ABSTRACT
Have you ever thought of yourself as a teacher? Well, in a sense, you are each time you share new information with another human being. Showing someone how to ski, demonstrating some fancy dance moves, or sharing a scary story around a campfire are all examples of explaining something new. In other words, you’re teaching others by providing information so they can learn something new. You’re teaching people.
In this chapter, you will be introduced to informative speaking. You’ll learn the three goals of informative speaking—stimulating audience interest, increasing audience understanding, and assisting audience retention. The three basic informative strategies of exposition, description, and narration will also be presented. And the six recommendations for language use for effective public speaking will be explained. At the conclusion of this chapter, various types of informative speeches are provided, guidelines for answering audience questions are given, a public speaker self-image scale is offered, and a sample informative speech outline is presented to round out our discussion of informative speaking.
