Exposition News Blog

Finally, in preparing expository material ask yourself these questions regarding your subject:

What is it, and what is it not?
What is it like, and unlike?
What are its causes, and effects?
How shall it be divided?
With what subjects is it correlated?
What experiences does it recall?
What examples illustrate it?

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Exposition Helpful Hints

This antithesis forms an expansion of the definition, and as such it might have been still further extended. In fact, this is a frequent practise in public speech, where the minds of the hearers often ask for reiteration and expanded statement to help them grasp a subject in its several aspects. This is the very heart of exposition--to amplify and clarify all the terms by which a matter is defined.

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Public Speech Blog

Construct the outline, examining it carefully for interest, convincing character, proportion, and climax of arrangement.

NOTE:--This exercise should be repeated until the student shows facility in synthetic arrangement.

Deliver the address, if possible before an audience.

Make a three-hundred word report on the results, as best you are able to estimate them.

Tell something of the benefits of using a periodical (or cumulative) index.

Give a number of quotations, suitable for a speaker's use, that you have memorized in off moments.

Presentation Bulletin

Suppose you set to work somewhat in this way to gather references on"Thinking:" First you look over your book titles, and there is Schaeffer's "Thinking and Learning to Think." Near it is Kramer's "Talks to Students on the Art of Study"--that seems likely to provide some material, and it does. Naturally you think next of your book on psychology, and there is help there. If you have a volume on the human intellect you will have already turned to it. Suddenly you remember your encyclopedia and your dictionary of quotations--and now material fairly rains upon you; the problem is what _not_ to use. In the encyclopedia you turn to every reference that includes or touches or even suggests"thinking;" and in the dictionary of quotations you do the same. The latter volume you find peculiarly helpful because it suggests several volumes to you that are on your own shelves--you never would have thought to look in them for references on this subject. Even fiction will supply help, but especially books of essays and biography. Be aware of your own resources.

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Presentation Updates

"'Do give me a subject!' How often the weary school teacher hears that cry. Then a list of themes is suggested, gone over, considered, and, inmost instances, rejected, because the teacher can know but imperfectly what is in the pupil's mind. To suggest a subject in this way is like trying to discover the street on which a lost child lives, by naming over a number of streets until one strikes the little one's ear assounding familiar.

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Public Speech Daily News

No book on public speaking will enable you to discourse on the tariff if you know nothing about the tariff. Knowing more about it than the other man will be your only hope for making the other man listen to you.

Take a group of men discussing a governmental policy of which some one says: "It is socialistic." That will commend the policy to Mr. A., who believes in socialism, but condemn it to Mr. B., who does not. It may be that neither had considered the policy beyond noticing that its surface-color was socialistic. The chances are, furthermore, that neither Mr. A. nor Mr. B. has a definite idea of what socialism really is, for as Robert Louis Stevenson says, "Man lives not by bread alone but chiefly by catch words." If you are of this group of men, and have observed this proposed government policy, and investigated it, and thought about it, what you have to say cannot fail to command their respect and approval, for you will have shown them that you possess a grasp of your subject and--to adopt an exceedingly expressive bit of slang--_then_ some.

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Public Speech News Blog

But, however thought-less a mind has been, there is promise of better things so soon as the mind detects its own lack of thought-power. The first step is to stop regarding thought as "the magic of the mind," to use Byron's expression, and see it as thought truly is--_a weighing of ideas and a placing of them in relationships to each other_. Ponder this definition and see if you have learned to think efficiently.

Habitual thinking is just that--a habit. Habit comes of doing a thing repeatedly. The lower habits are acquired easily, the higher ones require deeper grooves if they are to persist. So we find that the thought-habit comes only with resolute practise; yet no effort will yield richer dividends. Persist in practise, and whereas you have been able to think only an inch-deep into a subject, you will soon find that you can penetrate it a foot.

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Public Delivery Blog Updates

One danger in this method is that you may be led aside from your subject into by-paths. To avoid this peril, firmly stick to your mental outline. Practise speaking from a memorized brief until you gain control. Join a debating society--talk, _talk_, _TALK_, and always extemporize. You may"make a fool of yourself" once or twice, but is that too great a price to pay for success?

Notes, like crutches, are only a sign of weakness. Remember that the power of your speech depends to some extent upon the view your audience holds of you. General Grant's words as president were more powerful than his words as a Missouri farmer. If you would appear in the light of anauthority, be one. Make notes on your brain instead of on paper.

Public Delivery Daily Helpful Hints

There are motives that can move a man to read his address or sermon:

How long would a play fill a theater if the actors held their cue-books in hand and read their parts? Imagine Patrick Henry reading his famous speech; Peter-the-Hermit, manuscript in hand, exhorting the crusaders; Napoleon, constantly looking at his papers, addressing the army at the Pyramids; or Jesus reading the Sermon on theMount! These speakers were so full of their subjects, their general preparation had been so richly adequate, that there was no necessity for a manuscript, either to refer to or to serve as "an outward and visible sign" of their preparedness. No event was ever so dignified that it required an _artificial_ attempt at speech making. Call an essay by its right name, but never call it a speech. Perhaps the most dignified of events is a supplication to the Creator. If you ever listened to the reading of an original prayer you must have felt its superficiality.

Public Presentation Daily

METHODS OF DELIVERY

There are four fundamental methods of delivering an address; all others are modifications of one or more of these: reading from manuscript, committing the written speech and speaking from memory, speaking from notes, and extemporaneous speech. It is impossible to say which form of delivery is best for all speakers in all circumstances--in deciding for yourself you should consider the occasion, the nature of the audience, the character of your subject, and your own limitations of time and ability. However, it is worth while warning you not to be lenient inself-exaction. Say to yourself courageously: What others can do, I can attempt. A bold spirit conquers where others flinch, and a trying task challenges pluck.

Public Presentation Daily

Render the following with suitable gestures:

One day, while preaching, Whitefield "suddenly assumed a
nautical air and manner that were irresistible with him," and
broke forth in these words: "Well, my boys, we have a clear sky,
and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light
breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means
this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising
from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant
thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning? There is a
storm gathering! Every man to his duty! The air is dark!--the
tempest rages!--our masts are gone!--the ship is on her beam
ends! What next?" At this a number of sailors in the
congregation, utterly swept away by the dramatic description,
leaped to their feet and cried: "The longboat!--take to the
longboat!"

--NATHAN SHEPPARD, _Before an Audience_.

Delivery Daily News

Do Not Use Too Much Gesture

As a matter of fact, in the big crises of life we do not go through many actions. When your closest friend dies you do not throw up your hands and talk about your grief. You are more likely to sit and brood in dry-eyed silence. The Hudson River does not make much noise on its way to the sea--it is not half so loud as the little creek up in Bronx Park that a bullfrog could leap across. The barking dog never tears your trousers--at least they say he doesn't. Do not fear the man who waves his arms and shouts his anger, but the man who comes up quietly with eyes flaming and face burning may knock you down. Fuss is not force. Observe these principles in nature and practise them in your delivery.

Public Presentation-Gestures

Gestures Should Be Born of the Moment

The best actors and public speakers rarely know in advance what gestures they are going to make. They make one gesture on certain words tonight, and none at all tomorrow night at the same point--their various moods and interpretations govern their gestures. It is all a matter of impulse and intelligent feeling with them--don't overlook that word_intelligent_. Nature does not always provide the same kind of sunsets or snow flakes, and the movements of a good speaker vary almost as much as the creations of nature.

PRECISION OF UTTERANCE BLOG

Over-precision is likewise a fault. To bring out any syllable unduly is to caricature the word. Be _moderate_ in reading the following:

THE LAST SPEECH OF MAXIMILIAN DE ROBESPIERRE

The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such they
would grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should
grant them immunity for their crimes, and they would be
grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished, far from
denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support;
there would be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have
tools. But the enemies of tyranny,--whither does their path
tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my
protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What
faction, since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and
annihilated so many detected traitors? You, the people,--our
principles--are that faction--a faction to which I am devoted,
and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is banded!

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Toastmasters Blog Updates

Distinct and precise utterance is one of the most important considerations of public speech. How preposterous it is to hear a speaker making sounds of "in articulate earnestness" under the contented delusion that he is telling something to his audience! Telling? Telling means communicating, and how can he actually communicate without making every word distinct?

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Toastmasters Updates

In joyous conversation there is an elastic touch, a delicate stroke, upon the central ideas, generally following a pause. This elastic touch adds vivacity to the voice. If you try repeatedly, it can be sensed by feeling the tongue strike the teeth. The entire absence of elastic touch in the voice can be observed in the thick tongue of the intoxicated man.Try to talk with the tongue lying still in the bottom of the mouth, and you will obtain largely the same effect. Vivacity of utterance is gained by using the tongue to strike off the emphatic idea with a decisive, elastic touch.

Purity of Voice News Bulletin

This quality is sometimes destroyed by wasting the breath. Carefully control the breath, using only as much as is necessary for the production of tone. Utilize all that you give out. Failure to do this results in a breathy tone. Take in breath like a prodigal; in speaking, give it out like a miser.

Voice Suggestions

Never attempt to force your voice when hoarse.

Do not drink cold water when speaking. The sudden shock to the heated organs of speech will injure the voice.

Toastmasters Bulletin

Start to yawn, but instead of yawning, speak while your throat is open.Make this open-feeling habitual when speaking--we say _make_ because it is a matter of resolution and of practise, if your vocal organs are healthy. Your tone passages may be partly closed by enlarged tonsils, adenoids, or enlarged turbinate bones of the nose. If so, a skilled physician should be consulted.

The nose is an important tone passage and should be kept open and free for perfect tones. What we call "talking through the nose" is not talking through the nose, as you can easily demonstrate by holding your nose as you talk. If you are bothered with nasal tones caused by growths or swellings in the nasal passages, a slight, painless operation will remove the obstruction. This is quite important, aside from voice, for the general health will be much lowered if the lungs are continually starved for air.

Professional Presentation Skills Scoops

Thus, to sum up, the vocabulary you have enlarged by study, the ease in speaking you have developed by practise, the economy of your well-studied emphasis all will subconsciously come to your aid on the platform. Then the habits you have formed will be earning you a splendid dividend. The fluency of your speech will be at the speed of flow your practise has made habitual.

But this means work. What good habit does not? No philosopher's stone that will act as a substitute for laborious practise has ever been found. If it were, it would be thrown away, because it would kill our greatest joy--the delight of acquisition. If public-speaking means to you a fuller life, you will know no greater happiness than a well-spoken speech. The time you have spent in gathering ideas and in private practise of speaking you will find amply rewarded.

Inflections in Public Speaking News Blog

Render the following passages:

Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done?

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Invent an indirect question and show how it would naturally be inflected.
Does a direct question always require a rising inflection?Illustrate.
Illustrate how the complete ending of an expression or of a speech is indicated by inflection.
Do the same for incompleteness of idea.
Illustrate (_a_) trembling, (_b_) hesitation, and (_c_) doubt by means of inflection.
Show how contrast may be expressed.
Try the effects of both rising and falling inflections on the italicized words in the following sentences. State your preference.

Gentlemen, I am _persuaded_, nay, I am _resolved_ to speak.

It is sown a _natural_ body; it is raised a _spiritual_ body.

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Presentation Skill Training News Blog

Read the following without making any pauses. Reread correctly and note the difference:

Soon the night will pass; and when, of the Sentinel on the ramparts of Liberty the anxious ask: "Watchman, what of the night?" his answer will be "Lo, the morn appeareth."

Knowing the price we must pay, the sacrifice we must make, the burdens we must carry, the assaults we must endure, knowing full well the cost, yet we enlist, and we enlist for the war. For we know the justice of our cause, and we know, too, its certain triumph.

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Communication Skills Blog

Remember that two sentences, or two parts of the same sentence, which contain changes of thought, cannot possibly be given effectively in the same key. Let us repeat, every big change of thought requires a big change of pitch. What the beginning student will think are big changes of pitch will be monotonously alike. Learn to speak some thoughts in a very high tone--others in a _very_, _very_ low tone. _DEVELOP RANGE._ It is almost impossible to use too much of it.

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Presentation Skills Tip News Blog

But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription for decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent audience in quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling in a speech is bone and blood of the speech itself and not something that may be added to it or substracted at will. In the ideal address theme, speaker and audience become one, fused by the emotion and thought of the hour.

Professional Presentation Skills Helpful Hints

Political parties hire bands, and pay for applause--they argue that, for vote-getting, to stir up enthusiasm is more effective than reasoning. How far they are right depends on the hearers, but there can be no doubt about the contagious nature of enthusiasm. A watch manufacturer in New York tried out two series of watch advertisements; one argued the superior construction, workmanship, durability, and guarantee offered with the watch; the other was headed, "A Watch to be Proud of," and dwelt upon the pleasure and pride of ownership. The latter series sold twice as many as the former. A salesman for a locomotive works informed the writer that in selling railroad engines emotional appeal was stronger than an argument based on mechanical excellence.

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Public Speaking Skills Info

You can not deliver an aggressive message with caressing little strokes. No! Jab it in with hard, swift solar plexus punches. You cannot strike fire from flint or from an audience with love taps. Say to a crowded theatre in a lackadaisical manner: "It seems to me that the house is on fire," and your announcement may be greeted with a laugh. If you flash out the words: "The house's on fire!" they will crush one another in getting to the exits.

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Poise, Pause, Modulation, and Tempo Daily Blog

This truth is worth reiteration: The man within is the final factor. He must supply the fuel. The audience, or even the man himself, may add the match--it matters little which, only so that there be fire. However skillfully your engine is constructed, however well it works, you will have no force if the fire has gone out under the boiler. It matters little how well you have mastered poise, pause, modulation, and tempo, if your speech lacks fire it is dead. Neither a dead engine nor a dead speech will move anybody.

Steps to Speaking Success Blog

Select from any source several sentences suitable for speaking aloud; deliver them first in the manner condemned in this chapter, and second with due regard for emphasis toward the close of each sentence.

Put into about one hundred words your impression of the effect produced.

Tell of any peculiar methods you may have observed or heard of by which speakers have sought to aid their powers of concentration, such as looking fixedly at a blank spot in the ceiling, or twisting a watch charm.

Tips For Public Speaking Inflections News

"I have had a delightful time," when spoken at the termination of a formal tea by a frivolous woman takes altogether different inflection than the same words spoken between lovers who have enjoyed themselves. Mimic the two characters in repeating this and observe the difference.

Note how light and short the inflections are in the following brief quotation from "Anthony the Absolute," by Samuel Mervin.

_At Sea--March 28th_.

This evening I told Sir Robert What's His Name he was a fool.

I was quite right in this. He is.

Every evening since the ship left Vancouver he has presided over the round table in the middle of the smoking-room. There he sips his coffee and liqueur, and holds forth on every subject known to the mind of man. Each subject is _his_ subject. He is an elderly person, with a bad face and a drooping left eyelid.

They tell me that he is in the British Service--a judge somewhere down in Malaysia, where they drink more than is good for them.

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Effective Presentation Skills News

You will note that the punctuation marks have nothing to do with the pausing. You may run by a period very quickly and make a long pause where there is no kind of punctuation. Thought is greater than punctuation. It must guide you in your pauses.

A book of verses underneath the bough,--a jug of wine, a loaf of bread--and thou beside me singing in the wilderness--Oh--wilderness were paradise enow.

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Effective Presentation News

When a man says: "I-uh-it is with profound-ah-pleasure that-er-I have been permitted to speak to you tonight and-uh-uh-I should say-er"--that is not pausing; that is stumbling. It is conceivable that a speaker maybe effective in spite of stumbling--but never because of it.

On the other hand,

It would seem that this principle of rhetorical pause ought to be easily grasped and applied, but a long experience in training both college men and maturer speakers has demonstrated that the device is no more readily understood by the average man when it is first explained to him than if it were spoken in Hindoostani. Perhaps this is because we do not eagerly devour the fruit of experience when it is impressively set before us on the platter of authority; we like to pluck fruit for ourselves--it not only tastes better, but we never forget that tree! Fortunately, this is no difficult task, in this instance, for the trees stand thick all about us.

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Toastmasters News

IF A MAN FAILS AS A MINISTER, why, he becomes a railway conductor. IF THAT DOESN'T SUIT HIM, he goes West, and becomes governor of a territory. AND IF HE FINDS HIMSELF INCAPABLE OF EITHER OF THESE POSITIONS, he comes home, and gets to be a city editor_. He varies his occupation as he pleases, and doesn't need protection. _BUT THE GREAT MASS, CHAINED TO A TRADE, DOOMED TO BE GROUND UP IN THE MILL OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND, THAT WORK SO MANY HOURS A DAY, AND MUST RUN IN THE GREAT RUTS OF BUSINESS,--they are the men whose inadequate protection, whose unfair share of the general product, claims a movement in their behalf_.


--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

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Using Ephasis in Public Speaking Blog

By pitch, as everyone knows, we mean the relative position of a vocal tone--as, high, medium, low, or any variation between. In public speech we apply it not only to a single utterance, as an exclamation or a monosyllable (_Oh!_ or _the_) but to any group of syllables, words, and even sentences that may be spoken in a single tone.

This distinction it is important to keep in mind, for the efficient speaker not only changes the pitch of successive syllables ,but gives a different pitch to different parts, or word-groups, of successive sentences.

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Toastmasters International News Blog

You say Massa_CHU_setts and Minne_AP_olis, you do not emphasize each syllable alike, but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over the unimportant ones. Now why do you not apply this principle in speaking a sentence? To some extent you do, in ordinary speech; but do you in public discourse? It is there that monotony caused by lack of emphasis is so painfully apparent.

So far as emphasis is concerned during a speech, you may consider the average sentence as just one big word, with the important word as the accented syllable.

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The Monotonous Speaker Updates

The monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and pitch of tone but uses always the same emphasis, the same speed, the same thoughts--or dispenses with thought altogether.

Monotony, the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker, is not a transgression--it is rather a sin of omission.

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Art Of Public Speaking Helpful Hints

If you believe you will fail in your speech, there is no hope for you. You will.

Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust speaker idea . You are a god,with infinite capabilities. "All things are ready if the mind be so."The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.

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Public Speaking CONFIDENCE Daily

ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

Face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying your speeches. You can never attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet,perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.

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Persuasive Public Speaking Blog

CHAPTER XXIV--INFLUENCING BY PERSUASION

She hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.


--SHAKESPEARE, _Measure for Measure_.



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DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE

CHAPTER XIV--DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE

In man speaks God.

--HESIOD, _Words and Days_.

And endless are the modes of speech, and far Extends from side to side the field of words.

--HOMER, _Iliad_.


In popular usage the terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and"articulation" are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three distinct processes, and may therefore be defined as, _the utterance of a syllable or a group of syllables with regard to articulation,accentuation, and enunciation_.

Persuasive Public Speaking

CHAPTER IV--EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PITCH

Speech is simply a modified form of singing: the principal difference being in the fact that in singing the vowel sounds are prolonged and the intervals are short, whereas in speech the words are uttered in what may be called "staccato" tones, the vowels not being specially prolonged and the intervals between the words being more distinct. The fact that in singing we have a larger range of tones does not properly distinguish it from ordinary speech.

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