Republic of the Philippines

EASTERN VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Tacloban City, Philippines

GRADUATE SCHOOL

Subject: LIS003: Advanced Speech & Oral Com for Teachers Discussant: Maricris L.
Refugio
Professor: Dr. Ma. Belinda Cabodil Lora Program: MAEd- Language
Instruction
Schedule: SAT (1:30 - 5:30) Date: August 7, 2021

Why should you use presentation aids? If you have

prepared and rehearsed your speech adequately,
(H A N D O U T)
shouldn’t a good speech with a good delivery be
TOPIC OVERVIEW: enough to stand on its own? While it is true that
 Using Presentation Aids In impressive presentation aids will not rescue a poor
speech, it is also important to recognize that a
Speech good speech can often be made even better by the

 Designing Presentation Aids strategic use of presentation aids.

Presentation aids can fulfill several functions: they
 Using Presentation Software can serve to improve your audience’s
understanding of the information you are
conveying, enhance audience memory and
retention of the message, add variety and interest
to your speech, and enhance your credibility as a
speaker.

USING PRESENTATION AIDS IN A SPEECH

Functions of Presentation Aids

Improving Audience Understanding

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Human communication is a complex process that often leads to misunderstandings. If you are
like most people, you can easily remember incidents when you misunderstood a message or
when someone else misunderstood what you said to them. Misunderstandings happen in public
speaking just as they do in everyday conversations.

One reason for misunderstandings is the fact that perception and interpretation are highly
complex individual processes. Most of us have seen the image in which, depending on your
perception, you see either the outline of a vase or the facial profiles of two people facing each
other. This shows how interpretations can differ, and it means that your presentations must be
based on careful thought and preparation to maximize the likelihood that your listeners will
understand your presentations as you intend them to.

As a speaker, one of your basic goals is to help your audience understand your message. To
reduce misunderstanding, presentation aids can be used to clarify or to emphasize.

Clarifying

Clarification is important in a speech because if some of the

information you convey is unclear, your listeners will come away
puzzled or possibly even misled. Presentation aids can
help clarify a message if the information is complex or if the
point being made is a visual one.

If your speech is about the impact of the Coriolis effect on

tropical storms, for instance, you will have great difficulty
clarifying it without a diagram because the process is a complex
one. The diagram in Figure 15.1 “Coriolis Effect” would be
effective because it shows the audience the interaction between equatorial wind patterns and
wind patterns moving in other directions. The diagram allows the audience to process the
information in two ways: through your verbal explanation and through the visual elements of the
diagram.

Figure 15.2 “Model of Communication” is another example of a diagram that maps out the
process of human communication. In this image you clearly have a speaker and an audience
(albeit slightly abstract), with the labels of source, channel, message, receivers, and feedback to
illustrate the basic linear model of human communication.

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 Figure 15.3 Petroglyph

Another aspect of clarifying occurs when a speaker wants to

visually help audience members understand a visual concept.
For example, if a speaker is talking about the importance of
petroglyphs in Native American culture, just describing the
petroglyphs won’t completely help your audience to visualize
what they look like. Instead, showing an example of a
petroglyph, as in Figure 15.3 “Petroglyph”, can more easily
help your audience form a clear mental image of your intended
meaning.

Emphasizing

When you use a presentational aid for emphasis, you impress

your listeners with the importance of an idea. In a speech on water
conservation, you might try to show the environmental proportions
of the resource. When you use a conceptual drawing like the one
in Figure 15.4 “Planetary Water Supply”, you show that if the world
water supply were equal to ten gallons, only ten drops would be
available and potable for human or household consumption. This
drawing is effective because it emphasizes the scarcity of useful
water and thus draws attention to this important information in
your speech.

Aiding Retention and Recall

The second function that presentation aids can serve is to increase the audience’s chances of
remembering your speech. A 1996 article by the US Department of Labor summarized research

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on how people learn and remember. The authors found that “83% of human learning occurs
visually, and the remaining 17% through the other senses—11% through hearing, 3.5% through
smell, 1% through taste, and 1.5% through touch” (United States Department of Labor, 1996).
Most of how people learn is through seeing things, so the visual component of learning is very
important. The article goes on to note that information stored in long-term memory is also
affected by how we originally learn the material. In a study of memory, learners were asked to
recall information after a three day period. The researchers found that they retained 10 percent
of what they heard from an oral presentation, 35 percent from a visual presentation, and 65
percent from a visual and oral presentation (Lockard & Sidowski, 1961). It’s amazing to see how
the combined effect of both the visual and oral components can contribute to long-term memory.

For this reason, exposure to a visual image can serve as a memory aid to your listeners. When
your graphic images deliver information effectively and when your listeners understand them
clearly, audience members are likely to remember your message long after your speech is over.

Moreover, people often are able to remember information that is presented in sequential steps
more easily than if that information is presented in an unorganized pattern. When you use a
presentation aid to display the organization of your speech, you will help your listeners to
observe, follow, and remember the sequence of information you conveyed to them. This is why
some instructors display a lecture outline for their students to follow during class.

An added plus of using presentation aids is that they can boost your memory while you are
speaking. Using your presentation aids while you rehearse your speech will familiarize you with
the association between a given place in your speech and the presentation aid that
accompanies that material. For example, if you are giving an informative speech about
diamonds, you might plan to display a sequence of slides illustrating the most popular diamond
shapes: brilliant, marquise, emerald, and so on. As you finish describing one shape and
advance to the next slide, seeing the next diamond shape will help you remember the
information about it that you are going to deliver.

Adding Variety and Interest

A third function of presentation aids is simply to make your speech more interesting. While it is
true that a good speech and a well-rehearsed delivery will already include variety in several
aspects of the presentation, in many cases, a speech can be made even more interesting by the
use of well-chosen presentation aids.

For example, you may have prepared a very good speech to inform a group of gardeners about
several new varieties of roses suitable for growing in your local area. Although your listeners will
undoubtedly understand and remember your message very well without any presentation aids,
wouldn’t your speech have greater impact if you accompanied your remarks with a picture of
each rose? You can imagine that your audience would be even more enthralled if you had the
ability to display an actual flower of each variety in a bud vase.

Similarly, if you were speaking to a group of gourmet cooks about Indian spices, you might want
to provide tiny samples of spices that they could smell and taste during your speech. Taste
researcher Linda Bartoshuk has given presentations in which audience members receive small
pieces of fruit and are asked to taste them at certain points during the speech (Association for
Psychological Science, 2011).

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 Enhancing a Speaker’s Credibility

Presentation aids alone will not be enough to create a professional image. As we mentioned
earlier, impressive presentation aids will not rescue a poor speech. However, even if you give a
good speech, you run the risk of appearing unprofessional if your presentation aids are poorly
executed. This means that in addition to containing important information, your presentation
aids must be clear, clean, uncluttered, organized, and large enough for the audience to see and
interpret correctly. Misspellings and poorly designed presentation aids can damage your
credibility as a speaker. Conversely, a high quality presentation will contribute to your
professional image. In addition, make sure that you give proper credit to the source of any
presentation aids that you take from other sources. Using a statistical chart or a map without
proper credit will detract from your credibility, just as using a quotation in your speech without
credit would.

If you focus your efforts on producing presentation aids that contribute effectively to your
meaning, that look professional, and that are handled well, your audience will most likely
appreciate your efforts and pay close attention to your message. That attention will help them
learn or understand your topic in a new way and will thus help the audience see you as a
knowledgeable, competent, credible speaker.
Key Takeaways

 Presentation aids should help audiences more thoroughly understand a speaker’s basic
message.
 There are four basic reasons to use presentation aids. First, they increase audience
understanding of a speaker’s message. Second, they help audiences retain and recall a
speaker’s message after the fact. Third, they make a speech more interesting by adding
variety. Lastly, by making a speaker’s overall speech more polished, presentation aids can
increase an audience’s perception of the speaker’s credibility.
 Presentation aids help an audience more clearly understand a speaker’s message in two
ways: they help clarify and they help emphasize. Presentation aids can help the audience to
understand complex ideas or processes and can also show which ideas are most important in
the speech.

DESIGNING PRESENTATION AIDS

Visual aids can enhance your presentations - they can

increase the audience's understanding of your topic,
explain points, make an impact and create enthusiasm.
It has become more important to make information
visual:

"Something is happening. We are becoming a visually

mediated society. For many, understanding of the
world is being accomplished, not through words, but by
reading images" - (Lester, 2006)

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What are visual aids?
Visual aids are items of a visual manner, such as graphs, photographs, video clips etc
used in addition to spoken information. Visual aids are chosen depending on their
purpose, for example, you may want to:

 Summarise information.
 Reduce the amount of spoken words, for example, you may show a graph of
your results rather than reading them out.
 Clarify and show examples.
 Create more of an impact, for example, if your presentation is on the health risks
of smoking, you may show images of the effects of smoking on the body rather
than describing this. You must consider what type of impact you want to make
beforehand - do you want the audience to be sad, happy, angry etc?
 Emphasise what you're saying.
 Make a point memorable.
 Enhance your credibility.
 Engage the audience and maintain their interest.
 Make something easier for the audience to understand.

Preparation and use of visual aids

Once you have decided that you want to use a visual aid, you must ensure that the
audience is able to quickly understand the image - it must be clear. They can be used
throughout your speech but try to only use visual aids for essential points as it can be
tiring for the audience to skip from one visual to another.

Preparation
 Think about how can a visual aid can support your message. What do you want the
audience to do?
 Ensure that your visual aid follows what you're saying or this will confuse the audience.
 Avoid cluttering the image as it may look messy and unclear.
 Visual aids must be clear, concise and of a high quality.
 Keep the style consistent, such as, the same font, colours, positions etc
 Use graphs and charts to present data.
 The audience should not be trying to read and listen at the same time - use visual aids to
highlight your points.
 One message per visual aid, for example, on a slide there should only be one key point.
 Use visual aids in moderation - they are additions meant to emphasise and support main
points.

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  Ensure that your presentation still works without your visual aids in case of technical
problems.
 Practice using the visual aids in advance and ask friends and colleagues for feedback.
Ask them whether they can clearly see the visual aid and how they interpret it.

During the presentation

 Ensure that the visual aids can be seen by everyone in the audience.
 Face the audience most of the time rather than the image.
 Avoid reading from the visual aid.
 As soon as you show the visual aid the audience's attention will be drawn to it so you
must immediately explain it. You will be ignored if you talk about something else.
 Make it clear to the audience why you are using it.
 When you no longer need the visual aid ensure that the audience can't see it.

Tailor to your audience

Choose your visual aids tactically so you appeal to your audience. This means finding
images your audience can relate to, images they will find familiar and images they will
like. Also think about what style of visual aid is suitable for the audience; is it quite a
serious presentation? Can you be humorous? Is it more formal or informal?

Key points for using visual aids

Try to find out what the presentation room is like beforehand, such as, the layout of the
room, the equipment etc, so you can see if your visual aids are appropriate and whether
they will work there but always have a contingency plan regardless. Also remember that
the audience should be able to understand an image almost immediately.

Practice
Before your presentation, ensure that you practice with your visual aids so you know
how to operate the equipment. If something goes wrong you'll have a better chance of
solving the problem.

Use colour
Research suggests that using colour increases people's motivation to read and their
enthusiasm for a presentation. Software like PowerPoint is great for producing colour
visuals.

Using the colour wheel can help when choosing your presentation's colours:

 Colours opposite each other in the wheel are complementary and they create contrast.
Using complementary colours makes your text more readable.

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  Colours next to each other are analogous and they are harmonious. Using analogous
colours makes your presentation more unified.

The Adobe colour wheel, which helps you pick complementary colours for your
presentation design.

Avoid using too many colours in your presentation as this can look cluttered and
unprofessional and keep your colour themes continuous, for example, if you highlight all
the key words on one slide in blue, continue to do this throughout the presentation. Also
be careful with colour associations, for example, in many cultures red is linked to
danger. Try to represent your words and topics with colours that make sense and are
appropriate.

Many people are blue-green or red-green colour-blind so avoid putting these colours
next to each other’s in, for example, a graph. If you cannot avoid placing these colours
next to each other then use text to clearly label items

Evidence
Research suggests that information displayed visually is well remembered: "retention of
information three days after a meeting or other event is six times greater when
information is presented by visual and oral means than when the information is
presented by the spoken word alone." (U.S. Department of Labor OSHA Office of
Training and Education, 1996)

There is also significant evidence suggesting that most learning occurs visually - some
researchers suggest that 83% of human learning happens visually. The psychologist
Bruner conducted multiple studies which suggest that people remember 80% of what
they see and do, 20% of what they read and only 10% of what they hear.

In summary
Visual aids are worth including in your presentations because they can help you explain
information more coherently which makes presenting easier for you and learning easier
for the audience. They also help add variety to your presentation thus making it more
interesting for the audience. If the audience understand what you're saying and they are
more engaged, they're more likely to be persuaded by you.

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More Tips in Designing Visual Aids
Effective visuals help your audience understand and remember the key points of your
presentation. Overhead projectors and slides, blackboards, handouts, and computer
programs like PowerPoint can greatly enhance your message if they are used
effectively. The following tips will help you design effective visual aids. 

Make each visual stand on its own

Each visual needs to be clear and understandable on its own. To help you accomplish
this, consider using the following tips:

 limit each slide to only one topic, and give it a relevant title
 state sources where appropriate – for statistics, figures, pictures, etc.
 number headings to clearly illustrate where you are in your presentation
 know your audience: avoid abbreviations and jargon unfamiliar to them
 use meaningful graphics when they reinforce your written message
 highlight key information on charts, tables, and graphs to help focus your audience’s
attention (i.e., use colour, circle the information, or use a pointer)
 make points concise yet meaningful – avoid being cryptic

Achieve balanced and consistent layouts

Balance and consistency are important when creating a presentation package. While
your visuals should be able to stand alone, they also need to fit together into a coherent
whole. The following tips should help:

 keep type sizes and fonts consistent on all visuals in a presentation

 format headings consistently (e.g., use bold text and increased font size)
 use no more than two fonts per slide (one for headings and one for main text) or choose
different sizes of the same font for headings and main text
 spread the information out so that it fills the screen
 choose contrasting colours (e.g., dark background with light lettering)
 use colour consistently but avoid overuse – two to four colours per slide
 be aware of the connotations behind colours (e.g., red on a financial statement comes
with the negative connotation of having a cash deficit)
 use parallel grammar for points (e.g., begin each point with the same part of speech)

Make visuals easy to read

Visuals are only effective if your audience can physically see them. Here are some tips:

 use 24 - 28 point font for main text and 32 - 40 point font for headings
 if writing by hand on overhead slides, make your letters at least 1/2” (1.0 cm) high

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  avoid distracting, unnecessary graphics and excessively complex backgrounds
 use clear, standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Helvetica
 consider using boldface lettering to make text thicker
 avoid putting much text in italics or all upper-case letters – this slows down reading
 ensure diagrams are not too intricate to be visible from the back of the room
 limit each point to one line whenever possible to limit reading time

Include only your main points

Effective visuals should aid your audience, not you! They are not your lecture notes.
The following tips will help you design concise, content-rich visuals:

 write only main points on your visuals, not the details that support them – avoid giving
the audience your presentation to read
 put the key words you repeat throughout your presentation on your visuals (repetition is
acceptable in presentations, since it helps audience retention)
 make your points discrete: do not simply break up paragraphs
 assume your audience will copy down everything you present on a visual – keep
information clear, simple, and minimal

Benefits of Presentation Slide Software: \ Visual: Visualizing information helps your readers see
what you're explaining. Versatile: It incorporates photos, illustrations, sketches, and even
video if it's posted online. Interactive: You can embed links and jump around the document
itself or out to the Internet.

Using Presentation Software

Benefits of Presentation Slide Software:

Visual: Visualizing information helps your readers see what you’re explaining.

Versatile: It incorporates photos, illustrations, sketches, and even video if it’s posted
online.

Interactive: You can embed links and jump around the document itself or out to the
Internet.

Tablet-ready: Its aspect ratio makes it easy to load onto devices.

Spreadable: Its modular nature allows slides to be incorporated into other decks and
spread it throughout the organization.

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Shareable: Platforms like SlideShare™ make it embeddable and shareable.

Presentation software can be a great publishing tool. The ability to integrate words,
visuals, and other interactive elements like hyperlinks and video are a few of the key
attributes of a slidedoc.

First, it’s a practical alternative to professional design software, which is expensive and
takes years to learn well.Why make that investment when a tool you use every day will
work for most of your communication needs? Granted, professional designers serve a
great purpose. Designers spend years learning the effective display of information. For
high-stakes collateral of any kind, nothing can replace a designer’s ability to visually
guide and engage the reader.

Second, presentation software is pervasive. PowerPoint® is installed on more than a

billion computers worldwide.

You’d be surprised by the number and quality of ideas that begin in presentation
software. Many people use it to create concepts and strategies, and plenty of great
ideas trickle out of these apps.

Lastly, very few tools allow you to pick up entire pages, rearrange them, easily merge
them into existing documents, or save them into their own file. The ease with which you
can accomplish these tasks with presentation software makes it the perfect platform for
spreading information. I’ve seen slides we helped create for a client in one part of the
company come back to us repackaged in a deck from a completely different
department. It’s a testament to presentation software’s unique ability to facilitate and
spread ideas.

Now that we have this tool, how do we know when to use it? When is it better to send
people a slidedoc, and when should you give a presentation? The answer depends a
great deal on the situation, but much of your decision should boil down to two questions:

1. Do people need to hear your message directly from you? If so, you should deliver
a presentation.

2. Does the subject matter require a lot of detail to understand? If so, a slidedoc
could be your best bet. The table below serves as a guide to help you decide where
some internal and external communications may fall on the spectrum.

References:

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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ccc-spch-1080-2/chapter/chapter-15-
presentation-aids-design-and-usage/#:~:text=Presentation%20aids%2C%20sometimes
%20also%20called,%2C%20maps%2C%20and%20the%20like.
https://www.duarte.com/presentation-software-is-the-right-tool-for-the-job/
https://virtualspeech.com/blog/visual-aids-presentation

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