The power of anecdotes 
28.08.2009
What makes a good anecdote in a presentation? The humour? The personalization? The embarrassing moment?
We look at an important aspect of telling anecdotes here. Not only should you have a good story, you should also use the right tenses when telling it. Anecdotes are all about understanding what happened when — so you don't want to use the wrong tense at the wrong moment. It could ruin the story — and your presentation, evening or meeting!
Deborah Capras
We look at an important aspect of telling anecdotes here. Not only should you have a good story, you should also use the right tenses when telling it. Anecdotes are all about understanding what happened when — so you don't want to use the wrong tense at the wrong moment. It could ruin the story — and your presentation, evening or meeting!
Deborah Capras
COMMENTS
Dear Deborah,
The exercises on the Business Spotlight website are excellent. As I've already mentioned to some of your colleagues in previous e-mails, Business Spotlight is really in a league of its own.
I do have one comment about the introduction to this exercise. I feel "... so you don't want to use the wrong tense at the wrong moment. It could ruin the story — and your presentation, evening or meeting!" could discourage rather than encourage learners to try this communication skill. Clearly this exercise is for higher-level learners; however, even higher-level learners have confidence issues when presenting in English.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Leena Jobson