Week 8 · Chapter

Chapter 8 — Midterm Review & Exam

Public Speaking Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 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), Objective 2 (listen actively and critically, distinguishing hearing from listening and matching the type of listening to the situation, and analyze an audience through demographic, psychographic, and situational lenses to adapt a message's content, examples, language, and level to that audience and occasion without stereotyping), Objective 3 (choose and narrow a topic, write a general purpose, a well-formed specific purpose, and a central idea, and support the speech with credible examples, statistics, and testimony that are evaluated for credibility and cited aloud in a complete oral citation naming who, what, and when — never fabricated, never plagiarized), Objective 4 (organize a speech in a pattern that fits its purpose (chronological, spatial, topical, causal, problem–solution, Monroe's Motivated Sequence), build an introduction and a conclusion that do their jobs, and produce a preparation outline and a speaking outline that follow coordination, subordination, division, and parallelism and use transitions, signposts, internal previews, and internal summaries), Objective 5 (use clear, vivid, and appropriate language written for a listener, including ethical and inclusive language, and deliver extemporaneously with effective vocal delivery (rate, pitch, volume, pauses, articulation, vocal variety) and physical delivery (eye contact, gestures, movement, posture, facial expression), distinguishing the four delivery methods) · Read it early this week, before the practice set and the discussion and well before the midterm.

In plain language

This week you look back at Weeks 1 to 7 and see how the first half of the course fits together. Most slips a new speaker makes are a swapped pair (two neighboring ideas traded for each other, such as a specific purpose and a central idea). So this review gives each week one distinction to hold onto, seven in all, and one quick test for each. You also learn one new idea, the five canons of rhetoric (an old way of dividing a speaker's work into five jobs), which works as a map of the whole course. Then you take the midterm.

Why you already care about this

A classmate is rehearsing a five-minute talk on campus bike parking for a lab group, and you are the audience of one. The talk opens with "My specific purpose is to inform you about bike parking." Then the classmate reads a full page of typed sentences, eyes down. Near the end comes "studies show," followed by a number. The scene is illustrative and attributed to no one, but you have seen a version of it.

Count what went wrong. There are 3 slips, and none of them is a deep misunderstanding. The opening line said the specific purpose out loud where the central idea belongs. The page was a preparation outline where a speaking outline belongs. And "studies show" sat where an oral citation belongs. Each slip trades one half of a pair for the other half.

That is good news, because a swap has a quick cure. You name the one distinction between the two halves, then test your sentence against it. Weeks 1 to 7 each taught a pair like that. This chapter gives you the test for each one, run on an example you already know. Then it hands you the map that ties the weeks together.

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

tell a message's channel from the message itself, and sort noise four ways;
tell hearing from listening, and a tendency from a stereotype;
tell a general purpose, a specific purpose, and a central idea apart, and fix a topic written as a purpose;
tell expert from lay testimony, and complete an oral citation that names who, what, and when;
match an organizational pattern to its use, and name the introduction's four functions and the conclusion's three jobs;
tell a preparation outline from a speaking outline, and a transition from a signpost;
tell oral style from written style, and name a device on its verified fragment;
place each week of the course on the five canons of rhetoric.

Carry this line with you: name the pair; then test one sentence at a time.

Where we are

Already covered: Weeks 1 to 7: the communication process and the nerves, listening and the audience, purpose and central idea, research and the oral citation, organizing, outlining, and language.
This week: a review of those seven weeks built on seven distinctions, one new map (the five canons of rhetoric), and the midterm.
How they connect: each week added one pair to keep apart, and the canons show that the pairs were steps in one workflow.
Where we're going next: Week 9, Delivery & the Modes of Delivery, opens the second half, where the last two canons, memory and delivery, take over.

Here is what each week gave you. Week 1 built the six-element model and the transactional picture. Week 2 turned you from listener to analyst of an audience. Week 3 gave the running speech its purpose and its message, and Week 4 gave it proof you can say out loud. Week 5 chose its shape, Week 6 put it on paper twice, and Week 7 rewrote its sentences for the ear. If a test below feels shaky, go back to that week's chapter before the midterm.

1. Channel versus message: keep the route apart from the content

You get the same news from a friend twice: once in a text and once in a voice memo. The words are almost the same. What changed is how they reached you. That is the first swap the course warned you about.

Week 1's distinction is the load-bearing one. A swapped pair is two neighboring ideas that a speaker trades for each other, such as a specific purpose and a central idea or a transition and a signpost; the cure is to name the one distinction between the two halves and test the sentence against it. Channel and message are the first pair:

The message is the content being communicated, meaning the words, tone, and gestures themselves, as distinct from the route they travel.
The channel is 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.

The test is one question each. What is being said? That is the message. How does it travel? That is the channel.

Worked example — the lobby announcement again. In Week 1, a building manager spoke into the lobby microphone of a busy classroom building at 8 a.m. The scene is illustrative and attributed to no one.

Name the message: the north lot closes at noon, so drivers should move their cars to the south lot before noon.
Name the channel: spoken words carried through the lobby speakers. You keep the route apart from the content.
Count the model: 5 elements come from the linear model and 1 from Schramm, so 5 + 1 = 6 elements: source, message, channel, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Sort the noise 4 ways: a leaf blower outside (physical), a headache (physiological), a listener rehearsing for an exam (psychological), and not knowing which lot is "north" (semantic).
Find the feedback: a listener calls out "Which lot is north?", and the manager adds "the lot beside the gym." The listeners changed the message while it was being sent. That is the transactional picture the course lands on.

In words: the channel is how the message travels and the message is what it says, and noise is anything that blocks shared meaning, not only sound.

Misconception check. Students often treat the channel and the message as one thing, because a text "is" its words. That is tempting, since you never see the route apart from the content. But the same message can travel through a lobby speaker, a sign, or an email, and each route brings its own noise. A second swap reads noise as sound only. "North" was semantic noise; the room could have been silent and the message would still have failed. The cure is to ask the two questions separately: what is said, and how does it travel?

Memory hook: the route is not the content.

2. Hearing versus listening: choose to take it in

A television plays in the background while you cook. You could repeat none of what it said. The sound reached you, and the meaning never did.

Week 2 named that gap:

Hearing is the physical, automatic process of sound waves reaching the ears and the brain registering them; it happens whether or not a person pays attention.
Listening is the mental, deliberate process of paying attention to a message, making sense of it, responding to it, and remembering it; unlike hearing, it is a choice.

The test: did the person only receive the sound, or did they choose to attend? Hearing covers only the first stage of the listening process. Attending, understanding, responding, and remembering are all choices.

Week 2 then turned you around to face an audience. Its second pair is tendency versus stereotype. Audience analysis reads a group through 3 lenses (demographic, psychographic, and situational) and looks for tendencies across the group. Stereotyping is pinning a trait on a person, or on every member of a group, because of a group they belong to.

Worked example — the first-year seminar again. The running speech's audience is a first-year seminar of about 30 students who all eat in the campus dining hall. The audience and the listener are illustrative.

Find the hearing: the words "plate waste" reach a listener's ears over the projector fan. That is receiving, the only stage hearing covers.
Find the listening: she turns her phone face down to attend. From there, every stage is a choice she makes.
Read a tendency: "Most first-year students are new to the dining hall's routines" is a tendency across the group, worth checking by asking a few classmates.
Read a stereotype: "This audience does not care about waste" pins a trait on everyone with no evidence. That is stereotyping, not analysis.

In words: hearing happens to you and listening is something you do, and audience analysis checks a tendency before it trusts it.

Misconception check. Students often think a listener who heard every word was listening. That is tempting, because a nodding face looks like attention. But Week 2's roommate nodded and then asked a question you had already answered. A second swap treats audience analysis as stereotyping, as if any statement about a group were unfair. The cure for both is the same habit: check. Ask a listener to restate the point, and ask a few audience members before you trust a tendency.

Memory hook: hearing arrives; listening chooses.

3. Specific purpose versus central idea: plan it, then say it

You plan a road trip. On your own list you write "To get the group to the coast by sunset." To your friends in the car you say, "We're taking the scenic road, stopping once for lunch, and parking by the pier." The first sentence is your goal. The second is what you tell people.

Week 3 drew that line, and the course says it is the distinction that earns or loses the most all term. Three levels sit on top of each other:

A general purpose is the broad aim of a speech, chosen from three: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain or mark an occasion.
A specific purpose is one audience-centered goal for a speech, written as an infinitive phrase such as "To inform my audience about…"; it is a planning tool the speaker writes down but does not read aloud word for word.
A central idea is one complete declarative sentence that states a speech's message, the thing the audience should walk away knowing or believing; the speaker says it aloud near the end of the introduction.

The test: is it an infinitive phrase about your goal, or a declarative sentence that states your message? The first stays on your planning page. The second is spoken.

Worked example — the running speech's two sentences. The running speech is illustrative and has no named speaker.

General purpose: to inform.
Specific purpose: "To inform my audience about how our campus dining hall handles its plate waste."
Central idea: "A dining hall's plate waste is measured by weighing what comes back on plates, targeted by changing how food is served, and diverted through donation and composting."
Count the checks: the specific purpose passes 4 tests (one idea; an infinitive phrase; audience-centered; achievable in the time), and the central idea passes 3 checks (declarative; states the message; plain language). That makes 4 + 3 = 7 checks.
Fix the swap from the outline-error set, item 5: "Food waste in the dining hall." is a topic written where a specific purpose belongs. It becomes "To inform my audience about how our campus dining hall handles its plate waste."

In words: your specific purpose is the goal you plan from, and your central idea is the message you say. The hook's classmate said the goal out loud and never said the message.

Misconception check. Students often treat the specific purpose and the central idea as the same sentence written twice. That is tempting, because both are about the same speech. But one is an infinitive phrase that names your goal, and the other is a declarative sentence that states your message. A second swap writes the central idea as a question. "What happens to the food we leave on our plates?" can open a speech as a hook, but a thesis asserts and a question asks.

Memory hook: plan the goal; say the message.

4. Expert versus lay testimony, and the complete oral citation

Two people tell you about a new crosswalk. One stood at the corner every school morning for years. The other wrote the traffic study. Both are worth hearing, but for different things.

Week 4 named two pairs. The first is about the kind of witness:

Expert testimony is testimony from a person qualified in the field the claim belongs to, such as a researcher reporting a study's findings.
Lay testimony is testimony from an ordinary witness speaking from firsthand experience of an event or a place, valuable for what it was like but not for expert judgment.

The second pair is about how you say where evidence came from. An oral citation is a spoken credit, placed in the sentence before the evidence, that names who produced the source (with one clause on why they are credible), what the source is (its title or venue), and when it appeared. "Studies show" names none of the three.

Worked example — one witness of each kind, and one complete citation. The crossing guard is illustrative; the citation comes from the course's mini-source set.

Expert testimony: researchers Wenhao Zhang and Junehee Kwon, reporting their own study of trays in a university dining hall. They are qualified in the field the claim belongs to.
Lay testimony: a crossing guard describing what happens at the corner every school morning. The guard is a firsthand witness, not a judge of traffic engineering.
A complete oral citation: "As Associated Press reporter Dee-Ann Durbin wrote for PBS News in 2022, about 35 percent of the food available in the United States in 2019 went unsold or uneaten, according to ReFED, a group that studies food waste."
Find the three parts: who is the reporter and her wire service; what is PBS News; when is the year. All three come before the evidence.
Count the running speech's parts: 3 citations × 3 parts = 9 parts named. The part that most often goes missing is when.

In words: expert testimony judges and lay testimony describes, and a complete oral citation lets your listener check the source before they hear the number. Honesty note: the figure inside the citation belongs to the source; the course reads it in words and never keys it.

Misconception check. Students often think "studies show" counts as a citation because it points at research. That is tempting, since it sounds careful. But a listener cannot ask "which study?" in the middle of your speech, and the hook's classmate could not have answered. A second swap treats any quoted person as an expert. A classmate's view on trays is lay testimony about eating there, not evidence about food-waste research. And a third: a chatbot's citation is not a source. Find it at the original or drop it.

Memory hook: who, what, when — before the number.

5. Pattern to use: let the purpose pick the shape

Someone gives you directions by naming every landmark in a random order. Each fact is right, and you are still lost. The order of ideas is part of the message.

Week 5 asked you to match a shape to its job. An organizational pattern is the logic a speaker uses to order the main points; this course names six: chronological, spatial, topical, causal, problem–solution, and Monroe's Motivated Sequence. Conventions differ, and many treatments add others, so the count is this course's choice.

The test is the decision logic, in three steps: name the purpose, ask which logic fits the audience's question, then pick the pattern. Around the body sit the doors. The introduction gains attention, reveals the topic with the central idea near its end, establishes credibility, and previews the main points. The conclusion signals the end, summarizes and reinforces, and lands a memorable clincher.

Worked example — the running speech's shape. The speech is illustrative and has no named speaker.

Name the purpose: to inform, so the pattern must teach and must not ask anyone to act.
Ask which logic fits: the audience's question is "how is it handled?", and the central idea already names 3 kinds of handling.
Pick the pattern: topical, with 3 main points (measure, target, divert).
Set one aside: the chronological version follows a tray from the serving line to the bin. It is set aside, not wrong, because the audience did not ask "what happens first?"
Rule out a near neighbor: Monroe's Motivated Sequence has 5 steps and ends in action, and problem–solution has 2 parts. Neither fits a speech that asks for no action.
Count the doors: 4 introduction functions + 3 conclusion jobs = 7 door sentences around the body.

In words: the purpose picks the pattern, and the doors frame a body you built first.

Misconception check. Students often think "In conclusion" is the clincher. That is tempting, because it is the last phrase most speakers plan. But it is the signal, the first of the conclusion's three jobs. The clincher is the final line: "Every plate that comes back full was a choice somebody made — and every one of those choices can be measured." A second swap reaches for Monroe's sequence in an informative speech. The sequence is built for a call to action.

Memory hook: purpose first, then pattern.

6. Preparation outline versus speaking outline, and transition versus signpost

A friend stands to give a toast holding a full typed page, and the room drifts. Another speaker glances at one card of five words and talks to the room. Same speech, different paper.

Week 6 gave you two pairs. The first is about the paper:

A preparation outline is the finished, full-sentence plan of a speech, with every connective written out and every oral citation written in where its evidence appears; it is used to build and check the speech and is never taken to the lectern.
A speaking outline is the brief guide a speaker holds while delivering a speech: keywords and short phrases on cards, one card per section, plus any exact words that must be said exactly, such as the central idea or the clincher.

The second pair is about the bridges:

A transition is a connective that bridges two main points by naming the point the speaker is leaving and the point the speaker is entering.
A signpost is a short marker, such as "first," "second," or "finally," that tells listeners where they are in a speech without explaining how the ideas relate.

Worked example — two outlines and the error set. The outline items are illustrative.

Count the preparation outline: 3 main points and 6 subpoints, so 3 + 6 = 9 lines in the symbol system, with every connective and every oral citation written in.
Count the speaking outline: 1 introduction card + 3 main-point cards + 1 conclusion card = 5 cards.
Run the rules on item 1: "II. The scale sits at the dish-return window." was promoted to a main point. That breaks coordination, because the scale's location supports point I.
Run the rules on item 2: "II. Removing trays cuts how much food diners take." restates point I from inside it. That breaks subordination. A lone subpoint, a single A with no B, would break division.
Fix item 3 with a transition: "Reducing waste is half the job; the other half is where the food that still comes back goes — which brings us to donation and composting." It names both sides.
Fix item 4's signpost: "Also, composting." becomes "Second, and separate from donation, the dining hall composts what cannot be donated." The signpost marks the place, and the rest of the sentence names the relationship.

In words: you build on the preparation outline and speak from the cards, and a transition names both sides while a signpost marks only where you are.

Misconception check. Students often take the preparation outline to the lectern "to be safe." That is tempting, because every sentence is already there. But a full page invites you to read it, and reading breaks contact with the room, as the hook's classmate showed. A second swap treats a transition and a signpost as the same device. "Finally" tells listeners where they are; a transition tells them where they have been and where they are going.

Memory hook: build on sentences; speak from keywords.

7. Oral style versus written style: write for the ear

Read a company memo aloud to a room, and watch the room stop moving. Say the same thing in a few plain words, and people act. Week 7 explained why.

Oral style is language built to be heard once rather than read: shorter sentences, more repetition, heavier signposting, first and second person, familiar concrete words, and rhythm built in, because a listener cannot go back and re-read.
Written style is language built for a reader who can slow down, skip back, and re-read, so it tolerates longer sentences, less repetition, and more abstract wording than a listener can follow.

The test is the read-aloud test: say the sentence out loud before you keep it. Week 7 also named 6 devices of vivid language: metaphor, simile, parallelism, anaphora, antithesis, and alliteration. This week you name each one on its verified fragment and move on. The analysis is of craft, never of whether you agree with the speaker.

Worked example — the flat-to-oral pair and three named fragments. The pair is illustrative; the fragments are copied from the pinned transcripts.

Count the pair: the flat sentence holds 21 words, and the oral version's sentences average 12 words. So each oral sentence runs 21 − 12 = 9 words shorter, and "No one tells you" adds anaphora.
Name an antithesis: "ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country," from Kennedy's inaugural address (1961). The library's transcript prints the dash as two hyphens, and the course keeps it.
Name a metaphor: "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans," from the same address.
Name an anaphora: Roosevelt's address to Congress (1941) opens sentence after sentence with "Last night."

In words: oral style is planned for the ear, and you name a device on the words the transcript prints, never on a line as you remember it.

Misconception check. Students often think a good speech is a good essay read aloud. That is tempting, because the essay already exists. But an essay is built for the eye, and read aloud it flattens. A second swap names a device on a remembered line. Many people remember Roosevelt's phrase as "a day that will live in infamy," and the transcript says "a date which will live in infamy." Check the transcript first.

Memory hook: write for the ear; check the transcript.

8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow

Think about cooking a meal for friends. First you decide what to make and shop for it. Then you plan the order of the courses. Then you season and plate each dish. Then you get the timing in your head, and finally you serve it. Five jobs, in an order, and skipping one shows on the table.

Speakers have divided their work that way for a very long time. The five canons of rhetoric are the Roman rhetorical tradition's division of a speaker's work into five parts, invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, set out in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium and in Cicero's De Inventione; this course uses them as a map of its own sequence. The Rhetorica ad Herennium dates from the first century BCE and was once credited to Cicero. This course quotes nothing from either work. Here are the five, in order:

Invention is the first canon of rhetoric: finding what to say, including the topic, the purpose, the central idea, and the evidence that supports it.
Arrangement is the second canon of rhetoric: putting a speech's material in an order a listener can follow, through main points, an organizational pattern, and an outline.
Style is the third canon of rhetoric: choosing the words and sentences that carry a speech's ideas to a listener, which in this course means oral style, clarity, vividness, and appropriateness.
Memory is the fourth canon of rhetoric: holding a prepared speech in mind so it is ready when the speaker stands up, which in this course means rehearsing from a speaking outline rather than memorizing the words.
Delivery is the fifth canon of rhetoric: presenting a prepared speech to an audience through the speaker's voice and body.

Worked example — the course on the map. The running speech is illustrative; the map is the pack's.

Place the weeks: invention covers Weeks 3 and 4, arrangement covers Weeks 5 and 6, and style covers Week 7. That is 2 + 2 + 1 = 5 weeks of canon work so far.
Place the rest: memory and delivery cover Weeks 9 to 15. Weeks 1 and 2, the process and the audience, are the ground every canon stands on.
Count what is left: of 5 canons, the course has walked 3, so 5 − 3 = 2 remain: memory and delivery.
Lay the running speech on the map: invention gave it a specific purpose, a central idea, and 3 oral citations. Arrangement gave it a topical pattern, a preparation outline, and 5 cards. Style changed "the dining hall's shameful waste" to "the dining hall's plate waste." Memory and delivery are the rehearsal from those 5 cards that the second half teaches.

In words: the canons turn a list of weeks into one workflow. You found it, you ordered it, you worded it, and next you rehearse it and deliver it.

Check the chatbot's history

A chatbot can help you review, but it is routinely wrong about sources. Worked example — a misattribution caught. The exchange is illustrative and names no product. You ask, "Where do the five canons of rhetoric come from?" The chatbot answers that Aristotle set out all five in the Rhetoric.

Check it against the course's sources: the canons come from the Roman tradition, in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero's De Inventione.
Count the slip: the chatbot made 1 misattribution, delivered with full confidence.
Fix it: verify the source before you repeat it, the same habit Week 4 taught for a statistic.

Caveat: the canons are a classroom model, like the six-element model and the six patterns. Real speakers loop back; you may find new evidence while you outline. The map shows the jobs, not a rule that you finish one before you touch the next.

Misconception check. Students often hear "memory" and think the course now wants speeches memorized word for word. That is tempting, because the old name says memory. But in this course memory means rehearsing from a speaking outline until the ideas and their order come easily. Week 1 already named extemporaneous delivery as the target, and Week 9 takes it up in full. A second swap treats style as decoration added at the end. Style is the canon where a listener's first hearing is won or lost.

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

(a) Which canon has been hardest for you so far: invention, arrangement, or style? Name one moment in your own speech work that shows it.

(b) Which week's swapped pair do you expect the midterm to catch you on, and what is the one test you will run when you see it?

Memory hook: find it, order it, word it, then rehearse and deliver it.

The midterm covers Objectives 1 to 4 and the language half of Objective 5 as taught in Weeks 1 to 7. You take it on your own, without AI. Read each item for the swapped pair it tests.

Key terms

Swapped pair — Two neighboring ideas that a speaker trades for each other, such as a specific purpose and a central idea or a transition and a signpost; the cure is to name the one distinction between the two halves and test the sentence against it. (first used: 1. Channel versus message: keep the route apart from the content)
Five canons of rhetoric — The Roman rhetorical tradition's division of a speaker's work into five parts, invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, set out in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium and in Cicero's De Inventione; this course uses them as a map of its own sequence. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)
Invention — The first canon of rhetoric: finding what to say, including the topic, the purpose, the central idea, and the evidence that supports it. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)
Arrangement — The second canon of rhetoric: putting a speech's material in an order a listener can follow, through main points, an organizational pattern, and an outline. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)
Style — The third canon of rhetoric: choosing the words and sentences that carry a speech's ideas to a listener, which in this course means oral style, clarity, vividness, and appropriateness. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)
Memory — The fourth canon of rhetoric: holding a prepared speech in mind so it is ready when the speaker stands up, which in this course means rehearsing from a speaking outline rather than memorizing the words. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)
Delivery — The fifth canon of rhetoric: presenting a prepared speech to an audience through the speaker's voice and body. (first used: 8. The five canons of rhetoric: map the whole workflow)

Summary

Most slips are a swapped pair; name the distinction and test one sentence at a time.
The channel is how a message travels; the message is what it says.
Noise comes in four kinds, and feedback makes communication transactional.
Hearing arrives on its own; listening is a choice.
Audience analysis finds tendencies and checks them; stereotyping pins a trait on a person.
A specific purpose is the goal you plan from; a central idea is the message you say.
Expert testimony judges; lay testimony describes what it was like.
A complete oral citation names who, what, and when before the evidence; "studies show" names no one.
The purpose picks the pattern; the introduction has four functions and the conclusion three jobs.
Build on the preparation outline; speak from the cards.
A transition names both sides; a signpost marks only the place.
Oral style is built for the ear; name a device on the transcript's words.
The five canons are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

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.

At a street fair, a volunteer announces over a loudspeaker that the face-painting tent has moved beside the fountain. A generator hums nearby, and a parent in the crowd does not know which fountain is meant. Name the message, the channel, and the kind of noise in each problem.
At a neighborhood meeting about a new bus shelter, a speaker says, "Studies show that riders feel safer with lighting." Name what the sentence is missing, and say what the speaker should do if the study cannot be found.
A bike-shop employee drafts an outline for a training talk to new staff: "I. Check every rental bike before it leaves. A. Test both brakes at the counter. II. Fit the helmet to each rider." Then, before point II, the draft says "Also, helmets." Which outlining rule does the draft break, and what is wrong with "Also, helmets."?
Sort each step a debate-club member takes into one of the five canons: (a) finds two credible sources on a later library closing; (b) chooses a problem–solution pattern; (c) changes "utilize" to "use" in the opening; (d) rehearses from three keyword cards until the order comes easily; (e) practices looking up from the cards and slowing down at the close.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The message is that the face-painting tent has moved beside the fountain. The channel is the loudspeaker carrying spoken words. The generator's hum is physical noise, and the parent not knowing which fountain is meant is semantic noise. The test is the Week 1 pair: what is said versus how it travels. A sign at the old tent would carry the same message through a different channel.
The sentence names no who, no what, and no when, so listeners cannot judge or check it. A complete oral citation would name the author or organization with a credibility clause, the title or venue, and the date, all before the claim. If the study cannot be found at the original, the speaker drops the claim. Inventing a citation to fill the gap would be fabrication.
The draft breaks division: point I has an A with no B, a lone subpoint. The fix is to fold the A into point I or find a real second subpoint, such as checking the tire pressure. "Also, helmets." is a signpost that names no relationship. A better connective names both sides, such as a transition from checking the bike to fitting the rider.
(a) is invention: finding what to say and the evidence for it. (b) is arrangement: putting the material in order. (c) is style: choosing a plainer word for the ear. (d) is memory: holding the speech in mind by rehearsing from keywords, not by memorizing words. (e) is delivery: voice and body in front of an audience. Each step belongs to one canon, which is why the canons work as a map of the workflow.

Next up in this module: the lecture, the slide deck, the Readings & Resources page, the practice set, the discussion, and the midterm — and next week, in Delivery & the Modes of Delivery, the canons model hands the speech to memory and delivery.

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