The Communication Experience: A Guide to Successful Public Speaking introduces students to the study of public speaking by focusing on four foundational conclusions about the communication experience: that writing, reading, critical thinking, and speaking skills are needed to succeed in any academic or professional setting; that public speaking is just one of many communication skills needed to succeed; that speeches are more than something that you cut and paste together; and that public communication is often made more difficult than it has to be. The text helps students recognize the role of public speaking within the larger practice of communication, develop essential skills for and approaches to speechmaking, and understand and overcome communication apprehension. The text is organized into three units. Unit one focuses on the global communication experience. In unit two, students learn about academic and professional speechmaking. Unit three teaches readers how to personalize their speeches, addressing ways they can cultivate their own unique style and customize their content. Individual chapters address various communication environments; incorporating audience ethics into speechmaking; argumentation; hearing versus listening; tailoring a speech for a specific audience; organizational strategies for speeches; storytelling in academic and professional presentations; finding your voice; and more. The Communication Experience is an exemplary resource for courses and programs in public speaking and communication.

'Electrifying ... A user manual for our polarized world' Adam Grant, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Think Again By a two-time debating world champion, a dazzling look at how arguing better can transform your life - and the world - for the better Everyone debates, in some form, most days. Sometimes we do it to persuade; other times to learn, discover a truth, or simply to express something about ourselves. We argue to defend ourselves, our work, and our loved ones from external threat. We do it to get our way, or just to get ahead. As a two-time debating world champion, Bo has made a career out of arguing. Over the past few years, however, he's noticed how we're not only arguing more and more, but getting worse at it - a fact proven by our polarised politics. By tracing his own journey from immigrant kid to world champion, as well as those of illustrious participants in the sport such as Malcolm X, Edmund Burke and Sally Rooney, Seo shows how the skills of debating - information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organization, and persuasion - are often the cornerstone of successful careers and happy lives. Along the way, he provides the reader with an unforgettable toolkit to use debate as a means to improve their own. This book is an everyperson's guide to disagreeing well, so that the outcome of having had an argument is better than not having it at all. Taking readers on a thrilling intellectual adventure into the eccentric and brilliant subculture of competitive debate, The Art of Disagreeing Well proves that good-faith debate can enrich and improve our lives, friendships, democracies and in the process, our world.