Speaking Ethically

Rona is a huge supporter of Gerry Mitchell in the mayoral campaign. Rona decides to volunteer for Mitchell's campaign and is soon asked to speak at various rallies when Mitchell can't attend.

One Saturday evening, Rona is asked to speak before a group of retirees at a local retirement center. As a campaign insider, Rona knows that Mitchell has privately acknowledged that he's probably going to have to drastically cut city support for a number of programs that help the elderly. Of course, this information hasn't been made public. Rona also realizes that the group she is speaking before would not vote for Mitchell if they knew what his future plans are.

  1. If Rona attempts to persuade the retirees without divulging the information about the future cuts, is she a pure persuader or a manipulative persuader?
  2. Does a political operative have an ethical obligation to be honest when the information being disseminated to a group of people isn't complete?
  3. If you were Rona, what would you do?


End-of-Chapter Assessment

  1. Modern scholars generally describe the three general purposes of speaking as
    1. entertain, persuade, and debate
    2. persuade, inform, and perpetuate
    3. celebrate, perpetuate, and inform
    4. inform, persuade, and entertain
    5. deliberative, epideictic, and forensic
  2. "To persuade a group of local residents to buy a car from Mitken's Car Dealership" is an example of which type of purpose?
    1. celebratory
    2. specific
    3. systematic
    4. supplemental
    5. general
  3. Benji wanted to speak on the elements of jazz music, but his instructor told the class that they could only choose from a specific list of topics. This is an example of
    1. poor topic selection
    2. constraints
    3. a bad speech
    4. poor narrowing
    5. topic shortage aversion
  4. Which of the following would be a good scope for a speech that is five to seven minutes in length?
    1. the history of the United States
    2. military maneuvers in the nineteenth century
    3. women in the Battle of Lewisburg
    4. religion in Asia
    5. changes in state-sponsored militias
  5. Tika is speaking on the benefits of sleep, but does not include a call for action to get more sleep. Which type of general purpose does Tika have?
    1. to inform
    2. to persuade
    3. to entertain
    4. to console
    5. to educate


Answer Key

  1. d
  2. b
  3. b
  4. c
  5. a

Speaking Ethically

George needs to turn in an outline for the speech he is assigned to deliver. The speech itself is two weeks away, but the outline is due today. George has already written the entire speech, and he does not see why he should spend time deleting parts of it to transform it into an outline. He knows exactly what he's going to say when he gives the speech. Then he discovers that the word-processing program in his computer can create an outline version of a document. Aha! Technology to the rescue! George happily turns in the computer-generated outline, feeling confident that never again will he have to hassle with writing an outline himself.

  1. Do you think George's use of a computer-generated outline fulfills the purpose of creating an outline for a speech? Why or why not?
  2. Do you think George's professor will be able to tell that the outline was created by a word-processing program?


End-of-Chapter Assessment

  1. Joe is beginning to prepare his speech and has constructed a brief outline that sketches out his thesis and main points but does not yet have a fully developed conclusion or transitions. Which type of outline has Joe constructed?
    1. speaking outline
    2. full-sentence outline
    3. opening outline
    4. working outline
    5. transitory outline
  2. Brenda has prepared her speaking outline on a set of six notecards, so she believes she is finished preparing for her speech. You tell her that simply preparing the speaking outline is not enough; she needs to practice using her notecards as well. Why is this the case?
    1. She should get used to how the notecards feel in her hand.
    2. She needs to make sure the information on the cards will work as a memory cue for her.
    3. She needs to know whether her audience prefers white or colored notecards.
    4. You think she needs to add more notecards.
    5. She needs to memorize all the quotations she is using.


Answer Key

  1. d
  2. b

Source: University of Minnesota
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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