Page 239 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

206 Part 3 Putting Theory Into Practice

• Is the explanation accurate? An explanation that is clear is not necessarily
complete or correct. Make sure the explanations provided are as complete
and accurate as possible, given the limitations of the speech situation.
• Is the explanation interesting? Unfortunately, explanations can be boring
to an audience, particularly if they are highly technical. One way to
overcome this problem is to make sure there are specifi c, vivid examples
that make the explanations come to life. For example, Al Gore’s fi lm, An
Inconvenient Truth, shows ice melting in a glass to illustrate the way melting
glaciers might change sea level.

Descriptions

A description is a word picture of something. For example, you might describe
a place you have visited or researched. Consider the following statement from a
speech by one of our students, Chalsey Phariss: “Imagine a place where the riv-
ers are fl owing, the sun is shining, and the fun is unlimited, where there is never
a dull moment, and the freedom of the outdoors will captivate your mind.” This
description leads into a speech about the “Lake of the Sky,” Lake Tahoe. 8
Descriptions should meet the following tests:
• Is the description accurate? Descriptions can be tested for accuracy by com-
paring them with the thing being described. Thus, for the Tahoe example,
looking at pictures of the lake or actually visiting it would help to verify the
description.
• Is the description vivid? To hold an audience’s attention, we need to paint
a word picture. Calling Lake Tahoe by its Native American name, “Lake
of the Sky,” is much more vivid than simply describing the blueness of
the water. Photographs and other visual materials, which are discussed in
Chapter 12, can sometimes supplement descriptions in a speech.

Narratives

A narrative is an extended story that is fully developed, with characters, scene,
narrative
action, and plot. Narratives sometimes provide an effective way of driving home
An extended story that
a point to an audience. An effective narrative builds gradually from the begin-
is fully developed, with
characters, scene, ac- ning, through confl ict, to a climax. The confl ict is then resolved, and the ending
tion, and plot. of the story often ties back into the beginning.
Narratives can be more than a useful supporting tool for a speech; in some
cultures narrative is an organizing principle of speaking. The storyteller in
North and Central American cultures, for example, is revered. We were in the
audience when actor-activist Edward James Olmos spoke at our university. His
speech was largely a series of stories—about his career, his family, how people of
different cultures can come to understand one another. Award-winning rhetori-
cal scholar Walter Fisher has argued, in fact, that human beings are fundamen-
tally storytellers. Fisher believes that reasoning is done in the form of narrative.
Even if you don’t accept Fisher’s narrative paradigm, it is undoubtedly the case

that a well-told story, real or fictional, can captivate an audience. Fisher claims
that two basic tests apply to narrative reasoning: 9

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