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Tips for developing an effective introduction




Keep it brief. If it is too long, you will begin to lose the audience's attention. You should leave the development of major points to the body of the speech. A good rule of thumb is that your intro should not be more than 10-15% of the total speech.

Use visual language. Use vivid adverbs and adjectives to appeal to all five senses. Try to "paint the air" with visual imagery.

Use an effective attention getting device

Stories - keep them short and dramatic

Shocking statistics - make sure that they are both shocking and easily understandable

Quotations - keep them brief and to the point

Relate everything to the audience

Rollovers - a story that is begun in the introduction and finished in the conclusion.

Grammar Focus: Agreement of the Subject with the Predicate

A handful of nouns appear to be plural in form but take a singular verb:

The news is bad.

Gymnastics is fun to watch.

Economics/mathematics/statistics is said to be difficult. ("Economics" can sometimes be a plural concept, as in "The economics of the situation demand that...")

Numerical expressions are usually singular, but can be plural if the individuals within a numerical group are acting individually:

Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.

One-half of the faculty is retiring this summer.

One-half of the faculty have doctorates.

Fifty percent of the students have voted already.

And another handful of nouns might seem to be singular in nature but take a plural form and always use a plural verb:

My pants are torn. (Nowadays you will sometimes see this word as a singular "pant" [meaning one pair of pants] especially in clothing ads, but most writers would regard that as an affectation.)

Her scissors were stolen.

The glasses have slipped down his nose again.

When a noun names the title of something or is a word being used as a word, it is singular whether the word takes a singular form or not.

Faces is the name of the new restaurant downtown.

Okies, which most people regard as a disparaging word, was first used to describe the residents of Oklahoma during the 1930s.

Chelmsley Brothers is the best moving company in town.

Postcards is my favorite novel.

The term Okies was used to describe the residents of Oklahoma during the 1930s. (In this sentence, the word Okies is actually an appositive for the singular subject, "term.")

There are so called collective nouns which are singular when we think of them as groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting within the whole (which happens sometimes, but not often).

 

audience band class committee crowd dozen family flock group heap herd jury kind lot [the] number public staff team

 

Thus, the jury delivers its verdict, but the jury came in and took their seats. We could say the Tokyo String Quartet is one of the best string ensembles in the world, but we could say the Beatles were some of the most famous singers in history.

Note that "the number" is a singular collective noun. " The number of applicants is steadily increasing." " A number," on the other hand, is a plural form: "There are several students in the lobby. A number are here to see the president."

The names of companies and other organizations are usually regarded as singular, regardless of their ending: "General Motors has announced its fall line-up of new vehicles." Try to avoid the inconsistency that is almost inevitable when you think of corporate entities as a group of individuals: "General Motors has announced their fall line-up of new vehicles." But note that some inconsistency is acceptable in all but the most formal writing: "Ford has announced its break-up with Firestone Tires. Their cars will no longer use tires built by Firestone." Some writers will use a plural verb when a plural construction such as "Associates" is part of the company's title or when the title consists of a series of names: "Upton, Vernon, and Gridley are moving to new law offices next week" or "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego & Associates have won all their cases this year." Singular verbs and pronouns would be correct in those sentences, also.

The names of sports teams, on the other hand, are treated as plurals, regardless of the form of that name. We would write that "The Yankees have signed a new third baseman" and "The Yankees are a great organization" and that "For two years in a row, the Utah Jazz have attempted to draft a big man."

Practice Assignments

I. Put the verbs in brackets into the correct form.

1. Rebecca and Martha (play) in the same band.

2. The house and the barn (be) on the same property.

3. Their innovative idea, persistence, and careful research (have) finally paid off.

4. Jesse as well as Luke (like) jazz.

5. The old school along with the playground (be) up for sale.

6. My name and address (be) printed on the box.

7. His colleague and friend (deserve) equal credit.

8. Eating garlic and drinking red wine sometimes (give) me a headache.

II. Correct the following sentences.

1. Louis Wirth says that the city had three qualities: they had large size, they have high density, and it have a diverse population.

2. Cities is places where very different kinds of people lived together and it engages in very different kinds of activities.

3. Life in a big city is largely a life with and among strangers; the majority of people you meets daily is people you don't knew.

4. "Participant observation" refer to a method of research where he join people engaging in an activity and do what you does.

5. Robert and Helen Lynd writes about the fictional town of "Middletown"; them was actually studying the town of Muncie, Indiana.

6. As people from other states moved to Middletown, it becomes clear that these people bring ideas that was different from the ideas of the long-time Middletown residents.

7. The growth of suburbs of the 1950s was not a move to the suburbs; they were actually moves away from the large inner city.

8. In most suburbs, people lives close to people like themselves; they makes friends with people like themselves; they grow close to people like ourself.

9. A city grow because of two factors: industry moves into them, attracting workers, which cause population growth as it have children and raised families.

10. In 1910, more than 50 percent of the U. S. population live in rural areas; by 1920, more of them live in urban areas.





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