Public Speaking: Strategies for Success

For courses in Public Speaking.

Teach Readers Sound Strategies for Public Speaking

Public Speaking: Strategies for Success gives readers the tools they need to think critically, plan strategically, and speak effectively. By thinking analytically, organizing ideas, doing sound research, and properly assessing their audiences, readers learn how to successfully inform and persuade. In the process, they build necessary skills for many other areas of life.

The Eighth Edition builds on the idea that public speaking is a strategic practice. It allows readers to recognize that public speaking is an art dictated by the dynamics of an audience. By learning a set of norms and expectations and strategizing how to plan for any situation, readers are better able to achieve their public speaking goals. Students learn to prepare for any public speaking situation by assessing different strategies and developing habits of analysis and memory through examples, activities and sample speeches. Emphasis on underlying theory throughout helps readers understand how certain speakers and their audiences engage one another.  

Also available with MyCommunicationLab^®

MyCommunicationLab for the Public Speaking course extends learning online to engage readers and improve results. Media resources with assignments bring concepts to life, and offer readers opportunities to practice applying what they’ve learned. Please note: this version of MyCommunicationLab does not include an eText.

NOTE: You are purchasing a standalone product; MyCommunicationLab does not come packaged with this content.

If you would like to purchase both the physical text and MyCommunicationLab search for:

0134319974 / 9780134319971  Public Speaking: Strategies for Success, Plus MyCommunicationLab for Public Speaking — Access Card Package, 8/e

Public Speaking: Strategies for Success, Eighth Edition is also available via REVEL^™, an interactive learning environment that enables readers to read, practice, and study in one continuous experience.

David Zarefsky is Owen L. Coon Professor Emeritus of Argumentation and Debate, and Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, at Northwestern University, where he served as Dean of the School of Speech from 1988 through June 2000. He joined the Northwestern faculty in 1968 and rose through the ranks, achieving promotion to Professor in 1982. He also has held a series of administrative appointments, including Director of Forensics (1970-75), Chair of the Department of Communication Studies (1975-83), Associate Dean of the School of Speech (1983-88), and Dean.  He retired from the full-time faculty and achieved Emeritus status in 2009.

Zarefsky’s research and teaching are in the areas of rhetorical history and criticism, argumentation and debate, and forensics. He is the author, co-author, or editor of nine books and the author of over 100 articles in professional journals. Two of his books have won the Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, an award of the National Communication Association (NCA): President Johnson’s War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History (University of Alabama Press, 1986) and Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate (University of Chicago Press, 1990). He is one of only four individuals to have won this award twice. In 1994 he was named to the ranks of NCA Distinguished Scholars and in 2015 he was named the Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar.  He also has twice won the “Best Article Award” from the Southern States Communication Association.

At Northwestern, Zarefsky taught courses in the study of American public discourse, with a special focus on the pre-Civil War years and on the 1960s. He also taught courses in argumentation theory, persuasion, and public speaking.  On thirteen different occasions he was named to the student government’s honor roll for distinguished teaching. He received the NCA Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award in 2012. He has held visiting appointments at Penn State University, Harvard University, and the University of Iowa. Zarefsky also has two videocourses, “Abraham Lincoln: In His Own Words” and “Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning,” marketed by The Teaching Company.

In 1993 Zarefsky was President of the National Communication Association and in 2001 he received its Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award. He held the presidency of the Central States Communication Association in 1986-87. In 2010 and 2011 he was President of the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA), a position he also occupied in 2006 and 2007.  He received the George Yoos Distinguished Service Award from RSA in 2010. He has held numerous other positions in these organizations and in the American Forensic Association, whose journal he edited from 1977-80. From 1984-89 he was the Director of the National Debate Tournament, and from 2007-15 he was the Steering Committee chair of the NCA/AFA Biennial Summer Conference on Argumentation. He also has served on the editorial boards of 10 different journals.

Zarefsky has been involved in numerous other activities under the heading of University and professional service. In 1982-83 he chaired Northwestern’s General Faculty Committee, the principal arm of faculty governance, and he has served on several other committees and task forces at Northwestern. He has participated on academic program review committees for over 25 colleges and universities and as a peer reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities.  From 1997 to 2001 he was on the National Advisory Council and the Steering Committee for the Center for Presidential Studies in the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.