The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

by Dale Carnegie

Some years ago a member of one of our classes described the fearful toll of fatal accidents on our highways by this appalling picture: “You are driving across the country from New York to Los Angeles. Instead of highway markers, imagine coffins standing upright in the earth, each containing a victim of last year’s slaughter on the roads. As you speed along your car passes one of these gruesome markers every five seconds, for they are spaced twelve to a mile from one end of the country to the other!”

AVOID TECHNICAL TERMS

It is a good practice to pick out the least intelligent- looking person in the audience and strive to make that person interested in your argument. This can be done only by lucid statements of fact and clear reasoning. An even better method is to center your talk on some small boy or girl present with parents. Say to yourself—say out loud to your audience, if you like—that you will try to be so plain that the child will understand and remember your explanation of the question discussed, and after the meeting be able to tell what you have said.

Aristotle gave some good advice on the subject: “Think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.” If you must use a technical term, don’t use it until you have explained it so everybody in the audience knows what it means. This is especially true of your keystone words, the ones you use over and over.

FIFTH Use Visual Aids