How to Give a Significant Presentation
How to Give a Significant Presentation
- Write the script of your lecture in advance and rehearse your presentation several times before your main speech. This technique gives you an abundance of confidence, especially if you are a beginner.
- You can also prepare handouts for your presentation and distribute them among your attendees. A handout is a piece of paper with information, which is given to people who are attending a lecture, meeting, etc. A handout can help your attendees, particularly those whose listening ability is not fully developed, to communicate with your presentation.
- Do not recite the script before the audience. Do not forget that a lecturer is NOT a newscaster.
- Do not utter words and sentences like a robot. In other words, do not memorize the script and echo it in the seminar room or conference hall. Your performance must be dynamic and vibrant.
- Your speech should not be monotonous. That is, the rising and falling of your tone should have moderate fluctuations in response to the salience of the points you are making in your speech.
- Do not stand motionless on the podium. Instead, circulate on the stage if you think it can help your audience to pay more attention to you.
- Involve your audience in one way or another to make sure they are following you. For example, ask some of them randomly about their personal opinions on the points you are presenting.
- Have eye contact with all of your audience, and not just some of them. Remember that nonverbal communication carries so much weight in giving a successful speech.
- Recognize your audience (age, gender, education, number, etc.) and the context (social, cultural, educational, etc.) in which you should give a lecture.
- Pilot your speech in advance. That is, give your presentation to your friends, colleagues, classmates, teachers, etc. before the due time and ask for their feedback. Remember that “feedback is the breakfast of champions“.
- If possible, depending on your audience, presentation context and topic, use your sense of humor moderately. Note that you must not overuse it.
- Use visual aids, namely pictures, graphs, diagrams, short video clips, etc. and prepare relevant and expressive slides on Microsoft PowerPoint to add flesh to the bones of your presentation.
