Presentations are commonplace in both academic and professional settings. While there is no one right way to deliver a presentation, several basic techniques may be learned to increase self-assurance and keep your audience’s attention. Remember that many people spend their whole working lives perfecting their public speaking abilities, so have Behold and give yourself some leeway to make errors.
To help you prepare for your next presentation, we have compiled a list of 9 things to keep in mind to ensure that it goes off without a hitch.
1. Pick a Destination for Your Efforts
Identifying your presentation’s purpose is the first step in creating a successful presentation. It’s astonishing how often individuals lose sight of their goal while in the thick of things. Writing one down is a good idea to avoid presenting without a clear plan. Suppose you’re going to keep your presentation on track and avoid getting off irrelevant tangents. Set your aim down as simply as possible. Do you want them to do anything, like buy your product? Do you want others to accept your argument or opinion?
2. Framework and Script
It is essential to create a presentation outline before beginning work on the slides. With that in mind, this is keeping with Step 1: Figure out what you want. If you take the time to outline your presentation, you can ensure that your tale flows naturally and that you avoid straying from your main points. It is highly advised that you first create your outline in a word-processing application. PowerPoint is a powerful tool, but many individuals find it scary and distracting if they dive into it before they’re ready. Create your slides in PowerPoint when you’ve completed your outline. Use PowerPoint’s Notes feature to draft a whole script if that would help you feel more at ease.
3. Make a Contingency Plan
This is a critical stage. Prepare for your presentation contingencies at all times. Technology has gone a long way, but it is still too unpredictable to count on something as important as your wedding day. For redundancy’s sake, I always bring three copies of my presentation: two physical USB drives and electronic copies stored in cloud storage services like Google Drive and Box. Having a hard copy of your presentation might be helpful in some situations. When your reputation and credibility are on the line, it pays to err on the side of caution. Get ready!
4. Make Good Use of Images
It’s essential to keep in mind that slides shouldn’t just repeat what you say or act as a substitute for your delivery. The primary focus should be on you; your slides can provide a quick review of points or an illustration to back up the notion you’re expressing.
When creating your presentations and other visual aids, keep in mind the following:
The Cumbria University of Science and Technology advises, “Don’t over clutter your slides; keep things basic.” Use brief words or sentences and focus on one theme on each slide.
The Cumbria University of Cumbria’s Careers Service also stresses the need to make your site handicapped-friendly. Is the layout of your presentation making the content difficult to digest? When presenting, consider whether or not all audience members can read the slides you’ve created. Reduce the number of slides, utilize high-contrast colors, and make the text size and style comprehensive and clear to make your presentation accessible. If you must use visuals, keep them as straightforward as possible; complex charts and graphs serve no useful purpose. Caption any videos you plan on utilizing.
Distribute any handouts at the beginning or conclusion of your talk if you plan on using them. Interrupting your train of thought to do it halfway through is not a good idea.
Avoid the temptation to read your slides word for word; instead, use them as a springboard from which to build an engaging story.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the quality of a presentation is directly proportional to the quality of its content. Beautiful slides won’t help you mislead anyone if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
5. Rehearse With a Pal
Your presentation should be practiced several times, preferably in front of an audience. Make a practice run with a friend by asking for their assistance. Please put them in the back to ensure everyone can hear you well. Ideally, you would be able to complete this dry run in the actual presentation room.
By practicing your presentation aloud, you may determine if it is too long or too short when read out loud and become accustomed to speaking in front of an audience.
Make the following your focus as you train:
While nervousness may cause you to babble, it’s best to calm down as much as possible. Remember to pause for air after making each point or statement.
Make constant eye contact with the audience to convey an air of confidence. When presenting, tilt your screen so you can see your audience and your slides at a 45-degree angle. Never ignore your listeners.
Please don’t rush through your presentation; provide enough time for questions and be ready to answer them.
The staff at Cambria also recommends that you record your presentation using Teams or Zoom. The advice was, “Replay it and think about it. Please test it out for clarity, conciseness, and logic. How would you say your mannerisms and nonverbal communication skills are? Is the impression you give off a positive one? Do you talk too rapidly or ramble on? Do you have a friendly and outgoing disposition?
6. Optimism Is Key
It would help if you worked on adopting a positive frame of mind in the days leading up to the presentation. If you’re shy, this may seem like stating the obvious, but if you can pull it off, you’ll see a significant improvement in your performance. Recognize your anxiety but refuse to give in to worry. Instead of worrying about everything that may go wrong, concentrate on what you can do to ensure everything goes swimmingly.
First, adopt an upbeat and self-assured demeanor. The day of, your anxieties may have you convinced that everyone in the room is out to get you but be assured that this is not the case. Remember that everyone in your class is rooting for you to do well. A solid beginning can help ensure the rest of your presentation goes well.
7. Avoid Depending On Modern Conveniences
Everyone has felt the pain of seeing a presenter try and fail to fix a broken projector or USB stick. The potential for technological stumbling blocks may be reduced, though, with some careful preparation.
If you can, try out your presentation using the tools you’ll have at your disposal during the actual presentation. If that isn’t possible, attempt to be there early that day for a practice run. If your presentation will have online sites or video clips, test those links in advance to ensure they will take the audience where they need to go. In case your computer crashes, bring backups of your papers and print off extra copies of the slides to pass around.
Slides can be helpful, but don’t rely on them exclusively. Prepare to give your presentation without them at all times, utilizing your notes or index cards as memory aids.
Not to mention, being calm in the face of a technical failure is essential. Everyone here will experience it eventually. If you can go through it calmly, your tutor may be more impressed than if everything had gone smoothly.
8. Confident and Clear Speech
If you are not capable in English or have an accent, you may feel insecure about being understood. To be sure, though, let’s not sugarcoat things. You’ll need to do all in your power to keep your audience engaged during your presentation since many individuals don’t have very long attention spans. And you’ll need to use clear articulation if you want this to happen (speak loudly and confidently).
This will not magically appear on the day of your presentation. To be prepared, you should practice in advance. How? Read on!
Notice the motion of your lips, mouth, and tongue. Saying different sounds and words repeatedly in front of a mirror or while a buddy listens can help. Exactly what forms does your mouth take when you smile? When do you lift or flick your tongue? May you tell me what adjustments you can make to your motions to make your speech more intelligible?
Learn the correct pronunciation of English by listening to native speakers. Sounds can be slowed down to a more manageable pace so you can hear how they are meant to be spoken. To achieve this, you can hang out with English-speaking friends or watch or listen to English-language media.
9. Establishing Eye Contact
Americans place a premium on making and maintaining eye contact. It’s impolite not to make eye contact when conversing with someone. If you avoid making eye contact (either unconsciously or out of shame), you could alienate your listeners.
It is essential to look at the people in the audience when making a speech, especially in the United States. They will not enjoy it if you ignore them in favor of your notes or the screen. Maybe they’ll become bored and start acting out. Or, people may see your lack of assurance as a reflection of the quality of your job, leading them to believe that they, too, should not have high hopes for their results.
Watch how the speaker maintains eye contact throughout this English lecture. Please note how he constantly looks around the room, at those on the left, on the right, and at the front, to ensure he connects with everyone.
Final Words
The advice in this article will help you give a fantastic oral presentation. Perhaps your lecturer or educator will even use it as an example for future classes!
On top of that, you’ll use all the abilities you honed by giving that presentation every day when conversing in ordinary English. It will help you interconnect better in English if you talk, make eye contact, and organize your thoughts to flow from one topic to the next. You’ll do better in English courses if you know how to compose an introduction, attract the reader’s interest using language, and back up your claims with facts. You may enhance your communication abilities and receive praise for your presentation.