What to keep and what to throw away
This first consideration very likely indicates to you that you have much more material than you can use in the time allowed or assigned you.
You must discard some. Pick and choose what you want to talk about.
Strange as it may seem, this is one of the must difficult directions to carry out. It seems such a waste of time and material to select for actual presentation so small a part of all you have carefully gathered. There is always the temptation to “get it all in somehow.”
Yet the direction must remain inflexible. You can use only part of it. You must carefully select what will serve your purpose.
What is the purpose of your speech? What is the character of your audience? These two things will determine to a large extent, what and how much you must relinquish.
Your finished speech will be all the better for the weeding-out process. Better still, in all your preliminary steps for subsequent speeches you will become skillful in selecting while you are gathering the material itself.
Finally you will become so practiced that you will not burden yourself with waste, although you will always secure enough to supply you with a reserve supply for assurance and emergency.
For example, a boy who has explained to his father the scholarship rules of his school concerning athletes will discard a great deal of that material when he addresses a student gathering.
If in a series of remarks you want to emphasize the thrilling experience you
have had with a large fish which jerked you out of a boat, you would
not include such material as the trip on the train to the lake where
you had your adventure. Why not?
These are humble instances, but the principle of selection is the same
for all speeches.
A man who was asked to lecture on Mark Twain knew the contents of the
thirty published volumes written by him, all the biographies, practically every article written about him; he had conversed with people who had known him; he had visited scenes of his life; yet when he planned to talk for an hour he had to reject everything except two striking periods of his life with their effects upon his writing.
Bottom line: You might not have time to talk about everything you want. So decide what are the most important things you want an audience to know about your topic.
(Words by Clarence Stratton and edited by LearningPublicSpeaking.com)
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