Presentations>Advice

Designing Effective PowerPoint Presentations

This 52-slide, illustrated presentation covers a wide variety of key topics about preparing PowerPoint slides.

PowerPoint Presentations: Tips To Avoid Last Minute Surprises

The PowerPoint tips featured here are not about creating better or more effective presentations, instead they help you avoid any last minute surprises that may crop up when an eager audience is waiting to see your slide show.

The Power Presenter: Three Tips That Transformed My Last Presentation

As a presenter, I feed off the energy of the audience. I used to think that the audience determined the energy in the room, but after applying some of Jerry Weissman’s principles, I learned the presenter has more control over the room than I previously thought.

Stop Wasting Time: Ten Things You Can Do to Make Yourself More Efficient

Ten bits of advice about how to save time in the workplace, using software-as-a-service websites.

Perspectives on Science and Technical Communication

The purpose of presenting is to actuate. You want to persuade people. You want to persuade them to think, or get excited about something, or act in response to what you present. Otherwise there is no point in making the effort of preparing and delivering your presentation. Presentations do not necessarily need to be meaningful for you. You already know the meaning of your message. Deliver the message from the audiences' point of view. (Another way to say this: What you want to present is not as important as what the audience needs to hear in order for your message to come across clearly, simply.) Remember that an audience will judge a presentation on the basis of how meaningful is was for them.

The Technical Talk: More Effective Use Of Visual Aids

While most technical writing teachers assign the oral report and insist on visuals, very few offer their students good classroom examples of technical report visual aids. However, a set of 35 mm slides on one teaching topic could be easily produced with neither expensive equipment nor much ability in graphic design.

Present Like a Pro!

Suzanna Laurent discusses how we can add value to our work through presentation skills and techniques.

‘May I Have Your Attention?’: Exordial Techniques in Informative Oral Presentations

An introduction, even a short one, makes audiences more willing to listen to a speech, think more highly of the speaker, and understand a speech better than when no introduction is given. Two experiments at Delft University of Technology support this conclusion. Subjects viewed videotapes of professional presentations on the topic of Sick Building Syndrome. In one experiment, subjects rated the effectiveness of three introductory or 'exordial' techniques in gaining audience attention: an anecdote, an ethical appeal, and a 'your problem' approach. Results indicate that audiences do respond to exordial techniques, and in a predictable manner. In the second experiment, two speeches with anecdotal openers were tested against one without any introduction. The anecdotes led to significantly higher ratings of the presentation's comprehensibility and interest, as well as the speaker's credibility. The presence of an anecdote also resulted in higher retention scores. Oddly enough, the relevance of the anecdote did not seem to make a difference in the ratings.

The Writing Student’s Guide to Successful Oral Presentations

Graduates of technical writing programs often enter the workplace with poor oral communication skills due to lack of practice. The trainer or writing teacher can use several strategies to offer the students oral practice without expending a great deal of class time. Recommended classroom strategies include teaching the students basic preparation skills and presentational techniques, giving them brief as well as longer practice following strict time limits, and allowing them to receive immediate feedback from listeners. These efforts can aid writing students in giving oral presentations and in preparing them for the work setting.

Ideas are a Dime a Dozen, So Why Should I Listen to Yours? "Pitching" Your Ideas So That They Will be Heard

Getting your ideas heard and approved can be difficult any time, but especially when your audience is a supervisor or other decision-maker who is juggling numerous projects, ideas, and deadlines.

The Short Talk

The short talk (<= 20 minutes) is a fixture at most scientific conferences. Assuming that you have an overhead projector, this note focuses on how to give a good short talk. I think that if you can give good short talk then you can probably give a good 50-minute presentation because the additional time permits a certain flexibility. For example, in a 50-minute talk I think that the speaker can risk losing the majority of listeners for 10 minutes while a technical aspect is embellished for the 'experts'. In contrast, the short talk requires a more sustained level of clarity if it is to be successful.

How to Deliver Winning Presentations: Connecting Through Body Talk

The real secret to powerful delivery is a strong, positive, uninterrupted connection with the audience. To build that connection, you first of all need the right attitude. This is a combination of appreciation and respect for your listeners and enthusiasm about getting your message across to them. Now let's look at ways to express that attitude with your body and face.

How to Deliver Winning Presentations: The Magic of Connection

Do you wish you were a powerful, persuasive presenter? Do you envy people who can address a large audience with casual ease and charm, as though conversing with a few good friends? In this series, I will show you how to turn wish into reality and become one of that select group of exceptional presenters. It's surprisingly simple, as you'll see - and you don't need any special 'natural talent.'

How to Deliver Winning Presentations: The Winning Attitude

As we saw last time, the master key that opens the door to powerful delivery is honest connection with your audience. Outstanding speakers know that they must at every moment be connected with the real people in the audience, for a real purpose that matters to those people, and without hiding behind any slick stage personality. This is what generates the trust essential for persuasion. You may object that in most of your presentations, you're only selling technical information, with persuasion rooted entirely in objective criteria. But our experience with many organizations strongly suggests that this is the wrong view. You're always selling a package: people want the facts, but they also want to know that you are trustworthy and committed to helping them or to seeing a project through. And they get this essential information about trustworthiness and commitment not from the numbers and charts you present but from the way you connect with your listeners.

How to Deliver Winning Presentations: Using Your Voice to Connect with the Audience

We've seen that an attitude of appreciation, respect, and enthusiasm is the key to achieving the all-important connection with your listeners. In the last column, we examined ways to express that attitude with your body and face, through appropriate position, movement, gestures, and smile. This time, we'll consider the contribution your voice can make. Briefly, you must be heard and understood; you must talk at the right speed that invites the audience to stay with you; and you must maintain an emotional bond by expressing appropriate emotions.

Preparing Outstanding Presentations: Effective Visuals

Good visuals can strengthen your presentation tremendously - but unfortunately, they're rare. Here are their four key attributes: few, big, simple, and (occasionally) memorable. How many visuals per minute? People often ask me how many visuals they should use per minute of speech. I think they hope I will say expansively, 'As many as you like!' Instead, I tell them the opposite: 'Use no more than you really need.' The key is this: Use a visual only if it has a clear purpose.

Preparing Outstanding Presentations: Making Visuals Memorable

We saw how to create clean visuals that support your points. In essence, this involves 1) keeping text big (at least 18-point) so it can be read easily from the back of the room and 2) minimizing clutter (grids,numbers, legends, and unnecessary details). If you do that, your visuals will work for you rather than compete against you. This time, we will discuss how to make some of your visuals not just effective but memorable.

Preparing Outstanding Presentations: The Basic Structure

Last time, I showed you that answering three questions will give you the right main message and key points for a strong presentation: 1. Who are my listeners? 2. What do I want them to do or believe? 3. What are their main needs and interests? Once you have the message and key points, you need to fit them into a structure that will produce the response you want. There is one structure that works uniformly well for all presentations technical or non-technical, informative or persuasive. It consists of three parts, which I will discuss more fully in upcoming columns. Here, I want to show you what the structure is and why it will always work for you.

Preparing Outstanding Presentations: The Summary

In this series, I have described a universal presentation structure consisting of introduction, body, and summary. Parts 3 and 4 discussed the introduction and the body in detail. This time, we'll see how to close the presentation with an effective summary.

Preparing Outstanding Presentations: Understanding Your Audience

A presentation is a great chance to further your career. The reason is simple: most presentations are ill conceived and poorly delivered. So, if you can become one of the few who do it right, you'll stand out like a shining beacon in a dark wasteland. People will pick you for key projects because they can count on you to sell the work at presentation time. In this series, we look at the principles that enable you to prepare outstanding, career-boosting presentations.