Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics and then do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down into manageable parts .
Creating a presentation differs from writing an essay in that the information in the speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept, or new information that you write, you need to think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a PowerPoint slide. Many guides, such as Marsen (2020), will suggest no more than five points per slide, with each bullet point have no more than six words (for a maximum of 30 words per slide). After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the PowerPoint. Your presentation skills are being evaluated, but this evaluation may include only a small percentage for the actual visual aid: check your assessment guidelines.
To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.
When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:
When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:
The specific requirements for your papers may differ. Again, ensure that you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.
Too often, students make an impressive PowerPoint though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.
It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication includes the ways that we communicate without speaking. You use nonverbal communication everyday–often without thinking about it. Consider meeting a friend on the street: you may say “hello”, but you may also smile, wave, offer your hand to shake, and the like. Here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.
Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Even if you may be nervous (which is natural), the following will help you look confident and professional:
Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]
Two or more people tied by marriage, blood, adoption, or choice; living together or apart by choice or circumstance; having interaction within family roles; creating and maintaining a common culture; being characterized by economic cooperation; deciding to have or not to have children, either own or adopted; having boundaries; and claiming mutual affection.
Chapter 3: Oral Presentations Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Hrideep barot.
We all have been exposed to different types of presentations right from school years.
Group presentations, lectures by teachers and professors, seminars, webinars or online presentations, e-learning, e-conferences, etc., are all different types of presentations that we come across in our daily lives.
But each of them work for different settings.
In this article, we will take a look at 6 such types of presentations and when and why you need them.
This is the most common type of presentation, be it in an educational setting or business or corporate setting.
The aim of an informative presentation is to give detailed information about a product, concept, or idea to a specific kind of audience.
They are often analytical or require a rational analysis of the data presented.
Training sessions or one-day workshops are good examples where this kind of presentation is used.
Here is an example of an informative presentation on public speaking and presentations.
Now, there are different situations where you can use informative presentations.
Although a report is a written explanation of an event, it can also be verbal.
A perfect place to use informative presentations is news reporting , as it requires the presenter to present information systematically.
This involves explaining both positive and negative aspects of a particular topic in a few words.
It is providing information quickly and effectively about an issue to influence decisions or to come to solutions.
Hence, the decision-making bodies of an organization can make use of this kind of presentation to save time and effectively come to conclusions.
Informative presentations are often used to present research findings to a specific audience , as it involves reporting the findings and briefing it to the audience.
Hence, almost everywhere where research takes place, be it in an educational context or occupational , can make use of this kind of presentation.
Persuasion is the art of motivating or convincing someone to act or make a change in their actions or thoughts.
If you are planning to give a persuasive presentation, and are looking for how to give a persuasive speech, check out our article on A Comprehensive Guide to Writing a Persuasive Speech to gain in-depth knowledge about the art of giving persuasive presentations.
Persuasive presentations are also widely used form after informative presentations.
There are various circumstances where persuasive presentations can be used.
Government bodies make use of persuasion almost every time, be it the legislative or decision-making bodies, executive bodies, or even courts.
Even election campaigns involve using persuasive presentations as an instrument of their pre-determined goals of swaying the citizens.
For that matter, any executive or management body of an organization can make use of these kinds of presentations.
This kind involves answering the question “why” and supplementing it with possible benefits.
Most Ted talks and YouTube videos try to persuade the audience and fall into the persuasive presentation category.
Even religious heads use this as a means of persuading their believers to follow their belief system.
Deciding on a procedure or telling an audience the correct procedure of doing something is another situation.
Bailey parnell: is social media hurting your mental health.
This TED talk by Bailey Parnell is a good example of a persuasive presentation.
She starts strong by asking rhetorical questions that set the mood for her further points.
We can also see how the speaker is genuinely concerned regarding the issue, engaging the audience till the end.
This involves demonstrating a process or the functioning of a product in a step-by-step fashion.
So, a master class on communication skills or making a product model is an example of a demonstrative presentation.
Usually, the audience is an active part of such presentations and these can work in any context where you want the audience to learn a new skill.
This involves giving guidelines or steps of a process or work .
Teaching how to make a car model step-by-step is a good example where you can use this kind of informative presentation to guide your audience.
Another instance can be at the workplace , to train the employees or introduce them to a new product at work.
This type also works with demonstrating recipes and cooking workshops.
The easy guide on making just about any smoothie.
In this recipe demonstration, he tells his audience how many ingredients are involved and briefs them about the outline of his presentation at the start of his speech.
He also shows all steps in real-time so that the audience have a better understanding of the process and keeps them engaged.
As the name suggests, this type of presentation involves inspiring others!
The main aim of an inspirational presentation is to motivate or move your audience and is also known as a motivational presentation.
Using techniques like storytelling, narrating personal anecdotes , or even humor work wonders as your audience develops an emotional connection to the message.
This TED talk by Luvvie Ajayi Jones is humorous but a lot more inspirational. Check it out!
In the corporate world, presentations are the go-to solution to do anything: planning or strategizing, articulating company goals, screening candidates, status reports , and many more.
Let us take a dive into the different types of business presentations.
Also known as sales pitches , sales presentations involve providing information about a product or a service to sell it.
It has a pre-defined strategy of initiating and closing the sales deal.
This can be done in person or nowadays, on the phone, or via e-communication .
Often employees have on-the-job training sessions that are aimed to increase the knowledge and skills of the employees.
This kind can also involve the audience to participate , like in demonstrative presentations.
Meetings can be called for for different reasons and can be of different forms as well.
Conferences ( both video and in-person), board meetings, informal team meetings, daily reporting, etc., are all various contexts of meeting in a business setting.
E- presentations existed before the COVID pandemic as well but were used seldom.
But, with the ongoing pandemic, e-presentations or remote presentations have replaced all other types of presentations and will be with us for a while longer.
However, on the brighter side, it is an eco-friendly alternative to normal face-to-face kind of a set-up, and it also saves transportation and other costs !
Seminars are widely used in the health sector , usually involving a panel of speakers on a topic. The audience is anywhere between 10 to 100.
It ends with a question and answers session , and the audience gets to take handouts with them.
Interviews are usually one-on-one and involve presenting your achievements and capabilities to your prospective employer.
Apart from interviews, 1:1 meetings are also used in sales and marketing to crack a business deal.
PowerPoint presentations or PPTs are the most effective ones among all types of presentations simply because they are convenient and easy to understand .
They are available in different formats and are suitable to use in practically any type of presentation and context, be it business, educational, or for informal purposes.
There are various types of PowerPoint presentations that you can use depending on the context.
If you feel that you need to use them, provide the audience some background information about the field or topic being covered
PowerPoint presentation slides are broadly classified into 3 categories: Text, Visual, and Mixed slides.
As the name suggests, this category of slides involve words or texts.
You can format the text as plain sentences or pointers.
You may even arrange them all in a single slide or one line per slide.
The slide seen below is an example where every point is mentioned in a single slide.
This type of slide has visual elements such as images or videos , and are better known as conceptual slides since they are a better option than text slide to explain a particular concept.
You can use them at the start of the presentation to better visualize and grasp the meaning of the presentation.
The slide right below is a good example of a visual slide.
Mixed slides combine the texts and visuals to give a comprehensive understanding of any concept or a speech.
Graphs and charts are the best examples of mixed slides.
Mixed slides have an advantage over the other slides; they keep your audience engaged, listening and participating more actively!
So far we came across 6 types of presentations, and they all share one common feature. They are all one of the types of oral presentations.
Oral presentations involve the use of verbal and non-verbal elements to deliver a speech to a particular or general audience.
All the types we discussed fall into these 4 broad categories:
This type of presentation involves making short pointers or key phrases to aid while speaking.
You do not memorize, but organize the points and structure the speech way in advance.
Hence, on the day of your presentation, by just looking at the key points , you expand on them and move to the next point.
Impromptu presentations are spoken without any preparation . It can be nerve-wracking for many, and hence not many are in favor of it.
There is a valid reason for their fear, as you have to make your speech as you say it!
However, those who are experts in their fields and are called upon to share a few words can easily give this type of presentation.
The other extreme of the spectrum is manuscript presentations.
Here you have a script and you speak from it, word by word.
News anchors and show announcers usually engage in this type, since there are a lot of specific details that cannot be said wrong, and also, time constraints.
Usually, a prompter is used, from which the speaker speaks to their audience.
Nowadays, there are teleprompters , that are heavily used in the entertainment and media industry.
It is a digital screen that displays the contents, and the speaker speaks from it.
This type does not have any notes or cues , but you memorize or rote learn the whole speech.
School and some presentations at the workplace involve using this kind of presentation.
In most cases, we recommend not to memorise your speech in most cases. We’ve made a video on the same and how it could lead to you potentially blanking out on stage. Highly recommend you view this quick vid before choosing memorisation as a presentation path:
But, if you do choose it for whatever reason, since you are free from notes, you are free to focus on other aspects, such as body language and gestures.
There are various presenting styles, but they do not work for all types of presentations.
Let us get familiar with them, and know which style works with which type.
This style of presentation involves the speaker narrating stories and engaging the audience emotionally .
This technique works best with persuasive and inspirational types of presentation.
So, how to tell a story in a presentation?
Want more storytelling tactics? Mystery, characterisation and the final takeaway are some more key elements of a good story for your next presentation. We’ve gone deeper into this topic in this video if you would like to know more:
Most of us are visual learners, making visual information easy to understand and retain.
Visual aids like graphics, images, diagrams, key pointers or phrases , etc., are very useful when giving any type of presentation.
Some tips of presenting with visual style:
If you have data records or statistical information to be presented, an analytic style will be more helpful.
It works best for Informative and Business types of presentations.
Tips to deliver in analytic style:
Quick tip: In case you have a PDF to present and want to edit the data points, there are multiple software programs that you can use to allow you to easily do this. Check out this list of the Best Free Recording Software Programs to know more.
The connector style of presentation involves the speaker establishing a connection with the audience by pointing out similarities between them and the listeners.
This style works well with Sales and marketing presentations.
How to give a presentation using connector style?
Although all the presentation types have their own bonuses and are suitable for certain circumstances, some are universal and can be used with a little bit of modification almost everywhere!
These are persuasive presentations!
You can use them in various settings; from political, business to educational.
Just remember to choose the right topic for the right audience, and a style that you think is the most suitable and you are good to go!
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We saw 6 types of presentation and understood it in detail.
We also gained some tips on how to make our presentation more engaging and also came across things to avoid as well.
We then explored the types of slides that you can use, and also the types of presenting orally.
We also gave you some tips and a few topic ideas that you can incorporate in your next speech!
Schedule a call with our expert communication coach to know if this program would be the right fit for you
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In the social and behavioral sciences, an oral presentation assignment involves an individual student or group of students verbally addressing an audience on a specific research-based topic, often utilizing slides to help audience members understand and retain what they both see and hear. The purpose is to inform, report, and explain the significance of research findings, and your critical analysis of those findings, within a specific period of time, often in the form of a reasoned and persuasive argument. Oral presentations are assigned to assess a student’s ability to organize and communicate relevant information effectively to a particular audience. Giving an oral presentation is considered an important learning skill because the ability to speak persuasively in front of an audience is transferable to most professional workplace settings.
Oral Presentations. Learning Co-Op. University of Wollongong, Australia; Oral Presentations. Undergraduate Research Office, Michigan State University; Oral Presentations. Presentations Research Guide, East Carolina University Libraries; Tsang, Art. “Enhancing Learners’ Awareness of Oral Presentation (Delivery) Skills in the Context of Self-regulated Learning.” Active Learning in Higher Education 21 (2020): 39-50.
In some classes, writing the research paper is only part of what is required in reporting the results your work. Your professor may also require you to give an oral presentation about your study. Here are some things to think about before you are scheduled to give a presentation.
1. What should I say?
If your professor hasn't explicitly stated what the content of your presentation should focus on, think about what you want to achieve and what you consider to be the most important things that members of the audience should know about your research. Think about the following: Do I want to inform my audience, inspire them to think about my research, or convince them of a particular point of view? These questions will help frame how to approach your presentation topic.
2. Oral communication is different from written communication
Your audience has just one chance to hear your talk; they can't "re-read" your words if they get confused. Focus on being clear, particularly if the audience can't ask questions during the talk. There are two well-known ways to communicate your points effectively, often applied in combination. The first is the K.I.S.S. method [Keep It Simple Stupid]. Focus your presentation on getting two to three key points across. The second approach is to repeat key insights: tell them what you're going to tell them [forecast], tell them [explain], and then tell them what you just told them [summarize].
3. Think about your audience
Yes, you want to demonstrate to your professor that you have conducted a good study. But professors often ask students to give an oral presentation to practice the art of communicating and to learn to speak clearly and audibly about yourself and your research. Questions to think about include: What background knowledge do they have about my topic? Does the audience have any particular interests? How am I going to involve them in my presentation?
4. Create effective notes
If you don't have notes to refer to as you speak, you run the risk of forgetting something important. Also, having no notes increases the chance you'll lose your train of thought and begin relying on reading from the presentation slides. Think about the best ways to create notes that can be easily referred to as you speak. This is important! Nothing is more distracting to an audience than the speaker fumbling around with notes as they try to speak. It gives the impression of being disorganized and unprepared.
NOTE: A good strategy is to have a page of notes for each slide so that the act of referring to a new page helps remind you to move to the next slide. This also creates a natural pause that allows your audience to contemplate what you just presented.
Strategies for creating effective notes for yourself include the following:
Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Kelly, Christine. Mastering the Art of Presenting. Inside Higher Education Career Advice; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.
In the process of organizing the content of your presentation, begin by thinking about what you want to achieve and how are you going to involve your audience in the presentation.
GENERAL OUTLINE
I. Introduction [may be written last]
II. The Body
III. The Conclusion
NOTE: When asking your audience if anyone has any questions, give people time to contemplate what you have said and to formulate a question. It may seem like an awkward pause to wait ten seconds or so for someone to raise their hand, but it's frustrating to have a question come to mind but be cutoff because the presenter rushed to end the talk.
ANOTHER NOTE: If your last slide includes any contact information or other important information, leave it up long enough to ensure audience members have time to write the information down. Nothing is more frustrating to an audience member than wanting to jot something down, but the presenter closes the slides immediately after finishing.
Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.
When delivering your presentation, keep in mind the following points to help you remain focused and ensure that everything goes as planned.
Pay Attention to Language!
Use Your Voice to Communicate Clearly
Also Use Your Body Language to Communicate!
Interact with the Audience
Amirian, Seyed Mohammad Reza and Elaheh Tavakoli. “Academic Oral Presentation Self-Efficacy: A Cross-Sectional Interdisciplinary Comparative Study.” Higher Education Research and Development 35 (December 2016): 1095-1110; Balistreri, William F. “Giving an Effective Presentation.” Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 35 (July 2002): 1-4; Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Enfield, N. J. How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation . New York: Basic Books, 2017; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.
Your First Words are Your Most Important Words!
Your introduction should begin with something that grabs the attention of your audience, such as, an interesting statistic, a brief narrative or story, or a bold assertion, and then clearly tell the audience in a well-crafted sentence what you plan to accomplish in your presentation. Your introductory statement should be constructed so as to invite the audience to pay close attention to your message and to give the audience a clear sense of the direction in which you are about to take them.
Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015.
Talk to Your Audience, Don't Read to Them!
A presentation is not the same as reading a prepared speech or essay. If you read your presentation as if it were an essay, your audience will probably understand very little about what you say and will lose their concentration quickly. Use notes, cue cards, or presentation slides as prompts that highlight key points, and speak to your audience . Include everyone by looking at them and maintaining regular eye-contact [but don't stare or glare at people]. Limit reading text to quotes or to specific points you want to emphasize.
An oral presentation can be a confusing and intimidating prospect. Often people are unclear as to what it actually is. An oral presentation is a verbal report or lecture or address about a particular topic or set of topics. It may include visual props, slides or video clips, but the bulk of the content is delivered from a speaker to an audience through words. It can be overwhelming to think of how to write an oral presentation, particularly if you've never done it before.
It can also be scary because an oral presentation requires you to speak as the center of attention for a period of at least a few minutes. Many people are afraid of public speaking, and the idea of having to give an oral presentation can cause a great deal of anxiety. However, with preparedness and practice, you'll find that writing an oral presentation is less frightening than it seems.
Oral presentations are very different from written presentations. For one thing, the language you use in a written presentation, paper or article is significantly more formal than the kind of language that you'll use in an oral presentation. You'll want to make sure that your presentation is accessible to experts and non-experts, so unless they are absolutely necessary, you should take care to eliminate things like jargon, acronyms or insider terms that will make the presentation inaccessible to people who are not experts in your field. Oral presentations also require a connection and interaction with your audience. You'll need to lean heavily on your memory to be sure that you don't forget anything as you won't be reading off of a page. This is why writing an oral presentation requires significant practice and preparation.
Before preparing your oral presentation you'll likely need to do a decent amount of research. Regardless of whether or not you've written extensively about the topic prior to preparing your oral presentation, research is still a critical piece of preparing. Research is necessary to ensure that the information you're going to be giving is accurate and to the point. You may feel that you're already an expert on the topic you're going to discuss, but there is always the chance that you could learn more, and that the knowledge you gain from some research can change your oral presentation for the better.
Oral presentations, unlike a written report, require that you're able to hold forth on your topic in a relaxed conversational manner. This means that by the time you're ready to give your oral presentation, you'll have become an authority on the subject. The best way to do this is to do extensive research on the topic and get familiar with any adjacent topics that might be relevant or related. First, do a search to get all of the necessary background information on the topic you're planning to focus your oral presentation around. Then see what other research into the area has been done. Is there research that contradicts the research you have already read? Are there sources you have not consulted yet that may have valuable information for you to consider?
Make sure that your research is thorough and extensive, to avoid missing important information about your topic. It's also a good idea to see if there are any video presentations available on similar topics. This way you can see how other people have dealt with your topic in this context before, and perhaps get some tips on what to include and what to leave, and possibly get some help with the format and structure of your presentation.
As you begin to prepare for your oral presentation, you'll want to keep the focus of your presentation firmly in mind. Having a focus or organizing principle will help you with one of the key pieces of preparing for an oral presentation: creating an outline. Another word for an organizing principle is a thesis statement. As with a paper or an article, the thesis statement is the main point that you're trying to make. If you're speaking about more than one topic in your oral presentation, you may have more than one thesis or one for each topic.
An outline will help you organize your thoughts and the flow of the presentation, so you can take listeners through information that may be very complex in a way that makes sense to them. Many people may find listening to a presentation of new material confusing or challenging, so something to keep in mind is clarity and simplicity. This is where an outline is helpful.
Before beginning your outline, you'll want to get a rough list of everything you want to cover in your presentation. You can look for ideas by searching for an oral presentation example speech online or oral presentation tips for students. Make a list of bullet point topics that come to mind when you imagine the kinds of things you want to talk about. Then go back and cross out any points that are redundant and repetitious, and indicate if any points can be nested under a larger umbrella topic. Once you have a clear list of the items you want to discuss in your oral presentation, you can begin to create an outline.
An outline is a way to set up your oral presentation before you give it. This will help you structure the presentation and ensure that the information you're giving makes sense and has context. It's also a good idea to make an outline, so you can be sure that you don't leave out or forget any critical information during the course of your presentation. Armed with your list of bullet points, you're ready to begin to organize your presentation from beginning to end. An outline is a sort of like a map for your presentation. Where do you want to begin? What will be the conclusion?
Write down the topic you're planning to open with, then think logically about the sequence of points you want to make to follow it up. Figure out what the most natural flow is; in other words, find out where it makes sense to begin and where to go next. Paying attention to flow in your presentation is a key part of writing an oral presentation that will make sense to listeners. Jumping from topic to topic in a disjointed way can make your presentation confusing to the people listening. Try to make sure all the topics in your outline lead naturally from the one before it to the one after. The clearer your organizational method is, the better understood your oral presentation will be.
Because you're not going to be reading the presentation, the outline can be written in a note format made up of topic sentences that will prompt you to begin discussing the topic, rather than reading a pre-written text. It's important to keep in mind that you aren't going to write out your entire oral presentation. Speaking to an audience is very different than reading to an audience. You don't want the people listening to your oral presentation to feel like they're hearing someone read a paper. Instead, make your presentation as conversational as you can. This requires mastery of the material and a clear outline.
Under each bullet point in your outline, write down any words, phrases or notes that will help you to remember the content for that particular part of the presentation. Build your whole outline this way, laying out the topic sentences at the heading of each section and using them as a jumping off point to start speaking about each one. Once you've arranged your list of bullet points in the order you plan to discuss them, you'll want to jot down the particular topic sentences and points you hope to make in each section. While you want to make sure that you include all the relevant topics in your oral report,
Once you have completed your outline, you're ready to do a "dry run" of your presentation. Starting at the beginning, give the oral presentation once all the way through. For the first dry run, do the presentation alone. See if it makes sense, if it feels clear and if you're able to move from topic to topic in a way that flows naturally and seems cohesive. If there are any problems, or if things seem unclear during the presentation, go back and revise your outline. If you find yourself stuck for things to say about a certain part of the outline, that's a sign that you need to go back and do more research on that particular topic to make sure that it all flows together without an issue.
Besides things like speaking slowly, clearly and with authority, a practice run is also to help you weed out unnecessary content in your oral presentation. Very often, people who are preparing for an oral presentation are most used to writing essays and reports and including background details that they feel are necessary or enlightening but may be excessive for an oral presentation.
Once you've gotten your presentation tweaked to your liking, and you can perform it for yourself in a mirror with a feeling of confidence, it's time to bring in an audience. Ask one or two friends, family members or coworkers to help you with your oral presentation by listening to you run through it. After you've finished, ask them if it made sense, if you spoke clearly and if they had any questions. These topics are now very familiar to you, but they may not be familiar to your audience, so listen to their questions and feedback. They may be able to point out places where you need more information or need to be clearer.
Getting feedback from people unfamiliar with your topic is also a good way to find out what questions an audience may have that you hadn't yet thought of. This can be helpful for you in terms of rewriting your outline or rewriting your oral presentation altogether to make it clearer, easier to understand and thus a more effective presentation.
Practicing with an audience will also help you relax and talk about your topic in a more conversational and less stiff manner. Once you give your oral presentation to your audience, you may find that some of the things you wrote in your outline feel redundant or unnecessary. If that's the case, you should plan to revise and remove anything that you think doesn't serve your message. Once you've practiced a few times and feel that you've made all necessary adjustments, keep running through the presentation again, either alone or with an audience, to further help you remember the flow of the topics and guarantee that you won't need to read too much from your outline.
Ashley Friedman is a freelance writer with experience writing about education for a variety of organizations and educational institutions as well as online media sites.
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Georgina wellstead.
a Lister Hospital, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust
b Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital
c University College London
d Guy's St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
Delivering an oral presentation in conferences and meetings can seem daunting. However, if delivered effectively, it can be an invaluable opportunity to showcase your work in front of peers as well as receive feedback on your project. In this “How to” article, we demonstrate how one can plan and successfully deliver an engaging oral presentation.
Giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference is an almost inevitable task at some point during your medical career. The prospect of presenting your original work to colleagues and peers, however, may be intimidating, and it can be difficult to know how to approach it. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that although daunting, an oral presentation is one of the best ways to get your work out there, and so should be looked upon as an exciting and invaluable opportunity.
Although things may vary slightly depending on the type of research you are presenting, the typical structure is as follows:
Picking out only the most important findings to include in your presentation is key and will keep it concise and easy to follow. This in turn will keep your viewers engaged, and more likely to understand and remember your presentation.
Psychological analysis of PowerPoint presentations, finds that 8 psychological principles are often violated 1 . One of these was the limited capacity of working memory, which can hold 4 units of information at any 1 time in most circumstances. Hence, too many points or concepts on a slide could be detrimental to the presenter’s desire to give information.
You can also help keep your audience engaged with images, which you can talk around, rather than lots of text. Video can also be useful, for example, a surgical procedure. However, be warned that IT can let you down when you need it most and you need to have a backup plan if the video fails. It’s worth coming to the venue early and testing it and resolving issues beforehand with the AV support staff if speaking at a conference.
It is important not to clutter your slides with too much text or too many pictures. An easy way to do this is by using the 5×5 rule. This means using no more than 5 bullet points per slide, with no more than 5 words per bullet point. It is also good to break up the text-heavy slides with ones including diagrams or graphs. This can also help to convey your results in a more visual and easy-to-understand way.
It is best to keep the slide design simple, as busy backgrounds and loud color schemes are distracting. Ensure that you use a uniform font and stick to the same color scheme throughout. As a general rule, a light-colored background with dark-colored text is easier to read than light-colored text on a dark-colored background. If you can use an image instead of text, this is even better.
A systematic review study of expert opinion papers demonstrates several key recommendations on how to effectively deliver medical research presentations 2 . These include:
You should practice your presentation before the conference, making sure that you stick to the allocated time given to you. Oral presentations are usually short (around 8–10 min maximum), and it is, therefore, easy to go under or over time if you have not rehearsed. Aiming to spend around 1 minute per slide is usually a good guide. It is useful to present to your colleagues and seniors, allowing them to ask you questions afterwards so that you can be prepared for the sort of questions you may get asked at the conference. Knowing your research inside out and reading around the subject is advisable, as there may be experts watching you at the conference with more challenging questions! Make sure you re-read your paper the day before, or on the day of the conference to refresh your memory.
It is useful to bring along handouts of your presentation for those who may be interested. Rather than printing out miniature versions of your power point slides, it is better to condense your findings into a brief word document. Not only will this be easier to read, but you will also save a lot of paper by doing this!
Having rehearsed your presentation beforehand, the most important thing to do when you get to the conference is to keep calm and be confident. Remember that you know your own research better than anyone else in the room! Be sure to take some deep breaths and speak at an appropriate pace and volume, making good eye contact with your viewers. If there is a microphone, don’t keep turning away from it as the audience will get frustrated if your voice keeps cutting in and out. Gesturing and using pointers when appropriate can be a really useful tool, and will enable you to emphasize your important findings.
When reaching the end of your presentation, you should slow down in order to clearly convey your key points. Using phases such as “in summary” and “to conclude” often prompts those who have drifted off slightly during your presentation start paying attention again, so it is a critical time to make sure that your work is understood and remembered. Leaving up your conclusions/summary slide for a short while after stopping speaking will give the audience time to digest the information. Conclude by acknowledging any fellow authors or assistants before thanking the audience for their attention and inviting any questions (as long as you have left sufficient time).
If asked a question, firstly thank the audience member, then repeat what they have asked to the rest of the listeners in case they didn’t hear the first time. Keep your answers short and succinct, and if unsure say that the questioner has raised a good point and that you will have to look into it further. Having someone else in the audience write down the question is useful for this.
The key points to remember when preparing for an oral presentation are:
The authors declare that they have no financial conflict of interest with regard to the content of this report.
Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.
Published online 8 June 2017
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Finally, presentations normally include interaction in the form of questions and answers. This is a great opportunity to provide whatever additional information the audience desires. For fear of omitting something important, most speakers try to say too much in their presentations. A better approach is to be selective in the presentation itself and to allow enough time for questions and answers and, of course, to prepare well by anticipating the questions the audience might have.
As a consequence, and even more strongly than papers, presentations can usefully break the chronology typically used for reporting research. Instead of presenting everything that was done in the order in which it was done, a presentation should focus on getting a main message across in theorem-proof fashion — that is, by stating this message early and then presenting evidence to support it. Identifying this main message early in the preparation process is the key to being selective in your presentation. For example, when reporting on materials and methods, include only those details you think will help convince the audience of your main message — usually little, and sometimes nothing at all.
In other words, include the following five items in your opening: attention getter , need , task , main message , and preview .
Even if you think of your presentation's body as a tree, you will still deliver the body as a sequence in time — unavoidably, one of your main points will come first, one will come second, and so on. Organize your main points and subpoints into a logical sequence, and reveal this sequence and its logic to your audience with transitions between points and between subpoints. As a rule, place your strongest arguments first and last, and place any weaker arguments between these stronger ones.
After supporting your main message with evidence in the body, wrap up your oral presentation in three steps: a review , a conclusion , and a close . First, review the main points in your body to help the audience remember them and to prepare the audience for your conclusion. Next, conclude by restating your main message (in more detail now that the audience has heard the body) and complementing it with any other interpretations of your findings. Finally, close the presentation by indicating elegantly and unambiguously to your audience that these are your last words.
Revealing your presentation's structure.
To be able to give their full attention to content, audience members need structure — in other words, they need a map of some sort (a table of contents, an object of the document, a preview), and they need to know at any time where they are on that map. A written document includes many visual clues to its structure: section headings, blank lines or indentations indicating paragraphs, and so on. In contrast, an oral presentation has few visual clues. Therefore, even when it is well structured, attendees may easily get lost because they do not see this structure. As a speaker, make sure you reveal your presentation's structure to the audience, with a preview , transitions , and a review .
The preview provides the audience with a map. As in a paper, it usefully comes at the end of the opening (not too early, that is) and outlines the body, not the entire presentation. In other words, it needs to include neither the introduction (which has already been delivered) nor the conclusion (which is obvious). In a presentation with slides, it can usefully show the structure of the body on screen. A slide alone is not enough, however: You must also verbally explain the logic of the body. In addition, the preview should be limited to the main points of the presentation; subpoints can be previewed, if needed, at the beginning of each main point.
Transitions are crucial elements for revealing a presentation's structure, yet they are often underestimated. As a speaker, you obviously know when you are moving from one main point of a presentation to another — but for attendees, these shifts are never obvious. Often, attendees are so involved with a presentation's content that they have no mental attention left to guess at its structure. Tell them where you are in the course of a presentation, while linking the points. One way to do so is to wrap up one point then announce the next by creating a need for it: "So, this is the microstructure we observe consistently in the absence of annealing. But how does it change if we anneal the sample at 450°C for an hour or more? That's my next point. Here is . . . "
Similarly, a review of the body plays an important double role. First, while a good body helps attendees understand the evidence, a review helps them remember it. Second, by recapitulating all the evidence, the review effectively prepares attendees for the conclusion. Accordingly, make time for a review: Resist the temptation to try to say too much, so that you are forced to rush — and to sacrifice the review — at the end.
Ideally, your preview, transitions, and review are well integrated into the presentation. As a counterexample, a preview that says, "First, I am going to talk about . . . , then I will say a few words about . . . and finally . . . " is self-centered and mechanical: It does not tell a story. Instead, include your audience (perhaps with a collective we ) and show the logic of your structure in view of your main message.
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An oral presentation is more than just reading a paper or set of slides to an audience. How you deliver your presentation is at least as important in effectively communicating your message as what you say. Use these guidelines to learn simple tools that help you prepare and present an effective presentation, and design PowerPoint slides that support and enhance your talk.
Preparing an Effective Presentation An effective presentation is more than just standing up and giving information. A presenter must consider how best to communicate the information to the audience. Use these tips to create a presentation that is both informative and interesting:
PowerPoint Tips Microsoft PowerPoint is a tremendous tool for presentations. It is also a tool that is sometimes not used effectively. If you are using PowerPoint, use these tips to enhance your presentation:
Presenting Effectively When you start your presentation, the audience will be interested in what you say. Use these tips to help keep them interested throughout your presentation:
Sharing your work can help you expand your network of contacts who share your research interests. For undergraduate researcher who intend to complete a graduate degree, presenting can be an invaluable experience. We recommend discussing your interest in sharing your research with your faculty advisor. They can help match your interests with the appropriate venue.
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Oral presentation tips: how to deliver a speech for school or work.
Jerz > Writing > [ Academic | Technical ] This document briefly describes how to write and deliver a formal oral presentation on an academic or professional subject. It should be useful for anyone who wants to know how to speak in public.
Note: by “formal presentation,” I don’t necessarily mean a Shakespeare monologue or a scientific treatise on robot-assisted microsurgery. Giving an oral presentation on any subject–your favorite book, current events, a family story–can be “formal” and “technical” whenever its primary purpose is to communicate complex information.
The content is the most obvious component of any oral presentation — after all, if you are talking, you had better have something worthwhile to say. But a presentation is only as effective as its delivery .
1. Determine your goals. 2. Prepare your material. 3. Study a model. 4. Arrange with your strongest points first . 5. Practice, practice, practice .
6. Make eye contact with your audience. 7. Engage actively with the audience. 8. A slide show is not a speech. 9. Watch the time! 10. Take questions in the middle, not the end?
Plan. Practice. Keep what’s good and try again.
Good speakers usually aim to look like they are speaking effortlessly, tossing off words as they come to mind. What you don’t see is the preparation that paved the way for the polished performance. It’s all an act! You can do it too, if you plan ahead.
Once you know what your goal is, and you know what your audience wants, you can start strategizing. There is no single strategy that will guarantee success. How you plan depends on many variables.
How many minutes long is your speech? About how many words do you speak per minute?
Will your audience be lost if you use jargon? Will they feel talked down to if you spend time defining terms they already know?
Do you expect that your audience will disagree with you? (If so, you might need to give more examples and more evidence and spend more time addressing reasonable objections in order to sound convincing, which may mean talking a little faster.)
Do you expect your audience already agrees with the position you will take? (If so, they may check out if your speech simply rehashes arguments they already accept without question. What can you say to an audience that already agrees with you? Why would you listen to a speaker who is restating things you already accept as the truth?)
Graphics, inspirational quotations, and anecdotes are all well-respected methods of maintaining audience interest. However, Pinterest clip art, fancy computer transitions between slides, and vaudeville tricks get old pretty quickly (see Don McMillan’s hilarious “ Death by Powerpoint “), and they eat up time that you could use more effectively.
“ “. Most inexperienced speakers who approach a professional oral presentation this way end up cutting themselves off from their audience. | |
Whether your goal is to convince your audience to accept your position on a complex topic, to provide as much useful information as you can to the decision-maker who needs to know it, or something else, keep that goal in mind first. How will the words you say help you and your audience to reach some mutual goal? |
Instead, think about “ “.TV talk show hosts don’t think about talking to millions of people at once… they think of talking directly to one individual person who wants to be part of a conversation. Make your audience feel welcome. | |
. Many, many speakers spend too much time on background, which forces them to rush through their final statements. , your demonstrations of software, or your visits to web pages just as thoroughly as your introductory and concluding statements. When you “wing it”, you will tend to eat up too much time. . Find out how to shut off the lights, to lower the screen, to focus the overhead projector, etc. . The network may crash, your monitor may start to flicker, or you may drop your notes. These things happen. Prepare a low-tech backup — overhead projections or paper handouts, a discussion question to engage the audience, whatever. |
The internet is of course full of examples of good speeches, but the YouTube users who vote on videos may not have much in common with the audience who will hear your oral presentation.
Do you have access to speeches that your discourse community values? Your instructor or supervisor may not have ready access to video recordings from last year’s class or last quarter’s budget meeting, but you can pay attention to the speaking techniques deployed by people with authority in your field.
For instance, I have a colleague who never says, “This is taking too long, and I’m watching the clock, so let’s get on with it already.” Instead, this person says, “I’m conscious of everyone’s time, so shall we move on to the next item?”
Bear in mind that
While this handout aims to provide general tips, you should ignore any general tip that contradicts something specific you learn about the goals, context, or genre of the specific speech you are preparing.
Successful oral presentations typically share some basic characteristics, owing to the nature of the spoken word.
When we read, we can go back and reread passages we skimmed over the first time, and we can skip ahead when we’re bored. In a live oral presentation, the audience can’t re-read or skip ahead. If the audience doesn’t know why they are listening to your anecdote about winning the spelling bee, or why they should care what version of the software was installed on the computer that you used to crunch your numbers, their attention will wander and it will be hard to get it back.
When we listen, we gratefully cling to orientation phrases that help us understand what the whole shape of a speech is, where we are within the overall structure, and when we are transitioning from one section to another.
Your specific occasion for delivering a speech may involve specific contextual details that don’t mesh with the general advice I’m providing here.
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In rare cases — such as when you are facing a hostile audience, you might want to start out by emphasizing where you agree with your audience, and then carefully working your way towards your most divisive, most daring claims.
Set a timer, and deliver your speech to a willing co-worker or family member, your pet fish, or the bathroom mirror.
My students are often surprised at how hard it is to fill up 3 minutes for an informal practice speech early in the term, and how hard it is to fit everything they want to say into a 10-minute formal speech later in the term.
Once you have the right amount of content, make a video recording of yourself practicing. If you plan to show a video clip, or ad-lib an explanation of a diagram, or load a website, or pass out paper handouts, or saw an assistant in half, actually do it while the camera is rolling, so that you know exactly how much time it takes.
Time it out.
If you know your conclusion takes you 90 seconds to deliver, make sure to start your conclusion when you have at least 90 seconds left.
At several key points during your speech, maybe while you are playing a video or while the audience is taking in a complex image, glance at the clock and check to see — are you on track?
If you notice you’re starting Section 3 60 seconds later than you had intended, try to make up for time by rushing through your second example in section 3 and cutting the third example in section 4, so that you still have the full 90 seconds at the end to deliver that powerful conclusion.
I once sat through a four-hour training session, during which this was all I could see of the instructor.
Go ahead and write your whole speech out so you can read robotically if you blank out, but you should practice your speech so you know it well enough that you can glance up from your notes and look at your audience as you speak.
when you run your PowerPoint presentation. | |
, either; your audience isn’t down there. | |
Position your visual aids or keyboard so that you . |
Pay attention to the audience, and they will pay attention to you.
Don’t try to recite from memory . If you spend your energy worrying about what you’re supposed to say next, you won’t be able to pay attention to whether the audience can hear you, or whether the overhead projections are focused.
Preparation : Set up before the audience files into their seats. If you have scheduled a presentation for a class, don’t sit in your seat like a lump while your professor calls the roll and hands out papers. Few things are more boring than watching a presenter log into the computer, fiddle with the video data projector, hunt around for the light switches, etc.
Introduction : As the audience files into their seats, have a title card displayed on the screen — or at least write your name and the title of your talk on the whiteboard. In a formal setting, usually a moderator will usually introduce you, so you won’t need to repeat everything the moderator says. Avoid canned introductions like “Principal Burch, members of the faculty, and fellow students, we are gathered here today…”
Hashtag : If it’s likely that many people in your audience use the same social media network, consider encouraging them to post their thoughts there. When you introduce yourself, give your social media handle and suggest a hashtag.
Handouts : Consider distributing handouts that present the basic facts (names, dates, timelines) and your main points. You can keep the conclusion just slightly mysterious, if you don’t want to give everything away immediately, but the idea is to free the audience from the feeling that they have to write everything down themselves. (Note: Simply printing up all the overhead slides wastes a lot of paper.)
Grabber : Grab the attention of your audience with a startling fact or claim, an inspiring quotation, or a revealing anecdote. This is not the time to try out your nightclub act; the “grabber” is not just comic relief, it also helps you set up the problem that you are going to address. If the audience will be diverse and general, you can use the “grabber” as a metaphor, helping the audience see why the topic is so important to you, and how it might be important to them, too. If your audience shares your technical specialty, and thus needs no special introduction to the topic, feel free simply to state your purpose without much to-do; but bear in mind that even technical audiences don’t want to be bored.
Road Map : Once you have established the problem or the main point of your talk, let the audience know how you are going to get to a solution. You might put up a series of questions on a slide, then as your talk progresses, proceed to answer each one. You might break each question down into a series of smaller questions, and answer each one of these in turn. Each time you finish a subsection, return to the road map, to help your audience keep track of where you have been and where you are going.
Conclusion : To give your presentation closure, return to the “grabber”, and extend it, modify it, or otherwise use it to help drive home your main point. Recap your main points, and demonstrate how they all fit together into a thought that the audience members can take with them.
Don’t read word-for-word with your nose buried in a stack of papers . If you bother to show up to hear a person speak, how do you feel when the speaker mumbles through page after page of written text? Do you feel you should have just asked for a copy of the paper in the mail?
When you present, make every effort to include your audience; after all, they are the reason you are speaking in the first place.
If you do feel that you must write out your speech word-for-word, you should be familiar enough with it that you don’t need to look at the paper all the time. (And hold the page up when you glance at it, rather than bending down to look at it.)
Your slides should present an (not just the bare framework) of your talk. If you begin with a slide that lists a series of topics or questions, your audience will expect the rest of your talk to work through that list in more detail (just as this web page began with a list of tips, then followed up with details about each tip.) If each page throws up more lists, your talk will seem random. Larry Lessig (an ethicist, open-source culture activist, and politician) has developed a very sparse PowerPoint style that assists his spoken voice. His slides sometimes contain just a single word, and he times the slides so that the written words (and occasional images) emphasize the spoken words. (See: |
Vague and pointless slides are alienating. | |
A slide that simply presents the bare structure of your talk is pointless. Rather than a slide labeled “Introduction,” ask a question that actually introduces some idea. Rather than a slide labeled “Case Study 1,” give a startling fact from the case study. |
Cluttered and wordy slides can be overwhelming. | |
People can read faster than you can speak, so don’t bore the audience by reading a slide full of text word-for-word. By the time you get to the end of the slide, we will already probably be liking cat pictures on Instagram. |
Spinning and bouncing text impresses nobody (and fools nobody). The people in your audience probably see dozens of slide shows every month. They want to evaluate your ideas. Proving that you can select a cool transition from a drop-down list is not going to earn you any points or win you a contract. |
To help pace yourself, at the top of each page of your notes, write down what time it should be ; as you turn each page, you can glance at the clock and see whether you are on track.
(The first time I gave this advice to a technical writing class, I mimed the action of “looking at the clock” — and noticed that I was running ten minutes behind, eating into time that I had promised to a student for an in-class testing session. That was a rather humbling experience!)
See the “preparation” section above. If you have already practiced your speech and timed out the various sections, you’ll know whether you are running long. If you are, don’t talk faster — cut something that you already marked out as optional.
Decide in advance which examples, which anecdotes, which subsections you can drop, without damaging the whole presentation.
I was at a conference in 1998 where the first speaker talked for 40 minutes — double her allotted time. (Why the moderator allowed this is a mystery to me.)
The benefits include:
Dennis G. Jerz , 01/27/2009 07:24:28 Oct, 1999 — first written 03 Dec, 2000 — posted here 03 June 2003 — tweaked and updated 30 Oct 2011 — updated and added video links 31 May 2016 — major update; separated into “preparation” and “presentation” sections. 26 Jan 2018 — blackboard -> whiteboard
Many writers have no trouble the content of a conversation or facts, but they they freeze up when asked to formulate a theory or critique an argument. Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 TipsThese ten tips will help teach you how to write effective, high-quality e-mails in today’s professional environment. Write a meaningful subject line; keep the message short and readable; avoid attachments; identify yourself; don’t flame (and more). What can you do to increase your chances of having a successful group project?
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Thanks alot for your teachings
Thank a lot , really great tip for oral presentation, i’ll implement these tips, and will let you know.
Very helpful tips.
this is awfully helpful. I am a teacher in France and my students have to do presentations in English. I wish they could read this and understand.
Thank you for these very useful tips on Oral presentation. I am taking an Organizational Behavior class and need to do a 5 minute oral presentation on a real life situation about Conflict Management in the Workplace. I am not sure how to structure or begin the presentation.
I like it Really helpful for me
Thank you for helping me to do my presentation…..and I have learned so much from oral presentation.
thankyou thankyou thankyou this helped me so much!!! : )
thankyou thankyou thankyou this helped me so much in english!!! : )
Thanks. Really helpful
Hi, I going to do 3 minute presentation and my topic is My son. what is a best tips to talk about the this topic. I am not sure where to start. Any tips to help me with.
Is that the topic you were assigned? Are you taking a public speaking class, a child development class, a class in writing personal memoirs, or are you learning English as a second language? I don’t know how your instructor will evaluate your work, so I am not sure how to help.
You might find it useful to look at this handout on writing personal essays. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/personal-essays/
Hi, I going to do minute presentation and my topic is My son. what is a best tips to talk about the this topic. I am not sure where to start. Any tips to help me with.
This sort of helped
Denise Gillen Caralli liked this on Facebook.
Enter your comment here…Thanks a lot… I will follow your instructions..I’m hopeful those tips will work. .. Thanks once again….
Thanks so much will follow your instruction tomorrow where I will be having presentation with 180 Head masters about suplimetary feeding on their hunger striken ares
Yeah ,thanks and good luck to all of you from a powerful Jamaican girl
That’s great… It will work well for those who are aiming for like me. Thanks!
The tips are totally handy until now I am still applying it.
Appreciate it. =)
Very helpful for my presentation. Thanks!
I have learned a lot on this…thanks
Thanks a lot I have learned so much on this
I suppose to give out a presentation on Monday on someone or something in either an athlete or an actor and I don’t know how to start
i have a question i am supposed to give a speech but it has to have a power point or a drama thing the only problem is that i can’t have a power point because it won’t work into my speech and neither will a drama thing what should i do?
I suggest you talk to whoever set up the requirement for a slideshow/drama component. Maybe there is some flexibility, or maybe you’ll find a way to work that component into your speech.
Thank you heaps this really helped a lot
that is such good information and i believe im going to pass my speeches.
wow!!this are really helpfull stuff..but im just not confident enough to stand infront of all those people..wish i could do it without them looking at me
blind fold them! just joking…I’m getting ready to do mine and I’m having the same problem as you.
this is a helpfull site
this isn’t helping me with how nervous I am!! bye!!
love it really helped
thanks you are good
I have to do a presentation about “Importance of learning English”. There are 6 people in my group including myself. The presentation has to be exactly 8 minutes. We can’t use PowerPoint. Can you give us any unique, memorable and creative idea?
What are some lessons or life experiences that you find unique and memorable? I’d probably do a play, with a character who gets into trouble because he/she doesn’t know English, and then has a chance to correct those problems by demonstrating how learning English can fix the problems.
Hello mr.Dennis,I go straight to it.how can I become the most sought after Master of Ceremony(M.C.)/tv show presenter extra-ordinaire in my country before going international?any useful tips?
Sorry, that question is not something I cover on this page.
really well writen loved how you added steps so its easy to follow clear easily can be understaned and really helps us and gives us tips that we should actually think about and use at times
Yeah! I found it quite impressive. I hope it’z gonna be helpful for me to develop my speech techniques.
Nice tips….i think it will help me. but it’s too lengthy,it takes so much of time to read.
This really helps to prepare for all sort of things, Thanks a lot
Really helpful! Thank you
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i love this helpful tips of oral presentation.. hope to visit this again or i just make a hard copy of this… thank you very much for that…
it was quite helpful
thank you for the great tip, but my problem is actually that I have a presentation on ‘All About Me’ and I have to keep the audience ‘engaged’ like by making a guessing game or something. If anyone has any other ideas please help!!
This may help: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/
This really helped me prepare my oral presentation…thanks very much!!!!
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15 presentation tips for captivating your audience and commanding the room.
Person speaking in front of audience
Public speaking can be a daunting task, especially when addressing a large audience. Whether you're giving a presentation in the boardroom or delivering a keynote speech at a conference, holding your audience's attention and maintaining command of the room is paramount. The ability to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression not only enhances your message's impact but also builds your reputation as a confident and effective speaker.
Here, Forbes Coaches Council members share invaluable tips and strategies to help you conquer your fear of public speaking and ensure that your next presentation or speech is a resounding success.
1. Be Confident
Be grounded and confident to be yourself and then tell great stories. Use your voice and the stage to bring the stories alive. Your audience will connect to the emotion of the story but make sure that it is relevant for your audience and related to the topic. - Cath Daley , Cath Daley Ltd
2. Find A Way To Actively Engage The Audience
Be prepared with ways to get your audience engaged and keep their focus. Whether that's relating to your audience, telling a joke or asking questions, actively driving engagement will make for a more effective presentation or speech. - Luke Feldmeier , Online Leadership Training - Career and Leadership Accelerator for Engineers
3. Create An Emotional Connection
Creating an emotional connection with the audience and involving them in your session fosters active participation, and ensures your audience stays engaged throughout. This also serves to enhance your presence and to create memories that stay with them long after your presentation ends. - Kristin Andree , Andree Group
4. Put Your Unique Take Front And Center
Do you have something unexpected to say about your topic? Something that goes against the mainstream opinion in your industry or is maybe even slightly provocative? If so, putting your unique take front and center in the title and the beginning of your talk and explaining or resolving it later keeps your audience engaged and interested. - Micha Goebig , Go Big Coaching & Communications, LLC
5. Remember That The Audience Doesn't Know Your Planned Speech
No one wants to see you fail as a speaker. Remember that the focus shouldn't be on whether or not you can recall verbatim every word of your planned speech. The focus should be on how to connect to your audience with a few key points using a combination of storytelling and facts. - Sheri Nasim , Center for Executive Excellence
6. Adapt Your Language To The Audience
Talk about something they are interested in or include elements that will keep them interested. Start by asking why your topic matters to each and every one of them. Use language adapted to the audience. Keep the key messages to two or three maximum. Show them what you think and why you care about the topic. - Isabelle Claus Teixeira , Business and Human Development Consulting Pte Ltd
7. Try To Incorporate An Element Of Surprise
Engagement is the key to keeping the audience's attention. Invite participation, tell stories, walk around, have visuals, include humor, raise your voice and ask questions. Think of a comedian who points at someone in the audience: "Hey, you with the red shirt?" Everyone pays attention. What element of surprise can you present? - Susan Jordan, MBA, MSODL, PCC , Sphereshift Coaching and Consulting
8. Know Your Audience
Doing research ahead of time to ensure you're providing the subject matter in a personalized manner will keep their attention. The topic will dictate the necessary vibe. Based on that, providing opportunities for the group to engage, such as shouting out a word, raising a hand, etc., will also help maintain their interest. - Lindsay Miller , Reverie Organizational Development Specialists
9. Use The Problem-Agitation-Solution Approach
Don't just give a presentation — share a story. It must be a story-audience fit though. Use the P.A.S. — problem-agitation-solution — approach. Start with introducing a problem, follow by agitating the problem via telling a relevant anecdote and conclude by offering a solution by giving an audience a clear, direct way to avoid the pain and learn the lesson. - Alla Adam , Alla Adam Coaching
10. Tell The Audience What They Need To Hear
Instead of trying to figure out what to say, figure out what the audience wants and needs to hear. This shift in perspective allows you to tailor your speech in a way that keeps audiences actively engaged because it's good content that they want to hear. - Robin Pou , The Confident Leader
11. Go All In
To command your audience's attention you have to get into the spirit of what you're teaching and go all in without second-guessing yourself. People want to be led, but they'll be unwilling to follow someone who isn't confident in what they are communicating. - Arash Vossoughi , Voss Coaching Co.
12. Use A Compelling Opening
Start your speech/presentation with a compelling opening that grabs the audience's attention. This could be a surprising fact, a relevant story or a thought-provoking question. This initial engagement can help you establish a strong connection with the audience and set the stage for a captivating presentation. - Moza-Bella Tram , Moza-Bella LLC
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13. Be Authentic
Connect deeply with your essence and purpose. Radiate authenticity. When you're centered in genuine passion and truth others feel it, creating an unspoken bond. It's not about performing; it's about being present and real and offering value from the heart. That's magnetic. - Anna Yusim, MD , Yusim Psychiatry, Consulting & Executive Coaching
14. Let Your Audience Talk
There is nothing worse than stealing everyone's craving for autonomy and speaking the whole time. The person who does the talking does the learning. So, give some autonomy to the audience. Let them talk. Even if it's thinking time and talking to themselves, or to their neighbor or table group. This gains trust and they will lean into what you have to say even more. - Alex Draper , DX Learning Solutions
15. Leverage Non-Verbal Cues
My top tip is to engage your audience through storytelling. A compelling narrative captures attention, evokes emotion and makes complex ideas more relatable. Additionally, use body language and eye contact effectively. These non-verbal cues can significantly enhance your connection with the audience. - Peter Boolkah , The Transition Guy
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Congratulations to Hyemin Um, Graduate Student, on being accepted for an oral presentation on “AI-driven MR image features versus RANO-BM criteria in distinguishing recurrent brain metastases from radiation treatment effect: A comparative, multi-institutional study,” at the SNO/ASCO CNS Metastases Conference in Denver, Colorado this August!
Two recent marine science graduates and one environmental studies major gave oral presentations at Morgan State’s Patuxent Environmental & Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) annual internship symposium on Aug. 2.
Shelby Dittman ’24, Brittney Douglas ’24 and Sara Dapp ’25 all had internship opportunities — an example of the Honors College Promise to St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) students through the Learning through Experiential and Applied Discovery (LEAD) Initiative — this summer at PEARL located on the shoreline of the Patuxent River in St. Leonard, Maryland.
Dittman, Douglas and Dapp spent 10 weeks researching their respective topics under the mentorship of PEARL faculty prior to presenting at the symposium.
PEARL research is designed to increase the understanding of coastal and environmental systems so that they can be properly managed and protected.
Under the mentorship of Ming Liu & Brittany Wolfe-Bryant, Dittman studied oysters at the aquaculture facility at PEARL, specifically focused on how oysters, susceptible to low salinity and disease, can be made more tolerant to low salinity levels in parts of the Chesapeake Bay and get less disease-prone for enhancing the oyster fishery in the Bay. For example, Dittman found in her research that growing oysters from egg-larvae-adults with added probiotics decreased oyster mortality and increased oyster size.
Elka Porter, associate professor of marine science at St. Mary’s College, said that what Dittman found in her research is of importance to oyster fisheries in the area. Porter said Dittman had a unique opportunity prior to her internship as she was recommended to work at PEARL’s hatchery during the spring semester. It was this opportunity that led to her internship.
Douglas and Dapp, under the mentorship of Tom Ihde, continued a decades-long blue crab ( Callinectes sapidus ) survey at PEARL to help determine the health of the blue crab fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay. This project began in 1968. The two researchers regularly went in the field via boat, to set traps in the Bay and collect blue crabs, on which they measured abundance, size, sex, as well as the fishing effort and environmental data. In addition to catching crabs, they processed and analyzed raw environmental data that accompanied the existing data from the project that had never been analyzed.
Porter explained that their projects “Analysis of Callinectes sapidus Catch and Environmental Data,” and “PEARL Blue Crab Survey: Analysis on Size and Environmental Factors “ respectively, helped provide an updated status on the Bay’s blue crab fisheries.
COMMENTS
The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker's skills in transmitting the information to the audience.1
Oral Presentations. Or. l Presen. ations1. PlanningOral presentations are one of the most common assignments i. college courses. Scholars, professionals, and students in all fields desire to disseminate the new knowledge they produce, and this is often accomplished by delivering oral presentations in class, at conferences, in public lectures, or i.
An oral presentation is explaining something to an audience using spoken words and visual aids. Learn about the types, purposes, skills, technique and assessment of oral presentations in the classroom and workplace.
Learn from a Silicon Valley CEO and a Harvard instructor how to deliver effective oral presentations in business. Find out the secrets of concise, visual, and engaging communication.
Learn what presentation skills are and why they are essential for your personal and professional life. Find out how to improve your verbal communication, body language, storytelling, and other presentation skills with examples and strategies.
Humor, empathy and factual tones are some of many which allows a speaker to connect with the audience and the topic. 3. Briefly research arguments for and against your topic. This allows the audience to observe both sides of the topic and feel as if they have made a fair judgement when convinced.
Define your topic. Arrange your material in a way that makes sense for your objectives. Compose your presentation. Create visual aids. Practice your presentation (don't forget to time it!) Make necessary adjustments. Analyze the room where you'll be giving your presentation (set-up, sight lines, equipment, etc.). Practice again.
Learn how to deliver oral presentations with verbal, vocal, and visual components that engage the audience. Find tips for non-native speakers, handling stage fright, and creating slides.
Become an expert at oral presentations in less than six and a half minutes? OK, that's a little much to expect, but learn best practices and advice about how...
Just like academic papers, oral presentations need to have a structure—a beginning and an end. To assist the audience in following the oral presentation, best practices include starting with an overview. An overview lets the audience know where the presentation is going and what the main point or points of the talk will be.
Learn how to prepare and deliver oral presentations in an academic setting, with tips on types, structure, visual aids, and language. This guide covers the purpose, types, writing, and delivery of oral presentations for students.
20. Anticipate questions and prepare thoughtful answers in advance. A key component of preparing for an effective oral presentation is anticipating questions and creating thoughtful responses beforehand. It demonstrates that you are knowledgeable about the subject and that you gave the subject some research.
Learn how to prepare and deliver effective oral presentations in an academic setting. Find tips on types of presentations, writing, visual aids, and non-verbal communication skills.
They are all one of the types of oral presentations. Oral presentations involve the use of verbal and non-verbal elements to deliver a speech to a particular or general audience. All the types we discussed fall into these 4 broad categories: 1. Extemporaneous presentations. This type of presentation involves making short pointers or key phrases ...
Giving a presentation at your first big conference? Watch our guide for some top tips on how to present your research in the best way possible.The Microbiolo...
Oral presentations are assigned to assess a student's ability to organize and communicate relevant information effectively to a particular audience. Giving an oral presentation is considered an important learning skill because the ability to speak persuasively in front of an audience is transferable to most professional workplace settings.
An oral presentation can be a confusing and intimidating prospect. Often people are unclear as to what it actually is. An oral presentation is a verbal report or lecture or address about a particular topic or set of topics.
Tip #2: Use simple language that is easy for people to follow. The words you select, and how you use them, will make a big difference in how well people hear—and remember—what you tell them. This is especially true in oral presentations. "When we write sentences for people to read, we can add more complexities.
Giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference is an almost inevitable task at some point during your medical career. The prospect of presenting your original work to colleagues and peers, however, may be intimidating, and it can be difficult to know how to approach it. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that although daunting, an ...
An oral presentation is a way to share your research work with other scientists in a conference or seminar. It should emphasize the motivation, outcome, and validity of your work, and use a clear structure of opening, body, and closing.
An oral presentation is more than just reading a paper or set of slides to an audience. How you deliver your presentation is at least as important in effectively communicating your message as what you say. Use these guidelines to learn simple tools that help you prepare and present an effective presentation, and design PowerPoint slides that ...
Oral presentation involves communication by one speaker to a larger number of audience members. Oral presentation are usually short and less formal that oral speeches. It is delivered with demonstrations of audio-visual aids followed by answer to questions from the audience. Oral presentations have three basic purposes: (1) to inform, (2) to ...
An oral presentation is not a timed essay test, in which you get points for spewing out as many details as possible. Most people in your audience probably won't care how much your rats weighted, or what brand oscilloscope you used, or what version of MATLAB is running on your computer.
Whether you're giving a presentation in the boardroom or delivering a keynote speech at a conference, holding your audience's attention and maintaining command of the room is paramount. The ...
Oral presentations are usually 10-15 minutes, the last 3 -5 minutes may be reserved for questions from the audience. Simply reading a draft of a paper that you wrote for a class or for an independent study project is not an appropriate presentation. In an oral presentation you will
Lecture 10: Oral Presentations and Styles This • Today's topic is all about the use of PowerPoint effectively. • There are a lot of ways to show how to do it right. • And how to do it wrong. or this • Today's topic is all about the use of PowerPoint effectively • There are a lot of ways to show how to do it right. • For example, you should choose the right colour scheme • Font is ...
Congratulations to Hyemin Um, Graduate Student, on being accepted for an oral presentation on "AI-driven MR image features versus RANO-BM criteria in distinguishing recurrent brain metastases from radiation treatment effect: A comparative, multi-institutional study," at the SNO/ASCO CNS Metastases Conference in Denver, Colorado this August!
Two recent marine science graduates and one environmental studies major gave oral presentations at Morgan State's Patuxent Environmental & Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) annual internship symposium on Aug. 2.. Shelby Dittman '24, Brittney Douglas '24 and Sara Dapp '25 all had internship opportunities — an example of the Honors College Promise to St. Mary's College of Maryland ...