Inventing key points: How many points?

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來自 University of Washington 的課程

Introduction to Public Speaking

440 個評分

University of Washington

Introduction to Public Speaking

440 個評分

課程 1（共 4 門，Specialization Dynamic Public Speaking）

This course gives you a reliable model for preparing and delivering effective presentations. In business, in school, and in public life, we are often called upon to “make a few comments.” Often, people tasked with such speeches become flummoxed. They might not know what to talk about, or ramble without making a point, or simply be confusing to listen to. This course is designed to help you shine where others falter. We’ll learn how organize talks clearly, write them memorably, and deliver them confidently. By the end of the course, you should be able to significantly reduce your fear of public speaking, use rehearsal techniques to develop a strong, vibrant speaking voice, and perform speeches with dynamic movement and gestures. The speech model that we’ll practice is useful for briefings, elevator talks, interviews, and even as a structure for hour-long presentations. If you’re a beginner, this course will help you quickly master the fundamentals of speaking. If you’re a seasoned speaker, this course will help you better understand public speaking and push you to the next level.

從本節課中

Week 2: Making ideas compelling and memorable

Now that we have the course foundation out of the way, we can work on our basic speech model: the key point speech. I love this format. It's the Swiss army knife of speeches. This basic model works in interviews, short presentations, elevator talks, and can even structure an hour long presentation. After overviewing the assignment, we’ll talk about how to plan out your speeches. By the end of the week, you should have some tools for quickly putting together short presentations. You can practice this by analyzing some speeches.

Inventing key points: Topics5:55

Inventing key points: How many points?4:28

與講師見面

Dr. Matt McGarrity
Principal Lecturer
UW Department of Communication

So once you get into writing a speech the question bubbles up,

okay how many points should I include?

And regrettably there's no right answer to this.

There's lots of wrong ones but there's no single correct number of points.

It totally depends on the speeche's content.

Now that said, this video will talk about recommendations for

deciding on the appropriate number of points for your specific speech.

Now if it's a long speech on a complex topic you probably want to move

in smaller increments and that's going to mean more points.

Now for short speeches, generally two to five key points is appropriate.

If I've got more than that I worry about people not being able to

remember everything.

So let me give you an example of when this happened that I can remember.

So I taught a lot of classes and years ago I was co-teaching a class,

so I didn't have to do every lecture.

And it was a large lecture class so we had a couple hundred students and

we would bring in guess speakers.

So one time we were doing this we brought in a guest speaker.

So I'm sitting in the back of the room watching the class, watching the speeches.

And so we bring in this guest speaker and

the speaker set up at the front of the room and there are two overheads.

And on one overhead there is a picture of the Mediterranean Basin,

that was the region that was going to be discussed.

And on the other overhead, written in purple ink,

I remember the color for some reason, there were these 17 points.

17 points that the speaker was going to cover in their 50 minute talk, 17 points.

So sitting in the back of the room, here's what I see.

I see students file in and make their way up the steps, they sit down, and

they look up.

They finally see what the talk is, they see 17 points, they're like nope.

So they get their laptop out, they open up, they start Facebooking,

you know ear buds go in.

They're gone, they might as well not of come.

And then, so that is fair number of people,

I saw lots of people just groaning when they saw 17 points.

But then I am going to guess may be ten percent of the class that I saw

sitting in the back of the room, there's doors at the front.

They would walk in, look up at the 17 points, and be like, nope, not today.

And then they would leave, they just skipped class all together and

that is not what we want to have happen, right?

We don't want that, so for longer speeches, I think in terms of grouping.

I still want everything broken up into units of two to five, so

I'll break up a big speech into multiple small ones.

And that's generally what I think should have happened in that 17 point speech.

There were really only about three or four key ideas there.

So lemme show you an example of this.

Here's a bit of lecture I do on Plato's work the Gorgias.

So each key point here, each Roman numeral here,

is a claim that I explain in terms of the textual support in the book.

So each key point here probably runs,

I'd guess about five to ten minutes depending on how in depth I go.

The whole talk's probably about 75 minutes.

So this is an entire day's class.

And then at the start of the lesson, what I do is I preview the big three, you know?

Plato's key terms,

his concern with definitions, his specific definition of rhetoric.

And then once I get into a big chunk I preview the smaller ones.

So what I don't want is I don't want to tell the class,

today we're going to talk about the nine important points in Plato's Gorgias.

If I do, I might as well say to them like,

I'm going to start talking, but go ahead and start playing on your phone now.

Please ignore me, ignore me for the next 75 minutes.

But if I say that we're going to talk about three big ideas in Plato's Gorgias,

well, you know that’s more manageable, that’s less intimidating.

So I want to break up speeches into two to five key points.

Now that's not a hard and fast rule, if I need to, I can deviate from that, but for

me it's a good starting point.

Obviously if you're speaking on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,

have seven points.

It would be weird if you did it any other way.

So in sum, picking the right number of points is tough.

When talking about rhetoric in the Phaedrus, not the Gorgias,

Plato says that we should cleave nature at it's joints like a good butcher.

Dividing speeches and ideas into appropriate parts.

Now this is tough because it requires skills, experience, and judgement.

I wish there were a perfect rule for the right number of key points in each and

every speech, that would be great.

But there's not, it depends on your content.

Now, that said, having two to five key points,

that's a pretty good starting point.

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