Public Speaking Using Division Blog

=Division= differs only from analysis in that analysis follows the inherent divisions of a subject, as illustrated in the foregoing passage, while division arbitrarily separates the subject for convenience of treatment, as in the following none-too-logical example:

For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images, we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histories we may find three kinds, memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

--LORD BACON, _The Advancement of Learning_.

Purposes of Exposition Blog

Clearness, precision, accuracy, unity, truth, and necessity--these must be the _constant_ standards by which you test the efficiency of your expositions, and, indeed, that of every explanatory statement. This dictum should be written on your brain in letters most plain. And let this apply not alone to the _purposes_ of exposition but in equal measure to your use of the methods of exposition.

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Public Speech Scoops

Often last of all will come that which in a sense is first of all--the title, the name by which the speech is known. Sometimes it will be the simple theme of the address, as "The New Americanism," by HenryWatterson; or it may be a bit of symbolism typifying the spirit of the address, as "Acres of Diamonds," by Russell H. Conwell; or it may be a fine phrase taken from the body of the address, as "Pass Prosperity Around," by Albert J. Beveridge. All in all, from whatever motive it be chosen, let the title be fresh, short, suited to the subject, and likely to excite interest.

Public Delivery Daily Updates

Another matter of prime importance is, what part of your address demands the most emphasis. This once decided, you will know where to place that pivotal section so as to give it the greatest strategic value, and what degree of preparation must be given to that central thought so that the vital part may not be submerged by non-essentials. Many a speaker has awakened to find that he has burnt up eight minutes of a ten-minute speech in merely getting up steam. That is like spending eighty percent of your building-money on the vestibule of the house.
The same sense of proportion must tell you to stop precisely when you are through--and it is to be hoped that you will discover the arrival of that period before your audience does.

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Presentation Daily Update

Procure a cheap edition of modern speeches, and by cutting out a few pages each day, and reading them during the idle minute here and there, note how soon you can make yourself familiar with the world's best speeches. If you do not wish to mutilate your book, take it with you--most of the epoch-making books are now printed in small volumes. The daily waste of natural gas in the Oklahoma fields is equal to ten thousand tons of coal. Only about three
percent of the power of the coal that enters the furnace ever diffuses itself from your electric bulb as light--the other ninety-seven per cent is wasted. Yet these wastes are no larger, nor more to be lamented than the tremendous waste of time which, if conserved would increase the speaker's powers to their_nth_ degree. Scientists are making three ears of corn grow where one grew before; efficiency engineers are eliminating useless motions and products from our factories: catch the spirit of the age and apply efficiency to the use of the most valuable asset you possess--time.

Presentation News Bulletin

The reader who possesses books in this double sense finds also that his books possess him, and the volumes which most firmly grip his life are likely to be those it has cost him some sacrifice to own. These lightly-come-by titles, which Mr. Fatpurse selects, perhaps by proxy, can scarcely play the guide, philosopher and friend in crucial moments as do the books--long coveted, joyously attained--that are welcomed into the lives, and not merely the libraries, of us others who are at once poorer and richer.
So it is scarcely too much to say that of all the many ways in which an owned--a mastered--book is like to a human friend, the truest ways are these: A friend is worth making sacrifices for, both to gain and to keep; and our loves go out most dearly to those into whose in most lives we have sincerely entered.

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Public Speech News

Henry Ward Beecher said: "I do not believe that I have ever met a man on the street that I did not get from him some element for a sermon. In ever see anything in nature which does not work towards that for which I give the strength of my life. The material for my sermons is all the time following me and swarming up around me."

De Maupassant's description of an author should also fit the public-speaker: "His eye is like a suction pump, absorbing everything; like a pickpocket's hand, always at work. Nothing escapes him. He is constantly collecting material, gathering-up glances, gestures, intentions, everything that goes on in his presence--the slightest look, the least act, the merest trifle." De Maupassant was himself a millionth man, a Master.

Professional Presentation Skills Scoops

Surely this is the ideal method of delivery. It is far and away the most popular with the audience, and the favorite method of the most efficient speakers.

"Extemporaneous speech" has sometimes been made to mean unprepared speech, and indeed it is too often precisely that; but in no such sense do we recommend it strongly to speakers old and young. On the contrary , to speak well without notes requires all the preparation which we discussed so fully in the chapter on "Fluency," while yet relying upon the "inspiration of the hour" for some of your thoughts and much of your language. You had better remember, however, that the most effective inspiration of the hour is the inspiration you yourself bring to it, bottled up in your spirit and ready to infuse itself into the audience.

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Presentation Helpful Hints

As well choose a surgeon from his ability to play golf. To be sure, it always interests an audience to see a great man; because of his eminence they are likely to listen to his words with respect, perhaps with interest, even when droned from a manuscript. But how much more effective such a deliverance would be if the papers were cast aside!

Nowhere is the read-address so common as in the pulpit--the pulpit, that in these days least of all can afford to invite a handicap. Doubtless many clergymen prefer finish to fervor--let them choose: they are rarely men who sway the masses to acceptance of their message. What they gainin precision and elegance of language they lose in force.

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Public Delivery Daily News

Let us reiterate, do not despise practise. Your gestures and movements may be spontaneous and still be wrong. No matter how natural they are, it is possible to improve them.
It is impossible for anyone--even yourself--to criticise your gestures until after they are made. You can't prune a peach tree until it comes up; therefore speak much, and observe your own speech. While you are examining yourself, do not forget to study statuary and paintings to see how the great portrayers of nature have made their subjects express ideas through action. Notice the gestures of the best speakers and actors. Observe the physical expression of life everywhere. The leaves on the tree respond to the slightest breeze.

Speaking Skills News Blog

Do Not Make Short, Jerky Movements

Some speakers seem to be imitating a waiter who has failed to get a tip. Let your movements be easy, and from the shoulder, as a rule, rather than from the elbow. But do not go to the other extreme and make too many flowing motions--that savors of the lackadaisical.
Put a little "punch" and life into your gestures. You can not, however, do this mechanically. The audience will detect it if you do. They may not know just what is wrong, but the gesture will have a false appearance to them.

Public Delivery Daily Updates

Yet in both instances the message has somehow stood out bigger than the gesture--it is chiefly in calm afterthought that men have remembered the _form_ of dramatic expression. When Sir Henry Irving made his famous exit as "Shylock" the last thing the audience saw was his pallid, a varicious hand extended skinny and claw-like against the background. At the time,every one was overwhelmed by the tremendous typical quality of this gesture; now, we have time to think of its art, and discuss its realistic power.

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Enunciation Daily Bulletin

Before delivery, do not fail to go over your manuscript and note every sound that may possibly be mispronounced. Consult the dictionary and make assurance doubly sure. If the arrangement of words is unfavorable to clear enunciation, change either words or order and do not rest until you can follow Hamlet's directions to the players.

Practise repeating the following rapidly, paying particular attentionto the consonants.

"Foolish Flavius, flushing feverishly, fiercely found fault with
Flora's frivolity."

Mary's matchless mimicry makes much mischief.

Seated on shining shale she sells sea shells.

You youngsters yielded your youthful yule-tide yearnings
yesterday.

Sound the _l_ in each of the following words, repeated in sequence:

Blue black blinkers blocked Black Blondin's eyes.

Toastmasters Helpful Hints Blog

Practise the following selection, for the development of elastic touch; say it in a joyous spirit, using the exercise to develop voice charm in_all_ the ways suggested in this chapter.

_THE BROOK_

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

Presentation Skills Bulletin

Reading joyous prose, or lyric poetry, will help put smile and joy of soul into your voice. The following selections are excellent for practise.

REMEMBER that when you first practise these classics you are to give sole attention to two things: a joyous attitude of heart and body, and bright tones of voice. After these ends have been attained to your satisfaction, carefully review the principles of public speaking laid down in the preceding chapters and put them into practise as you read these passages again and again. _It would be better to commit each selection to memory._

Presentation Skills Bulletin Blog

A certain very successful speaker developed voice carrying power by running across country, practising his speeches as he went. The vigorous exercise forced him to take deep breaths, and developed lung power. A hard-fought basketball or tennis game is an efficient way of practising deep breathing. When these methods are not convenient, we recommend the following:

Place your hands at your sides, on the waist line.

By trying to encompass your waist with your fingers and thumbs, force all the air out of the lungs.

Take a deep breath. Remember, all the activity is to be centered in the_middle_ of the body; do not raise the shoulders. As the breath is taken your hands will be forced out.

Repeat the exercise, placing your hands on the small of the back and forcing them out as you inhale.

Flexibility in Public Speaking Bulletin

The lips also must be made flexible, to aid in the moulding of clear and beautiful tones. For flexibility of lips repeat the syllables,_mo_--_me_. In saying _mo_, bring the lips up to resemble the shape ofthe letter O. In repeating _me_ draw them back as you do in a grin. Repeat this exercise rapidly, giving the lips as much exercise as possible.

Try the following exercise in the same manner:

Mo--E--O--E--OO--Ah.

After this exercise has been mastered, the following will also be found excellent for flexibility of lips:

Memorize these _sounds_ indicated (not the _expressions_) so that you can repeat them rapidly.

A as in May. E as in Met. U as in Use.
A " Ah. I " Ice. oi " Oil.
A " At. I " It. Ou " Our.
O " No. O " No. OO " Ooze.
A " All. OO " Foot. A " Ah.
E " Eat. OO " Ooze. E " Eat.

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Public Speaking Using Inflection

Preparation must also be of another sort than the gathering, organizing, and shaping of materials--it must include _practise_, which,like mental preparation, must be both general and special.

Do not feel surprised or discouraged if practise on the principles of delivery herein laid down seems to retard your fluency. For a time, this will be inevitable. While you are working for proper inflection, for instance, inflection will be demanding your first thoughts, and the flow of your speech, for the time being, will be secondary. This warning, however, is strictly for the closet, for your practise at home. Do not carry any thoughts of inflection with you to the platform. There you must _think_ only of your subject. There is an absolute telepathy between the audience and the speaker. If your thought goes to your gesture, their thought will too. If your interest goes to the quality of your voice, they will be regarding that instead of what your voice is uttering.

Inflections in Public Speaking Helpful Hints

It must be made perfectly clear that inflection deals mostly in subtle, delicate shading _within single words_, and is not by any means accomplished by a general rise or fall in the voice in speaking a sentence. Yet certain sentences may be effectively delivered with just such inflection.

Now try a sentence by inflecting the important words so as to bring out various shades of meaning. The first forms show change of pitch _within a single word_; the forms you will work out for yourself should show a number of such inflections throughout the sentence.

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Pause Tips For Public Speaking News Blog

PAUSE AND POWER

The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself.

--GEORGE SAINTSBURY, on _English Prose Style_, in _Miscellaneous Essays_.

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Great Speech Topic Daily News

Study the following speech, going back in your imagination to the time and circumstances that brought it forth. Make it not a memorized historical document, but feel the emotions that gave it birth. The speech is only an effect; live over in your own heart the causes that produced it and try to deliver it at white heat. It is not possible for you to put too much real feeling into it, though of course it would be quite easy to rant and fill it with false emotion. This speech, according to Thomas Jefferson, started the ball of the Revolution rolling. Men were then willing to go out and die for liberty.

"Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us to beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

Enthusiasm in Public Speaking Blog

Listen! Emerson said: "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Carlyle declared that "Every great movement in the annals of history has been the triumph of enthusiasm." It is as contagious as measles. Eloquence is half inspiration. Sweep your audience with you in a pulsation of enthusiasm. Let yourself go. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going."

Toastmasters International Helpful Hints

Omit the thunder of delivery, if you will, but like Wendell Phillips put"silent lightning" into your speech.

Make your thoughts breathe and your words burn. Birrell said: "Emerson writes like an electrical cat emitting sparks and shocks in every sentence." Go thou and speak likewise. Get the "big stick" into your delivery--be forceful.

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Professional Presentation Skills Info

Avoid elaborate sentence structure--short sentences are stronger than long ones.

Cut out every useless word, so as to give prominence to the really important ones.

Let each sentence be a condensed battering ram, swinging to its final blow on the attention.

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Public Speaking Using Force

It is this tautness of the bow-string, this knotting of the muscles, this contraction before the spring, that makes an audience_feel_--almost see--the reserve power in a speaker. In some really wonderful way it is more what a speaker does _not_ say and do that reveals the dynamo within. _Anything_ may come from such stored-up force once it is let loose; and that keeps an audience alert, hanging on the lips of a speaker for his next word. After all, it is all a question of manhood, for a stuffed doll has neither convictions nor emotional tension. If you are upholstered with sawdust, keep off the platform, for your own speech will puncture you.

Mechanical Calling of Words Scoops

This matter of the effect in a speech of the inner man upon the outer needs a further word here, particularly as touching concentration.

"What do you read, my lord?" Hamlet replied, "Words. Words. Words." That is a world-old trouble. The mechanical calling of words is not expression, by a long stretch. Did you ever notice how hollow a memorized speech usually sounds? You have listened to the ranting, mechanical cadence of in efficient actors, lawyers and preachers. Their trouble is a mental one--they are not concentratedly thinking thoughts that cause words to issue with sincerity and conviction, but are merely enunciating word-sounds mechanically. Painful experience alike to audience and to speaker! A parrot is equally eloquent. Again let Shakespeare instruct us, this tune in the insincere prayer of the King, Hamlet's uncle. He laments thus pointedly:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Public Speech Daily News

It is this same principle of suspense that holds you in a Sherlock Holmes story--you wait to see how the mystery is solved, and if it is solved too soon you throw down the tale unfinished. Wilkie Collins' receipt for fiction writing well applies to public speech: "Make 'em laugh; make 'em weep; make 'em wait." Above all else make them wait; if they will not do that you may be sure they will neither laugh nor weep.

Thus pause is a valuable instrument in the hands of a trained speaker to arouse and maintain suspense. We once heard Mr. Bryan say in a speech:"It was my privilege to hear"--and he paused, while the audience wondered for a second whom it was his privilege to hear--"the great evangelist"--and he paused again; we knew a little more about the man he had heard, but still wondered to which evangelist he referred; and then he concluded: "Dwight L. Moody." Mr. Bryan paused slightly again and continued: "I came to regard him"--here he paused again and held the audience in a brief moment of suspense as to how he had regarded Mr.Moody, then continued--"as the greatest preacher of his day." Let the dashes illustrate pauses and we have the following:

"It was my privilege to hear--the great evangelist--Dwight L. Moody.--I came to regard him--as the greatest preacher of his day."

Great Speech Topic Blog News

We see here that a change of tempo often occurs in the same sentence--for tempo applies not only to single words, groups of words, and groups of sentences, but to the major parts of a public speech as well.

The canary in the cage before the window is adding to the beauty and charm of his singing by a continual change of tempo. If King Solomon had been an orator he undoubtedly would have gathered wisdom from the song of the wild birds as well as from the bees. Imagine a song written with but quarter notes. Imagine an auto with only one speed.

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Professional Presentation Skills Helpful Hints

Read the following selection in a nonchalant manner, never pausing to think what the words really mean. Try it again, carefully studying the thought you have assimilated. Believe the idea, desire to express it effectively, and imagine an audience before you. Look them earnestly in the face and repeat this truth. If you follow directions, you will note that you have made many changes of pitch after several readings.

It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery but the friction.

--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

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Using Emphasis in a Speech Blog

When a great battle is reported in the papers, they do not keep emphasizing the same facts over and over again. They try to get new information, or a "new slant." The news that takes an important place in the morning edition will be relegated to a small space in the late afternoon edition. We are interested in new ideas and new facts. This principle has a very important bearing in determining your emphasis.

Do not emphasize the same idea over and over again unless you desire to lay extra stress on it; Senator Thurston desired to put the maximum amount of emphasis on "force" in his speech . Note how force is emphasized repeatedly. As a general rule, however, the new idea, the"new slant," whether in a newspaper report of a battle or a speaker's enunciation of his ideas, is emphatic.

Public Speech Blog

It is useless to shoe a dead horse, and all the sound principles inChristendom will never make a live speech out of a dead one.

So let it be understood that public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules; the most important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and life. Forget all else, but not this.

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Death Phobia

The second principle in public speaking lies close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in the life.

The third principle in public speaking will, we surmise, arouse no dispute: No one canlearn _how_ to speak who does not first speak as best he can. That mayseem like a vicious circle in statement, but it will bear examination.

Public Speaking Classes News

It is not enough to be absorbed by your subject--to acquire self-confidence during a public speech, you must have something in which to be confident. If you go before an audience without any preparation, or previous knowledge of your subject, you ought to be self-conscious--you ought to be ashamed to steal the time of your audience.

Prepare yourself for your speech. Know what you are going to talk about, and, in general, how you are going to say it. Have the first few sentences worked out completely so that you may not be troubled in the beginning to find words. Know your subject better than your hearers know it, and you have nothing to fear.

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EFFECTIVE Public Speaking News

CHAPTER XXXI--MAKING CONVERSATION EFFECTIVE

The father of W.E. Gladstone considered conversation to be both an art and an accomplishment. Around the dinner table in his home some topic of local or national interest, or some debated question, was constantly being discussed. In this way a friendly rivalry for supremacy in conversation arose among the family, and an incident observed in the street, an idea gleaned from a book, a deduction from personal experience, was carefully stored as material for the family exchange.Thus his early years of practise in elegant conversation prepared the younger Gladstone for his career as a leader and speaker.

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INFLUENCING BY NARRATION Updates

CHAPTER XXI--INFLUENCING BY NARRATION

The art of narration is the art of writing in hooks and eyes. The principle consists in making the appropriate thought follow the appropriate thought, the proper fact the proper fact; in first preparing the mind for what is to come, and then letting it come.


--WALTER BAGEHOT, _Literary Studies_.

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Public Speaking Helpful Hints

CHAPTER I--ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

CHAPTER II--THE SIN OF MONOTONY

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