Page 190 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Speaking of . . .

Surveying Your Audience

1. Do you own a cell phone? Yes _____ No _____ (if no, skip to question 5)
2. About how many hours a month do you use your cell phone? _____
3. Do you ever use your cell phone while driving? Yes _____ No _____
4. If so, do you use a hands-free headset? Yes _____ No _____
5. Do you believe it is safe to use a cell phone while driving?
_____ Always _____ Never _____ Only with a hands-free headset
6 What is your opinion on laws banning the use of cell phones while driving?
_____ All cell phone use should be banned
_____ Cell phone use should be allowed only with a hands-free headset
_____ There should be no restrictions on cell phone use while driving

Many professional speakers use survey data in designing their speeches. Your
instructor may offer you the opportunity to survey your classmates prior to
speaking. If so, avail yourself of the opportunity, but be sure to make the survey
anonymous and brief. Too many questions will lead to no responses, and requir-
ing respondents to identify themselves may inhibit candor. The box “Survey-
ing Your Audience” provides an example of a survey by a student who plans to
speak to the audience about cell phone safety. Notice that the questions focus on
the use of cell phones while driving. In particular, this speaker wants to deter-
mine if the audience members think that by using hands-free headsets they are
driving safely. If so, the speech will need to cite study results that claim that it’s
the distraction of a conversation more than the use of one hand that is the source
of accidents.

Web Pages

Although we encourage you to be cautious to the point of asking for permission,
the chances are good that you can learn about your classmates by visiting online
social networks such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com. Should a classmate
have a blog, you also could turn to it in search of information about his or her
cultural, demographic, and individual background. Social networks such as the
preceding have blurred the lines that once separated people’s personal and pub-
lic lives. Whereas you once would have had to interview people face-to-face to
learn important details about their personal lives, you can now accomplish the
same thing with a few clicks of your mouse. In fact, you may learn more about
them than you need to know! And that brings us to an important point. Regard-
less of what you learn about individual audience members online, you should
not use the information in a manner that will embarrass them. Further, be care-
ful that you do not include information or photos in your own profi le that could
embarrass you. We saw one of our students humiliated when the campus news-
paper published her picture in an embarrassing pose because one of the young
men in the photo was a candidate for student offi ce. Once on the Internet, any
expectation of privacy is lost. You also should exercise care and avoid inferring
too much about individual audience members on the basis of what you read and 157