very familiar with the subject matter can sometimes be a competent impromptu speaker, because their expertise can compensate for the lack of research and organizing time.

When Mark Twain famously said, “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech,” he was jokingly pointing out the difficulties of giving a good impromptu speech, essentially saying that there is no such thing as a good impromptu speech, as good speeches take time to prepare. We do not always have the luxury of preparation, though. So when speaking impromptu, be brief, stick to what you know, and avoid rambling. Quickly organize your thoughts into an introduction, body, and conclusion. Try to determine three key ideas that will serve as the basis of your main points.

When would impromptu speaking be used? Since we have already started thinking of the similarities between public speaking and conversations, we can clearly see that most of our day-to-day interactions involve impromptu speaking. When your roommate asks you what your plans for the weekend are, you do not pull a few note cards out of your back pocket to prompt your response. This type of conversational impromptu speaking is not anxiety inducing because we are talking about our lives, experiences, or something with which we are familiar. This is also usually the case when we are asked to speak publicly with little to no advance warning.

For example, if you are at a meeting for work and you are representing the public relations department, a colleague may ask you to say a few words about a recent news story involving a public relations misstep of a competing company. In this case, you are being asked to speak on the spot because of your expertise. A competent communicator should anticipate instances like this when they might be asked to speak. Of course, being caught completely off guard or being asked to comment on something unfamiliar to you creates more anxiety. In such cases, do not pretend to know something you do not, as that may come back to hurt you later. You can usually mention that you do not have the necessary background information at that time but will follow up later with your comments.

Manuscript Delivery

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 (LibreTexts, 2021). 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 are 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 (LibreTexts, 2021). Even with every word written out, speakers can still have fluency hiccups and verbal fillers as they lose their place in the manuscript or trip over their words. The alternative, of course, is that a speaker reads the manuscript the whole time, effectively cutting himself or herself off from the audience. One way to make a manuscript delivery more engaging is to use a teleprompter. Almost all politicians who give televised addresses use them.

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 is easy to pick up and turn the pages as needed, and use a portfolio so you can carry the manuscript securely.

Memorized Delivery

Completely memorizing a speech and delivering it without notes is known as memorized delivery (LibreTexts, 2021). Some students attempt to memorize their speech because they think it will make them feel more confident if they do not have to look at their notes; however, when their anxiety level spikes at the beginning of their speech and their mind goes 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 (LibreTexts, 2021).

Even with much practice, our memories can fail. If you do opt to use memorized delivery, make sure you have several “entry points” determined, so you can pick up at spots other than the very beginning of a speech if you lose your place and have to start again. Memorized delivery is very useful for speakers who are going to be moving around during a speech when carrying notes would be burdensome. I 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 story), and even in these cases, it may be perfectly fine to have notes. Many students think that their anxiety and/or delivery challenges will vanish if they just memorize their speech only to find that they are more anxious and have more problems.

Extemporaneous Delivery

Extemporaneous delivery entails memorizing the overall structure and main points of a speech and then speaking from keyword/key-phrase notes (LibreTexts, 2021). This delivery mode brings together many of the strengths of the previous three methods. Since you only internalize and memorize the main structure of a speech, you do not 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 the overall structure of a speech and incorporate supporting materials that include key facts, quotations, and paraphrased information (LibreTexts, 2021). You can also more freely adapt your speech to fit various audiences and occasions, since not every word and sentence is predetermined. This can be especially beneficial when you deliver a speech multiple times.

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 will 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.

Practicing Your Speech

Practicing a speech is essential, and practice sessions can be more or less useful depending on how you approach them (Dlugan, 2008). There are three primary phases to the practice process. In the first phase, you practice as you are working through your ideas and drafting your outline. In the second, you practice for someone and get feedback (Dlugan, 2008). In the third, you put the final changes on the speech.

Start practicing your speech early, as you are working through your ideas, by reading sections aloud as you draft them into your working outline. This will help ensure your speech is fluent and sounds good for the audience. Start to envision the audience while you practice and continue to think about them throughout the practicing process. This will help minimize anxiety when you actually have them sitting in front of you. Once you have completed your research and finished a draft of your outline, you will have already practiced your speech several times, as you were putting it together. Now, you can get feedback on the speech as a whole.

You begin to solicit feedback from a trusted source in the second phase of practicing your speech (Dlugan, 2008). This is the most important phase of practicing, and the one that most speakers do not complete. Beginning speakers may be nervous to practice in front of someone. That is normal. However, review the strategies for managing anxiety discussed earlier in this chapter and try to face that anxiety. After all, you will have to face a full audience when you deliver the speech, so getting used to speaking in front of someone can only help you at this point. Choose someone who will give you constructive feedback on your speech. Before you practice for them, explain the assignment or purpose of the speech. When practicing for a classroom speech, you may even want to give the person the assignment guidelines or a feedback sheet that has some key things for them to look for. Ask them for feedback on content and delivery. Almost anyone is good at evaluating delivery, but it is more difficult to evaluate content. In addition, in most cases, the content of your speech will be account for more of your grade. Also, begin to time your speech at this point, so you can determine if it meets any time limits that you have.

In addition to practicing for a trusted source for feedback, you may want to audio or video record your speech (Dlugan, 2008). This can be useful because it provides an objective record that you can then compare with the feedback you got from your friend and to your own evaluation of your speech. The most important part of this phase is incorporating the feedback you receive into your speech. If you practice for someone, get feedback, and then do not do anything with the feedback, then you have wasted your time and theirs. Use the feedback to assess whether or not you met your speaking goals. Was your thesis supported? Was your specific purpose met? Did your speech conform to any time limits that were set? Based on your answers to these questions, you may need to make some changes to your content or delivery, so do not put this part of practicing off to the last minute. Once the content has been revised as needed, draft your speaking outline and move on to the next phase of practice.

During the third and final phase of practice, you are putting the final changes on your speech. You should be familiar with the content based on your early practice sessions. You have also gotten feedback and incorporated that feedback into the speech. Your practice sessions at this point should pre-create, as much as possible, the conditions in which you will be giving your speech. You should have your speaking outline completed so you can practice with it. It is important to be familiar with the content on your note cards or speaking outline so you will not need to rely on it so much during the actual delivery. You may also want to practice in the type of clothing you will be wearing on speech day. This can be useful if you are wearing something you do not typically wear—a suit for example—so you can see how it might affect your posture, gestures, and overall comfort level.

If possible, at least one practice session in the place you will be giving the speech can be very helpful; especially if it is a room you are not familiar with. Make sure you are practicing with any visual aids or technology you will use so you can be familiar with it and it does not affect your speech fluency. (Dlugan, 2008).Continue to time each practice round. If you are too short or too long, you will need to go back and adjust your content some more. Always adjust your content to fit the time limit; do not try to adjust your delivery. Trying to speed talk or stretch things out to make a speech faster or longer is a mistake that will ultimately hurt your delivery, which will hurt your credibility. The overall purpose of this phase of practicing is to minimize surprises that might throw you off on speech day.

Vocal Delivery

Vocal delivery includes components of speech delivery that relate to your voice. These include rate, volume, pitch, articulation, pronunciation, and fluency. 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 we communicate our ideas clearly.

Speaking for Engagement

We have all had the displeasure of listening to an unengaging speaker. Even though the person may care about his or her topic, an unengaging delivery that does not communicate enthusiasm will translate into a lack of interest for most audience members (Davis, 2021). Although a speaker can be visually engaging by incorporating movement and gestures, a flat or monotone vocal delivery can be sedating or even annoying. Incorporating vocal variety in terms of rate, volume, and pitch is key to being a successful speaker.

Rate of speaking refers to how fast or slow you speak (Barnard, 2018). If you speak too fast, your audience will not be able to absorb the information you present. If you speak too slowly, the audience may lose interest. The key is to vary your rate of speaking in a middle range, staying away from either extreme, in order to keep your audience engaged. In general, a higher rate of speaking signals that a speaker is enthusiastic about his or her topic. Speaking slowly may lead the audience to infer that the speaker is uninterested, uninformed, or unprepared to present his or her own topic. These negative assumptions, whether they are true or not, are likely to hurt the credibility of the speaker (Barnard, 2018). The goal is to speak at a rate that will interest the audience and will effectively convey your information. Speaking at a slow rate throughout a speech would likely bore an audience, but that is not a common occurrence.

Volume refers to how loud or soft your voice is. As with speaking rate, you want to avoid the extremes of being too loud or too soft, but still vary your volume within an acceptable middle range (Packard, 2020). 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, to see if you need to adjust your volume more. Obviously, in some settings, a microphone will be necessary so the entire audience can hear you. Like rate, audiences use volume to make a variety of judgments about a speaker. Sometimes, softer speakers are judged as meek (Packard, 2020). This may lead to lowered expectations for the speech or less perceived credibility. Loud 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.

Pitch refers to how high or low a speaker’s voice is. As with other vocal qualities, there are natural variations among people’s vocal pitch. Unlike rate and volume, we have less control over pitch. For example, males generally have lower pitched voices than females. Despite these limitations, each person still has the capability to change their pitch across a range large enough to engage an audience. Changing pitch is a good way to communicate enthusiasm and indicate emphasis or closure (Scotti, 2015). 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 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.

Of the vocal components of delivery discussed so far, pitch seems to give beginning speakers the most difficulty. It is as if giving a speech temporarily numbs their ability to vary their pitch. 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. Speakers often assume that their pitch is more varied and their delivery more enthusiastic than the audience actually perceives it to be (Scotti, 2015). Many students note this on the self-evaluations they write after viewing their recorded speech.

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 (Moore, 2015). 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 (Moore, 2015). 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. I encourage students to make this a delivery priority early on. Since it is 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.

Speaking for Clarity

In order to be an effective speaker, your audience should be able to understand your message and digest the information you present (Rampton, 2021). Audience members will make assumptions about our competence and credibility based on how we speak. As with other aspects of speech delivery, many people are not aware that they have habits of speech that interfere with their message clarity. Since most of our conversations are informal and take place with people we know, many people do not make a concerted effort to articulate every word clearly and pronounce every word correctly (Rampton, 2021). Most of the people we talk to either do not notice our errors or do not correct us if they do notice. Since public speaking is generally more formal than our conversations, we should be more concerned with the clarity of our speech.

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 (Ward, 2020). For example, a person may say dinnt instead of didn’t , gonna instead of going to , wanna 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 speak 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 informal settings, this type of speaking may be acceptable, but in formal settings, it will be evaluated negatively. It will hurt a speaker’s credibility. Perhaps the promise of being judged more favorably is enough to motivate a mumbler to speak more clearly.

When combined with a low volume, poor articulation becomes an even greater problem. Doing vocal warm-ups like the ones listed in Section 10.1 “Managing Public Speaking Anxiety” or tongue twisters can help prime your mouth, lips, and tongue to articulate words more clearly. When you notice that you have trouble articulating a particular word, you can either choose a different word to include in your speech or you can 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 (Shtern, 2017). Mispronouncing words can damage a speaker’s credibility, especially when the correct pronunciation of a word is commonly known. 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. First, 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 use consistently that pronunciation to avoid confusing your audience. If a word does not include an audio pronunciation, you can usually find the phonetic spelling of a word, which is the word spelled out the way it sounds.

Second, there will occasionally be words that you cannot locate in a dictionary. These are typically proper nouns or foreign words. In this case, use the “phone-a-friend” strategy. 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 it. If they do, and you find them credible, you are probably safe to take their suggestion.

Third, “fake it ‘til you make it” should only be used as a last resort. If you cannot find the word in a dictionary and your smart friends do not know how to pronounce it, it is 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 him or her for correcting you and adjust your pronunciation.

Fluency refers to the flow of your speaking. To speak with fluency means that your speech flows well and that there are not many interruptions to that flow. Two main disfluencies or problems affect the flow of a speech. Fluency hiccups are unintended pauses in a speech that usually result from forgetting what you were saying, being distracted, or losing your place in your speaking notes. Fluency hiccups are not the same as intended pauses, which are useful for adding emphasis or transitioning between parts of a speech. While speakers should try to minimize fluency hiccups, even experienced speakers need to take an unintended pause sometimes to get their bearings or to recover from an unexpected distraction. Fluency hiccups become a problem when they happen regularly enough to detract from the speaker’s message.

Verbal fillers are words that speakers use to fill in a gap between what they were saying and what they are saying next (Hennessy, 2019). Common verbal fillers include um , uh , ah , er , you know , and like . The best way to minimize verbal fillers is to become a higher self-monitor and realize that you use them. Many students are surprised when they watch the video of their first speech and realize they said “um” thirty times in three minutes. Gaining that awareness is the first step in eliminating verbal fillers, and students make noticeable progress with this between their first and second speeches (Hennessy, 2019). If you do lose your train of thought, having a brief fluency hiccup is better than injecting a verbal filler, because the audience may not even notice the pause or may think it was intentional.

9.3 Physical Delivery

Physical 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 does not give us a free pass when it comes to physical delivery. We should still practice for physical delivery that enhances our verbal message. Physical delivery of a speech involves nonverbal communication through the face and eyes, gestures, and body movements.

Physical Delivery and the Face

We tend to look at a person’s face when we are listening to them (Hoffler, 2016). Again, this often makes people feel uncomfortable and contributes to their overall speaking anxiety. Many speakers do not 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. Remember, it is a good thing for audience members to look at you, because it means they are paying attention and interested. Audiences look toward the face of the speaker for cues about the tone and content of the speech.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions can help bring a speech to life when used by a speaker to communicate emotions and demonstrate enthusiasm for the speech (Hoffler, 2016). As with vocal variety, 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 do have—think about the actor Jim Carey’s ability to contort his face as an example. However, we can also consciously control and improve on our facial expressions to be speakers that are more effective. 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 should not 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.

Facial expressions help set the emotional tone for a speech, and it is important that your facial expressions stay consistent with your message (Hoffler, 2016). 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 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 are not bored, for example, a slack face with little animation may lead an audience to think that you are bored with your own speech, which is not 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 with 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.

Eye Contact

Eye contact is an important element of nonverbal communication in all communication settings. Eye contact can also be used to establish credibility and hold your audience’s attention (Barnard, 2017). We often interpret a lack of eye contact to mean that someone is not credible or not competent, and as a public speaker, you do not want your audience thinking either of those things. 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 as if we are paying attention actually leads us to pay attention and better retain information.

Norms for eye contact vary among cultures (Barnard, 2017). 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 himself or herself to integrate some of the host culture’s expectations and for the audience to be accommodating and understanding of the cultural differences.

Physical Delivery and the Body

Have you ever gotten dizzy as an audience member because the speaker paced back and forth? Anxiety can lead us to do some strange things with our bodies, like pacing, that we do not normally do, so it is important to consider the important role that your body plays during your speech. We call extra movements caused by anxiety nonverbal adaptors . Most of them manifest as distracting movements or gestures. These nonverbal adaptors, like tapping a foot, wringing hands, playing with a paper clip, twirling hair, jingling change in a pocket, scratching, and many more, can definitely detract from a speaker’s message and credibility. Conversely, a confident posture and purposeful gestures and movement can enhance both.

Posture is the position we assume with our bodies, either intentionally or out of habit. Although people, especially young women, used to be trained in posture, often by having them walk around with books stacked on their heads, you should use a posture that is appropriate for the occasion while still positioning yourself in a way that feels natural. In a formal speaking situation, it is important to have an erect posture that communicates professionalism and credibility (Clayton, 2018). 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 (Clayton, 2018). Head position is also part of posture. In most speaking situations, it is best to keep your head up, facing your audience. A droopy head does not communicate confidence. Consider the occasion important, as an inappropriate posture can hurt your credibility.

Gestures include arm and hand movements. We all go through a process of internalizing our native culture from childhood. An obvious part of this process is becoming fluent in a language. Perhaps less obvious is the fact that we also become fluent in nonverbal communication, gestures in particular. We all use hand gestures while we speak, but we didn’t ever take a class in matching verbal communication with the appropriate gestures; we 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 are 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 (Toastmasters International, 2011). 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 (Toastmasters International, 2011). 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 the best beginning strategy is to gesture naturally, you also want to remain a high self-monitor and take note of your typical patterns of gesturing. If you notice that you naturally gravitate toward one particular gesture, make an effort to vary your gestures more. You also want your gestures to be purposeful, not limp or lifeless.

Sometimes movement of the whole body, instead of just gesturing with hands, is appropriate in a speech. When students are given the freedom to move around, it often ends up becoming floating or pacing, which are both movements that comfort a speaker by expending nervous energy but only serve to distract the audience (Toastmasters International, 2011). Floating refers to speakers who wander aimlessly around, and pacing refers to speakers who walk back and forth in the same path. To prevent floating or pacing, make sure that your movements are purposeful. Many speakers employ the triangle method of body movement where they start in the middle, take a couple steps forward and to the right, then take a couple steps to the left, then return to the center. Obviously, you do not need to do this multiple times in a five- to ten-minute speech, as doing so, just like floating or pacing, tends to make an audience dizzy.

To make your movements appear more natural, time them to coincide with a key point you want to emphasize or a transition between key points. Minimize other movements from the waist down when you are not purposefully moving for emphasis. Speakers sometimes tap or shuffle their feet, rock, or shift their weight back and forth from one leg to the other. Keeping both feet flat on the floor, and still, will help avoid these distracting movements (Toastmasters International, 2011).

Credibility and Physical Delivery

Audience members primarily take in information through visual and auditory channels. Just as the information you present verbally in your speech can add to or subtract from your credibility, nonverbal communication that accompanies your verbal messages affects your credibility.

Professional Dress and Appearance

No matter what professional field you go into, you will need to consider the importance of personal appearance (Caffrey, 2020). 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 (Caffrey, 2020). 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. While most people still dress more formally for job interviews or high-stakes presentations, the day-to-day dress of working professionals varies.

Visual Aids and Delivery

Visual aids play an important role in conveying supporting material to your audience. They also tie to delivery, since using visual aids during a speech usually requires some physical movements. It is important not to let your use of visual aids detract from your credibility (Beqiri, 2018). Many good speeches are derailed by posters that fall over, videos with no sound, and uncooperative PowerPoint presentations.

Figure 9.1: Systematic desensitization can include giving more public speeches, taking communication courses, or imagining public speaking scenarios. William Moreland. 2019. Unsplash license . https://unsplash.com/photos/GkWP64truqg

Figure 9.2: Vocal warm-up exercises. Andrea Piacquadio. 2020. Pexels license . https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-red-polo-shirt-3779453/

Figure 9.3: Primary phases to the practice process. Kindred Grey. 2022. CC BY 4.0 .

Figure 9.4: Three facets of speaking for clarity. Kindred Grey. 2022. CC BY 4.0 .

Figure 9.5: Facial expressions set the tone for a speech, and should be consistent with your message. Afif Kusuma. 2021. Unsplash license . https://unsplash.com/photos/F3dFVKj6q8I

Figure 9.6: To make your movements appear natural, time them to coincide with a key point. Product School. 2019. Unsplash license . https://unsplash.com/photos/S3hhrqLrgYM

Section 9.1

Allen, M., Hunter, J. E., & Donohue, W. A. (1989). Meta-analysis of self-report data on the effectiveness of public speaking anxiety treatment techniques. Communication Education, 38 (1), 54–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634528909378740

Bodie, G. D. (2010). A racing heart, rattling knees, and ruminative thoughts: Defining, explaining, and treating public speaking anxiety. Communication Education, 59 (1), 70–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520903443849

Motley, M. T. (2009). COM therapy. In J. A. Daly, J. C. McCroskey, J. Ayres, T. Hopf, and D. M. Ayers Sonandré (Eds.), Avoiding communication: Shyness, reticence, and communication apprehension (pp. 379-400) (3rd ed.). Hampton Press.

Priem, J. S., & Haunani Solomon, D. (2009). Comforting apprehensive communicators: The effects of reappraisal and distraction on cortisol levels among students in a public speaking class. Communication Quarterly, 57 (3), 259-281.

Section 9.2

Barnard, D. (2018, January 20). Average speaking rate and words per minute . https://virtualspeech.com/blog/average-speaking-rate-words-per-minute

Davis, B. (2021, June 1). Why is audience engagement important? https://www.mvorganizing.org/why-is-audience-engagement-important/

Hennessy, C. (2019, March 27). Verbal filler: How to slow the flow . https://www.throughlinegroup.com/2019/03/27/verbal-filler-how-to-slow-the-flow/

LibreTexts. (2021, February 20). Methods of speech delivery . https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Communication/Public_Speaking/Exploring_Public_Speaking_(Barton_and_Tucker)/11%3A_Delivery/11.02%3A_Methods_of_Speech_Delivery

Moore, K. (2015, January 13). Public speaking tips: Use vocal variety like a pro! https://coachkiomi.com/best-public-speaking-tips-use-vocal-variety/

Packard, D. (2020, July 13). Speaking up: How to increase the volume of your voice . https://packardcommunications.com/speaking-up-how-to-increase-the-volume-of-your-voice/

Rampton, J. (2021, July 27). Learning to speak with clarity . https://www.calendar.com/blog/learning-to-speak-with-clarity/

Scotti, S. (2015, December 1). Vocal delivery: Take command of your voice . https://professionallyspeaking.net/vocal-delivery-take-command-of-your-voice-part-one/

Shtern, A. (2017, April 17). The importance of good pronunciation . https://shaneschools.com/en/the-importance-of-good-pronunciation/

Section 9.3

Barnard, D. (2017, October 24). The importance of eye contact during a presentation . https://virtualspeech.com/blog/importance-of-eye-contact-during-a-presentation

Beqiri, G. (2018, June 21). Using visual aids during a presentation or training session . https://virtualspeech.com/blog/visual-aids-presentation

Caffrey, A. (2020, February 25). The importance of personal appearance . http://www.publicspeakingexpert.co.uk/importanceofpersonalappearance.html

Clayton, D. (2018, October 31). The importance of good posture in public speaking . https://simplyamazingtraining.co.uk/blog/good-posture-public-speaking

Hoffler, A. (2016, June 7). Why facial expressions are important in public speaking . https://www.millswyck.com/2016/06/07/the-importance-of-facial-expression/

Koch, A. (2007). Speaking with a purpose (7th ed.). Pearson, 2007.

Toastmasters International. (2011). Gestures: Your body speaks . https://web.mst.edu/~toast/docs/Gestures.pdf

Fear or anxiety experience by a person due to real or perceived communication with another person or persons. This is a fear or anxiety that involves several types of communication not limited to public speaking.

Type of communication apprehension that produces physiological, cognitive, and behavioral reactions in people when faced with a real or imagined presentation

A type of cognitive restructuring that encourages people to think of public speaking as conversation rather than a performance

When a speaker has little or no time to prepare a speech

Speaking from a well written or printed document that contains the entirety of a speech

Completely memorizing a speech and delivering it without notes

Memorizing the overall structure and main points of a speech and then speaking from keyword/key-phrase notes

Refers to how fast or slow you speak

Refers to how loud or soft you speak

Refers to how high or low a speaker’s voice is

Changes in your rate, volume, and pitch that make you sound more prepared and credible

Refers to the clarity of sounds and words you pronounce

Whether you say the words correctly

Refers to the flow of your speaking

Unintended pauses in a speech that usually result from forgetting what you were saying, being distracted, or losing your place in speaking

The umms, uhhs, and other linguistic pauses of conversation

The feelings expressed on a person’s face

The act of looking directly into one another’s eyes

Extra movements caused by anxiety (i.e., tapping your foot, wringing your hands, playing with a paperclip, twirling hair, or scratching)

The position in which someone holds their body when standing or sitting

A movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning

Communication in the Real World Copyright © by Faculty members in the School of Communication Studies, James Madison University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Free Speech: It means different things in Black and white

This post originally appeared on Joel’s personal blog and appears here with a few minor edits. You can read the original post here.

I know that free speech is patently misunderstood, as illustrated by much of the recent popular discourse on this theme. This piece isn’t a reflection on its legal or constitutional definition, nor does it attempt to correct any such misunderstandings. This is more a cultural and personal witness–a brief reflection on the function of this sacred and immutable right to say what you want without consequences for the harm it causes.

As a black man with Western education, free speech has always been both a western gift and a western curse that I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about whom it really serves.  Truth is, freedom to say what you want has never been evenly distributed in society nor served the most disenfranchised therein. There has always been a power dynamic through which it operates and who has unmitigated access to wield that power in practice. One’s right to speech can’t be conflated with one’s access to platforms, and we all know that platforms are what really makes any speech really worth its salt. Let’s also admit out the gate that, historically speaking, no one in the modern western world has had more access to unmitigated free speech than white men.

Enslaved and even freed black people didn’t have any access to that freedom, much less their own dignity, at the time the constitutional idea emerged as a value in Western society. As I’ve said, some people’s speech is “more free” than others depending on their relative level of power. By more free, what I really mean is they are often able to buy or bribe their way out of the negative consequences of their free speech more than others can.

Free speech has meant that racists had free or “purchased” reign to verbally abuse people that looked like me historically with very little social consequences until some recourse through later hate-crime laws. Free speech has allowed me to critique such abuses and the way that racist systems continue to disenfranchise black people with silent precision through policy. But I pay handsomely for using my freedom to condemn white supremacist abuses of their freedom. I’m the one who is at risk of being distanced, flagged on social media, and de-platformed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed black people being banned and suspended from social media over criticizing white supremacy. It’s an hourly occurrence.

Social media has given many of us unprecedented access to platforms where we can air our speech freely for the most part. But the consequences of this have been both favorable and frightening as the speed and geographical reach of digital platforms now means that entire people groups can be brainwashed through a single social media account with a large following. We are in the bizarre, dystopian era where one can lead a coup d’etat from the digital comfort of a tweet while another simultaneously inspires the entire world with a viral video on something heroic.

It’s rather rich and somewhat preposterous to see  ONLY  white Conservatives everywhere across social media protesting the removal of Trump’s access to a Twitter account and other social platforms because of his brazen tweeted encouragement of sedition and a white supremacist insurrection of Capitol Hill recently. It ominously feels like they are only aggrieved by this because Trump getting banned by a private corp represents a Liberal silencing of the Conservatives’ right to incite violence. This now explains the surge in Conservatives leaving traditional social media websites to join more “conservative-friendly” ones like Parler, and many of whom are expressing all manner of violent plans to further commit treason against democracy. This is all justified because they believe that the Liberals stole the democracy from Trump and want their infantile tantrums to extend to the right of overthrowing the newly appointed government.

Free speech has allowed for KKK groups to march in my lifetime, for various nativist and nationalistic white supremacist groups to call for the deportation of people who don’t look like them. It feels like some white people are especially precious about their sacred right to free speech without consequences precisely because it allows them the protected privilege to be racist without consequence. I’ve spent my life coming to terms with the reality that freedom of speech will always be an enjoyable opportunity for racists to say what they like and I actually don’t care to deprive them of that obsession. But part of growing up has always been the stark realization that with great freedom comes great responsibility. To me, that responsibility includes recognizing that freedom to destabilize and destroy one’s own democracy when your party loses has to be outside the boundary line of what is permissible with our freedoms. But many white people who protest Trump’s banning seem to be willfully oblivious to this life and democracy preserving necessity and are going out of their way in manic droves to make false equivalencies about the slippery slope we are about to cause an avalanche of liberal tyranny on.

There literally couldn’t be a worse “slippery slope” to die on but here we are.

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13 Presentation Aids

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

In this chapter . . .

Most public speeches given today are supplemented by presentation aids. While these can be useful in providing a visual element and helping clarify speech, if used poorly they can be more distracting. In this chapter we cover both technological presentation aids such as slide shows as well as other less conventional methods.

When you perform a speech, your audience members will experience your presentation through all five of their senses: hearing, vision, smell, taste, and touch. In some speaking situations, the speaker appeals only to the sense of hearing. But the speaking event can be greatly enriched by appeals to the other senses. This is the role of presentation aids.

Presentation aids are the resources beyond the speech 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 are visual aids: slideshows, 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.

When used correctly, presentation aids can significantly improve the quality of a speech performance.

Why Use Presentation Aids

Public speakers can deploy presentation aids for many useful reasons, including to highlight important points, clarify confusing details, amuse the audience, express emotions that are impossible to convey through words alone, and much more.

Presentation Aids Support Audience Understanding

As a speaker, your most basic goal is to help your audience understand your message. Presentation aids can reduce the possibility of misunderstanding. Presentation aids do this by clarifying or emphasizing what you are saying in your speech.

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.

Clarifying is especially important when a speaker wants to help audience members understand a visual concept. For example, if a speaker is talking about the importance of petroglyphs in Native American culture, just describing the petroglyphs won’t completely help your audience to visualize what they look like. Instead, showing an example of a petroglyph, as in Figure 1.1 (“Petroglyph”) can more easily help your audience form a clear mental image of your intended meaning.

Another way presentation aids improve understanding is through emphasis. When you use a presentational aid for emphasis, you impress your listeners with the importance of an idea. In a speech on rising levels of CO2, you might show a chart. When you use a chart like the one in Figure 1.2 (“Global CO2 Emissions”) you give a pictorial emphasis on the changes in levels of CO2.

Presentation Aids Help Retention and Recall

Presentation aids can also increase the audience’s chances of remembering your speech. An image can serve as a memory aid to your listeners. Moreover, people 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’ll 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.

Another advantage of using presentation aids is that they can boost your memory while you’re 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.

Presentation Aids Add Variety and Interest

Furthermore, presentation aids simply make your speech more interesting. For example, wouldn’t a speech on varieties of roses have greater impact if you accompanied your remarks with a picture of each rose? 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.

Presentation Aids Enhance a Speaker’s Credibility

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, 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. If you focus your efforts on producing presentation aids that contribute effectively to your meaning, that look professional, and that are managed well, your audience will appreciate your efforts and pay close attention to your message.

Types of Presentation Aids

Slideshow: When we think of public speaking presentation aids, our thoughts go first to a slideshow. Slide presentation software is the most common tool used by speakers to accompany their speeches. The most well-known one is PowerPoint, although there are several others like Prezi and Keynote. A slideshow is a presentation aid that is made up of slides that typically contain words, images, or a combination of both.

Video: A speaker may wish to show the audience a clip of a video or other moving image in their speech. This can be played stand-alone or incorporated into a slideshow.

Music or Sound: Similarly, sound and music can be used as a presentation aid, recorded or live. Similarly, a sound recording could be played stand-alone or incorporated into a slideshow.

Physical Objects: A speaker may bring in a model, or other physical object, as an aid to presentation. For example, if you were doing a speech about the importance of emotional support animals, you might bring in a dog.

People: It is possible to use a person as a presentation aid, as in the case of demonstrations.

Other Aids: Other “low-tech” presentation aids include printed handouts, whiteboards, and flipcharts.

The sections that follow will discuss each of these types in more depth.

Designing Slideshows

In many industries and businesses, there is an assumption that speakers will use presentation slideshows. They allow visualization of concepts, they are easily portable, and they can be embedded with videos and audio. You’ll probably be expected to have slide presentations in future assignments in college. Knowing how to use them, beyond the basic technology, is vital to being a proficient presenter.

But when do presentation slides become less effective? We have all sat through a presenter who committed the common error of putting far too much text on the slide. When a speaker does this, the audience is confused—do they read the text or listen to the speaker? An audience member can’t do both. Then, the speaker feels the need to read the slides rather than use PowerPoint for what it does best, visual reinforcement and clarification.

We have also seen many poorly designed PowerPoint slides, either through haste or lack of knowledge: slides where the graphics are distorted (elongated or squatty), words and graphics not balanced, text too small, words printed over photographs, garish or nauseating colors, or animated figures left up on the screen for too long and distracting the audience.

There are principles you can follow to create slides and slideshows that are effective. In addition to the rules below, Microsoft offers tips on best practices for PowerPoint slides.

Unity and Consistency

Generally, it’s 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 consistent ways, such as having all headings and titles in the same font and all bullet points in the same font. Additionally, the background should remain consistent.

Each slide should have one message, often only one photo or graphic. The audience members should know what they are supposed to look at on the slide.

Another area related to unity and consistency is the use of animation or movement. There are three types of animation in slideshows:

• little characters or icons that have movement. These may seem like fun, but they can be distracting.
• movement of text or objects on and off the screen. Although using this function takes up time when preparing your slides, it’s very useful. You can control what your audience sees. It also avoids bringing up all the text and material on a slide at one time.
• slide transitions, which is the design of how the next slide appears.

Emphasis, 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.

•  make sure the information is large enough for the audience to see. Text being at least 22-point font is best for visibility.
• the standard rule for amount of text is that you should have no more than seven horizontal lines of text and the longest line should not exceed seven words.
• you should also avoid too many slides. Less sometimes really is more. Again, there is no fixed rule, but a ten-minute speech probably needs fewer than ten slides.
• Good contrast between the text and background is extremely important. Sans serif fonts such as Arial, Tahoma, and Verdana are better for reading from screens than serif fonts such as Times New Roman, or Garamond.

Fonts, color, clip art, photographs, and templates all contribute to tone, which is the attitude being conveyed in the slides. If you want a light tone, such as for a speech about cruises, some colors (springtime, pastel, cool, warm, or primary colors) and fonts (such as Comic Sans) and lots of photographs will be more appropriate. For a speech about the Holocaust, more somber colors and design elements would be more fitting, whereas clip art would not be.

Scale and Proportion

Although there are several ways to think about scale and proportion, we will discuss two 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, sequence, or priority, then use numbers. 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’re designing your slides, it’s 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’ll have distorted graphics and words covered up. You’ll then have to redesign each slide, which can be unnecessarily time-consuming.

Suitable Visual Images

Often, a speaker alternates text slides with slides containing visual images. Sometimes, a slideshow is made up entirely of images. Let’s look at the kinds of images you might use in a slideshow.

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’s important for them to exactly match the specific purpose in your speech. Three common types of charts are statistical charts , sequence-of-steps chart , and decision trees . Graphs : A graph is a pictorial representation of the relationships of quantitative data using dots, lines, bars, pie slices, and the like. Common graphs speakers utilize in their speeches include line graphs, bar graphs, pie graphs, and pictographs. Diagrams: Diagrams are drawings or sketches that outline and explain the parts of an object, process, or phenomenon that can’t be readily seen. 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. Photographs: and/or Drawings : Sometimes a photograph or a drawing is the best way to show an unfamiliar but important detail. Audiences expect high quality photographs, and as with all presentation aids, they should enhance the speech.

Using Video and/or Audio Recordings

Another particularly useful type of presentation aid is a video or audio recording. Whether it’s 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.

There is one major warning to using audio and video clips during a speech: don’t forget that they are supposed to be aids to your speech, not the speech itself. 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.
• Practice with the audio or video equipment prior to speaking. Fiddling around will not only take your audience out of your speech but also have a negative impact on your credibility. Be sure that the speakers on the computer are on and at the right volume level.
• Cue the clip to the appropriate place prior to beginning your speech.
• In addition to cueing up clip to the appropriate place, the browser window should be open and ready to go.
• 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.

Objects or Models

Objects refer to anything you could hold up and talk about during your speech, as in Figure 1.3. 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.

We can often use ourselves or other people to adequately demonstrate an idea during our speeches. 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—don’t assume that an audience member will volunteer on the spot. The transaction between you and your human presentation aid must be appropriate, especially if you’re 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.

Other Types of Presentation Aids

Dry-erase board.

Numerous speakers utilize dry-erase boards effectively. Typically, these speakers use the dry-erase board for interactive components of a speech. For example, maybe you’re giving a speech in front of a group of executives. You may have a PowerPoint all prepared, but at various points in your speech you want to get your audience’s responses.

If you ever use a chalk or dry-erase board, follow these four simple rules:

• Write large enough so that everyone in the room can see.
• Print legibly; don’t write in cursive script.
• Write short phrases; don’t take time to write complete sentences.
• Be sure you have markers that will not go dry; clean the board afterward.

A flipchart is useful for situations when you want to save what you have written for future reference or to distribute to the audience after the presentation. As with whiteboards, you’ll need good markers and readable handwriting, as well as a strong easel to keep the flipchart upright.

Handouts are appropriate for delivering information that audience members can take away with them.

• make sure the handout is worth the trouble of making, copying, and distributing it. Does the audience really need the handout?
• make sure to bring enough copies of the handout for each audience member to get one.
• Stay away from providing a single copy of a handout to pass around. It’s distracting and everyone will see it at different times in the speech, which is also true about passing any object around the room.
• If you have access to the room ahead of time, place a copy of the handout at or on each seat in the audience. If the handout is a “takeaway,” leave it on a table near the door so that those audience members who are interested can take one on their way out.

How to Perform with Presentation Aids

Just as everything else in public speaking performance, it takes practice to effectively perform a speech while seamlessly incorporating presentation aids. Below are some tips and tricks for how to include presentation aids as part of a strong speech delivery.

Speaking with a Slide Presentation

The rhythm of your slide presentation 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.

Whether using a remote “clicker” or the attached mouse, you should connect what is on the screen to what you’re talking about at the moment. Put reminders in your notes about when you need to change slides during your speech.

A basic presentation rule is to only show your visual aid when you’re talking about it and remove it when you no longer are talking about it. If you’re using PowerPoint and if you’re not talking about something on a slide, put a black slide between slides in the presentation so that you have a blank screen for parts of the speech.

Some other practical considerations are as follows:

• Be sure the file is saved in a format that will be “readable” on the computer where you’re presenting.
• Any borrowed graphic must be cited on the slide where it’s used; the same would be true of borrowed textual material. Putting your sources only on the last slide is insufficient.
• A 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’s on the screen behind you.
• Always remember—and this can’t be emphasized enough—technology works for you, not you for the technology. The presentation aids are aids, not the speech itself.
• As mentioned before, sometimes life happens—technology does not work. It could be that the projector bulb goes out or the Internet connection is down. The show must go on.
• If you’re using a video or audio clip from an Internet source, it’s probably best to hyperlink the URL on one of the slides rather than minimize the program and change to the Internet site.
• Finally, it’s common for speakers to think “the slide changes, so the audience know there is a change, so I don’t need a verbal transition.” Please don’t fall into this trap. Verbal transitions are just as, and maybe more, necessary for a speech using slides.
• Do not obscure your visual aid– practice standing to the side of your aid when rehearsing.
• Remember to keep eye contact with the audience, even when referring to a visual aid. Certainly, never turn your back on the audience!
• Rehearse with your visual aids. You want to have transitions between showing and hiding visual aids to be seamless, with as little filler time or distractions as possible. Practice makes perfect in this regard.
• As will be mentioned again below: simplicity is key. Avoid anything too distracting, too complicated, anything that will take a lot of time away from your speech content. You always want aids to supplement, not supplant, your speech content and delivery.

Avoiding Problems with Presentation Aids

Presentation aids can be tricky to use, as they can easily distract from the focus of your speech: the content and your delivery. One tip 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. As the speaker, you’re responsible for arranging the things you need to make your presentation aids work as intended. Test the computer and projector setup. Have your slides on a flash drive AND send it to yourself as an attachment or upload to a Cloud service. Have an alternative plan 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 or confusing presentation aids. Instead, simplify as much as possible, emphasizing the information you want your audience to understand. Remember the acronym KISS: Keep it Simple, Speaker!

Another thing to remember is that presentation aids don’t “speak for themselves.” When you display a visual aid, you should explain what it shows, pointing out and naming the most important features.

To finish this chapter, we will recap and remind you about the principles of effective presentation aids. Whether your aid is a slide show, object, a person, or dry erase board, these standards are essential:

• Presentation aids must be easily seen or heard by your audience.
• Presentation aids must be portable, easily handled, and efficient.
• Presentation aids should disappear when not in use.
• Presentation aids should be aesthetically pleasing, which includes in good taste. Avoid shock value just for shock value.

Media Attributions

• Petroglyphs © Jim Bouldin is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
• Rise in Global CO2 Emissions, 2022 © International Energy Agency is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• Speech with Prop © Ralf Rebmann is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license

Public Speaking as Performance Copyright © 2023 by Mechele Leon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Antisemitism

In government and as an outsider, Kenneth Marcus has tried to douse what he says is rising bias against Jews. Some see a crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech.

By Vimal Patel

In the early 2000s, as the uprising known as the second intifada instilled fear in Israelis through a series of suicide bombings, Kenneth Marcus, then an official in the U.S. Department of Education, watched with unease as pro-Palestinian protests shook college campuses.

“We were seeing, internationally, a transformation of anti-Israel animus into something that looked like possibly a new form of antisemitism,” Mr. Marcus recalled in an interview, adding that U.S. universities were at the forefront of that resurgence.

Ever since, Mr. Marcus, perhaps more than anyone, has tried to douse what he sees as a dangerous rise of campus antisemitism, often embedded in pro-Palestinian activism.

He has done it as a government insider in the Bush and Trump administrations, helping to clarify protections for Jewish students under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and broadening the definition of what can be considered antisemitic.

He has also been an outside agitator, filing and promoting federal claims of harassment of Jews that he knows will garner media attention and put pressure on college administrators, students and faculty.

The impact of his life’s work has never been more felt than in the last few months, as universities reel from accusations that they have tolerated pro-Palestinian speech and protests that have veered into antisemitism.

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened dozens of investigations into allegations of antisemitism at colleges and K-12 schools, a dramatic increase from previous years.

The bar for starting an investigation is low, but the government has opened cases into institutions as varied as Stanford, Wellesley, the New School and Montana State University.

Mr. Marcus’s nonprofit, the Brandeis Center, initiated only a handful of these complaints, but his tactics have been widely copied by other groups.

Mr. Marcus is “the single most effective and respected force when it comes to both litigation and the utilization of the civil rights statutes” to combat antisemitism, said Jeffrey Robbins, a visiting professor at Brown University, who once served on the Brandeis Center board.

Few, if any, would take issue with the Office for Civil Rights extending protections to students facing antisemitic harassment. But critics say that Mr. Marcus’s larger ambition is to push a pro-Israel policy agenda and crack down on speech supporting Palestinians.

His complaints have often included ugly details, like swastikas being scrawled on doors, and a university’s indifference to them. Those claims, however, have been mingled with examples of pro-Palestinian speech, which some critics say is not antisemitic, even if it makes Jewish students uncomfortable.

One recent complaint against American University includes an example of a student who said that she overheard suite mates “accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians.” In November, his center filed a complaint against Wellesley College, stating that panelists at an event “minimized the atrocities committed by Hamas.”

The whole point, free-speech supporters contend, is to stir the pot and put colleges under the microscope of a federal investigation. Many universities have since taken an aggressive stance against some forms of speech and protest, moves often decried by academic freedom groups. Columbia, Brandeis University and George Washington University have suspended their chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine.

“These complaints are having the impact that they were designed to achieve,” said Radhika Sainath, a lawyer with Palestine Legal, a civil rights group. “Not to win on the merit, but to force universities to investigate, condemn and suppress speech supporting Palestinian rights, because they are so fearful of bad press and donor backlash.”

Mr. Marcus said the complaints stand on their own merit, but he nodded to their larger impact.

“We realize that the value achieved by these cases is far greater than the narrow resolution might be,” he said.

The goal, he added, is “about changing the culture on college campuses so that antisemitism is addressed with the same seriousness as other forms of hate or bias.”

Interning for Barney Frank and Reading Ayn Rand

Mr. Marcus, 57, said that he had not intended to devote his career to fighting antisemitism.

Growing up in Sharon, Mass., a small town south of Boston, he ran into children who hurled rocks at him and yelled, “Go back to your Jew town,” he said.

But Sharon also had a sizable Jewish population, and he said that he thought of antisemitism as a “relic of the past.”

His Depression-era parents adored Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and in high school, Mr. Marcus worked as an intern for Representative Barney Frank, the liberal congressman.

Mr. Marcus’s politics began to change at the local library, where he read books by conservative thinkers, such as Thomas Sowell and Ayn Rand. While studying at Williams College and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, he became captivated by the conservative legal movement. And as a young corporate litigator, he took on First Amendment cases, which drew him into civil rights work.

By 2004, he was the interim leader of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where he helped reframe how the department considered antisemitism cases.

Back then, the office declined to take those cases. That is because it was charged with enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin — but not religion.

But in an official letter , Mr. Marcus wrote that the agency’s Title VI enforcement would include ancestry — meaning students who are harassed because of their ethnic and religious characteristics, including “Arab Muslims, Jewish Americans and Sikhs.” In 2010, the Obama administration endorsed and clarified that interpretation of Title VI.

The complaints involving shared ancestry began with a trickle. The first, filed a month after Mr. Marcus’s 2004 letter, was by the Zionist Organization of America against the University of California, Irvine. The complaint included accusations of antisemitism related to the Middle East conflict, such as a sign by a student group that said, “Israelis Love to Kill Innocent Children.”

In those early years, Mr. Marcus and the Z.O.A. were the main ones pushing the Title VI antisemitism cases, said Susan Tuchman, an official at Z.O.A.

She recalled that an official of one major Jewish advocacy group, which she declined to name, yelled at her over the phone, saying that her complaint was counterproductive and targeted speech protected by the First Amendment.

Mr. Marcus “understood when few others did,” she said, “that campus antisemitism was a serious problem and that Jewish students didn’t have the legal protections that they needed.”

His independent advocacy began in earnest in 2011, when Mr. Marcus started the Brandeis Center, based in Washington (and unaffiliated with Brandeis University in Massachusetts).

There were larger, more established Jewish groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, but Mr. Marcus said he wanted his nonprofit to focus on campus legal work.

Media attention was an important part of his strategy. He explained his rationale in a 2013 column in The Jerusalem Post , after President Obama’s Office for Civil Rights had dismissed an early wave of such complaints, including the Irvine case, saying they involved protected speech.

“These cases — even when rejected — expose administrators to bad publicity,” Mr. Marcus wrote, adding, “If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students.”

Mr. Marcus said the complaints create “a very strong disincentive for outrageous behavior.”

“Needless to say,” he wrote, “getting caught up in a civil-rights complaint is not a good way to build a résumé or impress a future employer.”

In 2018, his tactics led some liberal groups to oppose his appointment as the civil rights chief of the Department of Education.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of liberal groups, wrote in a letter to senators that Mr. Marcus had sought to use the complaint process “to chill a particular political point of view, rather than address unlawful discrimination.”

The letter also accused Mr. Marcus of undermining policies, like race-conscious admissions, that shielded other groups. The Senate narrowly confirmed him on a party-line vote.

Antisemitism, Redefined

After he took office in 2018, Mr. Marcus did not try to make peace with his critics.

He promptly reopened a Title VI case, brought by the Zionist Organization of America against Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. The Z.O.A. had appealed the dismissal of its case for insufficient evidence.

He used the Rutgers case to embrace, for the first time, a definition of antisemitism put forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes holding Israel to a “double standard” or claiming its existence is a “racist endeavor.”

To Mr. Marcus, the definition helped pressure colleges to stop tolerating behavior against Jews that would be unacceptable if directed at racial minority groups or L.G.B.T.Q. students.

But to pro-Palestinian supporters, Mr. Marcus was using the definition to try to crack down on their speech. They said that the Education Department already had the power to investigate and punish harassment, and this new definition just confused administrators about what was allowable.

“No one says we need the I.H.R.A. definition so we can go after Nazis talking about killing Jews or classic antisemitic tropes about Jews and media and banks,” said Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. The definition, rather, “is about getting at this other supposed antisemitism.”

The next year, the Trump administration issued a sweeping executive order on combating antisemitism and instructed all agencies to consider the I.H.R.A. definition in examining Title VI complaints.

The complaints seem to be affecting campus culture — for better or worse depending on whom you ask. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said it has opened up 89 shared ancestry investigations into colleges and K-12 schools since Oct. 7, making up more than 40 percent of such cases opened since 2004.

Education Department officials in the Biden administration have said there is no tension between the First Amendment and Title VI. They said universities can prevent hostile learning environments without curbing free expression by, for example, properly investigating complaints, creating support services for students or condemning hateful speech.

But academic freedom supporters counter that administrators will go out of their way to avoid complaints altogether, especially now that the department has accepted the I.H.R.A. definition. The executive order remains in effect, and the Biden administration is considering a regulation on the matter.

Last month, Debbie Becher, a sociology professor at Barnard College, wrote in the student newspaper that the school’s president asked her to “pause” the showing of “Israelism,” a documentary critical of Israel.

In their meeting, the president, Laura Rosenbury, cited worries about Title VI and pointed out that the film was cited in a lawsuit accusing Harvard of antisemitism. Ms. Rosenbury did not respond to interview requests.

“My arguments that this was overt censorship, a violation of academic freedom, and dangerous for Barnard’s culture fell on deaf ears,” wrote Dr. Becher, who went forward with the event.

Mr. Marcus continues to press his case. The Brandeis Center, which started as a one-man operation, now has 13 litigators.

He said he is happy there but would not rule out another stint in a future Trump administration.

“I’ve spent my career focused on this battle,” he said, “and it seems sometimes as if it’s all been leading up to this very moment.”

Vimal Patel writes about higher education with a focus on speech and campus culture. More about Vimal Patel

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Commodity trader Trafigura has agreed to pay about $127 million to resolve a probe into bribes paid to Brazilian officials to secure oil contracts, the U.S. Department of Justice and the firm said on Thursday.

AT&T says leaked data set impacts about 73 million current, former account holders

Telecom company AT&T said on Saturday that it is investigating a data set released on the "dark web" about two weeks ago, and said that its preliminary analysis shows it has impacted approximately 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.

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Meta ban on Arabic word used to praise violence limits free speech, Oversight Board says

The independent board that oversees content moderation of Facebook owner Meta is urging the company to loosen restrictions on “shaheed,” arguing the blanket ban on the Arabic word which has been used to praise acts of violence has led to widespread censorship of millions of users from Arabic-speaking and Muslim communities. 

Under its current policy, Meta removes “shaheed” when it's used in reference to people it classifies as dangerous.

That “blunt method” is "overbroad and disproportionately restricts freedom of expression and civic discourse,” by disregarding the word’s linguistic complexity and its many uses, and treating it instead as the equivalent of the English word ‘martyr,’” said Oversight Board co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

The result is the removal of content that does not praise terrorism or violence, the board said in its decision.

What's more, Meta’s policies that prohibit incitement to violence and support of designated terrorists and terrorist organizations, when properly enforced, already address the dangers posed by terrorist activity on the company's platforms, the board said.

Meta should only take down Facebook, Instagram and Thread posts containing “shaheed” when use of the word is tied to clear-cut signs of violence – such as imagery of weapons, a statement of intent or advocacy to take up arms or a reference to an attack – or when a post breaks other rules such as expressing approval of or glorifying a known terrorist, the board recommended.

Meta told USA TODAY that it would review the feedback and respond within 60 days.

Meta asked Oversight Board to weigh in on 'shaheed' policy

The Muslim and Arabic communities had called on Meta to lift the "shaheed" ban. Jewish and Israeli groups warned that changing the policy would increase antisemitic content on Meta's platforms.

In 2020, Meta conducted an internal review of its ban on “shaheed” when referring to individuals it has designated as dangerous, such as terrorist individuals or organizations, but did not reach a consensus.

Noting that "shaheed" is the most commonly removed word or phrase on Meta's platforms under the company's moderation rules, the social media giant asked the Oversight Board to weigh in more than a year ago. The panel is a diverse group of professors, lawyers, human rights activists and others from around the world that Meta taps for guidance on thorny policy questions.

"We want people to be able to use our platforms to share their views, and we have a set of policies to help them do so safely," Meta said in a statement to USA TODAY. "We aim to apply these policies fairly but doing so at scale brings global challenges, which is why in February 2023 we sought the Oversight Board's guidance on how we treat the word ‘shaheed’ when referring to designated individuals or organizations."

The controversy came into sharper focus following the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7 during which an estimated 1,400 people were killed or taken hostage and during Israel’s subsequent months-long assault on Gaza that has killed 32,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

The Oversight Board said it was finalizing its opinion on "shaheed" when Hamas attacked Israel, so it extended its research to observe use of the word during the Gaza conflict, but that additional research did not change the board's thinking.

What does shaheed mean?

The literal meaning of the Arabic word “shaheed” is “witness” and, while it roughly translates to “martyr” in English and is commonly used to praise those who die while committing violent acts, it has numerous meanings in Arabic and its interpretation largely depends on the context in which it is used. 

"Anyone killed unjustly, or anyone that died on their way to their studies, as well as those who have died for their homeland, are just a few of the circumstances that qualify someone to be referred to as Shaheed. The term is used in many circumstances, but the vast majority of those referred to as Shaheed are civilians," Nadim Nashif, founder and general director of 7amleh − The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media − said in a statement. "Meta needs to have a more contextualized and nuanced approach to this aspect of Arab and Islamic culture."

That approach is needed as people grieve the death toll in Gaza, Nashif said.

"As the largest social media company in the world, which generates billions of dollars in profits annually, Meta has the responsibility to have a more contextualized approach to moderating sensitive terms for the Arab world, as well as for all peoples," he said.

The Oversight Board agreed. Thorning-Schmidt said the current policy unfairly limits “people’s ability to debate and condemn the violence they see around them” and stops legitimate use of the word such as news reporting and discussion about victims of terrorism and other types of violence.

“It can even lead to those speaking about deceased loved ones having their content taken down in error,” Thorning-Schmidt said in a statement. 

Critics warn 'shaheed' shift could flood Facebook and Instagram with antisemitic posts

Pro-Palestinian groups have long complained they are unfairly targeted by Meta content moderation. Jewish and Israeli groups have voiced their own concerns that Meta's policies and enforcement have failed to stem the flood of antisemitic content on its platforms. Those tensions have only intensified during the Gaza conflict.

“Even with these policies on the books, we have seen an explosion in calls to terror against Jews and Israelis following Oct. 7,” Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, founder and executive director of CyberWell, an Israeli nonprofit organization that tracks online antisemitism, told USA TODAY. “These calls to terror and violence will be normalized and, more importantly, more people will be exposed to them, possibly leading to additional violence at a time there is already a lot of violence and targeted antisemitic attacks.”

CyberWell said its researchers flagged 300 pieces of content on Facebook that contained the word “shaheed” and praise for violent acts. It recommended that Meta flag content that mentions “shaheed” and “Jews” and that it increase oversight of variations of the word to identify and remove potentially violent content.

The policy shift the Oversight Board is recommending would unleash even more hate speech and violent threats on Meta’s platforms, according to Montemayor.

“Post Oct. 7, there seems to be an online trend of glorifying of terrorism happening on social media platforms and it should be concerning to all of us,” she said. “Terror groups and radical ideologies are actively leveraging the vulnerabilities of social media platforms and it’s the responsibility of the platforms to recognize that and have policies and content moderation practices to meet those challenges and not pretend like it’s not happening. It’s happening very clearly.”

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Earth just experienced a severe geomagnetic storm. Here's what that means – and what you can expect.

By Li Cohen

Updated on: March 25, 2024 / 10:16 AM EDT / CBS News

The planet was just slammed with what government officials dubbed a severe geomagnetic storm, the second-highest level of NOAA's rating system. The event brought "a major disturbance in Earth's magnetic field" that may have impacted infrastructure and made the northern lights visible farther than usual, officials said. 

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch on Saturday, saying that a coronal mass ejection was detected and expected to hit the planet late that same day with impacts into Monday. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are when a large cloud of plasma and magnetic field bursts from the sun's corona. 

This particular CME exploded alongside a solar flare on Friday, an event that occurs when electromagnetic radiation suddenly erupts from the sun. NOAA says these flares can last hours and the eruption "travels at the speed of light," meaning it can impact Earth as soon as it is observed. An X-class flare , like what was observed with the CME, is the strongest type of flare, although this particular one was not the strongest on record. NOAA forecasters did say, however, that more X-class flares are possible through Wednesday.

"The public should not be concerned, but may wish to keep informed by visiting our webpage for any forecast changes and updates," NOAA said on Saturday, saying a moderate geomagnetic storm was possible. By Sunday afternoon, however, the agency alerted of a  "severe" storm  that could potentially impact technology – and eventually extend the northern lights  as far south as Alabama . 

This is a video summary of the 22 March solar flares, coronal mass ejection (CME), and eventual CME arrival at Earth on 24 March - with resultant geomagnetic storms. The CME progression continues at this time. pic.twitter.com/u5FeeSMzGp — NOAA Space Weather (@NWSSWPC) March 24, 2024

"The public should not anticipate adverse impacts and no action is necessary, but they should stay properly informed of storm progression by visiting our webpage," NOAA said in its alert, adding that "normally mitigable" problems with voltage control was possible, as well as "frequent and longer periods of GPS degradation." 

"Infrastructure operators have been notified to take action to mitigate any possible impacts," the agency said.

On Monday morning, NOAA said that the impacts of the CME "appear to be weakening," but that solar wind speeds – which help carry the event – were still elevated. The warning of a "moderate" storm has since been extended. Moderate geomagnetic storms , classified as G2, can potentially impact high-latitude power systems, damage transformers and extend the northern lights to New York and Idaho. It can also potentially require flight ground control to issue corrective actions for orientation. 

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Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.

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Google Changed Its Definition of 'Bloodbath' After Trump Used It in a Speech?

Social media users concocted a conspiracy theory to counter criticism of trump's use of the word., aleksandra wrona, published march 28, 2024.

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On March 16, 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump said : "Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that's gonna be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country." His remark at a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, sparked controversy on social media. As Snopes reported on March 17, 2024, its context suggested Trump was predicting an "economic bloodbath" for the country, not a literal one, if he loses the 2024 presidential election.

Five days later, on March 21, 2024, a rumor went viral on X (formerly Twitter), alleging that Google intentionally changed "its definition" of "bloodbath" to push an anti-Trump narrative. This claim is not only false, as we'll demonstrate below, but based on a complete ignorance of how the search engine's "dictionary boxes" work. But that didn't keep the rumor from going viral.

"HOLY S***. Google just quietly changed its search results for 'bloodbath definition'," the most viral post on the topic read, reaching over 35 million views as of this writing. The post featured a collage of two screenshots supposedly proving Google tampered with the search results for "bloodbath" between March 17, 2024, and March 21, 2024.

(X user @EndWokeness)

"Definition changed from how it was 4 days ago. Changed to remove the financial example, to ensure Trump's speech can always be taken out of context. Re-writing the meaning of words in real time," one Reddit user commented . Even Elon Musk, the owner of X, went all-in on the conspiracy theory. "Google is deeply infected with the woke mind virus" Musk wrote in an X  repost  of the above-mentioned collage to his 178 million followers. 

How 'Dictionary Boxes' on Google Really Work

According to a Google Search Help article  titled "Dictionary boxes on Google," these so-called "dictionary boxes" display definitions from third-party sources. It emphasized that "Google doesn't create, write, or modify definitions" and "dictionary results don't reflect the opinions of Google" (emphasis ours):

When you search on Google, you might find dictionary boxes if our systems decide it would be useful and relevant. Dictionary boxes show definitions from third-party expert sources and might include related images, pronunciations, translations, and other information. Tip: You're likely to get a Dictionary result when you start your search with "Define" or "What's the meaning of." Where info in Dictionary boxes comes from Important: Dictionary boxes always include definitions but might not include all other features. Definitions Google doesn't create, write, or modify definitions. Dictionary results don't reflect the opinions of Google. We license definitions, which include examples, similar and opposite words, and origins, from third-party experts who compile dictionaries. Tip: At the top of a Dictionary box, you can usually find the provider of the definition.

We reached out to Google directly to ask for its response to the claim that the definitions were purposely changed. "This allegation is categorically false," a spokesperson told us. "These definitions come from dictionaries, not from Google. We don't create, write, or modify definitions, and we don't manually decide which results appear. Both of these definitions have shown up for this search and related searches in recent days. " 

This confirms what various social media users had pointed out: The viral image didn't show an individual dictionary entry that had changed; it showed definitions from two different sources, Dictionary.com website and Oxford Languages (see image below). 

When we took a closer look at the viral image, we noticed the two screenshots were significantly different. The first one showed an "About featured snippets" caption, while the second one showed a "Dictionary, Definitions from Oxford Languages" legend. When we clicked on the "Oxford Languages" button, it redirected us to an Oxford Languages article, informing that "Google's English dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages."

The first screenshot, allegedly captured on March 17, 2024, informed the displayed search result was a "featured snippet." A Google Search Help  article  with the title "How Google's featured snippets work" said that "Google's search results sometimes show listings where the snippet describing a page comes before a link to a page, not after as with our standard format. Results displayed this way are called 'featured snippets.'" It continued (emphasis ours):

You might find featured snippets on their own within overall search results, within the "People also ask" section, or along with Knowledge Graph information. We display featured snippets when our systems determine this format will help people more easily discover what they're seeking, both from the description about the page and when they click on the link to read the page itself. They're especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice. Featured snippets commonly contain one listing, but more than one may appear. How featured snippets are chosen Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google's automated systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet to highlight for a specific search request. Your feedback helps us improve our search algorithms and the quality of your search results.

Ultimately, Google search results are based on many factors, such as one's location or the phrasing of the query, which might cause differences in the search results over time:

To give you the most useful information, Search algorithms look at many factors and signals, including the words of your query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of your query. For example, the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions.

We have fact-checked other Google-related rumors before. For instance, in June 2023, we investigated whether Google Maps was adding a feature that would allow drivers to challenge each other to a race. In January 2023, we debunked a false claim that a Google product designed to compete with Apple's AirTag and Samsung's SmartTag was named the "G-Spot."

Emery, David. "Did Trump Say It Will Be a 'Bloodbath for the Country' If He Doesn't Get Elected?" Snopes , 17 Mar. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-bloodbath-for-country/.

How Google's Featured Snippets Work - Google Search Help . https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9351707?hl=en. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

Learn about Dictionary Boxes on Google - Google Search Help . https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/10106608. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

"Ranking Results – How Google Search Works." Google Search - Discover How Google Search Works , https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

"---." Google Search - Discover How Google Search Works , https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

Kasprak, Alex. "Is Google Maps Adding Feature That Lets Drivers Challenge Each Other To a Race?" Snopes , 21 June 2023, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/google-maps-request-to-race-drivers/.

---. "Is Google's 'G-Spot' a Real Product?" Snopes , 30 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/google-g-spot/.

By Aleksandra Wrona

Aleksandra Wrona is a reporting fellow for Snopes, based in the Warsaw area.

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What trump’s 100% auto tariff proposal would mean for the u.s. economy.

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CHANGFENG, CHINA - JUNE 30: The first vehicle, a Qin Plus DM-i sedan, rolls off the assembly line at ... [+] BYD's new manufacturing base on June 30, 2022. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Corrected, March 28, 2024 : A earlier version of this article erroneously reported where BYD makes EVs and how many it sells in the U.S. The firm is considering plans to build an EV plant in Mexico but does not produce vehicles there. A spokesman says it sells no vehicles in the U.S.

In a recent campaign speech, former President Donald Trump vowed , “We're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected.”

Trump was not clear in that March 17 speech about the target of his tariffs. But what would the consequences be of a 100% tax on imported autos?

Conflicting Plans

It could be catastrophic. At a time when so many people worry about inflation, past experience with other goods suggests a tariff likely would drive up the cost of motor vehicles, domestic as well as imports, used cars as well as new. And rather than add jobs, as Trump insists, these tariffs likely would send thousands of U.S. workers to the unemployment line .

In his March 17 speech, he implied he’d levy the 100% import tax only on Chinese nameplate vehicles made in Mexico. But, while the world’s top seller of electric vehicles, Chinese automaker BYD, is considering plans to produce electric vehicles in Mexico. It currently sells none in the U.S.

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At other times, Trump proposed very different import taxes, Bloomberg News explained. He’s promised a 10% tariff on all imported goods, a 50% tariff on all imported Chinese cars, and a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods. Listen to this recent CNBC interview for Trump’s own explanation of how he views tariffs.

It also is not clear whether Trump would tax imports of autos only or also include component parts. The 25% tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese steel imports in 2018 did target materials used to manufacture other products and it seems reasonable to assume any new levy would do the same.

A Complex Supply Chain

What would a tariff on imported autos and parts mean?

Remember, the U.S. auto industry relies on a complex supply chain. Cars assembled by American workers in the U.S. are built with parts from all over the world , especially Mexico and Canada but also China and other countries.

About one-quarter of cars and light trucks purchased in the U.S. are imports, per Haver Analytics data. More than half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. are built by foreign nameplate firms such as Toyota, BMW, or Hyundai. But the National Automobile Dealers Association adds that 44% of them are assembled in the U.S. from a mix of foreign and domestic parts. And often, these brands use fewer foreign parts than U.S.-headquartered automakers.

For example, in 2023, the average domestic content of Hondas was about 67%, while on average about 52% of the components in Ford vehicles were made in the U.S. , according to American University’s Made In America Auto Index.

At the same time, the U.S. exports about 77,000 autos and $70 billion in parts to other countries. The biggest component buyers are Mexico, Canada, and—perhaps surprisingly—China. Thus, many imported vehicles are built with some U.S.-made parts.

More Inflation, Fewer Jobs

What would the economic impact of auto tariffs look like? Immediately, a 100% tariff on imported vehicles would come close to doubling their price since most of the tax would be passed on to consumers.

But that would just be the beginning. Domestic producers likely would take the opportunity to raise their own prices, even before figuring in their higher costs from tariffs on the overseas parts they need to assemble their vehicles.

In addition, the jobs of many of the 1 million American workers who manufacture vehicles and parts and the 1.2 million employed by auto dealerships would be at risk.

Then, there is what would happen after U.S. trading partners impose retaliatory tariffs on American imports, which they almost certainly would. Such an ugly trade war would result in still-higher U.S. consumer prices and many lost jobs.

Because Trump’s proposals are vague, no one has figured their impact yet on U.S. employment. But 2018’s more modest 25% tariff on imported steel cost as many as 175,000 U.S. jobs, according to some academic estimates . And they reduced net U.S. income by more than $7 billion, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper .

Economic Uncertainty

Could U.S. firms open new domestic factories to make components and build cars, as Trump hopes? Sure, but it would take years. Besides, big price increases could cause auto sales to collapse, making firms reluctant to make capital investments. Overall, the enormous economic uncertainty such a tariff would create could slow investment well beyond the auto industry.

We don’t know precisely what trade policies Trump would adopt if he returned to the White House. But one thing is certain: A 100% tariff on imported autos would create an economic disaster for U.S. consumers and thousands of workers.

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