Oral Presentation skills

1. Preparation and practice are the keys to success! Oral Presentation skills

2. Preparation and Planning Questions to ask when planning: • What is the aim of my presentation? • What is the title of my presentation? • What are the main points I need to make? • Who is the audience?

3. Organization of Presentation A good presentation has strong organization and is easy for the listener to follow. There are three parts to a presentation: Introduction, Body, Conclusion.

4. The Introduction • Grab the attention of the audience. Start with a surprising fact, anecdote or a question. • Greet the audience by saying “Hello”, “Good Morning (or afternoon)” etc. • Introduce yourself. • Give the title of the presentation and introduce the topic. • State your purpose of the presentation. • Transition to the body of the presentation.

5. The Body • All the information in your presentation needs to support your purpose and topic. • Include enough information to clearly develop your ideas. • Organize your details in a logical manner. Some possibilities include: chronological, general to specific, known to unknown, cause/effect, problem/solution.

6. Keep the audience’s attention. • Link the end of one section of information with the next using transition words. For example: next, my second point, let’s turn to…, etc. • Be clear and concrete when sharing your information.

7. The Conclusion There are three parts to the conclusion. • Reminder of your main points: state the point, give the essential message to retain, list main points, use a quote/comparison/example. • A concluding statement: a commentary on the main points, lessons learned, or recommendations. • Thank the audience for listening.

8. Presenting Skills • Use note cards when presenting. Put key words and short phrases on the cards to help you remember your information. Remember to number the cards to keep them in order. • Know most of what you want to say by heart. Reading from your cards makes you seem unprepared. • Mark on your cards when to refer to your visuals.

9. Voice Skills • Speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard in the back of the room. • Speak slowly so everyone can understand. • Stay away from awkward pauses or using stall words (um, er, like, etc.) • Change the pitch of your voice to maintain the attention of the audience. • Practice the pronunciation of all words.

10. Non-verbal Skills • Keep eye contact with the entire audience during your presentation. • Use your hands to emphasize a point. • Always face the audience. • Stand straight and tall.

11. Visual Aids Purposes of visual aids: • Focus the audience’s attention • Easily illustrate main points • Reinforce ideas • Involve and motivate the audience

12. Creating a visual aid • Put only key words and short phrases on any visual aid. Try to keep to a 10 word limit. • Don’t make the visual too busy. Simple is more effective. • Check for spelling on all visuals. • Make sure the font is readable when projected or shown. • Keep slides or visuals to a minimum. Too many cause a distraction to the audience.

13. Information in this PowerPoint is taken from C. Storz, Evry, France