er forms succeed. Sometimes we feel confident that we
have perfect mastery of an idea, but when the time comes to
express it, the clearness becomes a haze. Exposition, then, is
the test of clear understanding. To speak effectively you must
be able to see your subject clearly and comprehensively, and to
make your audience see it as you do."[14]

There are pitfalls on both sides of this path. To explain too little
will leave your audience in doubt as to what you mean. It is useless to
argue a question if it is not perfectly clear just what is meant by the
question. Have you never come to a blind lane in conversation by finding
that you were talking of one aspect of a matter while your friend was
thinking of another? If two do not agree in their definitions of a
Musician, it is useless to dispute over a certain man's right to claim
the title.

On the other side of the path lies the abyss of tediously explaining too
much. That offends because it impresses the hearers that you either do
not respect their intelligence or are trying to blow a breeze into a
tornado. Carefully estimate the probable knowledge of your audience,
both in general and of the particular point you are explaining. In
trying to simplify, it is fatal to "sillify." To explain more than is
needed for the purposes of your argument or appeal is to waste energy
all around. In your efforts to be explicit do not press exposition to
the extent of dulness--the confines are not far distant and you may
arrive before you know it.

_Some Purposes of Exposition_

From what has been said it ought to be clear that, primarily, exposition
weaves a cord of understanding between you and your audience. It lays,
furthermore, a foundation of fact on which to build later statements,
arguments, and appeals. In scientific and purely "information" speeches
exposition may exist by itself and for itself, as in a lecture on
biology, or on psychology; but in the vast majority of cases it is used
to accompany and prepare the way for the other forms of discourse.

Clearness, precision, accuracy, unity, truth, and necessity--these must
be the _constant_ standards by which you test the efficiency of your
expositions, and, indeed, that of every explanatory statement. This
dictum should be written on your brain in letters most plain. And let
this apply not alone to the _purposes_ of exposition but in equal
measure to your use of the

_Methods of Exposition_

T