PRESENTATIONS are challenging because they combine in-depth knowledge of your topic, public speaking, and, potentially, visuals or activities designed to engage your listeners. All three elements must work together to have a strong presentation.
TIPS
Dress in professional clothing that you are comfortable moving around in: no new shoes or restrictive ties!
Have notes with you, but try to only look at them if you are truly blanking on what to say next.
Try to spend most of the presentation looking at your audience. (When giving a presentation remotely, try to look at your camera.)
Ask questions. Wait and give your audience a chance to answer, but be ready to fill a silence.
Slow down! Most people speak too fast during presentations, so try to take what feels like a natural pace and then go even a little slower than that.
SELF-REFLECTION
Think back to the last presentation you gave. What worked? What didn't?
Which parts of your presentation could be improved and clarified with an image or info-graphic?
Which presentation skill are you currently working on improving?
How do you prepare for a presentation?
If your audience remembers only one key idea, what do you want it to be?
Presentations can be challenging because trying to convey information while keeping the audience's attention tests many different abilities. To give a great presentation, make it
Your audience wants you to capture both their intellect and their emotions. They deserve your respect, so avoid clichés, stereotyped examples, and bad jokes.
As soon as your begin your research, try thinking of ways you can hook your audience and have them engage with your presentation:
After engaging your audience, you have to convince them that you are a credible source of knowledge about your topic:
In-depth knowledge and a true interest in your topic will be more memorable than a perfectly planned presentation that is memorized or read word-for-word. Write a script but don't use it.
While it can be tempting to let your slides do your work for you, your audience (and your instructor) mostly wants to hear you speak. Think of your visuals as an added flourish that gets your audience's attention or helps them understand your content so that you make your own words the backbone of your presentation.
Practice, practice practice:
On the day of the presentation, pre-load videos and make sure any necessary audio is working. Choose one aspect of public speaking you would like to do better than last time and use the presentation as an opportunity to work on that.
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