Assignment: Audience Sensitivity
Assignment: Audience Sensitivity
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Assignment: Audience Sensitivity
Assignment: Audience Sensitivity

Assignment: Audience Sensitivity

Being sensitive to your audience and adapting your message accordingly will serve you well not only when addressing listeners with different cultural backgrounds from your own, but in all types of situations. If you learn to analyze your audience and adapt to their expectations, you can apply these skills in numerous settings: at a job interview, during a business presentation or a city council election campaign— even while proposing marriage.

Select and Narrow Your Topic While keeping your audience foremost in mind, your next task is to determine what you will talk about and to limit your topic to fit the constraints of your speaking as- signment. Pay special attention to the guidelines your instructor gives you for your assignment.
Assignment: Audience Sensitivity
If your first speech assignment is to introduce yourself to the class, your speech topic has been selected for you—you are the topic. It is not uncommon to be asked to speak on a specific subject. Often, though, you will be asked to speak but not given a topic. The task of selecting and narrowing a topic will be yours. Choosing or find- ing a topic on which to speak can be frustrating. “What should I talk about?” can be- come a haunting question.Assignment: Audience Sensitivity

It’s a good idea to give yourself plenty of time to select and narrow your topic. Don’t wait until the last minute to ponder what you might talk about. One of the most important things you can do to be an effective speaker is to start preparing your speech well in advance of your speaking date. One research study identified some very practical advice: The amount of time you spend preparing for your speech is one of the best predictors of a good grade on your speech.62

Although there is no single answer to the question of what you should talk about, you may discover a topic by asking three standard questions:

1. Who is the audience? Your topic may grow from a basic knowledge of your audi- ence. For example, if you know that your audience members are primarily be- tween the ages of 25 and 40, this information should help you select a topic of interest to people who are probably working and either seeking partners or rais- ing families.

2. What are my interests, talents, and experiences? Rather than racking your brain for exotic topics and outlandish ideas, examine your own background. Your choice of major in college, your job, your hobbies, and your ancestry are sources for topic ideas. What issues do you feel strongly about? Chapter 5 contains a discus- sion of specific tips for finding topics.

3. What is the occasion? Besides your audience, you should consider the occasion for the speech when choosing a topic. A speech to your speech class probably calls for a different topic, for example, than a speech to a religious group, a model railroad club, or a city council meeting. You’ll also want to consider the physical setting of your speech. In Chapter 4 we’ll amplify our discussion of how the occasion and the physical setting for your speech affects your topic selection.Assignment: Audience Sensitivity

speech topic The key focus of the content of a speech

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASSDiscussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.