The Collected Works of Dale Carnegie. Dale Carnegie

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СКАЧАТЬ habit means labor, but remember that more speeches have been spoiled by half-hearted preparation than by lack of talent. Laziness is an own-brother to Over-confidence, and both are your inveterate enemies, though they pretend to be soothing friends.

      Conserve your material by indexing every good idea on cards, thus:

Socialism

Progress of S., Env. 16

S. a fallacy, 96/210

General article on S., Howells', Dec. 1913

"Socialism and the Franchise," Forbes

"Socialism in Ancient Life," Original Ms.,

Env. 102

      On the card illustrated above, clippings are indexed by giving the number of the envelope in which they are filed. The envelopes may be of any size desired and kept in any convenient receptacle. On the foregoing example, "Progress of S., Envelope 16," will represent a clipping, filed in Envelope 16, which is, of course, numbered arbitrarily.

      The fractions refer to books in your library—the numerator being the book-number, the denominator referring to the page. Thus, "S. a fallacy, 96/210," refers to page 210 of volume 96 in your library. By some arbitrary sign—say red ink—you may even index a reference in a public library book.

      If you preserve your magazines, important articles may be indexed by month and year. An entire volume on a subject may be indicated like the imaginary book by "Forbes." If you clip the articles, it is better to index them according to the envelope system.

      Your own writings and notes may be filed in envelopes with the clippings or in a separate series.

      Another good indexing system combines the library index with the "scrap," or clipping, system by making the outside of the envelope serve the same purpose as the card for the indexing of books, magazines, clippings and manuscripts, the latter two classes of material being enclosed in the envelopes that index them, and all filed alphabetically.

      When your cards accumulate so as to make ready reference difficult under a single alphabet, you may subdivide each letter by subordinate guide cards marked by the vowels, A, E, I, O, U. Thus, "Antiquities" would be filed under i in A, because A begins the word, and the second letter, n, comes after the vowel i in the alphabet, but before o. In the same manner, "Beecher" would be filed under e in B; and "Hydrogen" would come under u in H.

      Outlining the Address

      No one can advise you how to prepare the notes for an address. Some speakers get the best results while walking out and ruminating, jotting down notes as they pause in their walk. Others never put pen to paper until the whole speech has been thought out. The great majority, however, will take notes, classify their notes, write a hasty first draft, and then revise the speech. Try each of these methods and choose the one that is best—for you. Do not allow any man to force you to work in his way; but do not neglect to consider his way, for it may be better than your own.

      For those who make notes and with their aid write out the speech, these suggestions may prove helpful:

      After having read and thought enough, classify your notes by setting down the big, central thoughts of your material on separate cards or slips of paper. These will stand in the same relation to your subject as chapters do to a book.

      Then arrange these main ideas or heads in such an order that they will lead effectively to the result you have in mind, so that the speech may rise in argument, in interest, in power, by piling one fact or appeal upon another until the climax—the highest point of influence on your audience—has been reached.

      Next group all your ideas, facts, anecdotes, and illustrations under the foregoing main heads, each where it naturally belongs.

      You now have a skeleton or outline of your address that in its polished form might serve either as the brief, or manuscript notes, for the speech or as the guide-outline which you will expand into the written address, if written it is to be.

      Imagine each of the main ideas in the brief on page 213 as being separate; then picture your mind as sorting them out and placing them in order; finally, conceive of how you would fill in the facts and examples under each head, giving special prominence to those you wish to emphasize and subduing those of less moment. In the end, you have the outline complete. The simplest form of outline—not very suitable for use on the platform, however—is the following:

      WHY PROSPERITY IS COMING

      What prosperity means.—The real tests of prosperity.—Its basis in the soil.—American agricultural progress.—New interest in farming.—Enormous value of our agricultural products.—Reciprocal effect on trade.—Foreign countries affected.—Effects of our new internal economy—the regulation of banking and "big business"—on prosperity.—Effects of our revised attitude toward foreign markets, including our merchant marine.—Summary.

      Obviously, this very simple outline is capable of considerable expansion under each head by the addition of facts, arguments, inferences and examples.

      Here is an outline arranged with more regard for argument:

FOREIGN IMMIGRATION SHOULD BE RESTRICTED[11]

      I. Fact As Cause: Many immigrants are practically paupers. (Proofs involving statistics or statements of authorities.)

      II. Fact As Effect: They sooner or later fill our alms-houses and become public charges. (Proofs involving statistics or statements of authorities.)

      III. Fact As Cause: Some of them are criminals. (Examples of recent cases.)

      IV. Fact As Effect: They reënforce the criminal classes. (Effects on our civic life.)

      V. Fact As Cause: Many of them know nothing of the duties of free citizenship. (Examples.)

      VI.Fact As Effect: Such immigrants recruit the worst element in our politics. (Proofs.)

      A more highly ordered grouping of topics and subtopics is shown in the following:

      OURS A CHRISTIAN NATION

      I. Introduction: Why the subject is timely. Influences operative against this contention today.

      II. CHRISTIANITY PRESIDED OVER THE EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA.

      1. First practical discovery by a Christian explorer. Columbus worshiped God on the new soil.

      2. The Cavaliers.

      3. The French Catholic settlers.

      4. The Huguenots.

      5. The Puritans.

      III. The Birth Of Our Nation Was Under Christian Auspices.

      1. Christian character of Washington.

      2. Other Christian patriots.

      3. The Church in our Revolutionary СКАЧАТЬ