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3.2.2 Special
Skills in Speaking
1- Type of Oral Presentation
The speaking situation will determine the
suitability of each of the various types of oral
presentation. The following classification is based upon
the speaker's method of presenting his material and not upon
the various kinds of audiences or speaking occasions.
A- Extemporaneous speaking:
This type of oral presentation is characterized by
complete preparation of material without any memorization of
the words. The speaker will plan his speech carefully
and may use some speaker's notes to guide him through the
speech, but he will not memorize the exact phrasing of his
ideas. He will probably have memorized his main points
and supporting material, but the act phrasing of these will
be accomplished at the time he gives the speech.
extemporaneous speaking is advantageous in its flexibility
and allows for adaptation to the audience as the speech, is
presented. What should you do to condition yourself to
become a better extemporaneous speaker? Here are a few
suggestions:
a)
Keep your mind on your purpose.
b)
Control
your intensity. Be sure that your conversational
speech shows a balanced enthusiasm. Avoid on the one hand,
any tendency to become too intense to speak too loudly or
too fast.
c)
Keep your speech appropriate to situation.
As in writing, so too in speaking. The language and mood
appropriate to one situation may not be appropriate to
another. Informal joking, laying on off-hands-all of these
can be helpful in some conversations, but destructive in
others.
d)
Work on the quality
of your voice. Whenever you can find the chance listen to
your own voice on a tape recorder. Speak extemporaneously
into it, talk with someone while the microphone is on, read
a page of your favorite book into it. If the voice you hear
coming back to you is pleasing you , it will be pleasing to
other people.
B- Impromptu Speaking:
Impromptu speaking is recognized by a
complete absence of specific preparation by the speaker.
This type of presentation is encountered
when without prior warning a person finds
himself in a position where he must speak.
C- Memorized Speaking:
As the label indicates, this type of oral
presentation is based upon memorizing word for word the
material to be presented. Superficially examined,
this type may seem simpler than extemporaneous speaking, but
it is not.
D- Reading from Manuscript:
At professional meetings, state occasions,
and other situations where oral presentation must be very
precise. The speaker may be most effective if he
reads his manuscript aloud. The chief difficulty is
encountered in maintaining contact with the audience while
reading from the manuscript. Effective reading can
best be obtained if the speaker is very familiar with his
material, and if he has practiced reading the words
so as to increase the size of the word groups he can see in
a glance.
2- The Product
Your fear:
The first problem of presentation is fear
and at least three quarters of that fear is fear of the
unknown. You can never get rid of all your fear, but
you can enormously reduce it by reducing the area of the
unknown. The small amount that is left is necessary and
valuable - it concentrates your mind and sharpens your
performance. And even if you are one of those who feels no
fear at all, the technique for conquering fear is also the
best technique for improving any presentation.
Preparation:
We can start by breaking the unknown down
into five areas: Why are you making this
presentation?
What are you going to
say?
Who are you saying it
to?
Where will you be
saying it?
How will you say it?
a) Why?
Every presentation has an objective,
and the objective is almost always some form of
persuasion. You want the audience to place an order,
commission a survey, accept a proposal, agree to a budget,
develop a product, accept reorganization plan - the list is
endless. Two points are particularly important.
a)
Make your objective as precise as you can
- with fall-back objectives as well - and put it into words.
b)
Keep referring back to the objective
whenever you are wondering what to include or where to cut.
b) What?
Make a note of all the information
illustrations and arguments you could possibly need
- and jot them down. Do not bother too much about order at
that stage.
c) Who?
Find out all you can about the people you
will be presenting to.
Not just how many will be there and their names and jobs.
But why they are interested, what
method/equipment/supplier they are using at the moment, what
bad or good experiences they have had in the past with
whatever you are trying to persuade them to do. What
objections they might feel threatened by, and which of their
worries your proposals might remove. This will probably
suggest more facts, arguments and visual aids to add to the
list. Find then if, on the day, you can possibly arrange to
chat to them informally, over coffee say, for a few minutes
before the presentation, do so. It is not only an invaluable
extra research opportunity - it is also a marvelous way to
break the ice and create an early rapport.
d) Where?
Not as important as the others,
and you can't always do it., but if "where" is unfamiliar
territory it helps on the day if you have been there before.
And as you look round the room you may spot something
important: wrong kind of electric socket, or too distant for
you, windows that won't black out, no table, excessive noise
- you never knew till you look, and if there's nothing wrong
it gives you a little more of what you need most;
confidence.
e) How?
Once you know what you want to say, whom you
will be saying it to, where and why, you can work out how.
Now is the time to think yourself into the mind of your
audience. What anxieties can you relieve, what needs can you
identify and satisfy? That will guide you to
introduction, something to make them sit up and think "Yes,
that really is our problem", "Yes, they've put their finger
on what we were worried about". "Yes, that would be a great
advantage if it really can be done at that price".,
Following from that, you can start to arrange your facts and
arguments into the best order - best for their understanding
and also best for persuasion. Then devise or select the
illustrations you are going to need. Then when all the
material is assembled and marshaled make your notes and make
them clear and large enough. Ii is preferred to write out
the whole presentation; after all, (and especially if time
is limited) there is always a best way of putting something
- best arguments, best order, best phrase - and you are
more likely to think it up and work it out by making
yourself write it in advance than by thinking on your feet.
But even if you do not, you should always have at least the
opening and closing sentences committed to memory in their
entirety.
And finally,
in front of a colleague if possible, on your own if
necessary, rehearse. It is rare indeed to find an
over-rehearsed presentation, and nothing is one quarter as
effective in removing nerves or at least minimizing their
effect on your presentation, as a lot of rehearsal. As we
agreed, fear is largely fear of the unknown, and if the
unknown includes what you are going to say you have every
reason to fear.
3- Presenting The Content
The IT! Method is an exercise to help you
develop the content of your presentation.
The IT! Method is a five-step process.
1.
Brain IT!
2.
Group IT!
3.
Trim IT!
4.
Spice IT!
5.
Do IT!
Brain IT!
This is your chance to brainstorm: capture
ideas, concepts and information. Brainstorming is a
method for developing creative solutions to problems your
goal is to think freely; putting everything that you may
want to say down on paper. You can brainstorm on your
own, but often a small group brainstorming together can
really augment this creative process.
Yellow sticky notes (such as Postiks) give
the creative process great fertility.
You can brainstorm more freely when not hampered by a linear
outline or a sequentially generated form.
With your topic identified,
and the yellow sticky notes in hand, capture any and all:
• Ideas
• Facts
• Related stories
• Examples
• Miscellaneous
Yellow-sticky everything and anything that
relates to your subject, perhaps flavored by the particular
audience.
Don't be concerned about relating all of your ideas or
whether you even plan to use all of the generated ideas.
Just capture all of the ideas - one per yellow sticky!
Collect the ideas and stick all of them on a flipchart.
Try to keep your left brain (your internal
editor) out of this brainstorming process.
This activity is strictly a
right-brain function - pure free-association,
idea-generation.
TIP: Brainstorming works best when a time
limit is established.
Group IT!
Now step back mentally from this field of
yellow sticky notes and do what you would naturally do -
put the notes in groups!
Group your ideas on the notes according to
the natural associations you see in the material.
Do not force every idea into a category:
some will be left over.
TIP: If you find that a category has more
than 10 notes, consider whether it should really be more
than one category!
After
you group the sticky notes, give each group a name or title.
Next,
ask yourself the question "Given this particular
audience, which of these groups do I want them to hear about
first, in the body of the presentation, second,
third," and so on. Try to keep
the number of groups relatively small.
Many people believe that three is the ideal
number of points around which to organize your presentation.
This is not an absolute! Just try to keep it simple.
Save the unused groups.
They may provide input for other parts of the presentation.
These groups also can provide a source for the
question-and-answer period of the presentation and may be
used in future presentations on the same subject to other
audiences.
Look at all of the sticky notes generated
from the brainstorming and see what categories or groups you
can come up with.
Write these in large circles on the flipchart. Ask the group
to help decide which ideas go into which group.
Trim IT!
Applying sound simplicity principles trim the
ideas within each group and put them into a logical order.
Remember, even though many experts believe three is the
ideal number, you are not bound to it.
Go back to your presentation strategy and
review your position,
desired actions and listener benefits. Make sure you define
these items in your presentation.
Usually, the desired actions and listener
benefits should be stated and restated in the introduction
and in the conclusion.
Spice IT!
You are now ready to add spice to your
presentation framework!
The purpose of spice is to add
memorability, enliven, aid retention and otherwise provide
interesting relief.
Spice it all!
Don't forget to spice the beginning and then ending –
remember that the opening and the closing are the most
important items in the presentation.
Identify where the "peaks" of the
presentation are, and what type of spice could be added
to the "new" presentation. These are the contents of your
"Spice Cupboard”:
¨
Stories
¨
Quotes
Your Delivery is Based on Structure
Hold your breath and wait for a massive
generalization.
Ready? Right. All good presentations have the same
structure.
It is simple three-part structure,
and the same as a symphony or a play: Exposition,
Development, and Recapitulation. First movement, Second
movement Third movement. Act I, Act II, Act III. Order,
demonstrated, order challenged, order re-established. You
can embroider it in all sorts of ways, but if you abandon it
- resorting, for example, to a string of unstructured and
unconnected assertions – you will not hold your audience's
attention for long.
For the purposes of a presentation, you
can call the structure "Situation, Complication,
Recommendation" and you will find what everything you
have to say fits into one of those three sections.
a)
Situation.
The audiences at the start of a presentation are like the
horses before the start of the race - scattered all
over the place and facing in different directions. The
starter at a race meeting has to bring them all up to the
line together so that they start level and all go off in the
right direction at the same time. A presenter has to do
much the same, and the way to do it is to outline the
present situation: describe the way overseas
distribution is currently organized, or the way we order
stationery at the moment, or the way the pattern of home
demand has been changing - whatever the purpose of your
presentation it is essential that everyone should start with
the same knowledge, and important that you should
demonstrate to them all that you know the situation and
background. It also enables everyone to focus on the
specific part of the present situation to which you are
addressing yourself. This part of the presentation,
establishing common ground, may take only a couple of
sentences, or it may need quite long analysis of how things
came to be the way they are, but some statement of "the
present situation has to be made and agreed upon.
By all means, ask them questions about
the present situation and past history: it helps you to
angle the rest of your presentation more precisely to their
needs; end a bit of two-way communication in the early
stages is a valuable icebreaker
b)
Complication.
This is where you introduce the need for change by
showing why the present situation cannot continue or why it
would be unwise to continue it. Demand is shifting,
technology is changing, staff are leaving, delays are
lengthening, competitors are gaining, costs are rising,
profits are falling, building are leaking - there must
be some significant change or danger or worry or opportunity
or you would not be making the presentation. This is the
stage at which you dig the hole in which you intend to plant
your idea.
c)
Recommendation.
The other two sections may be brief. This one forms the
bulk of the presentation, and it is also the one you are
least likely to omit. It may include evaluating
alternatives, demonstrating products, describing services,
meeting objections, comparing prices adducing evidence,
quoting examples, and is in fact what most people mean when
they talk about "a presentation". But its success may
well depend on how well you have prepared the ground in
those first two sections which it is all too easy to omit.
How to Start?
Almost every presentation requires some sort
of preface.
Exactly what elements it should contain will obviously
depend on circumstances - you do not have to explain who you
are if you are addressing your department (or if you do have
something wrong that your presentation will put right).
The preface has a double value - it establishes
certain important facts, and it also helps to ease the
presenter into their relationship with the audience by
means of "neutral" material that they can all accept and
agree with. The longer you keep everyone nodding the better,
so long as they don't nod off.
There are five elements to a full preface:
a single sentence may be enough for each.
a) Welcoming courtesies - simply
thanking people for giving up time and hoping they will feel
it is well spent etc.
b) Self-identification - your name
and job, your background if relevant (I worked in
exploration myself for two years, though not of course at
your exalted level..") and any details about colleagues who
are with you.
c) The intention - what you are
proposing to explain, suggest or demonstrate at this
presentation. This has to be angled toward the benefits
they can expect from what you are presenting - not "Tell you
about our new office procedures", but "Show you how our new
office procedures will enable you better organize your
time". Everything should be
presented in terms of their interest, not yours: not "what I
am going to tell you", but "what I thought you would like to
know".
d) The route map - how long the
presentation will last, whether it will be in sections, will
it all be here or will we be moving to another part of the
building, does it include film, will there be a break for
coffee?
e) The rules of the road - in
particular, do you want people to interrupt if they have a
question, wait till the end of the section, or hold all
questions until the end? They cannot know unless you tell
them.
Creative Openings (Attention Grappers)
There are as many openings as there are
speakers. One well known speaker entered looking as if
he'd had a rough night: rumpled, unshaven and bleary eyed
from too much drinking. He caused and looked around,
seeming confused, then he exited and made a quick
transformation in his appearance and returning well groomed
and as bright as any smart businessman should be. He then
began to talk on First Impressions.
Creating a fun gimmick or a dramatic opening
to grab your audience's attention is not difficult,
if you take time, think it through and plan it carefully.
But make sure you choose one to suit the situation and the
audience. A gimmicky opening can be dangerous,
especially if the audience is made to feel foolish as
opposed to being captivatingly fooled. There is a science
to opening a presentation. It's a simple science, or should
we say one based on simple precepts, but it's a science
nevertheless.
Make no mistake,
the opening is critical. Just like the first
pages of a book or the opening scenes of a movie the
reader/audience can be captivated early if it is done well.
Once captivated, of course, you must still deliver the
goods. But if you fail to "get" them early, the opportunity
may be lost. So, the first goal of a public speaker is to
create a positive magnetic relationship with the audience
and nothing works better than sharing something about
oneself. If humor is the chosen opening tone, then
self-deprecation works best. If an anecdotal beginning
is the choice, make it about yourself, but without even a
hint of braggadocio. Some of the best-credentialed speakers
we know make light of their own accomplishments and
pedigrees by creating humor about them. We know of one
college professor, for instance, who opens his public
speaking engagements with a put-down of his own profession:
"A Professor is someone who is
often wrong, but seldom in doubt".
What this does is bridge the gap between the
speaker and the audience. In other words, it's a humanizing
process. At the same time it gives the audience time and
encouragement to relax and to reach out with their emotions
toward the speaker in unspoken acceptance. The positive
energy this generates also helps the speaker relax and
so a genuine relationship can develop— a relationship of
trust and openness.
One of the reasons
sports heroes are successful in speaking assignments— even
those who are not great orators— is that they are well
received even before they begin. This is true of popular
figures in other fields, too, but sports heroes are
especially revered. If your name is not well known to your
audience you have to do something to endear them to you.
Hopefully, unlike many a famous athlete, you have something
substantive to offer, but first you have to get their
attention and then their affection; yes, affection.
The way
in which you are introduced can set the stage for a great
opening, naturally, so when asked for information, such as
your bio, try to be creative and add something
heartwarming, and basic: you are a cat lover or you work
with some charitable organization or other. Don't overdo it,
it can be very brief, but this kind of thing lightens the
hearts in /your audience, especially if they have just heard
that you have a PhD. in Biophysics, or something. It
counterbalances the bland feelings they have about you
before you start.
You may want to see what we suggest in our
tips on body language but briefly,
your posture during your introduction and how you respond to
the polite applause is critical. Unless you are the sports
figure mentioned earlier, the applause at this stage is
exactly that: polite. You haven't done anything to deserve
it yet, to accept it graciously but using your hands
acknowledges it and asks for it to end. When the applause
stops, polite or responsive— as it may be, later— pause and
let it soak in (to you and to your audience.) The audience
needs to get a sense of your vulnerability and your
sensitivity to the gift they are giving you. When you
receive a gift from someone you would not tear it open
instantly. You would pause, reflect and show humility and
appreciation, not at what the gift is, merely that there is
one. The same is true with applause for you as the speaker.
The "bridge"
having being built, the next goal for your opening is to
clarify why you are there and what you are going to be
speaking about. This allows listeners to prepare
themselves They need to open certain cognitive channels
within their mind. They may know something about your topic,
or have had experience with some aspect of it (this makes
the best kind of audience) and they need to have their
thoughts channeled appropriately. When an audience has
felt your humanity (goal number one) and they have started
to receive you as a person and as an expert, they feel ready
to open their minds to your ideas if you give a little
preview of what you are "up to." It's a kind of road map.
So now we come to the final goal for
your opening. A vital part of any opening is telling
listeners why and how the information you have will benefit
them. No matter what we do, we do it more wholeheartedly
when we have something to gain. Your audience needs to know
what they can gain from listening to you. This is why you
should never accept a speaking engagement for which you do
no perfectly fit, flattering as it may be to be asked to
speak, anywhere. Make sure you ask enough about the
assignment, the audience and the circumstances that you can
deliver something of value to them. If you can't, then
pass up the opportunity.
A final word...
An important one: you should accomplish your opening
as defined, above, in less than five minutes. Then get down
to the business of delivering what you promised.
The Power of Body Language
Research shows that over half of human
communication takes place on the nonverbal level through
body language.
If your body language communicates earnestness,
enthusiasm, and sincerity, people will tend to believe
your message. If you send different verbal and nonverbal
messages, they will inevitably trust what they see and not
what they hear! To be effective, body language must confirm
and support your words and graphics.
In a presentation situation,
body language is so powerful because your audience
empathizes with you as the speaker and mirrors your
emotions and feelings. If you appear relaxed, confident,
and smiling, your audience will relax, feel confidence in
you and usually smile back at you. If you appear nervous
or frown (even unconsciously) they'll get fidgety and frown
back at you.
Besides communicating your feelings and
attitudes body language does several things:
1. It makes messages
more meaningful and memorable.
People are easily bored with things that
don't move and naturally focus on things that do. People
remember more of what they see than hear and even more of
what they see and hear.
2. It punctuates
your presentation.
Gestures, body movement, and facial
expressions are to speech what periods, commas, and
exclamations points are to written language.
3. It relieves
nervous tension.
Public speaking activates the adrenal gland,
creating an overabundance of energy which tends to sneak out
as nervous mannerisms. Gestures and body movement, however,
harness this nervous energy and make it work for you.
Following are the five main elements of
body language and key points about each.
Posture
Without a word or even a movement, your
speaking posture communicates whether or not you're
confident, enthusiastic, and in control of the
situation. Good posture enables you to breathe properly
and project your voice effectively.
It also minimizes nervous tension.
To achieve an effective speaking posture,
stand erect but not stiff, relaxed but not sloppy. Relax
your shoulders and knees. Let your arms hang naturally at
your sides with your fingers relaxed. You should feel alert
and comfortable. Immediately before your presentation, take
a few deep, slow breaths and consciously relax your
shoulders, neck, and jaw.
Gestures
Gestures, used correctly, are the most
evocative form of body language and can tremendously
enhance your words. There are four basic types of gestures:
Descriptive gestures clarify or illustrate your
words. Emphatic gestures emphasize your words, e.g.
clench your fist or pound the podium. Suggestive gestures
create a mood or express a thought, e.g. shrug your
shoulders to indicate ignorance or perplexity. Prompting
gestures evoke a response, e.g. raise your hand or
applaud if you want the audience to do the same. Gesturing
reflects each speaker's personality; what works for Zig
Zeigler probably won't work for you. Here are six things to
keep in mind about gesturing:
1. Gesture naturally according to what you
think, feel and say.
Regardless of your personality or cultural
background, you have a natural impulse to gesture to
emphasize things you feel strongly about. Don't inhibit that
impulse. Be genuine and spontaneous. Don't concoct
artificial gestures or your audience will peg you as a
phony. If you're naturally reserved, try emphasizing your
gestures a bit more than seems natural.
2. Create the conditions for gesturing
-not the gesture.
Involve yourself totally with your
message-not in thinking about your body movement-and your
gestures will arise naturally from your thoughts, feelings,
and attitudes.
3. Suit the gesture
to the word or occasion.
Make your gestures appropriate for the words
you're expressing or you'll appear artificial or even
comical. Match the frequency and vigor of your gestures to
your message, and don't overdo it. Powerful, vigorous
animated gestures are fine for young audiences but may
threaten or irritate older or conservative audiences.
4. Make your
gestures convincing.
Each gesture should be a distinct, clearly
visible movement. Hand gestures should involve the total arm
and shoulder. Keep your wrists and hands relaxed. Use broad,
slow, expansive gestures for large audiences.
5. Make your gestures smooth and
well-timed.
Timing is as important in gesturing as it is
in comedy. The gesture must come on the correct word-not
before or after. Don't memorize your gestures or they will
appear canned. Simply practice your presentation until the
gestures become natural.
6. Make natural,
spontaneous gesturing a habit
Relax your inhibitions, and practice
gesturing during informal conversation with friends. Have
fun with it, and soon gesturing will be a natural part of
your presentation toolbox.
Facial Expression
Audiences scrutinize speakers, faces, eager
for visual data to add meaning to their words. Your
face-more clearly than any other part of your body-reflects
your attitudes, feelings, and emotions. Your audience wants
you to be confident, friendly, and sincere and watches your
face for evidence of these qualities. Effective speakers
must communicate these qualities.
The key to conveying a warm, sincere attitude
is smiling throughout your presentation, not constantly-or
you'll be labeled a lightweight- but every time it's
appropriate.
Be sure to remove expressions which don't
belong on your face, those nervous mannerisms which
distract from your message. These include licking, biting,
or clicking the lips, tightening the jaws, frowning, or
switching any part of the face. Audiences attribute these
expressions to nervousness or unfriendliness and become less
receptive to your message. To reduce your apprehension about
speaking, believe your message, practice it thoroughly,
relax, and let your face reflect your good thoughts,
attitudes, and emotions.
Eye Contact
After your voice, your eyes are your most
powerful tool for communicating. Your eyes either bind
you to, or separate you from, your audience. Every
listener wants to feel you are talking to him or her. Eye
contact accomplishes this. In most cultures, direct eye
contact signals sincerity; lack of eye contact signals
insincerity, disinterest, or lack of confidence-all message
killers. Your eye contact directly influences the
attentiveness and concentration of the audience. If you
don't look at them, they probably won't look at you or
listen to you.
Here are three keys to using your eyes
effectively in presentations:
1. Know your material.
Practice your verbal message until; you don't
need to strain to remember the sequence of ideas and words.
Doing so frees you to concentrate on the audience, notion an
inner mental turmoil.
2. Establish a
personal bond with each listener.
Every audience will have energizers-those
people who are with you, alert, and usually smiling in
agreement. Choose energizers in every section of the
audience and focus on them. Maintain eye contact with and
speak directly to each one for the time it takes to say a
sentence or complete a thought, then shift to the next.
Doing so will energize and encourage you, and everyone
around these energizers will think you're looking at them.
3. Monitor visual
feedback.
If the audience isn't looking at you, they're
probably not listening, and you need to regain their
attention. Do they look puzzled? Bored? Can they hear you?
Is the microphone on? Visually monitoring your listeners
enables you to make adjustments necessary to most clearly
communicate you message.
Conclusion
Videotaping one of your presentations is an
excellent way to discover your strong, effective body
language as well as any unconscious, nervous mannerisms.
Watch great speakers for ideas of
how to maximize your own body language. Develop a strong
message you firmly believe in and are excited about.
Practice it thoroughly. Relax, be natural, and let your
enthusiasm and sincerity project naturally to your
listeners. Finally, have fun, and you'll do fine as a
presenter!
A Guideline for Verbal Skills Used By
Presenter
A Guideline for Non Verbal Skills Used
By Presenter
C. Handle
Conversational Situations Effectively
Good speaking is always based on the
effective delivery.
Beside good delivery, however, you may need some additional
techniques or situations that involve more give than with
you audience:
(1)
Question and answer periods,
(2)
Listening and discussion sessions
(3)
Impromptu conversations,
(4)
Telephone conversations, and
(5)
Media presentations.
1) Question and answer periods
Presentation often involves more than your
prepared remarks.
In fact, your ability to answer questions immediately is one
of the main advantages speaking has over writing. Here are
some procedures to help you deal "with those occasional
problem questioners", and have to buy time if you are
momentarily stymied.
2) Listening and discussion sessions
Your ability to listen well and to elicit
information from others is crucial to your professional
success.
The benefits you gain from good listening are tremendous:
you receive more detailed information, enabling you to make
better decisions; you increase your understanding so you
can solve problems better; and you increase cooperation so
you can improve working relationship and improve your
chances for effective implementation. The following
techniques that deal with how to look, feel, and speak are
designed to make you a better listener.
3) Impromptu conversations
Impromptu speaking is talking on the spur
of the moment, without, advance preparation. For
example, your boss may suddenly ask you to bring us
up-to-date on a certain project; or a client may ask you to
explain a certain service. Usually, of course, you will not
be asked to make impromptu remarks unless you have some
knowledge in the area.
4) Telephone conversations
People tend to waste time on the telephone
because they don't prepare. Just because phone
conversations do not demand intensive preparations does not
mean you should not prepare at all. To use the phone to the
best advantage, you need to:
-
Listen carefully, and
-
Use your voice
effectively.
5) Media presentations
Speaking on television and radio is becoming
increasingly important for business and professional people.
Written
Communication
Effective written communication has its
simple and clear rules. In order to reach your readers, you
should bare in mind the following steps:
1- Define you subject:
You must go to the point as early as
possible. It is always better those readers know what your
subject is about from the first paragraph, the second
maximum.
2- Know your reader:
Of course, you must have a target audience
while writing your message. Reader's characteristics
determine your language, the way you present your ideas, the
kind of arguments you are going to stress on.
3- Organize your national:
Every message should be organized by an
opening, introductory comment, underlining the main subject,
including your recommendations in the conclusion. We will
talk later about approaches to persuasive messages.
Here are some recommendation you should put
in consideration:
1-
Be clear.
2-
Be natural.
3-
Be concise.
4-
Be precise and accurate.
5-
Diversify your style.
6-
Check understanding of your written message
before delivery.
7-
Improve your writing skills by reading.
Organizations of
Persuasive Message
The Effects of One-Sided Versus Two-Sided
Messages
A one-sided message sets forth the source’s
claim to the receiver, whereas a two-sided message not only
sets forth the source’s claim, but also recognizes opposing
positions on the issue.
1. Presenting both sides of the argument
is more effective if the individual addressed is
initially opposed to the issue, but the one-sided argument
is more effective with those initially favoring the
communicator's position.
2. A two-sided message is more effective
if the subjects are likely to be exposed to subsequent
counterpropaganda. The two-sided message "immunizes" the
audience against future counterpropaganda. This was
attributed to the fact that such a message presents the
opposite point of view and thus builds up the subjects
resistance to that point of view when he is confronted with
it again,
3. Communication giving both sides of the
argument was more effective with the better educated
group, regardless of their initial position, whereas the
one-sided presentation was primarily effective among the
less educated group who were already in favor of the
communicator's position.
The Effects of Stating a Conclusion
Many researchers explored the differential
effects of stating a conclusion versus not stating it. The
presentations used in their experiments were identical
except for the stating of the conclusion to one group. The
message dealt with current economic issues and the
conclusion presented to one group stated that it was
desirable to devaluate American currency.
The investigators found that when the
conclusion was explicitly drawn, more than twice as many
respondents changed their opinion in the direction advocated
by the communicator.
A later study by Thistle Waite,
qualified this by finding that the message with a conclusion
was more effective in changing the attitudes of the less
intelligent subjects than those of the more intelligent.
Subsequent research has been unable to confirm the finding
regarding the role of intelligence.
However, the strategy of stating a conclusion
may not always be superior since a number of factors are
thought to influence opinion change.
The factors that contribute to the
differential effects of the conclusion drawing include:
1. Credibility of the source
2. The intelligence, personality type, and
sophistication of the audience
3. The complexity of the argument
4. Familiarity of the topic
The Effects of Order of Presentation
The organization of the arguments in the
message provides another interesting aspect of persuasive
communication. Studies have focused on two questions;
(1) whether the climax of the
argument should be presented at the beginning or at the end,
and (2) when the two different views are presented, which
view has the advantage, the first view presented (the
primary effect), or the second view presented (the recency
effect).
After reviewing, the evidence as to the
difference between a climax (important arguments reserved
until the end) and an "anti-climax" order (major arguments
presented at the beginning and weaker ones at the end)
Hovland and Mandel concluded that neither order of
presentation had a substantial advantage over the other.
More important, for different audiences, are other factors
such as attention, learning and acceptance, which may
contribute to making one order of presentation superior to
the others
With regard to the primary versus recency
issue,
the investigators pointed out that the law of primacy is not
always superior. Primacy may occur when the audience is
asked to make a public commitment in favor of the first
viewpoint between presentation of the first and second
viewpoints. Also, primacy may occur if the second view
presented by the same source contradicts the first view just
presented. However, primacy may not be effective if the
audience is forewarned of the fallibility of the first
viewpoint, or if activities intervene between the two
presentations, or if different sources present the two
viewpoints.
When the message contains only one viewpoint,
it is desirable first to arouse the subject's needs and then
to present information that may satisfy such needs.
This order is more effective in inducing attitude change
than presenting the information first, and later arousing
the needs. Further, attitudes change more when
communications highly desirable to the subject are presented
first, followed by the less desirable ones, than when the
less desirable ones come first. However, if attitude change
is measured after a period of delay, recency is more likely
to be superior due to the forgetting function. Researchers
conclude that there is no universal principle of primacy in
persuasion, and that either primacy effect or recency effect
depends on a number of other factors. These are time of
measurement, similarity of issues, earlier positive
experience with the communicator, warnings against premature
commitment, arouse of needs before presentation of
information, ambiguity inherent in the sequence of
communications.
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Communication Skills(3)
