Week 1 · Chapter

Chapter 1 — Introduction to Public Speaking & the Communication Process

Public Speaking Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 1 (explain how communication works using the course's six-element process model (source, message, channel, receiver, noise, feedback) traced to the linear, interactional, and transactional models, speak ethically — honestly, prepared, crediting sources aloud, never fabricating — and manage communication apprehension with evidence-based strategies) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slide deck, the tutorial, the quiz, and the Speech Workshop all build on it.

In plain language

Speaking to a group is something you already do, and this week gives you a way to see what is happening when it works and when it fails. You meet communication (the process of creating shared meaning between people) and a simple map of it, the six-element communication model (the six parts every exchange has: source, message, channel, receiver, noise, and feedback). You also learn what makes a speaker honest, and you learn about communication apprehension (the nervousness almost everyone feels before speaking), which is common and manageable. Last, you plan your first short speech, the icebreaker (a brief speech that introduces you to the class), and the rehearsal habit that will carry you through the whole term.

Why you already care about this

It is 8 a.m. in the lobby of a busy classroom building. A building manager leans into the lobby microphone and says: "The north lot closes at noon for repaving; please move your car to the south lot before noon." Every word is crisp and loud. A leaf blower is roaring outside the doors. One listener skipped breakfast and has a headache. Another is mouthing answers for a 9 a.m. exam. A first-year student who drove in for the first time has no idea which lot is "north." Half the room walks away without the message.

Nothing was wrong with the sentence. Something went wrong between the people. That gap, between what a speaker means and what listeners take away, is what this course is about. You have lived both sides of it: the group project where three people heard three different plans, the text that started an argument nobody intended, the toast that landed or did not.

This chapter gives you a way to see that gap and close it. It also deals honestly with the part of public speaking most people worry about first, which is the nerves.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

define communication and public speaking, and say why a crisp, well-spoken message can still fail;
name the six elements of the course's communication model on a real message and say which model each came from;
sort four kinds of noise and tell the channel from the message;
spot plagiarism and fabrication by what a speaker does, and state what an ethical speaker owes an audience;
describe communication apprehension as common and manageable, and pick strategies you will try;
plan an icebreaker in four beats and write a self-assessment that names a moment, not a feeling.

Carry this line with you: meaning is made between people, not sent in one direction.

Where we are

This week: what communication and public speaking are, the course's six-element model, the four kinds of noise, speaking ethics, nerves and how to manage them, and the icebreaker with its rehearsal loop.
How they connect: this chapter is the foundation, so there is no earlier week to lean on; every later week builds on the six elements and the rehearsal loop you start here.
Where we're going next: Week 2, Listening & Audience Analysis, turns to the receiver's side of the model: what it takes to really listen, and how to learn who your audience is before you speak.

This is the first week, so nothing earlier is assumed. You do not need any speaking experience. If you have ever explained directions to a lost visitor or given a short update at work, you have already spoken to an audience. Next week the receiver gets a whole week of its own.

1. Communication: make meaning together, not only words

Think back to the lobby. The manager said the right words, and the message still failed for half the room. So saying something is not the same as communicating it.

Communication is the process of creating shared meaning between people through words, tone, and gesture; it succeeds only when the receiver's meaning matches the source's closely enough to act on.

That definition puts the success test on the listener's side. The manager's goal was not to say a sentence. The goal was a lobby full of people who moved their cars. Every speech you give this term has a goal like that, and the words are only the start.

Public speaking is one kind of communication with its own shape.

Public speaking is a prepared, continuous message delivered by one speaker to an audience, in which the speaker carries the talk and the audience responds mostly without words.

Three words in that definition do the work. Prepared means you plan it ahead. Continuous means you hold the floor for a stretch, instead of trading lines as in a chat. Audience means a group, not one friend across a table. The lobby announcement fits all three, which is why it makes a good first example.

Compare a conversation that went wrong. Picture a group text among four friends planning a birthday dinner. One friend writes "fine, whatever works." Another reads it as agreement. A third reads it as annoyance, and within ten minutes the thread has turned into an argument. Nobody had a leaf blower outside. The words arrived perfectly, and the meaning did not. That is a communication failure with no sound problem at all.

Misconception check. Students often think that if they say something in a clear sentence, they have communicated it. That is tempting, because the clear sentence is the part you control. But communication is judged by the meaning the listener ends up with. The lobby announcement was clear and still failed for half the room. Your job as a speaker is the shared meaning, not only the sentence.

Honesty note: no speaker reaches every listener perfectly, and that is not the standard. The standard is to plan for the ways meaning gets lost, and the rest of this chapter names those ways.

Memory hook: said is not the same as shared.

2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels

To fix a message that fails, you need a map of the parts. This course uses a map with six labels, built from earlier models that communication scholars drew over about twenty years.

The six-element communication model is this course's classroom model of how communication works, built from source, message, channel, receiver, noise, and feedback; it is a simplification drawn from earlier models, not an account of every real exchange.

Here are the six, each with the question it answers:

Source — the person who has an idea and encodes it into a message, choosing the words, tone, and gestures that carry it. Who is speaking, and what did they decide to say?
Message — the content being communicated, meaning the words, tone, and gestures themselves, as distinct from the route they travel. What is being said?
Channel — the route a message travels from source to receiver, such as spoken words in a room, a microphone and speakers, a video call, or a text. How does it travel?
Receiver — the person who decodes a message and makes meaning from it, drawing on their own knowledge and background. Who is making sense of it?
Noise — anything that gets in the way of shared meaning, sorted in this course into physical, physiological, psychological, and semantic kinds. What is getting in the way?
Feedback — the receiver's verbal or nonverbal response to a message, such as a nod, a puzzled look, or a question, which the source reads and adjusts to. How is the listener reacting?

Worked example — the lobby announcement through the model. Take the 8 a.m. announcement and label each part. The message is illustrative and attributed to no one.

Source: the building manager, who encodes the news into words and decides to say it over the microphone.
Message: the north lot closes at noon; move your car to the south lot before noon.
Channel: spoken words carried through the lobby speakers. That is the route the message travels, not what it says.
Receiver: each person in the lobby who decodes the words, including the first-year student who drove in for the first time.
Noise: the leaf blower, the headache, the exam worry, and the unfamiliar word "north" (the next section sorts these four).
Feedback: three people turn toward the microphone with puzzled faces, and one calls out "Which lot is north?" The manager adds "the lot beside the gym" and repeats the time.

In words: the message failed at the noise and the receiver, and the feedback is what rescued it.

Where the six elements came from

The six labels are the course's own list, but each one comes from a model that introduced it. Here is the history in three steps, with each work named once.

The first step is the linear model, the picture of communication as a one-way path from a source through a channel to a receiver, with noise acting along the way. It comes from Claude Shannon's paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1948), written about telephone and radio signals. Shannon's own diagram runs information source, transmitter, channel, receiver, destination, with a noise source acting on the channel. The next year, Shannon and Warren Weaver's book The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949) carried that diagram into communication studies.

The second step is the interactional model, Schramm's picture of communication, which adds feedback flowing back from receiver to source and gives each communicator a field of experience. Wilbur Schramm set it out in "How Communication Works" (1954). A field of experience is the background, knowledge, and culture each communicator brings to an exchange, which shapes how a message is encoded and how it is decoded. The first-year student's field of experience did not include campus lot names, so "north" could not be decoded.

A few years later, David Berlo (1960) named four parts, source, message, channel, and receiver, in what is often called the SMCR model. It adds no new label to our list.

The third step is the transactional model, Barnlund's picture of communication, in which speaker and audience send and receive at the same time inside a shared context. Dean Barnlund described it in "A Transactional Model of Communication" (1970). It adds no element. What it changes is the timing: nobody waits their turn to be a receiver. While the manager is still talking, the puzzled faces are already sending a message back.

So the count works like this: 5 elements come from the linear model (source, message, channel, receiver, noise) and 1 comes from Schramm (feedback), so 5 + 1 = 6 elements. Barnlund adds none, and the transactional picture is the one this course lands on.

Here is the transactional picture at work in a different place. At a hospital shift change, a nurse finishing a shift briefs the nurse coming on about a person recovering from surgery (this scene is illustrative). Halfway through, the incoming nurse frowns at a medication name. The outgoing nurse sees the frown, stops, and spells the name. Both were sending and receiving the whole time, and the briefing changed while it was happening.

Misconception check. Students often think the audience is passive: the speaker talks and the listeners absorb. That is tempting, because in a public speech the audience is mostly quiet. But quiet is not the same as silent. Faces, posture, laughter, and fidgeting are feedback, and they arrive the whole time you speak. The transactional model says you are always receiving, even while you talk.

Honesty note: the six-element model is a classroom model, a simplification you can hold in one hand. Real conversations are messier than six labels. The model is useful because it tells you where to look when meaning gets lost.

Memory hook: five from the line, one from the loop.

3. Noise: sort the four kinds and tell the channel from the message

When most people hear "noise," they think of sound. In this course the word is wider. It means anything that blocks meaning, including things inside a listener's body or head.

The course sorts noise four ways:

Physical noise — a distraction in the setting, such as a leaf blower outside, a ringing phone, or a room that is too hot, that blocks the message from being received.
Physiological noise — a condition of the body, such as hunger, illness, a headache, or a racing heart, that pulls a listener's or speaker's attention away from the message.
Psychological noise — a thought or feeling, such as worry, daydreaming, or a bias, that pulls a listener's attention away from the message or bends how it is understood.
Semantic noise — a word, term, label, or accent the receiver cannot decode, so the message arrives but its meaning does not.

Worked example — sorting the lobby's noise. Each item from the 8 a.m. announcement goes in exactly one bin.

The leaf blower running outside the lobby doors is physical noise. It is in the setting.
The listener who skipped breakfast and has a headache faces physiological noise. It is in the body.
The listener rehearsing answers for a 9 a.m. exam faces psychological noise. It is in the mind.
The first-year student who does not know which lot campus maps call "north" faces semantic noise. The word arrived; its meaning did not.

That is 4 items in 4 different bins. Notice that only one of the four is a sound.

In words: three of the four kinds of noise are silent, so a quiet room does not guarantee shared meaning.

The channel is not the message

One more distinction trips people up. The channel is how a message travels; the message is what is said. If the manager had posted the same sentence on the lobby screen instead, the channel would change from spoken words to written words on a screen, and the message would stay the same. If the manager had said "The south lot closes at noon," the channel would stay the same and the message would change.

Misconception check. Students often think noise means sound only, so a quiet room is a noise-free room. That is tempting, because the everyday word means sound. But in this model, a confusing word is noise, and so is a headache or a worry. A second common slip is calling the microphone "the message." The microphone is part of the channel; the message is what the manager said into it.

Here is how this helps you as a speaker. You cannot stop every leaf blower. But you can define a term the audience may not know, which cuts semantic noise, and you can repeat the key fact once near the end, which gives a distracted listener a second chance.

Memory hook: noise is anything that blocks meaning — not only sound.

4. Ethical speaking: be honest, be prepared, and name your sources out loud

An audience gives a speaker something valuable: its attention and its trust. Ethical speaking is how you earn that trust and keep it.

Ethical speaking is speaking that is honest, prepared, respectful of the audience, and free of fabrication, with every source credited out loud.

This course anchors its ethics in the National Communication Association's Credo for Ethical Communication, the Association's statement of nine principles for ethical communication, approved in 1999. The first principle names truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication. The course names and links the Credo; the Readings & Resources page has the link, and it is worth reading in full.

For a speaker, that comes down to five habits:

Honesty: say only what you believe is true, and say how sure you are.
Preparation: an unprepared speech wastes the audience's time, which is a form of disrespect.
Crediting sources out loud: when you use someone else's words, facts, or ideas, name the source in your speech. (Week 4 teaches the full oral citation; for now, the rule is that the audience hears where it came from.)
No fabrication: never make up a fact, a quotation, or a source.
Respect for the audience: treat listeners as people who can think for themselves.

Plagiarism, described by what the speaker does

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own, such as delivering a speech someone else wrote, stitching passages together without credit, or using a quotation, paraphrase, or idea without naming its source out loud.

Notice that the definition lists actions. Plagiarism is not a mood or an intention; it is something a speaker does. Here are the three actions side by side:

delivering a speech someone else wrote, whether a friend, a website, or a chatbot, as if it were your own;
stitching together passages from several sources without crediting any of them;
using a quotation, a paraphrase, or an idea without naming where it came from, out loud.

Fabrication is a separate, more serious breach

Fabrication is making up a quotation, statistic, study, or source and presenting it as real, including passing along one a chatbot invented; it is a separate and more serious breach than plagiarism.

Plagiarism hides where real words came from. Fabrication invents words that never existed. Both break the audience's trust, but fabrication puts false information into the room.

Worked example — a community-meeting comment. Here is an illustrative case, attributed to no one. A resident preparing a two-minute comment for a neighborhood meeting about a new crosswalk asks a chatbot for "a statistic about crosswalk safety." The chatbot returns a sentence with a percentage, a study title, an author's name, and a year. The resident is about to read it aloud.

Is it plagiarism? Not yet. The problem is not missing credit; the chatbot even supplied a "source."
Is it fabrication? Possibly. Chatbots asked for statistics return citations that look complete, with an author, a title, a journal, and a year, and some of them do not exist.
What does an ethical speaker do? Look for the study itself. If the resident finds it and it says what the chatbot claimed, the resident can cite the study by name. If the resident cannot find it, the number does not get said.

In words: a chatbot is not a source, so any citation it supplies is checked at the original or dropped.

Misconception check. Students often think, "if I found it online, I can say it." That is tempting, because the information was easy to find and looked official. But finding something does not make it true, and it does not make it yours. Credit it out loud and check that it is real. Unchecked, it can turn an honest speaker into one who repeats fabrication.

Memory hook: if you did not check it, you cannot say it.

5. Communication apprehension: treat nerves as normal and use them

If your heart speeds up when you picture yourself speaking to a class, you are in very large company. Speaking nerves are common, and they are manageable.

Communication apprehension is James McCroskey's term for a person's fear or anxiety about real or anticipated communication with another person or persons; it is common and manageable, not a diagnosis.

McCroskey set out the idea in "Oral Communication Apprehension: A Summary of Recent Theory and Research" (1977). He also built the PRCA-24, McCroskey's Personal Report of Communication Apprehension, a self-report questionnaire of 24 statements; this course names it and does not grade anyone on it. You may see it mentioned elsewhere. Nothing in this course asks you to take it, and nobody's result is collected.

Notice the word anticipated in the definition. Much of the nervousness comes before the speech, while you imagine it. That is useful to know, because it means the feeling often peaks early and then eases once you start.

What helps

The course teaches seven evidence-informed strategies. You do not need all of them; try two this week and keep what works.

Prepare and practice out loud. Silent reading of your notes is not rehearsal. Saying the words aloud is.
Reframe the adrenaline as energy. A racing heart is the same body signal as excitement. Calling it energy gives it a job.
Breathe. Slow your breathing before you start; a slower breath slows the rush.
Visualize. Picture the speech going well, from the first sentence to the last.
Focus outward. Put your attention on the message and the listeners instead of on yourself.
Find friendly faces. Look for a few nodding listeners and speak to them first.
Expect the nerves to peak early. The first thirty seconds are usually the hardest, and then the feeling eases.

Worked example — two strategies before a job interview. Here is an illustrative case, attributed to no one. A job applicant feels their hands shake in the waiting room before a panel interview. They pick strategy 3 and strategy 2: four slow breaths, then a sentence to themselves, "this is my body getting ready." When the first question comes, they pick strategy 6 and answer the panel member who smiled at the start.

In words: the applicant did not wait for the nerves to go away; they gave the nerves a job.

The "feared more than death" line, corrected

You may have heard that people fear public speaking more than death. That line spreads easily, but it does not hold up. It traces to a 1973 survey that had people pick fears from a list without ranking a top fear, and to a comedian's joke that built on it. Karen Kangas Dwyer and Marlina Davidson tested the claim in "Is Public Speaking Really More Feared Than Death?" (2012). Among the college students they surveyed, public speaking was the fear most often selected, while death was most often named as the single greatest fear.

So the honest version is this: speaking nerves are very common, and they are not stronger than the fear of dying. That is good news. A common fear is a shared fear, and the people in your audience have felt it too.

Misconception check. Students often think good speakers are not nervous. That is tempting, because confident speakers look calm. But most experienced speakers do feel nerves; they have learned to channel them. Nervousness is not a sign you are bad at this. It is a sign the speech matters to you.

Caveat: if your nerves ever feel like more than speaking nerves, or they get in the way of daily life, that is worth talking about with someone you trust or with your campus support services. This course treats speaking nerves as a normal part of learning to speak and gives no medical advice.

Pause and reflect. Choose one option and jot two or three sentences.

(a) Describe a time you spoke in front of others while nervous. Which of the seven strategies would have helped most, and why?

(b) Pick two of the seven strategies you have never tried. How will you try each one before your icebreaker this week?

Memory hook: nerves are fuel — give them a job.

6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose

Your first speech this term is the icebreaker speech, a short first speech that introduces the speaker in four beats: a hook, who you are, one detail with a point, and a close.

Here is what each beat does:

A hook: an opening line that earns attention, such as a question, a surprising detail, or a short scene.
Who you are: the plain facts the audience needs to place you.
One detail with a point: one specific story or object that shows something about you, plus the sentence that says what it shows.
A close: a last line that ties back to the hook, so the audience knows you are done.

Worked example — an icebreaker in four beats. Here is an illustrative plan, attributed to no one, written as keywords the way a speaker would plan it.

Hook: "The first thing I ever fixed was a bicycle chain, and it took me three tries."
Who you are: first year here; work weekends at a bike shop; plan to study engineering.
One detail with a point: the third try worked because I slowed down and watched what the chain did. The point: I learn by taking things apart slowly.
Close: "So if you see me staring at a broken thing this term, I am on try number two."

In words: the detail does the work, and the sentence after it tells the audience why it matters.

How you will deliver it: a preview of the four methods

There are four ways to deliver a speech. Week 9 teaches them in full; for now, meet them by name.

Manuscript: reading the text word for word.
Memorized: reciting the text without notes.
Impromptu: speaking with little or no preparation.
Extemporaneous: preparing and practicing in advance, then speaking conversationally from brief notes.

Extemporaneous delivery is speaking from brief notes after careful preparation and practice, so the words come out conversationally rather than read or recited; it is this course's target method.

For the icebreaker, that means you plan the four beats, practice them aloud several times, and speak from a few keywords. You do not write out every word and memorize it.

Misconception check. Students often plan to memorize the icebreaker word for word. That is tempting, because it feels safe. But a memorized speech breaks when one word slips, and it sounds recited. Aim for extemporaneous: know the four beats cold, and let the exact words come fresh each time.

The rehearsal loop

Practice works best as a loop. The rehearsal loop is the practice cycle of recording a take, watching it, naming one specific moment to fix, and recording again.

The key word is moment. "It went okay" is a feeling. "I looked down at my card after every sentence in the first minute" is a moment. You can fix a moment.

Worked example — the first take, measured. Here is take 1 from an illustrative self-assessment table, for a six-minute speech. It describes no real student and proves nothing about a "correct" rate.

Take 1 of an illustrative delivery self-assessment for a six-minute speech: counts, the arithmetic, and the one moment to fix
Measure	Take 1	How it was found
Words spoken in 6 minutes	780	counted from the recording
Words per minute	130	780 ÷ 6 = 130
Filler words counted ("um", "like", "so")	12	counted while watching
Fillers per minute	2	12 ÷ 6 = 2
Seconds of eye contact in a 30-second sample	21	timed during one 30-second stretch
Eye contact as a percentage of the sample	70 percent	21 ÷ 30 × 100 = 70
Deliberate pauses counted	9	counted while watching
The one thing to fix	"Pause after the hook instead of racing into the central idea."	named from one moment

Walk through the arithmetic. Words per minute is the words spoken divided by the minutes: 780 ÷ 6 = 130. Fillers per minute works the same way: 12 ÷ 6 = 2. For eye contact, the speaker timed one 30-second stretch and looked up for 21 of those seconds, so 21 ÷ 30 × 100 = 70 percent of the sample. The last row is the most important one. It names one moment: right after the hook, the speaker rushed on. (The central idea is the one sentence that states your speech's message; Week 3 teaches it.)

Words per minute is a measure of speaking rate found by dividing the words spoken by the minutes taken; it describes a take and sets no correct rate.

In words: the numbers describe the take, and the last row turns them into one fix for the next take.

In practice (your tools). You need a recording tool: a phone camera or a video-call app that can record. If you would rather not be on camera, record audio only; every row except eye contact still works, and for eye contact a trusted friend can time your look-ups while you practice. Your recording stays with you. You never need to upload it or share it with anyone to complete this week's work.

The first AI-critique reflex

This term you will use a chatbot as a rehearsal coach. Here is the first thing to know about it: a chatbot cannot watch your recording. If you describe your take and it answers "Great job, very engaging! Work on your delivery," that answer names no moment. It is praise, not feedback. Feedback you can use names a moment and a fix, the way the last row of the table does. When a chatbot's answer names no moment, the judgment is yours: go back to your own recording and find the moment yourself.

Honesty note: none of the take-1 numbers is a target. A rate of 130 words per minute is not right or wrong; it is what one illustrative speaker did. Your table describes your take, nothing more.

Memory hook: a feeling is not a fix; a moment is.

Key terms

Communication — The process of creating shared meaning between people through words, tone, and gesture; it succeeds only when the receiver's meaning matches the source's closely enough to act on. (first used: 1. Communication: make meaning together, not only words)
Public speaking — A prepared, continuous message delivered by one speaker to an audience, in which the speaker carries the talk and the audience responds mostly without words. (first used: 1. Communication: make meaning together, not only words)
Six-element communication model — This course's classroom model of how communication works, built from source, message, channel, receiver, noise, and feedback; it is a simplification drawn from earlier models, not an account of every real exchange. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Source — The person who has an idea and encodes it into a message, choosing the words, tone, and gestures that carry it. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Message — The content being communicated, meaning the words, tone, and gestures themselves, as distinct from the route they travel. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Channel — The route a message travels from source to receiver, such as spoken words in a room, a microphone and speakers, a video call, or a text. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Receiver — The person who decodes a message and makes meaning from it, drawing on their own knowledge and background. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Noise — Anything that gets in the way of shared meaning, sorted in this course into physical, physiological, psychological, and semantic kinds. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Feedback — The receiver's verbal or nonverbal response to a message, such as a nod, a puzzled look, or a question, which the source reads and adjusts to. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Linear model — The picture of communication as a one-way path from a source through a channel to a receiver, with noise acting along the way, drawn from Shannon's 1948 paper and Shannon and Weaver's 1949 book. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Interactional model — Schramm's 1954 picture of communication, which adds feedback flowing back from receiver to source and gives each communicator a field of experience. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Field of experience — The background, knowledge, and culture each communicator brings to an exchange, which shapes how a message is encoded and how it is decoded. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Transactional model — Barnlund's 1970 picture of communication, in which speaker and audience send and receive at the same time inside a shared context; it adds no element and is the picture this course lands on. (first used: 2. The six-element model: map where the meaning travels)
Physical noise — A distraction in the setting, such as a leaf blower outside, a ringing phone, or a room that is too hot, that blocks the message from being received. (first used: 3. Noise: sort the four kinds and tell the channel from the message)
Physiological noise — A condition of the body, such as hunger, illness, a headache, or a racing heart, that pulls a listener's or speaker's attention away from the message. (first used: 3. Noise: sort the four kinds and tell the channel from the message)
Psychological noise — A thought or feeling, such as worry, daydreaming, or a bias, that pulls a listener's attention away from the message or bends how it is understood. (first used: 3. Noise: sort the four kinds and tell the channel from the message)
Semantic noise — A word, term, label, or accent the receiver cannot decode, so the message arrives but its meaning does not. (first used: 3. Noise: sort the four kinds and tell the channel from the message)
Ethical speaking — Speaking that is honest, prepared, respectful of the audience, and free of fabrication, with every source credited out loud. (first used: 4. Ethical speaking: be honest, be prepared, and name your sources out loud)
Credo for Ethical Communication — The National Communication Association's statement of nine principles for ethical communication, approved in 1999, which this course names and links as its ethics anchor. (first used: 4. Ethical speaking: be honest, be prepared, and name your sources out loud)
Plagiarism — Presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own, such as delivering a speech someone else wrote, stitching passages together without credit, or using a quotation, paraphrase, or idea without naming its source out loud. (first used: 4. Ethical speaking: be honest, be prepared, and name your sources out loud)
Fabrication — Making up a quotation, statistic, study, or source and presenting it as real, including passing along one a chatbot invented; it is a separate and more serious breach than plagiarism. (first used: 4. Ethical speaking: be honest, be prepared, and name your sources out loud)
Communication apprehension — James McCroskey's term for a person's fear or anxiety about real or anticipated communication with another person or persons; it is common and manageable, not a diagnosis. (first used: 5. Communication apprehension: treat nerves as normal and use them)
PRCA-24 — McCroskey's Personal Report of Communication Apprehension, a self-report questionnaire of 24 statements; this course names it and grades no one on it. (first used: 5. Communication apprehension: treat nerves as normal and use them)
Icebreaker speech — A short first speech that introduces the speaker in four beats: a hook, who you are, one detail with a point, and a close. (first used: 6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose)
Delivery methods — The four ways to deliver a speech: manuscript (reading word for word), memorized (reciting without notes), impromptu (with little or no preparation), and extemporaneous (prepared and practiced, then spoken conversationally from brief notes). (first used: 6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose)
Extemporaneous delivery — Speaking from brief notes after careful preparation and practice, so the words come out conversationally rather than read or recited; it is this course's target method. (first used: 6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose)
Rehearsal loop — The practice cycle of recording a take, watching it, naming one specific moment to fix, and recording again. (first used: 6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose)
Words per minute — A measure of speaking rate found by dividing the words spoken by the minutes taken; it describes a take and sets no correct rate. (first used: 6. The icebreaker and the rehearsal loop: plan four beats, then practice on purpose)

Summary

Communication is creating shared meaning; a crisp, well-spoken message can still fail.
Public speaking is a prepared, continuous message from one speaker to an audience.
The six elements are source, message, channel, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Five came from the linear model; feedback came from Schramm; Barnlund's transactional picture adds none.
Noise has four kinds: physical, physiological, psychological, semantic. Only one is a sound.
The channel is how a message travels; the message is what is said.
Ethical speakers are honest and prepared, credit sources out loud, and never fabricate.
Plagiarism hides where real words came from; fabrication invents words that never existed.
Speaking nerves are common and manageable; give them a job instead of waiting for them to leave.
The icebreaker has four beats; aim for extemporaneous, not memorized.
The rehearsal loop is record, watch, name one moment to fix, record again.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A youth soccer coach stands on a bench at a fundraiser car wash and announces through a cracked bullhorn, "Pizza is at the picnic tables in ten minutes." A freight train rumbles past. A younger player hears "Pizza" and runs to the parking lot. Name the channel, the message, and the kind of noise the train creates.
A volunteer practices a three-minute welcome for a food-bank open house. The recording shows 450 words spoken and 9 filler words. In one 30-second sample, the volunteer looked up for 18 seconds. Find the words per minute, the fillers per minute, and the eye contact as a percentage of the sample.
Three speakers at a library board meeting each make a mistake. Speaker A reads aloud a paragraph from a news article without saying where it came from. Speaker B quotes "a study from last year" that a chatbot described, and nobody can find the study. Speaker C gives a speech a friend wrote. Sort each as plagiarism or fabrication.
After a practice run of a wedding toast, a speaker writes in a notebook: "It went okay, I was kind of nervous." Rewrite that self-assessment so it names a moment, and name one strategy from this chapter that fits.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The channel is the coach's voice carried through the bullhorn; that is the route. The message is "Pizza is at the picnic tables in ten minutes"; that is what was said. The train is physical noise, because it is a distraction in the setting. The younger player who ran to the parking lot heard part of the message and decoded the rest wrongly, which is why repeating the key fact (the picnic tables) once more would help.
Words per minute is words divided by minutes: 450 ÷ 3 = 150. Fillers per minute is 9 ÷ 3 = 3. Eye contact as a percentage of the sample is 18 ÷ 30 × 100 = 60 percent. None of these is right or wrong; they describe one take, and the next step is to name one moment to fix.
Speaker A plagiarized: real words, used without naming the source out loud. Speaker B fabricated, or passed along fabrication: the study cannot be found, so it may not exist, and a chatbot's description is not a source. Speaker C plagiarized, by delivering a speech someone else wrote as their own. B is the most serious, because it put possibly false information into the room.
One good rewrite: "I rushed the opening line and looked at my phone during the story about the camping trip." That names two moments a listener could point to in a recording. A fitting strategy is "prepare and practice out loud": run the toast aloud three more times so the story comes without the phone. "Kind of nervous" is a feeling; a fix needs a moment.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week the receiver's side of the model gets its own week, as listening and audience analysis.

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