Reviews for The Art of Public Speaking (Text, Student CD-ROM Guidebook v.4.0, and Audio Abridgement CD Set)

The average rating for The Art of Public Speaking (Text, Student CD-ROM Guidebook v.4.0, and Audio Abridgement CD Set) based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-06-02 00:00:00 Jeffery Peele I used Lucas' The Art of Public Speaking (11th Edition with Connect) for my Speech Communication class at Baruch College. While I wound up being very impressed with the textbook, I felt that it had a number of significant shortcomings and wound up preferring Engleberg and Daly's Presentations in Everyday Life, which I used in a Public Speaking course at Wagner College. First, the strengths. Lucas's book is the most recognizable textbook in the field for some good reasons. Lucas provides a very clear guide to public speaking, giving concrete examples of how to approach different types of speeches and how to craft and prepare for them. The text is clearly stated, updated to refer to current events and issues, and beautifully illustrated. For those reasons, I think the book is valuable. But the biggest negative element is its price point. Retailing at over $100, the book is simply not affordable for many students at public universities, and asking them to buy it is not ethical, especially when there are so many competing options which are all cheaper--some at half the price or less. The "Connect" multimedia CD is useful but probably part of the high price point, and ultimately I don't think the CD is necessary at all for students to learn effectively from the book. A further negative element, in my mind, is that Lucas's text is singlemindedly focused on public speaking classes. I think it would be valuable to broaden the gaze of this book to discuss how the skills taught in the book can be applied to many other situations outside of the classroom and in daily life.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-14 00:00:00 Paul Dmura The title should really be "The amateur book of high school classroom presentations"... If you're an experienced businessperson, please don't waste your time! The only reason why I'm criticizing the book is because the title is completely misleading... In no way, shape or form is this remotely close to deserving its score when benchmarking to many other public speaking/ presentation books like: - The art of public speaking (original Carnegie's version) - Presentation zen - How to deliver a Ted talk & how to deliver a great Ted talk - Resonate - Made to stick Even "confessions of a public speaker" was better despite being more entertainment then practical tips. To avoid at all costs unless you're a complete beginner!