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A new pedagogy for explanatory

public speaking: Why arrangement
should not substitute for invention
Katherine E. Rowan

Associate Professor in the Department of Communication ,

Purdue University , West Lafayette, IN, 47907
Published online: 18 May 2009.

To cite this article: Katherine E. Rowan (1995) A new pedagogy for explanatory public
speaking: Why arrangement should not substitute for invention, Communication Education,
44:3, 236-250, DOI: 10.1080/03634529509379014
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03634529509379014

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A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY

PUBLIC SPEAKING: WHY
ARRANGEMENT SHOULD NOT
SUBSTITUTE FOR INVENTION

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Katherine E. Rowan
Because of its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century roots, current informative speaking
pedagogy emphasizes arrangement rather than invention. Today's pedagogy provides
speakers with a rich array of possibilities for organizing speeches but gives little systematic
assistance in anticipating and overcoming audiences' likely sources of confusion. Because
rhetorical forms themselves do not make complex ideas clear, this approach is inadequate.
Speakers attempting to inform need heuristics or diagnostic frameworks for determining
why complex material is apt to confuse. They also need tested methods for avoiding such
confusions. This essay offers a new pedagogy for explanatory speaking, a type of
informative speech, built around such heuristics. This pedagogy is supported by classical
rhetoric's emphasis on the importance of invention or inquiry prior to presentation and by
decades of contemporary educational research. In essence, this new pedagogy casts
informative speaking as an explicitly strategic enterprise for which there is important
traditional and recent empirical guidance.

In many ways, contemporary textbook treatments of informative speaking are

impressive. Verderber's (1994) ninth edition of The Challenge of Effective Speaking, for example, uses testimonials from professional speakers, eye-catching
graphics, a rich array of examples, and expert advice to assist student speakers
in producing well-prepared and well-delivered informative presentations. Indeed, the informative speaking sections in top-selling textbooks like Beebe and
Beebe (1994), DeVito (1990), Lucas (1992), Nelson and Pearson (1990), Osborn
and Osborn (1994), and Verderber (1994) seem so sound that one might think
there was relatively little one could do to improve them. 1
There is, however, an important way in which instruction in informative
speaking can be refined. Textbooks could give informative speakers more help
with strategy, particularly for the speech that explains a difficult idea.2 Speeches
of this sort help audiences understand topics such as how we see colors, what
"Manifest Destiny" means, or why abstract art can be more technically challenging than portraiture. The principal help students need with the "speech to
teach" is guidance in increasing the likelihood that the audience truly learns
from it.
Unfortunately, this assistance is not readily available. In current treatments of
informative speaking, advice on arrangement substitutes for inventional guidance. Unlike coverage of persuasion where students are guided to consider
likely obstacles to agreement and research-supported methods for overcoming
them, in treatments of informing, students are not aided in considering likely
Katherine E. Rowan (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.
COMMUNICATION EDUCATION, Volume 44, July 1995

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PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING237

obstacles to intellectual understanding. Rather, the focus is on ready-made

"solutions" or arrangement forms. Typically, these chapters suggest students
use definitions, examples, visual aids, and some type of organizational framework. Often it is suggested that a "variety" of these techniques be used in hopes
that one or more will work, the level of insight here being somewhat similar to
the status of medicine before the discovery of infectious diseases. Prior to the late
nineteenth century, physicians knew certain drinking wells were associated with
cholera but could not say why. They did not know the human fecal matter
fouling the water contained cholera-causing microbial organisms. Similarly, the
best treatments of informative speaking currently say certain message features
such as short sentences, examples, analogies, and the like are useful in explaining difficult ideas. But they do not specify when and why certain techniques
"cure" frequent forms of confusion (and when these techniques cause more
confusion).
If we did not know the most frequent sources of difficulty in mastering
complex information, we would be forced to keep our teaching of informative
speaking at its current stage. However, decades of contemporary educational
research have identified key causes of confusion and tested techniques for
overcoming them. Further, the classical rhetorical tradition has always stressed
the importance of systematic obstacle analysis prior to making decisions about
information arrangement. Consequently, this essay draws from classical rhetorical theory and contemporary research to present a new, invention-emphasizing
pedagogy for an important type of informative speaking.
To show why treatments of informative speaking even in our best textbooks
are frequently less useful to students than treatments of persuasion, I first offer a
brief history of the teaching of expository discourse. Second, I define explanatory speaking, identifying its relation to informative speech. Third, a pedagogy
for explanatory speaking is presented, one built on the classical rhetorical
tradition and contemporary research. Finally, I describe implications of this new
pedagogy for teacher training, student study skills, and assessment of informative speaking skills.
TRADITIONAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
OF INFORMATIVE DISCOURSE

Speech communication and English composition texts frequently have sections

on expository or informative speaking and writing, expository being the more
traditional term and the one more often used in composition texts. As traditionally conceived, expository discourse is principally concerned with the presentation of subject matter. The terms exposition and expository mean setting forth,
disclosing, unmasking, or explaining in detail.
EXPOSITION IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RHETORICS

The classical rhetorics of Greece and Rome emphasized persuasive rather than
expository discourse (Howell, 1973). Expository discourse received greater
attention from eighteenth-century rhetoricians like Hugh Blair, Richard Whately, and George Campbell. Campbell, particularly, stressed the importance of
exposition in enhancing understanding. Drawing from John Locke and David
Hume, he argued that the world is known by identifying certain ubiquitous

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structures in it. Further, the human mind was held to operate by universal,
associative patterns. These realist premises led Campbell to reason that effective
and efficient communication would occur when subject matter was presented in
the associative patterns that naturally appeal to the minds of audiences (Campbell, 1988/1776; Golden &Corbett, 1968;Howell, 1971, 1973). Thus, the task of
a rhetor was to locate the patterns inherent in subject matter and practice their
effective use.
Campbell believed that those seeking to persuade others first had to establish
understanding in the minds of audiences by using the techniques of exposition.
Thus, exposition, in this realist perspective, was an exercise in revealing pure
subject matter. Since the subject matter suggested its own arrangement, minimal consideration of speakers' and audiences' purposes was needed. This
approach to exposition or informative discourse equated informing with arrangement.
EXPOSITION IN NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXTBOOKS

The "patterns of exposition" or "modes of discourse" became the organizing

frameworks for best-selling composition textbooks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Berlin, 1984, 1987; Johnson, 1991). The "Forms of Support" and
"Informative Speaking" chapters in today's public speaking books have their
roots in textbooks such as Alexander Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric
(1866, cited by Connors, 1981), which was organized to teach expositional
patterns like narration, description, and definition. In the last two centuries,
numerous composition and public speaking textbooks have equated informing
with selection or mastery of forms of support (Berlin, 1984, 1987; Connors,
1981; Johnson, 1991; Kinneavy, 1971). The problem with this approach lies
neither with the forms of support nor with any particular textbook. It lies
instead with substituting "forms of support" for systematic anticipation of likely
confusions. Further, the realist assumptions underlying conceptions of expository or informative discourse are also problematic. Unlike Campbell, we no
longer view informative communication as a process of revealing "pure truth"
inherent in subject matter. Contemporary epistemologies view communication
as a process whereby communicators negotiate shared meanings. In a contemporary constructivist perspective, informing should be viewed as a process of
anticipating and overcoming potential misunderstandings or confusions.
DIFFICULTIES IN EQUATING INFORMING WITH ARRANGEMENT

Several pedagogical problems have arisen from equating informative speaking

with arrangement. First, even in today's best public speaking textbooks the
purpose of informative speaking is not clear. This confusion is not surprising.
Because of its realist roots, the term expository or informative discourse has
several meanings. It sometimes refers to a type of subject matter (all nonfiction),
sometimes to a goal (informing or teaching), and sometimes to arrangement
forms themselves. Although today's textbooks could classify informative speeches
by goal (e.g., the speech to teach), they usually classify on the basis of form (e.g.,
speeches that describe, define, or demonstrate [DeVito, 1990] or speeches about
objects, processes, events, and concepts [Lucas, 1992]). Unfortunately, classifying by form causes some textbook treatments to imply wrongly that adherence

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PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING239

to a certain form is what designates a speech as informative. One sample speech

in DeVito's (1990) informative speaking chapters is a presentation defining
"leadership" and urging the audience to believe that the pursuit of excellence is
the essence of true leadership. Although the speech's goal seems epideictic or
persuasive, it is placed in the chapters on informing presumably because of its
rhetorical formdefinition. Another sample speech in DeVito's informative
speaking unit is a commencement address with the thesis, "Use time wisely" (pp.
226-229). Again the speech's purpose seems epideictic or persuasive rather
than informative. Of it, De Vito writes: "This speech is probably best thought of
as one of description, but it is really a combination of information and persuasion" (p. 228). The latter half of this sentence suggests DeVito's own good
instincts are more on the mark than his classificatory scheme.
Some sample speeches, though classified by form, are in fact informative
because of their purpose. They attempt to enhance understanding. For example, a speech in Monroe and Ehninger (1969) explains why ice floats.
Verderber (1994) presents a sample informative speech on the nature and
treatment of dyslexia; Lucas (1992) includes one on the medicinal and culinary
benefits of dandelions. These speeches clearly aim to broaden understanding
about some topic. But the fact that even some textbook authors exhibit confusion over what constitutes an informative speech suggests that we err in making
form a classificatory principle. As Kinneavy (1971, pp. 28-29) has argued,
rhetorical forms like defining, describing, and demonstrating are means not
ends. We define, demonstrate, and narrate for many purposes: to inform, persuade,
or entertain. Classification by forms such as definition, demonstration, and
narration draws analysis of speech inappropriately toward analysis of form for
form's sake rather than toward questions about effectiveness.
A second problem with over-focusing on form is that it blunts consideration of
informative strategy. Current pedagogy identifies informing with selecting a
rhetorical form (e.g., defining, narrating) just as eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury rhetorics did. Of course, these rhetorical forms can be viewed as
frequent solutions to challenges that informative speakers face. There is a
problem, however, with substituting "form selection" for inventional inquiry. It
reduces the likelihood that informative speakers will systematically diagnose
their genuine informative challenges. This by-passing of invention (and moving
immediately to arrangement) has apparently been normative in informative
speaking pedagogy for most of this century. Monroe (e.g., Monroe, 1945;
Monroe & Ehninger, 1969) is famous for the motivated sequence, the strategic
approach to the teaching of persuasive speaking. But in his treatment of
informative speaking, he explores strategy only for gaining an audience's
attention and establishing the audience's need for certain information (Monroe,
1945). To assist speakers in anticipating an audience's conceptual difficulties, he
offers organizational forms (e.g., time order, space, causal, p. 125).
Monroe's pattern is still followed today. Despite the fact that Beebe and Beebe
(1994) emphasize audience analysis throughout their textbook, like nearly all in
use today, they wrongly imply that rhetorical forms themselves make confusing
ideas understandable. For instance, one speech outlined in the chapter on
informative speaking is designed to inform the audience about liberation
theology (pp. 315-316). At the speech's end, the speaker expects the audience to

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be able to "discuss the definition and origin of liberation theology in Latin

America" (p. 315). That is, a clear statement of purpose and a behavioral
objective are presented. What is missing is an analysis of why the audience may
have trouble meeting the speaker's expectation. What obstacles will they encounter in understanding the definition of this concept and its history? What are the
frequent obstacles people face when attempting to learn a new concept? What
are the frequent obstacles encountered when people attempt to follow a history?
Instead of addressing these issues this textbook, like most, offers minimal
inventional guidance. The authors write: "Luisa [the speaker] decided that the
most logical way to explain liberation theology was to talk first about the
definition of liberation theology and second about its origins. She chose a topical
organizationa logical division of available information about liberation theology" (p. 316). Note here the assumption that the forms definition and topical
organization will by themselves explain complex information to an audience.
This is a notion born of eighteenth-century epistemology that still pervades
textbook treatments of both informative and persuasive speeches and is especially prevalent in treatments of informing.
Arrangement advice substitutes for inventional guidance in other ways. Some
public speaking textbooks substitute variety for diagnosis. They discuss informative speeches of definition or of demonstration, and then offer a wide array of
rhetorical forms that one could use to define or to demonstrate. With respect to
defining, for example, DeVito (1990) lists a variety of methods: etymology,
authority, operationalization, or symbolization (pp. 221-223). Similarly, Nelson
and Pearson (1990) list definitional devices such as comparison, contrast,
synonyms, antonyms, etymology, differentiation, operational definition, and
experiential definition. Again, students are being encouraged to arrange their
material before they have considered systematically why the material may be
difficult to follow.
Yet another example of arrangement advice replacing inventional guidance
involves locking students into certain organizational forms without helping
them think about whether these forms will alleviate confusions. For example,
Lucas (1992) lists the following types of informative speeches: speeches about
objects, processes, events, and concepts. But Lucas subdivides this classification
and offers arrangement advice for each sub-category. So, within speeches about
objects, there are speeches about subjects (people) or objects, and one can speak
either about the history of a subject or about its main features. In the first
instance, the speech is chronologically ordered. In the second instance, it is
spatially ordered. There are two problems with this approach. First, no one in
the real world has the goal of speaking chronologically or spatially. These are
forms, not goals. The speaker's goal is to teach or deepen understanding.
Second, substituting arrangement for invention fails to assist students in considering why audiences might not understand some information. For instance, one
sample speech outlined by Lucas is designed to inform the audience about the
major tenets of Islam. Lucas writes that this speech is effectively presented by
identifying the major elements of the religion and then illustrating each element
(p. 288). The problem here is that, again, there is no discussion of why an
audience might not understand the key points. Why might an audience of U.S.
college students have trouble in this case? An obstacle is likely to be the

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PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING241

presumption that Islam is entirely different from Christianity or Judaism, the

religions more familiar to many U.S. students. If that obstacle analysis is correct,
then perhaps the speaker could help the audience overcome this difficulty by
comparing the tenets of Islam and Christianity. Ultimately, the expository
forms, comparison or analogy, may be used as a way of assisting the audience in
understanding Islam, but they should be discussed after an analysis of why the
goal of explaining the religion's tenets might fail, not before. This consideration
of strategy makes the teaching of informative speaking more interesting than
the form-focused approach.
A third problem results from the idea that informing equals arrangement.
This implicit notion makes the steps to informative speaking seem obvious and
therefore unworthy of further study. Such beliefs may discourage authors of
public speaking textbooks from gathering new research on strategies for explaining difficult ideas.3 Such research exists in abundance. In the last several
decades, educational research has made impressive headway in identifying
multiple bases for determining why ideas are difficult to understand. This work
may be found in fields such as concept learning or instructional design,
educational psychology, science education, and related areas (for reviews, see
Rowan, 1988, 1992; Shymansky & Kyle, 1988). These fields offer lines of inquiry
and important findings relevant to informative speakers.
In sum, current pedagogy for informative speaking implicitly rests on an
outdated epistemology, creates confusion about the purposes of informative
speaking, is essentially nonstrategic, and generally fails to familiarize students
with research relevant to explaining ideas well. There are good reasons then for
exploring alternative approaches. The ideal pedagogy should be (a) definitionally clear and focused on speakers' purposes or functions when informing, (b)
useful in diagnosing likely audience confusions with some topic, and (c) helpful
in guiding speakers to empirically supported techniques for overcoming confusion. In the following section, I present an alternative pedagogy designed to
meet these criteria.
AN ALTERNATE PEDAGOGY

Explanatory speaking may be defined by drawing from Kinneavy's Theory of

Discourse (1971). He classifies all discourse by inferable authorial aim (see Figure
1) and identifies four types of discursive aim: self-expression, persuasion,
reference, and literary.4 Reference refers to discourse where communicators
chiefly represent some aspect of reality, rather than persuading, expressing
themselves, or creating literary artifacts. For Kinneavy, expository speech is one
form of reference discourse (see figure 1).
Kinneavy divides reference discourse into three sub-types by locating more
specific authorial goals: scientific, exploratory, and informative. Scientific or
scholarly discourse represents some aspect of reality by proving claims about it
(scholarly papers and presentations are instances). Exploratory discourse (speculative essays) represents an aspect of reality by questioning accepted notions.
Informative discourse, found in news reports, textbooks, teachers' lectures,
popular magazines, and encyclopedias, represents reality by making information accessible to lay audiences.

242ROWAN

Discursive Aims

ELEMENT

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GOALS

Speaker

Audience

Reality or World

Language

Self-expressive

Persuasive

Reference

Literary

Informative

Scientific

TYPES OF
REFERENCE

Exploratory

TYPES OF
INFORMATIVE

Explanatory

TYPES OF
EXPLANATORY

Transformative

I
Representative

Informatory

Quasi-Scientific

Elucidating

FIGURE 1
A THEORY OF EXPLANATORY DISCOURSE BUILT FROM K I N N E A V Y ' S ( 1 9 7 1 ) THEORY OF DISCURSIVE AIMS. A VERSION
OF THIS DIAGRAM APPEARS IN ROWAM ( 1 9 8 8 ) .

Notions of expository discourse can be further refined. Following Kinneavy's

logic, Rowan (1988) suggested dividing informative discourse into two subtypes. Informatory presentations create awareness of the latest information about
some topic. A news report on the latest fighting between the Serbs and the
Croatians would be informatory. In contrast, explanatory presentations enhance
understanding of phenomena about which we are aware but do not fully
understand. A presentation on why the Serbs and Croats are historical enemies
would be explanatory. To illustrate further: a university's schedule of classes is
informatory; an account of how to register for these classes is explanatory. A
presentation on the latest graphics software available for DOS machines could
be informatory (if it focused on awareness-creation more than on gaining sales);
a presentation on why laser printing a graphic is more complex than printing
text would be explanatory. When we teach informative speaking, we usually
want explanatory, not informatory discourse. News reports are informatory. In
a classroom setting, we generally want students to deepen our understanding of
some phenomenon or aid us in mastering some skill. Generally, we do not
assume they are in a position to provide classmates the "latest" information
about some topic. Consequently, my focus is on pedagogy for explanatory
discourse.
Good explanatory speeches are frequently those that address questions of
"how," "why," or "what does that mean?" Paradigmatic instances of students'
explanatory speeches include answers to questions such as: How do locks and

PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING243

keys work? Why do people yawn? What are modern artists trying to achieve?
How do we get our drinking water? Why is irradiated food healthful? What's the
difference between stocks and bonds? The challenge for explanatory speakers is
to classify the principal sort of difficulty their audience will face for a particular
topic and then to shape their speech so as to overcome that difficulty.
METHODS FOR OVERCOMING CONFUSION

There are three chief difficulties in understanding complex ideas (Rowan, 1988,
1990, 1992). An idea may be difficult or confusing because it involves (a) difficult

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concepts or language, (b) difficult-to-envision structures or processes, or (c) notions that

are difficult to understand because they are hard to believe (e.g., the Earth is weight-

less). Scholars in educational research have explored each of these obstacles to

understanding by identifying effective techniques at overcoming each (e.g.,
Brown, 1992; Hewson & Hewson, 1983, 1984; Hynd & Alvermann, 1986;
Mayer, 1983, 1989; Mayer & Anderson, 1992; Merrill & Tennyson, 1977;
Shymansky & Kyle, 1988; Tennyson & Cocchiarella, 1986; Watts & Pope, 1989).
Efforts to overcome each of these difficulties constitute a characteristic type of
explanation. There are elucidating explanations which clarify the meaning and use
of terms, quasi-scientific explanations which help audiences mentally model complex phenomena, and transformative explanations which help people understand
counter-intuitive or implausible ideas.
Following are discussions of the above explanation types including the features most likely to make them effective. Just as a theory of "causes of disease"
helps contemporary physicians classify, diagnose, and implement appropriate
curative strategies, knowledge of the principal types of confusion that audiences
experience can help explanatory speakers anticipate an audience's difficulties in
understanding complex ideas.
ELUCIDATING EXPLANATIONS

If the audience's chief difficulty rests in mastering the meaning and use of a
certain term, then the strategy governing a speaker's presentation should be
that of an elucidating explanation. Elucidating explanations illuminate a concept's
meaning and use. For example, speakers principally concerned with explaining
notions such as the difference between validity and reliability, the meaning of
liberation theology, or why corals are classified as animals and not plants, should
use elucidating explanations.
Research in instructional design and linguistics shows that when people are
struggling to understand the meaning or the use of a term, they are in fact
struggling to distinguish a concept's essential (always present) from its associated
(frequent but not necessary) features (Merrill & Tennyson, 1977; Tennyson &
Cocchiarella, 1986). Thus, good elucidating explanations focus attention on this
distinction. Specifically, researchers in instructional design have found that
good elucidating explanations contain (a) a typical exemplar of the concept, (b) a
definition that lists a concept's essential features, (c) an array of varied examples
and nonexamples (nonexamples are instances likely to be mistaken for examples),
and (d) opportunities to practice distinguishing examples from nonexamples by
looking for essential features (Merrill & Tennyson, 1977; Tennyson & Cocchiarella, 1986).

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244ROWAN

Because good elucidating explanations include sets of varying examples and

nonexamples as well as definitions, they are more effective at emphasizing a
concept's critical features than definitions alone. That is, concept mastery occurs
when people consider a concept's application to an array of varying instances
and practice distinguishing examples of the concept from tempting nonexamples. Or, they listen to a presentation that explores these distinctions.
For example, one student, who had worked at a nuclear power plant, gave a
speech explaining radiation. He noted that many people think radiation is
always bad or dangerous. They believe "dangerous" is an essential qualifier
associated with all instances of radiation. The Associated Press Stylebook (French,
Powell, & Angione, 1992) defines radiation as "invisible particles or waves given
off by radioactive material, such as uranium. Radiation can damage or kill body
cells, resulting in genetic damage or death" (p. 140). The term radiation,
however, generally refers to electromagnetic radiation, which includes "everything from kilometers-long radio waves to tiny x-rays and gamma rays. . . .
Radiation can refer to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a candle flame
or the subatomic particles emitted by uranium ore" (Mims, 1992, p. 101). Thus,
radiation includes sunlight, energy from light bulbs, televisions, computers,
electrical wires, and many other ubiquitous phenomena. The speaker concluded that "dangerous" is not an essential feature of radiation's meaning even
though exposure to certain types of radiation may be dangerous (danger being
determined by the radiation source, the intensity of that source, and the
duration of exposure). By offering an array of examples and by demonstrating
that "danger" was an associated meaning of radiation and not an essential one,
the speaker assisted his audience in developing a more accurate conception of
this much used, but often misunderstood, concept.
QUASI-SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS

If an idea is difficult chiefly because complexity obscures its main points, then
speakers should present a quasi-scientific explanation. Just as scientists try to
develop models of the world, quasi-scientific explanations model or picture the
key dimensions of some phenomenon for lay audiences. Speakers presenting
difficult-to-envision topics such as how radar works, the structure of the U.S.
federal court system, the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity, or how DNA molecules pass on genetic information, should use quasiscientific explanations.
Perhaps because the chief difficulties in adequately modeling complex phenomena lie in locating their key components or processes, good quasi-scientific
explanations have easily discernible main points and clear connections among
them. Specifically, researchers in educational psychology (e.g., Mayer, 1983,
1989; Mayer & Andersen, 1992; Mayer, Dyck, & Cook, 1984) have found that
effective quasi-scientific explanations contain features that highlight the structure of the phenomenon being explained and essentially overcome two obstacles
to comprehension: difficulties in getting a general impression of some phenomenon and difficulties in conceptualizing that phenomenon's parts, processes,
and interrelations. Current informative speaking pedagogy is useful in helping
students consider these obstacles to understanding (e.g., De Vito, 1990; Verderber, 1994).

PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING245

The difficulty of not having the "big picture" is best overcome through devices
that quickly convey structure or gist. These include graphic features such as

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simplified drawings, cartoons, videos, and models of all sorts (Gilbert & Osborne,

1980; Mayer & Anderson, 1992; Robins & Mayer, 1993). Verbal strategies are
also helpful. Some effective strategies include structure-suggesting titles ("Greenhouse Earth" or "Five Areas of Study"), organizing analogies (e.g., "Your brain
works like a computer"), and model-suggesting topic sentences (e.g., "Radar works
like an echo" or "Islam is similar to Christianity in some ways and different in
others") (See Loman and Mayer, 1983, Mayer, 1985a, Mayer 1985b, and Mayer,
Dyck, and Cook, 1984).
The second difficulty good quasi-scientific explanations must overcome is that
of helping listeners see the relationships among a phenomenon's subcomponents or sub-processes. Transitional phrases, previews, summaries, and
explicit statements of relationships all aid people in refining their mental models
of some subject (Loman & Mayer, 1983; Mayer, Dyck, & Cook, 1984). Interestingly, research has shown that over-use of short sentences can actually harm
people's abilities to see connections among ideas, particularly when sentences
are arbitrarily shortened for shortness' sake. In some cases, important linking
words such as "because" and "for example" are cut from sentences in the
mistaken belief that short sentences inevitably enhance comprehension (Davison, 1984).
One text feature that helps people see relationships among complex ideas is
that of continually re-invoking initial comparisons. This technique facilitates
mapping old knowledge onto the new. We see interrelations among subcomponents illuminated in Gentner's (1988) analysis of Rutherford's analogy
comparing the hydrogen atom to the solar system. As Gentner notes, this
analogy facilitates learning because of its high systematicity. Rutherford went on
to show how his analogy held among sub-components of both systems: the
nucleus in the atom is like the sun in the solar system, the electrons like planets,
the attractive forces between the atom's nucleus and electrons like those between the sun and its planets. Similarly, a good quasi-scientific presentation on
how human vision works could compare an eye's parts with those of a camera.
Links may be made between the relation of the pupil to the retina with that of
the aperture adjustment to film.
Another good quasi-scientific speech might explain how radar works. Using
an organizing analogy, the speaker could say that radar works essentially the
way an echo does, except that radio, rather than sound waves, are sent and
received. The speaker could refer to the echo analogy as she points to a visual
aid and discusses the radar signal's transmission (similar to shouting in a
canyon) and reception (similar to hearing the echo).
TRANSFORMATIVE EXPLANATIONS

If the chief source of difficulty is neither a confusing term nor a complex mass of
information, but is rather the counter-intuitivity of an idea, then speakers could
design their talks as transformative explanations. For example, the idea that when a
person pushes on a concrete wall, that wall exerts an equal and opposite force
(Newton's Third Law of Motion) contains no difficult terms, but from a lay
perspective, it may seem implausible. Transformative explanations are designed

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to present such counter-intuitive ideas by helping lay audiences transform their

everyday "theories" of phenomena into more accepted notions. Questions best
answered with transformative presentations might include: why natural foods
such as potatoes contain dangerous toxins, how men can get breast cancer, why
belief in a just world leads people to blame victims for their plights, or why
abstract art can be more technically and intellectually demanding than portraiture.
Educational research shows that people's chief difficulties in understanding
counter-intuitive ideas lie in understanding why their own, implicit theory is
inadequate (Brown, 1992; Hewson & Hewson, 1983; Shymansky & Kyle, 1988;
Watts & Pope, 1989). Thus, good transformative explanations begin by discussing the audience's implicit theory first and then demonstrating its limitations
(Anderson & Smith, 1984; Hewson & Hewson, 1983; Hynd & Alvermann, 1986;
Rowan, 1991). Specifically, science educators have found that the best transformative explanations are those that (a) state people's "implicit" or "lay" theory
about the phenomenon or ask questions that elicit this theory, (b) acknowledge
the apparent plausibility of the lay theory, (c) reject the lay theory and demonstrate its inadequacy with examples familiar to the audience, and (d) state the
more accepted account and illustrate its greater effectiveness.
In one of my classes, several students developed a transformative explanationaimed at nonscience studentsfor why otherwise healthful foods contain
natural toxins. Here are the principal components ofthat account. The students
used Ames, Magaw, and Gold (1987) to inform their explanatory efforts.
[State lay theory]. It seems reasonableno, OBVIOUSto believe that when we eat healthful
foods we are ingesting substances that are good for us.
[Acknowledge the apparent plausibility of the lay theory, but then reject it and illustrate its inadequacy by
locating contradictory examples familiar to the audience.] There are many good reasons for believing

"natural foods" are good for us. Clearly, eating healthful food is associated with well-being.
Many long-lived people are known for their healthful eating. Personal experience tells us we feel
better when we have a balanced diet. However, it is not the case that all things natural are
healthful. We know that some snakes are poisonous, that forests contain poison ivy, and that
simply eating too much foodhowever naturalis bad for us. So, perhaps we should not be too
surprised to learn that healthful foods such as fresh baked bread, shrimp, potatoes, and peanuts
often contain naturally created toxins, pesticides, and human carcinogens.
[Demonstrate the adequacy of the more orthodox view]. Why would natural toxins exist in foods?

Plants develop these toxins to protect themselves from fungi, insects, and predators. According
to Bruce Ames, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his associates, natural
carcinogens may be more responsible for human cancers than synthetic chemicals. As these
scientists say, "We are ingesting in our diet at least 10,000 times more by weight of natural
pesticides than of manmade pesticide residues" (Ames et al., 1987, p. 272).
For example, one human carcinogen is aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a natural toxin that contaminates wheat, corn, nuts, and stored carbohydrate foods like peanut butter. Aflatoxin is also
found in the milk of cows that eat moldy grain.
As Ames et al. write, "We . . . are almost completely ignorant of the carcinogenic potential of
the enormous background of natural chemicals in the world. For example cholinesterase
inhibitors are a common class of pesticides, both man-made and natural. Solanine and
chaconine (the main alkaloids in potatoes) are cholinesterase inhibitors and were introduced
into the human diet about 400 years ago with the dissemination of the potato from the
Andes. . . . Neither alkaloid has been tested for carcinogenicity. . . ." (p. 277).
In essence, the idea that natural foods are entirely healthful is not a sound one. There are a
variety of forces in nature, not all of which are beneficial to human health. Plants' need to survive
causes them to develop defense systems, some of which are harmful to humans. Further,

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because cancers usually take a long time to kill, evolution may not have helped us develop
defenses against them. We may be biologically better equipped to avoid acute hazards than we
are chronic dangers that manifest themselves past usual reproductive ages.

As this example shows, the key to good transformative explanation is recognizing that when people have deeply held implicit theories, they do not reject their
theories easily. Implicit theories exist because they seem to work. Good transformative explanations do not simply reject them. Instead, these explanations
remind audiences that their implicit theories do not account for phenomena
with which they themselves are familiar.
After considering this "natural carcinogens" example, one might wonder if
transformative explanations are appropriate only for natural science topics. But
while there are many non-intuitive scientific notions, counter-intuitive notions
are not exclusively scientific. People develop powerful but tacit lay theories
about familiar dimensions of life (e.g., art and race relations as well as nutrition
and disease). In fact, communication teachers often generate good transformative explanations while lecturing on the notion that perception is a subjective,
rather than an objective, process. Instructors are aware that simply asserting the
subjective and constructive character of perception would not be effective.
Consequently, they usually begin lectures by acknowledging the apparent
plausibility of the "objective-perception hypothesis." They tell students that it is
natural to assume that what is perceived is exactly correspondent to reality. But
then the inadequacy of the objective-perception hypothesis is demonstrated by
using optical illusions or attribution exercises, showing that the mind partly
creates the reality it perceives. Only after these exercises, do instructors assert
and explain the subjectivity of perception.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE PEDAGOGY

This alternative approach to the teaching of explanatory speaking improves

instruction in several ways. First, it improves teaching by giving it a more
analytic, more reasoned approach. Novice public speaking instructors tend to
translate instruction in informative speaking into lists of requirements for form.
According to some novices, a good informative speech has an introduction, a
body with at least two main points, a summary conclusion, at least one visual aid,
and a subject of interest to the audience. Of course, such an approach is form
rather than function focused. It fails to give students practice in analyzing the
conceptual challenges an audience might face in listening to a complex presentation.
This alternative pedagogy encourages thinking. Students assigned explanatory speeches first consider several topics that their classmates would like to
learn and the principal reasons for any difficulty in understanding the subject.
Toward this end, speakers interview class members. Then they produce strategic analyses, noting what conceptual difficulties audience members have with
their topics. Next, they conduct research on their topics and eventually generate
speech outlines using the explanation type that best overcomes these difficulties.
Student speeches developed in this manner are frequently well-reasoned and
fun.
Additionally, having a theory of explanatory discourse makes lecturing and
tutorial explanation more intellectually stimulating. Having a theoretical basis
for considering why, for example, students have difficulty mastering some

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248ROWAN

apparently mundane distinction (e.g., the difference between independent and

dependent clauses) makes the task of explaining more of a challenge. Regardless
of whether the explanation succeeds or fails, teachers can attempt to determine
the reason for its effect on the audience.
The proposed theory of explanatory discourse may also have important
benefits for teacher training. First, it may encourage reflection in lesson planning, lecturing, and text selection. Second, the theory may especially help
novice teachers with course material planning. In reviewing the content for a
given class, novice teachers could be trained to anticipate and minimize likely
difficulties that their students may face in mastering certain material. They
could produce brief strategy analyses that require them to draw from the
appropriate techniques discussed earlier (e.g., an extended elucidating, quasiscientific, or transformative explanation).
Finally, the proposed theory can be presented as a heuristic device to
students; that is, it can function as a way of checking comprehension of lecture
or textual explanations. It can serve also as a basis for re-thinking or challenging
such materials. For example, one may envision a communication class session on
the definition of mass communication. Frequently such exercises are teacherdominated. Students taught to analyze definitions as elucidating explanations
may be better able to engage in or critique a teacher's definitional claims. For
instance, some definitions of mass communication insist that all instances of this
phenomenon must be directed to mass audiences. A student may object,
though, and ask whether telephone conversations used in telemarketing count
as instances of mass communication. The student could argue that telemarketing allows access to mass audiences even though the members of such audiences
are contacted individually. Learning that one tests definitions by generating a
range of instantiating examples can assist students in considering definitional
claims. Additionally, knowledge of the features of good quasi-scientific and
transformative explanations should help them check their understanding of
complex structures and processes.
CONCLUSION

Eighteenth-century rhetoricians such as Campbell believed the human mind

reasons by certain universal patterns. Placing information in these patterns
(e.g., by chronology, causal order) therefore seemed the key step in making
information clear. In twentieth-century public speaking textbooks, we still see
similar treatments of informative speaking, treatments that equate the goal of
informing with matters of arrangement. When informing is equated with
arrangement, however, students are discouraged from actively considering an
audience's likely difficulties in understanding complex subject matter. In addition, the false notion that informing is an uninteresting and "obvious" process is
encouraged. Unfortunately, this false notion still pervades pedagogy and makes
even our best public speaking textbooks less effective.
This essay offers a new, invention-emphasizing pedagogy for explanatory
speaking. This pedagogy is supported by classical rhetoric's emphasis on invention and by decades of contemporary educational research on sources of
intellectual confusion and methods for addressing them. In essence, it transforms the process of explaining difficult ideas into an explicitly strategic enterprise for which there is important traditional and recent empirical guidance.

PEDAGOGY FOR EXPLANATORY SPEAKING249

Just as discovering the causes of infectious diseases improved physicians' diagnostic capabilities, so too can discovering causes of confusion assist explanatory
speakers. Since the fifth century BC, rhetorical training has aided speakers in
discerning the available means of persuasion. This pedagogy provides similar
guidance to those explaining difficult ideas.
NOTES
1

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To identify prevalent ways of teaching informative speaking for this essay, I located six recent, top-selling
public speaking textbooks that have at least one chapter devoted to informative speaking. I reviewed the
informative speaking chapters in these textbooks carefully and examined their coverage of other topics relevant
to informing, such as advice on research, audience analysis, forms of support, visual aids, and language choice. I
selected textbooks for this analysis that focused on the teaching of public speaking, rather than on other
communication subject matter. These contemporary texts were: Beebe and Beebe (1994), DeVito (1990), Lucas
(1992), Nelson and Pearson (1990), Osborn and Osborn (1994), and Verderber (1994). In addition, I examined
two editions of a textbook first issued in the 1930s: Monroe (1945) and Monroe and Ehninger (1969). These
latter textbooks were reviewed to see if pedagogy for informative speaking had changed substantially in the last
few decades. It has not.
2
Several of the eight textbooks I examined include sections on the speech to explain a difficult idea. These are
Lucas (1992), Nelson and Pearson (1990) and Osborn and Osborn (1994). Each gives good advice; emphasis is
placed, however, on the use of rhetorical forms for explaining, rather than on offering inventional guidance to
assist speakers in anticipating likely confusions.
3
Several contemporary public speaking textbooks offer some discussion of contemporary educational
research relevant to informative speaking. For example, Lucas (1992) discusses research from educational
psychology on the role of visual aids in assisting learning. For their discussion of informative speaking Nelson
and Pearson (1990) draw from research on learning and memory. In addition, Osborn and Osborn (1994) cite
my integrations of rhetorical theory with educational research (e.g., Rowan, 1988, 1990) in their treatment of
the speech to explain. For the most part, though, this research appears sporadically in contemporary public
speaking textbooks. It does not inform systematic inquiry about obstacles to understanding complex subject
matter.
4
Note that Kinneavy (1971) takes the position that there are at least four fundamental communication goals.
From his perspective, then, one kind of communication is principally persuasive, but not all kinds. Others argue
that all communication efforts are persuasive. For instance, in their public speaking textbook, Nadeau,
Jablonski, & Gardner, (1993) write that "all talks, presentations, speeches, discourses, lectures, sermons, or
reports are fundamentally persuasive. The persuasive component of the speaker's e t h o s . . . is ever present even
in a mathematics class" (p. 157). A third perspective is that claims about fundamental types of discourse are not
ontological but rather interpretive. That is, those taking this third position would say it is sometimes useful to
analyze discourse as though it is entirely persuasive, or self-expressive, or informative, or literary. On the other
hand, it is sometimes useful to analyze discourse as though multiple aims are pursuable in most contexts while
the dominant aim in a given case can be persuasion, or understanding, or entertainment, or self-expression.
Critics can make judgments about the dominant aim animating a given text by assessing features of the text and
its context. Subscribing to this last view, I argue, as Kinneavy does, that it is illuminating to maintain that some
discourse is more oriented toward deepening understanding (e.g., teaching) than it is toward gaining
agreement (e.g., selling). But whether one sees aims in discourse as phenomena that differ in degree or kind, the
essential argument of this essay is that there is as much exciting strategy involved in explaining something
difficult as there is in gaining agreement. Consequently, speech communication textbooks should do more to
assist speakers with the former kind of strategizing.

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