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97 Things Every SRE Should Know Collective Wisdom from the Experts 1st Edition Emil Stolarsky
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978-1-492-08517-1
[LSI]
Dedication
In memory of Tom “Mr. T-Test” Tullis.
Thank you for passing your love of quantitative methods to so many of us.
We lost you too soon.
Preface
The user experience (UX) community is full of people who want to help others lead better lives. Whether we are making a website easier to use or creating designs that guide people to make healthier decisions, we just want to help others. This also applies to our colleagues across the industry: we want everyone who has chosen this occupation to thrive. That’s why you’ll often see more hugs than handshakes at UX conferences—everyone in the field is just so nice.
That’s the intended spirit of this book—it’s by the UX community and for the UX community, and it intends to give back to the UX community. To ensure that contributors extended beyond my personal circle, we had a submission process in which anyone could submit a chapter. This helped to solidify my theory about UXers being so nice. Every stranger I met during the process was generous and eager to give back to the community. To round out the community giving, the authors have decided on a number of UX nonprofit organizations to which any book royalties will go, starting with Creative Reaction Lab in St. Louis and the Center for Civic Design. This book wasn’t written to make a buck or to give people exposure. We wrote this book to help the UX community do great work.
Many people involved with UX came across the field by chance. My UX “aha” moment came during my customer support days, when I sat as a participant in a usability study. With my psych undergrad focus on visual space perception and my love of computer geekery, this seemed like the job for me! I was even more pleased to learn you don’t need to be a designer to work in UX, since I thought I didn’t have a creative bone in my body. This phrase would make Adam Connor bristle in our conversations, and he eventually convinced me that everyoneis creative—it’s just a matter of how
creativity is expressed by or elicited from an individual. Researchers are creative problem solvers; strategists think creatively to give design projects meaningful direction; and, as I’ve learned in many design studios, anyone who can draw or imagine a rectangle can design.
This book is intended for everyone in the UX community, whether advanced practitioner or beginner: designers, researchers, UX strategists, developers, content strategists, managers, and executives. The goal was to make each chapter as practical as possible and to cover topics that even advanced folks may not have previously considered. The chapters are organized into the different areas of interest in UX:
Career:Tips to advance your hireability
Strategy:Dealing with the fuzzy frontend of the design process
Design:Creating experiences for customers, employees, and other users
Content:Writing words that matter and that aren’t an afterthought
Research:Gathering data from study participants to uncover actionable insights
We live in a service economy. Businesses must consider the priorities of their customers, members, patients, employees, and of all other users in their ecosystem. UX strategy, research, and design are the pathways to aligning experiences with people’s expectations for how things should work. People all across the business world should be aware of how the UX sausage gets made. The authors of this book hope it provides information for everyone who wants to create great experiences for other people.
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In the spirit of the first 97 Things books, each contribution in this volume follows a nonrestrictive, open source model. Each contribution is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
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Acknowledgments
Without the support of my family, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thank you to my parents, Joel and Rita; my brothers, Eric and Adam; and the rest of the Berlin crew: Doriz, Janinne, Matt, Josh, Alex, Lea, Ruby, Mia, Sasha, Maggie, and Shadow. We may be spread across three states, but we’re very lucky in how close we remain. Thanks for everything through the years.
Thank you to the reviewers who read the book and provided feedback during editing to make it stronger: Chauncey Wilson, Kyle Soucy, Bob Thomas, and Nedret Sahin. UX friends are the best friends, and I really appreciate all the effort you folks put in to help
with this and other community events. Chauncey, since you ran the study that alerted me to UX as a career, your help in reviewing this book brings everything full circle and gives me much joy.
A huge thank you goes out to Tom Greever, who started this initiative and who entrusted me to edit the book. Additionally, thank you to everyone who had a submission in the initial book draft: Juan Antonio Avalos, Mudassir Azeemi, Vidhika Bansal, Rubem BarbosaHughes, Leon Barnard, Lea Botwinick, Shelby Bower, Luke Chen, Nick Comito, Susan Culkin, Jon Fukuda, Julie Jensen, Scott Jenson, Frank Konrad, Joseph McCarroll, Rakesh Patwari, Joe Payne, Stephanie Pi, Holly Reynolds, Calvin Robertson, Razaur Rahman Shahed, Wade Shearer, Chris Stegner, Steve Turbek, Tiffany Vurek, Caleb Williams, and Pia Zaragoza.
Thank you to my Mad*Pow family. It’s been so much fun creating great experiences with you every day. You are inspiring people, and y’all have helped make me a better practitioner and person over the past 10 years.
Fast and firm to the Buffett crew: Snarf, Zoot, Edith Bunker, Mayor McCheese, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Pink, Henrietta, Nermal, Bozo The Clown, Cameron, Hamburglar, Zippy the Pinhead, and of course, Bomber (and the rest of the Penyacks!). You folks keep me sane and are the best friends I could ask for.
Thank you to everyone I’ve met and worked alongside at UXPA Boston. We’re so lucky to have such a dedicated bunch of UXers in our area, and it’s been so amazing and educational helping the organization through the years. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve the UX community and feed them delicious lemon bars.
Finally, thank you very much to the 96 other authors who contributed to the book! Without you, there would be no book and no opportunity to pass this knowledge on to the next generation of UX practitioners. Working with y’all has been a highlight of my
career; everyone’s positive attitude and willingness to offer their thought leadership has been nothing short of inspirational.
Part I. Career
Boost Your Emotional Intelligence to Move from Good to Great UX
PriyamaBarua
The industry shift toward human-centered design and a democratized design process has encouraged UXers to optimize results by directly involving the people for whom they design. But humans are complex, and certain personal interaction skills don’t come naturally to everyone. The greatest UXers I’ve met have one thing in common: emotional intelligence (EI).
Daniel Goleman, a recognized expert in EI, identified four competencies of EI: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. I’ve noticed that great UXers possess a balance of the four. Let’s take a closer look at how they express these competencies.
Self-awareness:They’re able to accurately identify their own emotional strengths and weaknesses. For example, they recognize if they’re reacting emotionally to a design critique.
Self-management:Their rational brain dominates their emotional brain. They’re comfortable with the uncomfortable, and they keep the team moving as the messy, sometimes frustrating design process unfolds.
Socialawareness:They’re empathetic and have strong organizational awareness, creating viable and feasible solutions with continuous inputs from business and technical partners who don’t speak the language of UX.
Relationshipmanagement:They’re able to influence people positively and don’t shy away from necessary conflict. They advocate for design to have a “seat at the table.”
As I craft a path in UX, I too find myself navigating diverse priorities, opinions, and personalities, and ensuring a high degree of EI in my response. Ethnographic research, co-creation workshops, cross-team design reviews, multidisciplinary project teams, socializing, and defending design decisions with stakeholders—all require me to reflect on how I handle situations.
Additionally, EI must extend to the people we’re designing for—this means avoiding bias and truly empathizing with users’ needs so products connect with them and sometimes delight them. UXers must also help stakeholders and teammates recognize users’ emotions in a variety of contexts and respond with fitting design solutions.
None of this comes naturally to me; I still struggle with EI. But by learning about and practicing these competencies, I was able to strive toward UX greatness. If you’d like to do the same, here are my recommendations:
1. ReflectonyourstrengthsinthefourEIcompetencies:If you’re naturally self-reflective, you can do this yourself. If not, ask your manager, coworkers, or a mentor for feedback.
2. Identifythecompetenciesyoucanhonetotrulybalance yourEI:Think back to situations you could have handled better. Then enlist someone you trust to help you work on these competencies.
3. Recognizethatinappropriateemotionalresponsesarea resultofanevolutionaryfailure:The amygdala hijacks the rational part of our brain and kicks in a flight-or-fight response to tense situations, mistaking them for a predatory threat on our lives. The best way to overcome this is to selftalk to reframe situations, but this is easier said than done. In the words of Michael Cornwall, the author of GoSucka Lemon(CreateSpace), “It will take the force of will to do that.”
4. ApplyyourUXskillstoimproveyourEI:Start tracking the outcomes you want to influence. Are your design metrics improving because of your effort? Are you called on for more leadership opportunities? Do you feel better and more in control? Last, are you able to help others grow in their EI? I’ve found the goal-setting framework OKR (Objectives and Key Results) helps track against outcomes like the ones mentioned here.
If you’re ready to put this in practice, think about the great UXers you know. Can you recall times when you saw them exhibit exceptional EI? Emulating their qualities and being truly selfreflective about your own can go a long way in creating great UX.
Your Worst Job May Be Your Best Learning Experience
TaylorKostal-Bergmann
It may be surprising that our industry has but a few truly mature design organizations, and as a result many UX practitioners get frustrated within the first six months of beginning a job and start looking for a new one. Often, practitioners start looking once they realize their design organization has limited resources and is working under unreasonable expectations with people who don’t understand UX or its processes. They get burned out, realize that they won’t be doing the inspiring portfolio work they’ve dreamed of, and begin to wonder if another workplace would be a better fit. Those who consider leaving fear they will end up confronting the same issues in a new company. Those who consider staying recognize they need to fight for a seat at the table, and frankly, many people just aren’t interested in doing that.
I’m here to tell you that if you choose to stay, you caneventually change things, developing a level of skill and tenacity most designers take years to cultivate. To transform your workplace, however, you must focus on small cultural shifts rather than immediate sweeping changes. So where do you begin?
Start Small and Focus on Building Trust
I’ve worked in a variety of roles, and one thing I’ve consistently found in immature organizations is there are always some folks
resistant to UX. This resistance often arises from fear or distrust, but as UX practitioners it is our responsibility to understand this and work through it. Here are some effective strategies to counteract resistant stakeholders:
GettoknowpeopleoutsideofyourUXteam:Learn about their roles, performance objectives, processes, team power structure, experience with UX, hobbies, and so on.
FocusonindividualswhoseeminterestedinUXfirst:The more advocates you have, the more help you get building confidence in resistant stakeholders.
IdentifyfootholdsinbusinessprocessestoinjectUX:Focus on small, digestible doses that drive value without rocking the boat too much.
Workleanandbeimpeccablewithyourword:This is how you build trust.
Servetheirpalatebeforeyouserveyourown:Demonstrate your value by focusing on clearly communicating user insights, the strategy they drive, and the outcomes they produce.
Diversify Your Skill Set
I was laid off from my first job after college and learned the hard way that talent alone does not ensure job security. Survival comes down to what you can bring to the table when the chips are down and your company has fewer resources to work with. You need to keep growing your skill set throughout your career. By doing this, I’ve survived layoffs and have been able to lean into needed skills when resources were in short supply. Some great skills you can learn are:
Workshop facilitation (especially remote)
User research methods
Designing great presentations
UX writing and content strategy
UX strategy Service design
Get Organized and Say No
Many immature companies have overburdened or disorganized design teams. By focusing on workload management and boundary setting, many of these organizations are able to build trust and create a proactive relationship with product teams, helping UX thrive. Set yourself up for success by safeguarding your time and sanity with project intake requirements and kanban tools. Additionally, get comfortable saying no and educating on why.
Don’t discount an immature organization’s value to your career. It’s fair to want to leave toxic organizations, but know the difference between toxic and disorganized. If you stay, you may find that it is extremely rewarding to help an organization transform and mature— you’ll be a stronger practitioner for having the tenacity to put up a fight.
You’re Never Done Learning
AndrewWirtanen
While in high school, I loved working on websites and wanted to be a web designer. That changed a bit in college when one of my first classes was an introduction to human-computer interaction. Then graduate school allowed me to dive deeper into topics like user research and interaction design. The master’s program was incredibly educational, so what else was there to know? It turns out I had only just begun a career of learning. For example, just after graduation came the release of the iPhone, and everyone had to quickly learn how to research and design apps for mobile phones.
If you don’t love learning and don’t have a routine to stay up to date, you risk not hearing about new ideas, methods, processes, and technology. As a result, the quality of your work may suffer and your career development may stagnate. If you need to ignite your love of learning, try exploring different topics until you find some that interest you. Don’t be afraid to go down one path, only to find it boring—don’t be afraid to give up on an unfulfilling topic. Once you have your interest areas, though, it’s time to set up a routine.
Make Time
The most important part of your routine is to understand how much time you might have available. You may not have much time at all, and that’s okay.
Some questions to ask yourself:
Could you listen to a podcast or an audiobook while doing chores?
Could you set up a recurring meeting with peers, colleagues, or a mentor?
Are there conferences, book clubs, or meetups you could attend?
Can you take microbreaks during the day to read articles?
Be Selective
We must be selective in what we learn. One natural approach to being selective is to pay attention to what’s interesting or relevant to you. However, be careful! You may unintentionally ignore something that could develop into a new interest area.
Another approach, described by Vasilis van Gemert in a 2012 article, is to use people and time as filters. You probably know of some people who are always sharing useful links. You could follow those people and save some of their links to check out on your own time. To filter potential noise, consider not consuming content immediately after publication—you’ll find that some articles or podcasts may be outdated in a few days because they are reactions to developing news.
Refine Your Routine
One of the best ways to automate how you receive content is through subscriptions via news aggregator and podcast apps. News aggregator apps like Feedly and Pocket help you find content on the web. Instead of you checking a bunch of different websites, the news comes to you! And with a podcast app like Overcast (iOS), Pocket Casts (Android), or the default one on your phone, you can 1
subscribe to audio episodes. I recommend increasing the playback speed and looking for a feature to skip or eliminate silences.
Remember to regularly manage your subscriptions to make sure they’re still relevant. For example, you may have subscribed to a podcast related to a project. But once that project is over, the podcast may no longer be the best use of your time.
Share
When you’re regularly learning and trying new things, it’s important to share with your coworkers or UX community, because that will lead to reciprocal sharing, inspire new thinking, and subsequently help advance the field of UX. Whether you’re working on your first project or you’ve been in UX for 30+ years, remember that we’re all continuously learning.
1 Vasilis van Gemert, “How to Stay Up to Date,” Smashing Magazine, August 9, 2012. https://oreil.ly/0KGdY
So You Want to Be a UX Consultant
EvaKaniasty
Who among us hasn’t dreamed of the glamorous, lucrative enterprise that is consulting? No more constraints or boredom! No more bosses or annoying coworkers!
Not so fast. For every benefit there is a drawback. Many have set out to make a living as a UX consultant, only to find themselves simply unemployed. Let me tell you everything I’ve learned in the last 10 years, so that you can learn from my mistakes.
Don’tbeanewbie:Working as a consultant means learning new things every day. But those things don’t include the basics of your job. Trying to do consulting right out of school is like giving your first piano recital at Carnegie Hall. Unless you already have the chops to do your job better and faster than 80% of your peers, you’re not ready.
Beefficient:Clients are breathing down your neck. Work is feast or famine. Meanwhile, taxes need paying, estimates need running, and your cat just threw up. Do you finish that proposal or do you clean up the vomit? Trick question—you do it all, in half the time. You probably never noticed the administrative stuff someone else handled at your day job. So learn to enjoy (and appreciate yourself for) at least some of the busywork that falls into your lap.
Don’tbeagenius:You do need confidence to inspire trust, and a good consultant has to be smart enough to tackle wicked problems. But leave your ego at the door. A great consultant recognizes everyone’s good ideas, doesn’t hog credit, and is more than happy to share their knowledge. Think of yourself as a supporting actor, not the star of the show, and your clients will love you.
Beassertive:Yes, you want to keep your clients happy. At the same time, as an objective outsider, you need to have the guts to speak truth to power. If you lack spine and let problems fester, you’ll be working too hard for suboptimal results. Then there are the moments when you have to talk about money...loudly, clearly, and often. Get over your embarrassment or fail to get paid.
Don’tbealoner:Being your own boss is awesome, but it doesn’t mean that you answer to no one. You are still working for and with others. A big part of finding and keeping work depends on how skilled you are at relationship building and adapting to your clients rather than forcing them to adapt to you. And that’s just for your day job: add managing your professional social life to your ever-growing lists of tasks, because watercooler chat is no longer an option.
Beafinisher:A project that doesn’t end is a project that fails. It doesn’t matter how great your personality is and how good you are at scheduling meetings—what you get done is ultimately what counts. Your clients won’t tell you so, but often they are asking you simply to get things done—things they’ve struggled to get done internally. So if procrastination is one of your demons, banish it now, before your livelihood depends on it.
Now for the good part: consulting is great—the freedom to design your own life, the autonomy to do the work you like best, the endless novelty of new people and experiences. But if you decide to take the plunge, do it with your eyes open. And don’t be disappointed if there are times in your life when you’re better off keeping (and liking!) your day job.
Master the Art of Storytelling
ReenaGanga
Human beings have a deep-rooted desire to connect through stories. More than 36,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors were recounting stories about volcanoes and wild beasts. That primitive urge to tell tales around a campfire is how we make sense of the world and foster cooperation. In today’s world of tech, effective storytelling is key to driving home the value of your product, because in a world of plenty, what compels customers to buy a new device or app is the belief that this shiny new thing will fill a void they just realized they have.
As user advocates, designers and researchers have critical insight into the way customers think and feel, coupled with an intimate understanding of the product. That gives them unique power to translate the raw features and functionality into an effective story for clients and customers.
Whether you’re presenting at a conference or simply on a conference call, here are my six steps for spinning a compelling yarn:
1. Understandtheaudience:First and foremost, understand what’s driving your audience. A group of CEOs cares about vastly different things than an audience of developers, and only when you know whyyou’re giving this presentation can you start formulating the what.
2. Identifythebigpicture:Zoom out. In my former career as a TV news reporter, I learned that the best stories stay with us because they strike a nerve or touch something deep inside. Harnessing emotions such as love, pain, joy, or fear can be a powerful way to reach the audience, so ask yourself if your product story is actually part of a larger issue or trend that might resonate.
3. Captureattention:Develop a catchy hook. A presenter has only 30–60 seconds to engage audience members before their attention drifts and they begin scrolling on their phones, so open by giving your audience a reason to care about what you’re going to say. This could take the form of a rhetorical question, a surprising statement, or even a prop. Bill Gates once released a jar of mosquitos into a TED audience to emphasize the importance of fighting malaria. It brought a faraway problem into sharp focus.
4. Takepeopleonajourney:Share a use case. Every great story has a hero, and the product user is yours. Start with an obstacle, a decision point, or an ethical dilemma and take the audience on the journey of how your product solves the user’s problem and gives the hero a happily ever after. However, remember to limit your ideas, as squeezing in too many can dilute the message. Ideally, your presentation will have one main premise that you’ll support with different examples.
5. Killthecomplexity:Talking about something complex? Use analogies to make abstract concepts tangible, especially when it comes to numbers. For instance, saying you need to analyze a petabyte of data is less impactful than explaining that a petabyte is the equivalent of taking four thousand digital photos every day for your entire life. In addition to simplifying concepts, simplify your language and avoid industry jargon. While some believe using big words will
make them seem smarter, it typically makes the audience feel dumb—and you can’t win them over if they don’t understand you!
6. Practice—alot:It’s a myth that some people are naturalborn public speakers. The confidence and charisma of expert presenters is less a gift and more a skill that’s honed with time and repetition. The good news is that anyone, including you, can have it too.
For more information about storytelling, see Part V, Chapter 70.
Understand and Speak the Language of Business
DwayneHill
In life, exhibiting the ability to speak and communicate effectively through language can enable enriching experiences, build trust, and reduce embarrassing moments. Effective speech and communication also carry over into the business world. Designers who can speak the language of business helps them communicate design decisions in narratives that resonate with business decision makers.
UX designers not only advocate for users; we also solve business problems. Whether you’re a consultant or you work inside an organization, you’re paid to solve a problem for the end user on behalf of a business that wants to increase profits, reduce expenses, and gain a competitive advantage.
The following terms will help you communicate with your business peers. These are just a small fraction of the terms you could learn, but knowing and using these will help you build positive relationships with your business partners since you’ll be speaking from a perspective they understand.
ReturnonInvestment(ROI):A way to measure the performance and efficiency of an investment. When companies invest in something, such as people, research, or product development, they want the benefits of their investment to outperform what the investment cost. If a company invests $500K a year (cost) in your team, then
your team should generate more revenue than what it costs to employ you. Other ways of delivering ROI are to decrease company expenses by creating more efficient internal processes or by removing customer frustrations.
Profit:A financial gain usually indicated by the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent buying, operating, or producing something. Profit measures the performance of the business. People are often willing to pay more for better materials or design, which can result in charging more for quality products and increasing profits (we see this, for example, with companies like Nike and Apple).
Understanding how your design decisions can or will deliver profit helps get buy-in from business stakeholders because you’re taking their perspective into consideration.
Revenue:The total income generated or brought into a company from its primary business of selling a product or service.
Revenuemodel:A framework that describes how a company generates revenue. It contains key components of a company’s business model, identifying which revenue source to pursue, what value to offer, how to price the value, and who pays for the value. A few examples of revenue models are subscriptions (Netflix), freemiums (LinkedIn), and franchising (McDonald’s). Knowing the revenue models of the company will help you understand how it makes money and provide insight on design direction.
Businessmodel:Describes the way a company generates value for its customers. A business model helps explain the overall strategy of a company. A few examples of business models are retail (brick and mortar), gig economies, and ecommerce. It’s a good practice to tie your design decisions back to how you’re generating value for the customer.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
All learning is valuable; all history is useful By knowing what has been we can better judge the future; by knowing how men have acted heretofore we can understand how they will act again in similar circumstances.
Place the stress in the following exercises:
It is a compliment to a public speaker that the audience should discuss what he says rather than his manner of saying it; more complimentary that they should remember his arguments, than that they should praise his rhetoric. The speaker should seek to conceal himself behind his subject.
Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and Heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important questions on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defense against the monster, slavery.
—J W , “Boston Massacre.”
Thou know’st, great son, The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain, That if thou conquer Rome, the benefit Which thou shalt thereby reap in such a name Whose repetition will be dogg’d with curses; Whose chronicle thus writ: “The man was noble, But with his last attempt he wiped it out, Destroy’d his country, and his name remains To the ensuing age abhorred.”
S , “Coriolanus.”
We say to you (our opponents) that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the
attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the crossroads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in the spring and toils all summer, and who by application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding-places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade, are as much business men as the few financial magnates who in a back room corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.
Oh do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for power equal to your tasks; then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life, which has come to you by the grace of God.
P B
There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it hardly behooves any of us, To talk about the rest of us.
R L S .
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know and not be known, live in a city.
C .
No man is inspired by the occasion; I never was.
(Does stress fall upon “I,” or upon “never”?)
In men whom men condemn as ill,
—W .
I find so much of goodness still; In men whom men account divine, I find so much of sin and blot, I hesitate to draw the line between the two, Where God has not.
J M .
ALL IN THE EMPHASIS
B E M
Written expressly for Delight and Power in Speech
The crows flew over my field at morn, Shouting disdain: “Such corn, corn!” Hearing this, I said, “My corn is safe; When crows deride, the corn is safe.”
But the next hour I looked indeed, And they were digging up the seed, And shouting still—not now in scorn But in delight—“Such corn, such !”
A S P
When we pause we suspend our speech, but continue our thought. It is a resting place for us better to conceive of the importance either of the thought just expressed or of the one that follows. The mind is busy re-creating a new idea for the one who is listening. Pausing gives time for the speaker to get the new idea and it also gives time for the auditor to hear the new idea. It often occurs that we are more impressive during the interval of pausing than during the interval of speech. The majority of people in ordinary conversation do not use the pause enough. One result is that they are uninteresting and monotonous in speech.
In the following excerpt, taken from an address by Henry Ward Beecher, indicate the frequency of pauses and then tell fully, in your own words, what the successive ideas are upon which the mind is concentrating:
Now, a living force that brings to itself all the resources of the imagination, all the inspirations of feeling, all that is influential in body, in voice, in eye, in gesture, in posture, in the whole animated man, is in strict analogy with the divine thought and the divine arrangement; and there is no misconception more utterly untrue and fatal than this: that oratory is an artificial thing, which deals with baubles and trifles, for the sake of making bubbles of pleasure for transient effect on mercurial audiences. So far from that, it is the consecration of the whole man to the noblest purposes to which one can address himself—the education and inspiration of his fellow-men by all that there is in learning, by all that there is in thought, by all that there is in feeling, by all that there is in all of them, sent home through the channels of taste and beauty. And so regarded, oratory should take its place among the highest departments of education.
In reading the following of what value is pause? Does it indicate distance? Make selections from your own reading which illustrate the importance of the pause.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going; O sweet and far, from cliff and scar, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
T .
What is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence
For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe; But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; ’tis we musicians know.
—B .
O well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor-lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill: But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.
T
K P
Pauses may be long or short, frequent or seldom.
In the following exercises indicate where and what kind of pauses you would naturally have:
Woman without her man is a brute
Speech is a jewel silence must form its setting
Silas Marner decided to keep the child who was frozen one evening outside his house in the snow
We will hang together or we will hang separately
Pausing is to speaking what shading is to drawing
The perfection of art is to conceal art
Henry wrote the book
What do you think I’ll shave you for nothing and give you plenty to eat and something to drink
S
I T
When we are speaking in ordinary conversation, or in public address, the tones we use have much to do in making our meaning clear. How often a person, merely by the tone of his voice, conveys an entirely different meaning than was intended. He is accused of being sarcastic when he had no intention that his remark should be so regarded.
Let us remember that in whatever state of mind we may be it is unconsciously reflected in our voice. If we feel timid, embarrassed or self-conscious it is registered in our tone when we speak. On the other hand, if we feel gay, optimistic, earnest and confident these moods are likewise revealed in our speech. Thus we find tone to be an index to character.
The function of tone-color is most important. It reveals the subtle changes of our thoughts and feelings. It can make the hearer see more clearly and feel more deeply what you say. Nothing so quickly reveals your sincerity of purpose as the tone of your voice. It is the source of the greatest pleasure to the hearer. It marks you as a cultured person. And best of all it cannot be regulated by rule. If you can express the tone admiration in colloquial language, there is no reason why you cannot express it in the language of a Browning or a Shakespeare.
It is not so much what you say,
As the manner in which you say it; It is not so much the language you use, As the tones in which you convey it.
“Come here!” I sharply said, And the baby cowered and wept; “Come here!” I cooed and he looked and smiled, And straight to my lap he crept.
The words may be mild and fair, And the tones may pierce like a dart; The words may be soft as the summer air, And the tones may break the heart.
For words but come from the mind, And grow by study and art; But the tones leap forth from the inner self, And reveal the state of the heart.
Whether you know it or not—
Whether you mean or care, Gentleness, kindness, love and hate, Envy and anger are there.
Then would you quarrels avoid, And in peace and love rejoice, Keep anger not only out of your words, But keep it out of your voice.
—S E H .
In Part II instructions were given in word analysis and thoughtgrouping. Let the student analyze the words, outline the thoughtgroups and determine just where the pause naturally falls, and whether the interval of rest is long or short, in the following selections. He should also be able to explain just why certain groups are separated by a long, and others by a short, pause.
A MESSAGE TO GARCIA
B E H
(Extract from The Philistine for March, 1899.)
When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his coöperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you if anybody can.” Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instructions about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebræ which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing—“Carry a message to Garcia!”
The following is a one-minute composition by a student, illustrating the power of tone and also of mood suspense:
The lion crept stealthily onward, ever onward, with his eyes fixedly staring at the unfortunate boy who cowered before him. The boy, trembling from head to foot, backed slowly toward a yawning precipice. He was on the edge! The loose earth was slowly crumbling under his feet! He was falling! The earth was coming up to
meet him at a terrific rate. Another second, and he would be dashed to death on those rocks below!
Then a sweet voice called to him: “Time to get up, Johnnie.”
A most striking example of the power of suspense is Mark Twain’s story of “The Golden Arm.”
Once ’pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, ’en he live ’way out in de prairie all ’lone by hisself, ’cep’n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well, she had a golden arm—all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz pow’ful mean—pow’ful; en dat night he couldn’t sleep, caze he want dat golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn’t stan’ it no mo; so he git up, he did, en tuck his lantern en shoved out throo de storm en dug her up en got de golden arm; en he bent his head down ’gin de win’, en plowed, en plowed, en plowed throo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say: “My lan’, what’s dat!”
En he listen—en listen—en de win’ say (set your teeth together and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), “Bzzz-zzzz”—en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a voice!— he hear a voice all mix’ up in de win’—can’t hardly tell ’em ’part —“Bzzz-zzz—W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n Arm?—zzz-zzz—WH-O G-O-T M-Y G-O-L-D-E-N ARM?” (You must begin to shiver violently now.)
En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, “Oh, my! Oh, my lan’! en de win’ blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en ’mos’ choke him, en he start a-plowin’ knee-deep towards home mos’ dead, he so sk’yerd—en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it is comin’ after him! Bzzz-zzz-zzz—W-h-o—G-o-t—M-y— G-o-l-d-e-n arm?”
When he git in de pasture he hear it agin—closter now, en acomin’!—a-comin’ back dah in de dark en de storm—(repeat the wind and the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en lay dah shiverin’ en
shakin’—en den way out dah he hear it ag’in!—en a-comin’! En bimeby he hear (pause—awed, listening attitude)—pat—pat—pat— hit’s a-comin’ upstairs! Den he hear de latch, en he know it’s in de room!
Den pooty soon he know it’s a-standin’ by his bed! (Pause.) Den— he know it’s a-bendin’ down over him—en he cain’t skasely git his breath! Den—den—he seem to feel somethin’ c-o-l-d, right down ’most agin his head! (Pause.)
Den de voice say, right at his ear—“W-h-o—g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-en arm?” (You must wail it out plaintively and accusingly; then you stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone auditor—a girl preferably—and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, “You’ve got it!” If you’ve got the pause right, she’ll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out of her shoes. But you must get the pause right; and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook.)
The student may give himself fine exercise by choosing any one of the following moods and writing a one-minute composition upon it. Then let him read it aloud with the appropriate tone:
A wonderful illustration of “Mood” is afforded in a marvelous poem written by Bartholomew Dowling, at one time the editor of The Mirror, in San Francisco, California. It depicts the “heroism of despair,” as, perhaps, it was never presented before or since in all literature.
Without commending the sentiment expressed, the authors give this poem a place in their volume as an incomparable example, well worthy of prolonged study, of the power of words to express “mood.” One of the greatest dramatists the world has ever known used to read this poem aloud, daily, for years.
HURRAH FOR THE NEXT THAT DIES![10]
B B D
We meet ’neath the sounding rafter, And the walls around are bare: As they shout back our peals of laughter, It seems as the dead were there. Then stand to your glasses!—steady!
We drink ’fore our comrades’ eyes; One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
Not here are the goblets glowing, Not here is the vintage sweet; ’Tis cold as our hearts are growing, And dark as the doom we meet. But stand to your glasses!—steady! And soon shall our pulses rise. One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
There’s many a hand that’s shaking, And many a cheek that’s sunk; But soon, though our hearts are breaking, They’ll burn with the wine we’ve drunk. Then stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis here the revival lies; Quaff a cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
Time was when we laughed at others; We thought we were wiser then. Ha! Ha! let them think of their mothers, Who hope to see them again. No! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
The thoughtless is here the wise; One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
Not a sigh for the lot that darkles, Not a tear for the friends that sink; We’ll fall ’mid the wine-cup’s sparkles, As mute as the wine we drink. Come! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis this that the respite buys; One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
Who dreads to the dust returning? Who shrinks from the sable shore, Where the high and haughty yearning Of the soul can sting no more? No! Stand to your glasses!—steady!
This world is a world of lies; One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
Cut off from the land that bore us, Betray’d by the land we find, When the brightest are gone before us, And the dullest are left behind. Stand!—stand to your glasses!—steady!
’Tis all we have left to prize; One cup to the dead already: Hurrah for the next that dies!
CHAPTER XI
HOW TO READ POETRY
In order to avoid the “singsong” habit, common to so many while reading poetry, let us remember to make but a very delicate pause at the end of each line. Of course, if the sense requires a decided pause, one should not fail to make it. Browning’s “My Star” is a splendid example of where but a very slight swelling of the voice is necessary to indicate the end of each line.
All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
To illustrate the contrary to this let us refer to a few lines from Riley’s “The South Wind and the Sun,” noting that the poise of the tone is considerably longer at the end of each line.
And the humming-bird that hung Like a jewel up among The tilted honeysuckle-horns, They mesmerized and swung In the palpitating air, Drowsed with odors strange and rare, And, with whispered laughter, slipped away
And left him hanging there.
We can hardly overestimate the value of a careful study of the lyric to the student of expressive speech. It demands superior powers to render a lyric adequately. Bertha Kuntz Baker, the great American reader, thus suggestively writes on this subject:
To clarify the diction, go over the poem, word by word, conform each word carefully, repeatedly to your ideal of that word, giving the vowel its fullest possible value, tucking in the consonants as clear, light envelopes around and between the vowels.
PISGAH-SIGHT
B R B
Good, to forgive:
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret; Dying, we live.
Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion!
Earth have dominion, Body, o’er thee!
Wander at will, Day after day,— Wander away, Wandering still—
Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber:
Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more.
Waft of soul’s wing! What lies above?
Sunshine and Love, Skyblue and Spring!
Body hides—where?
Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care!
DAWN
B P L D
An angel, robed in spotless white, Bent down and kissed the sleeping night. Night woke to blush: the sprite was gone; Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.
FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL
B L T
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.
THE WORKER’S GUERDON
B F P S
Expect nor fame, nor gold, nor any praise— The world puts not its meed in every hand; Work on and still be thankful all thy days If even one shall see and understand!
MY HEART LEAPS UP
B W W
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
When we think of melody in speech, we immediately think of the lyric. In form and in spirit it approaches nearest towards music, for it is “emotion all compact.” When we have stimulated within us a noble emotion, we begin at once to respond in some rhythmic action, a beat of our foot, sway of the body, or humming in a tuneful way. There is melody in prose as well as in poetry, only it is not so pronounced. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” is a splendid example of prose-poetry. We are under obligation to James Raymond Perry in the North American Review for metrically dividing this oration:
Four score and seven years ago
Our fathers brought forth upon this continent
A new nation conceived in liberty And dedicated to the proposition That all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, Testing whether that nation, or any nation So conceived and so dedicated Can long endure. We are met On a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of That field as a final resting place For those who here gave their lives That this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper That we should do this But in a larger sense We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, We cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, Living and dead, who struggled here, Have consecrated it far above our power To add or detract. The world will little note Nor long remember what we say here, But it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here To the unfinished work which they who fought here Have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated To the great task remaining before us; That from these honored dead we take Increased devotion to that cause for which They gave the last full measure of devotion; That we here highly resolve that these dead Shall not have died in vain, that this nation, Under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; And that the government of the people, By the people, and for the people, Shall not perish from the earth.
Channing’s “Symphony” is another interesting illustration of musical prose:
To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
The most striking example of all is the following excerpt taken from Ingersoll’s oration entitled “A Vision of War”:
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty—they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars: they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
POETICAL SELECTIONS
Colloquial
Humorous
Humorous Dialect
Pathetic
Dramatic
Sublime
Lyric
Poetry is the highest, most beautiful and perfect verbal expression of thought allowed to man. The higher the poetry the more is it permeated with elevating human emotion.
COLLOQUIAL SELECTIONS IN POETRY
THE PESSIMIST
B B K
Nothing to do but work, Nothing to eat but food, Nothing to wear but clothes To keep one from going nude.
Nothing to breathe but air; Quick as a flash ’tis gone; Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stand but on.
Nothing to comb but hair, Nowhere to sleep but in bed, Nothing to weep but tears, Nothing to bury but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs, Ah, well, alas! alack! Nowhere to go but out, Nowhere to come but back.
Nothing to see but sights, Nothing to quench but thirst, Nothing to have but what we’ve got; Thus through life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait; Everything moves that goes. Nothing at all but common sense Can ever withstand these woes.
