Public Speaking Part 23

Cause to Effect. Explanations based on progressions from cause to effect and the reverse are admirably suited to operations, movements, changes, conditions, elections. An exposition of a manufacturing process might move from cause to effect. A legislator trying to secure the pa.s.sage of a measure might explain its operation by beginning with the law (the cause) and tracing its results (the effect). So, too, a reformer might plead for a changed condition by following the same method. A speaker dealing with history or biography might use this same plan.

Effect to Cause. In actual events, the cause always precedes the effect, but in discussion it is sometimes better not to follow natural or usual orders. Many explanations gain in clearness and effect by working backwards. A voter might begin by showing the condition of a set of workmen (an effect), then trace conditions backward until he would end with a plea for the repeal of a law (the cause). A student might explain a low mark on his report by starting with the grading (the effect) and tracing backwards all his struggles to an early absence by which he missed a necessary explanation by the teacher. A doctor might begin a report by stating the illness of several persons with typhus; then trace preceding conditions step by step until he reached the cause--oysters eaten by them in a hotel were kept cool by a dealer's letting water run over them. This water in its course had picked up the disease germs--the cause. Many crimes are solved by moving from effect to cause. A lawyer in his speeches, therefore, frequently follows this method.

Both these methods are so commonly employed that the student can cite instances from many speeches he has heard or books he has read.

Time Order. Somewhat similar to the two preceding arrangements of exposition are the next two based on time. The first of these is the natural time order, or chronological order. In this the details follow one another as events happened. It is to be noted, however, that not any group of succeeding details will make a good exposition of this sort. The parts must be closely related. They must be not merely _sequential_ but _consequential_. Dictionary definitions will explain the difference in meaning of those two words. This method is somewhat like the order from cause to effect, but it is adapted to other kinds of topics and other purposes of explanation. It is excellently suited to historical material, or any related kind. It is the device usually employed in explaining mechanical or manufacturing processes. In mere frequency of occurrence it is doubtlessly the most common.

Time Order Reversed. The student who starts to cast his expositions into this scheme should judge its fitness for his particular purpose at the time. It will often become apparent upon thought that instead of the natural chronological order the exact opposite will suit better. This--time order reversed--explains itself as the arrangement from the latest occurrence back through preceding events and details until the earliest time is reached. It is quite like the arrangement from effect back to cause. It might be used to explain the legal procedure of a state or nation, to explain treaty relations, to explain the giving up of old laws. The movements of a man accused of crime might be explained in this way. An alibi for a person might be built up thus. The various versions of some popular story told over and over again through a long period of years might be explained after such a manner.

Although the time order reversed is not so common as the chronological order it does occur many times.

Place. Certain material of exposition demands the order of place. This means that the details of the explanation are arranged according to the position of objects. If you have written many descriptions you are familiar with the problems brought up by such an order. A few ill.u.s.trations will make it clear. A man on the street asks you how to reach a certain point in the city. On what plan do you arrange your directions? According to their place? You start to explain to a friend the general lay-out of New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco. How do you arrange the details of your exposition? You attempt to convey to another person the plan of some large building. What arrangement is inevitable? How do books on sports explain the baseball field, the football gridiron, the tennis court, the golf links? When specifications for a building are furnished to the contractor, what principle of arrangement is followed? If an inventor gives instructions to a pattern-maker for the construction of a model, what plan does he follow? Would a man discussing drawings for a new house be likely to formulate his explanations on this scheme?

You see, then, how well suited such an arrangement is to a variety of uses. In such expository pa.s.sages the transition and connecting words are mainly expressions of place and relative position such as _to the right, above, below, to the rear, extending upwards at an angle of sixty degrees, dividing equally into three sections._ Such indications must never be slighted in spoken explanations. They keep the material clear and exact in the hearer's comprehension. The speaker, remember, can never a.s.sume that his audience is bound to understand him. His task is to be so clear that no single individual can fail to understand him.

Importance. It has already been stated--in the chapter on planning--that topics may be arranged in the order of their importance. This same scheme may be used in delivery of expository matter. A hearer will follow the explanation if he be led gradually up the ascent; he will remember most clearly the latter part of the pa.s.sage. If this include the prime factor of the information he will retain it longest and most clearly. You should listen to speeches of explanations critically to judge whether the plans are good. Should you make a list of the number of times any of the plans here set down appears you will be struck by the fact that while other orders are quite frequent, this last principle of leading up to the most important outranks all the others. It may be simply a form of one of the others previously enumerated in which time order, or contrast, or cause to effect is followed simply because that does bring the most important last in the discussion. Such an arrangement answers best to the response made to ideas by people in audiences. It is a principle of all attempts to instruct them, to appeal to them, to stimulate them, to move them, that the successive steps must increase in significance and impressiveness until the most moving details be laid before them. a.n.a.lyze for yourself or for the cla.s.s a few long explanations you have listened to, and report whether this principle was followed. Does it bear any relation to concluding a speech with a peroration?

Combinations of Methods. While any one of the foregoing methods may be used for a single pa.s.sage it is not usual in actual practice to find one scheme used throughout all the explanatory matter of the speech.

In the first place, the attention of the audience would very likely become wearied by the monotony of such a device. Certain parts of the material under explanation seem to require one treatment, other portions require different handling. Therefore good speakers usually combine two or more of these plans.

Part.i.tion could hardly be used throughout an entire speech without ruining its interest. It occurs usually early to map out the general field or scope. Definition also is likely to be necessary at the beginning of an explanation to start the audience with clear ideas. It may be resorted to at various times later whenever a new term is introduced with a meaning the audience may not entirely understand.

Both part.i.tion and definition are short, so they are combined with other forms. Examples, likewise, may be introduced anywhere.

The two most frequently closely combined are comparison and contrast.

Each seems to require the other. Having shown how two things or ideas are alike, the speaker naturally pa.s.ses on to secure more definiteness by showing that with all their likenesses they are not exactly the same, and that the differences are as essential to a clear comprehension of them as the similarities. So usual are they that many people accept the two words as meaning almost the same thing, though in essence they are opposites.

The other orders cannot be used in such close combinations but they may be found in varying degrees in many extended speeches of explanation as the nature of the material lends itself to one treatment or another. A twelve-hundred word discussion of _The Future of Food_ uses examples, contrasted examples, effect to cause, cause to effect (the phrase beginning a paragraph is "there is already evidence that this has resulted in a general lowering "), while the succeeding parts grow in significance until the last is the most important. A great English statesman in a speech lasting some three hours on a policy of government employed the following different methods at various places where he introduced expository material--part.i.tion (he claimed it was cla.s.sification, but he listed for consideration only three of the essential five choices), contrast, comparison, time, example, place, cause to effect. Some of these methods of arranging explanatory matter were used several times.

EXERCISES

1. Explain a topic by giving three examples. The cla.s.s should comment upon their value.

2. Explain to the cla.s.s some mechanical operation or device. The cla.s.s after listening should decide which method the speaker used.

3. Explain some principle of government or society following the time order.

4. With a similar topic follow time reversed.

5. With a similar topic use comparison only.

6. Follow an arrangement based on contrast only.

7. In explaining a topic combine comparison and contrast.

8. Explain some proverb, text, or quotation. The cla.s.s should discuss the arrangement.

9. Choose some law or government regulation. Condemn or approve it in an explanation based on cause to effect.

10. With the same or a similar topic use effect to cause.

11. Explain to the cla.s.s the plan of some large building or group of buildings. Is your explanation easily understood?

12. Explain why a certain study fits one for a particular vocation.

Use the order of importance.

13. Give an idea of two different magazines, using comparison and contrast.

14. Explain some game. Time order?

15. How is a jury trial conducted?

16. Explain the principles of some political party.

17. Speak for four minutes upon exercise in a gymnasium.

18. Tell how a school paper, or daily newspaper, or magazine is conducted.

19. What is slang?

20. Explain one of your hobbies.

21. Cla.s.sify and explain the qualities of a good speaker. Order of importance?

22. Explain some natural phenomenon.

23. Explain the best method for studying.

24. Contrast business methods.

25. From some business (as stock selling) or industry (as automobile manufacturing) or new vocation (as airplaning) or art (as acting) or accomplishment (as cooking) choose a group of special terms and explain them in a connected series of remarks.

26. Why is superst.i.tion so prevalent? The cla.s.s should discuss the explanations presented.

27. "The point that always perplexes me is this: I always feel that if all the wealth was shared out, it would be all the same again in a few years' time. No one has ever explained to me how you can get over that." Explain clearly one of the two views suggested here.

28. Explain the failure of some political movement, or the defeat of some nation.

29. Select a pa.s.sage from some book, report, or article, couched in intricate technical or specialized phraseology. Explain it clearly to the cla.s.s.

30. Ben Jonson, a friend of Shakespeare's, wrote of him, "He was not of an age, but for all time." What did he mean?

CHAPTER X

PROVING AND PERSUADING