Reporting And Explaining (1970)

On those relatively rare occasions when you must start that long, long walk out to make a formal speech of exposition, a speech of reporting or explaining, you will face an audience which like you has been using the techniques of effective communication almost every time there was anything to say. >> I got to go to the bathroom. child boy >> left pedal is always the brake and the right is always the accelerator >> youth >> 5400 RPM yeah but what does it do in the quarter >> man >> reporting and explaining >> at home >> push this button to the left now see the rudder turns to the >> work environment in this situation the heating was necessary only 3% of >> with others it's both the power supply and the steering mechanis or alone >> I attach this cartisol. It's been brought to my attention that my granddaughter Elaine >> But you get the idea. We go through life reporting and explaining. It is to our advantage to learn to do it well. In spite of a lifetime of experience with reporting and explaining, few of us have ever settled on definite guidelines for achieving clarity and interest. We aren't going to be definite either. Well, our task for the day is a relatively simple one. I would like to work on communications here to the point that I would like for you to give me instructions as to how to put this coat on. I'm going to stand here and try to follow your instructions quite explicitly. And now if you will just start giving me instructions. Uh we'll see if we can get the coat on. >> Pick up the coat with your right hand. Uh, no. Slowly, put your right hand on the nape of the coat. On the on the collar of the coat. Inside the collar of the coat. Now, pick up the coat. Okay. Now, turn the coat around without letting loose of it. Turn it around the other way. >> Pretty obvious, isn't it? What one guideline might be >> halfway? Stop. Stop halfway. >> The lining facing you. The lining facing you. >> Now put your right hand in the right sleeve of the coat. >> Sliding your hand downwards into the right sleeve of the coat. No, no, no. From the inside. >> The guideline. Be specific. Anytime you are reporting, explaining, giving directions, avoid generalities, the more specific you can be, the greater will be the degree of clarity in your presentation. >> Let's test that tentative guideline, be specific, to see if it works. Note whether this speaker uses specific examples that are meaningful to his audience. >> Okay. When I pull a driver over to the side of the road and give him one of these, a traffic ticket, he's quite likely to say to me, "Why are you out catching criminals?" >> Is this specific? >> And yet each year more than six times as many are killed and injured and car accidents as in >> Is this specific? >> In this county alone, last year there were seven homicides, but 60 traffic deaths. >> Is this specific? Within the next 12 months, the likelihood that you will become the victim of a personal criminal attack is 1 in 550. Is this specific? Not only does the speaker pile up example after example, but he reinforces them with visual aids. 1 in 550. Within the same 12 months, the likelihood that you will die or be injured in an automobile is one in 50. I do not give tickets to drivers who are observing the law. I am catching dangerous criminals. Did this speech have greater clarity, greater interest than it would have had if the speaker had used fewer specific examples to bring his message home? >> To test our tentative guideline, be specific further. Let's listen to two speakers explaining the same topic. Listen to both before you decide which is the more effective. given aid in handling the financial burdens required at this time. And on the topic of children, speech and hearing therapy centers in your own communities give children this specialized aid to help in in meeting this therapy. I could also talk to you about the recreation centers in your communities, places where your own children might go to fill these these gaps in their spare time. And as I said at the beginning, there are many ways the United Fund functions in your community. And still this this whole idea, I suppose, may seem a a farway thing to you at this time. But if you consider for a moment the agencies in your own community, >> and now the second speaker, >> a homeless flood victim receives aid in the form of food and shelter. A young child with vision problems receives a muchneeded operation. A child with speech difficulties receives help at a therapy center. A teenage recreation center is set up so that young people will have a place to spend their spare time. All these things and many more were possible through the efforts of the United Fund in our community. Do you agree that the second speaker who gave specific examples and plenty of them attained greater interest and greater clarity than the first speaker dealing with the same subject matter? >> Now let's see if we can discover any other guidelines that might be useful in achieving clarity and interest. We can assume then by elimination that when we have an interruption in the non-pathological osteological configuration in the lumbar sacral region of the human skeleton unless there is an ideology of trophic or spontaneous pathology that the fracture site is the result of severe trauma. >> Thank you. That's enough. We get it. But would you show us how you would have said it if you'd wanted to make it clear and interesting to us? >> Certainly. May we have the skeleton, please? When we have fractures in the low back of the human skeleton, unless there is a history of bone disease in this area, we can usually assume that the fracture is the result of severe strain of some type or perhaps a severe blow to this part of the bony structure of the human body. What guidelines have we discovered? Could this be one? Seems reasonable that we're likely to increase clarity and interest when we use the simplest possible terms. Words or phrases readily understood by everyone in the audience. Could this be another guideline? >> Probably. Show and tell is communication on two levels. It certainly seems as if using visual aids might be useful. But before we decide definitely, let's see if we should qualify that by making our guideline use visual aids properly. uh there's been a a great deal of discussion on on juvenile delinquency and I have brought so that you can see there is a picture of a juvenile delinquent here and here's a another one and uh here can you see those in the back row? >> Would you say this was a proper use of a visual aid? And how about this use of a visual aid? >> Out of focus here, but at any rate, you can see I think all of these particular simplified uh parts of the piece that are uh uh yeah, there we are. There we are. Uhhuh. Yeah. Now, the next picture, this >> If this speaker isn't using his visual aid properly, how could he do it better? Can you tell him >> now? see if you can discover another guideline for creating interest. >> Well, which brings us to the point of the reckless driver and and it's strange we call them that because reckless drivers have more wrecks than anybody else. >> If humor adds interest, are there any strings attached to its use? >> What about dragging in a long funny story unrelated to your subject? Is that going to add interest to a speech or is it just going to sound like an obvious trick? You can learn a lot. >> Now let's try to discover how the organization of the material in a speech contributes to clarity and interest. >> The instruments are divided into these four sections. The first section is the rhythm section. The next section the melodic section. The third section is the horn section. And of course last the vocal section. >> Can you sense the rightness of the organization here? If so, what made it right? Was it the flow achieved by separating the material into natural units? >> Sometimes the organization seems to flow best from top to bottom. From stating the main point first and the examples following >> America the beautiful is an empty phrase. Our highways are lined with tasteless billboards, windb blown litter, broken bottles, empty beverage cans. Our cities are soot stained piles of crumbling architecture under smog filtered skies. Our streams and rivers are the sewers of the nation carrying the refues and the poisons from the cities and factories down to our once shining seas. >> Other times the organization seems clearer and more interesting if one starts with examples and builds to the main point. In the past 5 years, the robin population in Middleton has decreased by more than half. The number of fish caught in Middleton Creek has been decreasing steadily during that same period. The use of insecticides, on the other hand, has more than doubled in that time. When we tamper with the balance of nature, we tear at the whole web of life around us. The guideline on organization seems to be use whatever organization leads to the greatest clarity and interest. We always come back to that except that we now have guidelines we have discovered for achieving effective reporting and explaining guidelines such as be specific. Use terms your audience can understand. Use appropriate humor. Organize by ideas to make your material as meaningful as possible. And wherever you can, use visual aids. Very helpful guides to take with you when you step forward to begin a speech of reporting or explaining. [Music] What if you got