Designing
Effective Oral Presentations
The ability to speak effectively is as crucial as the
ability to write effectively, according to studies about
kinds of communications most often required of employees.
During a routine week, employees will actually spend more
time speaking than writing; using the phone; conversing
informally with colleagues, subordinates, and superiors
on routine office topics; conducting meetings; working
in problem solving groups; conducting employee evaluation
sessions; participating in teleconferences and sales presentations;
and frequently becoming involved in formal speaking situations
before groups inside and outside the organization. Communication
research also reveals that the higher an employee moves
in an organization, the more important speaking skills
become.
Oral presentations, like written presentations,
can enhance an employee's reputation within an organization.
Therefore, consider every speaking opportunity an opportunity
to sell not only your ideas but also your competence,
your value to the organization.
The purpose of this section of the OWL is to provide you
the basic strategies for presenting technical and business
information in an oral presentation. You will use many
of the same strategies in developing an oral presentation
that you use in preparing an effective written document.
Understanding similarities between writing and speaking
can be helpful for several reasons. Many times, you will
be asked to document an oral presentation you have given;
that is, you must submit what you said in written form.
Or, you may be asked to make an oral presentation of a
written document.
Being an effective speaker and
an effective writer requires you to:
Because listening is a different information-processing
method than reading, you will need to know how to adapt
guidelines for organization, style, and graphics to fit
the speaking situation. However, you will see that writing
and speaking, despite their differences, are similar communication
activities.
For more information on oral presentations
in a business setting, click
here.
For more information on oral presentations
in a scientific setting, click
here
Understand the
Context of your Presentation
In order to understand the situation or context of
your presentation, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the broader concern underlying the need
for the presentation?
- What primary issues underlie the presentation?
- How does your presentation relate to these issues?
- What will be happening in the organization when
you make your presentation?
- How does your presentation fit into the organizational
situation?
- If you are one of several speakers, what kinds of
presentations will the other speakers be making?
- In what surroundings will you be making the presentation?
- What will happen in the situation before and after
your talk?
- How does your talk relate to other participants'
actions?
For example, delivering a presentation at a meeting
of project directors is different from briefing other
people in your team about what you've been doing. Making
a presentation at a company picnic is different from
delivering a presentation at the annual meeting of a
professional society. Knowing the situation is
as important as knowing your audience and your purpose.
In many cases, situation will be inextricably
bound up with questions of audience attitude and the
way you shape your purpose. Audience attitude frequently
results from situational problems or current
issues within the organization, and what you can or
should say in your presentation, your purpose and the
content you choose to present may be dictated by the
context surrounding your presentation and the
perspective that your audience brings.
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Analyze
your Audience
Analyzing your situation is often difficult
to separate from analyzing your audience; in fact, audience
is one facet of the larger situation.
Just as readers determine the success of written communication,
audiences determine the success of oral presentations.
Writing or speaking is successful if the reader or listener
responds the way you desire: the reader or listener
is informed, persuaded, or instructed as you intend
and then responds the way you want with good will throughout.
Just as writing effectively depends on you understanding
your reader as thoroughly as possible, effective speaking
depends on you understanding your listener. You cannot
speak or write effectively to people without first understanding
their perspective. You must know how your audience will
likely respond based on its members' educational and
cultural background, knowledge of the subject, technical
expertise, and position in the organization.
When you analyze your audience, focus on its members'
professional as well as personal attributes. Your audience
members will pay attention to some things because they
belong to a specific department or class; they'll react
to other things because of their likes, dislikes, and
uncertainties. You have to keep both profiles in mind.
Your analysis will suggest what you should say or write,
what you should not say, and the tone you should use.
To help you analyze your audience, ask the following questions:
- How much do my audience members know about the subject?
- How much do they know about me?
- What do they expect from me?
- How interested will they be in what I say?
- What is their attitude toward me?
- What is their attitude toward my subject?
- What is their age group?
- What positions do their occupy in the organization?
- What is their educational background?
- What is their cultural/ethnic background?
- What is their economic background?
- What are their political and religious views?
- What kinds of cultural biases will they likely have
toward me and my topic?
In viewing this list, you will note the prevalence
of questions on attitude--the audience's attitude
toward you as well as the subject. Some attitudes will
matter more than others, according to the situation.
These questions are particularly crucial ones,
since you need to know, before you begin planning
your presentation, whether your audience will consider
you trustworthy and credible. To be an effective speaker,
you must know your audience, establish a relationship
by being sincere and knowledgeable about the subject,
then conform to their expectations about dress, demeanor,
choice of language, and attitude toward them and the
topic.
| When you speak to people
from other countries, you should plan to do research
on the culture of that country. Be aware that hand
gestures you use routinely with US audiences may
have different meanings in other cultures. Also,
the clothing you choose to wear should also be selected
with the culture of the audience in mind. If the
audience and situation call for more formal clothing
than you usually wear, practice your talk wearing
the clothes you'll be wearing at the presentation.
For information about speaking to multicultural
audiences, click here. |
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Understand and Articulate your Presentation's Purpose
Oral presentations, like written presentations, must
be designed around a specific purpose.
As a writer or a speaker, you must know your purpose.
You must conceive your purpose in terms of your audience's
needs. Both written and oral communication often
have multiple objectives. The main purpose of your
presentation may be to report the status of a project,
to summarize a problem, to describe a plan, or to propose
an action, but your long-range objective may be to highlight
or document important specific issues within the topic
about which you are speaking and to further establish
your credibility within the organization. You may want
the audience to dislike another proposed solution, to
desire a more comprehensive solution, or decide there
isn't a problem after all.
As you plan, state your purpose in one sentence.
Then, as you begin your presentation, state your goal
in terms of your audience's background and attitude;
announce your purpose early in the presentation to prepare
your audience for the main ideas to come. You may want
to restate the purpose in words familiar to the audience.
Like the report or letter, the oral presentation must
make its purpose clearly evident at the beginning.
By knowing what they will be hearing from the beginning
of the presentation, audience members can more easily
focus their attention on the content presented and see
connections between parts of the talk.
The effective presentation requires you to focus your
audience's attention on what you are saying. A good
way to grab your audience's attention is to develop
a title that, at the very least, reflects the content
of your presentation but does so in an interesting way.
Like the title of a formal report or the subject line
in a letter, memo, or informal report, the title of
an oral presentation should prepare your audience for
the content you will present. Therefore, from the beginning
of the presentation, your audience is prepared for what
you will say.
You may also wish to introduce your topic with an attention-getting
device: a startling fact, a relevant anecdote, a rhetorical
question, or a statement designed to arouse your audience's
interest. Again, the device you choose will depend on
the audience, the occasion, the purpose of the presentation.
Or, if your audience is not readily familiar with the
subject, you may want to include background material
to help them grasp and process your main points Tell
your audience what points or topics you plan to cover
so that your audience can sense and then follow the
direction of your statements.
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Choose and Shape your Presentation's Content
Preparing an oral presentation often requires the same
kind of research needed for a written report.
First, you will need to determine what information
you will need.
In selecting content, consider a variety of information
types: statistics, testimony, cases, illustrations,
history, and particularly narratives that help convey
the goal you have for your presentation. You will also
want to choose information that will appeal to your
audience--particularly their attitudes, interests, biases,
and prejudices about the topic.
Because listening is more difficult than reading,
narratives can be particularly effective in retaining
the attention of your listeners. While statistics and
data are often necessary in building your argument,
narratives interspersed with data provide an
important change of pace needed to keep your listeners
attentive.
In short, vary your content type, but be sure that
all information you include pertains to the goal of
your presentation.
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Organize
Your Presentation
The structure of the oral presentation is
crucial for one main reason: once you have spoken, the
audience cannot "rehear" what you have said.
In reading, when you do not understand a sentence or paragraph,
you can stop and reread the passage as many times as necessary.
When you are speaking, however, the audience must be able
to follow your meaning and understand it without having
to stop and consider a particular point you have made,
thereby missing later statements. To help your audience
follow what you say easily, you must design your presentation
with your audience, particularly their listening limitations,
in mind.
Audiences generally do not enjoy long presentations. Listening
is difficult, and audiences will tire even when a presentation
is utterly smashing. For that reason, as you design your
presentation and select content, look for ways to keep
your message as concise as possible. Don't omit information
your audience needs, but look for ways to eliminate non
essential material. Again, without carefully analyzing
your audience's attitude toward the subject, its background,
knowledge of the topic, and perspective toward you, you
cannot begin to make accurate decisions regarding either
content or design and structure of your presentation.
Ask yourself the following questions:
-
Is your audience interested in what you will say?
-
What are the main questions they will want you
to answer?
-
Which of these questions is most important? least
important?
-
Based on your purpose and the audience's expectations,
in what order should you present these ideas?
Helping your audience follow your message easily requires
that you build into your structure a certain amount
of redundancy. That means that you reiterate main points.
When you divide your presentation into an introduction,
the main body, and the conclusion, you are building
in this necessary redundancy.
In the introduction, you "tell them what you
are going to tell them"
In the main body, you "tell them"
In the conclusion, you "tell them what you
told them"
This kind of deliberate repetition helps your audience
follow and remember the main points you are making.
(Readers can "reread" text, but listeners
cannot "rehear" oral remarks.) To design your
presentation with planned repetition, you must clearly
know your purpose and what you want your audience to
know.
The introduction should clearly tell the audience
what the presentation will cover so that the audience
is prepared for what is to come.
In planning your introduction, be sure that you state
your goal near the beginning. Even if you use some type
of anecdote or question to interest your audience, state
the goal of your presentation next. Then, state how
you will proceed in your presentation: what main issues
you will discuss. The main ideas you have developed
during the research and content planning stage should
be announced here. Generally, the introduction should
end with a reiteration of your main point.
The body should develop each point previewed
in the introduction.
In the introduction you state the main issues or topics
you plan to present. Thus, in designing the body of
the presentation, you develop what you want to say about
each of these main points or ideas. You may want to
present your ideas in a chronological sequence, a logical
sequence, or a simple topical sequence. This method
will help your audience follow your ideas if you are
giving an informative speech, an analytical speech,
or a persuasive speech. The important point, however,
is that you need to demarcate and announce each point
in the body as you come to it so that your audience
knows when you have completed one point and begun another.
The conclusion should reiterate the ideas presented
and reinforce the purpose of the presentation. It usually
answers the question: "so what?"
The conclusion to the presentation should help the
audience understand the significance of your talk and
remember main points. At a minimum, you should restate
the main issues you want your audience to remember,
but do so in a concise way. Try to find a concluding
narrative or statement that will have an impact on your
audience. The conclusion should not be long, but it
should leave the audience with a positive feeling about
you and your ideas.
The conclusion reinforces the main ideas you wish your
audience to retain. Remember: in the introduction, you
"tell them what you will tell them"; in the
body, you "tell them"; and in the conclusion,
you "tell them what you told them." In a presentation
which has covered numerous points, you should be sure
to reemphasize the main points. But the conclusion also
allows you to emphasize the importance of specific ideas,
or you can reiterate the value to the ideas you have
presented. In short, how you design the conclusion will
depend on your initial purpose. A strong conclusion
is nearly as important as a strong introduction, as
both the beginning and the end will be the parts most
likely remembered.
Choose
an Appropriate Speaking Style
How you sound when you speak is crucial to the success
of your presentation. You may have effective content,
excellent ideas, accurate supporting statistics. However,
if the style you use in speaking is inappropriate to
the occasion, to the audience (as individuals and as
members of an organization), or to the purpose your
are trying to achieve, your content will more than likely
be ineffective.
In general, you want to sound respectful, confident,
courteous, and sincere. However, the precise tone and
degree of formality will be dictated by your organizational
role and your relationship to your audience.
To help determine the appropriate speaking style for
a given presentation, ask the following questions:
-
Do the audience members know you?
-
Is your rank in the organization above or below
them?
-
Are you speaking to an audience of individuals
from all levels within the organization?
-
What demeanor, approach, and level of formality
does the organization usually expect from those
giving oral presentations?
-
Is the audience composed of people who understand
English? How well do they understand English?
Answers to these questions as well as your purpose
will determine how you speak to your audience.
Style in writing refers basically to your choice of
words, the length and structure of your sentences, and
the tone, or attitude you express toward your audience.
Style in delivering oral presentations is also defined
by these same characteristics plus many nonverbal cues
that can either enhance or detract from your presentation.
While the style you use will vary with the audience,
topic, and context, always consider the following guidelines
that can enhance your delivery style:
-
Avoid long, cumbersome sentences. Use phrases,
and use a variety of sentence lengths. Avoid excessively
long, complex sentences, as listeners may have difficulty
following your ideas.
-
Avoid overuse of abstract, polysyllabic words.
Instead, use concrete language that your audience
can visualize.
-
Avoid overuse of jargon, unless you are sure that
your audience will be readily familiar with all
specialized terms.
-
Use sentences that follow natural speech patterns.
-
Use short, active voice sentences.
- Avoid memorizing the presentation verbatim--doing
so will likely result in a presentation that sounds
as though you are reading rather than talking to the
audience.
The most effective style is usually a conversational
style: short sentences, concrete language, speech
that suggests to your audience that you are really talking
to them. If you concentrate on getting your point across
by having a conversation with the audience, you will
likely use a natural, conversational style.
| If you are speaking
before a group that is composed largely of people
from another country, you need to determine beforehand
how fluent they are in English. If they are not
comfortable with English, be sure that you speak
slowly; avoid idiomatic expressions; choose concrete
words; and speak in relatively short sentences.
Limit each sentence to one idea. For information
about speaking to multicultural audiences, click
here. |
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Practice
an Effective Delivery Style
Because your audience cannot "rehear" ideas,
once you have stated them, look for ways to help your
audience easily follow your ideas:
-
Be sure you clearly demarcate the beginning and
end of each point and segment of your presentation.
-
Announce each main topic as you come to it. That
way, your audience knows when you have completed
one topic and are beginning the next one.
-
Allow a slight pause to occur after you have
completed your introduction, then announce your
first topic.
-
After completing your final topic in the main
body of your presentation, allow a slight pause
before you begin your conclusion.
-
Speak slowly, vigorously, and enthusiastically.
Be sure you enunciate your words carefully, particularly
if you are addressing a large group.
-
Use gestures to accentuate points. Move your
body deliberately to aid you in announcing major
transition points. In short, avoid standing transfixed
before your audience.
-
Maintain eye contact with your audience. Doing
so helps you keep your listeners involved in what
you are saying. If you look at the ceiling, the
floor, the corners of the room, your audience
may sense a lack of self-confidence. Lack of eye
contact also tends to lessen your credibility.
In contrast, consistent eye contact enhances the
importance of the message. By looking at your
audience, you can often sense their reaction to
what you are saying and make adjustments in your
presentation if necessary.
-
Do not memorize your presentation, and do not
write your presentation. Otherwise, your speech
will sound as if you are reading it. Use brief
notes, written on one page, if possible. Use colored
pens to highlight points. Avoid note cards and
several pages of notes. If you suddenly forget
what you are trying to say, and if you have several
pages of notes, you can easily lose track of where
you are in your notes. If possible, type the outline
of your presentation on one sheet of paper. If
you do forget what you are going to say, a quick
glance will usually refresh your memory.
-
Rehearse your presentation until you are comfortable.
Try walking around, speaking each segment and
then speaking aloud the entire presentation. Rephrase
ideas that are difficult for you to say--these
will likely be hard for your audience to follow.
Be sure to time your presentation so that it does
not exceed the time limit. Keep your presentation
as short as possible. Therefore, avoid adding
information to your presentation (and your outline)
as your rehearse.
-
If possible, record your speech. Listen to what
you have said as objectively as possible. As you
listen, consider the main issues of audience,
purpose, organization, context, content, and style.
-
Listen for tone, attitude, and clarity. Is the
tone you project appropriate for your audience
and your purpose? Is each sentence easy to understand?
Are you speaking too rapidly? Are the major divisions
in your presentation easy to hear? Are any sentences
difficult to understand?
-
If possible, become familiar with the room where
you will give the presentation so that you will
have some sense about how loudly you should talk
and how people will be seated.
-
Try not to provide the audience handout material
before you begin. To do so encourages your audience
to read rather than listen. If you must provide
written material, be sure the material is coordinated
with your presentation. That way, you have a better
chance of keeping your audience's attention on
what you are saying.
No matter what type of presentation you are giving,
your ultimate success as a speaker and the success
of the presentation depends on your establishing
credibility with your audience. Guidelines on planning,
structuring, and delivering the presentation are
important because they are designed to build your
credibility with your audience. However, no amount
of planning and organization will substitute for
practice, which builds confidence. Practice also
enhances and displays your planning and the value
of your ideas.
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Select
and Use Visual Aids Effectively
Because we live in a time when communication is visual
and verbal, visual aids that reinforce your meaning
can enhance any oral presentation. Research has shown
that oral presentations that use visuals are more persuasive,
more interesting, more credible, and more professional--i.e.,
more effective--than presentations without such aids.
Particularly if your presentation is long--20 minutes
or more--visual aids can help your audience follow your
ideas easily and with fewer lapses in attention.
The benefits of using visual aids include:
-
They help your audience understand your ideas.
You can use visual aids to announce each main point
as you begin discussion of that point. You can also
use visual aids to accentuate and illuminate important
ideas. However, the message that the visual carries
should be immediately apparent. If audience members
have to study the visual to interpret its meaning,
they will not be listening to you.
-
They help the audience follow your argument, your
"train" of thought. In both oral and written
presentations, readers/listeners must perceive the
pattern of organization to comprehend effectively.
Even if you don't use formal visual aids, you may
want to write the outline for the main body of your
presentation on a board or use a transparency to
let your audience see your plan and trace your movement
from one section of your presentation to another.
. Powerpoint is an effective tool for developing
and presenting outlines to aid listeners
-
They make your presentation more memorable and
thus increase the chances that what you said will
be remembered.
Guidelines for using visual aids:
Many of the guidelines for using visual
aids in oral presentations mirror those for written documents:
they need to fit the needs of the audience; they must
be simple; they must be clear and easy to understand.
How many visual aids should I
use?
Some kinds of oral presentations will require one kind
of visual aid; presentations conveying complex information
may require several kinds of visual aids. The point,
quite simply, is that listeners are as resistant to
an unbroken barrage of words as readers are to unbroken
pages of prose.
What type of visual aids should I use?
You can use drawings, graphs, props
and objects, a blackboard with an outline, charts,
demonstrations, pictures, statistics,
cartoons, photographs, maps, etc. Use anything
that will help people SEE what you MEAN!
How do I design effective visual
aids?
Because your visual aids will be seen while
the audience is listening to you, you will need to be
sure that all visuals are as simple as possible and as
easy to read:
-
Avoid too much information on any single visual.
-
Use boldface type in a font size that can be easily
read.
-
Use sans serif type because if produces a sharper
image for slides and transparencies.
-
Limit the fonts you use to two per visual.
-
-
Use a type--size and font--that contrasts distinctly
with the background.
-
Avoid visuals that use too many colors--more than
four on any one aid.
-
If you are preparing slides or transparencies
for video conferencing, use the plain background and
a color--such as yellow or light green--and black
text. Color can enhance a visual, but it can also
reduce the effectiveness of the message. The point
is to use good judgment in visual design. Use visual
aids, but don't overdo color or text.
-
Templates available in programs such as Powerpoint
are tempting, but they may not be readable when
text is placed on them!
-
Avoid making your audience study your
aids. If they are busy trying to decipher your visual
aid, they will not be listening to you.
-
Bar graphs, circle graphs, simple diagrams,
pictures, and lists are standard types of visual
aids. Whatever aid you decide to use, limit
the aid to only the concept, data, or point
you are trying to make. Use bar graphs, line
graphs, or circle graphs rather than tables,
particularly if the table has more than one
column.. Tables are harder to interpret than
a graphic presentation of the content. Also,
tables can easily contain too much information
and are more acceptable in written reports,
where the reader has time to study them.
-
Be sure that what the visual says is immediately
evident.
-
Computer graphics and programs such as Harvard
Graphics, Powerpoint, and Excel in combination with
color printers and slide projection equipment give
you the opportunity to experiment with graphic design.
Try developing visual aids that are visually pleasing
as well as clear.
-
Use technology whenever possible. Some web sites
have visuals that you can use for presentations
about that topic.
-
Technology allows speakers to download graphs,
drawings, and figures from the World Wide Web. The
Web is perhaps one of the richest, newest, most
colorful sources of visual aids.
Many presentation rooms now have ethernet
connections and even computers that have the appropriate
software to run a browser such as Netscape. When the computer
is connected to an overhead projector, Web images can
be shown on a screen. Because of the increasingly rich
range of materials available on the World Wide Web, resources
available to enhance any oral presentations are almost
limitless. Even if the room in which you will give a presentation
does not have ethernet connections, you can still print
Web materials via a color copier onto paper or transparency
masters.
How do I use my visual aids effectively?
The key to using graphics and visual aids effectively
requires using them so that they make the maximum impact.
Begin your presentation with no aids, as you want your
audience to be listening to you, not looking at props,
specimens, or other visual aids. Present the aid at
the appropriate point in your presentation, then remove
it immediately. Present the aid; give your audience
a few seconds to comprehend it, and then comment on
the aid. Use a pointer, such as a laser pointer, to
focus your audience on the part of the graphic you are
discussing.
-
Be sure to speak slowly and deliberately as you
explain or use a graphic to avoid confusing your
audience. In addition, remember to talk to your
audience members, keeping eye contact with them,
not your visual aid.
-
When you use slides, tell the audience what they
will see, show them the slide; give them time to
digest what they are seeing; then comment on the
slide.
-
Turn off the projector lamp between slides. Do
not begin talking about another topic while a slide,
depicting a past topic, is still showing. Remember:
people cannot see and listen at the same time.
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