How to make a good presentation

Presenting your presentation

Introduce yourself always introduce yourself and your topic briefly explain the process that you are going to

follow with your presentation. Be professional

your appearance (dress and grooming), the quality of your handouts and your visual presentation, etc., are very important.

The Big Rule:

1. Tell them what you're going to tell them. 

2. Tell them. 

3. Tell them what you told them.

Try to have a good time - presenting can be hell or heaven, it's all up to you.

Less is more. Keep it simple.

Key phrases

Introducing

Good morning/good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is…

The subject/topic of my presentation is… In my presentation today I shall be dealing with… What I'm going to talk about today is… I'd like to give you a brief overview of… The reason why I'm here today is to talk about…

Key phrases

Why you are giving this presentation 

  The purpose of this presentation is ...

   This is important because ...

   My objective is to ...

Key phrases

Structuring

I've divided my talk into (four) main sections…

My presentation will be in (three) parts…

Let's start/begin with ...

First of all/Firstly, secondly, thirdly, then, after that, lastly/finally

Key phrases

Referring to visuals

As you can see from the table (pie chart, graph, diagram, flow chart, pictogram…)

If you take a look at the graph here…

I'd like to illustrate this by showing you...

Key phrases

Moving on to a new point

Turning now to… What I'd like to talk about now/next is… Now I would like to describe… Now let's move on to the next point which is…

Key phrases

Giving more details 

I'd like to expand on this aspect/problem/point

Let me elaborate on that

Would you like me to expand on/elaborate on that?

Key phrases

Changing to a different topic or referring to something which is off the topic

I'd like to turn to something completely different   I'd like to digress here for a moment and just

mention that ...

Key phrases Summarising and concluding

I'd like to recap the main points of my presentation     - first I covered…      - then we talked about…     - finally we looked at…

I'd  now like to sum up the main points which were: To recapitulate what I've been saying… So, to go over the main points again…

Key phrases

Conclusion

I'm going to conclude by... saying that/inviting you to/ quoting ... 

In conclusion, let me... leave you with this thought/invite you to

I'd like to conclude by saying….

Key phrases

Thanking the audience and questions

Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for your attention I hope you have found my presentation useful Finally, I'll be happy to answer your questions.   Now I'd like to invite any questions you may

have. Do you have any questions?

Dealing with questions

Some phrases which can be useful when you want to avoid irrelevant questions:

That’s not really my field, but I can put you in touch with someone who is an expert in the field.

Well, I think that goes beyond the scope of today’s presentation.

I’m afraid we’ve run out of time. I haven't got the precise information with me today. That's not really for me to say. This is not really the place to discuss that matter. Perhaps that's a question for another meeting.

How to avoid a boring presentation?

How to avoid a boring presentation? Work on vocal variety! Speak to the audience as if in

a one-to-one conversation so as to sound more natural.

Lighten up! Add a bit of humor. There are lots of true and humorous anecdotes that would elicit laughter and get audience members on your side. Laughter will also ease a presenter’s tension.

Don’t tell us everything you know! We must not feel that we have to pack everything we know into one presentation. Usually covering three main points/topics is sufficient for a dynamic presentation.

How to avoid a boring presentation? Use visual aid with care! Don’t read what audience

members can see already - you lose their attention quickly. Also, boring visuals with lots of words and no graphics are a complete turnoff.

Involve the audience! Ask the audience questions and encourage them to ask us questions or make comments on your statements.

Prepare, prepare, prepare and practice, practice, practice! The more prepared you are, the more comfortable and enthusiastic you will be when presenting.

Work on all of these you’ll never, never, never be boring!

You can gain the audience’s attention by: telling an anecdote, a joke mentioning a really surprising

fact or statistic stating a problem asking a question The question "How many

people here have a home computer?" is a lot more interesting than "Today I'm going to tell you about the Internet.“