It's not easy to master the art of conversation. But with a lot of practice and patience, even the shyest person can capture the attention of an audience. Below are a couple of useful tips to keep in mind the next time you find yourself chatting someone up:

How To Make Small Talk

Whatever the context, old friends or new, it is best if speakers respect five principles:

1. Put others at ease
2. Put yourself at ease
3. Weave in all parties
4. Establish shared interests
5. Actively pursue your own

How To Make A Solid Introduction

Mastering the art of conversation has to start somewhere, so you have to know how to begin. Here’s a solid formula. An effective introduction is small-ad brief, splicing in only two ingredients per person:


The salient information is not so much formal title (royals, snobs, and servicemen excepted) as how you relate to one another or the event (housemate, client, mother-in-law, single male drafted in for ladies like you). Identify points of contact, charge people up, and you have a connection.

How We Judge A Successful Conversation

Research has found that with a serious topic or a good friend, we measure a conversation’s success by how enthralled we were by what the other person said. Whereas, the less familiar the other person, the more trivial the topic, the likelier we are to rate the experience by our own performance.
cocktail party socializing

These tips were taken from author Catherine Blyth's new book titled 'The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure.' For more tips on how you can improve your conversational skills, click here.