I believe that giving facts and statistics is most effective when used in an informative or persuasive speech. Facts and statistics help you to establish credibility and are more likely to influence the opinion of your audience than sole use of narrative and personal opinions. I think they are most effectively used when interspersed throughout a speech. It is best to use a fact or statistic to reinforce something that you are saying and not to just throw out a statistic as a non sequitur or stand-alone. It is also best not to just read off a long list of statistics or facts consecutively as it can lose the interest of your audience.
Facts and statistics are best to be used sparingly or not at all during a speech to entertain. I also think that facts and statistics should usually be avoided in a short speech. If you only have a limited amount of time it is best to use that time as creatively and effectively as possible. I wouldn't say to never use a fact or statistic in a short speech, but if you do use one I think that it should be something that is easy to state very succinctly and simple for the audience to absorb. I always keep the audience in mind when writing a fact or statistic in to a speech and consider how they will react to it.
"I see it all much clearer since; far past the point of this." -Get Up Kids
Exactly, giving just straight facts and not providing a rational main idea to those wouldn't make any sense. You can't just give a list of statistic and not apply it to something. Public speaking is about conversing with the audience while establishing a connection. You have a point to speaking, something meaningful. Giving up facts, example, and statistics is just to let them know you are a trusted speaker while convincing or persuading the idea.
ReplyDeleteHi Stencil,
ReplyDeleteGreat title for this posting! Very punny!
I too agree that just spewing forth a flurry of facts or statistics gets old fast. I have heard many speeches like this through the years. I find it helpful to list all researched facts and statistics and then to weed through them choosing the ones that either seem most pertinent to the topic at hand and the most interesting to spark the listener's interest.
Yes, having facts and statistics interspersed throughout seems best. In support of the speaker's main points and to add credibility to the speaker and therefore to how the speech is received by the audience.