The Topic SentenceHow to start your presentation
After you have made your introduction, if you are going to have one, you want your audience to become immediately focused on your talk. In order for this to happen the next thing you must do is to state what it is that you are going to talk about, so after a pause of three beats announce your topic with a topic sentence in this way "TODAY I am going to talk about … (fill this in).
Topic sentence
The topic sentence will always follow the last line of your introduction. It is like the title of a book. With no explanations. Keeping the Topic sentence as short as possible adds to clarity. The purpose of the Topic sentence is to clearly introduce the subject of your talk.For Example:
· Today (pause) I am going to talk about Global Warming.
· Today (pause) I am going to describe our new accounting procedures.
· Today(pause) I am going to talk about our COVID -19 Vaccination Fund Drive.
As you can see the Topi Sentence examples are short, crisp, and like a headline with a minimum of words and only one main topic.
Wrong Examples
Today I am going to talk about a subject that is not going to be very popular here because of all the reasons that were outlined by Mr. Jones last Thursday- and you all must know what I mean by now, and I do mean our move to Long Island, which has been a long time coming and is still rather controversial.
Now, you may say " but I am not sure of exactly what my topic is" Well state one anyway. Eventually it will help you to discover what your true topic sentence is. When you discover specifically, what it is that is that you really want to talk about you can simply substitute this for the previous topic sentence.
(This as well as hundreds of other sensible tips can be found in my latest book (The Green One) “Talkpower: The Mind Body Way to Speak Without Fear" By Natalie H. Rogers) Skyhorse publishing.
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