Oral Presentations

 Oral presentations can be formal or

informal, depending upon their explicit and
implicit purposes and the delivery situation.
 An oral presentation can be almost any
report type, such as a design review, a
proposal, or a conference talk.
 Whatever the specific type, however, an
effective oral presentation is carefully
planned with your objectives in mind and
pays close attention to the demands of your
audience.
Oral presentations differ
significantly from written
documents in several ways.
Written Documents
Publication permits potentially
unlimited audience over time and
place.
No direct audience interaction.
Refined argumentative structure.
Large volume of detailed information
can be communicated.
Precise syntax and diction.
Emphasis on text.
Reader controls pace of presentation.
Oral Presentations
Audience generally limited to time
and place of delivery.
High level of audience interaction is
possible.
Simple presentation of main points.
Limited information transfer.
Conversational syntax and diction.
Emphasis on visuals.
Speaker controls pace of presentation.
 Effective oral communication is a
combination of many skills: outlining and
planning, preparing overheads or other
display media, rehearsing and delivery.
Format of oral presentations
 Outlining and Planning an Oral
Presentation
 Learn the basic outline for any oral
presentation. Most consist of four parts:
 1. Introduction
 2. Body
 3. Closing
 4. Question-and-answer period
Introduction
 The introduction to an oral presentation
usually includes these components:
 Your name and other identifying marks
you want to include (title, organization
usually)
 The title of your presentation, including
the type of presentation it is (report,
proposal, design review, etc.)
 The motivation for discussing your topic
 The statement of objective
 Forecasting the contents of your talk (if
your talk is over five minutes)
 To lend structure to your oral
presentation, repeat key phrases from
your introductory overheads throughout
your presentation.
Body

 The body of an oral presentation includes

these elements:
 An elaboration of the background of your
topic, such as a theory or hypotheses for an
experimental approach or procedure
 Development of specific content relevant to
the type of report you are giving: citing
equations, displaying relevant graphs or
other figures, presenting results and
discussion of those results
Closing

 The closing of an oral presentation

includes these elements:
 A summary statement of your
conclusions or recommendations, or
other material suited to your report type
(such as time schedules in a proposal)
 A request for questions from the
audience where that is expected and
appropriate
Question-and-Answer Period

In the question-and-answer period, you

do the following things:
● Interact with the audience by responding
to their queries. Use the question-and
answer period as a means of collaborating
with your audience: learn what you failed
to communicate effectively; incorporate
suggestions from the audience into the
next stage of your work, where
appropriate.
● Gauge the effectiveness of your presentation
from the kinds of questions you are asked. If the
questions seem trivial or repetitious, then you
probably did not communicate well to that
audience.
● Go into more detail about some points you
covered.
● Present new material in response to a question
(when this material is used to support major
points in your presentation).
 You should try to anticipate what kinds of
questions you may be asked and prepare
viewgraphs for this possibility.
Delivery

 The most important element of an oral

presentation is, of course, the content and
ideas you are trying to communicate.
However, the communication of content is
often impeded by a poor manner of delivery.
 Effective public speaking involves the whole
person, not just ideas.
 Manner of delivery includes style of speech,
handling of equipment, dress, and movement.
Rehearsing Oral Presentations

 You must rehearse so that your

presentation will be clear, concise, and
delivered in a relaxed and understandable
manner.
 Part of your rehearsal is the drafting and
report-planning process you must go
through to organize your topic, as well as
the process of preparing your visuals.
● Get information on the kind of room in
which you will be delivering your oral
report.
 How big is it? What kind of sound system, if
any, is available? Always try to familiarize
yourself with the physical setting of your
presentation beforehand.
● Check out any equipment you will be using,
such as overhead projectors, ahead of time.
Be prepared to give the talk in an alternative
format if properly functioning equipment is
not available.
● Never write out a full text of your talk with the
intent of memorizing it. A memorized written
text contains syntax appropriate to the page and
the eye but will be difficult for the audience of an
oral presentation to follow. If you are nervous,
you may forget key memorized passages and
become confused.
● Use visuals as your main cue cards--if they are
well designed, they will communicate your key
ideas to the audience and serve as notes for you
as well.
● Write transitional phrases on the hard-copy
version of your visuals. Avoid using index cards
with notes on them. They will be difficult to
handle during your presentation and will add to
the clutter of materials at the podium.
 Your first rehearsal should simply be a review of
the order of presenting your material.
 Riffle through your visuals until you have an
intuitive understanding of their order and of their
relevance to the organization and to the purpose
of your presentation.
 Once you have established this intuitive flow for
your presentation, try delivering a version of the
complete report, noting those places where
transitions or key ideas are weak.
 Repeat this process several times until you are
satisfied that you have covered your topic clearly
and concisely with language appropriate to your
audience.
 Style of Speech
 A relaxed, extemporaneous style of speech and
delivery will suit most formal and informal oral
report situations.
 Effective speakers can deliver a presentation
with great clarity yet with a relaxed and open
manner.
 Let the main items on your overheads prompt
you. If you have rehearsed your presentation,
you will have a store of prepared but not stiff,
memorized speech at your command.
Extemporaneous speaking employs syntax close
to that of conversational speech, without
needless digressions or repetitions.
 Identify and try to avoid your verbal tics. All
speakers have verbal tics, those phrases or
sounds (for example, "okay," "umm," "and")
that they insert during pauses or between
sentences.Verbal tics, if repeated often
enough, will annoy an audience and distract
them from the content or argument you are
trying to develop.
 Speak clearly and loudly. If you cannot be
heard you cannot communicate your ideas.
 Modulate your voice to show emphasis. Oral
communication does not have access to the rich
store of typographical styles available to the
writer to show emphasis.You can, however, show
emphasis by stressing various words or by
repeating key terms both in your visual materials
and in your speech. In addition, varying your rate
of speech will alleviate boredom and keep your
audience alert.

 Face the audience and establish eye contact with

them. If you do not face the audience (and
sometimes nervous speakers don't), most likely
you will seem distracted; if you are facing the
screen, you will not be audible. As you face your
audience, establish eye contact with them.
Handling Equipment

 Point to the screen to indicate parts of a

figure. If you bend over the overhead
projector and use your hand or a pen to
point out parts of an overhead, you will
most likely obscure the full projected image
and leave your audience in the dark.
 Move back from the projector, stand beside
the screen, and, while facing the audience,
use a pointer or a hand-held laser arrow to
emphasize elements of the overhead.
● Do not write on your overhead during a
formal oral presentation.
 Writing in real-time (for example, to sketch
out a derivation of an equation) during a
formal presentation looks messy. Some pens
will not write well on acetates.
 You will most likely obscure the image on
the screen behind you. Instead, prepare
additional overheads to show detailed
derivations of equations in case you are
asked to provide this information during the
question-and-answer period.
● Move away from the projector and to the side of
the screen once you have placed an overhead on
the projector so that you do not block the
audience's view.
Movement
 Avoid excessive movement around the podium.
 Unnecessary movements can distract the
audience's attention from the content of your
presentation.
 Similarly, a stiff, rigid posture will distance some
audience members.
 Adopt a relaxed yet inoffensive posture at the
podium.
 Remember, the audience is more interested in
what you have to say than in you.
● If you are delivering a formal oral presentation before
a large audience, position yourself so that you do not
obscure the screen behind you.
Limit your range of motion, moving comfortably
between the podium and the screen if necessary to
underscore important items.
Do not meander around in front of an audience.
● Hand gestures may be used to show emphasis, but as
with verbal tics, be sure you are not indulging in
nervousness by gesticulating unnecessarily.
● Always face the audience to maintain good eye
contact and so that your voice will project into the
room.