Giving a Talk


Good communicators interact with their audience. They invite
contributions and questions; they can react spontaneously to the
feelings and comments of the group they are working with.


PLANNING A TALK

In any kind of communication-whether a short informal talk with
farmers or a long written report to your supervisory officers-there
are three fundamental principles of good organization of your
material:

 RELEVANCE

 COHERENCE

 EMPHASIS

Relevance of Material

The first principle is that you select material for your talk that is
relevant to the occasion. And this will depend on a combination of
your own objectives and your assessment of your audience's inter-
ests and needs. For example, if your subject is a general introduc-
tion to the On-Farm Grain Storage Project, and you will be talking
for only ten or fifteen minutes at a Chiefs baraza, then you will need
to select the most relevant points for the farmers who will be
there-remembering your time constraint.

One effective way to prepare such a talk is, first, to scribble down
on a piece of paper ideas at random-just as they come into your
head. The result of this "brainstorming" could look something like
this:


Main Messages
- eadry harvesting
- stores
- cdeaani
-stting a ind
 treating


traditional practices
resistances


-- Support


 history
 7
 Project structure


 I
 Staffing of te project
 Funding

training of staff


'Extension
-demos
- literature
 Gov.

 L-4 Sr


DVsRA


Chapter 7