Public Speaking

Difference between Public Speaking and Acting. In practically all the aspects of public speaking you deliver your own thoughts in your own words. In dramatic presentation you de...

Vocabularies. The collection of words a person can command either in use or understanding is a vocabulary. Every person has three distinct ones: his reading vocabulary, his writ...

Preparing the Conclusion. No architect would attempt to plan a building unless he knew the purpose for which it was to be used. No writer of a story would start to put down word...

Speech-making a Formal Matter. Every speech is more or less a formal affair. The speaker standing is separated from the other persons present by his prominence. He is removed fr...

What Argumentation Is. It is an old saying that there are two sides to every question. Any speaker who supports some opinion before an audience, who advances some theory, who ur...

The part which explanation plays in all phases of life is too apparent to need any emphasis here. It is to a great extent the basis of all our daily intercourse, from explaining...

Organs of Speech. Although the effects produced by the human voice are myriad in their complexity, the apparatus involved in making the sounds which constitute speech is extreme...

Selecting Material. It can be assumed, by the time you have reached this point in the study and practice of making speeches, that you have words to express your thoughts and som...

The Material of Speeches. So far this book has dealt almost entirely with the manner of speaking. Now it comes to the relatively more important consideration of the material of...

The Ideal of Debating. A long time ago so admirable a man as William Penn stated the high ideal of all real debating whether practised in the limited range of school interests o...

The Brief. One of the shortest briefs on record was prepared by Abraham Lincoln for use in a suit to recover $200 for the widow of a Revolutionary veteran from an agent who had...

Answering the Other Side. It has been said already that even in a single argumentative speech some account must be taken of the possibility among the audience of the belief in o...

Speech-making in the Professions. If a student enter a profession in which speech-making is the regular means of gaining his livelihood--as in law, religion, or lecturing--he wi...

Importance of Speech. There never has been in the history of the world a time when the spoken word has been equaled in value and importance by any other means of communication....

Orderly Arrangement. A speech should have an orderly arrangement. The effect upon an audience will be more easily made, more deeply impressed, more clearly retained, if the succ...