Selecting a topic and purpose for a public speaking

We present everyday! Not just at a conference talk, but at all aspects of daily life. The presentation skills can be acquired across enough preparation and practice. It’s a special art of public speaking.

When you’re committed to make a speech, there are three questions for you to find out: What’s the topic? Who’s the audience? How long is the talk?

The first step in speechmaking is choosing a topic and determining the general purpose of your speech. That is, What do you want to speak? What do you want the audience to know, to do or to feel?

For a class speech, you have great leeway in selecting topics. The subject you know well is good. When you are thinking about a topic, draw on your own knowledge and special expertise, or some unusual experiences in sports, hobbies, travel, and other personal experiences, organize them, making each clue a proper meaning. Besides, the topic you are interested in but not enough familiar, is still OK, you can do some additional researches. A library, the Internet or even a communication may help.

If you are still confused in picking a topic, then do some brainstorming work. Four procedures will help: First, make an inventory of your hobbies, interests, skills, beliefs and so forth; Second, use clustering to list the first topics that come to mind in several categories; Third, check a reference work for ideas; Fourth, use an Internet subject directory to help you scan possible topics.

Make sure whether you want to communicate information clearly, accurately, and interestingly, or to win listeners over to your point of view. Once determined, you must focus on a special purpose statement that indicates precisely what your speech seeks to accomplish. This purpose should meet the assignment, be relevant to the audience and not be too trivial or too technical. Thus, you need to pay attention to one aspect of your topic, making the idea clear and distinct.

In all, some tips may help get your speech started, that is, as soon as you get your topic, take fifteen minutes of quiet time, and start listing everything you might talk about. Create a straight-line list of any information, activities, facts, or examples you might include. Then, empty your mind of possibilities, put the list away, and move on with your normal activities. In this way, your mind will keep these generating ideas.

To make a fantastic speech, please get adequate preparation, suit your topics to your strength, and ponder well your subject and its length; nor lift your load before you’re quite aware what weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.

第二篇：留学文书范文10 dos and 10don'ts

Do: relate the parts of your background that have prepared you for (or inclined you to) graduate work

Don't: tell stories from your life that you find fascinating, but which do not relate to your aptitude or potential in your intended studies

Exception: stories that show your ability to overcome disadvantage or adversity

Do: relate your accomplishments in your field

Don't: talk about your extra-curriculars and/or volunteer work that do not relate your field

Do: mention the professors with whom you have communicated and how their work relates to your interests

Don't: mention students with whom you have communicated by name; if that student is not doing well in the program, who knows how the committee will react to your mention of the student.

Do: write, then rewrite, then proofread, then proofread it again, then give it to someone else to proofread (ideally a professor who has been a part of a grad app selection committee), then let it sit for a few days, read it aloud to yourself, then proof it again.

Don't: wait to begin writing it until the due date is two weeks away, proofread it only two or three times, and/or keep it to yourself!

Best of luck everyone :) 

WRITING 

Give your Statement of Purpose an Edge at EssayEdge.com!

Read the essay question carefully to find out what the university expects you to write about. While you don't have to stick to the questions asked, you must be sure to answer them all in your SoP. Refer to your lists of background research and write about two handwritten pages in response to the essay question. Go through them the next day.

Remember that your essay has the following objectives:

Show your interest in the subject. Rather than saying that you find  electronics interesting, it is more convincing to demonstrate your interest by talking about any projects you may have done and what you learnt from them. If you have taken the initiative to do things on your own, now is the time to talk about them

Show that you have thought carefully about further studies, know what you are getting into, and have the confidence to go through with it.  Have the admissions committee like you! Avoid sounding opinionated, conceited, pedantic or patronizing. Read your essay carefully, and have others read it to find and correct this.

Demonstrate a rounded personality. Include a short paragraph near the end on what you like to do outside of your professional life.  Keep the essay focussed. Each sentence you use should strengthen the admissions committee's resolve to admit you. So while you may have done several interesting things in life, avoid falling into the trap of mentioning each of them. Your essay should have depth, not breadth. The resume is where you should list achievements.  Remember that you have very little space to convey who you are, so make every sentence count.

Pitfalls your essay must avoid : It is a repetition of the resume or other information available from the application form,  It could have been written by just about anybody; your individuality does not come through, It is not a honest account in response to the essay question (why you want to study what you do, what you have learned from an event/person in your life and so on) It has embarrassing, highly personal and emotional content that should be avoided unless it makes a unique, creative point. The admissions committee would not appreciate reading about the pain you went through after breaking up with your boyfriend. An account of how you overcame difficult family circumstances, illness, or a handicap, would be a valid point to include in your essay.  However, avoid emotional language.