Exposition News Update

=Discarding= is a less common form of platform explanation. It consists in clearing away associated ideas so that the attention may be centered on the main thought to be discussed. Really, it is a negative factor in exposition though a most important one, for it is fundamental to the consideration of an intricately related matter that subordinate and side questions should be set aside in order to bring out the main issue. Here is an example of the method:

I cannot allow myself to be led aside from the only issue before this jury. It is not pertinent to consider that this prisoner is the husband of a heartbroken woman and that his babes will go through the world under the shadow of the law's extremest penalty worked upon their father. We must forget the venerable father and the mother whom Heaven in pity took before she learned of her son's disgrace. What have these matters of heart, what have the blenched faces of his friends, what have the prisoner's long and honorable career to say before this bar when you are sworn to weigh only the direct evidence before you? The one and only question for you to decide on the evidence is whether this man did with revengeful intent commit the murder that every impartial witness has solemnly laid at his door.

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Public Speaking Using Exposition Blog

The importance of exposition in public speech is precisely the importance of setting forth a matter so plainly that it cannot be misunderstood.

There are pitfalls on both sides of this path. To explain too little will leave your audience in doubt as to what you mean. It is useless to argue a question if it is not perfectly clear just what is meant by the question. Have you never come to a blind lane in conversation by finding that you were talking of one aspect of a matter while your friend was thinking of another? If two do not agree in their definitions of a Musician, it is useless to dispute over a certain man's right to claim the title.

Presentation Bulletin

You now have a skeleton or outline of your address that in its polished form might serve either as the brief, or manuscript notes, for the speech or as the guide-outline which you will expand into the written address, if written it is to be.
Imagine each of the main ideas in the brief as being separate; then picture your mind as sorting them out and placing them in order; finally, conceive of how you would fill in the facts and examples under each head, giving special prominence to those you wish to emphasize and subduing those of less moment. In the end, you have the outline complete. The simplest form of outline--not very suitable for use on the platform, however--is the following:

Professional Presentation Skills Daily Scoops

Even when your theme has been chosen for you by someone else, there remains to you a considerable field for choice of subject matter. The same considerations, in fact, that would govern you in choosing a theme must guide in the selection of the material. Ask yourself--or someone else--such questions as these:

What is the precise nature of the occasion? How large an audience may be expected? From what walks of life do they come? What is their probable attitude toward the theme? Who else will speak? Do I speak first, last, or where, on the program? What are the other speakers going to talkabout? What is the nature of the auditorium? Is there a desk? Could the subject be more effectively handled if somewhat modified? Precisely how much time am I to fill?

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Public Speech Updates

Now the important thing here is that you should set all your faculties to take in the things about you with the particular object of correlating them and storing them for use in public speech. You must hear with the speaker's ear, see with the speaker's eye, and choosebooks and companions and sights and sounds with the speaker's purpose in view. At the same time, be ready to receive unplanned for knowledge. One of the fascinating elements in your life as a public speaker will be the conscious growth in power that casual daily experiences bring. If your eyes are alert you will be constantly discovering facts, illustrations, and ideas without having set out in search of them. These all may be turned to account on the platform; even the leaden events of hum-drum daily life may be melted into bullets for future battles.

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Reading As a Stimulus to Thought Bulletin

The unbroken procession brings us at length to Him whose Sermon on the Mount was the very charter of liberty. It puts us under a divine spell to perceive that we are all coworkers with the great men, and yet single threads in the warp and woof of civilization. And when books have related us to our own age, and related all the epochs to God, whose providence is the gulf stream of history, these teachers go on to stimulate us to new and greater some book to kindle its faculties. Before Byron began to write he used to give half an hour to reading some favorite passage. The thought of some great writer never failed to kindle Byron into a creative glow, even as a match lights the kindlings upon the grate. In these burning, luminous moods Byron's mind did its best work. The true book stimulates the mind as no wine can ever quicken the blood. It is reading that brings us to our best, and rouses each faculty to its most vigorous life.

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Public Presentation News

What is the use of stopping to prime a mental pump when you can fill your life with the resources for an artesian well? It is not enough to have merely enough; you must have more than enough. Then the pressure of your mass of thought and feeling will maintain your flow of speech and give you the confidence and poise that denote reserve power. To be away from home with only the exact return fare leaves a great deal to circumstances!
Reserve power is magnetic. It does not consist in giving the idea that you are holding something in reserve, but rather in the suggestion that the audience is getting the cream of your observation, reading,experience, feeling, thought. To have reserve power, therefore, you must have enough milk of material on hand to supply sufficient cream.

Public Delivery Daily News

It is earnestly hoped that instructors will not pass this stage of the work without requiring of their students much practise in the delivery of original speeches, in the manner that seems, after some experiment, to be best suited to the student's gifts. Students who are studying alone should be equally exacting in demand upon themselves.One point is most important: It is easy to learn to read a speech, therefore it is much more urgent that the pupil should have much practise in speaking from notes and speaking without notes. At this stage, pay more attention to manner than to matter--the succeeding chapters take up the composition of the address. Be particularly insistent upon _frequent_ and _thorough_ review of the principles of delivery discussed in the preceding chapters.

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Public Speech Updates

If committing seems best to you, give it a faithful trial. Do not be deterred by its pitfalls, but by resolute practise avoid them.

One of the best ways to rise superior to these difficulties is to do as Dr. Wallace Radcliffe often does: commit without writing the speech, making practically all the preparation mentally, without putting pen to paper--a laborious but effective way of cultivating both mind and memory.

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Public Delivery Daily Updates

So attention to strength, poise, flexibility, and grace of body are the foundations of good gesture, for they are expressions of vitality, and without vitality no speaker can enter the kingdom of power. When an awkward giant like Abraham Lincoln rose to the sublimest heights of oratory he did so because of the greatness of his soul--his very ruggedness of spirit and artless honesty were properly expressed in his gnarly body. The fire of character, of earnestness, and of message swept his listeners before him when the tepid words of an insincere Apollo would have left no effect. But be sure you are a second Lincoln before you despise the handicap of physical awkwardness.

Speaking Skills Blog

Avoid Monotony in Gesture

Roast beef is an excellent dish, but it would be terrible as an exclusive diet. No matter how effective one gesture is, do not overwork it. Put variety in your actions. Monotony will destroy all beauty and power. The pump handle makes one effective gesture, and on hot days that one is very eloquent, but it has its limitations.

Communication Skills News Blog

All these things, and a bookful more, may we tell the speaker, but we cannot know whether he can use these gestures or not, any more than we can decide whether he could wear Mr. Bryan's clothes. The best that can be done on this subject is to offer a few practical suggestions, and let personal good taste decide as to where effective dramatic action ends and extravagant motion begins.

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Enunciation News Blog

Correct enunciation is the complete utterance of all the sounds of a syllable or a word. Wrong articulation gives the wrong sound to the vowel or vowels of a word or a syllable, as _doo_ for _dew_; or unites two sounds improperly, as _hully_ for _wholly_. Wrong enunciation is the_incomplete_ utterance of a syllable or a word, the sound omitted or added being usually consonantal. To say _needcessity_ instead of_necessity_ is a wrong articulation; to say _doin_ for _doing_ is improper enunciation. The one articulates--that is, joints--two sounds that should not be joined, and thus gives the word a positively wrong sound; the other fails to touch all the sounds in the word, and _in that particular way_ also sounds the word incorrectly.

Public Speaking Basic News

Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of speech. It seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-amillion words that go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to make a beginning is really simple: _learn to utter correctly, and with easy change from one to the other, each of the forty-four elementary sounds in our language_.

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Pauses in Public Speaking Updates

The tone passages of the nose must be kept entirely free for the bright tones of voice--and after our warning in the preceding chapter you will not confuse what is popularly and erroneously called a "nasal" tone with the true nasal quality, which is so well illustrated by the voice work of trained French singers and speakers.

To develop nasal resonance sing the following, dwelling as long as possible on the _ng_ sounds. Pitch the voice in the nasal cavity. Practise both in high and low registers, and develop range--_with brightness_.

Sing-song. Ding-dong. Hong-kong. Long-thong.

Presentation Skills Info Blog

How to Develop the Carrying Power of the Voice.

Remember to apply the principles of ease, openness and forwardness--they are the prime factors in enabling your voice to be heard at a distance.

Do not gaze at the floor as you talk. This habit not only gives the speaker an amateurish appearance but if the head is hung forward the voice will be directed towards the ground instead of floating out over the audience.

Voice is a series of air vibrations. To strengthen it two things are necessary: more air or breath, and more vibration.

Ease in Public Speaking Blog

Signor Bonci of the Metropolitan Opera Company says that the secret of good voice is relaxation; and this is true, for relaxation is the basis of ease. The air waves that produce voice result in a different kind of tone when striking against relaxed muscles than when striking constricted muscles. Try this for yourself. Contract the muscles of your face and throat as you do in hate, and flame out "I hate you!" Now relaxas you do when thinking gentle, tender thoughts, and say, "I love you." How different the voice sounds.
In practising voice exercises, and in speaking, never force your tones. Ease must be your watchword. The voice is a delicate instrument, and you must not handle it with hammer and tongs. Don't _make_ your voice go--_let_ it go. Don't work. Let the yoke of speech be easy and its burden light.

Professional Presentation Skills Scoops

Mr. Bryan is a most fluent speaker when he speaks on political problems, tendencies of the time, and questions of morals. It is to be supposed, however, that he would not be so fluent in speaking on the bird life of the Florida Everglades. Mr. John Burroughs might be at his best on this last subject, yet entirely lost in talking about international law. Do not expect to speak fluently on a subject that you know little or nothing about. Ctesiphon boasted that he could speak all day (a sin in itself) on any subject that an audience would suggest. He was banished by the Spartans.

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Pauses in Public Speaking Scoops

Where would you pause in the following selections? Try pausing in different places and note the effect it gives.

But the women are on the march. They are walking upward to the sunlit plains where the thinking people rule. China has ceased binding their feet. In the shadow of the Harem Turkey has opened a school for girls. America has given the women equal educational advantages, and America, we believe, will enfranchise them.

We can do little to help and not much to hinder this great movement. The thinking people have put their O.K. upon it. It is moving forward to its goal just as surely as this old earth is swinging from the grip of winter toward the spring's blossoms and the summer's harvest.

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Tempo in Public Speaking Info Blog

This same principle will procure emphasis in a speech. If you have a point that you want to bring home to your audience forcefully, make a sudden and great change of tempo, and they will be powerless to keep from paying attention to that point. Recently the present writer saw a play in which these lines were spoken:

"I don't want you to forget what I said. I want you to remember it the longest day you--I don't care if you've got six guns." The part up to the dash was delivered in a very slow tempo, the remainder was named out at lightning speed, as the character who was spoken to drew a revolver. The effect was so emphatic that the lines are remembered six months afterwards, while most of the play has faded from memory. The student who has powers of observation will see this principle applied by all our best actors in their efforts to get emphasis where emphasis is due. But remember that the emotion in the matter must warrant the intensity in the manner, or the effect will be ridiculous. Too many public speakers are impressive over nothing.

Good Presentation Skills Helpful Hints

When the men of Ulster armed themselves to oppose the passage of the Home Rule Act, one of the present writers assigned to a hundred men"Home Rule" as the topic for an address to be prepared by each. Among this group were some brilliant speakers, several of them experienced lawyers and political campaigners. Some of their addresses showed a remarkable knowledge and grasp of the subject; others were clothed in the most attractive phrases. But a clerk, without a great deal of education and experience, arose and told how he spent his boyhood days in Ulster, how his mother while holding him on her lap had pictured to him Ulster's deeds of valor. He spoke of a picture in his uncle's home that showed the men of Ulster conquering a tyrant and marching on to victory. His voice quivered, and with a hand pointing upward he declared that if the men of Ulster went to war they would not go alone--a great God would go with them.

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Professional Presentation Skills Bulletin

When traveling through the Northwest some time ago, one of the present writers strolled up a village street after dinner and noticed a crowd listening to a "faker" speaking on a corner from a goods-box. Remembering Emerson's advice about learning something from every man we meet, the observer stopped to listen to this speaker's appeal. Here moved his hat to show what this remedy had done for him, washed his face in it to demonstrate that it was as harmless as water, and enlarged on its merits in such an enthusiastic manner that the half-dollars poured in on him in a silver flood.

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Effective Speech News Blog

Effective speech must reflect the era. This is not a rose water age, and a tepid, half-hearted speech will not win. This is the century of trip hammers, of overland expresses that dash under cities and through mountain tunnels, and you must instill this spirit into your speech if you would move a popular audience. From a front seat listen to a first-class company present a modern Broadway drama--not a comedy, but a gripping, thrilling drama. Do not become absorbed in the story; reserve all your attention for the technique and the force of the acting. There is a kick and a crash as well as an infinitely subtle intensity in the big, climax-speeches that suggest this lesson: the same well-calculated, restrained, delicately shaded force would simply _rivet_ your ideas in the minds of your audience. An air-gun will rattle bird-shot against a window pane--it takes a rifle to wing a bullet through plate glass and the oaken walls beyond.

Professional Presentation Skills Scoops

CONNOTATIVE words, those that suggest more than they say, have more power than ordinary words--"She _let_ herself be married" expresses more than "She _married_."

EPITHETS, figuratively descriptive words, are more effective than direct names--"Go tell that _old fox_," has more "punch" than "Go tell that_sly fellow_."ONOMATOPOETIC words, words that convey the sense by the sound, are more powerful than other words--_crash_ is more effective than _cataclysm_.

Using Force in Public Speaking Daily

Not only must we discern the difference between human force and mere physical force, but we must not confuse its real essence with some of the things that may--and may not--accompany it. For example, loudness is not force, though force at times may be attended by noise. Mere roaring never made a good speech, yet there are moments--moments, mind you, not minutes--when big voice power may be used with tremendous effect.

Nor is violent motion force--yet force may result in violent motion.

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Great Speech Topic Helpful Hints

In the following speeches secure emphasis by means of long falling inflections rather than loudness.

Repeat these selections in your speech, attempting to put into practise all the technical principles that we have thus far had; emphasizing important words, subordinating unimportant words, variety of pitch, changing tempo, pause, and inflection. If these principles are applied you will have no trouble with monotony.

Constant practise will give great facility in the use of inflection and will render the voice itself flexible.

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Toastmasters Helpful Hints

EFFICIENCY THROUGH INFLECTION

How soft the music of those village bells, Falling at intervals upon the ear In cadence sweet; now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where Memory slept.

--WILLIAM COWPER, _The Task_.

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Toastmasters Blog

Herbert Spencer said that all the universe is in motion. So it is--and all perfect motion is rhythm. Part of rhythm is rest in a speech.Rest follows activity all through nature.

Instances: day and night; spring--summer--autumn--winter; a period of rest between breaths; an instant of complete rest between heart beats. Pause, and give the attention-powers of your audience a rest. What you say after such a silence will then have a great deal more effect.

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Using Tempo in Public Speeches Blog

Naturalness in a speech, or at least seeming naturalness, was explained in the chapter on "Monotony," is greatly to be desired, and a continual change of tempo will go a long way towards establishing it. Mr. Howard Lindsay, Stage Manager for Miss Margaret Anglin, recently said to the present writer that change of pace was one of the most effective tools of the actor.

While it must be admitted that the stilted mouthings of many actors indicate cloudy mirrors, still the public speaker would do well to study the actor's use of tempo.

Good Presentation Skills Blog

Change of pitch is a stumbling block for almost all beginners, and for many experienced speakers also. This is especially true when the words of the speech have been memorized.

The little child seldom speaks in a monotonous pitch. Observe the conversations of little folk that you hear on the street or in the home,and note the continual changes of pitch. The unconscious speech of most adults is likewise full of pleasing variations.

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Great Speech Topic Blog

Last night a speaker said: "The curse of this country is not a lack of education. It's politics." He emphasized _curse, lack, education,politics_. The other words were hurried over and thus given no comparative importance at all. The word _politics_ was flamed out with great feeling as he slapped his hands together indignantly. His emphasis was both correct and powerful. He concentrated all our attention on the words that meant something, instead of holding it up on such words as_of this_, _a_, _of_, _It's_.

What would you think of a guide who agreed to show New York to a stranger and then took up his time by visiting Chinese laundries and boot-blacking "parlors" on the side streets? There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience : He must have either truth or entertainment for them. If he wearies their attention with trifles they will have neither vivacity nor desire left when here aches words of Wall-Street and skyscraper importance. You do not dwell on these small words in your everyday conversation, because you are not a conversational bore. Apply the correct method of everyday speech to the platform. As we have noted elsewhere, public speaking is very much like conversation enlarged.

Communication Presentation Skills Update

Bird-songs, forest glens, and mountains are not monotonous--it is the long rows of brown-stone fronts and the miles of paved streets that are so terribly same.Nature in her wealth gives us end less variety; man with his limitations is often monotonous. Get back to nature in your methods of speech-making.

The power of variety during a speech lies in its pleasure-giving quality. The great truths of the world have often been couched in fascinating stories--"Les Miserables," for instance. If you wish to teach or influence men, you must please them, first or last. Strike the same note on the piano over and over again. This will give you some idea of the displeasing, jarring effect monotony has on the ear. The dictionary defines "monotonous" as being synonymous with "wearisome." That is putting it mildly.

Anxiety Of Public Speaking Blog Updates

Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as though you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the water is fine.

In fact, having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing it, you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or the race horses tugging at their reins.

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Delivery in a Speech Bulletin

If you feel deeply about your subject while speaking, you will be able to think of little else.Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters.It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say--fill your mind with your speech-material and, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.

Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and, for the purpose of delivery in a speech, self is secondary to your subject, not only in the opinion of the audience, but, if you are wise, in your own. To hold any other view is to regard yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth delivering.

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MEMORY TRAINING In Public Speaches Blog

CHAPTER XXVIII--MEMORY TRAINING

Hail, memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine. From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!


--SAMUEL ROGERS, _Pleasures of Memory_.


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SUBJECT AND PREPARATION Helpful Hints

CHAPTER XVIII--SUBJECT AND PREPARATION

Suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware. What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.

--BYRON, _Hints from Horace_.

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Overcome Fear Of Public Speaking Daily

CHAPTER VIII--CONCENTRATION IN DELIVERY

Try to rub the top of your head forward and backward at the same time that you are patting your chest. Unless your powers of cooerdination are well developed you will find it confusing, if not impossible. The brain needs special training before it can do two or more things efficiently at the same instant. It may seem like splitting a hair between its northand northwest corner, but some psychologists argue that _no_ brain can think two distinct thoughts, absolutely simultaneously--that what seems to be simultaneous is really very rapid rotation from the first thought to the second and back again, just as in the above-cited experiment the attention must shift from one hand to the other until one or the other movement becomes partly or wholly automatic.

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