Charlie
Gallucci
Biological and Physical
Sciences
Even Scientists Need to Speak
By Charlie Gallucci
Being able to speak to a large group in a formal setting is important for anyone who wishes to have a career in engineering or the sciences. In fact, in those fields, the first presentations of your work are often verbal rather than written. These can be crucial to the success of your work or even to your continued employment.
Having a supportive environment in which to learn public speaking is useful. Here you are given tips on organization, content, and presentation skills. In addition, there is support in the realization that you are not alone. Many persons feel uncomfortable speaking before a group.
Many of the faculty at Columbus State have students give presentations. These presentations can help to prepare our students for their future employment.
It is important for all of us to give speeches. For example, learning how to speak in front of a group gives you a better appreciation of rhetoric and its limits. In addition, you are better able to see that both content and technique are important in speeches. I will never forget my first awareness of how important this could be. While viewing a speech made by Richard M. Nixon, I came to the realization that there was no content in his message. Nixon used unclear modifiers. After the speech, the learned reporters on television who gave an instant analysis of his speech discussed, not what Nixon said but what it sounded like he said. They ignored many of the modifiers.
A speech can be crafted well and have significant content. A case can be made for Saint Augustine being seduced by the content of Ambrose’s homilies while analyzing his technique. Rhetoric is important and a knowledge of it can be used to achieve ends which are admirable or despicable. Unless we as humans want to be dominated by persons like Plato’s Callicles we must learn about the art of rhetoric. Probably the best way to gain an understanding of rhetoric is to actually speak to a group.
It is important that our students be skilled in public speaking but often students are terrified of speaking to a group. I find that an informal group presentation is a good way to ease them into it. I assign a group of three or four students to present a solution to a problem in our textbook. All of the students making the presentation are responsible for the material; thus, any one of them can be asked about any aspect of the problem. The students making the presentation are supportive of each other so they do not seem as intimidated as they would be in an individual presentation. I find that these presentations can also encourage the formation of study groups outside of class. We should all give our students the opportunity to practice their public speaking skills in class.
