COMM 217 – Intro to Public Speaking / Spring 2011

Prof. Karis / Snell 166 / Ext. 3982 /

Office Hrs: MWF, 10-11; TTh, 1 – 2, and by appt.

Course materials available at

Overview: This course will help you to develop, practice, and improve your public speaking abilities, which will assist you in your future professional and civic lives. You will study and practice the ways that speeches are invented, researched, organized, and delivered for a variety of purposes. Overall, this course focuses heavily on speech performance, but additionally on organizational and critical thinking skills. There is no final exam in this course.

Required Text:

Essentials of Public Speaking, Cheryl Hamilton, 4th edition

ISBN-13: 978-0-495-50424-5 / ISBN-10: 0-495-50424-6

Additional readings will be provided.

Learning Objectives/Outcomes: By the end of the course, you should be able to demonstrate:

Well-developed presentation skills;

The ability to create an effective organizational plan, suitable for the subject, audience, occasion, and purpose of the speech;

Effective critical listening and analytic skills;

The ability to create and deliver a speech that presents a well-formed argument supported with valid reasoning; and

The ability to assess one’s own performance to help improve future efforts.

Graded Work:

Individual Speeches(4) = 74% of course grade (14/18/21/21)

Group Speech (1) – “Clarkson Education Improvement Proposal” (8%)

External Speaker Critiques= 12% of course grade

**Active Class Participation / Peer Critiques / Group Work = 6% of course grade

**Does not equate to ‘seat time.’

Other Requirements:

$5 DVD Fee – I will supply you with DVD’s of your speeches which you will use to write your self-assessment memos.*****

Attendance – Mandatory. You get three (3) unexcused absences. For each additional unexcused absence, your final grade will be lowered one-half letter grade (e.g., B+ becomes B). Please avoid any early departures from campus before vacations (e.g., spring break)and please try to minimizejob trips & interviews. Job trips are not “excused absences.”If you know you'll need to miss a class for some legitimate reason, please let me know about it beforehand. I'll extend you the same courtesy. 

Missed presentations/work:I will resolve these issues on a case-by-case basis.

Grade Scale:100 to 92% = A91 to 87% = B+86 to 82% = B 81 to 77% = C+ 76 to 72% = C 71 to 67% = D+

66 to 62% = D61% and below = F

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is representing another’s words as one’s own. If you are in doubt about how to avoid plagiarism, ask me. All cases of suspected plagiarism will be submitted to the Academic Integrity Committee as prescribed by Clarkson Regulations. Persons aiding and abetting plagiarists also will be subject to penalty. For anyone found guilty of plagiarism by the Academic Integrity Committee, I will recommend a course grade of F.

***** You should assume that I may add any and all of your videotaped performances to my ever growing “library” of student work that I may share with future classes for their edification.

Distributed in class: 1/7/11