Purposes of Exposition News

=Generalization=This is one of the most effective devices in the public speaker's repertory.

Take a hollow cylinder, the bottom closed while the top remains open, and pour in water to the height of a few inches. Next cover the water with a flat plate or piston, which fits the interior of the cylinder perfectly; then apply heat to the water, and we shall witness the following phenomena. After the lapse of some minutes the water will begin to boil, and the steam accumulating at the upper surface will make room for itself by raising the piston slightly. As the boiling continues, more and more steam will be formed, and raise the piston higher and higher, till all the water is boiled away, and nothing but steam is left in the cylinder. Now this machine, consisting of cylinder, piston, water, and fire, is the steam-engine in its most elementary form. For a steam-engine may be defined as an apparatus for doing work by means of heat applied to water; and since raising such a weight as the piston is a form of doing work, this apparatus, clumsy and inconvenient though it may be, answers the definition precisely.

See more about speech topic

Exposition Methods Blog

The following is a simple example:

To expound is to set forth the nature, the significance, the characteristics, and the bearing of an idea or a group of ideas.

--ARLO BATES, _Talks on Writing English_.

=Contrast and Antithesis= are often used effectively to amplify definition, as in this sentence, which immediately follows the above-cited definition:

Exposition therefore differs from Description in that it deals directly with the meaning or intent of its subject instead of with its appearance.

Public Delivery Material Daily Updates

From a private or a public library gather enough authoritative material on one of the following questions to build an outline for a twenty-minute address. Take one definite side of the question,

(_a_)"The Housing of the Poor;"
(_b_) "The Commission Form of Government for Cities as a Remedy for Political Graft;"
(_c_) "The Test of Woman's Suffrage in the West;"
(_d_) "Present Trends of Public Taste in Reading;"
(_e_) "Municipal Art;"
(_f_) "Is the Theatre Becoming more Elevated in Tone?"
(_g_) "The Effects of the Magazine on Literature;"
(_h_) "Does Modern Life Destroy Ideals?"
(_i_) "Is Competition 'the Life of Trade?'"
(_j_) "Baseball is too Absorbing to be a Wholesome National Game;"
(_k_) "Summer Baseball and Amateur Standing;"
(_l_) "Does College Training Unfit a Woman for Domestic Life?"
(_m_) "Does Woman's Competition with Man in Business Dull the Spirit of Chivalry?"
(_n_)"Are Elective Studies Suited to High School Courses?"
(_o_) "Does theModern College Prepare Men for Preeminent Leadership?"
(_p_) "The Y.M.C.A. in Its Relation to the Labor Problem;"
(_q_) "Public Speaking as Training in Citizenship."

Speaking Material Info

Unsuspected treasures lie in the smallest library. Even when the owner has read every last page of his books it is only in rare instances that he has full indexes to all of them, either in his mind or on paper, so as to make available the vast number of varied subjects touched upon or treated in volumes whose titles would never suggest such topics.

For this reason it is a good thing to take an odd hour now and then to browse. Take down one volume after another and look over its table of contents and its index. (It is a reproach to any author of a serious book not to have provided a full index, with cross references.) Then glance over the pages, making notes, mental or physical, of material that looks interesting and usable. Most libraries contain volumes that the owner is "going to read some day." A familiarity with even the contents of such books on your own shelves will enable you to refer to them when you want help. Writings read long ago should be treated in the same way--in every chapter some surprise lurks to delight you.

discover more about public speaking

Presentation Daily Blog

Subject and materials tremendously influence each other.

"This arises from the fact that there are two distinct ways in which a subject may be chosen: by arbitrary choice, or by development from thought and reading.

"Arbitrary choice ... of one subject from among a number involves so many important considerations that no speaker ever fails to appreciate the tone of satisfaction in him who triumphantly announces: 'I have a subject!'

explorer more about toastmasters

Presentation News Info

Above all, seek reading that makes you use your own brains. Such reading must be alive with fresh points of view, packed with special knowledge, and deal with subjects of vital interest. Do not confine your reading to what you already know you will agree with. Opposition wakes one up. The other road may be the better, but you will never know it unless you "give it the once over." Do not do all your thinking and investigating in front of given "Q.E.D.'s;" merely assembling reasons to fill in between your theorem and what you want to prove will get you nowhere. Approach each subject with an open mind and--once sure that you have thought it out thoroughly and honestly--have the courage to abide by the decision of your own thought. But don't brag about it afterward.

The Thinking Mind Blog

Thinking is doing mental arithmetic with facts. Add this fact to that and you reach a certain conclusion. Subtract this truth from another and you have a definite result. Multiply this fact by another and have a precise product. See how many times this occurrence happens in that space of time and you have reached a calculable dividend. In thought-processes you perform every known problem of arithmetic and algebra. That is why mathematics are such excellent mental gymnastics. But by the same token, thinking is work. Thinking takes energy. Thinking requires time, and patience, and broad information, and clearheadedness. Beyond a miserable little surface-scratching, few people really think at all--only one in a thousand, according to the pundit already quoted. So long as the present system of education prevails and children are taught through the ear rather than through the eye, so long as they are expected to remember thoughts of others rather than think for themselves, this proportion will continue--one man in a million will be able to see, and one in a thousand to think.

discover more about presentation skill

Public Presentation Updates

Sentences written out in the study are liable to be dead and cold when resurrected before the audience. When you create as you speak you conserve all the native fire of your thought. You can enlarge on one point or omit another, just as the occasion or the mood of the audience may demand. It is not possible for every speaker to use this, the most difficult of all methods of delivery, and least of all can it be used successfully without much practise, but it is the ideal towards which all should strive.

discover more about public speech

Speaking Skills Bulletin Blog

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

A conviction that the speech is too important to risk forsaking the manuscript. But, if it is vital that every word should be so precise, the style so polished, and the thoughts so logical, that the preacher must write the sermon entire, is not the message important enough to warrant extra effort in perfecting its delivery? It is an insult to a congregation and disrespectful to Almighty God to put the phrasing of a message above the message itself. To reach the hearts of the listeners the sermon must be delivered--it is only half delivered when the speaker cannot utter it with original fire and force, when he merely repeats words that were conceived hours or weeks before and hence are like champagne that has lost its fizz. The reading preacher's eyes are tied down to his manuscript; he cannot give the audience the benefit of his expression.

for more news public presentation

Speaking Skills Helpful Hints

Read aloud the following incident, using dramatic gestures:

When Voltaire was preparing a young actress to appear in one of his tragedies, he tied her hands to her sides with pack thread in order to check her tendency toward exuberant gesticulation. Under this condition of compulsory immobility she commenced to rehearse, and for some time she bore herself calmly enough; but at last, completely carried away by her feelings, she burst her bonds and flung up her arms. Alarmed at her supposed neglect of his instructions, she began to apologize to the poet; he smilingly reassured her, however; the gesture was _then_ admirable, because it was irrepressible.

--REDWAY, _The Actor's Art_.

to read more public presentation

Gestures in Public Speechs

The movements of the facial muscles may mean a great deal more than the movements of the hand. The man who sits in a dejected heap with a look of despair on his face is expressing his thoughts and feelings just as effectively as the man who is waving his arms and shouting from the back of a dray wagon. The eye has been called the window of the soul.Through it shines the light of our thoughts and feelings.

for more news speaking skills

Presentation Skills Scoops Blog

One of the present writers took his first lessons in gesture from a certain college president who knew far more about what had happened at the Diet of Worms than he did about how to express himself in action. His instructions were to start the movement on a certain word, continue it on a precise curve, and unfold the fingers at the conclusion, ending with the forefinger--just so. Plenty, and more than plenty, has been published on this subject, giving just such silly directions. Gesture is a thing of mentality and feeling--not a matter of geometry. Remember,whenever a pair of shoes, a method of pronunciation, or a gesture calls attention to itself, it is bad. When you have made really good gestures in a good speech your listeners will not go away saying, "What beautiful gestures he made!" but they will say, "I'll vote for that measure." "He is right--I believe in that."

Public Presentation Helpful Hints

Make a list of common errors of pronunciation, saying which are due to faulty articulation, wrong accentuation, and incomplete enunciation. In each case make the correction.

Criticise any speech you may have heard which displayed these faults.

Explain how the false shame of seeming to be too precise may hinder us from cultivating perfect verbal utterance.

Over-precision is likewise a fault. To bring out any syllable unduly is to caricature the word.

Toastmasters Daily Updates

"The apparel often proclaims the man;" the voice always does--it is one of the greatest revealers of character. The superficial woman, the brutish man, the reprobate, the person of culture, often discloses inner nature in the voice, for even the cleverest dissembler cannot entirely prevent its tones and qualities being affected by the slightest change of thought or emotion. In anger it becomes high, harsh, and unpleasant; in love low, soft, and melodious--the variations are as limitless as they are fascinating to observe. Visit a theatrical hotel in a large city,and listen to the buzz-saw voices of the chorus girls from some burlesque "attraction." The explanation is simple--buzz-saw lives. Emerson said: "When a man lives with God his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook or the rustle of the corn." It is impossible to think selfish thoughts and have either an attractive personality, a lovely character, or a charming voice. If you want to possess voice charm, cultivate a deep, sincere sympathy for mankind. Love will shine out through your eyes and proclaim itself in your tones. One secret of the sweetness of the canary's song may be his freedom from tainted thoughts. Your character beautifies or mars your voice. As a man think in his heart so is his voice.

Tips For Public Speaking Blog

Nasal Resonance Produces the Bell-tones of the Voice

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty:
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;

Public Speaking Skills Update

How to Develop the Carrying Power of the Voice

Now place the palm of your hand on the back of your head, repeating thefore going process. Then try it on the chest. Always remember to think your tone where you desire to feel the vibrations. The mere act of thinking about any portion of your body will tend to make it vibrate.

Repeat the following, after a deep inhalation, endeavoring to feel all portions of your body vibrate at the same time. When you have attained this you will find that it is a pleasant sensation.

What ho, my jovial mates. Come on! We will frolic it like
fairies, frisking in the merry moonshine.

Effective Presentation Helpful Hints

The next fundamental requisite for good voice is openness.

If the muscles of the throat are constricted, the tone passage partially closed, and the mouth kept half-shut, how can you expect the tone to come out bright and clear, or even to come out at all? Sound is a series of waves, and if you make a prison of your mouth, holding the jaws and lips rigidly, it will be very difficult for the tone to squeeze through, and even when it does escape it will lack force and carrying power. Open your mouth wide, relax all the organs of speech, and let the tone flow out easily.

to read more fundamentals of presentation skill

Efficient Presentation Skills Daily News

Learn by rules to speak without thinking of rules. It is not--or ought not to be--necessary for you to stop to think how to say the alphabet correctly, as a matter of fact it is slightly more difficult for you to repeat Z, Y, X than it is to say X, Y, Z--habit has established the order. Just so you must master the laws of efficiency in speaking until it is a second nature for you to speak correctly rather than otherwise. A beginner at the piano has a great deal of trouble with the mechanics of playing, but as time goes on his fingers become trained and almost instinctively wander over the keys correctly. As an inexperienced speaker you will find a great deal of difficulty at first in putting principles into practise, for you will be scared, like the young swimmer, and make some crude strokes, but if you persevere you will "win out."

for more news presentation skill tip

Speech Info Bulletin Blog

Any Missouri farmer will tell you that a rain that falls too fast will run off into the creeks and do the crops but little good. A story is told of a country deacon praying for rain in this manner: "Lord, don't send us any chunk floater. Just give us a good old drizzle-drazzle." A speech, like a rain, will not do anybody much good if it comes too fast to soak in. The farmer's wife follows this same principle in doing her washing when she puts the clothes in water--and pauses for several hours that the water may soak in. Why do we use this principle everywhere except in the communication of ideas? If you have given the audience a big idea, pause for a second or two and let them turn it over. See what effect it has. After the smoke clears away you may have to fire another 14-inch shell on the same subject before you demolish the citadel of error that you are trying to destroy. Take time. Don't let your speech resemble those tourists who try "to do" New York in a day. They spend fifteen minutes looking at the masterpieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, ten minutes in the Museum of Natural History, take a peep into the Aquarium, hurry across the Brooklyn Bridge, rush up to the Zoo, and back by Grant's Tomb--and call that "Seeing New York." If you hasten by your important points without pausing, your audience will have just about as adequate an idea of what you have tried to convey.

Public Speech Blog

There is only one way to get feeling into your speaking--and whatever else you forget, forget not this: _You must actually ENTER INTO_ the character you impersonate, the cause you advocate, the case you argue--enter into it so deeply that it clothes you, enthralls you, possesses you wholly. Then you are, in the true meaning of the word, in_sympathy_ with your subject, for its feeling is your feeling, you "feel with" it, and therefore your enthusiasm is both genuine and contagious.The Carpenter who spoke as "never man spake" uttered words born out of a passion of love for humanity--he had entered into humanity, and thus became Man.

Public Speaking Success Blog

Black mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from them into slavery have flamed out some of America's most stirring speeches. True, the mother did not have any knowledge of the technique of speaking, but she had something greater than all technique, more effective than reason: feeling. The great speeches of the world have not been delivered on tariff reductions or post-office appropriations. The speeches that will live have been charged with emotional force. Prosperity and peace are poor developers of eloquence. When great wrongs are to be righted, when the public heart is flaming with passion, that is the occasion for memorable speaking. Patrick Henry made an immortal address, for in an epochal crisis he pleaded for liberty. He had roused himself to the point where he could honestly and passionately exclaim,"Give me liberty or give me death." His fame would have been different had he lived to-day and argued for the recall of judges.

Great Speech Topic Daily Blog

There is much truth in such an appeal, but not all the truth. Clearness, persuasion, beauty, simple statement of truth, are all essential--indeed, they are all definite parts of a forceful presentment of a subject, without being the only parts. Strong meat may not be as attractive as ices, but all depends on the appetite and the stage of the meal.

See more about presentation skill

Vital Factor in Public Speaking Bulletin

Yes, if the acquirer has any such capacities as we have outlined. How to acquire this vital factor in public speaking is suggested in its very analysis: Live with your subject until you are convinced of its importance.

If your message in a speech does not of itself arouse you to tension, _PULL_yourself together. When a man faces the necessity of leaping across a crevasse he does not wait for inspiration, he _wills_ his muscles into tensity for the spring--it is not without purpose that our English language uses the same word to depict a mighty though delicate steel contrivance and a quick leap through the air. Then resolve--and let it all end in actual _punch_.

to read more Public Speaking Skills

Concentration in a Speech

Whatever is the psychological truth of this contention in your speech it is undeniable that the mind measurably loses grip on one idea the moment the attention is projected decidedly ahead to a second or a third idea.

You must concentrate by resolutely withdrawing your attention from everything else. If you concentrate your thought on a pain which may be afflicting you, that pain will grow more intense. "Count your blessings" and they will multiply. Center your thought on your strokes and your tennis play will gradually improve. To concentrate is simply to attend to one thing, and attend to nothing else. If you find that you cannot do that, there is something wrong--attend to that first. Remove the cause and the symptom will disappear. Read the chapter on "Will Power."Cultivate your will by willing and then doing, at all costs. Concentrate--and you will win.

for more news Public Speaking Skills

Inflections in Public Speaking News

In general, then, we find that a bending upward of the voice will suggest doubt and uncertainty, while a decided falling inflection will suggest that you are certain of your ground.

Students dislike to be told that their speeches are "not so bad," spoken with a rising inflection. To enunciate these words with a long falling inflection would indorse the speech rather heartily.

Say good-bye to an imaginary person whom you expect to see again tomorrow; then to a dear friend you never expect to meet again. Note the difference in inflection.

Public Speaking Pauses Blog

In the following selections dashes have been inserted where pauses maybe used effectively. Naturally, you may omit some of these and insert others without going wrong--one speaker would interpret a passage in one way, one in another; it is largely a matter of personal preference. A dozen great actors have played Hamlet well, and yet each has played the part differently. Which comes the nearest to perfection is a question of opinion. You will succeed best by daring to follow your own course--if you are individual enough to blaze an original trail.

A moment's halt-- a momentary taste of being from the well amid the waste-- and lo! the phantom caravan has reached-- the nothing it set out from--Oh make haste!

The worldly hope men set their hearts upon-- turns ashes-- or it prospers;-- and anon like snow upon the desert's dusty face-- lighting a little hour or two-- is gone.

The bird of time has but a little way to flutter,-- and the bird is on the wing.

to read more Persuasive Public Speaking

Presentation Skills News Blog

... pause ... has a distinctive value, expressed in silence; in other words, while the voice is waiting, the music of the movement is going on ... To manage it, with its delicacies and compensations, requires that same fineness of ear on which we must depend for all faultless prose rhythm. When there is no compensation, when the pause is inadvertent ... there is a sense of jolting and lack, as if some pin or fastening had fallen out.

--JOHN FRANKLIN GENUNG, _The Working Principles of Rhetoric_.

Pause, in public speech, is not mere silence--it is silence made designedly eloquent.

to read more basic presentation skill

Emphasis in Public Speaking Blog

The foregoing order of pitch-change might be reversed with equally good effect, though with a slight change in seriousness--either method produces emphasis when used intelligently, that is, with a common-sense appreciation of the sort of emphasis to be attained.

In attempting these contrasts of pitch it is important to avoid unpleasant extremes. Most speakers pitch their voices too high. One of the secrets of Mr. Bryan's eloquence is his low, bell-like voice.Shakespeare said that a soft, gentle, low voice was "an excellent thing in woman;" it is no less so in man, for a voice need not be blatant to be powerful,--and _must_ not be, to be pleasing.

for more news fundamentals to success

Public Speaking Fundamentals Blog

You must understand that there are no steel-riveted rules of emphasis.It is not always possible to designate which word must, and which must not be emphasized. One speaker will put one interpretation on a speech,another speaker will use different emphasis to bring out a different interpretation. No one can say that one interpretation is right and the other wrong. This principle must be borne in mind in all our marked exercises. Here your own intelligence must guide--and greatly to your profit.

See more about Public Speaking Skills

Monotony During a Speech Blog

The technical principles that we lay down are not arbitrary creations of our own. They are all founded on the practices that good speakers and actors adopt--either naturally and unconsciously or under instruction--in getting their effects.

It is useless to warn the student that he must be natural. To be natural may be to be monotonous. The little strawberry up in the arctics with a few tiny seeds and an acid tang is a natural berry, but it is not to be compared with the improved variety that we enjoy here. The dwarfed oak on the rocky hillside is natural, but a poor thing compared with the beautiful tree found in the rich, moist bottom lands. Be natural--but improve your natural gifts until you have approached the ideal, for we must strive after idealized nature, in fruit, tree, and speech.

to read more on the key to success

Experience in Public Speaking Blog

Experience in public speaking, then, is not only the best teacher, but the first and the last. But experience must be a dual thing--the experience of others must be used to supplement, correct and justify our own experience; in this way we shall become our own best critics only after we have trained ourselves in self-knowledge, the knowledge of what other minds think,and in the ability to judge ourselves by the standards we have come to believe are right. "If I ought," said Kant, "I can."

An examination of the contents of this volume will show how consistently these articles of faith have been declared, expounded, and illustrated.The student is urged to begin to speak at once of what he knows. Then heis given simple suggestions for self-control, with gradually increasing emphasis upon the power of the inner man over the outer. Next, the wayto the rich storehouses of material is pointed out. And finally, all the while he is urged to speak, _speak_, _SPEAK_ as he is applying to his own methods, in his own _personal_ way, the principles he has gathered from his own experience and observation and the recorded experiences of others.

for more news basic presentation skill

Tips For Public Speaking Daily News

Humility is not the personal discount in a speech that we must offer in the presence of others--against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern reaction. True humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel; but it is not a humility that assumes a worm-like meekness; it is rather a strong, vibrant prayer for greater power for service--a prayer that Uriah Heep could never have uttered.

Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the latter's honor. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed, and sat down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him here marked, "There, I told you I would fail, and I did."

to read more Public Speaking Skills

Public Speaking Anxieties Info

Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?"

Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars,while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?

How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars--graze him in a back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines?

to read on Anxiety Of Public Speaking

Using Arguments in Public Speaking

CHAPTER XXIII--INFLUENCING BY ARGUMENT

Common sense is the common sense of mankind. It is the product of common observation and experience. It is modest, plain, and unsophisticated. It sees with everybody's eyes, and hears with everybody's ears. It has no capricious distinctions, no perplexities, and no mysteries. It never equivocates, and never trifles. Its language is always intelligible. It is known by clearness of speech and singleness of purpose.


--GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE, _Public Speaking and Debate_.

VOICE CHARM Helpful Hints

CHAPTER XIII--VOICE CHARM

"A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured."

--JOSEPH ADDISON, _The Tattler_.


for more news Overcome Fear Of Public Speaking

Speaking With Emphasis

CHAPTER III--EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION

The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds. The same principle applies to speech. The speaker that fires his force and emphasis at random into a sentence will not get results. Not every word is of special importance--therefore only certain words demand emphasis.

See more about Speaking With Emphasis