{"id":158,"date":"2020-02-25T23:15:43","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T04:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/advancedenglish\/chapter\/functions-of-the-presentation-to-inform\/"},"modified":"2021-08-10T11:48:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T15:48:49","slug":"presentation-to-inform","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/advancedenglish\/chapter\/presentation-to-inform\/","title":{"raw":"Presentations to Inform","rendered":"Presentations to Inform"},"content":{"raw":"

Informative presentations focus on helping the audience to understand a topic, issue, or technique more clearly. There are distinct functions in a speech to inform, and you may choose to use one or more of these functions in your speech. Let\u2019s take a look at the functions and see how they relate to the central objective of helping your audience to understand your topic.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n

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The basic definition of communication highlights the process of understanding and sharing meaning. An informative speech follows this definition when a speaker shares content and information with an audience. As part of a speech, you wouldn\u2019t typically be asking the audience to respond or solve a problem. Instead you\u2019d be offering to share with the audience some of the information you have gathered related to a topic. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Increase Understanding<\/h1>\r\n

How well does your audience grasp the information? This should be a guiding question to you on two levels. The first involves what they already know\u2014or don\u2019t know\u2014about your topic, and what key terms or ideas might be necessary for someone completely unfamiliar with your topic to grasp the ideas you are presenting. The second involves your presentation and the illustration of ideas. The audience will respond to your attention statement and hopefully maintain interest, but how will you take your speech beyond basic content and effectively communicate to increase understanding? These questions should serve as a challenge for your informative speech, and by looking at your speech from an audience-oriented perspective, you will increase your ability to increase the audience\u2019s understanding.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Change Perceptions<\/h1>\r\n

How you perceive something has everything to do with a range of factors that are unique to you. We all want to make sense of our world, share our experiences, and learn that many people face the same challenges we do. For instance, many people perceive the process of speaking in public as a significant challenge, and in this text, we have broken down the process into several manageable steps. In so doing, we have to some degree changed your perception of public speaking. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

When you present your speech to inform, you may want to change the audience member\u2019s perceptions of your topic. You may present an informative speech on air pollution and want to change common perceptions such as the idea that most of North America\u2019s air pollution comes from private cars. You won\u2019t be asking people to go out and vote, or change their choice of automobiles, but you will help your audience change their perceptions of your topic.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Gain Skills<\/h1>\r\n

Just as you want to increase the audience\u2019s understanding, you may want to help the audience members gain skills. If you are presenting a speech on how to make a meal from fresh ingredients, your audience may thank you for not only the knowledge of the key ingredients and their preparation but also the product available at the conclusion. If your audience members have never made their own meal, they may gain a new skill from your speech. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Exposition versus Interpretation<\/h1>\r\n

When you share information informally, you often provide your own perspective and attitude for your own reasons. The speech to inform the audience on a topic, idea, or area of content is not intended to be a display of attitude and opinion. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

The speech to inform is like the classroom setting in that the goal is to inform, not to persuade, entertain, display attitude, or create comedy. If you have analyzed your audience, you\u2019ll be better prepared to develop appropriate ways to gain their attention and inform them on your topic. You want to communicate thoughts, ideas, and relationships and allow each listener specifically, and the audience generally, to draw their own conclusions. The speech to inform is all about sharing information to meet the audience\u2019s needs, not your own. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Exposition<\/h2>\r\n

This relationship between informing as opposed to persuading your audience is often expressed in terms of exposition versus interpretation. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

Exposition means a public exhibition or display, often expressing a complex topic in a way that makes the relationships and content clear. The goal is to communicate the topic and content to your audience in ways that illustrate, explain, and reinforce the overall content to make your topic more accessible to the audience. The audience wants to learn about your topic and may have some knowledge on it as you do. It is your responsibility to consider ways to display the information effectively.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Interpretation and Bias<\/h2>\r\n

Interpretation involves adapting the information to communicate a message, perspective, or agenda. Your insights and attitudes will guide your selection of material, what you focus on, and what you delete (choosing what not to present to the audience). Your interpretation will involve personal bias. <\/span><\/p>\r\n

Bias is an unreasoned or not-well-thought-out judgment. Bias involves beliefs or ideas held on the basis of conviction rather than current evidence. Beliefs are often called \u201chabits of the mind\u201d because we come to rely on them to make decisions. Which is the better, cheapest, most expensive, or the middle-priced product? People often choose the middle-priced product and use the belief \u201cif it costs more it must be better\u201d (and the opposite: \u201cif it is cheap it must not be very good\u201d). The middle-priced item, regardless of actual price, is often perceived as \u201cgood enough.\u201d All these perceptions are based on beliefs, and they may not apply to the given decision or even be based on any evidence or rational thinking.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

We take mental shortcuts all day long, but in our speech to inform, we have to be careful not to reinforce bias.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Point of View<\/h1>\r\n

Clearly no one can be completely objective and remove themselves from their own perceptual process. People express themselves and naturally relate what is happening now to what has happened to them in the past. You are your own artist, but you also control your creations.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Objectivity involves expressions and perceptions of facts that are free from distortion by your prejudices, bias, feelings or interpretations. For example, is the post office box blue? An objective response would be yes or no, but a subjective response might sound like \u201cWell, it\u2019s not really blue as much as it is navy, even a bit of purple.\u201d Subjectivity involves expressions or perceptions that are modified, altered, or impacted by your personal bias, experiences, and background. In an informative speech, your audience will expect you to present the information in a relatively objective form. The speech should meet the audience\u2019s need as they learn about the content, not your feelings, attitudes, or commentary on the content.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Here are five suggestions to help you present a neutral speech:<\/p>\r\n\r\n