Public Speaking

ChaPter 8 Choosing Supporting Materials

He then added a story about an anonymous monk whose poem to his white cat

reflected the monk’s definition of scholarship:

You rejoice when your jaws entrap a mouse.

I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.

He continued from the Book of Proverbs:

Buy the truth and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

This combination of support developed the concept in more detail.

Provide Vivid Descriptions

Descriptions provide details about a subject, such as its size, shape, sound, and color.

These details of a mudslide in the state of Washington came from a news story:^7

Massive debris, which is scattered over a square mile, is 30 to 40 feet deep in places.

Septic tanks, fallen trees, and shards of smashed houses lie in the rain-slickened mud

beside twisted vehicles and scattered household items. Quicksand-like muck and ice

make it difficult for rescue workers to navigate.

The details (septic tanks, fallen trees, muck) give facts; the choice of words (debris,

shards, scattered) makes these facts easy to visualize.

On a cautionary note, it is easy to pass along unverified or inaccurate facts. If some-

thing looks suspicious, double-check it. For example, hundreds of inaccuracies are

passed along as “fact,” including the following:

•   In 1997, Kurt Vonnegut gave a commencement address at MIT that began, “Wear

sunscreen. If I were to offer you only one tip for the future this would be it.”^8 [Reality:

It was not a speech. Vonnegut did not give it. It was not at MIT. A columnist at the

Chicago Tribune wrote it as her ideal graduation speech, and someone posted it to the

Internet, with Vonnegut’s name attached.]

© iStockphoto.com/matt_benoit

Culturally accepted
definitions of words such as
scholar are considered to be
a type of fact.

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