Giving a speech or doing a demonstration at a 4-H club day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4-H is a national youth development program administered by the Cooperative Extension System under the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The name refers to a focus on personal qualities of Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. 4-H clubs provide youth opportunities related to agriculture, civic engagement, healthy living and STEM.

 

Back on August 19, 2012 I had blogged about watching A 4-H speech at the Western Idaho Fair. 4-H clubs have speech contests for teenagers (and younger children). State (or provincial) university extension services responsible for 4-H clubs have detailed instructional materials about giving presentations, which are useful for all teenagers. Here are some examples:

 

California

There is a 58-page pdf article from the University of California revised on January 28, 2021 and titled 4-H Presentation Manual.

 

Kansas

There is an 11-page pdf article from Kansas State University – Extension Harper County titled Thinking of doing a Talk or Demonstration at 4-H Day? WHY NOT! Here are some helpful hints! Another 6-page pdf article from July 2019 is titled Kansas 4-H Preparing and Using Visual Aids – Fact Sheet 7.0.

 

Maryland

A 26-page pdf article from February 2021 is titled the Maryland 4-H Public Speaking Guide.

 

Montana

A 64-page pdf article from the Montana State University Extension in 2016 is titled Montana 4-H Clover Communications.

 

North Carolina

A 18-page pdf article from May 2019 is titled North Carolina 4-H Presentations.

 

Orgeon

A 16-page pdf article from Oregon Cooperative Extension in January 2017 is titled 4-H Presentation Guide.

 

South Dakota

A 22-page pdf article from May 2019 is titled the South Dakota 4-H Public Presentation Guideline.

 

Texas

A 21-page pdf article from the Texas Agricultural Extension Service on June 1999 is titled Public Speaking…4-H Style. Another 16-page pdfarticle by Iris Kalich from the Texas Agricultural Extension Service is titled 4-H Public Presentation Guide: Method demonstrations & Illustrated Talks. And a 61-page pdf article from Texas A & M Agrilife EXTENSION is titled Explore Public Speaking Project.

 

Wisconsin

A 16-page pdf article from the University of Wisconsin Extension: 4-H Youth Development on December 2023 is titled A Parent’s Guide to Public Speaking.

 

Alberta

A 22-page pdf article from 4-H Alberta on September 2005 is titled Speaking Your Way to Success. And another massive 142-page pdf articleby Hugh Phillips from 4-H Alberta on October 2005 is titled 4-H Speak Pack – Communicating Effectively….the 4-H Way.

 

The 4-H emblem came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

An amusing xkcd comic with a 2x2 table about Dinosaurs or Not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The xkcd comic by Randall Munroe on February 6, 2026 is titled Dinosaurs and Non-Dinosaurs. As shown above in my colorized version, there is a 2x2 table with horizontal categories for ARE DINOSAURS or ARE NOT DINOSAURS, and vertical categories for SEEM LIKE DINOSAURS or DON’T SEEM LIKE DINOSAURS.

 

This cartoon is discussed at Explain Xkcd. The box with orange at the upper right for ARE NOT DINOSAURS but SEEM LIKE DINOSAURS are mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pteranodon, dimetrodon, and quetzalcoatlus. And the box with blue at the lower left for ARE DINOSAURS but DON’T SEEM LIKE DINOSAURS just are birds.

 

On January 19, 2024 I blogged about The Joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrices.

 

 

An excellent series of articles on the writer’s craft from Lorelei Lingard in the magazine Perspectives in Medical Education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of mediocre articles about writing, but fewer excellent ones. An article by Lorelei Lingard in Perspectives in Medical Education on April 8, 2015 (Volume 4, Number 2, pages 79 and 80) is titled The writer’s craft and introduces a series. She has a PhD in rhetoric and is a professor. Articles in the series cover topics ranging from titles, to verbs, to sentences to paragraphs.

 

One on April 9, 2015 Volume 4 Number 2, pages 53 and 54 is titled Enlisting the power of the verb. A second on January 26, 2016 (Volume 5 Number 1, pages 39 to 41) is titled Get control of your commas. A third on May 23, 2016 Volume 5 Number 3, pages 179 to 181 is titled Bonfire red titles. A fourth on December 8, 2016 (Volume 6, Number 1, pages 51 to 53) is titled Mastering the Sentence. A fifth on April 10, 2019 Volume 10 Number 2, pages 98 to 100 is titled From semi-conscious to strategic paragraphing. A sixth on December 18, 2019 (Volume 18, Number 9, pages 57 to 59) is titled Pace, pause & silence: Creating emphasis & suspense in your writing. A seventh on November 3, 2021 (Volume 10, Number 6, pages 347 to 351) is titled When English clashes with other languages: Insights and cautions from the Writer’s Craft series. And an eighth on March 8, 2022 (Volume 11, Number 4, pages 228 to 231) is titled Writing for the reader: Using reader expectation principles to maximize clarity.

 

For example, in Bonfire red titles Lorelei says:

 

“….A title is like a front door: it serves as advertising for what’s inside your research paper. Have a look at the last title you wrote for an academic manuscript. Is it a red door or a white one? Does it draw readers into your work or encourage them to walk by?

 

Titles must achieve two goals: quickly grab the reader and faithfully describe the paper. This likely explains our common addiction to the ‘colon title,’ in which what precedes the colon is meant to be catchy and what follows is meant to be descriptive.”

 

The image of a writer was adapted from one at the Library of Congress.

 

 

Beware: acronyms and abbreviations can have multiple meanings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on September 7, 2021 I posted about Don’t AWE your audience by using Acronyms Without Explanations. Always define acronyms because they are a form of jargon. There is an excellent article by Neil M. Davis in Medical Writing magazine on December 2020 (Volume 29, Number 4, pages 16 to 19) titled Medical abbreviations with multiple meanings: A prescription for disaster.

 

For example, HD can mean Hansen Disease, Hodgkin Disease, or Huntington Disease. And NBM can mean Nothing by Mouth, No Bowel Movement, or Normal Bowel Movement. NE can mean No Effect, No Enlargement, or just Not Evaluated. The general link for that magazine (which has freely downloadable articles) is here.

 

My cartoon was modified from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Dick Van Dyke told his hardest story from a 75-year career

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dick Van Dyke turned 100 on December 13, 2025. And he published a book with a series of stories titled 100 Rules for Living to 100: An optimist’s guide to a happy life. An article by Sarah Lemire at Today on November 18, 2025 is titled EXCLUSIVE: At Almost 100, Dick Van Dyke Won’t Sit Still – and Is Eyeing 1 More Big Role. She notes that he had a 75-year career. There is another article by Liz McNeil in People magazine on November 25, 2025 titled Dick Van Dyke ‘Feels Pretty Good for 100.’ Here’s Why He’s Optimistic About His Centennial Birthday (Exclusive).

 

 On pages 105 to 113 there is a great story, titled Tell Your Hardest Story:

 

“In December 1973, I found a seat in a circle of chairs in a grim, fluorescent-lit meeting room at the Brentwood Veterans’ Hospital. Around me were military vets, young and old, all hospitalized for drug and alcohol addiction and gathered for regular group therapy. I was there as a visitor, doing research for my role as an alcoholic in The Morning After, a TV movie being shot elsewhere in the facility.

 

It was weird for these guys to have a Hollywood actor eavesdropping on their raw, real-life stories of struggle, I could tell. Right off the bat, I needed to assure them that I would be a sympathetic listener. ‘The subject of my movie is very personal to me,’ I began, ‘because I myself am an alcoholic.’

 

Their faces flickered with surprise. At the time, only my family and a handful of other people in my life knew about my drinking problem.

 

‘So, I understand some of what you’re going through. But really, I’m here to listen and learn.”

 

Then Dick decided to go public.

 

“The story got picked up across the country. As expected, when Mr. Goody Two-shoes admitted his addiction to the world, the public was shocked. Friends and colleagues from wherever I’d lived and worked called to offer sympathy and encouragement, reporting that they, and everyone they knew could barely believe the news. Within a week, I was getting letters by the thousand – people were moved and incredibly understanding. Many detailing how alcoholism had impacted them and their loved ones.

 

That reaction spurred me to go even more public. I appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, one of the best interviews I’ve ever done, and I told my story onstage in Washington, DC, for a press conference with other celebrity alcoholics. I am told that rehab facilities still show The Morning After to this day.

 

…. Each time I put a new layer of it into words, I feel a release of the power that alcoholism had over me. I was separating myself from the disease, seeing my experience as a battle with the disease. Telling my story was giving me power and freedom.

 

Each of us has our own hard stories of crisis and struggle. When we hold them in, out of fear or shame, they control us. But when we tell our stories, we’re in the driver’s seat. And when we share those stories, even just among our friends and family, we are literally helping one another to survive, just like that brotherhood of vets.”  

 

Pages 9 and 10 have a story titled Make Your Own Rules. On page 10 Dick has the following weasel words about his rules and stories:

 

“I readily admit that you might find variations of the same rule emerging in multiple stories here. That’s because my life, like everyone else’s, has its personality-specific ongoing themes – questions that pop up, over and over again, in different contexts, old challenges that look different in each new light, wisdom learned and forgotten and learned again.

 

I might also add that, for some of these stories, there’s not exactly a rule or even a specific question. Sometimes that’s because I know there’s some nugget of meaning in the story, but I haven’t figured out what it is. Maybe you can! Other times, it’s just a funny story, plain and simple. Because don’t we all sometimes just need comic relief?

 

Finally, if you’re inclined to count up these rules to see if there are exactly one hundred, as advertised in the title, your math might disappoint you, just a little. Quality over quantity, as the saying goes, right? I can assure you that this book will deliver enough main rules, sub-rules, ancillary rules, and multipart rules to last you a lifetime, yes, all the way to one hundred!”    

 

His book doesn’t bother to number those stories or even give us a Table of Contents. I got suspicious about whether there really were a hundred, and then wrote down the following list of all the story titles (grouped ten at a time):  

 

Don’t Act Your Age

Make Your Own Rules

Examine Your Head

Learn to Fall

Find Your Passion in Your Past

Tolerate and Cherish Your Little Brother

Face Your Fear

Find “The New You” Inside “The Old You”

Find Your People – A Story in Several Parts

Figure Out Who You Aren’t

 

Don’t Litter: Tips for Safety and Hygiene on Family Road Trips in the 1950s

Don’t Count on “The Big Break”

Hone Your Bit (Every Job Is Training for the Next One)

Don’t Do Live Morning TV

Some Secrets You Shouldn’t Tell

Eggs Again? Some Failures Are Just That

Dance with Chita

Go Nuts (But Maybe Not That Nuts)

Suck Up to the Landlady

Speak Up for Your Family

 

It Doesn’t Take a Good Boss to Do Great Work

Accept Your Limitations

Win an Oscar

Stay on the Phone

Make Christmas with What You’ve Got

Don’t Trust Machines

Reconsider the Boogeyman

Tell Your Hardest Stories

Play Against Type

Retire on Your Own Terms

 

Remain Anonymous

Start a Band

Commit to Play

Save All That Artwork

Believe in Fate

Take Your Doubts to the Desert

Accept “Rescue” with Grace

See the Pattern to Get Past It

Help Someone Find Their Voice: Do’s and Don’ts

Reimagine Your Legacy

 

Read the Fine Print

Learn from Animals: 3 Species, 4 Rules

Get a Good DJ

Write It Down

Bond Through Crisis

Be Someone’s Baker

Get Frank: A Meditation on Old Rifts

Remember the Good Stuff, Leave the Rest Behind

Reminisce While You Can

Get a Great Sidekick

 

Clear the Air

Get a Second Opinion (and a Third and a Fourth…)

Learn from Teaching

Cross Off Regrets

Learn from Shame

Never Call “Cut”

Don’t Match Jimmy

Don’t Live in the Past

It Pays to Go to the Gym

Build a Slide and Grandkids Will Come

 

Transmogrify Halloween (On Family Traditions)

The Clothes Make the Gnome

Stay Tall Inside

Hand Over the Keys

Read While You Can

Do Get All Judgy (When You’re Watching TV)

Learn a New Way to Fall

Carpe Chita

Remember Honestly

Live with Regrets

 

Your Purpose Doesn’t Need to be Grand

You Will Not Be Alone

Save the Afterlife for After Life

You Can’t Protect Your Survivors

Find Your Arlene

 

As you can see, there are just seventy-five. The book could have more honestly been titled Seventy-Five Rules from My 75-Year Career: An optimist’s guide to a happy life.

 

The wreath was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.  

 

A decorated book drop at my friendly local public library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I return books at the Lake Hazel branch of the Ada Community Library I get a chuckle from using their decorated inside book drop. When I pull the handle on its drum, it rotates downward to reveal eight teeth, as is shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That library branch also has a drive-up book drop. Some book drops are more complicated than they appear. There may be a spring-loaded surface inside. As shown in this brief Reddit video, books do not drop all the way to the ground from the slot.  

 

There is an article by Dr. Steve Albrecht at Library 2.0 on April 5, 2024 titled Horror Stories from the Book Drop: A Recap of Items Found by Librarians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside book drops sometimes are vandalized. Back in 2010 a disgruntled patron threw mayonnaise and other condiments into the drop at the Victory Road branch of the Ada Community Library. Another Reuters article on January 29, 2011 described how a Woman who dumped condiments in book drop pleads guilty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But that’s not the worst thing possible. Still another article by Chuck Knox in LIDAR Magazine on January 15, 2018 titled Future After Fire: The Renovation of the Eckhart Public Library said that:

 

“In the early morning of July 2nd, 2017 3 individuals were wandering the town of Auburn, Indiana looking to cause trouble. That trouble resulted in 1 of the 3 dropping a lit 1” mortar style fire firework in the return book drop box of the Eckhart Public Library. The result was an intense fire that caused an estimated 3.4 million dollars’ worth of damage to the building and its contents. The Auburn Fire Department was quickly on the scene and had the fire extinguished within 10 minutes of arriving. Even with their quick response the damage was horrific. Within a week of the fire the Auburn Police arrested Nykolas Elkin age 24 for the arson. He later admitted he placed the lit firework in the drop box; he was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison for the crime.”

 

Images of a mayonnaise jar and a fire truck came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Tips for tackling wordiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brief article by Barbara Bashein on page 28 in the November 2019 Toastmaster magazine titled Shed the Dread of Business Writing. Her tips are to:

 

Eliminate wordiness. For example, change ‘at the present time’ to ‘currently’ or ‘now’.

 

Use clear and concise words. For example, change ‘utilize’ to ‘use.’

 

Use active rather than passive sentence structures. For example: ‘The team wrote the report,’ rather than ‘The report was written by the team.’

 

And there is a web page by Margaret Procter at University of Toronto: Writing Advice titled Wordiness: Danger Signals and Ways to React with tips about how to change:

 

Doubling of Words (choose one)

 

Intensifiers, Qualifiers (omit or give specific details)

 

Formulaic Phrases (use a one-word form or omit)

 

Catch-all Terms (can sometimes omit)

 

Padded Verbs (use a one-word form)

 

Unnecessary ‘to be’ and ‘being’ (omit)

 

Passive Verbs (change to active voice, if possible with a personal subject)

 

Overuse of Relative Structures (‘Who,’ ‘Which,’ ‘That’) (omit when possible)

 

And a four-page pdf article by Barb Every in Medical Writing magazine for March 2017, pages 17 to 20 (Volume 6, Number 1) is titled Writing economically in medicine and science: Tips for tackling wordiness. She says to avoid repetition, eliminate redundancy, and minimize purposeless words. Barb’s Table 1 on omitting redundant words is as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cartoon was modifed from this one at OpenClipArt.