Speech Textbook | WisTech Open

Speech introduces students to the principles and practices of effective public speaking, from audience analysis and topic selection to organization, research, and delivery. Emphasizing both ethics and inclusivity, the text helps learners develop confidence and professionalism in a variety of speaking contexts. Students practice informative, persuasive, and special occasion speeches while refining skills in critical listening, evidence-based argumentation, and extemporaneous delivery. With a balance of theory and applied techniques, this resource prepares students to communicate effectively in academic, professional, and civic settings.

Course Competency 1: Analyze audiences

Course Competency 2: Apply ethical practices in public speaking

Course Competency 3: Incorporate supporting materials

Course Competency 4: Organize speech

Course Competency 5: Employ speech delivery skills

Course Competency 6: Evaluate speeches

Course Competency 7: Present an informative speech

Course Competency 8: Present a persuasive speech

Course Competency 9: Present an occasion speech

This video walks you through our online textbook hosted on the Pressbooks website and not this website. To access this book online, click below.

View Online Textbook

visibility

This textbook is part of the WisTech Open collection and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

You are free to:
– Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
– Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially

Under the following terms:
– Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to WisTech Open, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests WisTech Open endorses you or your use.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Funded by State of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Technical College System funding for Open Educational Resources

WisTech Open, including the Open RN and Bright Beginnings series, does not provide ancillary or instructor materials. You can instead create free, customized supplementary resources—slides, quizzes, worksheets, study guides, and more - on demand, through our generative AI platform, WisTech Fusion: https://www.wistechopen.org/wistech-fusion. Fusion only uses content from WisTech Open, Open RN, and Bright Beginnings resources.

To help keep print textbook costs low for our students, please consider using the electronic version, or purchasing a personal print copy, rather than requesting a publisher/desktop version from our printing partner. Orders can be placed through Kendall Hunt: https://he.kendallhunt.com/catalog.