From the first days that we were learning language, we were taught that words were made up of consonants and vowels. This is true, of course, but is it the complete picture?
I don’t know about you, but my whole education through high school was about written communication. I had one course in eighth grade about public speaking. Otherwise they had me writing. It may have been a composition in English class. It may have been a report for another subject. But in either situation, it was written communication. In these instances, consonants and vowels were the only factors in play as it relates to words.
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The Importance of Expressiveness
Have you ever heard a truly boring speech or presentation?
When I was in high school, the powers that be made us listen to movies about smoking and other dangerous behavior. The films had the look of scientific presentations, complete with a guy in a white coat talking like a geek. These were Boring—with a capital B.
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How Does Your Audience Perceive You?
The year was 1999. I had recently entered the market as a professional voice-over guy and wanted to do commercials. As I was driving around town one day, I was listening to the radio, strangely enough, to hear the commercials. I know, that’s a bit weird.
I wanted to know, however, how the voice actors voiced the scripts. I figured, if they were getting the gigs, I wanted to learn from them so that I could, too. And what I learned shocked me.
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