Credibility

= = =**Notes on Credibility**=

**From Class Reading and Discussion**
Credibility refers to your authority and believability as a speaker.

Credibility exists in the mind of the audience. No matter how much authority you might actually have, above all the audience must believe in you and what you're saying.

Credibility is an attitude as much as anything. When giving a speech, your delivery needs to be good and your audience should be interested, but the audience also has to LIKE YOU. A person's body language and speaking style affect people's trust on an emotional level (for example, people who speak quickly, but not too fast, tend to be considered more believable than people who speak more slowly). And in order to convince others, we must convince ourselves: be confident and believe in yourself! Be careful not to let confidence become cockiness, and avoid being condescending.

Famous people often have some initial credibility, especially if they're famous experts on the topic. But for the rest of us, it's important to advertise your credibility to make it known to the audience. Show the audience explicitly why they should believe you.

Strong evidence is something else that builds credibility by the end of the speech.

Show that you share the audience's values and experiences; you "share common ground" with them. In speeches about problems or social issues, work through the problem with the audience...state the problem, then the evidence, then the logical conclusion from that evidence.

In our class readings, there are suggested formats/formulas for establishing your credibility in a speech. But since every speech is different, and because some speeches are powerful in the ways that they DEPART from the usual format, there's no one format that's always best.