The expository section ­ Part 3
By Debbie Harris, Contributor

IN NOVEMBER, I gave you some ideas as to how to firstly, select your topic, secondly narrow it through various pre-writing strategies and thirdly, how to critically evaluate information sources as you prepare for your speech. This week, I will be looking at the actual presentation of the speech.

The speech is a 10-minute oral presentation in which you will speak on the topic of your choice, so although you are allowed to use a cue card in the examination you ought not to write a complete speech and read it to the oral examiner(s). Indeed, it is a prepared speech and therefore you might want to write it in its entirety a few weeks before you make the actual presentation in order to ensure that it is coherent and has met all the criteria which you have been given in the syllabus. (It is imperative that you use the marking criteria set out on page 30 and 31 in the syllabus while you are preparing the speech.)

Students, although it is not a written speech you must ensure that the three basic components of introduction, body and conclusion are present and functional. In the introduction, you ought to provide a rationale, that is, you must explain your topic and give a reason for your personal interest in the topic. How do you explain your topic? You do so by defining important variables (key words/phrases) in it, putting it into its context and identifying the perspective from which you will be speaking. Your interest in a topic can be sparked or prompted by something you read somewhere, heard and saw on the television, from a hobby or a testimonial (a life-changing experience). Whatever it is it must be clearly and directly linked to the explanation you give for your topic. If you can master this you will be awarded two marks.

DISCUSSING THE ISSUES

The next task is to discuss the issues which were raised during your research as well as the challenges you experienced while doing so. Now, this simply means that those varying opinions and contradictions regarding your topic which you encountered during your research are to be discussed, for example, if your topic is 'The extent to which crime and violence affect the development of tourism in Jamaica' you might have the following issues being raised: 'Tourists have little or no criminal and violent experiences while vacationing in Jamaica' or 'With or without crime and violence the development of tourism in Jamaica must be pursued'. The challenges may and may not be physical, such as the constant ringing of a telephone during an interview. Another challenge may also be the difficulty of sourcing current information.

PRESENTING YOUR SPEECH

In presenting your speech, you must not spend all your time just describing the issues and challenges as this will not earn you maximum marks. You must conduct your evaluation of the information you gleaned.

In evaluating 'the effect of source, context and medium/channel on the reliability and validity of information gathered', you are just being asked to make some judgement when analysing the data you collected as to whether the content, the channel and sources are valid and reliable. Here, the emphasis is on truth, trustworthiness, acceptability and soundness of the information you gathered (found). Validity of information obtained from a source refers to whether the information is sound, logical, incontestable and based on good judgement, reasoning and evidence. In addition, it may refer to whether the information is worthy of belief or acceptance because of precision or faithfulness to an authentic source. Validity of information refers to truth; whether each statement in an argument is factually accurate and leads logically to the conclusion. In checking validity in this context, you must ask yourself if there is any uninformed bias in the information, then, is the information based on known, sufficient and representative facts and is there any untested traditional knowledge?

RELIABILITY

Reliability refers to how accurately and consistently a research instrument performs by measuring the factors for which it was designed. Therefore, if the sample responding to the instrument, for example, a questionnaire varies in it's responses and there is a change over time in the phenomenon being measured then the measurement instrument may prove unreliable.

CONCLUSION

Finally, your conclusion is just as integral as the other components. This is where you bring an end to the discussion and give your opinion, which is now an informed one; that is one where you use facts to support your view, one where the premise logically leads to it. Do not introduce any 'new' points or ideas at this point as it might confuse your audience and result in your previous argument being inadequate and inconsistent. I must quickly address the areas of expression and non-verbal behaviour and paralinguistic control. Both attract six marks each, like the body of the speech does, so you should place as much emphasis on mastering the relevant skills. You have to break bad habits of using words and phrases such as 'You know!', 'Right!', 'You understand?', 'Okay?' Also, you have to desist from using 'Ahmm' if you practise to do so. Remember that your posture and gesticulation have to enhance what you say and a good voice quality is necessary. Please, please maintain eye contact with the examiner. If you are anxious and nervous about giving speeches, begin preparing this speech section early and ask some of your close friends to listen to it ­ this should get you used to the idea of having an audience.

All the best with this internal assessment. Until next week, walk good!

Here are the answers for last week's exercise:

(a) ritual
(b) communicative
(c) expressive
(d) expressive
(e) communicative