Question

Purpose: To learn which types of presentation aids might be effective for various types of public speeches.

Instructions: Based on the criteria for using presentation aids outlined in your text, what types of aids would be best suited for each of the following topics? Be specific, indicating both the type of aid and what should be included with it.  

1. Divorce rates in the United States over the last fifty years.

2. Number of violent crimes by type of weapon (gun, knife, club, poison, etc.)

3. Membership in health clubs by region

4. Variation in chocolate consumption in the United States within the last ten years

5. Three ways to lose weight

6. Why rock 'n' roll is the greatest music

7. Recipe for Grandma's homemade apple pie

8. Where your money goes

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) (1) Comparative graph charts of divorce rates for every decade since the last 50 years. This would help notice the increase in each period. This would also require supporting data like the rate of women who choose employment as opposed to being stay-at-home moms, changes in economy etc. This additional data would help connect the divorce rates to any possible causes.

(2) Pick 5 states, for instance, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, New York and Alabama. Each state would need a separate graph for the crime rate by weapon over the last decade. In this way, one could easily cross-examine data with other information like gun sales of the state, mental health rate of the state, domestic violence reports of the state etc.

(3) The first step would be to pick a set of regions and simply stick to information about those regions to avoid a lack of focus. Once this is done, perhaps ‘pew research’ data could be extrapolated to present the rates of club memberships of all the states through a graph and then of each state through line plotting.

(4) This would require three graphs, the first would be brands of chocolate that has been introduced in the last 10 years. The seconds would be the consumption of chocolate in the year 2008 and the third would be the consumption of chocolate in 2018. If the presentation requires creating a causal link with chocolate consumptions, then heart disease or diabetes in the last ten years could also be presented simultaneously. This might help establish the result of sugar consumption.

(5) Let us assume that the three ways to lose weight enlisted in the research are exercise, diet and avoiding consumption of any and all processed food (any edible item with a label). This would require 3 focus groups that were each put on one of the methods to lose weight. Their previous weight, cholesterol levels and blood sugar levels would need to be recorded and graphed. After about a month of applying the techniques, the same information would need to be recorded again. In this way, it would be easy to compare and spot the difference that the weight loss technique has brought. The most effective one could be analysed further.

(6) In this case, let us assume that the “greatness” of music is determined by the number of records sold and the concert earnings by a ‘rock and roll’ artist. Artists like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash could be considered for this presentation. Their concert earnings and earnings from record sales could be presented in a stacked bar chart. This can be measured along with three other artists of the time that did not play ‘rock and roll’ music. Furthermore, after consideration of inflation rates, the 3 ‘rock and roll’ artists could be compared to 3 artists of modern times. In doing so, it would help analyse the success of a ‘rock and roll’ artist of their own time and determine what their success would have amounted to in modern times. Thus, it would determine why ‘rock and roll’ music is the greatest of all time.

(7) This would require qualitative data to be presented in an empirical manner through accurate food measurements. This means that, every ingredient would have to be enlisted along with the quantitative value of the ingredient that would be used in the recipe. An organised column of each ingredient along with the measure on each row would suffice as an enlistment of the ingredients.

(8) This would entail making a list of expenses during a month, for instance, utilities, rent, groceries, petrol and recreation. Based on the income of the house, these quantities would have to be graphed. At the beginning of the second and third month, the same process would have to be repeated. This would ensure that the percentage spent for each requirement is constant and not just peculiar to a particular month. In doing so, it would be easy to get a constant rate and find out what may have caused a boost in expenses of a particular bar. For instance, if under recreation, you went for a picnic close by, the petrol expenses might also be less, however, if you drove far away the month after that, the petrol might have increased.