The first words that you speak in your talk are vital.
Your introduction needs to serve a number of important requirements and you need to spend time getting it right. An introduction may be prepared after you have composed your talk or least have all the components of it noted down.
Gain Interest
Your introduction should be designed to capture the attention of your audience. If you fail to gain that at the beginning of your talk your audience is unlikely to follow along with you. This may be either that do not understand what you are saying or are finding it boring and have switched off already from listening to you.
How can you gain their interest? You could start with an attention grabbing illustration, pose a question or a series of questions, use a well know quotation and many other phrases that will get your audience to want to know more. Curiosity is a wonderful tool! It is also worth bearing in mind the the phrase “It’s not what you say but how you say it.” The best of introductions can be let down by poor delivery. This can happen if you are feeling nervous and let your nerves spoil your opening remarks which will make it hard to connect with your audience.
Usually short simple sentences at the start of a talk will help both you are your audience to appreciate what you are telling them. If you are feeling nervous choose an introduction that allows you to say your opening words quite slowly and this will relax you.
Proper Length
The introduction should not be too long otherwise attention can be lost. As a rule of thumb the length should be around 10 per cent of the length of your talk or less.
Appropriate to your theme
You must make sure that in your introduction you are setting the scene for what is to come. If you ask questions as part of your introduction you must make sure that you answer them. We all know how disappointing it is if our expectations are not met. Therefore a wonderfully sounding introduction will be lost if you have given your audience false hopes. They will spend a lot of their mental energies on trying to work out how your talk fits in with the introduction and will no longer be concentrating on what you are saying.
Preparation
Before you give your talk spend time making sure that the introduction is right for it. Does it link in well with the main body and conclusion of it? Do you feel comfortable with the words that you have selected? Make any changes and practice the opening several times until you are happy with it. You can spend as much preparation time on the introduction as the main body on some occasions but it will be time well worth spent.
Roland Millward
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