ChaPTER 10 StudY guIde 225Study guide: review and Apply
Meet Your Objectives
10.1 explain the functions of a speech introduction.
It is important to begin and end your speech in a way that is memorable and
that also provides the repetition audiences need. A good introduction gets the
audience’s attention, gives the audience a reason to listen, introduces your sub-
ject, establishes your credibility, and previews your main ideas.
Introducing your subject and previewing the body of your speech can be ac-
complished by including your central idea and initial preview in the introduction.
10.2 list and discuss methods for introducing a speech.
You can gain favorable attention and provide a motivation for listening by using
any of the following, alone or in combination: illustrations, startling facts or sta-
tistics, quotations, humor, questions, references to historical events, references
to recent events, personal references, references to the occasion, or references to
preceding speeches, as appropriate.
Key Terms
anecdote
rhetorical question
Think about These Questions
• Describe how you could establish a motivation for your classroom audi-
ence to listen to you on each of the following topics: cholesterol, Elvis
Presley, the history of greeting cards, ozone depletion, distracted driving.
• Nakai is planning to give his informative speech on Native American
music, displaying and demonstrating the use of such instruments as the
flute, the Taos drum, and the Yaqui rain stick. How should he introduce his
speech?
• Marty and Shanna, who are in the same section of a public-speaking class,
are discussing their upcoming speeches. Marty has discovered an illustra-
tion that she thinks will make an effective introduction. When she tells
Shanna about it, Shanna is genuinely enthusiastic. In fact, she thinks it
would make a great introduction for her own speech, which is on a differ-
ent topic. When the students are given their schedules, Shanna realizes that
she will speak before Marty. She badly wants to use the introductory illus-
tration that Marty has discovered. Can she ethically do so, if she cites in her
speech the original source of the illustration?