Title: An Effective Style To Use In Public Speaking: Audience Participation Word Count: 439 Summary: An effective public speaker

should be able to utilize devices that will be able to capture the attention of the audience. One effective means for them to give y ou that much needed interest is this: get them to go on stage. Make them partici pate. When someone is on stage and he or she happens to be a member of the audie nce, the rest will almost always stay attentive. Why? Because they would like to see what you will be doing to one of them. Also, because they are thinking they ... Keywords: public speaking, audience participation Article Body: An effective public speaker should be able to utilize devices that will be able to capture the attention of the audience. One effective means for them to give y ou that much needed interest is this: get them to go on stage. Make them partici pate. When someone is on stage and he or she happens to be a member of the audie nce, the rest will almost always stay attentive. Why? Because they would like to see what you will be doing to one of them. Also, because they are thinking they could be up there themselves and so to save their precious egos from embarrassm ent they at least need to know what is going on. No matter how good or excellent you are as a presenter or as a public speaker, n othing beats the excitement of getting someone to be on stage who really should not be there in the first place. What is going through their minds at that momen t when you pull an unsuspecting someone from their complacency is that, Oh my god , what if the speaker selects me to go up there next? What am I going to do? Then later, I need to pay attention to this. A little bit later as you go through your presentation, the audience will then most probably think, What point is he/she m aking? And then as you take your point across, the audience will then get to thin k, Now I get it. Because you made them pay attention, you have forced them to list en and respond to your statement in the privacy of their minds. However, there are those extremely shy and very sensitive members of the audienc e who might withdraw from going through the rest of your presentation if they he ar you will be calling on them up on the stage. The objective is to gain an audi ence and not to lose any of them. Make it clear prior to your asking someone to come up on stage with you that you are asking for a volunteer and that no one will be forced if they do not want t o. Notice that if the majority of your audience are shy, once you finally get so meone to be on stage, all of them will almost always heave a sigh of relief that you would actually feel a breeze pass you by, really. Another way to get the audience to participate as well as pay attention is by gi ving them due recognition. Try to acknowledge a single member of the audience fo r a specific achievement or a moment of a good performance, or also acknowledge a group of the audience.