Emphasis 1

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You can dramatically change the significance of what you say in a presentation by
stressing words which would normally be unstressed or contracted. Look at the
following examples:
Neutral Remarks

Emphatic Remarks

Its our best chance of success.

We were hoping for a better deal.
Were doing the best we can.
Weve tried to limit the damage.
We cant go ahead with this.
I see what you mean.
They promised completion by June.
It isnt cost-effective.
Do we or dont we believe in service?

It is our best chance of success.

We were hoping for a better deal.
We are doing the best we can.
We have tried to limit the damage.
We cannot go ahead with this.
I do see what you mean.
They did promise completion by June.
Its not cost-effective.
Do we or do we not believe in service?

Notice how the auxiliary verbs (is, are, was, were, has, have, had) and negatives
carry a lot of the emphasis.

TASK
Now change the following presentation extracts to emphasize the main points. The
first one has been done for you as an example.
1. Its been an exceptional year.

> It has been an exceptional year.

2. Its difficult to see what the underlying trend is.

3. Well get the price we want in the end.
4. Rs 20 million isnt worth worrying about.
5. We dont see any need for further injection of cash.
6. They promised to have the feasibility study completed by now.
7. Have we or havent we enjoyed ten years of sustained growth?
8. Id just like to say that well be reviewing the whole situation in six months time.
9. Look, weve been through all this before and we arent going through it all again.
10. We offered them an apology and wed hoped that would be the end of the matter.