CHAPTER 7: COMMUNICATION FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES

CONTENT:

At every stage of a student’s life, and even beyond that, the skill and the knowledge to
communicate, to acquire and convey information, and to persuade and argue are not only
necessary but indispensable.

There are numerous theories attempting to explain the nature of communication and identify its
elements. But the most commonly cited definition involves the process of a sender with an idea
encoding a message, which is then sent through a medium or channel until it reaches a
receiver, who decodes the message and sends back a feedback.

In his book titled “Ted Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking,” Chris Anderson, head
of TED, a not-for-profit organization “devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short,
powerful talks (18 minutes or less),” explains how speakers manage to affect or influence their
audience (in his example 1,200 people are listening to a TED Talks speaker):

“The 1,200 brains inside the heads of 1,200 independent individuals start to behave very
strangely. They begin to sync up. A magic spell woven by the woman washes over each person.
They gasp together. Laugh together. Weep together. And as they do so, something else
happens. Rich, neurologically encoded patterns of information inside the woman’s brain are
somehow copied and transferred to the 1,200 brains in the audience. These patterns will remain
in those brains for the rest of their lives, potentially impacting their behavior years into the
future.”

What happens during a TED Talks event is an “astounding” example of the seemingly magical
power of oral communication or public speaking to share information and to persuade.

Stephen E. Lucas, author of “The Art of Public Speaking,” said that we should not be surprised
that people value public speaking because “throughout the history of Western civilization, this
art has been a vital means of communication.” He added that “In modern times, many men and
women have spread their ideas and influence largely by public speaking.”

As a student, you are expected to give presentations and speak in front of different audiences.
In almost all the courses that you will take up in college, you will be assigned to do research on
certain topics and report on them in front of your fellow students. If you run for a position in the
student body, you will be obliged to deliver speeches as you persuade the student-electorate to
vote for you. After graduation, the same demands for public speaking will be expected from you.
The skill of public speaking, therefore, is as essential as the ability to write or read or count.

Therefore, how do you develop your ability for public speaking? Preparing a speech is not unlike
preparing yourself to write an essay. In essay writing, a writer follows these steps: pre-writing,
drafting, and revising (or editing/proofreading). In speech making, there are also pre-writing
activities that you need to follow. Stephen E. Lucas identifies these steps as: (1) selecting a
topic and purpose, (2) analyzing your audience, and (3) gathering the materials that you will
need to prepare your speech.

SELECTING YOUR TOPIC AND IDENTIFYING YOUR PURPOSE

If the speech that you will make is in the context of a classroom assignment, then the topic will
be most likely given by your professor and the purpose identified by him. There are two general
reasons (or purposes) for why a person, such as you, is going to deliver a speech. One reason
is to inform your audience about something and the other reason is to persuade them to a
certain belief or attitude.

Explaining to your audience how a computer works is informational but telling them how
capitalism is better than socialism is persuasive. Delivering an oral report in class about the
meaning and functions of management, for example, is oral communication for the purpose of
providing information, but when, in the same report, you argue that it is easier to understand the
nature of management through an analysis of managerial skills than that of functions, you are
communicating for the purpose of persuasion, that is, you are trying to convince your fellow
classmates that they should adopt your idea or belief.

There are speeches, however, that are so subtly crafted that, even though they sound like
informational speeches, they are in fact persuasive speeches. Take for instance the speeches
delivered by Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former CEO, during launches of Apple
products. They were deceptively informational, but the effect is brilliantly persuasive. In these
presentations, Jobs seemed to be simply describing Apple products (Ipod, Iphone, among other
gadgets), but in fact they were marketing pitches as Jobs tried to sell his products to the
audience.

Choosing a topic can make or break your talk. In choosing a topic, you must decide whether it is
interesting enough for you that you can hurdle all the challenges that you will face in preparing
it. But even if you find your topic to be worthwhile, the next question to ask yourself is if you
have the capability to see through the process. Do you have the expertise in the subject area
you will be doing a talk about? Or, at the very least, do you know enough about the subject?

Another important thing to remember in selecting a subject is that it should be narrow enough
for you to be able to explore it with reasonable depth. A rule in topic selection in essay writing is
“Write more about less.” No doubt this is applicable in speech writing as well.

Just like a topic, the purpose for a talk can also be general and specific. To inform is an
example of a general purpose while To explain to my audience how psychoanalytic reading is
done is an instance of a specific purpose. The purpose will guide the speakers how they will
prepare everything. The talk will be shaped by its purpose. According to Lucas (1989),
“formulating a specific purpose is the most important early step in developing a successful
speech.” He provides five general principles in writing a purpose statement.

1. Write the purpose statement as a full infinitive phrase, not as a fragment.

Do not write ‘The parts of a computer’, but rather write ‘To inform my audience of the different
parts of a desktop computer.’

2. Express your purpose as a statement, not as a question.

Do not write ‘What is a bitcoin’ but rather write ‘To inform my audience of the nature of bitcoins.’

3. Avoid figurative language in your purpose statement.

Don’t: To persuade my audience that invalidating the exam because some of the test takers
have cheated is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Do: To persuade my audience that invalidating the exam because some of the test takers have
cheated is an unfair punishment on most of the test takers simply because a few of them have
violated the rules.

4. Limit your purpose statement to one distinct idea.

Don’t: To persuade my audience that computer addiction among teenagers is due to lack of
attention by parents and that broken homes are the result of one parent being unfaithful to
another.

Do’s: To persuade my audience that computer addiction among teenagers is due to lack of
attention by parents.

To persuade my audience that broken homes are the result of one parent being unfaithful to
another.

5. Make sure your specific purpose is not too vague or general.

Don’t: To persuade my audience that invalidating the exam because some of the test takers
have cheated is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Do: To persuade my audience that invalidating the exam because some of the test takers have
cheated is an unfair punishment on most of the test takers simply because a few of them have
violated the rules.

In addition to these principles, Lucas (1989) also suggested five questions that you should ask
yourself when you are preparing for a talk. These questions are:

1. Does my purpose meet the assignment? If you think it does not and you have questions,
do not hesitate to ask your professor. For example, if your professor requires you to deliver a
report on the nature of public relations, the issue of whether or not PR as a profession is healthy
for society can crop up. You can ask your professor if s/he wants you to include your opinion on
the matter. In this case, the purpose of your oral report is no longer informative but persuasive
as well.

2. Can I accomplish my purpose in the time allotted? In delivering a talk or an oral report,
one important factor that you cannot ignore is time limit. TED Talks, the most famous public
speaking event, requires its speakers to deliver “short, powerful talks” in 18 minutes or less. To
meet this all-so-important demand, you must come up with a realistic topic and a realistic
purpose. A topic and a purpose such as this—To inform my audience about the evolution of
communication technology beginning from the ancient period to the present—is obviously too
ambitious for an 18-minute talk unless you are willing to run the risk of giving an incomplete
picture of your topic.

3. Is the purpose relevant to my audience? What will be your audience’s takeaway from your
talk? If there is none, then your talk loses its relevance to your audience. When that happens,
you will not only waste your time but also that of your audience. In addition, your talk will most
likely fail because your audience will find it boring. They will fidget in their seats and wish that
you were never born. To make you talk interesting to your audience, make it relevant.

4. Is the purpose too trivial for my audience? Earlier we mentioned that when you give a talk
your topic should not be too broad or complicated. However, this does not mean that you will
oversimplify to the point that your purpose becomes too trivial for your audience. You must
strike the fine balance between superficial and complicated.

5. Is the purpose too technical for my audience? Sometimes in our eagerness to impress
our professor we choose a topic and a purpose that is too technical for our intended audience.
To persuade my audience that the use of objective correlative is inherent in Japanese haikus is
an example of a technical purpose. Much like a trivialized purpose a too-technical purpose can
easily lose the interest of your audience. But it can be done. In the example above, you can
start by defining what “objective correlative” is and then proceed to cite examples of its use in
poems before tackling the big question of how it is useful in Japanese haikus.

ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE

When you are a swimmer and you are about to dive into the pool, the first thing that you will do
is to check how deep the water is. The same is true when giving a talk in front of a group of
people. You must analyze your audience before you even open your mouth. This is important
because without an understanding of your audience, you will not be able to address them
properly.

The reason we communicate is that we have a message to convey, and that there are people
who want to or are willing to listen to us. The importance of our audience cannot be overstated.
It is therefore imperative that we learn as much as we can about our audience even before we
start working on our talk. But how do we analyze our audience?

Lucas (1989) identifies two methods of analysis for audience: (1) demographic audience
analysis and (2) situational audience analysis.

1. Demographic analysis, as the word implies, involves analyzing your audience in terms of
their demographics such as sex/gender, age, racial/ethnic/cultural background, group
membership, and income. To use this method, you need to do two things: (1) identify the
demographics of your audience and (2) assess the significance of these demographics to your
speaking situation.

The importance of sex as a demographic feature to be considered in speaking situations is

made plain by an example by Lucas. He said that an art major landed a dream job of conducting
tours for people through galleries and talk about the art collection in them. In one of his talks, he
kept referring to the artists of the collection as “he,” prompting one of the tourists to point out to
him that five paintings in the gallery had been created by women.

“This illustrates,” says Lucas (1989), “a problem that continues to plague speakers in all fields.”
He adds: “We think of our times as enlightened, but we still encounter people who automatically
refer to artists or doctors as ‘he’ and to grade-school teachers or nurses as ‘she.’ A speaker who
makes such remarks is almost certain to offend some members of the audience.”

Religion is another hot-button issue that you, as a speaker, can unwittingly push, launching an
uncalled-for controversy and alienating your audience. Since almost everybody belongs to a
particular religious group or belief-system, asserting the righteousness of your own religion can
almost certainly trigger negative reactions from your audience.

Racial/ethnic and cultural background is also an important demographic information that can
spell the success or failure of your talk. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s ethnic group—
Kapampangan, Ilocano, Cebuano, Tagalog, among other ethnic groups—is superior to others. If
you show ethnocentrism in your talk you run the risk of earning the ire of your audience.
Remember that culture is relative and no culture is better than another, even though the latter
may be described as a primitive culture. Plan your speech guided by a strong conviction to
respect all cultures and the people that belong in them.

2. Situational audience analysis, on the other hand, involves identifying “traits of the audience
unique to the speaking situation at hand.” These traits “include the size of the audience,
attitudes influenced by the physical setting, and the disposition of the audience toward the
subject, the speaker and the occasion.”

In theories of communication, the message is sent by the sender through the medium amid
noise. Noise is anything that prevents the message from being sent to the receiver or from
being decoded by the receiver. An example of noise is static caused by interfering electrical
signal when you make a cellular phone call. Another is when the physical setup in the room
where you are slated to talk is so arranged that communicating with your audience is bound to
become a challenge, to say the least. A room without sound proofing against the noise in the
street outside is an example of physical or environmental noise.

Size can also be a kind of noise or interference that can prevent communication to take place
properly. Too large an audience is a challenge for a speaker, but with the aid of technology the
problem can be surmounted. More importantly, when you address a huge group you need to be
more formal in your presentation to make a maximum impact on your audience.

Aside from the size of your audience and the physical setting of your talk, you need to consider
three other things in your analysis of audience: (1) your listeners’ interest in the topic of your
talk, (2) their knowledge about your topic, and (3) their attitude toward your topic.

In a classroom setting, when you give a speech you have a captive audience: your classmates.
In the “real” world (e.g., corporate world) when you give a speech, people will attend to listen to
your talk because they need it in their work or they are interested in your talk. Even if people are
not interested in your talk, you can make it interesting by relating it to your audience’s needs
and interests. In a classroom speech, for instance, if you want your audience to become
interested in your talk, you have to make them see right away how it is going to be relevant to
their lives as students.

But interested or not, your audience needs to be understood in terms of another factor: their
knowledge of your topic. It is important for you to know how much they know about your topic
because it will shape many aspects of your talk: style, complexity or simplicity, and details. If,
after studying them, you learned that many members of your audience are not familiar with your
topic, you can vary your planned style of delivery and make it more “user-friendly” without being
condescending. You can also add more examples to illustrate your points. Likewise, you need
to use a language that is easily understood and try to avoid the jargon of your profession.

Sometimes, it happens that speakers are not popular with their audiences simply because of the
nature of their profession or line of work. In other words, the audience is not predisposed to
believe, or even listen to, the speakers. A lawyer (defending a notorious crime suspect) who is
about to give a talk about why s/he does what s/he does for a living may pique the interest of
some people. However, it is more likely to happen that s/he will generate a certain degree of
hostility from the audience even before s/he stands in front of the rostrum to deliver a speech.
This is an extreme example, but the point is this: You need to assess if your audience is
disposed toward believing (or liking/loving) your talk or hating you and your guts for even
appearing before them. You need to adjust many aspects of your talk accordingly.

A rumbling speech, for instance, before an audience that is not predisposed to listen is
obviously a disaster on top of another.

You should also consider in your analysis of audience the occasion for your speech. There are
occasions in which certain topics are taboo. The ban may be explicit or implied. In a purely
religious situation, for example, to talk about politics, especially if the details are polarizing, is
almost certainly rude. Being unaware of the set of values being collectively upheld by the
audience in a given situation can almost certainly cause your speech to fail.

GATHERING THE MATERIALS FOR YOUR SPEECH

Now that you know a lot about your audience, you can proceed to gathering the materials for
your speech. There are three ways you can do this: (1) by reflecting on your own knowledge
and experiences; (2) by interviewing other people; (3) by doing library and computer-aided
research.

Self-reflection

Earlier in this chapter, we suggested that in choosing a topic for your talk you should consider
your own familiarity, if not expertise, of the topic. This is important because in the gathering of
materials for your talk you need to go inward into yourself. You are the first stop in your search
for information. Your knowledge and your experiences are major sources of materials. You need
to make use of them.

Interview

Interviewing has been one of the most popular methods of gathering data. It involves two people
sharing their views, hence, “inter” and “viewing.” Steinar Kvale (1996), in his book InterViews,
explains the importance of interviewing:

“If you want to know how people understand their world and their life, why not talk with them? In
an interview conversation, the researcher listens to what people themselves tell about their lived
world, hears them express their views and opinions in their own words, learns about their views
on their work situation and family life, their dreams and hopes.”

Interviewing as a research technique, Kvale (1996) adds, “attempts to understand the world
from the subjects’ points of view, to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover
their lived world prior to scientific explanations.”

Lucas (1989) identifies four circumstances in which the use of personal interview “can be the
most effective means of gathering material”:

1. When you want up-to-the-minute information;

2. When you need information about a fairly narrow subject that might not attract newspaper or
other printed coverage;

3. When you have access to a person who has specialized knowledge about a subject and is
willing to share that knowledge; and

4. When a particular person’s viewpoint will add interest and force to your speech.

In conducting your interview, it will be most fruitful to heed the advice of Carole Rich (2010), a
well-known writing coach. According to her, you should:

1. Concentrate on what the person you are interviewing is saying and not on what you
will ask next. This ensures that you are catching everything that is being said and that you are
showing respect for the interviewee by paying close attention. You can probably jot down notes
occasionally if a question crosses your mind but do it quickly and unobtrusively.

2. Listen attentively as you would when you listen to a friend telling you an interesting
story. Your next question should be based on your interviewee’s last statement. If you want to
move to another topic, do it without cutting off the interviewee in mid-sentence and without
offending him or her. For example, preface you sentence with a transition: By the way, … or On
another subject ….

3. Think critically when you listen. If you are not sure about something, do not hesitate to ask
your interviewee to repeat what s/he has said. Try to control the flow of conversation when you
think your source is rambling.

4. Stay quiet. Do not outtalk you source. Do not show that you are smarter than s/he is and that
what s/he is saying is nonsense. If you think the source is not making any sense anymore, ask
for clarification and listen quietly.

5. Maintain eye contact with your source. Nod to show you are listening. Make her/him feel
that you are giving complete attention.

6. “Listen” to visual signals such as fidgeting, frowning, etc. They will tell you more than
words about what your source is feeling. In other words, listen with your eyes.

7. Be polite in everything. If your source is rambling or incoherence, do not cut her or him off
abruptly and brusquely. Wait for her or him to pause before you move to change the subject.

8. IDBe curious. Do not pretend that you are because it will sooner or later show. Remember, it
is going to be your speech that will make use of all the information that you will gather in the
interview. In the end, it will be you as speaker who will benefit

Library and Computer-Aided Research

In preparing for a presentation, students tend to ignore the value of the library. To many
students, the library is a place to avoid especially because of the dreaded librarians, who are
often depicted in popular culture as strict and fearsome. But this should not be the case. On the
contrary, the library as source of materials for your speech is without equal. It houses almost
everything that you will need as a speaker researching on your topic, especially today when
modern librarians have access to the Internet.
To maximize your stay in the library you should know beforehand how to navigate its nooks and
crannies. You should know how to approach the librarians (they are there to help you, believe it
or not) and how to use the card catalogue. Using the card catalogue does not only allow you to
find what you are looking for but also allow you to save time looking for books and other
materials.

PUTTING TOGETHER YOUR SPEECH

In writing an essay, you need to follow the structure that has been handed down as the
convention of the genre. The structure contains three basic parts: the introduction, the body,
and the conclusion. Your speech will basically follow this structure.

To be readable and easily understood your speech must be organized in a certain way.
Organization is crucial. Without it, your speech will most likely confuse and bore your audience.
Organization is structure.

Just how organization is important is demonstrated by two studies mentioned by Lucas (1989).
In one study, the researcher, a college professor, had a well-organized speech scrambled. He
then had the two speeches (organized and scrambled) delivered. He learned that, not
surprisingly, the audience understood more the organized speech than the scrambled one. In
another research conducted in another school by two professors, the audience were asked
about their attitudes toward the speakers of the organized and the scrambled speeches. They
learned that “the people who heard the well-organized speech believed the speakers to be
much more competent and trustworthy than those who heard the scrambled speech.”

Lucas has this to say on the ability to organize speeches: This ability is especially vital for
speechmaking. Listeners demand coherence. They have little patience with speakers who
bounce wildly from idea to idea. Keep in mind that listeners—unlike readers—cannot flip back to
a previous page if they trouble grasping a speaker’s idea. In this respect a speech is much like a
movie. Just as a director must guarantee that viewers can follow the plot of a film from
beginning to end, so must a speaker. Be sure listeners can follow the progression of ideas in a
speech from beginning to end. This requires that speeches be organized strategically. They
should be put together in particular ways to achieve particular results with particular audiences.

Main Points

To organize your speech, you need to have your main points, which, according to Lucas, is “the
central features of your speech.”

For a speech with information as your purpose you can have the following main points:

· Specific Purpose: To inform my audience of the uses of computer graphics cards.

· General Idea: The important uses of graphics cards are to boost performance of computers for
dedicated applications and to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of cryptocurrency
mining.

· Main Points:

1. Graphic cards are used to boost the performance of computers for dedicated applications.
2. Graphic cards are used to mine cryptocurrencies.

For a speech with persuasion as your purpose you can have the following main points:

· Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that wearing their school ID’s is important
because it shows their pride in their school, it helps in maintaining a safe and secure
environment in the school and it teaches the students to become law-abiding citizens.

· General Idea: Wearing school ID’s is important because it shows the students’ pride in their
school, it helps in maintaining a safe and secure environment in the school and it teaches them
to become law-abiding citizens.

· Main Points:

1. Wearing a school ID is important because it shows the students’ pride in their school.

2. Wearing a school ID is important because it helps in maintaining a safe and secure

environment in the school.

3. Wearing a school ID is important because it teaches the students to become law-abiding

citizens.

PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION

To organize your main points, you can use the following patterns of organization: (1)
chronological order; (2) spatial order; (3) causal order; (4) problem-solution order; and (5)
topical order.

A chronologically-ordered speech follows a time pattern. When you tell a story in your
speech, it is best to use the chronological order because a story told from beginning to end is
easier to understand than one that is told haphazardly.

An informational speech that details your rise from being an ordinary freshman student to being
the president of the University Student Council in your senior year is best told using the
chronological order of arranging your facts. You can probably begin with the day a fellow
freshman student asked you to attend a meeting of the USC and how, from the single moment,
you fell in love with student leadership.

The chronological order is also used in explaining a process or showing how to do something
such as assembling a bicycle or a personal computer (PC).

When you talk about the parts of a PC, you need to start from a particular part. For example,
you can begin with the central processing unit (CPU) and then move on to the other parts. The
sequence may be from top to bottom or vice versa. This is called spatial order. Discussing how
you can get from point A to point B on a map is an example of using spatial order.

While you can use the chronological order and the spatial order of ideas in persuasive speech,
you will more likely benefit from the use of the causal order as you argue your case before an
audience. “Speeches arranged in causal order organize main points so as to show a cause-
effect relationship,” explains Lucas. In speeches arranged in causal order, you have two main
points. One main point is focused on the cause(s) and the other main point on the effect(s).
For example, if your purpose is to persuade your audience that playing computer games more
than two hours a day is detrimental to their well-being, then you should start with the cause and
argue your way toward the effects.

Speeches can also be arranged by, first, identifying a problem, and then proposing a solution.
This is called the problem-solution order.

· Specific Purpose: To persuade teachers to keep upgrading what they know in their field of
academic discipline.

· Main Points:

1. Teachers have not kept abreast of developments in their fields of academic disciplines, to the
detriment of their students.

2. Teachers should be required to earn credit points by attending seminars before their license
to teach can be renewed.

Finally, speeches can be arranged according to topical order. Lucas explains how you can do
this: Topical order results when you divide the speech topic into subtopics, each of which
becomes a main point in the speech. The main points are not part of the chronological, spatial,
causal, or problem-solution sequence, but are simply parts of the whole.

· Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the four basic structural elements of an HTML
document.

· Central Idea: The four basic structural elements of an HTML document are the document
declaration, the <html> element, the <head> element, and the <body> element.

· Main Points:

1. The <doctype html> document declaration tells the Internet browser that the document is an
HTML.

2. The <html> element wraps the entire document in HTML.

3. The <head> element holds metadata associated with the page like the description of the
page or the text that appears in a browser title bar.

4. The <body> element holds all the content displayed in a browser.

Talk Tools from TED in his book “Ted Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking,” Chris
Anderson gives us five things to remember when we give speeches.

First, “Knowledge cannot be pushed into a brain” and thus “has to be pulled in.” He adds:

“Before you can build an idea in someone else’s mind, you need their permission. People are
naturally cautious about opening up their minds—the most precious thing they own —to
complete strangers. You need to find a way to overcome that caution. And the way you do that
is to make visible the human being cowering inside you.”
Anderson says you need to “get personal” with your audience to establish connection with them.
You need to: (1) make eye contact, right from the start; (2) disarm you audience by revealing
your own vulnerability; (3) make your audience laugh through humor; (4) do not bring your ego
on stage; and (5) tell a story.

Second, telling a story is so crucial in speeches that it needs a more detailed discussion here.
Anderson says that “the human mind coevolved with storytelling,” adding that “many of the best
talks are anchored on storytelling.”

And when it comes to telling a story on stage, Anderson bids us to remember the following:

1. Base in on a character your audience can empathize with.

2. Build tension, whether through curiosity, social intrigue, or actual danger.

3. Offer the right level of detail. Too little and the story is not vivid. Too much and it gets bogged
down.

4. End with a satisfying resolution, whether funny, moving, or revealing.

Anderson illustrates his point by comparing the following two ways of telling the same story.

Here is an ineffective way of telling the story.

I learned trust from my father when I was eight years old and we got caught in a storm while out
fishing for mackerel. We failed to catch a single one before the storm hit. Dad knew the boat
was going to sink, because it was one of those Saturn brand inflatable boats, which are usually
pretty strong, but this one had been punctured one and Dad thought it might happen again. In
any case, the storm was too big for an inflatable boat and it was already leaking. So, he called
the Coast Guard rescue service, who, back then, were available 24/7, unlike today. He told
them our location, and then, to avoid the risk of getting trapped underwater, he put a life jacket
on me and threw me overboard before jumping in himself. We then waited for the Coast Guard
to come and, sure enough, 15 minutes later the helicopter showed up – I think it was a Sikorsky
MH-60 Jayhawk—and we were fine.

Here is the effective version:

Once, when I was eight years old, my father took me fishing. We were in a tiny boat, five miles
from shore, when a massive storm blew in. Dad put a life jacket on me and whispered in my ear,
“Do you trust me, son?” I nodded. He threw me overboard. [pause] I kid you not. Just tossed me
over! I hit the water and bobbed up to the surface, gasping for breath. It was shockingly cold.
The waves were terrifying. Monstrous. Then … Dad dived in after me.

Continuation:

We watched in horror as our little boat flipped and sank. But he was holding me the whole time,
telling me it was going to be OK. Fifteen minutes later, the Coast Guard helicopter arrived. It
turned out that Dad knew the boat was damaged and was going to sink, and he had called them
without exact location. He guessed it was better to chuck me in the open sea than risk getting
trapped when the boat flipped. And that is how I learned the true meaning of the word trust.
Third, learn to explain difficult concepts by: (1) starting your talk right; (2) making your audience
curious; (3) bringing in concept one by one; (4) using metaphor; and (5) using examples. To
illustrate, Anderson used a TED talk by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, who successfully
explained to his audience the concept of “synthesized happiness.”

Gilbert began his talk by “starting right.” He said: “When you have 21 minutes to speak, two
million years seems like a really long time.” This remark drew laughter and caught the attention
of the audience.

Continuing, he said: “But evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in two million years,
the human brain has nearly tripled in mass, going from the one-and-a-quarter-pound brain of
our ancestor here, [Homo] habilis, to the almost three-pound meatloaf that everybody here has
between their ears. What is it about a big brain that nature was so eager for every one of us to
have one?”

Gilbert’s question sparked the curiosity of the audience, causing them to wait for more.
However, when he brings out the concepts that he wanted to explain, he did so one by one.

He started with prefrontal cortex, and then experience simulator, until he was able to explain
synthesized happiness. In explaining “experience simulator” he used the metaphor of flight
simulator to make it easier for his audience to understand. And along the way he uses
examples.

Fourth, persuasion means “convincing an audience that the way they currently see the world is
not quite right.” This is done by “taking down the parts that are not working, as well as rebuilding
something better.” In other words, you reason to “change minds forever.”

How do you do this seemingly gargantuan task? Anderson explains that priming is “the key to
prompting that worldview shift is to take the journey one step at a time, preparing our minds in
several different ways before getting to the main argument.” Priming “is not a rigorous
argument; it is simply a way of nudging someone in your direction,” he says. He cites, as
example, the speech by psychologist Barry Schwartz who in his TED talk successfully built the
case that “in numerous circumstances, too much choice actually makes us unhappy.” Schwartz
primed his talk through the following:

There was a time when jeans came in one flavor, and you thought them, and they fit like crap,
they were really uncomfortable, but if you wore them and washed them enough times, they
started to feel OK. I went to replace my jeans after years of wearing these old ones, and I said,
“I want a pair of jeans. Here’s my size.” And the shopkeeper said, “Do you want slim fit, easy fit,
relaxed fit? You want button fly or zipper fly? You want stonewashed or acid-washed? Do you
want them distressed? You want boot cut, tapered, blah blah blah.”

By showing his stress over too many choices, Schwartz primed his audience to what he was
about to say. He made what he would later on point out – about too many choices making us
unhappy instead of the other way around – obvious and natural.

Lastly, the most direct way of telling your audience about your idea is to show it. Anderson calls
it “revelation.” You can do this in three broad ways:

1. The Wonder Walk. It is a talk based on the revelation of a succession of images or wonder
moments. In this approach, you build a sense of wonder in your audience. You can arrange
your images in such a way that the next one will be highly anticipated. A 5-minute TED talk by
David Gallo, a geologist, about the awe-inspiring animals under the sea showed the power of
carefully arranged images to deliver your talk.

2. The Dynamic Demo. If what you are revealing is not just visual, Anderson says, if it is a
technology or a process or an invention, then you need the audience to see it works. You need
a demonstration. An example is a talk by inventor Markus Fischer. Instead of describing his
invention—a robot seagull that flies like a true one—he made it fly, to the amazement of the
audience.

3. The Dreamscape. “Some of the most powerful speeches in history have been powerful
precisely because they communicated a dream with irresistible eloquence and passion,” says
Anderson. This “ability to pattern the world in our minds and then re-pattern it to create a world
that does not actually exist but someday might” is “so important a skill that we have multiple
words to label its different flavors: imagination, invention, innovation, design, vision.” There are
many ways by which you can share your dreams: words, images, demonstrations. A very
appropriate example is Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. about his dream that someday all people, regardless of race, would be truly
equal.

EMAIL MESSAGES AND MEMOS

The coming of the Internet era ushered in new technologies that made communication in the
workplace more effective and efficient. An example of a digital technology that revolutionized
how we send and receive messages is the electronic mail or email. It is, according to Guffey
(2008), “the communication channel of choice for exchanging information within organization.”

Stages of Writing an Email Message or Memo

How do we write email messages and memos? There are three stages (Guffey, 2008):

1. Analysis, anticipation, and adaptation

2. Research, organization, and composition

3. Revision, proofreading, and evaluation

In the first stage, which is equivalent to the more familiar term prewriting, you ask yourself the
following questions: Do you really need to write the email message or memo? Should you send
your message as email or should you simply say it face-to-face? What is the purpose of your
message? How will the receiver of your email message or memo react? How can you save your
reader’s time (that is, should you use bullets or asterisks to list the things you want to say?

In stage two, you make an outline of your message or memo and you list down the ideas you
want to send. Remember that each idea or assertion or claim that you will write needs
supporting details.

In the third stage, you revise for clarity and correctness and be ready for feedback. When you
revise, take the point of view of your prospective readers. Ask yourself: If I were the reader,
would the message or memo be clear to me? Finally, do not forget to include in your email
message a line or two asking for your reader’s feedback.
Parts of the Email Message or Memo

An email message or memo has the following parts:

1. Sender Line. This is where the name and email address of the sender is written.

2. Receiver Line. This is where the name and email address of the recipient of your message
or memo is written.

3. Date Line. This is where the date: day, month, year, and time, is written.

4. Subject Line. This is where the subject of your email message or memo is written. The
subject should not be a one-word heading and should contain a verb. For example, the subject
Juan dela Cruz or Appointment is unclear, but the subject Juan dela Cruz is appointed IT
manager is clear.

5. Opening. For non-sensitive information you can be direct. For example: Please prepare for a
visit by the schools division superintendents of Central Luzon who will evaluate our compliance
with the “No Student Left Behind” program of the Department of Education.

6. Body. This is where the author of the email message or memo writes the reasons for writing
and explains the message thoroughly.

7. Closing. This part, according to Guffey (2008) generally ends with (a) action information,
dates or deadlines; (b) a summary of the message; or (c) a closing thought.