Preparing the presentation

Can you name the 3 most important things when giving any presentation?

Number 1 is... Preparation

Number 2 is... Preparation!

Number 3 is... Preparation!!

PREPARATION IS EVERYTHING!

After a concert, a fan rushed up to famed violinist Fritz Kreisler and gushed, "I'd give up my whole life to play as beautifully as you do." Kreisler replied, "I did."

To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.

With good preparation and planning you will be totally confident and less nervous. And your audience will feel your confidence. Your audience, too, will be confident. They will be confident in you. And this will give you control. Control of your audience and of your presentation.

WHY? WHO? WHERE? WHEN? HOW? WHAT?

WHY? Objective

Before you start to prepare a presentation, you should ask yourself: " Why am I making this presentation?" Do you need to inform, to persuade, to train or to sell? Your objective should be clear in your mind. If it is not clear in your mind, it cannot possibly be clear to your audience.

WHO? Audience

" Who am I making this presentation to?" Sometimes this will be obvious, but not always. You should try to inform yourself. How many people? Who are they? Business people? Professional people? Political people? Experts or non-experts? Will it be a small, intimate group of 4 colleagues or a large gathering of 400 competitors? How much do they know already and what will they expect from you?

WHERE? Venue

" Where am I making this presentation?" In a small hotel meeting-room or a large conference hall? What facilities and equipment are available? What are the seating arrangements?

WHEN? Time and length

" When am I making this presentation and how long will it be?" Will it be 5 minutes or 1 hour? Just before lunch, when your audience will be hungry, or just after lunch, when your audience will be sleepy?

HOW? Method

How should I make this presentation?" What approach should you use? Formal or informal? Lots of visual aids or only a few? Will you include some anecdotes and humour for variety?

WHAT? Content

" What should I say?" Now you must decide exactly what you want to say. First, you should brainstorm your ideas. You will no doubt discover many ideas that you want to include in your presentation. But you must be selective. You should include only information that is relevant to your audience and your objective. You should exclude all other ideas. You also need to create a title for your presentation (if you have not already been given a title). The title will help you to focus on the subject. And you will prepare your visual aids, if you have decided to use them. But remember, in general, less is better than more (a little is better than a lot). You can always give additional information during the questions after the presentation.

Notes

When you give your presentation, you should be - or appear to be - as spontaneous as possible. You should not read your presentation! You should be so familiar with your subject and with the information that you want to deliver that you do not need to read a text. Reading a text is boring! So if you don't have a text to read, how can you remember to say everything you need to say? With notes. You can create your own system of notes. Some people make notes on small, A6 cards. Some people write down just the title of each section of their talk. Some people write down keywords to remind them. The notes will give you confidence, but because you will have prepared your presentation fully, you may not even need them!

Rehearsal

Rehearsal is a vital part of preparation. You should leave time to practise your presentation two or three times. This will have the following benefits:

· you will become more familiar with what you want to say

· you will identify weaknesses in your presentation

· you will be able to practise difficult pronunciations

· you will be able to check the time that your presentation takes and make any necessary modifications

So prepare, prepare, prepare! Prepare everything: words, visual aids, timing, equipment. Rehearse your presentation several times and time it.

STRUCTURE

A well organised presentation with a clear structure is easier for the audience to follow. It is therefore more effective. You should organise the points you wish to make in a logical order. Most presentations are organised in three parts, followed by questions:

Beginning

Short introduction

· welcome your audience · introduce your subject · explain the structure of your presentation · explain rules for questions

Middle

Body of presentation

· present the subject itself

End

Short conclusion

· summarise your presentation · thank your audience · invite questions

Questions and Answers

As a general rule in communication, repetition is valuable. In presentations, there is a golden rule about repetition:

1. Say what you are going to say,

2. say it,

3. then say what you have just said.

In other words, use the three parts of your presentation to reinforce your message. In the introduction, you tell your audience what your message is going to be. In the body, you tell your audience your real message. In the conclusion, you summarize what your message was.

We will now consider each of these parts in more detail.

Introduction

The introduction is a very important - perhaps the most important - part of your presentation. This is the first impression that your audience have of you. You should concentrate on getting your introduction right. A good presentation often starts out with an icebreaker such as a story, interesting statement or fact, joke, quotation, or an activity to get the group warmed up. The introduction also needs an objective, that is, the purpose or goal of the presentation. This not only tells you what you will talk about, but it also informs the audience of the purpose of the presentation.

The following table shows examples of language for each of the following functions. You may need to modify the language as appropriate.

Function	Possible language
1 Welcoming your audience	· Good morning, ladies and gentlemen · Good morning, gentlemen · Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman · Good afternoon, everybody
2 Introducing your subject	· I am going to talk today about... · The purpose of my presentation is to introduce our new range of...
3 Outlining your structure	· To start with I'll describe the progress made this year. Then I'll mention some of the problems we've encountered and how we overcame them. After that I'll consider the possibilities for further growth next year. Finally, I'll summarize my presentation (before concluding with some recommendations).
4 Giving instructions about questions	· Do feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions. · I'll try to answer all of your questions after the presentation. · I plan to keep some time for questions after the presentation.

Body

The body is the 'real' presentation. If the introduction was well prepared and delivered, you will now be 'in control'. You will be relaxed and confident.

The body should be well structured, divided up logically, with plenty of carefully spaced visuals.

Remember these key points while delivering the body of your presentation:

· do not hurry

· be enthusiastic

· give time on visuals

· maintain eye contact

· modulate your voice

· look friendly

· keep to your structure

· use your notes

· signpost throughout

· remain polite when dealing with difficult questions

Conclusion

The following table shows examples of language for each of these functions. You may need to modify the language as appropriate.

Function	Possible language
1 Summing up	· To conclude,... · In conclusion,... · Now, to sum up... · So let me summarise/recap what I've said. · Finally, may I remind you of some of the main points we've considered.
2 Giving recommendations	· In conclusion, my recommendations are... · I therefore suggest/propose/recommend the following strategy.
3 Thanking your audience	· Many thanks for your attention. · May I thank you all for being such an attentive audience.
4 Inviting questions	· Now I'll try to answer any questions you may have. · Can I answer any questions? · Are there any questions? · Do you have any questions? · Are there any final questions?

Questions

Keep cool if a questioner disagrees with you. You are a professional! No matter how hard you try, not everyone in the world will agree with you!

Although some people get a perverse pleasure from putting others on the spot, and some try to look good in front of the boss, most people ask questions from a genuine interest. Questions do not mean you did not explain the topic good enough, but that their interest is deeper than the average audience.

Always allow time at the end of the presentation for questions. After inviting questions, do not rush ahead if no one asks a question. Pause for about 6 seconds to allow the audience to gather their thoughts. When a question is asked, repeat the question to ensure that everyone heard it (and that you heard it correctly). When answering, direct your remarks to the entire audience. That way, you keep everyone focused, not just the questioner. To reinforce your presentation, try to relate the question back to the main points.

Make sure you listen to the question being asked. If you do not understand it, ask them to clarify. Pause to think about the question as the answer you give may be correct, but ignore the main issue. If you do not know the answer, be honest, do not waffle. Tell them you will get back to them...and make sure you do!

Answers that last 10 to 40 seconds work best. If they are too short, they seem abrupt; while longer answers appear too elaborate. Also, be sure to keep on track. Do not let off-the-wall questions sidetrack you into areas that are not relevant to the presentation.

If someone takes issue with something you said, try to find a way to agree with part of their argument. For example, "Yes, I understand your position..." or "I'm glad you raised that point, but..." The idea is to praise their point and agree with them. Audiences sometimes tend to think of "us verses you." You do not want to risk alienating them.

Questions are a good opportunity for you to interact with your audience. It may be helpful for you to try to predict what questions will be asked so that you can prepare your response in advance. You may wish to accept questions at any time during your presentation, or to keep a time for questions after your presentation. Normally, it's your decision, and you should make it clear during the introduction. Be polite with all questioners, even if they ask difficult questions. They are showing interest in what you have to say and they deserve attention. Sometimes you can reformulate a question. Or answer the question with another question. Or even ask for comment from the rest of the audience.

PACKAGING

Equipment

Easily your most important piece of equipment is...YOU! Make sure you're in full working order, and check your personal presentation carefully - if you don't, your audience will!

The overhead projector (OHP) displays overhead transparencies (OHTs or OHPTs). It has several advantages over the 35mm slide projector: · it can be used in daylight · the user can face the audience · the user can write or draw directly on the transparency while in use

The whiteboard (more rarely blackboard or greenboard) is a useful device for spontaneous writing - as in brainstorming, for example. For prepared material, the OHP might be more suitable.

The duster is used for cleaning the whiteboard. It is essential that the duster be clean to start with. You may consider carrying your own duster just in case.

Markers are used for writing on the whiteboard (delible - you can remove the ink) or flipchart (indelible - you cannot remove the ink). They are usually available in blue, red, black and green. Again, it's a good idea to carry a spare set of markers in case you are given some used ones which do not write well.

The flipchart consists of several leaves of paper that you 'flip' or turn over. Some people prefer the flipchart to the whiteboard, but its use is limited to smaller presentations.

The Slide projector - which must be used in a darkened room - adds a certain drama. Some slide projectors can be synchronised with audio for audio-visual (AV) presentations. These projectors are typically used for larger presentations. The majority take 35mm slides or transparencies (as seen here), but projectors for 6x6cm slides are also available.

Transparencies are projected by an overhead projector or a slide projector onto a screen - in this case a folding screen which can be packed up and transported.

The notebook computer is increasingly being used to display graphics during presentations. It is often used in conjunction with an overhead projector, which actually projects the image from the computer screen onto the wall screen.

Handouts are any documents or samples that you 'hand out' or distribute to your audience. Note that it is not usually a good idea to distribute handouts before your presentation. The audience will read the handouts instead of listening to you.

Visual aids

Of all the information that enters our brains, the vast majority of it enters through the eyes. 80% of what your audience learn during your presentation is learned visually (what they see) and only 20% is learned aurally (what they hear). The significance of this is obvious:

· visual aids are an extremely effective means of communication

· non-native English speakers need not worry so much about spoken English - they can rely more heavily on visual aids

It is well worth spending time in the creation of good visual aids. But it is equally important not to overload your audience's brains. Keep the information on each visual aid to a minimum - and give your audience time to look at and absorb this information. Remember, your audience have never seen these visual aids before. They need time to study and to understand them. Without understanding there is no communication.

Apart from photographs and drawings, some of the most useful visual aids are charts and graphs, like the 3-dimensional ones shown here:

Piecharts are circular in shape (like a pie).