Better Public Speaking

Think of the last really memorable talk or presentation that you attended. Now, was that easy to do, or did you really have to rack your brains to remember one? Sadly, too many presentations are easy to forget. And that's a big problem because the only reason the presenter gave the talk was to communicate something to you.

However, there are four basic things that you can do to ensure that your verbal messages are understood - and remembered - time and time again. Although somewhat obvious and deceptively simple, these are:

Understand the purpose of the presentation
Keep the message clear and concise
Be prepared
Be vivid when delivering the message

Understand what you want to achieve:

Before you start working on your talk or presentation, it's essential that you really understand what you want to say, who you want to tell and why they might want to listen. To do this, ask yourself: Who? What? How? When? Where? Why?

Who are you speaking to? What are their interests, beliefs and values? What do they share in common with others; how are they unique?

What message do you wish to convey? One way of answering this question is to ask yourself about the 'success criteria'. How do you know if and when you have successfully communicated what you have in mind?

How can you best put across your message? Language is most important here, as are non verbal cues such as body language and expressions. Choose your words and non verbal cues while keeping your audience in mind. Plan a beginning, middle and end. If time and place allow, consider and prepare audio-visual aids.

When? Timing is important here. Develop a sense of timing, so that your contributions are seen and heard as relevant to the issue or matter at hand. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent.

Where? What is the physical context of the communication in mind? You may have time to visit the venue, for example, and rearrange the furniture. Check for availability and visibility if you are using audio or visual aids.


Why? In order to convert hearers into listeners, you need to know why they should listen to you – and tell them if necessary.

The Importance of Simplicity:

When it comes to wording your message, less is more. You're giving your audience headlines, too much information will overload and bore your listeners.. They are not expecting to become experts on the subject as a result of hearing your presentation, therefore simplicity is best.

If you're using slides, limit the content of each one to a few bullet points, a single statement or a very simple diagram.

Preparation:

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. In fact, it is the most important factor in determining your communication successes. When possible, set meeting times and speaking and presentation times well in advance, thus allowing yourself the time you need to prepare your communications. Each minute of a presentation deserves thirty minutes preparation.

Of course, not all communications can be scheduled. In this case, preparation may mean having a good, thorough understanding of the office goings-on, enabling you to communicate with the knowledge you need to be effective, both through verbal and written communications

Successful Delivery:

The manner in which you deliver your speech or presentation has a lasting impact on your audience. Again, preparation is paramount here, in order to hold the listeners attention. Some useful tips for keeping your presentation vivid include:

Use examples to bring your points to life
Keep your body language up-beat - don't stay stuck behind a rostrum
Don't talk to fast. Less is more here too. Pauses are effective.
Use a variety of tones of voice
Use visual aids.

Presentations and public speaking, although daunting, can be a very enjoyable, rewarding experience, once adequate time is taken to prepare and rehearse them. An enthusiastic speaker who is confident with their material will make a lasting memorable impression on their audience.

Food safety for powder milk from China

My Food Technology subject assignment..


The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident in the People’s Republic of China, involving infant milk powder adulterated with melamine. Melamine is a small organic molecule with a high nitrogen content that can easily fool the quality control equipment into thinking that nitrogen is present at normal levels and so the milk is passed as good. Melamine is used to manufacture melamine-formaldehyde resin, a type of plastic known for its flame retardant properties. This plastic is often used in kitchen utensils and plates, often called melamine wares.

When products contained melamine is consumed, the melamine remains inside the kidney. It forms into stones blocking the tubes. It can lead to the loss of kidney function and will require kidney dialysis or lead to death because of uremia. The effect is more serious in infant because of their kidney size and amount of milk consumed. Nearly 13,000 infants hospitalized during the incident period. The symptoms and sign of melamine poisoning are irritation, blood in urine, high blood pressure and signs of kidney infection.

The existing methods for melamine determination using a triple quadrupole liquid chromatography mass spectrometry after solid phase extraction are often complex and time consuming. However, electrospray ionization coupled with mass spectrometry allows a rapid and direct analysis of samples with complex matrices. The native liquid samples are directly ionized under ambient conditions in their original solution. Ultrasound-assisted extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (EESI-MS) has been developed for a rapid detection of melamine in untreated food samples.

If one suspects anything, they may do a urine test. The urine test is a good screening for injury to the kidneys. Furthermore, Ministry of Health Malaysia is advising those who consume milk-derived ingredients from China during the incident to perform urine test.  They also advising consumers to avoid products reported contaminated, banned dairy products from China until further report. Retail stores selling food items imported from China that could contain significant amount of milk or milk proteins is recalled. 

Ministry of Health Malaysia in close cooperation with Royal Malaysian Customs Department, Department of Agriculture Malaysia, other federal agencies and NGO advising consumers not to purchase infant milk powder manufactured in China from internet sites or other sources. They also sampling and testing milk and milk-derived ingredients and finished food products that could contain melamine. A list of safe to be consumed milk products also been produced as references for consumers. Imported goods and food products from China is quarantine and checked for any trace of melamine.

Prevention is better than cure! Parents should be alert of the ingredients added in their infant’s milk. They should be aware of the recent issues related to infants dietary. The increasing demands for powder milk have caused incidents like this to occur. Milk powder producing companies added melamine to be competitive in market and endanger the health of infants. Lastly, it’s better for parents to change from powder milk to mother’s milk. Mother’s milk without doubt is the best food for infants since it provides all the nutrients needed. Whatever Nature has given is always good!

Students, food and Mother Nature..

How can a student play his role to cope with environmental issues in terms of food?

Before a student takes any action to cope with environmental issues, I think they supposed to be exposed to environmental problems that the worlds are facing now. Environmental awareness is the best way of preservation which would make them realise their responsibility towards their surroundings. Even though it seems like not much a student can do to handle the environmental impact, students can minimise and save energy and water even at home, school or universities.

Students mainly should concentrate on three main ideas, reduce, recycle and reuse. In terms of food, students can buy organic food or locally grown food. This would reduce the need for food to be import or preparation of non-organic food. If possible, they can grow their own fruits and vegetables using organic gardening practises. This would reduce the need for transporting, preservation and packaging of foods and thus reduce the energy needed for the food to be prepared.

 

 

Students also can consider becoming a Lacto-vegetarian or vegan at least few days a week. This would reduce the need for meat. Meat uses more energy and water to be prepared compare to vegetables or fruits. Besides that, they should reduce eating processed or packaged food such as can food, bottled drinks, instant noodles etc whenever possible. It is always better to consume fresh foods where it not just energy and water saving but it also prevent them from chemical additives and fatal microorganism contained in the packaged food.

Students are encouraged to purchase food wrapped with products containing materials that can be recycled such as paper, glass or aluminium. Recycling these materials requires less energy than producing then from brand new raw materials. Non-biodegradable wrappers should be banned. Last but not least, for reuse, students can switch from disposable to reusable products such as their food and beverages container, cups, plates. They also can donate these products to homeless shelters or orphanage so the products would be reused and less of these products would be remade. All this are my ways as a student to be a part in saving Mother Nature in terms of food. Done your part??