Title: Oral presentations
Course: MSc level academic and professional (information) skills > Section: Part 3. Presentation skills

What makes a presentation "good"?

Take a few minutes to think about the following question:

What makes a presentation "good" in your opinion?

Oral presentation skills

You've now thought about what a good presentation is according to you. You might have answered that a good presentation is interesting, engaging, lively, interactive, positive or concise.

Thinking about what you consider a bad presentation might even be easier: the presentation is too long, the speaker isn't loud enough, there is too much information on the slides or in general, the content is too complicated, there is no eyecontact with the audience, it's monotonous or has poor graphics. However, these are all common things happening when people are presenting.

One of the key's to avoid these 'bad practices' is to plan your presentation properly. In this lesson we'll talk about this and other tips for oral presentation.

So what exactly does make a good presentation?

A good presentation should be:

- Interesting to the majority of the listeners
- as original as possible
- exciting, not boring and sleepy
- based on punch and speed

Learning goals:

At the end of the lesson you will be able to:

- recognize what makes a good presentation
- know how to prepare for an oral presentation
- know how to present in a good way in front of an audience

Audience

When you have to do an oral presentation, you start with thinking about your audience.

First think about what the size and scale or your presentation will be. Do you have a:
- Small audience: for example a business meeting with a few listeners?
- Medium audience: for example a presentation for your classmates with 10 - 50 listeners?
- Big audience: for example a presentation at a conference with hundreds of listeners?

Adjust your presentation to the size of your audience, espacially when thinking about interacting with your audience.

Content, or what shall I say?

Once you start preparing the content of presentation you will also have to keep your audience in mind. Who actually is your audience?

Questions that can help you prepare and adjust your content for your audience are:

- Who are they?
- Why will they be listening?
- What do they want to learn?
- What are their interests?
- What do they already know?
- What language do they speak?

But also think about the purpose of your presentation. Do you want to inform or persuade your audience? Or do you want to raise questions for a discussion? This has an influence on the style and content of your presentation and it can even affect the amount of interaction you have with your audience.

Regardless of your purpose, the primary objective of your oral presentation is to stimulate attention. Without that attention, no purpose can be achieved.

Structure of an oral presentation

You now know who your audience is and how to adjust your presentation to fit that audience. You've also though about what purpose you want to achieve with your presentation. The next step is to look at the structure of your presentation.

Three parts of a presentation

There are presentations with or without a written report, but an oral presentation generally consist of three parts. The parts are linked together smoothly, to form your story.

1. Introduction
- Catch attention with the title or an opening line.
- Subject, aim and reason for your presentation.
- Relevance for the audience.
- Overview or outline of the presentation (this does depend on the length of your presentation. With short presentations you leave this out).

2. Core
- Present 3-7 questions, depending on the time you have. To do this translate the purpose of your presentation into a number of questions or topics to be addressed. For the content you can use one of the standard content structures. More about these structures below.

3. Closing
- Give a conclusion linked to your purpose.
- Give recommendations, implications or adres questions left.
- Tell what you expect from the audience. Do they for example have to think about your topic, or try something?

Standard content structures

When presenting the core of your presentation and you don't have a written report to go with it, you can make use of a standard content structure. This will help you to present your content in a logical order.

One of the most used structures in science is the research structure. This follows the structure of you research, starting with what your research is about, how you did it and what the results were.
Other standard content structures you can use are:

- Chronological structure
This is a structure you can use when you want to organize the details of your presentation sequentially in the order in which things happenend or appeared. You can arrange the entire presentation in a chronological order. This method of presenting is useful for topics like the history of argiculture or the development or remote sensing technology.

- Categorical structure
The categorical structure is one of the most used and easiest way of presenting many topics. You can divide your entire presentation into various topics and subtopics ordered on basis of subordination and coordination. You can use this structure for topics like environmental protection or importance of biodiversity.

- Cause and effect structure
The cause and effect structure can be used when you want to present a topic with a cause and effect relationship. You start by explaining the causes of the situation and then look at the effects. This structure can be used for topics like impact of fertilizers on soil, the plastic soup or climate change and wildfires.

- Problem-solution structure
With a problem-solution structure you divide your presentation into two sections. In the first section you focus on describing and analyzing the cause and effect of the problem. Next you focus on the main goal of your presentation to propose or oppose a possible solution in the second section. This structure can be very useful when you are trying to persuade people. You can use this method of presentation for topics like global warming or deforestation. Basically any topic that consists of a problem that you want to propose or oppose a solution for.

It's important to tell the whole story when you don't have a written report accompanying your presentation. The key questions, and the key answers to them, will together make up the contents of your presentation.

Oral presentation with a written report

When doing an oral presentation with a written report your content will be different than without a written report.
You don't need to address all the information. You often don't have time to do this. Instead you can focus on the important questions and leave the details to be read in the report. The purpose of your presentation may be to make people want to read your paper.

Duration and visual aids

Duration

Often the duration of your presentation is set, but if you may decide on the duration yourself, do not speak for longer than 15-20 min. With longer presentations it's more difficult to keep the attention of your audience.

If the duration of your presentation is dictated, make sure you will complete your presentation in time (i.e. not halfway). Rehearse your presentation to know its duration and to find out how much you can present. A rule of thumb is to have one slide per minute.

Visual aids

While doing a presentation you are often allowed to use visual aids. Examples of visual aids are powerpoint slides, videos, a (digital) board to write or draw upon and posters.
It's very benificial to use visual aids to support your presentation. It can increase the impact of your presentation, focus the attention of your audience and stimulate them, clarify complex ideas, create a lasting impression of your presentation, provide a frame of reference for your audience and also increase your own confidence.

Making slides

One of the most used visual aids are (powerpoint) slides. There are, however, a couple of things to keep in mind when making slides.

Here are some tips when making slides:

- Present one topic per slide
- Use 6-9 lines per slide and 6-10 words per line
- Use big type sizes, especially when presenting in a large room. People in the back also want to read your slides.
- Don't use fancy type styles or fancy colours, because these will make your slides unreadable for your audience. Also keep in mind the lighting in the room, with direct sunlight, light colours will be invisible.
- Use lowercase in stead of CAPITALS. Capitals make your message seem agressive to your audience.
- Insert many pictures to support your story.
- Use simple graphics in stead of detailed tables. Your audience can't read a detailed table and listen to you at the same time.

Speaker notes

A visual aid that is not for the audience but mainly for yourself are speaker notes. A lot of good speakers use them. Speaker notes can be digital (powerpoint has an option to show speaker notes to the presenter, while showing the slides to the audience on another screen) or in the form of small pieces of paper. Speaker notes should be designed to be used as a reference. The text on them should be brief or in the form of keywords, but most of all the text has to be readable!

When you made speaker notes for your presentation, they will help you with the structure and timing of your talk. But what do you actually put on them?

What you can put "on paper":
- Your introduction in full (difficulty with the first sentence will make you nervous for the rest of your presentation).
- Key questions + key answers in short, to help you focus.
- Keywords, details, quotations, figures and names, so you don't forget the details.
- Links between topics in full, for a smooth telling of your story.
- Your closing in full, so your message really comes through the way you imagined it.
- Instructions for use of media, when you think this will give you trouble.

Do and Don't with oral presentations

After preparing your presentation you will eventually be giving the presentation in front of an audience. This can result in nerves. So how can you deal with that?

First of all, you'll have to manage your nerves because preventing them is very difficult, if not, impossible. To lessen you nerves, you'll have to prepare thoroughly. You can also do a reconnaissance of the premises (does the technology work? Can you use it? etc.). Sometimes it even helps to catastrophize the situation (what if ...) and imagine how you'll deal with it. In any case, don't apologize, because your audience will loose interest in your story.

Do's

Here are some tips you can use when doing an oral presentation:

- Do repeat the most important information (readers can repeat, listeners cannot)
- Do engage the audience (e.g. asking questions and eye contact)
- Do use clear and legible visual aids
- Do speak loud and clear
- Do use simple words
- Do show a lot of enthusiasm (body language)
- Do be confident (this is possible if you prepared well)
- Do relax and smile during speaking (your audience will like you better and remember your story better)
- Do wear clean clothes (sober for small meeting, more “showy” for big meeting)

Dont's

But there are also some things you'll want to avoid:

- Do not use written language, difficult words or long sentences
- Do  not read from a script
- Do not speak too fast
- Do not speak too monotonous
- Do not be afraid of introducing short breaks (e.g. to let people watch a slide)
- Do not stand in front of screen
- Do not look at the screen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnIPpUiTcRc

Dealing with questions

Congratulations! You've given your presentation and conveyed your message to your audience. Most of the time your presentation does not end here though. Your audience heard your story and now has questions for you.

We'll finish this lesson with giving you some tips on how to deal with different types of questions from your audience.

Types of questions | Answers
Barely audible or badly phrased | Repeat back
Irrelevant | Answer briefly
Private interest | Answer privately afterwards
Thoughtless | Answer briefly / do not cast scorn on it
“Funny” | Deal with in a serious manner
Provocative | Answer concisely, do not be drawn into argument

*With thanks to Corné van Elzakker (University of Twente) for (part of) the content.