NOTES ON CHAPTER 14

Chapter 14

Adapting Verbally and Visually

Goal: To understand verbal and visual adaptation to audiences

Overview: This chapter discusses how to develop common ground, build audience interest, adapt to an audience’s level of understanding, build speaker credibility, and create and display visual aids that will be appropriate for the specific situation.

Chapter Outline

Action Step 4

Adapt your speech’s verbal and visual material to the needs of your specific audience

I.    Adapting to your audience verbally

A.   Relevance: adapting the information in the speech so that audience members view it as important to them

1.   Establish timeliness: show how information is useful now or in the near future

2.   Establish proximity: show a relationship to personal space

3.   Demonstrate personal impact

B.   Information comprehension

1.   Orient the audience: present an overview of information

2.   Define key terms

3.   Illustrate new concepts with vivid examples; helps understanding and memory

4.   Personalize information: present information within a frame of reference that is familiar to the audience

5.   Compare unknown ideas with familiar ones

6.   Use multiple methods for developing criteria

C.   Common ground: the background, knowledge, attitudes, experiences, and philosophies shared by audience members and the speaker

1.   Use personal pronouns: refer directly to the one speaking, spoken to, or spoken about (you, us, we, our)

2.   Ask rhetorical questions: phrase questions to stimulate a mental response rather than an actual spoken response from the audience

3.   Share common experiences: present personal experiences, examples, and illustrations that exhibit what you and the audience have in common