Week 7

Effective Speaking

• Questioning technique

Open and Closed Questions

A closed question usually receives a single word or very short, factual answer. For example, "Are you thirsty?" The answer is "Yes" or "No"; "Where do you live?" The answer is generally the name of your town or your address.

Open questions elicit longer answers. They usually begin with what, why, how. An open question asks the respondent for his or her knowledge, opinion or feelings. "Tell me" and "describe" can also be used in the same way as open questions.

Funnel Questions

This technique involves starting with general questions, and then homing in on a point in each answer, and asking more and more detail at each level. It's often used by detectives taking a statement from a witness

Probing Questions

Asking probing questions is another strategy for finding out more detail. Sometimes it's as simple as asking your respondent for an example, to help you understand a statement they have made. At other times, you need additional information for clarification, "When do you need this report by, and do you want to see a draft before I give you my final version?", or to investigate whether there is proof for what has been said, "How do you know that the new database can't be used by the sales force?"

Leading Questions

Leading questions try to lead the respondent to your way of thinking. They can do this in several ways:

• With an assumption: "How late do you think that the project will deliver?". This assumes that the project will certainly not be completed on time.
• By adding a personal appeal to agree at the end: "Lori's very efficient, don't you think?" or "Option 2 is better, isn't it?"
• Phrasing the question so that the "easiest" response is "yes" (our natural tendency to prefer to say "yes" than "no" plays an important part in the phrasing of referendum questions): "Shall we all approve Option 2?" is more likely to get a positive response than "Do you want to approve option 2 or not?". A good way of doing this is to make it personal. For example, "Would you like me to go ahead with Option 2?" rather than "Shall I choose Option 2?".
• Giving people a choice between two options, both of which you would be happy with, rather than the choice of one option or not doing anything at all. Strictly speaking, the choice of "neither" is still available when you ask "Which would you prefer of A or B", but most people will be caught up in deciding between your two preferences.

Note that leading questions tend to be closed.

Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions aren't really questions at all, in that they don't expect an answer. They're really just statements phrased in question form: "Isn't John's design work so creative?"

People use rhetorical questions because they are engaging for the listener – as they are drawn into agreeing ("Yes it is and I like working with such a creative colleague") – rather than feeling that they are being "told" something like "John is a very creative designer". (To which they may answer "So What?")

• Types of questions

Educators have traditionally classified questions according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, a hierarchy of increasingly complex intellectual skills. Bloom’s Taxonomy includes six categories:

• Knowledge – recall data or information
• Comprehension – understand meaning
• Application – use a concept in a new situation
• Analysis – separate concepts into parts; distinguish between facts and inferences
• Synthesis – combine parts to form new meaning
• Evaluation – make judgments about the value of ideas or products

• Creative, critical, factual, and interpretive questions and respond appropriately in real life conversations such as interviews and meetings

Speech Acts

• Linguistic and paralinguistic language

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context.

Paralinguistics is concerned with how words are spoken, i.e. the volume, the intonation, the speed etc.

• Voice modulation/projection

Voice projection provides clarity which is the quality of being clearly heard and easily understood; while voice modulation refers to the adjustment of the pitch or tone of voice to become enough to be clearly heard and understood by the audience.

• Persuasion and argument

Persuasion aggressively seeks to change the readers' opinion and stimulate an action based on the author's "truth." Debate and advertising are forms of persuasion

An argument influences the reader by using evidence and reasoning to express a point of view and uncover a truth for the reader. Magazine and journal articles are arguments.