从眼睛通往脑部的神经，要比从耳朵通往脑部的神经多好几倍。而且，科学实验发现，我们给予眼睛看到的暗示的注意力是给予耳朵听到的暗示的25倍。The nerves that lead from the eye to the brain are many times larger than those leading from the ear; and science tells us that we give twenty-five times as much attention to eye suggestions as we do to ear suggestions .

正如这样一句古谚语所说：“百闻不如一见。”One seeing, says an old proverb, "is better than a hundred times telling about."

因此，如果你想清楚地表达，就应该生动地描绘你所说的要点，把你的想法具体化。已故的著名的美国全国收银机公司的总裁派特森，就是采用这种方法。他在为《系统》杂志写的一篇文章中，简要说明了他向工人和销售人员演讲时使用的方法：So, if you wish to be clear, picture your points, visualize your ideas. That was the plan of John H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Company. He wrote an article for System Magazine, outlining the methods he used in speaking to his workmen and his sales forces:

“我认为，一个人不能指望仅仅借助言语，就让别人了解他的想法，或得到别人的注意。我们需要一些具有戏剧性的补充，最好的方法是使用图片，以图片表现出对和错的两面。图表比语言文字具有说服力，而图片又比图表更具有说服力。对某一主题最理想的表现方法，就是将每一部分配上图片，而文字与语言只是用来与它们配合的手段。我很早就发现，在和人们交谈时，一张图片胜过我的任何话。”I hold that one cannot rely on speech alone to make himself understood or to gain and hold attention. A dramatic supplement is needed. It is better to supplement whenever possible with pictures which show the right and the wrong way: diagrams are more convincing than mere words, and pictures are more convincing than diagrams. The ideal presentation of a subject is one in which every subdivision is pictured and in which the words are used only to connect them. I early found that in dealing with men, a picture was worth more than anything I could say.

当然，也不是每一个演讲题目或场合都适合展示图画。但只要可以使用，我们就该使用它们。它们能吸引别人的注意力，激起听众的兴趣，而且都可以让我们的意思表达得更清楚。也要记住，如果是使用图表，一定要让它足够大，可以看得清楚，也千万别做过了头。一长串的图表也会令人感觉无聊的。如果是边讲边画，也一定要在黑板上简单而且快速地画，听众可对伟大的艺术作品并不感兴趣。使用缩略语，要写得大而且容易辨认；画或写的时候，不要停止讲话，要随时转身面对听众。If you use a chart or diagram, be sure it is large enough to see, and don't overdo a good thing. A long succession of charts is usually boring. If you make the diagram as you go along, be careful to sketch roughly and swiftly on the blackboard or flip chart. Listeners are not interested in great art work. Use abbreviations; write largely and legibly; keep talking as you draw or write; and keep turning back to your audience.

另外，利用展示物时，请注意以下建议，这可以保证你能获得听众的注意。When you use exhibits, follow these suggestions and you will be assured of the rapt attention of your audience.

——展示物应先藏起来，直到准备使用时再出示。1.Keep the exhibit out of sight until you are ready to use it.

——使用的展示物应该足够大，让最后一排都能看见。听众如果看不见展示物，也就不能从展示物中学到东西了。2.Use exhibits large enough to be seen from the very last row. Certainly your audience can't learn from any exhibit unless they see it.

——在讲话的时候，绝不能让展示物在听众间传阅，你不会想给自己找个竞争对手吧？3.Never pass an exhibit around among your listeners while you are speaking. Why invite competition?

——展示东西时，把它举到听众看得见的地方。4.When you show an exhibit, hold it up where your listeners can see it.

——记住，一件能打动听众的展示物，强过十件无法打动人的东西。所以如果可以，先示范一下。5.Remember, one exhibit that moves is worth ten that don't. Demonstrate if practicable.

——讲话时不要盯着你的展示品，你要与听众沟通，而不是要和展示品沟通。6.Don't stare at the exhibit as you talk-yon are trying to communicate with the audience, not with the exhibit.

——展示物使用后，要尽可能收起，不要让听众再看见。7.When you have finished with the exhibit, get it out of sight if practicable.

——如果展示物非常适合作“神秘处理”，就把它放在一张桌子上，讲演时放在身边，并把它盖住。演讲时，多提它几次，这会引发好奇心——不过不要告诉听众它是什么。这样，当你展示的时候，就早已引发了听众的好奇心和真正的兴趣。8.If the exhibit you are going to use lends itself to "mystery treatment" have it placed on a table which will be at your side as you speak. Have it covered. As you talk, make references to it that will arouse curiosity-but don't tell what it is. Then, when you are ready to unveil it, you have aroused curiosity, suspense, and real interest.

用视觉材料来增强演讲效果的策略，已越来越显示出它的重要性了。除非有备而来，在听众面前把自己想的，说给他们听，又展示给他们看，就没有更好的方法可以保证听众会听明白了。Visual materials are becoming more and more prominent as devices to promote clarity. There is no better way to insure that your audience will understand what you have to say than to go before them prepared to show as well as to tell them what you have in mind.

两位同为语言大师的美国总统，指出，清晰的表达能力，是训练与自我控制的结果。林肯说，我们必须狂热地追求明晰。他对诺克斯大学的校长贾立佛博士讲了他早年是怎样培养自己对简单明了的语言的“狂热”：Two American presidents, both masters of the spoken word, have indicated that the ability to be clear is the result of training and discipline. As Lincoln said, we must have a passion for clarity. He told Dr. Gulliver, the President of Knox College, how he developed this "passion" in early life:

“我记得当我还是个孩子的时候，遇到有人用我听不懂的方式跟我说话，我会非常生气。在我一生当中，还没有对别的事情生过气。可是，听不懂别人讲话总会让我发脾气，连现在都这样。记得在听邻居和父亲欢谈整晚后，我走回自己的小卧室，大半夜里都走来走去的，企图思考一些语言的确切意义。在我开始这样的时候，常常想睡了，可就是睡不着，一直到我能把它用明浅的语言说出来、自认可让我认识的每个男孩都理解才肯罢休。这是我的一种狂热情绪，它一直紧紧地跟着我。”Among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in my life. But that always disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down and trying to make out the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough as I thought for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has since stuck by me.

另一位杰出的总统伍卓·威尔森，有一些忠言，正好成为你能更好地理解本章的一个注脚：The other distinguished president, Woodrow Wilson, wrote some words of advice that strike the right note to end this chapter on making your meaning clear:

“家父是一位有大智慧的人，我最好的训练就来自于他那里。他不能忍受含混隐晦。从我开始提笔写字到1903年他81岁高龄去世，我总是随身携着自己写给他的所有东西。My father was a man of great intellectual energy.My best training came from him. He was intolerant of vagueness, and from the time I began to write until his death in 1903, when he was eighty-one years old, I carried everything I wrote to him.

“他会让我把它大声读出来，这对我来说真是件苦差事。他老是不时止住我：‘你这是什么意思？’要我告诉他。自然，我会用比写在纸上更简明的方式来表达自己的意思。‘那怎么不这样说？’他会继续训下去，‘别用鸟枪来瞄射自己的意思，结果击得满山遍野一片凌乱，要用来福枪瞄射自己要说的话。’”He would make me read it aloud, which was always painful to me. Every now and then, he would stop me. "What do you mean by that?" I would tell him, and, of course, in doing so would express myself more simply than I had on paper. "Why didn't you say so?" he would go on. "Don't shoot at your meaning with birds hot and hit the whole countryside; shoot with a rifle at the thing you have to say."