the importance of ethics in public speaking the guidelines for ethical speaking

1. ETHICS in PUBLIC SPEAKING

3. • In public speaking, as in other areas of life,
there are standarts for ethical conduct.
• The goal of the public speaking is to gain a
desired response from listeners.
• Speechmaking is a form of power and
therefore carries with it heavy ethical
responsibilities.

4. The Importance of Ethics
• Ethics is the branch of philosopy that deals
with issues of right and wrong in human
affairs.
• Questions of ethics arise whenever we ask
whether a course of action is moral or
immoral, fair or unfair, just or unjust, honest
or dishonest.

5. • Question of ethics also come into whenever
public speker faces an audience.
• “In an ideal world, all public speakers would
be truthful and devoted to the good of
society.” Plato
However ;
• We are unfortunately living in a real world, but
not in an ideal world. Therefore, along with
this, history and experiences tell us the power
of speech is often abused- sometimes with
disastrous results.

6. GUIDELINES FOR ETHICAL SPEAKING
• “We should formulate meaningful ethical
guidelines, not inflexible rules.”
Richard Johannesen
• Your ethical decisions will guided by your
values, conscience, sense of wright and
wrong.
However;

7. • This does not mean such decisions are simply
a matter of personal whim or fancy.
• Sound ethical decisons involve weighing a
potential course of action against a set of
ethical standarts or guidelines.
• By the way, these guidelines will not
automatically solve every ethical dilemma you
face as a speaker, but knowing them will
provide a reliable compass to help you find
your way.

9. GUIDELINES FOR ETHICAL SPEAKING
Make Sure Your Goals are Ethically Sound
Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
Be Honest in What You Say
Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms of
Abusive Language

10. Make Sure Your Goals are Ethically
Sound
• Consider why you're speaking. Are you trying
to persuade your audience to adopt a certain
viewpoint or consider a new idea? If so, you'll
want to make sure that you lead your
audience to that belief point in an ethical
manner. Don't use tactics like intimidation.

12. Make Sure Your Goals are Ethically
Sound
• Additionally, have the responsibility and
professionalism to know whether or not you
have a conflict of interest on a given topic or
with a certain audience or venue.
• Recuse yourself--provide your audience with a
full disclosure of conflict of interest, and
adjust your speech accordingly.

14. Make Sure Your Goals are Ethically
Sound
• ex: Adolf Hither was unquestionably a persuasive
speaker. His oratory/addressing activated the
German people to follow him as an ideal and a
leader person. But his aims were horrifying and
his tactics despicable. He stirred the German
people to condane war, invasion and genocide..

15. Make Sure Your Goals are Ethically
Sound
• Therefore; He remains to this day the ultimate
example of why the power of the soken word
needs to guided by a strong sense of ethical
integrity.

16. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• “A speech is a solemn resonsibility.”
Jenkin Lyod Jones

17. • Effective speakers are those who take the time to
fully prepare their speeches, from the speech
writing process to the delivery of the speech to
the very clothes they wear for the speech. If you
don't prepare, it will show and ultimately affect
your credibility/reliability as a speaker to your
audience and colleagues.
Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech

18. • Respect your audience by taking thorough
time to write, edit, review and rehearse your
speech before presenting.
Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech

19. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• Good preparation is an ethical requirement
as well as a practical one. Your audience has
given you time and an opportunity, and
audience members deserve to hear your best
effort.

20. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• You have an obligation- to yourself and to your
audience- to prepare fully every time you stand in
front of an audience. To yourself, because the
better you prepare, the better your speech will
be.
• To your listeners, because a bad 30-minute
speech to an audience of 200 people wastes only
half an hour of the speaker but the speaker
wastes 100 hours of the audience’s time- more
than four full days.

21. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• “This should be a hanging offense!!!”

22. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• Being prepared for a speech involves
everything from analyzing your audience to
creating visual adis, from organizing your ideas
to rehearsing your delivery. But the most
crucial one from an ethical standpoint is being
fully informed about your subject.

23. Be Fully Prepared for Each Speech
• No matter what the topic or the audience, you
need to explore your speech topic as thoroughly
as possible. Investigate the whole story, learn
about all sides of an issue, seek out competing
viewpoints, get the facts right. Not only will you
give a better speech, you will also fulfill one of
your major ethical obligations.

25. Be Honest in What You Say!
• Nothing is more to ethical speaking than
honesty.

26. Be Honest in What You Say!
• Honesty is an extension of the ethical goals of
your speech. Don't resort to falsehoods or
opinions presented as facts to make your case.
Come from a place of authenticity instead of
deception. Your credibility can become
damaged when it is revealed you have either
lied or even just slightly bent the truth in your
speeches.

27. Be Honest in What You Say!
• Public speaking rets on the unspoken
assumption that “words can be trusted and
people will be truthful.”
• Without this assumption, there is no basis for
communication, no reason for one person to
believe anything that another person says.

28. Be Honest in What You Say!
• Once the bond of the trust between a speaker
and listener is broken, it can never be fully
restored.

29. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• Name-calling is the use of language to defame
(karalamak,itibarsızlaştırmak), demean (küçük
düşürmek) or degrade (aşağılamak) individuals
or groups.

31. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• One writer explains: “Our identities, who and
what we are, how others see us, are greatly
affected by the names we are called and the
words with which we are labeled.”

33. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• When applied to ethnic and religious groups in
America, for example, it includes such epithets
as “kike” for Jewish, “nigger” for African,
“wop” for Italian, “jop” for Japanese, “chink”
for Chinese and “spic” for Hispanic ancestry.

34. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• This words dehumanize the groups they are
direted-against. They imply that the groups
are inferior and do not deserve to be treated
with the same dignity and respect as the other
members of the society.

35. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• The is true of sexist language. In English, the
most obvious is the generic “he”, which
excludes women from whatever group is being
discussed. Ex: “when a college student studies
for an exam, he should review all his lecture
notes”.

36. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• There are also countlesswords and phrases
that convey negative, stereotyped, or
misleading views of women.
• Ex: “chick (piliç,çıtır)”, “dumb blonde (aptal
sarışın)”, etc.

37. Put Ethical Principles into Practice
• Being ethical means behaving ethically all the
time- not only when it is convenient.
• As you work on your speeches, ask yourself
such questions as:
• “Is my choice of topic suitable for the
audience?, Are my supporting materails clear
and convincing?, How can I phrase my ideas to
give them more impact?”

38. Avoid Name-calling and Other Forms
of Abusive Language
• These are strategic questions. As you answer
them, you will try to make your speech as
informative, as persuasive or as entertaining
as possible.
• We have a checklist for ethical public
speaking. Some questions from there are
below:

39. Checklist For Ethical Public Speaking
• Can I defend my goals on ethical ground?
• Have I done a thorough job of studying and
researching the topic?
• Am I honest in what I say in the speech?
• Do I use emotional appeals ethically?
• Does the speech contain valid reasoning?
• Do I use the power of language ethically? etc.

40. Prepared by: Mehmet ŞANVERDİ