Ethical guidelines in public speaking – Public speaking has long been one of the most challenging skills to perfect, as it can be difficult for many. Some speakers can more easily gain their audience’s interest, while others don’t provide their audience with much value.
Ethics is an issue that must not be jettisoned by a public speaker. Ethical speakers use sound means to achieve sound ends. They are well -informed about their audience; honest in what they say and conscious of the dangers of logical fallacies. And one of the ethical guidelines in public speaking is to give your audience respect they deserved.
Everyone deserves respect, and the audience listening to your speech is no exception. Showing respect to your audience is directly correlated to how your message is received. Therefore, you should remain respectful at all times.
Showing your audience respect is one of the most important ethical guidelines in public speaking. It is one of the ways that your audience can recognize the impact and legitimacy of your speech.
This means not to demean your audience but to treat them as equals. You should remain neutral on social status, gender, and religion and not look down upon them for having different beliefs.
If you would like to liven up the mood during the speech and make a joke, it needs to be made at your expense, instead of the audience.
7 Ethical Guidelines in Public Speaking
Ethical guidelines in public speaking include the following:
1. Be well informed about your subject
You have an obligation to yourself, to your listeners and to explore your speech topic as fully as possible. The speaker is expected to carry out a thorough research on the topic, seek out competing viewpoints and get the facts right.
2. Be honest in what you say
A speaker should beware of the temptation to distort the truth for his or her own purpose. Responsible speakers do not falsify facts, do not present a few facts as the whole story, do not present tentative findings as conclusions. As a matter of fact, they hardly present other people’s ideas as their own. Their speeches are not plagiarized. A good speaker is ethically obliged to credit his or her source of information.
3. Use sound evidence
Good speeches are not composed of hot air. You will need verifiable evidence to explain and support your ideas. Always avoid sweeping statements. When using evidence, be sure not to take quotations out of context, not to juggle statistics, not to present unusual cases as representative examples. A good speaker uses sources of information that are objective reliable and qualified.
4. Employ valid reasoning
Responsible public speakers usually try to avoid such fallacies as making hasty generalizations, asserting casual connections where none exist, using invalid analogies and pandering to passion and prejudice.
5. Know how to organize and present your speech
Good speakers are able to organize and present their ideas in patterns that listeners can easily follow and remember.
One of the best ways to improve your effectiveness as a speaker is to learn how to select and use supporting materials. They make your ideas clear and convincing. Such supporting materials are factual evidence, examples, statistics and relevant personal experience.
6. Dress to suit the occasion
A number of studies have confirmed that personal appearance plays an important role in speech presentation. Audience always sees the speaker before they hear him or her. Just as you adapt your language to the audience and occasion, so should you dress appropriately. You are unethical if your dressing offends your listeners. Appropriateness, of course, depends on the occasion, audience and the speaker.
7. Respect your audience
The audience is the reason for a speech event. You must be mindful of your audience. A good speaker ensures that his or her diction, verbal and non-verbal cues do not insult them. The audience analysis skills and techniques in chapter four will help you throughout the public-speaking process.
The consciousness of your audience is vital as you select a topic, determine the purpose of your speech, develop your central idea, generate the main ideas, gather supporting material, firm up your organization, rehearse, and deliver your speech. The audience can either make or mar a speech event. So, be mindful of them!
