Chapter Outlines

Oral Communications

Chapter Outlines—Notes may be used on most tests. On tests that do allow notes to be used, only hand-written notes may be used. Typed or photocopied notes may never be used.

Early chapters on this outline have extensive notes. Later chapters have brief notes. The last chapters have only letters or numerals and no notes. The number of letters or numerals indicates the number of important ideas that should be noted.

Unit 1 The Communication Process

Chapter 1—Understanding Communication

What is communication?
1. Communication is the process of sharing information by using symbols to send and receive messages
2. Interpersonal communication is communication between two or more people.
Sending and Receiving Messages
1. A message consists of the ideas and the feelings that make up the content of communication
2. Sender is the person who sends the message
3. Receiver is the person who receives the message
4. Verbal symbols are words
5. Nonverbal symbols are gesture, facial expressions, and sounds
6. Channels are means for sending communication, using the five senses
Using Communication—everything you do involves communication, helps social needs, helps to make decisions
1. Meeting Social Needs
  1. Communication helps people feel good about themselves
  2. Comm. helps build friendships
2. Making Decisions
  1. Talking helps make decisions
  2. Talking to others can influence the decisions of others
Considering Different Settings—formal and informal settings
1. Communicating in Informal Settings
  1. Informal settings are casual, unstructured situations
  2. Informal settings are spontaneous
2. Communication in Formal Settings
  1. Formal settings—situations you can prepare for ahead of time
  2. Formal settings include: interviews, group discussions, public speaking, debate and parliamentary procedure, interpretive situations, electronic communication
Developing the Communication Process—a series of related steps
1. Finding Ideas
  1. Ideas are everywhere
  2. Consider audience, setting, and time allowed
2. Adapting to Your Audience
  1. Be aware of audience’s needs
  2. Consists of three key factors:
    1. Individual Characteristics
      1. audience’s personality, interests, and aspirations
      2. helps you predict how audience will respond to information
    2. Cultural Characteristics
      1. includes age, religion, nationality, and ethnicity
      2. helps you connect with audience and respond favorably
    3. Sociological Characteristics
      1. includes affiliations, education, occupation
      2. helps you generalize ideas about audience
3. Encoding and Decoding Information—sending and interpreting messages
  1. Encoding is turning ideas and feelings into verbal and nonverbal symbols
  2. Nonverbals almost always go with verbals
  3. Decoding is finding the meaning of verbal and nonverbal symbols
4. Interpreting Feedback in conversations we expect others to talk with us; in public, response is nonverbal; know your audience to (be able to) know the feedback
5. Dealing with Interference—Interference, anything that gets in the way of clear communication
  1. Physical noise—sound that prevents a person from being heard
  2. Psychological noise—voices in your head
  3. Semantic noise—interference caused by words that trigger strong negative feelings against the speaker or the content of the speech
Communicating Effectively
1. Listen carefully
2. Know what you are talking about
3. Care about your communication success
4. Be organized
5. Use language well
6. Use effective nonverbal signals

Chapter 2 Sending Verbal and Nonverbal Message

What are Messages?
Comparing verbal language and nonverbal language
Understanding verbal language
1. Analyzing language
  1. language is a system
  2. language is symbolic
  3. language is conventional
  4. language is learned
  5. language changes
2. Understanding shades of meaning
  1. denotation
  2. connotation
3. Adapting language to specific situations
  1. standard American English
  2. jargon, slang, dialect
  3. sharing language with your audience
Understanding nonverbal language
1. Analyzing body language
  1. facial expressions
  2. eye contact
  3. gestures
  4. posture
  5. … [ ? ]
2. Evaluating the message your appearance sends
3. Analyzing paralanguage
  1. pitch
  2. volume
  3. rate
  4. quality, or tone, of voice
4. Identifying how environment affects communication
  1. color
  2. lighting
  3. sound
  4. space
    1. intimate space
    2. personal space
    3. social space
    4. … [ ? ]

Chapter 3 Using Your Voice

How your voice is produced—generate, resonate, articulate. Parts of body that communicate were originally meant to do something else
Identifying the generators of sound—sound is made by vocal cords
1. The respiration cycle--
  1. Inhalation--
  2. Exhalation—
2. Using Respiration for Speaking
Understanding the resonators
1. Resonators
2. Cavity
3. The throat
4. The nose
5. The mouth
Identifying the Articulators of sound
1. The sounds of English
2. Classification of sounds
  1. Plosives
  2. Fricatives
  3. Nasals
  4. Glides
Improving vocalization
1. Pitch
  1. Pitch
  2. key
  3. optimum pitch
  4. melody
  5. monotone
  6. range
  7. inflection
    1. rising
    2. falling
    3. circumflex
    4. step
2. Volume
3. Rate
4. Quality
  1. nasality
  2. breathiness
  3. harshness
  4. hoarseness
Correcting articulation problems
1. Substituting one sound for another
2. Leaving out a sound (omission)
3. Adding an extra sound
4. Transposing sounds
Sending effective vocal messages
1. Breathe properly
2. Resonate sounds effectively
3. Articulate clearly
4. Use vocal variety and appropriate emphasis

Chapter 4 Listening and Evaluating

What makes a good listener?
Analyzing factors that affect listening
1. Your physical and mental state
2. The speaker
3. Your prejudices
4. The environment
Listening critically
1. Identifying the speaker’s goal
2. Identifying main ideas
3. Identifying supporting details
4. Using context clues
5. Taking advantage of nonverbal clues
Listening actively
Evaluating a speaker’s reasoning
1. Hasty generalizations
2. Begging the question
3. False premises
4. False analogies
5. Irrelevant evidence
Examining propaganda techniques
1. Transfer
2. Bandwagon
3. Name-calling
4. Card-stacking
5. Stereotypes
6. Loaded words
7. Emotional appeals
Listening and evaluating
1. Oral critique
2. Written critique
Guidelines for listening effectively

Unit 2

Chapter 5 Interpersonal Relationships

What is Intrapersonal Communication
Understanding Perception
1. Perception [You would write what is in italics, as below]
2. Aspects of Perception—perception is the process by which you select, organize, and interpret information from your five senses
  1. Selection—you constantly and continuously receive information from your senses but you select what information you will focus your attention on
  2. Organization—Once you have selected details, you organize details. Your brain follows certain principals in making sense out of the details: complex information is broken into simple forms and recognizable patterns
  3. Interpretation of sensory information—when selecting and organizing are finished, the brain interprets the information. Because people do not always select the same information, or organize the information in the same way, people may arrive at different interpretations of the sensory details
3. Individual differences in perception
  1. Physical characteristics
  2. Background and Experience
  3. Selected focus
  4. Current mood and circumstances
Thinking about your self-concept
1. Forming a self-concept
  1. Observation and experience
  2. What others tell you
2. Developing an accurate self concept
3. Self-concept and communication
  1. Problem solving and decision making
  2. Behavior
  3. Processing of feedback
Assessing needs: sources of behavior
1. Types of needs
  1. Interpersonal needs theory
  2. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
    1. physiological needs
    2. safety and security needs
    3. love and affection needs
    4. esteem needs
    5. need for self-actualization
2. Assessing your needs to improve communication
3. Making changes in self-concept
Interacting with others
1. Examining attitudes and goals
  1. Attitudes
    1. personal orientation
      1. extraverted
      2. introverted
    2. level of shyness
    3. sense of control
  2. goals
  3. Your commitment to effective communication
2. Analyzing interpersonal situations
  1. Your public and private selves
  2. Playing different roles in different roles in different circumstances
  3. Assessing the time and place to play a role
    1. need compatibilities
    2. shared goals
Making predictions about others
1. Basing predictions on the self-concept
  1. Accuracy
  2. Acceptance
  3. Personality
2. Basing predictions on first impressions
  1. Physical characteristics
  2. Social traits (halo effect)
  3. Stereotyping
  4. Emotional states
3. Confirming perceptions

Chapter 6: Communicating Person to Person

What is Interpersonal Communication
1. Developing relationships
2. Responding to others
3. Communicating thoughts and feelings
4. Giving and accepting criticism
Developing Relationships
1. Recognizing stages of relationships
  1. acquaintances
  2. friendships
  3. close relationships
2. building relationships
  1. approaching others with empathy
  2. sharing feelings
  3. establishing trust
  4. achieving personal growth
3. Maintaining and Improving relationships
  1. empathize and be sensitive to the other person’s feelings
  2. demonstrate your support of the other person in times of need
  3. listen to the other person
  4. share your feelings
  5. speak with honesty, while respecting the ther person’s feelings
  6. enjoy your relationship
Responding ot others
1. Respecting others
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2. Checking Understanding
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3. Questioning to be sure
4. Paraphrasing to understand meaning
Communicating your thoughts and feelings
1. Judging what is appropriate to share
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2. Disclosing your feelings
  1. Avoid always withholding your feelings
  2. Avoid Displays of negative feelings
  3. describe your feelings
3. Speaking up for yourself
Giving and accepting criticism
How to assert yourself
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How to give criticism
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How to accept criticism
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Chapter 7: Speaking Informally

What is informal Communication
1. Practical
2. Social
Speaking for practical purposes
1. Giving and receiving directions
  1. giving directions
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  2. receiving directions
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2. Speaking on a telephone
  1. making a social call
  2. receiving a social call
Developing the skills of conversation
Strategies for conversing
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How to resolve disagreements by using constructive feedback
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Chapter 8: Interviewing

What is an interview
1. Job
2. School
3. Informative
Preparing to be interviewed
1. Reading the advertisement carefully
  1. type of job
  2. qualifications for job
2. Preparing a resume
3. Scheduling an appointment
4. Determining the purpose of the interview
5. Finding out information for the interview
6. Knowing what to say
  1. qualifications
  2. goals
  3. interests
7. knowing what you want to ask
8. rehearsing the interview
Being interviewed
1. What do interviewers look for
  1. promptness
  2. appearance
  3. poise
  4. flexibility
  5. honesty
  6. initiative
  7. communication skills
2. What do interviewers ask
  1. questions that request information
    1. current status
    2. background
    3. interests
    4. goals
  2. questions that probe deeper
  3. questions that check understanding
  4. questions that require you to take a stand
Interviewing others
1. Identifying likely sources
  1. reliable
  2. primary
  3. secondary
2. making an appointment
3. preparing a list of questions
4. organizing your list of questions
5. conducting an interview
  1. come prepared to record the interview
  2. be courteous
  3. listen carefully
  4. monitor your nonverbal communication
Following up an interview

Unit 3: Public Speaking

Chapter 9: Getting Ready

How to prepare for a speech
Choosing your topic
1. Generating topic ideas
2. Limiting your topic
Knowing your purpose
1. General purpose
2. Specific purpose
Writing a thesis statement
Knowing your audience
Knowing your occasion
Supporting your thesis statement
1. Facts and opinions
  1. fact
  2. opinion
  3. expert opinion
2. example and illustrations
3. anecdotes
4. statistics
5. comparisons
6. definitions
7. descriptions
8. quotations
How to think about the occasion
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Chapter 10: Gathering Information

Chapter 11: Preparing Your Speech

How to organize your speech
Organizing the body of your speech
1. Determining the main points
2. Types of organizational patterns
  1. chronological
  2. spatial
  3. topical
3. other organizational patterns
  1. climatic
  2. cause and effect
  3. comparison and contrast
  4. deductive approach
  5. inductive approach
  6. statement of reasons
  7. problem/solution
  8. comparative advantage
  9. criteria satisfaction
  10. negative method
  11. Monroe motivated sequence
4. Developing the main points
Planning the introduction
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4. Techniques for introductions
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Planning the conclusion
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3. techniques for conclusions
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Using transitional devices
Outlining
1. Reasons for making an outline
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2. Preparing a formal outline
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Translating your outline into a speech
1. Setting the stage for speech rehearsal
2. The role of notes in rehearsal
3. Avoid memorizing
How to rehearse for a speech
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Chapter 12: Using Effective Language

What is Effective Language
1. Levels of usage
2. Standard American English
Comparing good speaking to good writing
1. Spoken language
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2. Written language
Choosing the right words
1. Simple vs. difficult words
2. Precise vs. vague words
3. Specific vs. general words
4. Concrete vs. abstract words
Using language effectively
1. Sensory words
2. Figurative language
  1. simile
  2. metaphor
  3. exaggeration
  4. understatement
  5. irony
3. Emphasis
  1. repetition
    1. restatement
    2. parallelism
  2. announcement
4. Tone
  1. vocal tone
  2. choice of language level (formality)
Adjusting your vocabulary to suit your audience
1. Involving your audience
  1. relate to your audience’s experience
  2. use personal pronouns
  3. rhetorical questions
Avoiding common language problems
1. Jargon
2. Clichés
3. Euphemisms
4. Slang
5. Unintended meanings

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