CRS 183 Essay: What qualities do you believe a good speaker must possess? What are the implications of the criteria you have chosen? If each speaker had to follow your rules, how would it impact society? PDF

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This essay answers the questions of what qualities are needed in order to be a good speaker. ...

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Samara Weissmann CRS 183 Christina Decka Essay #2 What qualities do you believe a good speaker must possess? What are the implications of the criteria you have chosen? If each speaker had to follow your rules, how would it impact society? In order to be successful in life, you need to be a good speaker. However, it is becoming increasingly hard to be a quality speaker. People in society today are no longer respecting the importance of being a good public speaker. I believe it is extremely important for us to learn to be speakers and know what it takes to be one. Good public speakers need to be able to stand in front of a crowd and have that audience trust every word they say simply because of their qualities. For me, there are four qualities that a speaker should possess. Those qualities consist of confidence, engagement with audience, passion and to be educated. When a public speaker is able to chanel these four attributes during a speech, they have successfully given an engaging and convincing speech and can be defined as a good speaker.

Confidence can be defined as having trust in something or someone. When applied to public speaking, it can be defined as knowing the topic you will be discussing extremely well. It is very easy to distinguish between a speaker who is comfortable in what they are discussing and someone who simply doesn’t. When a speaker begins to stutter and seems nervous, it diminishes their topic and the audience begins to lose interest. If all speakers possessed this, then they would be seen as confident by the audience and gain more respect and be more successful in this field. There would be a larger pool of continued interest from your audience. When a speaker is confident, it doesn’t matter if they are using complex langauge. A confident speaker gives a

message that is honest, simple and relevant. For example, a month ago I went to the apple store where a store employer tried to convince me to buy airpods. Knowing I wasn’t going to buy them anyway, I still listened. Through the way he presented himself, I could tell he was confident in what he was talking about. He wasn’t presenting me with scientific facts or evidence that these were better for me, but rather convinced me with his smooth flowing voice and body language.

Being engaged with the audience is the process of motivating people to be interested in a specific topic and the process of being involved with something. When you are giving a speech, you are trying to convince your audience to believe what you are saying. You must resonate with your audience in order for them to continue to listen to what you are saying. A speaker should engage with their audience by asking them questions that resonate with them and make them feel important . This is also how the speaker can feel out the mood of the audience. A good speaker should also be interested in their audiences best interest, you want what’s best for them. For example, you are giving a speech about promoting clean beaches. You ask your audience questions such as “Who loves going to the beach?” “Who here hates when your favorite beach is covered in plastic left by others?” If every speaker were to possess this quality, audiences would feel more inclined to engage in what you are presenting because you are showing that you care about them. It will make people feel better about themselves and feel more appreciated, creating a happier society.

Having passion means you are fully invested in something or someone. You are fully engaged and have dedicated large amounts of time to focus on this specific topic. This is one of the most important qualities a speaker must have. If a speaker is not passionate in the topic that

are presenting about the audience will not connect with them. Having passion in what a topic helps build trust within an audience; when they see you angry, happy and/or sad when discussing a topic, the audience sees a real connection between you and what you are talking about and trust is grown. A speaker who radiates emotion is interesting, it catches the audiences attention more than a speaker who stands still in front of the crowd speaking in low tone voice the entire time. For example, you are giving a speech about families affected by the holocaust. Why do you care about this topic? How does it relate to you and affect you? Maybe your family members were killed in the holocaust and you want others to see how its affected you in hopes to raise awareness. This is why Weaver critisized scientism. He did not believe that we should separate our emotions from our reasons. (CITE) Keeping our emotions in tact with our reasons is what draws out out passion in our speeches. Using our emotions also brings out guilt in your audience. Burke established that the main human motive is guilt. If you show emotions to your audience, they will feel guilty and feel obligued to belive you. If every speaker possessed this quality, people would feel more empathy for one another. Society would become a more loving place.

A speaker should be educated in order to be a successful speaker. A good speaker knows the in’s and the out’s of a successful speech. While I believe some people are born with good presentational and speaking skills, you need much more than that. You must practice and educate yourself. A speaker who is educated should know about and use daily Steve Toulmin’s, Uses of an Argument. Toulmin developed a model to evaluate the quality of arguments. A speaker uses his three components each time they try to engage an audience. The three consist of Claim, Data and Warrant. If every speaker were to be educated, every argument given would be so persice and factual that there would no longer be fake or inperfect arguments. Every argument given

would provide evidence to their claims, nobody would no longer state a claim and not provide evidence why. In conclusion, our society would benefit if every speaker contained these four important qualities; confidence, engagement with the audience, passion and being educated. Today, public speaking has taken a toll, however we can fix it if we all engage in these two qualities....