Enrich Your Language

Enrich your language as you read.  When reading anything keep a pen and notebook handy write down sentences  and phrases that strike you as particularly good or intersting.

Even if you don't use them directly they can serve as springboards for your own ideas.

Picking Just The Right Word

You often hear of the need for a rich storehouse of words so you can expressive yourself clearly. This is true, but this does not mean  selecting from that storehouse  only important sounding, polysyllabic Latin and Greek words.

What  you need to select,  according to Theodore A. Rees Cheney in his book, Getting Words Right  are  "truly expressive words, mainly nouns and verbs."

The words you retrieve can be, "long or short, impressive sounding or simple, Latin or Saxon in origin....le mot juste could be  French in origin he says, but  More often it is a simple Saxon word like break, scatter, glimmer or shut, that will work best.

On the other hand, he says  at times you will need the longer Latinate words.

Be careful, he warns: " If you want to move the genuinely sophisticated, highly intelligent,, and well educated, write in plain English, with only the occasionally, carefully chosen, Latinate  word."

Be Alert to Potential Illustratins and Figures of Speech

When not busy giving your speech or presentation stay alert for potential anecdotes, illustrations, and figures of speech to enrich your work.

Something can be as clear as a a drop of rainwater on your vehicle windshield  for instance.

Or something can be as plain and easy to see as dead trees on the edge or middle or a forest.

Or....

Never Given In To High Pressure Reactions

Most of your presentations will be given in peaceful situations, but should ever find yourself in touchy or even hostile situations never give in to high pressure reactions when responding to others -- like a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman recently did in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Responding to a volatile demonstration by  First Nations people hostile to  exploring for oil in their Province through the use of fracking,  injecting a lethal chemical cocktail into the ground. search for oil in underground shale, he was provoked into  shouting something like, The ground belongs to the government not....natives."

The response, through social media, brought instant, widespread condemnations for racial slurs with calls for his firing. There is just no acceptable excuse for such slurs in this day and age so never make such a mistake should find yourself in any situation like this. 

Don't Wait Too Long

Don't wait too long after making a joke for a response from your audience.

If your joke doesn't result in the desired laughter or chuckle from your audience within a second or so move on quickly to the rest of your presentation quickly.

Don't  draw attention to the situation by lingering too long. timing is critical not only in presenting  your punch line but also in minimizing its failure.

Be Prepared For Those Ideas

Be prepared for those illusive ideas for presentations that seem to come to you when you are often least prepared to capture them.

One of these times is when you are doing something else like shopping or driving so make sure you have your cell phone recorder ready to use or keep that old-fashioned notebook beside you on the seat or in your pocket.

Imitate This In Your Speech Writing

Although this was quoted in the on-line edition of  the Accelerated Program for Six Figure Copy Writing by AWAI It is a practice you could imitate in your successful speech writing career;.

In an "Insider Tip" box  the editors included a tip from Stephen Kimball, featured in their Copywriting Genius: The Master Collection Kimball said:

"I like to sit back and imagine the audience. I imagine their life, their struggles, what might might not be inclined to buy. I love to fill my mind with conversations I can use when I write."

By imagining your audience in this or similar ways can help you to write copy that will really educate, persuade, and motivate them.

Stats For Your Presentattions

Following are some statistics you might be able to use in your presentations. Why not take a look?

First of all, according  to PEW Research in the United States 13 percent of cell phone users are faking it -- to avoid having to interact or talk to others around them.

According to BBC News  the Arctic sea ice is covering less and less of the ocean with the last five years having the least amount of summer ice on record.

There is still a fair amount of agricultural land in Africa according to the  The Witness  of South Africa with close to  47 percent of Africa's arable land remaining  uncultivated.

The spread of legally recognized same sex couples continues to grow with  the Nerthlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland and Argentina  all recognizing such marital unions   over the last decade reports  Family Relations
in the United States.

The Key to Success

I saw a very catchy tag line on a print or Web-site advertisement the other day ( I actually forget where I saw it) but it holds the key to successful communication  between you and other persons.

It was: "Listen. Reflect. Act" And that is the key to effective communication between you and your audience.  If you handle the first two parts properly then the success of third will be be --almost -- automatic.

A Powerful Communicator to Imitate

In addition to  successfully exploring and charting about four million square kilometers of North American David Thompson also had communication skills worth imitating.

Rosemary Neering, in her feature " The enigmatic explorer"  in   the Spring 2009 edition of  British Columbia  Magazine  quotes author and medical officer John Bigsby on this who said:

"No living person possesses a tithe of his information respecting the Hudson's Bay countries....he has a very powerful mind and singular faculty of picture-making. He can create a wilderness and people it with warring savages,  or climb the Ricky Mountains with you in a snow storm, so clearly and palpably that only shut your eyes and you hear the crack of the rifle, or feel the snow flakes melting on your cheeks as he talks."

To do this he had to create these images in his own mind first and then find the right words and images to recreate them for his readers and listeners making use of all of the senses.

With practice we can do the same.

Pursue Excellence Like a Tennis Player

The key to success as a presenter or public speaker is the pursuit Peter Bender mentions ins his   Secrets of Power Presentations  where he says:

" Pursue the goal of excellence in both knowledge of your topic and your ability to present it. Halfhearted wishing will only bring disappointing results."

Good advice  and that pursuit should include words as effectively as the tennis player uses his or her raquet to to put the ball exactly where she wants it.

Become an avid reader in not only your own subject area but many others and then practice, practice, practice,  using new words, ideas, and illustrations you learn  in your own written and oral presentations.
 

Avoid The Negative Power of Cliches

You want your audience t to get excited about what you say -- but they won't if you use cliches to illustrate or enliven your copy.

They're used by people all the time such as: "The  squeaky  wheels get the oil."  But they are are overused and instead of exciting our tantalizing your audience they deaden your listener's attention.

As Bat Masterson said in his Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywiring  such expressions "no longer communicate profound ideas. And they don't inspire people  intellectually."

He says they are killers in direct mail copy -- and they are just as big killers in live presentations. Rework them.  As he says the do contain a fundamental truth but they need to be reworked.

An example of doing (although admittedly not the best) would be to take the pun about the squeaking wheels and substitute ideas to come up with something like: "The noisy hinge usually gets greased first."

The trick is to get out that big piece of paper and Mind Map or Cluster that cliche to see what new ideas your mind comes up with.
Your audience will love you for it.

AS Good Illustration from A Crow

There are, of course numerous ways to begin your presentation: A clear statement of purpose; a quotation (with full attribution to your source); a question; a description of a scene  or event -- that is full of sensory details that appeal to as many of our senses as possible -- or a humorous or other type of anecdote that is closely related or that can be related to your topic.

If for instance you were giving a presentation on the need to  carefully examining what we read or are told you could the illustration of a little back bird that you offered a pieces of  shredded wheat cereal to one winter morning.

This little guy I saw was obviously hungry and looking for something to eat so I tossed it a few pieces of shredded wheat  near it on the ground thinking it would gobble them up.

But it this little bird  hopped over to it, picked it up. Turned it over a few times to check it out, then after looking at me as if to say" Common do you humans really eat this stuff?" hopped up disdainfully.

You could relate something like this for us to  be just as careful about accepting  things we are are told or we read.   We need to  examine  information and ideas offered to us by other carefully before accepting them.

Tying all of this into an introduction for a speech on topic could catch the interest of your audience where dry facts or other methods of introduction would no fare ass well.