How to communicate effectively

    Effective communication is a must for everyone who hopes to be successful. It helps express your thoughts and improves your career prospects (前景) as well as strengthens relationships. Therefore, it's necessary to work hard to improve your communication skills.

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    Before you are ready to talk to a group of people, you should think about what you are going to talk about. Although a printed copy of a speech may not be always necessary, highlighting a few important issues in your mind is a must. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} And it reduces the possibilities of getting away from the main issues.

Choose your words

    Choice of words is the most important part of any communication. Simple, clear words are appropriate for the issue you are discussing. Needless to say, words that could make your audience unpleasant are best kept out of the communication. Most people tend to be careful about their language while at work. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} This may hurt your loved ones beyond your imagination.

Body language

    Many people use body language by mistake and end up making a fool of themselves. Body language means keeping eye contact and using hand gestures only wherever required. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} This will make your talk more of a stage performance and defeat its purpose.

Listen and concentrate

    Communication is an exchange of ideas. Once you are done with your part, listen carefully to what other people plan to say. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}  Get rid of all distractions (分散注意力的事物) such as a phone before you begin communication. A distraction not only disturbs your focus, but it also causes your audience's attention to wander.

    Because plants cannot move or talk, most people believe that they have no feelings and that they cannot receive signals from outside. However, this may not be completely true.

    People who studied plants have found out that plants carry a small electrical charge (电荷). It is possible to measure this charge with a small piece of equipment called “galvanometer”. The galvanometer is placed on a leaf of the plant, and it records any changes in the electrical field of the leaf. Humans have a similar field which can change when we are shocked or frightened.

    A man called Backster used a galvanometer for his studies of plants and was very surprised at his results. He found that if he had two or more plants in a room and he began to destroy one of them —perhaps by pulling off its leaves or by pulling it out of its pot—then the galvanometer on the leaves of the other plants showed a change in the electrical field. It seemed as if the plants were signaling a feeling of shock. This happened not only when Backster started to destroy plants, but also when he destroyed other living thing such as insects (昆虫).

    Backster said that the plants also knew if someone had destroyed a living thing some distance away, because they signalled when a man who had just cut down a tree entered the room.

    Another scientist, named Sauvin, achieved similar results to Backster's. He kept galvanometers fixed on his plants all the time and checked regularly to see what the plants were doing. If he was out of the office, he telephoned to find out about the signals the plants were sending. In this way, he found that the plants were sending out signals at the exact times when he felt strong pleasure or pain. In fact, Sauvin could cause a change in the electrical field of his plants over a distance of a few miles simply by thinking about them.

    A recent study by Citi Retail Services found that a growing number of people are embracing digital wallets or e-wallets, due in large part to their convenience and ease of use.

    E-wallets have been called the future of real-world payment technology.With major players like Alipay,WeChat and Apple Pay becoming popular,it seems to be a safe bet that a change in consumer payment technology is coming soon.

    CNN reporter Paul Ripley experienced a day in Beijing without his wallet."In China's largest cities, you can definitely survive without carrying a pocket full of cash and credit cards-as long as you've got your smartphone."He paid for breakfast by scanning a QR code on the window of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.All he had to do was to enter a password and the transaction was complete.

    Unlike the situations in the US and other countries,"China doesn't have a really money-making credit card system, so Chinese people just skipped credit cards and went straight to mobile payments."Gu Yu,co-founder of the new payment app Mileslife,told CNN.He also pointed out the advantages of mobile payments."No coins or bills that can be lost or stolen. electronic receipts, the ease of keeping rack of spending-and of course,no wallet taking up space."he said.

    However, if we want to make e-wallets a mainstream trend a lot of things will have to change over the coming years.Perhaps one of the most important things that need to be changed is how people regard e-wallets.Linda Barrabee,research director for NPD Connected Intelligence, said in a statement."In order to promote on-the-go consumer transactions and commerce, wireless carriers, credit card companies, and e-commerce companies need to make sure the process is convenient,simple,and secure for consumers."

    It was a quiet village in which there was a military camp(军营). It was far from the towns and cities and there were some high mountains around. Of course it was a good place for training the new soldiers. But it was difficult for the young men to go outside. Mr. White, an officer of forty, was strict with them and he hardly let them leave the camp.

    Once Mr. White was ill in bed. He couldn't work and a young officer, Mr. Hunt, began to train the new soldiers instead of him. He knew the young men well and let nine soldiers go to the nearest town to have a holiday. But night fell and none came back to the camp. He was worried about it and stood at the gate. It was five to twelve when Mr. Hunt decided to go to the town and see what was happening with the young men. He started the car quickly and set off. At that moment the nine soldiers came back. It seemed they were all drunk. Of course they found the officer was angry.

    "I'm sorry, sir," said the first soldier. "I left the town on time. But something was wrong with my bus on my way here. I had to buy a horse and made it run fast. Bad luck! It died and I had to run back."

    And the other seven soldiers said they were late for the same reasons. It was the last soldier's turn. He said, "I'm sorry, sir. I got on a bus on time, but…"

    Having heard this, the officer became even angrier and stopped him at once. He called out, "If you say something was wrong with your bus, I'll punish you at once!"

    "No, no, sir," said the young man. "My bus was all right, but the dead horse were in its way!"

    Suppose you are a visitor in the land of Mongolia, some friends ask you to eat with them. What kind of manners do they want you to have? They want you to give a loud burp after you finish eating. Burping would show that you like your food. In some countries, if you give a big burp, you are told to say “Excuse me, please”.

    In many places people like to eat together. But in some parts of Polynesia it is bad manners to be seen eating at all. People show their good manners by turning their backs on others while they eat.

    What are manners like in an East African town? The people try not to see you. They are being polite. You may see a friend. He may not see you at all. If you are polite, you will sit down beside him. You will wait until he finishes what he is doing. Then he will talk to you. Manners are different all over the world. But it is good to know that all manners begin in the same way. People need ways to show that they want to be friends.

    Scientists say a huge percentage of bird species are in danger because their habitats, or homelands, are disappearing.

    Traditional migration (迁徙) paths take birds through countries that are not protecting the places for birds to stop, rest and feed. The scientists studied the migration or flight paths of almost 1,500 species. They decided that 91 percent of them passed through dangerous areas.

    The major danger for migratory birds is development. Buildings and pavements have covered the places where birds stop and feed as they move from one part of the world to another. One of the scientists who worked on the study says "Many of these important places have been lost to land reclamation because of urban, industrial and agricultural land expansion".

    The problem, according to scientists, is that many of these small birds die along their migration paths because they don't have a safe place to feed and rest. There is no place to restore (恢复) their energy for the next part of their journey. Countries in North Africa, Central Asia and those along the coasts of East Asia are having the most difficult time in protecting land. The scientists say these countries do not have enough areas that are safe for birds. One species that doesn't exist now is the Eskimo curlew. "Our world gets poorer every time we lose a species," one of the scientists says.

    The researchers say countries need to work together and come up with safe stopping areas for birds that pass through their boundaries. For example, one country might have preserved safe zones for migrating birds. But a neighbor country might not. A bird might die.

    One scientist who is not connected with the report tells Los Angeles Times that while some habitats are changing, more work can be done to make urban areas safe for birds.

    He says small changes, like planting more native plants or keeping cats out of the areas birds would be likely to use, could make a big difference.