Carnegie Language Breakthroughs and the Art of Communication

Chapter 33 The Challenge of Effective Speaking (5)
In those longer speeches where the audience is expected to respond, there are 3 or 4 points to pay attention to.They can be said in less than 1 minute, and it would be tedious to tell an audience from a script.Is there any way to bring these arguments to life?Yes, that's the supporting material you use to make your presentation sparkle and entertaining.Borrowing events, comparisons, and demonstrations can bring out your main ideas clearly.Statistics and testimonies are used to powerfully illustrate the facts and reinforce the weight of the main argument.

orgasmic ending
One day I stopped by the industrialist and humanitarian George Jensen and chatted with him for a few minutes.He was the president of Antico Jansen at the time.But what interests me more is that he is a speaker who can make his audience laugh as well as cry, and make his speeches remembered for a long time.

He has no private office, just his own little corner in his large and busy factory.His demeanor is even more like his old wooden table, sincere and not hypocritical.

"You've come just in time," he said, rising to meet me. "I've got a special job to do! I've jotted down the end of my address to the workers tonight."

"It's a great relief to get the whole speech in my head from beginning to end." I said with emotion.

"Oh, they're not fully formed in my head," he said, "just general concepts and the particular way I want to summarize them."

He was not a professional orator, and he never considered sonorous words or exquisite words.However, he has learned from experience one of the secrets of successful communication.He knew that in order to speak well, it must have a good ending.He understood that to make a strong impression on his audience, the content of the speech must be carried forward logically to the correct conclusion.

Did you ever know what parts of a speech best reveal whether you're an inexperienced novice or an expert?A clumsy speaker, or an extremely skilled one?I tell you, that's the beginning and the end.There is an old saying in the theater that has something to do with actors, and it goes like this: "You can tell whether a man is a good actor by the way he appears and when he leaves the stage."

Start and end!They are almost the least skillfully performed parts of any kind of activity.For example, in a social occasion, isn't it the most skillful performance to enter the venue gracefully and to exit gracefully?In a formal meeting, isn't the most difficult job to win the trust of the other party at the beginning and to end the meeting successfully?

The closing is the most strategic part of a speech.When a speaker leaves, the last few words he said will still echo in the ears of the audience, and these words will remain the longest memory in the hearts of the audience.However, people who are generally beginners in public speaking seldom notice the importance of this point.Their endings are often disappointing.

What is the most common mistake they make?Let's take a look to find a remedy.

First, some people always end their speeches by saying, "That's about all I can say on this subject. So, I figured, I'll end my speech." Such speakers often release a puff of smoke and feel guilty. Saying "thank you" is an attempt to cover up and end an unsatisfactory speech.In fact, such haste is hardly the end.This is definitely a mistake.This will reveal to the audience that you are a novice.It's almost unforgivable.If you've said all you had to say, why not just end your speech and sit down right away instead of saying "I'm done" nonsense!You have to do this, and it will leave a lingering lingering sound for the audience, who will automatically know from your pauses that you have said everything you have to say.

Then there are the speakers who, having said everything he was supposed to say, don't know how to end it.Joss Bliss advises that when catching a cow, one should grab the tail, not the horns, because it is easier to catch.But the speaker mentioned here is grabbing the bull head-on.He desperately wanted to be separated from the cow, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't separate from the cow and escaped to the fence or tree.Therefore, in the end, he can only go around in circles, saying and saying what he has said, and can only leave a bad impression in the minds of the audience.

How to improve it?That is, the ending has to be planned in advance.isn't it?If you try to think about your closing remarks after you've faced the audience, it's too late when you're under the stress and tension of speaking and your mind has to be focused on what you've said , Think about it, isn't this kind of "scratching your feet" very stupid?So wouldn't it be smarter if you could plan your ending calmly and quietly beforehand?

Even some eminent and admirable speakers, such as Webster, Bright, and Greystone, who have achieved great success and have excellent English skills, think that it is necessary to write the ending in full and then memorize it word for word. down.

If beginners can imitate their practices, they will no longer feel regret.The beginner must know exactly what he is going to show at the end.He should practice the ending paragraph several times in advance. Of course, he does not have to repeat the same words and sentences every time, but express your thoughts clearly in words and sentences.

If you are speaking extemporaneously, you have to change a lot of material constantly during the speech, and you have to cut some passages, so that you can respond flexibly to unforeseen situations, which also helps you to get in time with the audience's response.Therefore, it is wise to have two or three closing remarks in advance.If one is not suitable, another may be available.

Some speakers never reach the end.In the middle of their speeches, they began to speak hastily and without fuss, as if the engine would thump and stop frequently when the gasoline was running out.After a few desperate sprints forward, they came to a complete stillness and broke down.Of course, they need more preparation and more practice, which means more gasoline in the tank.

Many novice presentations tend to end too abruptly.The way they end is often uneven and lacking in polish.They have no end, exactly, they stop suddenly and sharply in the middle of the speech.This approach is unpleasant and shows that the speaker is a complete layman.It's as if during a social conversation the other person suddenly stops talking and dashes out of the room without politely saying goodbye to everyone in the room.

Even a speaker as great as Lincoln made the same mistake in the draft of his first inaugural address.As the speech was delivered, the situation was tense, with dark clouds of conflict and hatred hovering overhead.In the weeks that followed, a storm of blood and destruction erupted across the United States.Lincoln had intended to conclude his inaugural address to the people of the South with the following words:
My fellow disaffected fellow citizens, the solution of this great question of civil war is in your hands, not mine.The government will not scold you.If you are not the aggressors, there will be no conflict.You have not inherently taken an oath to destroy this government, but I have taken a most solemn oath, to preserve, to protect and to fight for that government.You can avoid attacks on this government, but I cannot escape my responsibility to protect it.Peace or war?This solemn question rests with you, not with me.

He showed the speech to the secretary of state.The Secretary of State quite rightly pointed out that the ending was too blunt, too reckless, too provocative.So, the Secretary of State tried to modify this ending and wrote two endings for him to choose.Lincoln took one of these and, after a slight modification, used it in place of the last three sentences of the original speech.In this way, his first inaugural speech was less provocative and brash than the original, but more friendly, and displayed his pure beauty and poetic eloquence:
I hate conflict.We are not enemies, but friends.We must not be enemies.Strong emotions may create tension, but never destroy our emotions and friendships.The mystical sentiments of memory, extending from every field of battle and grave of a patriot to every living heart and every family of this vast land, will add to the united voice of the United States.At that time, we will, and must, approach this country with our better nature.

How does a novice get the right feel for the end of a speech?Should it be based on mechanical rules?

No!no.It's like culture, it's such a subtle thing.It has to be something of a feeling, that is, it is almost an intuition.Unless a speaker can "feel" what it takes to perform harmoniously and with great skill, how can you hope to do it yourself?

However, this "feeling" can be cultivated, and this experience can also be summed up.You can study the methods of some famous speakers.Here’s an example, from the closing words of the Prince of Wales’ speech at the Empire Club in Toronto:

Everyone, I'm worried.I've lost control of myself, I've talked too much about myself.But I want to tell you that you are the largest audience I have ever spoken in Canada.I must say how I feel about my own position, and about the responsibilities that come with it - I can only assure you that I will always fulfill these great responsibilities and try to live up to you Trust me.

Even a "blind" listener will "feel" that this is the conclusion.It doesn't dangle in mid-air like an untied rope; nor does it look sprawling and untended.It's well manicured, it's tidied up, and that's the sign: it's time to end.

On the Sunday after the Sixth Congress of the League of Nations, the eminent Dr. Hosteick delivered a speech at the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Geneva.The title he chose was: "He who holds a sword will eventually die by the sword".The following is the conclusion of his speech.You feel that what he expresses is so beautiful, noble and powerful:

We cannot confuse Jesus Christ with war—that is the crux of the matter.This is the challenge we face today, and it should stir the conscience of Christ.War is the greatest and most destructive social evil ever suffered by mankind!This is absolutely cruel behavior!In its overall method and effect, it represents everything that Jesus did not say, and it stands for nothing that Jesus said.It very clearly denies every single Christian teaching about God and man, far more than any atheist on earth can imagine.To see the Christian Church claiming to be responsible for the greatest moral questions of our time, and to see it set forth as clear a standard of morality as it did in our fathers' time, against the heresies of our present time, Is it not of great value in refusing to subject conscience to some belligerent nation, prioritizing the Kingdom of God over nationalism, and calling the world to peace?
Here and now, as an American, under the roof of the Statue of Liberty, I cannot speak for my government, but as an American and as a Christian, I will speak for my millions Fellow countrymen speak, bless you on a great task, the great task of making us trust you.We pray for it!We will regret it if it cannot be completed.We have made many efforts, and we all have the same purpose—that is, to pursue a peaceful world.There is no better goal to strive for.Without this goal, mankind will face the most terrible disaster in history.Just like the law of gravitation in physics, the law of God in the moral field has no boundaries between races and nations: "Whoever holds a sword will eventually die by the sword."

But no conclusion to our recorded speech would be complete without the majestic tone and piano-like melody at the end of Lincoln's second inaugural address.The late Earl Cuzon, former chancellor of Oxford University, once declared that Lincoln's concluding speech "may be ranked in the glory and treasure of mankind... the purest gold of human eloquence, no, it should be regarded as almost sacred eloquence".And listen:
We gladly hope, and we earnestly pray, that the scourge of this war will soon be a thing of the past.However, if it is God's will that this war be continued until the wealth amassed by unpaid slaves for 250 years is completely exhausted, until every drop of blood drawn by the whip is cut with the sword And shed blood to pay compensation, then we must also say the same sentence 3 years ago: "God's judgment is true and just."

Be hostile to no one; be merciful to all, stand on the side of justice, God guides us to see what is right, let us do what we are doing now; heal the wounds of this nation; care for the soldiers who died for it , to take care of their widows and orphans.To do all our duty to achieve a just and permanent peace among us, and extend it to the whole world.

In my opinion, this is the most beautiful ending to a passage that has ever been uttered by the common man... Do you agree with me?In the field of speech literature, where can you find a more human, loving, compassionate passage than this one?

In The Life of Abraham Lincoln, William Barton said: "The Gettysburg Address was already very noble, but this speech raised it to a higher level... It is the greatest speech of Abraham. , which brought his intellect and spiritual power to the highest level."

"It was like a hymn," wrote Carl Schulz. "Never before has an American president spoken such words to the American people. And never has an American president found such moving words in his heart." President."

But you don't give a speech in Washington as president, and you don't give a speech in Ottawa or Canberra as prime minister.Maybe your question is just how to end a simple conversation in front of a group of social workers.What should you do?And let's do a little research.And let's see if we can unearth some useful suggestions.Here are those suggestions:

Summarize your point - Even in a short talk of only 5 minutes, the average speaker will unknowingly make the talk so broad that at the end the audience is still wondering what his main point is. Bewildered.Only a very small number of speakers will notice this, though.

They have the erroneous idea that since these points are crystal clear in their own minds, they should be equally clear to their listeners.Not so.The speaker has thought about his point of view for a long time, but his point of view is new to the audience.They are like a string of marbles thrown at the audience. Some may land on the audience, but most of them fall scattered on the ground.The audience's feeling may be that a lot of things are remembered, but none of them are remembered clearly.

The following is a good example.The speaker was a traffic manager for a railroad company in Chicago:
In a nutshell folks, from our experience with this signaling system in our own backyard, from our experience with this machine in the east, west, north, it's easy to operate, works great, plus it's 1 year The money saved by preventing the crash within [-] days leads me, in my most urgent and candid advice, to immediately implement this machine in our southern branch.

Can you see his success?You can see and feel that without hearing the rest of his speech.In just a few sentences, he covered the whole point of his entire speech.

Don't you find summaries like this extremely effective?If you feel the same way, then don't hesitate to use this technique.

1. A request for action
The ending quoted above is a prime example of a "request for action" ending.The speaker wants to do something: install a signal control system on the southern branch of the railway company he works for.He asked the company's executives to take this action mainly because this equipment can save the company money and prevent crashes.This is not a practice speech.The speech was made to the board of directors of a certain railway company in order to persuade the company to agree to install the signaling equipment he had requested.

In your get-to-action speech, when you say the last few words, if you feel that the time has come to demand action, ask for it decisively!Ask your audience to donate, vote, write letters, make phone calls, buy, boycott, join the military, investigate, acquit, or whatever you want them to do.However, please be sure to follow these guidelines:
A. Ask them to do specific things

(End of this chapter)