How to make a good presentation

Majbrit L Karlsen

Overview

What should a presentation do?

General advice

Front Page

Overview

Body text

Conclusion

Sources

Questions

Conclusion

Your questions

What should a presentation do?

We want to: Inform or convince

Get through to our audience, sometimes dazzle them

Keep up our own enthusiasm

Make the audience remember what we have presented in a positive and constructive way

We do not want: To bore our audience to tears;

An audience that starts checking their text messages, chatting amongst themselves or even nodding off as we speak.

Little text, few slides, plenty of images and illustrations Illustrations keep your audience captive; lots of text and figures are

boring and hard to remember.

Entertain your audienceChoose the right illustrations; topical; funny or provocative, but don’t cross the line.

Beware tables and diagramsKeep them simple, and only include one or two per presentation. Think of ways to present them by degrees to keep your audience listening actively.

Keep focus on your own performanceIdeally, you should be able to give the presentation without slides.

Use open body languageYour audience should focus on what you are saying, not on you. If you send many ‘I am insecure’ signals, they will do the opposite of what you want; focus on you and wonder if you are honest and know what you are talking about

Plan how to move from one slide to the next!And vary transistions. Don’t use endless ‘And’s and ‘Next’s

Learn your presentation by heartAnd keep eye contact with your audience - Don’t read aloud

Use the rule of three;

Say what you want to say, say it, and say what you have said.

more

KISS principleKeep It Simple, Sweetheart

Practice makes perfectPractice your presentation in front of friends/family, and ask for honest opinions.

Learn from your experience and feedbackMake notes of what works/does not work, and use them at your next presentation.

Last

First impressions last! Use an eyecatching illustration

Greet your audience, introduce yourself and your subject in that order.

Overview- what am I going to say?

Make a slide with a table of contents

Say what you want to say,

Say it,

Say what you have said.

Body text

Say it

Slides in logical order, like chapters in a textbook!

If you are presenting a report, use the report structure!

Plan how to move from one slide to the next!

Conclusion

Say what you have said! - Sum up and conclude!

Mark that this is the end of your presentation, and introduce final formalities – (sources) question time.

School use – In real life you may skip this part if irrelevant.

Address your sources and critique them.

How are they relevant?

Are they reliable? Why/why not, and if not, why have you used them anyway?

Questions

Invite questions from your audience, and answer them.

Preparation:Look at your presentation and try to anticipate questions, orpractice to friends and remember what they asked.

Conclusion

If you follow:

the structure from the overview with at least one slide per section

My brilliant advice in these slides

You have a fighting chance of performing well!

Best of luck with that.

Front PageOverviewBody textConclusionSourcesQuestions

Your questions