The human mind has a tendency to wander when it is not focused or totally absorbed in activity or thinking. A challenge facing every public speaker therefore is to make a presentation that grips the attention of the audience.

Use these five public speaking tips to prevent the audience taking mental excursions:

1. Question Hooks

Questions really get the audience hooked.

The brain has a natural tendency to want to answer questions. When you are in the middle of doing something and someone asks a question what happens? Your brain immediately stops what it is thinking about and gives attention to the question, even if it is only momentary.

So, in a presentation, use rhetorical questions liberally. Even though you supply the answer, the very fact you asked a question will keep your audience with you.

In your preparation, think out a number of rhetorical questions and sprinkle them throughout your outline or notes.

Example: If your presentation is about goal setting, before getting to the first main point you might say: “What’s the very first step in any goal setting exercise?” Then state step one. The very fact you have asked a question will hook the audience and not only get them thinking but motivate them to concentrate on what you are going to say next.

Why? Because their brains are screaming for an answer. After all, you just asked a question!

2. Emotion Engages The Heart

Using emotion in your delivery will win the hearts of your listeners. Rather than appearing cold and unapproachable, a warm style of expression will bring you close to your audience so they will open their hearts to you.

A relaxed facial expression, a smile, a general demeanor that says “You’re a great audience, I like you” will make you personable and well liked. An audience will learn from a speaker they feel drawn to.

3. Facial Expressions

Use facial expressions – movements of the eyes, mouth, brow, etc. Especially when repeating someone else’s words, or when telling a story or anecdote, your face should reflect the emotions and feelings of the speaker you are quoting or of the characters you are describing.

4. Vary The Pace

Learn to vary the rate at which you speak during your presentation.

There will be sections where you speak more rapidly and sections where you slow down and speak more deliberately.

This is the mark of an experienced speaker – the ability to match speaking pace with the thought content and emotional tone of the material being presented. To develop this public speaking skill, start off by looking through your material in the preparation stage and marking in your notes where you might speed up or slow down.

5. Don’t Be Boring

As part of your preparation, ask yourself, ‘What does my audience already know about this subject?’ Then research your subject looking for material outside the general knowledge of your audience.

Just covering things they already know will lead to boredom and lack of interest. Present new information or fresh angles on a familiar subject and keep them enthralled!

Keeping your audience engaged can be a challenge, especially in a presentation longer than 30 minutes. Use the five public speaking tips above and greatly minimize the risk of your audience being present in body but absent in mind!

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Writing articles can be quite tedious. I can attest to that as I’ve written hundreds of them over the last 12 months.

All in all, though, it’s still rewarding to see a published article and know that other people are going to enjoy reading it.

I try to work rapidly while maintaining high writing standards. The more I write, the greater the chance of producing that exceptional article that’s going to capture the attention of my readers.

If you want to speed up your writing, I have three tips that I think you’ll find useful. They’re always a part of my strategy, and I assure you they can really make a difference.

The first thing you can do is learn to type faster. If you can type at speed then you’ll write online all the more quickly. Anyone can do it and a good way of increasing your speed is by having a go at one of the free online typing games that are available. It’s more fun than just practicing and you’ll be motivated to type faster.

My next piece of advice is to think ahead as you type. Some people are better at this than others. Think about when you’re in a conversation, sometimes you’re thinking of what you’re going to say next as you speak.

If you can type your article with the next point always in mind, you’ll make good headway. Less time will be wasted on breaks so your work will be completed more quickly.

My last suggestion is rather a strange one. Pick the subjects you find really boring. Please bear with me. Once you’ve got a handle on the mundane, or things you don’t know a lot about, you’ll find writing about your favorite subjects a walk in the park.

It would make me very happy if some of this information helps improve your writing and means we’ll see more great articles on the net.

Enjoy more of this writer’s articles regarding things such as the guitar humidifier and guitar straps acoustic.

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This article will show you how to gain almost instant rapport with whoever you meet whether in person or through writing using highly effective communication skills. In recent years, much has been learned about the way the human brain processes information. The memories we have, the way we perceive experiences, are controlled by our visual, auditory and kinesthetic abilities.

Everything in our minds is there primarily due to what we see, hear and feel. Remember these three modalities, they are VERY important when developing effective communication skills. Again, they are:

VISUAL | AUDITORY | KINESTHETIC

Which Mode?

These three modes combine in any learning or communication process. We use all of them to a degree.

However, research indicates that with the majority of us, one of those modes is more dominant than others.

Do you like to learn by watching, looking at diagrams or training videos? Probably you are more visually oriented.

Do you prefer to be told through the spoken word? Or are you the kind that likes to get his hands on the subject and starting doing, learning through a process of experimentation? Then you are probably more of an auditory or kinesthetic.

If this is true of us, it is true of the other person.

What if you knew which kind of mode is dominant in the person you are talking or writing to?

Could that help build rapport or in some way make for effective communication skills? ABSOLUTELY!

Companies have spent thousands of dollars educating their salesmen to utilize this knowledge. The results? Dramatic!

How To Use Modalities

How can you apply this very valuable insight? By taking special note of the words and phrases your prospect uses.

People often use expressions that indicate which modality they are thinking in at that moment. For example, “I see what you mean”, “I hear you”, “I’ve got a feeling about this”. When you hear these expressions, sit up, take note. They are sign posts pointing to that person’s modality.

So you have the sign posts, what do you do now? You respond in the same manner. Start using expressions in that person’s dominant modality. Why should this work?

Because words convey ideas to the other person’s mind. You start communicating on the other person’s wavelength. Just like two modems making an internet connection, your two brains start ‘hand shaking’. The effect is amazing.

Skeptical? That’s understandable. Just start, try it and you won’t be any longer.

Effective communication skills demonstrated through this true life experience

A successful financial advisor read up on this subject and started employing the methods.

One day he walked into the office of a manager interested in a savings plan. The financial advisor noticed many artistic pictures on the manager’s office walls. He commented on them and gave an honest compliment.

The manager used expressions like “let me show you”, “you must see this”. The financial advisor immediately picked up on this and realized the manager was a visual.

When the time came for him to make his presentation, he started off by saying, “Let me first give you the big picture” and with that he pulled out a diagram.

The manager immediately leaned over and started closely scrutinizing the savings plan. From there on it went like a dream.

The rapport was established early on. The manager began to think “I like this man, I can do business with him.” A very good plan was devised which suited the manager’s needs well and both parties were happy – the manager with his plan, the financial advisor with his commission. A win win ending.

Don’t underestimate the power of communicating in the other person’s preferred mode.

Now, how can you apply these effective communication skills in your business?

Do you write ad copy or sales letters? Do you do face to face selling or telephone selling?

Sprinkle your words with phrases from each mode and see how the prospect responds. If they respond with similar expressions, you have identified their mode.

Identifying Modalities

Here is a list of words and phrases to help you identify a dominant modality:

VISUAL

crystal clear / focused / flash / hazy / sight for sore eyes / up front / it appears to me / get a bird’s eye view / it looks like / in the mind’s eye / you get the picture / it’s clear cut / take a dim view / tunnel vision / the naked eye

AUDITORY

rings a bell / all ears / certain overtones / harmonize / make myself heard / tuned in / that’s unheard of / to tell the truth / in a manner of speaking / gave him an earful / listen up / tongue-tied / described in detail / sounds like / just say it

KINESTHETIC

I’m conscious of / you can sense / she perceived / lay your cards on the table / come to grips with it / that’s a pain in the neck / pull some strings / hang in there / touch base with / it boils down to / start from scratch / that was under handed / hold on / you need to experience it / in a moment of panic

These lists are just to get you started. There are an abundance of signals out there in the way people express themselves.

You just need to “read the signs”, “hear the bell ring” and “grasp the meaning” behind the words your prospect is using, either in written or spoken form.

A Final Word

Rapport is almost priceless. Agreements, contracts, big business deals are often concluded between people because they sense a bonding between them. Develop and practice these effective communication skills and your life and business will take on new vitality!

Take your presentation skills to a new level with hands-on training. Click here to learn how to give Compelling Presentations Goal setting goes hand in hand with public speaking development. Click here for the Goal Setting Tutorial Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.

Creating a resume for the very first time can present many questions and challenges. There are a variety of opinions available on producing one, most of which is targeted towards those with a little experience. If you have never written one before, the task can seem overwhelming. Many people find themselves gazing at a computer screen with only their name at the top. All the questions about what to put where and what to should be included can be confusing. Nonetheless, there are some job resume writing mistakes you should avoid making in composition:

Lacking in Focus

As innocuous as this may seem, referencing a personal web site is should be avoided. This is especially true if it contains information that has bearing or connection to your work history. Many people make this common mistake of including their personal web sites that may contain information potential employers may find irrelevant or inappropriate.

Only provide a link to your web site if it showcases your professional portfolio, has copy of your resume, reference letters, presentations, photos taken for professional use, or promotes of web creativity skills.

Using an Inappropriate Font Size

There is always a compulsive urge in all of us to make our resume unique and stand out from the crowd, which brings us to another of the job resume writing mistakes. Forget showy fonts. Always stick to the standard fonts such as Arial, Verdana or Times New Roman. The use of fanciful typefaces might even prevent your resume from filtering through the electronic scanner used by most companies. Additionally, it will also project a very unprofessional image of you.

Font size should never be less than 10 point on a resume, as this is as small as you can get without being difficult to see – especially if the resume is faxed. Sometimes quality is diminished when a document is faxed, so a smaller font would result in appearing fuzzy.

Lying About Your Experience

Always be as accurate as you can when listing information about the companies and the academic institution (school, college, university) you’ve attended. Again, this sounds straightforward, but this is another big job resume writing mistake that people make, unintentionally. Avoid using, for example University College London and New York University, as opposed to UCL and NYC.

Lengthy Descriptions of Your Experiences

Use a bulleted style to make your resume more reader-friendly. Given that employers screen resumes for between 2.5 and 20 seconds, they will find your resume a lot more readable if you use bullet points instead of paragraph style. It’s easier to read and a much better why of summarizing your work history and experiences. You can add descriptive adverbs and adjectives (e.g., creatively, regularly, patiently, concisely, etc.) to sell the reader on how well you did the task and bring the statement to life. You don’t need to add an adverb to every achievement bullet, but do so occasionally.

Spelling Errors, Grammatical Errors and Typos

You can’t afford to have anything that conveys to an employer that you appear anything but fully competent, therefore the last and probably most important job resume writing mistake to avoid are typos, misspellings, or grammatical mistakes. While word processors can help you with words that you might misspell, you should also have a friend read what you have written from the standpoint of the prospective employer.

To find more good resources for examples of job resumes and other job resume writing help, please visit jobresumewritinghelp.com.

Content is the essence of any article. The key to creating a good article is completely based on its content. In order to have good content you must have researched adequately and well. By following these research tips, you can gear up to creating some very effective article content.

You need to first realise that writing for websites requires a different style than writing for publications and print/press. Depending on what kind of articles you want to write you can read up some other popular articles to get a head start.

Looking at other samples articles or reading material of other writers will definitely help you focus on what your content should be geared towards. You can certainly draw from other good articles and create your won content with some new add-on ideas.

However, one must be very careful not to plagiarise ideas or content from other web sources! You must just use other articles to get a fair idea of how you can structure your articles, but must develop and derive your own ideas and content. Your work must be original and independently done.

You could start by looking on the internet. Internet is a great resource while scouting for information. It has all the information you would need and is the easiest way to get started while researching for your content.

Libraries are also great sources of information and must be visited before you start. Researching at the library is definitely a good way to get started and get additional information that the internet may not be able to provide. Library resources carry different styles than the internet and would certainly give you a wider perspective for your content.

Get an idea from advertisements too. You could just glance at some ads on the product or information you’re writing about to get an idea as to how it’s been marketed. This would help you develop new ideas on it and not create content and provide information that is stale or already been thought of.

It would also help you gain a better perspective on what everyone’s interest is in the product or information and you can gear your content based on this.

This author also regularly publishes articles on things including sofa bed furniture and waiting room chairs.