Rhetorical Analysis Of How To Spot A Liar

Conveying a message through the use of public speaking goes far beyond the words you say. When presenting a speech, there is much that goes into it, and more to truly get your message into the minds of the listeners. Every great speech consists of several key elements that are used to support and back up the words that are spoken. In 2011, Pamela Meyer presented her speech, “How to Spot a Liar,” as a TED Talks. In the speech, she uses many of these public speaking techniques when she discusses the key ideas she addresses in her novel: Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Her speech is informative, consisting of information on how to spot someone who is lying, as well as mindboggling statistics concerning the omnipresence of lying in today’s society. In Meyer’s speech, she uses specific

organizational skills, several different stylistics of language and voice, and she presents several points that were strong and several that could have used improvement.
Meyer uses a strict organizational pattern when delivering her speech. First, she starts with an effective attention getter by addressing not one, but the entire audience by calling them all liars.

Meyer then transitions to addressing her main points in a very clear way, stating each way she will discuss how to spot a liar. By her stating her three main points at the start of her introduction, the audience knew what to expect going forward in the speech and has a clear preview of what is to come. Because Meyer discusses the background of her topic after establishing her main points, the audience had little to no background of the topic, other than thinking, now, that they are all liars. Once Meyer addresses her three main points, she makes her central idea clear: how to spot liars. After clearly transitioning from her introduction into her first point, Meyer starts using an abundant amount of statistics to support the main idea that she is discussing. Her use of these statistics not only help add to the information that she is trying to instill in the crowd, but they also build her creditability as a speaker. In addition to her use of supportive statistics, Meyer also builds to her creditability and subject information by using plentiful, supportive evidence from sources, aside from herself, to develop the

central idea of her speech. This adds to the body of her speech, supporting and addressing the main points that she mentioned at the start of the speech. Not only does Meyer use information from outside, scholarly sources, but she provides important information that she, herself, has discovered through her research. This is another thing that adds to her credibility as a speaker and adds supporting material concerning her specific points she is addressing. While going through and discussing her three main points, using a copious amount of statistics and outside, supportive, information can get cluttered, but Meyer uses clear transitional phrases. Meyer’s use of transparent transitions allows the audience to be able to easily follow what Meyer is discussing and when she is moving into the next topic of discussion. These effective transitions assist Meyer in clearing dividing her topics of discussion, aiding the audience’s comprehension and retention of her discussion topics. Lastly, Meyer included a well-developed conclusion that restated and further emphasized the past points that she had previously mentioned in her speech. Meyer’s use of a strict organizational pattern assisted her delivery of her speech. Meyer also uses several different stylistics of language and voice in her presentation.
While Meyer is speaking, she uses multiple stylistics of language and voice. During her presentation, Meyer was actively looking around the room, making direct eye contact with the audience members. In addition, she used several different, nonverbal forms of communication to convey her message. During the majority of the speech, Meyer used various different facial expressions to emphasize her opinion on a point she was making. Not only did she use her facial expressions, but she also used her body and arm gestures to make sure people would pay more attention to certain subjects included in the speech. Something that seemed odd was that Meyer had a large open stage to communicate to the audience on, but she stayed in nearly the same spot on stage, only moving your arms. Also, Meyer used several ways of verbal delivery in her speech. She would change the tone of her voice, as well as the pitch, to make sure she was able to get certain points across, making sure they were as thorough as possible. Not only did Meyer perform these different techniques to get her point across, but she also used anaphora. All throughout the speech, Meyer constantly used two words and put the strongest emphasis on them: truth and lies. Lies being the most important word in the speech, Meyer made sure the audience heard it many times throughout the speech to instate the idea in the audiences’ memories. Through Meyer’s use of different stylistics of language and voice, she was able to enhance her speech. Meyer’s use of several techniques helps her speech, but it can be improved.
Meyer delivers a very well develop speech with a lot of beneficial information, but overall, she could have improved it. Meyer’s use of anaphora, as well as her use of great, alarming statistics were the strongest points of her speech. First, the repetition of the words truth and lies really gets stuck in the audience’s memory and increases the retention of the presentation. When hearing the words over and over again, the audience members become more adapted to hearing those words and will start to listen more actively them. Also, hearing these two words so often helps Meyer convey the central idea of her presentation to the audience. Second, Meyer’s use of various statistical evidence is exceptional. The statistics Meyer uses are all relevant to the topic she is discussing, as well as help get the attention of the listeners. Many of the statistics mentions most likely grabbed the audience’s attention and caused them to listen more actively due to the relevance and scare of the statistic. Another great thing about the statistics Meyer used is that they concerned everyone in the audience; no one was left out. Though Meyer did use these strong supports in her speech, she did have some weak areas in her speech. To start, Meyer used humor in several different parts of her speech. When using this humor, some of it made the audience laugh, but other uses left Meyer awkwardly laughing to herself on stage with nobody in the audience to join her. As well as awkward uses of humor, Meyer could have been more dynamic in her presentation of the speech. Though she did change her pitch and tone, she did not do so by much, and lacked showing passionate emotion concerning the topic. If Meyer had shown more of her true passion for the topic, the audience would have most likely been more moved by her speech. The most obvious change that Meyer could have made was adjusting her visual aid. Meyer used a bright background and too many pictures in her visual. While presenting, Meyer used little text on her visual, but she was constantly flipping through slide of her visual presentation while she was talking. Many of the slides used were unneeded and filled with too many pictures that draw the audience’s attention away from Meyer more to the pictures. Meyer could improve this by, first, making her visual have a dark background and, second, using less pictures to keep the audience’s attention on her message more so than the pictures. Meyer developed a solid presentation with very strong points, but she could have improved in several different areas.
In conclusion, great speeches consist of various, essential elements that are used to back the words that are presented to the audience. In her speech, “How to Spot a Liar,” Meyer uses informs the audience of how to identify someone who is lying. Meyer’s uses specific organizational skills, several different stylistics of language and voice, and she presents several points that were strong and several that could have used improvement. Overall, Meyer developed a strong presentation with little downfall.