Life Coaching > Interpersonal Intelligence > Persuasive Presentation >
Difference Between
Anecdote, Short Story, Joke
Anecdote Vs Joke:
The only intention behind sharing a joke is to make the other person laugh while anecdotes’ one of the intention is laughter but it could have other intentions such as provoking a thought, revealing a fate, narrating realizations of a person’s experience and so on.A joke can be a story and all stories may not be a joke.
Examples of Anecdotes:
- I should stop listening to kids. They confuse me. Last evening, my son was talking to one of my neighbors' daughter (three-year old). He, "Does god exist?". She, "God only knows whether god exists are not", he, "true, true".
- My Mother is very kind. She even answers the recorded messages of my mobile phone service provider. tring-tring, tring-tring! My mom picks the call and the call goes "Hi, get the caller tunes by sending an sms to 2435 with fre..." my mom interrupts "No, but my son is not.." and recorded message goes "...or call us to get a free.." my mom "but, listen..."
- Sometimes, my mother gets so involved in TV programs that she feels part of it. Last evening, she was talking to the television informing the screen character of awaiting danger under the assumption the character can hear her. She said, "Turn around, turn around, that guy is going to hit you with an iron rod"
- My wife and I were shopping and she saw this expensive trouser with a small print written on the sides of inside pockets. Do not tumble dry, do not bleach, do not dry clean, handle with care. She, who actually washes my clothes, said "If 'do not wash' restriction were printed on it, I would have recommended you to buy this trouser'"
- Operating elevators are little confusing sometimes. Today, I was inside the office elevator and one of my friend was approaching to get inside the lift. With an intention of keeping the elevator door open, I pressed the close-the-door button. ssssss....the door closed even earlier than the usual time it was supposed to take.
Use can creatively use anecdotes and short stories when:
- you're introducing yourself
- you're showing empathy to someone
- building rapport with someone
- like to grab attention of the audience
- like to move from one topic to other through transition statements
- give compliments
- persuade or negotiate with someone
- communicating assertively
- you're trying to say, "No"
- giving feedback
- you're trying resolve conflicts
Anecdotes are yet another effective verbal communication tools such as use of figure of speech, persuasive words, prosody of speech, appropriate use of structure and content words.
However, you must avoid these verbal communication barriers while you're narrating these anecdotes. It includes verbal speech fillers, judgmental statements, redundancy, generalized statements, Mother Tongue Influence (MTI), and negative words.