Education Section > Communication

SPC1016 - Fundamentals of Speech

Fall 2007

Instructor: Mark Zeigler

I learned a lot about communication in this course. I learned about body language, Meta messages, and senders and receivers. I also learned how to inform and how to persuade, and a variety of other communication topics. Most importantly, I learned how to create an outline and prepare a speech. In this course we were required to complete two speeches, an informative speech and a persuasive speech. For each speech, we had to write an outline, which were used to aid us during our speeches. These speeches were done in small groups so it was more like a meeting than full blown public speaking. I had never created an outline for a speech before and in this course I learned how to create professional outlines. It was impressive to see how much those outlines helped in my speeches.

I also learned techniques on how to persuade and how to inform. I learned techniques to calm myself during a speech and how to properly conduct a speech using an extemporaneous style, which involves reading the speech from the previously mentioned outlines. I learned that a good method in speeches is to tell the audience what you are going to tell them, tell them what you need to tell them and then wrap it up by telling them what you just told them. I feel the skills I learned in this course will come a long way in my career. By the end of this course I was very comfortable standing up and talking in front of people. Public speaking is generally the number one fear for most people, so by having a grasp on public speaking, I think I have a good advantage over others.

Skills Acquired

• Persuasive Speaking
• Informational Speaking
• Writing Speech Outlines

Samples

• Informative Speech Outline - This is my outline for my informative speech. The speech was meant to inform my audience about high-definition televisions. I explained to them what HD was and what different types of televisions there are. The sample includes all points I discussed in the speech as well as my transitional sentences. I also include the sources I used in the speech.

  Download the Informative Speech Outline (PDF) - (72 KB)
  
  

• Persuasive Speech Outline - This is my outline for my persuasive speech. The speech was meant to persuade my audience to drive manual transmissions. I discussed why manual transmissions are more efficient, cheaper and require less maintenance. I also brought up a lot of counter points so that my argument was stronger. I learned a lot about counter arguments in this speech. The sample includes all of my points, transitional sentences and even my counter arguments.

  Download the Persuasive Speech Outline (PDF) - (47.2 KB)