Hi all
Within a public speaking course, I would like to run an exercise in shortening long winded sentences. To save me having to think of one, does anyone have a paragraph or exercise that I could use.
Sort of thing I'm thinking of and have seen is where you are given a phrase and have to shorten it e.g. 'at this point in time' becomes 'now' or 'today'
Another exercise that I think I've seen is similar to above, but once it's shortened it becomes a well known phrase or poem.
Thanks
Sue
4 Responses
I don’t know if this helps…..
An A-board at a farm gate says;
Fresh Eggs Sold Here!
four words….
But
‘Fresh’ is pointless; no one would advertise or buy stale eggs
‘Sold’ is pointless; you can’t rent an egg or borrow an egg and they aren’t giving them away
‘Here’ is pointless…by all means you could tell people where the eggs are if they aren’t ‘here’ but if the sign is at the farm gate then that is ‘here’
so really the sign could just say ‘Eggs’….a 75% saving in words
I hope this helps
Rus
In Brief
Hi Sue
Had a quick look at some resourses I have and came across a simple exercise that might meet your needs. It is too long to paste into a reply (I’ve tried) so e-mail me at [email protected] and I’ll send you a copy.
Angela
Thanks Rus
This will be a great example to introduce the exercise and show that no matter how short something is, it can probably be shortened further.
Thanks
Sue
TTT
Cheers Russ…A feel a new poster coming on!