I have updated the Whizz Kids web pages. The new material is in
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Handling the audience in public speaking
Audiences Are Your Friend
For the rank amateur to the ignorant professional, audiences create the same effect no matter how small they are to a speaker.
Fear and anxiety.
From a single person to a crowd as big as the fans in the Super Bowl, speaking in front of a serious listening audience is the true test and baptism of fire.
Despite this, audiences are predictable.
Audiences listen to you because they want to learn something from the speaker.
Following this logic, the speaker would do well to follow the strategy of making it informative as well as interesting to listeners to see your speech through till the end.
Here are some tips on how you can have the audience listen in rapt attention.
by Craig A. Anderson
After 40+ years of research, one might think that debate about media violence effects would be over. An historical examination of the research reveals that debate concerning whether such exposure is a significant risk factor for aggressive and violent behavior should have been over years ago (Bushman & Anderson, 2001).
Four types of media violence studies provide converging evidence of such effects: laboratory experiments, field experiments, cross-sectional correlation studies, and longitudinal studies (Anderson & Bushman, 2002a; Bushman & Huesmann, 2000).
But the development of a new genre—electronic video games—reinvigorated the debate.
Two features of video games fuel renewed interest by researchers, public policy makers, and the general public. First, the active role required by video games is a double-edged sword. It helps educational video games be excellent teaching tools for motivational and learning process reasons. But, it also may make violent video games even more hazardous than violent television or cinema. Second, the arrival of a new generation of ultraviolent video games beginning in the early 1990s and continuing unabated to the present resulted in large numbers of children and youths actively participating in entertainment violence that went way beyond anything available to them on television or in movies. Recent video games reward players for killing innocent bystanders, police, and prostitutes, using a wide range of weapons including guns, knives, flame throwers, swords, baseball bats, cars, hands, and feet.
Some include cut scenes (i.e., brief movie clips supposedly designed to move the story forward) of strippers. In some, the player assumes the role of hero, whereas in others the player is a criminal. Read on …
More resources for families at
The Resources for families blog
Public Speaking Success Tip – Avoid fillers
Unless your speech if absolutely fascinating, any “pause fillers” you add repetitiously, like um, or y’know, or OK will start to stand out. They will capture the audience above your speech. Start by listening to others – sports commentators, interviewees on television, anyone speaking publicly. Listen for their fillers then you will learn to listen for your own.
I have started a new blog at WordPress. I called it WRB which stands for Words, Reading and Books. Check it out…. language, words, reading, books
How to give your presentation a great title
People don’t usually give much thought to the title of their presentations. Yet they should. Giving your presentation an interesting title means that interested people are likely to turn up to hear you speak. If you ever speak at seminars you realise that you are sometimes competing against 4 or 5 other speakers. In this situation, often the best presentation title in the programme will get the lion’s share of the audience.
We can borrow a few lessons from journalists and copywriters when it comes to naming your presentation.
People who write headlines understand what it takes to get people interested and engaged.
Wanda Loskott, on her site http://www.loska.com/columns/headlines.html lists her choice of the Top 100 headlines of all time. There are some fairly dated ones in there, but it’s the structure of the headlines which we can learn from.
25% of them start with the word “how”.
16 of them are questions.
Not one of them is less than 4 words long.
Next time you are trying to think of a name for your presentation try starting it with the word “How”. This will get you thinking more like a copywriter, it will engaging more of your audience from the outset and you will invariably end up solving a problem for the audience.
Here are Wanda’s Top 100:
They Laughed When I Sat Down at The Piano – But When I Started to Play!
Give Black What They Deserve
Profits That Lie Hidden In Your Farm
How I Made a Fortune With a Fool Idea
Thousands Have This Priceless Gift – but Never Discover It!
Do You Do Any Of These Embarrassing Things?
Six Types of Investors – Which Group Are You In?
Does Your Child Ever Embarrass You?
To People Who Want To Write – but Can’t Get Started
The Crimes We Commit Against Our Stomachs
How to Do Wonders with a Little Land!
“Here’s an Extra $50, Grace”
A Wonderful Two Years Trip at Full Pay – but only men with imagination can take it
A $10,000 Mistake!
The Greatest reason in The World
The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
Dare To Be Rich!
How To Rob Banks Legally
A Startling Fact About Money
How To Discover What You Are Really Good At
How To Write a Business Letter?
The Secrets of Making People Like You
Advice to Wives Whose Husbands Don’t Save Money
How a New Discovery Made a Plain Girl Beautiful
How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Swim with The Sharks without Being Eaten Alive
Do You Make This Mistakes in English?
Why Some Foods “Explode” in Your Stomach
You Can Laugh at Money Worries – if You Follow This Simple Plan
Five Familiar Skin Troubles – Which do You Want to Overcome?
How I Improved My Memory in One Evening
Suppose This happened On Your Wedding Day!
Free Book Tells You 12 Secrets of Better Lawn Care
The Secret to Being Wealthy
To Men Who Want to Quit Working Some Day
Imagine Holding an Audience Spellbound for 30 Minutes
New Shampoo Leaves Your Hair Smoother – Easier to Manage
Thousands Now Play Who Never Thought They Could
Great New Discovery Kills Kitchen Odors Quick!
For The Woman Who Looks Younger than She Is
Check the Kind of Body You Want
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”
Why Wall Street Journal readers Live Better
“Dear American Tourister: You Saved My Life”
Girls! Want Quick Curls?
You May Be Eating More Salt Than You Should
Get Rid of That Humidity!
How You can Get a Quick Loan of $1,000
Become a Well Paid Hotel/Motel Executive
How To Get More Energy From The Food You Eat
They Grinned When the waiter Spoke to Me in French
Imagine Harry and Me Advertising our Pears in Fortune!
My Sears Kenmore Sewing Machine has 9 Different Stitches – Imagine!How I Improved Memory in One Evening
You Can Make Big Money Easily
Get Rid of Money Worries for Good
Keep Your Dog safe This Summer!
Free to Manufacturers.
Write for Brochures You Want.
The Instrument of the Immortals
For People Who Don’t Have Time for Unimportant Books
How To Avoid Mental Hazards
Break Out of Jail!
Tenants Mysteriously Disappear from the Carrboro Apartment Complex!Will You Help me Free Gina?
Don’t Even Think About Buying New Home Without Reading This Report!How To Start from Scratch and Become a PO Box Millionaire
The Secret of Having Good Luck
How To Get Rich Reading Classified Ads
How To Form Your Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $50
Seven Steps to Financial Freedom
How To Write a Hit Song and Sell It
Who is Making a Bundle and How
How The Experts Buy and Sell Gold and Silver
Want to Be a Legal Investigator?
How To Write a Good Advertisement
But What if You Could See Her Naked?
A Little Mistake That Cost a Farmer $3,000 a Year
The Child Who Won the Hearts of All
The Last 2 Hours are the Longest – and Those Are the 2 Hours You Save
How To Burn Off Body Fat, Hour-by-Hour
Is Your Home Picture Poor?
“I liked this product so much – that I bought the company!”
Why Some People Almost Always Make Money in The Stock Market?
How Much is Your Working “Tension” Costing Your Company?
Is The Life of a Child Worth $1 to You?
161 New Ways to a Man’s Heart – in This fascinating Book
How To Give Your Children Extra Iron – 3 Delicious Ways
Often a Bridesmaid – Never a Bride!
Little Leaks That Keep Men Poor
This is Marie Antoinette – Ridding To Her Death
Take This One Minute Test!
Here Is a Quick way to Break Up a Cold
“I lost my bulges – and save money too!”
Satisfaction Guaranteed – or Your Money Back!
The Truth About Getting Rich
Do Your Employee Work as Slowly as They read?
The Most Expensive Mistake of Your Life
7 ways to Collect Your Unpaid Bills
Need More Money!
What Your Lawyer Doesn’t Want You to Know
Have You Ever Seen a Grown Man Cry?
This is a visually exciting, interactive website which gives information about the heart, how it works and why it fails. Explore the Invision Guide to a healthy heart.
Creating the WOW factor in your Speech or Presentation – Consider your Audience
Why are you giving this speech? What do you hope to achieve with your presentation?
What sort of impact do you want to create? What will that “WOW” be?
In creating that “WOW”, that impact, one of the most important steps will be to research and consider the audience, because unless they understand what you are saying and respond to it, there can be no impact, no WOW. Read on …
I couldn’t resist sharing this. I have to admit, I’ve never given a thought to the who where or when of the ubiquitous smiley face.
“Dear Cecil:Who invented the smiley face, that obnoxious little design you see plastered on stickers everywhere? Some anonymous hero lost in the quagmire of Commercial Art History? A team of dedicated iconographers hoping to devise the perfect expression of mindless optimism? Will we ever know? Hey, this is what we pay you big money for.
–Ivan Brunetti, Lansing, Illinois
Cecil replies:
Oh? Guess your check got lost in the mail. A few weeks ago, my usual sources having come up dry, I convinced a reporter to post this question in USA Today. Overcome by wickedness, however, I phrased it, “who invented the smiley face, and did he do time for it?” Not that I actually thought the responsible party should be imprisoned, of course; I’d settle for 20 years’ house arrest in a room wallpapered with smileys. Be that as it may, I got a few calls, made a few more, and now can confidently assign credit and/or blame.
The smiley face craze, if not necessarily the smiley face itself, was the work of two brothers in Philadelphia, Bernard and Murray Spain, who were in the business of making would-be fad items.” Read on …
The Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint
The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch. From the 10/20/30 rule of powerpoint