President's Tip of the Week

The Easy Part: Get to the Point
(9/29/08)

The following tip was written about Project 3 in the Competent Communicator manual, but it holds true for any speech you do in Toastmasters. If you have trouble with staying on time, this tip's for you!

"Your first task is to get to the point. Before you generate an outline or your first draft, be sure you know your purpose precisely. Make sure you can state it in a single simple sentence.

"A common pitfall is to choose topics which are too broad; remember that your time is limited. This can be challenging, but if you adopt the practice of determining your purpose before writing anything else, you will find this to be the easy part.

"The Harder Part: Stay Focused On the Point
"The much harder part — and the part that many speakers struggle badly with — is staying focused on the point.
"No speaker intends to stray from their purpose; rather, it happens quite accidentally. Somewhere between getting to the point and writing the first draft, a collection of off topic elements are inserted into the speech.

It might be an off-topic opening anecdote which is "too good not to share".
It might be some jaw-dropping statistics that are only remotely related to the topic.
It might be the latest whiz-bang effect in PowerPoint that is glitzy, but content-empty.
"Find these extraneous elements, and eliminate them while editing your speech. Every element of your speech must reinforce your purpose. Each time you edit your speech, your goal should be to sharpen the focus. "

Read the entire article by Andrew Dlugan.