This study surveys speech-making practices and attitudes of practitioners in firms not primarily engaged in providing public relations services. Questionnaires designed to assess the uses of speech making as a public relations technique were sent to the 50 largest United States advertising agencies and to the 34 largest United States business and industrial firms with internal public relations operations. The resulting data were compared with Cantera's findings concerning 40 "pure" public relations firms. Wayne State University's Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, which is described in depth, was used to determine major dependent variables. Conclusions suggest that speech making is not regarded as being as effective as print media in public relations, that speech making creates a "pseudoevent" around which to structure other events, that respondents have in common a background in print media, that geographical location is not a significant variable, and that practitioners in business and industry have higher opinions of their clients' abilities to deliver speeches. Few differences were found in organizations' devotion of time to speech making, number of speeches written annually, clients recommended for speech making, or methods of evaluating speech-making effectiveness. (Author/KS)