How to Become a Rhetorically Effective Speaker
How do famous speakers like Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King Jr. give such successful and moving speeches? Is it a skill they are born with? Or can anyone work to become a better speaker? The key to effectively public speaking is rhetoric.
What is Rhetoric?
Rhetoric is the ability to use language effectively in order to persuade a particular audience for particular purpose. When most people think of rhetoric they think of writing, but the concept actually began in ancient Greece as the art of persuasive speaking. One of the biggest contributors to the concept of rhetoric was the philosopher Aristotle. He came up with the rhetorical triangle that gives the three means of persuasion: ethos, logos, and pathos. These means of persuasion are commonly referred to as the rhetorical appeals. Ethos is an appeal to ethics and has to do with the credibility of the person speaking, logos is an appeal to logic and has to do with the accuracy of the information being presented, and pathos is an appeal to emotion and has to do with making a connection with the audience (McKay 2010).
Figure 2 (above) shows Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle. All of these elements have to work together in order to create a rhetorically effective speech. The speaker must be appropriate for the audience (the audience must respect the speaker’s ethos and the speaker must be able to connect to the audience using pathos), the audience must be appropriate for the message (the audience must be able to understand the logos used in the message), and so on.
Another important element of rhetoric to consider is the context, which is the time and place the event takes place in.
What Does this Look Like in Real Life?
One of the best contemporary speakers was Steve Jobs. His speeches were praised for being simple yet inspirational. Carmine Gallo, senior contributor for Forbes Magazine, highlights some of the things that made Jobs’ speeches so effective:
- He practiced and rehearsed his speeches until they looked natural.
- He kept things simple so that his main message stood out.
- He used personal stories and anecdotes to create an emotional response in his audience.
To see a couple of Steve Job’s best speeches in action, watch these videos:
How Can I Use Rhetoric in My Own Speeches?
Whether you’re giving a presentation for class or a product pitch to your boss, understanding how to apply rhetoric can help you be as effective as possible.
Planning:
Giving a rhetorically effective speech begins at the planning stage. Before you even begin writing your speech, you need to consider the rhetorical situation and let that shape what you say and how you say it. In the planning stage you should research what your audience needs and expects from you given the context. From that you can determine what your purpose should be and how you as the speaker fit into the rhetorical situation. Here are some important questions you should ask in order to define the rhetoric situation:
- What is the context? Where and when will I be giving this speech? What are the expectations on length and type of presentation?
- Who is my audience? Why do they care about what I’m saying? What kind of information and appeals will be most convincing to them?
- What is my purpose? What do I want this speech to accomplish? What is the main point I want my audience to get out of my speech?
- Where do I as the speaker fit into this? Am I well-respected or unknown in the community I’m speaking to? What are some strategies I can use to build my ethos?
Writing:
If you plan thoroughly, the writing stage should be simple. What you write should come out of the answers to the above questions. This is also where you should work in ethos, pathos, and logos. Here are some simple ways to use the rhetorical appeals in your speech:
Speaking:
So, you’ve planned out a speech that fits your audience and wrote it using rhetorical strategies, but you’re not quite done. If you just show up on the day you’re scheduled to speak and read your rhetorically effective speech from a stack of notecards, it will fall flat. There are certain things you can do while delivering your speech to help build your ethos:
- Make eye contact with your audience. This means knowing your speech well enough that you don’t have to keep looking at your notes. Eye contact can be used as an appeal to pathos and as a way to convince your audience that you are familiar with the material you are speaking on.
- Slow down. Talking fast and rushing through a presentation is a sign of nervousness and doesn’t give your audience time to absorb the material. Speak slowly and take even breaths; don’t be afraid of pauses as they can give your audience a chance to catch up.
- Be aware of your body language. Good posture is a sign of confidence, so put your shoulders back and lift your head up. The way you use your hands is also important. According to Carol K. Gorman, Ph. D., audiences perceive speakers that use a variety of hand gestures as having more warmth and energy, while speakers that fiddle with their clothes or hair are perceived as distracted or nervous.
- Stay away from “ums” and “uhs.” Inexperienced speakers often rely on these kind of filler phrases to stall while they think of their next point. You can avoid this trap by being prepared and speaking slowly so that you don’t get ahead of yourself. Also try to avoid using words like “so” and “well” as a transition between points as this sounds unprofessional.
Using these rhetorical tactics can help you come across as a confident speaker even if don’t feel like one yourself (Landrum 2015).
Souces:
Gallo, Carmine. (2015). “How Steve Jobs Made Presentations Look Effortless.” Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2015/03/26/how-steve-jobs-made-presentations-look-effortless/#44ce32d56bf6
Kerrigan, Maurice. (2018). “Lessons from Steve Jobs to conquer the stage.” The MKA Blog. Retrieved from https://mauricekerrigan.com/lessons-steve-jobs-will-help-conquer-stage/
Landrum, Sarah. (2015). “10 Secrets To Sounding Confident.” Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3048748/10-secrets-to-sounding-confident
McKay, Brett & Kate. (2010). “Classical Rhetoric: A Brief History.” The Art of Manliness. Retrieved from https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/history-of-rhetoric/
Mueck, Florian. (2015). “The Five Dimensions Of Persuasion.” Florian Mueck. Retrieved from https://www.florianmueck.com/2013/04/22/the-five-dimensions-of-persuasion/
“The Rhetorical Appeals.” (2018). The Visual Communication Guy. Retrieved from http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/rhetoric-overview/the-rhetorical-appeals-rhetorical-triangle/