你有没有思考过，怎样用点小小的表演技巧，让听众紧跟你的话语？如果你挑选听众来协助你展示，或是把你的观点戏剧化地表现出来，这样听众对你的注意力就会显著地提升。这是因为当听众中的其中一个被讲演者带入“表演”中时，听众们就会很敏锐地去注意所发生的事。正如很多讲演者说的，讲台上的人和讲台下的人之间有一面墙，那么你就可以利用听众的参与，推倒这面墙。Did it ever occur to you that you can keep an audience hanging on every word by using a little showmanship? The moment you choose some member of the audience to help you demonstrate a point or dramatize an idea, you will be rewarded by a noticeable rise in attention. Being aware of themselves as an audience, the members of it are keenly conscious of what happens when one of its own is brought into "the act" by the speaker. If there is a wall between the man on the platform and the people out there, as many speakers say, the use of audience participation will break that wall down.

有个讲演者为了说明汽车在使用刹车后，还必须前进多长的距离才能够停住，他请前排一位听众站起来帮他展示汽车在不同速度之下，这个距离有什么变化。这个听众拿着钢制卷尺的一端，沿着走道把它拉出45英尺……在这位听众的演示过程中，我注意到其他所有的听众是多么的全神贯注。那条卷尺除了能生动地展现讲演者的论点外，还真成了听者与讲者间一座沟通的桥梁！若不是用上这招，听众们关心的恐怕还是晚饭吃什么，或者晚上电视节目是什么呢！I remember a speaker who was explaining the distance it takes to stop a car after the brakes have been applied. He asked one of his listeners in the front row to stand and help demonstrate how this distance varied with the speed of the car. The man in the audience took the end of a steel tape measure and carried it forty-five feet down the aisle, where he stopped on a signal from the speaker. As I watched this procedure I couldn't help but notice how the whole audience became engrossed in the talk. I said to myself that the tape measure, in addition to being a graphic illustration of the speaker's point, was certainly a line of communication between that speaker and this audience. Without that touch of showmanship the audience might still be concerned with what it was going to have for dinner or what programs would be on TV that evening.

我还有一些自己最喜欢使用的方法，比如提问。我喜欢请听众站起来跟着我重复一句话，或举手回答问题。帕西·H.怀亭有本书叫《如何在讲演和写作中加入幽默》，也提供了一些怎样让听众参与的忠告。他建议让听众表决一些事情，邀请他们帮助解决问题。“确保自己的思想是正确的”，怀亭先生说，“正确的思想会让讲演不像背诵，它可以获得听众的反应，把听众变成事业上的伙伴。”我喜欢他把听众描述为“事业上的伙伴”。这是本章所讨论的关键。如果能让听众参与，你便把合伙人的权利送给了他们。One of my favourite methods of getting audience participation is simply to ask questions and to get responses, I like to get the audience on its feet, repeating a sentence after me, or answering my questions by raising their hands. Percy H. Whiting, whose book How to Put humor in Your Speaking and Writing contains some valuable advice on the subject of audience participation, suggests having your listeners vote on something, or inviting them to help you solve a problem. "Get yourself in the right state of mind," says Mr. Whiting, "a state of mind that recognizes that a speech is unlike a recitation-that it is designed to get audience reaction-to make the audience a partner in the enterprise." I like that description of the audience as "a partner in the enterprise". It is the key to what this chapter is all about. If you use audience participation you confer the rights of partnership on your listeners.