Here are 10 ways to improve your communication skills:
1. Develop your voice
2. Slow down
3. Animate your voice
4. Enunciate your words
5. Use appropriate volume
6. Pronounce your words correctly
7. Use the right words
8. Make eye contact
9. Use gestures
10. Don’t send mixed messages
for a detailed explanation, go to Open Loops.
If you also want to know how to win an argument, here are 38 ways to do so!
Comments
Better Communication Skills
lol i wish you posted this a few days ago when i did a presentation with about 200 people there, lol including my dad 🙁
Better Communication Skills
[quote]14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.[/quote]
This is Galloway’s method.
Steve
Better Communication Skills
Learning to communicate effectively and efficiently is an important and beneficial skill. However, if the ultimate purpose of debate or argument is the discernment of truth or the identification of a solution to a problem, the “38 ways to win an argument” is intellectual dishonesty at its best, intellectual thievery at its worst, and morally bankrupt in either case. “Exaggerate your opponent’s proposition, take it beyond its natural limits;” “Use different [read: inaccurate] meanings of you opponents words;” “Understand [read: misunderstand] your opponent’s proposition” and then address what your opponent never raised; “Confuse the issue . . .” While I might marvel at a salesman’s ability to sell something to a person who can ill afford it and really cannot benefit from it, or a fraudster’s ability to talk elderly folks out of their life savings, the “cleverness” demonstrated by these “achievements” is not something which I admire. Rather, these are all examples of corruption which need to be identified so they are not able to pass as permissible conduct in society.
Better Communication Skills
Hear Hear!
Re: Better Communication Skills
These are examples of rhetoric, as opposed to logic. Rhetoric is irrational but can be effective, while logic is rational and can hold little appeal.
Steve
Better Communication Skills
This is way off topic but, what is proper spelling Muslim or Moslem (or neither)?
-Mike
Re: Better Communication Skills
either. it’s a phonetic translation of the original Arabic word. I’ve always spelt it as “mUslim”
Re(1): Better Communication Skills
I am unable to understand your comment without elaboration.
Re(2): Better Communication Skills
Aristotle distinguished between logic and rhetoric. Here is a link that explains it at moderate length:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/#4.3
In short, logic is devoted to proving things by rational thought. There are many logical forms that can be used to prove something, such as Transitive Logic: If A = B and B = C, then A = C.
Rhetoric is devoted to persuading people, particularly in public speech, largely through irrational arguments. For example, you need to buy Dufus toothpaste because it has chlorophyll; or you must buy Barking Cheese Snacks for your mutt because he’s not getting enough cheese essential for canine growth; or the infamous “I’m not a doctor but I play one on TV.”
Other typical rhetorical/irrational arguments would be to assassinate the character of your opponents or just declare that you’ve won and everyone knows it.
The general idea behind arguing rhetorically is that the general public is too dim to follow a rigorous proof, so therefore you have to use rhetorical tricks to persuade them of a course of action.
Steve
Re: Better Communication Skills
I do, LD, Poetry, Extemp and Congress.
Re(1): Better Communication Skills
NickUSA
I was a LD’er as well. Did a bit of extemp, Congress and played around a little with oratory. The times we had on overnights. Some of us converted a CAT case into a BEER COOLER for the bus rides and Hotel Room “fun”. Fond memories I must say. Good luck with you topics. What is the current topic?
[Modified by: sagnutty (sagnutty) on May 25, 2005 10:49 PM]
Better Communication Skills
I’d add practice to this list. My palms didn’t stop sweating before a speech until I taught junior college for a few months. To really get loose and comfortable talking to crowds, you need to do a lot of it.
Another useful thing I discovered while teaching snoozy college kids: Only a fraction of your audience is actually paying attention to you at any single moment. You can say any silly thing (I AM MADE OF BLUE CHEESE!) and only a few people in the crowd will actually register it. So don’t worry too much about mistakes. If you make one, just drive on and say the correct thing without drawing attention to your flub. If somebody actually catches you, tell them you were testing them to see if they were paying attention. Tell them they passed.
Steve
Better Communication Skills
I’m on the Debate team, and this is good information for anyone to learn in less that 10 minutes. I have to do all of this while I’m ina round to leave a winner. It’s sometimes hard, but I know that it’ll help me in the long run!
Finally someone actually knows how to make a productive fluent speech.
-NickUSA
Better Communication Skills
Are you an LD er or CX er?
Re(1): Better Communication Skills
[quote]either. it’s a phonetic translation of the original Arabic word. I’ve always spelt it as “mUslim” [/quote]
You’ll find that many in the west pronounce it as “muZlims”, or “Izlam”. I have heard “Mosslims” as well. It is my observation, and it is just that, that when I read articles or literature and they spell the word “moslem” that they are almost always going to be orientalist and negative in nature. Just an observation and I am sure there are many cases out there where this isnt the case.
Re(1): Better Communication Skills
Everyone who has spoken to a group has had one of those nightmare moments when you just lose your train of thought and as hard as you look, none of your talking points is written on your audience’s faces. The trick is to be willing to get up to the podium the next time to take another swing.
Steve
Re(2): Better Communication Skills
Well, being that the school year will be over tomorrow (5/26/2005) I’m not sure what the current topic is. I went to Nationals for extemp and I didn’t do very well. There are finals to worry about and I have my debate final tomorrow. Wish me luck 😉
Re: Better Communication Skills
The first time I went behind a podium, addressing a crowd in front of television cameras, I absolutely FROZE SOLID! I mumbled and said thanks and went back to my seat with heart rate way over 200 or something. The bitch presenter made fun of my podium performance too! I could have gone over and punched her silly.
You’re right, you NEED practice.
Better Communication Skills
You know what the problem with this is… it drives you insane when others don’t follow it 🙂
I’ve tried it so many times, and you try to get your point across but can’t because others keep interrupting or you know… do their own thing. Hehe 🙂
Useful information to share though 🙂 Thanks !!
echo