Presentation Training Article
Making An Oral Presentation
 

The material of your oral presentation should be concise, to the point and tell an interesting story.
In addition to the obvious things like content and visual aids, the following are just as important as the audience will be subconsciously taking them in:

Your voice - how you say it is as important as what you say

Body language - a subject in its own right and something about which much has been written and said. In essence, your body movements express what your attitudes and thoughts really are.

Appearance - first impressions influence the audience's attitudes to you. Dress appropriately for the occasion.

As with most personal skills oral communication cannot be taught. Instructors can only point the way. So as always, practice is essential, both to improve your skills generally and also to make the best of each individual oral presentation you make.

Preparation

Prepare the structure of the oral presentation carefully and logically, just as you would for a written report. What are:

the objectives of the talk?

the main points you want to make?

Make a list of these two things as your starting point .

Write out the presentation in rough, just like a first draft of a written report. Review the draft. You will find things that are irrelevant or superfluous - delete them. Check the story is consistent and flows smoothly. If there are things you cannot easily express, possibly because of doubt about your understanding, it is better to leave them unsaid.

Never read from a script. It is also unwise to have the talk written out in detail as a prompt sheet - the chances are you will not locate the thing you want to say amongst all the other text. You should know most of what you want to say - if you don't then you should not be giving the talk! So prepare cue cards which have key words and phrases (and possibly sketches) on them. Postcards are ideal for this. Don't forget to number the cards in case you drop them.

Remember to mark on your cards the visual aids that go with them so that the right OHP or slide is shown at the right time.

Rehearse your presentation - to yourself at first and then in front of some colleagues. The initial rehearsal should consider how the words and the sequence of visual aids go together. How will you make effective use of your visual aids?

Making the oral presentation

Greet the audience (for example, 'Good morning, ladies and gentlemen'), and tell them who you are. Good presentations then follow this formula:

tell the audience what you are going to tell them,

then tell them,

at the end tell them what you have told them.

Keep to the time allowed. If you can, keep it short. It's better to under-run than over-run. As a rule of thumb, allow 2 minutes for each general overhead transparency or PowerPoint slide you use, but longer for any that you want to use for developing specific points. 35mm slides are generally used more sparingly and stay on the screen longer. However, the audience will get bored with something on the screen for more than 5 minutes, especially if you are not actively talking about it. So switch the display off, or replace the slide with some form of 'wallpaper' such as a company logo.

Stick to the plan for the oral presentation, don't be tempted to digress - you will eat up time and could end up in a dead-end with no escape! http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/dept/Tips/present/comms.htm

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