UNIT 3 --- Public Speaking ( 3 ) – Preparation of Presentation

Public Speaking ( 3 ) – Preparation of Presentation

                With good preparation and planning we will be totally confident and less nervous. And our audience will feel our confidence. Our audience, too, will be confident. They will be confident in us. And this will give us control. Control of our audience and of our presentation. With control, we will be 'in charge' and our audience will listen positively to our message.

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

? Audience
"Whom am I making this presentation to?" Sometimes this will be obvious, but not always. We should try to inform ourselves. 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 us?

? 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?

? 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 our audience will be hungry, or just after lunch, when our audience will be sleepy?

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

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

? Structure
A well organized presentation with a clear structure is easier for the audience to follow. It is therefore more effective. We should organize the points we wish to make in a logical order. Most presentations are organized in three parts, followed by questions:

Beginning Short introduction      • welcome our audience
                                                     • introduce our subject
                                                     • explain the structure of our presentation
                                                     • explain rules for questions

Middle  Body of presentation       • present the subject itself

End  Short conclusion                  • summarise our presentation
                                                     • thank our audience
                                                     • invite questions

Questions and Answers

? Notes
When we give our presentation, we should be - or appear to be - as spontaneous as possible. We should not read our presentation! We should be so familiar with our subject and with the information that we want to deliver that we do not need to read a text. Reading a text is boring! Reading a text will make our audience go to sleep! So if we don't have a text to read, how can we remember to say everything we need to say? With notes. We can create our 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 we confidence, but because we will have prepared our presentation fully, we may not even need them!

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

          • we will become more familiar with what we want to say
          • we will identify weaknesses in our presentation
          • we will be able to practise difficult pronunciations
          • we will be able to check the time that our presentation takes and makes any necessary modifications

So prepare, prepare, prepare! Prepare everything: words, visual aids, timing, equipment. Rehearse our presentation several times and time it. Is it the right length? Are we completely familiar with all our illustrations? Are they in the right order? Do we know who the audience is? How many people? How will we answer difficult questions? Do we know the room? Are we confident about the equipment? When we have answered all these questions, we will be a confident, enthusiastic presenter readily to communicate the subject of our presentation to an eager audience. The following table shows examples of language for each of these functions. We may need to modify the language as appropriate.