The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

The book has been reworked so may times and improved by the experiences of the Dale Carnegie Organization. That is what makes this book so good. This last revision by Dorothy Carnegie based on Mr. Carnegie's notes and plans is benefited by a strong editorial approach. The most important persistent advise is to talk about things you care about and are extremely knowledgeable about. Be excited about the subject or pick a new topic. Find every opportunity to speak and prepare for each one as a major opportunity. It tells how to limit your subject so that you have time to fill in the details that make it a winning talk. It guides you on how to personalize the speech and use words that have impact. The easy introduction to the methods of studying and understanding your audience are very important. It makes a good start on the field of audience participation. This book provides excellent advise on rehearsal.This book along with every other speaking book drives home the point that there is no such thing as a good impromptu talk unless you were very lucky. In reality you work on subjects and material with a plan to use it at some future time. When you are speaking there are many things to watch. If you speak impromptu on a new subject some thing is going to suffer.Introducing a speaker or presenting an award seems to stimulate reckless behavior much like the cutting desire to hurt people of newscasters. This book explains why this behavior is so short sighted.Having read a Dale Carnegie book decades ago, I put off reading this book for fear it would be full of positive thinking dribble. This book is completely straight forward in style. It is in textbook format, but it is extremely easy too read. The examples of actual students and successful speakers get a little shallow sometimes. The outstanding thumbnail review of each part of the book is very helpful. I have read 21 books on public speaking. Right now this book is my leading candidate for someone that is only interested in reading one book on public speaking. It just happens to be a very low price.

Before I joined Toastmaster International about year ago, I always wanted to speak better in public. Now I am a member of Toastmasters Club, I find this book very helpful whenever I give speeches at our meetings.The nice thing about this book is that it is full of practical and proven techniques and fundermentals of communicantion and speaking. No elaborate theories, just plain simple but extremely effective ways of preparing talks, short or long, what audience likes to hear about, how to give attention getting openings and closings in your speeches among others.All these ideas I put them to work right away in every speech. How many times can you read something and use it on the same day?I strongly recommend this book to everyone not just for public speaking, but for daily interaction between people, jobs and social occasions.

As a member of Toastmasters I have access to a wide variety of materials and seminars on public speaking. However, this one book covered more material in less space and in easier terms than all the seminars I've attended. His style is not that of a college textbook - if it were I wouldn't have read it. His style is straight from the hip. I consider this book to be my textbook, with Toastmasters providing the chance to practice what I've read. This book has done more to improve my speeches than the formal Toastmaster's evaluations.

I've been a member of Toastmasters Clubs and been trained in all the "fundamentals of speaking" but I'll tell you something: Carnegie's three fundamental principles are all you need. He's the only speaking teacher I've ever read who points out that all the superficial effects, like your voice quality and your gestures and whether you say UM or not, these aren't important. What really matters is that you're speaking about something you really believe and really want to say to this group, and something that you REALLY know, either from experience or intense study.If you only speak on those topics, all the superficial stuff works out. You communicate. And you'll feel comfortable doing it. Carnegie's three fundamentals are the most important you'll ever encounter on speaking.I'm the author of the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I'm an expert on the subject, and I'm telling you if you want to help yourself to better speaking skills, study and practice the principles in this book and forget the superficials.

I read this book back in 1972 and it had been around for many years then. It is simply the finest single book I've read on public speaking, and for several years I made my living on the platform. I've suggested it to many people over the years and have never heard anything but compliments. Someone wrote a negative and mean spirited review of this book, even suggesting it was written by someone else after Mr. Carnegie passed away. What garbage. To give himself creditability he indicated he was a college professor. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't but I also teach at a university and I felt compelled to write this.Despite what this person says, Dale Carnegie's book on speaking has been in print for many years and sold copies in the millions. This is what I'd call surviving the test of time. The public, by deciding where to spend their money really determines the worth of this book.If anyone is serious about learning to speak in public, I can't think of a better book to suggest.