Part 4 :
Conveying essential information, opinions or ideas

Prior knowledge of the audience

When you speak it’s important that you get the ideas that are in your head into the heads of the people you’re talking to. What seems clear to you doesn’t always seem clear to others. You need to ensure that you give them enough information to make sense of what you are saying. Remember, they don’t have access to all of the knowledge and information that you hold in your brain – they only have the information that you give them.

Sometimes, of course, people do know what you are talking about, and there’s no need to give them a lot of extra information that they already know. So, for example, if you were having a discussion about violence on television, you wouldn’t have to tell everybody that Eastenders is a soap opera. You can assume that the audience you’re talking to would have heard of it (unless they’re from another country!).