Comparative Features of Supporting Material
| Type of Supporting Material | Advantages | Limitations |
| Facts | · Can be definitely confirmed · Universally acknowledged if true | · Often mixed with opinions · Not very adaptable to specific audiences; generates low emotional involvement |
| Statistics | · Most precise supporting material · Well suited for visual representation and comparisons | · Risks information overload if used frequently · Highly abstract if not embedded" in other types of support |
| Examples | · Concretely explains abstract or complex ideas · Highly adaptable to specific audiences | · Opposing examples easy to produce · Risk of treating atypical examples as the norm |
| Testimony (lay) | · Voice of popular opinion · Easy for audiences to relate to everyday people | · Limited range of authority (personal experience) · May not give clear reasons for claims |
| Testimony (expert) | · Credibility established through education or training · Can offer detailed insight within field of expertise | · May be very technical · Opinions beyond area of expertise carry little weight |
| Narratives | · Fits audience desire for structure and characters · Shows ideas in action | · Offers only storyteller's perspective · Other stories may reach different conclusions |
(Schwartzman 172)
Deciding What Supporting Material You Should Use
The following general guidelines may help you make wise choices as you select supporting materials for your speech and ways to combine them:
1. If an idea is controversial, rely primarily on facts, statistics, factual examples or expert testimony from sources that the audience will respect and accept.
2. If your ideas or concepts are abstract, use examples and narratives to bring them to life. Use comparisons, contrasts or analogies so that your listeners grasp your ideas and develop appropriate feelings about them.
3. If an idea is highly technical, supplement facts and statistics with expert testimony. Use definitions, explanations and descriptions to aid understanding. Use examples, comparisons, contrasts, and analogies to help listeners integrate information.
4. If you need to arouse emotions, use lay and prestige testimony, examples, or narratives. Excite listeners by using contrast and analogy.
5. If you need to defuse emotions, emphasize facts and statistics and expert testimony. Keep the focus on definitions and explanations.
6. If your topic is distant from the lives of listeners, draw it closer to them through information, examples, and narratives, activated by descriptions, comparisons, and analogies.
Practice Assignments
I. Define the following forms of supporting materials (facts, statistics, examples, or others)
1. The hippopotamus weighs 3,628 pounds.
2. Seventy-three percent of women voters support nomination of a woman as president of the U.S.
3. The hippopotamus weighs a lot.
4. Most women voters support nomination of a woman as president of the U.S.
5. A decade before any of you were born, Dumbo the elephant waddled into town. Windows rattled and floors shook as he pounded through downtown. Eliza the plumber plunged into the basement, screaming, ”The world is ending!”
6. The wings of the Airbus A380, the largest passenger airline ever built (at least up to 2005) span the length of a football field.
7. The Airbus A380 will be unveiled today in Toulouse, France. Heads of state, and some 5,000 other guests will celebrate the debut of a mammoth flying machine that weighs 1.2 million pounds when fully loaded for takeoff, and seats 555 people—at least.
8. Suppose the South had won the American Civil War.
9. You have a machine that can travel to any point in time.
10. According to Dr John M. Knox, head of dermatology at the Baylor University College of Medicine, suntans are harmful for our skin. On the other hand, "protected skin stays youthful much longer."
II. Consider the following case
Morality Matters: Actual or Hypothetical?
A student gives a speech that includes a touching description of his sister's battle with anorexia. He says that she is an example of the horrors of the disease since she died from it. The example deeply moves the class and the instructor, drastically improving the quality of the speech. Afterward, you express your sympathy to the speaker about the death of his sister. The speaker laughs and admits the example was hypothetical. He doesn't even have a sister. The example was included for dramatic effect.
What would you do in this situation? What general guidelines might you recommend for using hypothetical examples ethically in presentations?