Oral Presentations in Professional Settings

This course is designed to help you improve your oral presentation skills and strengthen your ability to make a good argument and communicate effectively to an audience. You will gain these skills by studying rhetorical principles, analyzing other presentations, and practicing your own speaking.

Ratliff, Clancy. University of Minnesota (2004). Academic>Courses>Presentations>Rhetoric

Orality and the Process of Writing    

The aim of this article is to show that a better awareness of the relationship between written and spoken communication can help the writer to improve his/her effectiveness. The focus will be on written texts that precede (formal and informal) discussions. The analysis will start with a description of the differences between orality and literacy. We shall deal with the functions of orality-based texts for the readers. Then we shall move to the writing process and explain how orality can find a place in this process, how it can be linked to creativity, and how it affects the way we plan the writing process. An oral way of writing is related to an important feature of speaking, namely fluency; but it also means a specific receiver orientation, dynamic rather than static and social rather than individual. Computer mediated communication could influence a more oral approach to written texts.

Van Woerkum, C.M.J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Rhetoric>Genre

Organizing Visual and Verbal Information  

For this exercise, you will create a two-panel brochure about carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) that could be distributed with other medical literature in your campus’s health center. The text and visual aids you will use are contained in this file, though they will require significant modifications using design principles presented in Technical Communication/5e.

Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Visual>Visual Rhetoric

Page Design: Directing the Reader's Eye  

Sevilla discusses principles of effective page design and techniques that ensure consistent document layout.

Sevilla, Christine. Intercom (2002). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Paradigm Dissonance: A Significant Factor in Design and Business Problems

Identifying paradigm dissonance as a source of problems isn't new, but creating a framework for dealing with this problem in a business and design environment moves this idea in a new direction.

Withrow, Jason and Mark Geljon. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

Whether you have an assigned subject or choose your own, you need to get focused and engaged with the project. Assigned subjects may look limiting at first, but they offer plenty of room for individual expression. Open subjects, while promising great freedom, can be daunting because they don't provide direction. They leave it all up to you. Yet these two situations, different as they appear, present similar challenges.

POWA. Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Parallel Lines

Writers shape up their writing by paying attention to parallel structures in their words, phrases, and sentences.

Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Uses

This study sought to determine if certain personalities and uses are associated with various fonts. Using an online survey, participants rated the personality of 20 fonts using 15 adjective pairs. In addition, participants viewed the same 20 fonts and selected which uses were most appropriate. Results suggested that personality traits are indeed attributed to fonts based on their design family (Serif, Sans-Serif, Modern, Monospace, Script/Funny) and are associated with appropriate uses. Implications of these results to the design of online materials and websites are discussed.

Shaikh, A. Dawn, Barbara S. Chaparro and Doug Fox. Usability News (2006). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

Period As a Stop Sign

Place strong words at the beginning of sentences and paragraphs, and at the end. The period acts as a stop sign. Any word next to the period says, 'Look at me.'

Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Grammar>Rhetoric

Persuasion In Technical Communication: Applying Elaboration Likelihood Model To Marketing Brochures  

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is a cognitive theory offering insights into persuasion and attitude change that technical communicators can apply to persuasive documents. The two routes to persuasion that ELM postulates (central and peripheral) closely parallel and expand a concept with which many technical communicators are familiar: attention and attraction in document design. By applying ELM to writing and designing marketing brochures, writers can identify and address the many variables that influence the central and peripheral route persuasion processes and, thereby, create more persuasive, effective documents.

Shuffield, Cathy A. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Rhetoric>TC>Persuasive Design

Persuasion In Technical Communication: Applying Symbolic Interactionism  

Symbolic interactionism provides technical communicators with a persuasive tool that facilitates effective communication. By treating meaning as a socially negotiated and negotiable product rather than apart of language, technical communicators can more easily persuade readers to follow instructions, to grant proposals, or to accept reports. By taking the sources of meaning away from objects and away from symbols per se, symbolic interaction empowers the technical communicator with the means to effectively communicate and persuade.

Ray, Eric J. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Rhetoric>Theory

Persuasion in Technical Communication: Applying the Information-Integration Theory  

Technical communicators are skilled rhetoricians whose persuasive documents include letters, reports, and proposals, and with these documents, technical communicators persuade their audience to accept their ideas. Persuasion is the method of supplying new information about a subject to change people’s attitude about that subject. According to the Information-Integration Theory people form their initial attitude about a subject when they first learn about it. As people receive new information about that subject, they adjust their attitude in relation to the new information.

Jeansonne, Jerold. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>TC>Rhetoric

Persuasion In Technical Communication: Not Necessarily Just Another Academic Exercise  

Four graduate students' papers on communication theory can contribute to the field of technical communication, specifically in two ways: increase our understanding of message production and reception; provide a context in which to develop a theory of technical communication. Several human communication theories have practical and theoretical applications to technical communication. Applying these human communication theories can increase our understanding of how a message is produced and received. Understanding the message, its sender, and its receiver in technical communication can help us to become more effective technical communicators as well as researchers and teachers of technical communication.

Kim, H. Young, Eric J. Ray, Cathy A. Shuffield and Jing Xu. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>TC>Rhetoric

Persuasive Techniques Used in Fundraising Messages    

Based on an analysis of 63 fundraising packages representing 46 nonprofit organizations, as well as research in trade journals and other secondary sources, this study discusses a variety of persuasive techniques used in fundraising messages to accomplish their missions. The fundraising package consists of the carrier envelope, the fundraising letter, the reply form, the reply envelope, and optional enclosures such as brochures, small gifts for the reader, and surveys to complete. These parts work together to perform the following tasks: 1) persuade recipients to open the envelope and read the letter; 2) convince readers a serious but not unsolvable problem exists; 3) make readers want to help solve the problem; 4) convince readers they can help by giving to the appealing organization; 5) tell readers what the organization needs them to do; and 6) make it easy to comply.

Spears, Lee A. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Business Communication>Correspondence>Rhetoric

Picture Perfect: Selecting Graphics for Instruction  

Discusses some principles for choosing appropriate graphics for instructional materials.

Lyons, Chopeta C. Intercom (1995). Articles>Education>Presentations>Visual Rhetoric

Picture Power vs. Word Power: A Crash Course in Presentation Visuals  

One of the biggest complaints about presentations that has been voiced far too frequently is 'The visuals were terrible.' This demonstration will show presenters that if they have visuals at all then they should be good visuals. It is as easy to make good visuals as it is to make poor ones.

Rhodes-Marriott, A. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Presentations>Visual Rhetoric

Piecing Together Your Audience  

Technical writers live by the commandment 'Know thy audience.' While the best approaches to fulfilling this commandment include conducting site visits and user surveys, we must often turn to other sources for information when deadlines loom or budgets are slashed. Individually, these resources provide anecdotal snapshots of users, but taken together they offer an understanding of our audience necessary for quality documentation.

Hower, Sean. Intercom (2003). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Place Gold Coins Along the Path

Learn how to keep your readers interested by placing gold coins throughout your story.

Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Plain Language in Science: Signs of Intelligible Life in the Scientific Community?  

'The importance of the work is inversely proportional to the number of people who can understand it' is an outdated attitude in today's scientific arena. The trend toward plain language is gathering force in government, academe, and scientific journals.

Locke, Joanne N., Lily Whiteman and Devora Mitrany. Science Editor (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric>Minimalism

Plain Language: What Is It?

When you reach out to your readers, you show that you have considered who they are and what they need to know. Communicate a concern for your readers' needs so they will be receptive to your message.

U.S. Small Business Administration. Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism

Plastic Language for Plastic Science: The Rhetoric of Comrade Lysenko    

Rhetoric of science reveals the role of rhetoric in the complex social enterprise that is standard science. Rhetoric plays a role in non-standard science too. The recent elucidation of the human genetic code calls to mind an earlier, tragic episode in the history of genetics, Lysenkoism in Stalinist Russia. It involved the repudiation of standard science in favor of an insular, intuitive, and anti-intellectual science called agrobiology which supposedly could shape agricultural productivity to political will. The tragedy is that careers were ruined and millions suffered starvation as the new science failed to bear its predicted fruit. Whether seen as a debased rhetoric of science or as a rhetoric of debased science, it assumed that language is plastic and can support a plastically reconceived science that reflected the plasticity of nature itself. This plastic rhetoric is strikingly similar to Plato s view of sophism, which of course differs considerably from contemporary views of sophism.

Dombrowski, Paul M. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric>History

Play with Words

Play with words, even in serious stories. Choose words the average writer avoids but the average reader understands.

Clark, Roy Peter. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Writing>Diction>Rhetoric

Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice  

Let me present one possible version of the history of teaching writing in the last century and a half. When the tradition of classical rhetoric was restricted to composition in the nineteenth century, teachers of writing found themselves teaching service courses, usually defined as skills courses. Furthermore, having lost touch with the classical tradition, they began to teach writing particularly suited to current needs and, by extension, to teach thought forms that imitate modern consciousness —- a form of consciousness largely molded by forms of production, or technology. As Richard Ohmann says, much modern composition instruction reflects this technological consciousness: it casts the writing process in terms of problem solving, stresses objectivity and thereby denies a writer's social responsibilities, distances the interaction between writer and reader, deals with abstract issues, and denies politics (206). As a result, teachers of writing indoctrinate students, turning them into the sorts of people who will fill the slots available in our technological society.

Sullivan, Dale L. JAC (1990). Articles>Rhetoric>History

Politics and the English Language

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

Orwell, George. Impact Information (1946). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism