<< previousnext >>

FLUENCING BY EXPOSITION

* CHAPTER XX--INFLUENCING BY DESCRIPTION

* CHAPTER XXI--INFLUENCING BY NARRATION

* CHAPTER XXII--INFLUENCING BY SUGGESTION

* CHAPTER XXIII--INFLUENCING BY ARGUMENT

* CHAPTER XXIV--INFLUENCING BY PERSUASION

* CHAPTER XXV--INFLUENCING THE CROWD

* CHAPTER XXVI--RIDING THE WINGED HORSE

* CHAPTER XXVII--GROWING A VOCABULARY

* CHAPTER XXVIII--MEMORY TRAINING

* CHAPTER XXIX--RIGHT THINKING AND PERSONALITY

* CHAPTER XXX--AFTER-DINNER AND OTHER OCCASIONAL SPEAKING

* CHAPTER XXXI--MAKING CONVERSATION EFFECTIVE

---

APPENDIX A--FIFTY QUESTIONS FOR DEBATE

APPENDIX B--THIRTY THEMES FOR SPEECHES, WITH SOURCE-REFERENCES

APPENDIX C--SUGGESTIVE SUBJECTS FOR SPEECHES; HINTS FOR TREATMENT

APPENDIX D--SPEECHES FOR STUDY AND PRACTISE

---

GENERAL INDEX

---

=Things to Think of First=

A FOREWORD

The efficiency of a book is like that of a man, in one important respect: its attitude toward its subject is the first source of its power. A book may be full of good ideas well expressed, but if its writer views his subject from the wrong angle even his excellent advice may prove to be ineffective.

This book stands or falls by its authors' attitude toward its subject. If the best way to teach oneself or others to speak effectively in public is to fill the mind with rules, and to set up fixed standards for the interpretation of thought, the utterance of language, the making of gestures, and all the rest, then this book will be limited in value to such stray ideas throughout its pages as may prove helpful to the reader--as an effort to enforce a group of principles it must be reckoned a failure, because it is then untrue.

It is of some importance, therefore, to those who take up this volume with open mind that they should see clearly at the out-start what is the thought that at once underlies and is builded through this structure. In plain words it is this:

Train

next >>