1.2.3 From text to speech

Figure 8

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Photo of a closeup of a woman's hands. One hand has a pen between her fingers, poised above a sheet of paper. The other clutches onto a stack of paper.

Figure 8

You will have seen how an introduction is affected by the way it is delivered, but now it’s your turn to experiment with introductions:

• Go back to the TED browse page [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and find another talk that interests you, but don’t play the video immediately.
• Open the transcript and silently read the introduction.
• Read it out loud.
• Try reading it again but vary your tone, speed or pitch to see how it affects the effectiveness of the presentation.
• You might also like to think about the kind of body language you’d expect to be used.

Now play the video. How does it differ from your expectations? Can you see why the speaker had a different approach from yours? Do you think that a text – a script for a talk – can be written in such a way that it is ‘obvious’ how it should be delivered?

Before you start sketching out your introduction in the next section, let us summarise what you have been learning about introductions:

• It is usual to introduce yourself when you give a presentation, perhaps by saying who you are and what your interest in the topic of your talk is.
• You can encourage people to be interested in what you are going to say by ‘hooking’ them in – ask a question, pose a problem to get your audience thinking, or tell a short personal story.
• Use a phrase to state your purpose when starting a presentation, such as ‘I’m going to report on’, ‘I’m going to take a look at’, or ‘I’m going to discuss’.