Developing Credibility with Your Audience

What I found useful in the reading was the four dimensions of credibility. The first dimension is competence the speaker has to understand their topic in order for the audience to take them seriously. I understand that you must know what you are talking about before you present your topic because if you present your speech without researching your topic people are not going to want to listen. The audience can tell that you are not prepared. The second is trustworthiness where the speaker must have the audience’s true needs at heart. The third is dynamism the speaker must keep their audience listening at all times by showing passion into what he or she is saying. I think that by showing passion it allows the audience to see that you enjoy talking about your topic and if you’re enjoying it they would enjoy listening to it. The fourth is sociability where the audience feels comfortable asking the speakers question. Sociability is important because you don’t want to feel that the speaker has more authority then the audience then a person in the audience would never ask a question or find the speaker approachable. With this in mind I hope that I can take this and use them as guidelines when I am preparing my speech so I can get the audience involved.