What is a Presentation Skill?

Definition
Presentation skills can be defined as the abilities that people use to deliver
information to different kinds of audiences in an effective and engaging manner.
Presentation skills involve organizing your time, using body language, choosing the
proper presentation material, answering event attendees’ questions, and providing
audience participation.
The purpose of presentation skills is to help people deliver their message to the
audience. Great presentation skills are one of the most worthwhile abilities in modern
workplace culture. The reason is that presentations are an integral part of today’s
work ethic. Consequently, they have a great impact on job performance, employee
satisfaction, and work engagement.
Aside from organizations, presentations are also very common for high school,
college, or university students. Often, students are afraid of speaking publicly and
think that they don’t have the proper abilities to present the information. Regardless
of the reason for public speaking-related anxiety, presentation skills can be improved

Why is it Important to Develop & Improve Presentation Skills?

Why do we need presentation skills? It’s an age-old question that’s been answered a
thousand times. The answers are usually focused on the ability to have great
communication, share ideas with the audience, and get insights from them
Presentation skills also help people to answer complex questions without spending
extra time and inspire the audience by teaching new skills, sharing information, or
even selling a product. What is more interesting is the answer to the question of why
we need to improve our presentation skills. Or how can we develop presentation
skills? While extraverted speakers have no trouble speaking publicly, introverted
speakers often find it hard to communicate with the audience.
As a result, they end up having poor speeches, people don’t listen to them, and
consequently, their self-esteem decreases.
On the other hand, improving presentation skills helps people become more
confident in themselves and develop the skills of an eloquent speaker.
The advantages of improving presentation skills can be seen in a variety of fields,
including marketing, entrepreneurship, management, finances, schools, and
colleges.
Here are some of the main reasons why it’s important to enhance presentation
skills:
 You will improve your time management skills.
 You’ll learn to connect with an audience.
 You’ll communicate better with people in general.
 You will gain self-confidence.
  You’ll avoid miscommunication and reduce stress.

Good Presentation Skills: List with 15 Examples

1. Visual Communication
2. Interpersonal Communication
3. Verbal Communication
4. Humour
5. Storytelling
6. Attracting the audience
7. Keeping things simple
8. Using body language
9. Managing emotions
10. Self-awareness
11. Leadership
12. Focus on the audience
13. Active listening
14. Time organization
15. Doing research

VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Visual information is the first thing that forms the audience’s impression. Good
presentations include effective and influential slides. Your presentation should not
contain more than 100-word text slides.
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Giving a good presentation is unimaginable without building a rapport with the
audience. Effective interpersonal communication means convincing each member of
the audience that you’re speaking directly to them.
VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Speaking in a clear and confident way is key to delivering your message to the
audience. Verbal communication is the most obvious part of our communication and
plays a major role in presentation as well.
HUMOUR
Using humour is an effective way to engage the audience during a presentation.
Including a few light-hearted slides can be a great idea to increase your audience’s
mood.
STORYTELLING
Storytelling means the ability to tell an inspiring story, which is important presentation
skill.
ATTRACTING THE AUDIENCE
To inspire your audience, you need to attract them in the first place. A great balance
between verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as engaging visual materials,
lead presenters to attract the audience.
KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE
Sometimes you give presentations about topics that are unfamiliar to the audience.
Considering this, there’s no need to make things complicated. By keeping things
simple, you’ll avoid confusing your audience.
USING BODY LANGUAGE
Body language accounts for as much as 55% of our communication. Effective
presenters try to control their bodies, gestures, and pose in order to make an impact
on the audience.
MANAGING EMOTIONS
Sometimes people don’t like the way you present things or are not interested in the
topic. However, rejection shouldn’t affect your self-image. Effective presenters know
how to deal with the stress of public speaking and manage their emotions.
SELF-AWARENESS
Being self-aware means knowing your strengths and weaknesses. And this, in turn,
helps you to use your strengths and work on improving your weaknesses.
LEADERSHIP
A presenter plays the role of leader for the audience. Even if leadership isn’t natural
to your personality, acting as a leader will help you to manage the audience.
FOCUS ON THE AUDIENCE
Your presentation should be centred on the audience, not on yourself. The main
purpose of the presentation is to engage the audience. So, good presenters pay
attention to the needs and preferences of the people listening to them.
ACTIVE LISTENING
Ending your speech doesn’t mean that the presentation is also finished. The
presentation is a bilateral process between the presenter and the audience.
Therefore, you should listen actively to the audience in order to find out their
reactions and opinions.
TIME ORGANIZATION
No one listens to your presentation for hours. Studies show that the optimal length of
a presentation is 20 minutes. While a 10-minute presentation might be too short to
deeply understand a topic, giving a speech for more than 20 minutes is too much as
people lose interest and find it difficult to concentrate.
DOING RESEARCH
A good presenter is an expert on the topic he or she’s speaking about. Doing deep
research and finding statistics, facts, or examples about the main topic is important
presentation skill.

6 Types of Presentations
Nowadays, there are six major types of presentations that differ from each other in
structure and purpose.

1. Providing information
2. Teaching a skill
3. Reporting progress
4. Selling a product or service
5. Making a decision
6. Solving a problem

PROVIDING INFORMATION
Informative presentations are the most common type. It’s an educational, to-the-point
presentation that aims to provide new information or updates to the audience. For
instance, it could be public consultation meetings about an upcoming project in the
company.

The main goal here is to share information instead of entertaining or inspiring the
audience. Informative presentations often include a few educational slides on a slide
sorter with short and on-point information. However, you can add presentation notes
in order to help your audience better understand the topic and generate questions.
TEACHING A SKILL
Teaching new skills during public meetings is especially frequent in companies. In
this case, as well, a presenter is sharing information with the team. However, the
purpose isn’t only to share information but to instruct the audience on a particular
topic.

The audience is attending the presentation in order to learn new skills and have a
better understanding of the topic. Teaching new skills can take the form of training,
workshops, or webinars.

On each occasion, the presenter offers specific instructions to help the audience use
the new information in practice. Using techniques such as mind maps could be
useful in the process of teaching new skills.
REPORTING PROGRESS
Reporting progress has a bit different structure than standard presentation
structures. Each team leader or company leader wants to know how their team is
working. Therefore, the practice of scheduling presentations about the team’s
progress is very common in the business industry.
Of course, the leader won’t assess the individual strengths and weaknesses of team
members, but they might point out important achievements or overall drawbacks. So,
if you want to report the progress of a new campaign or project, don’t forget to keep
the outcome in mind and use as much informative visual information as possible.

Leaving time for questions is also important to make sure everyone understands the
company’s goals.

SELLING A PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Selling a product or service via presentation is an integral part of marketing
campaigns. Product sales presentations usually start with the introduction of the
company and point out its main ideas and purposes. Then in the mid-presentation, a
product or service is introduced to the audience. This type of presentation is a useful
way to increase awareness about your product and attract potential customers.
MAKING A DECISION
Decision-making presentations are used when the company has a specific problem
or problems that need to be discussed among the team members. In this case, the
presentation points out the problem, includes existing reasons for the problem, and
provides possible options for the solution.
SOLVING A PROBLEM
This type is very similar to the previous one, but the difference is that during a
solution-oriented presentation, the presenter and the audience work towards solving
the problem during the presentation. Here as well, the problem is initially identified,
and possible solutions and recommendations are discussed.

Training & Activities to Improve Presentation Skills

People often think that good presenters are born with presentation skills. However,
presentation skills are learned abilities and have the potential to develop over time.
Therefore, if you think that your presentation skills need to be improved, you can rely
on the following tips to train your own skills and become a better presenter.
 Presentation introduction – Introduction will determine your presenting flow, if
it is bad it will decrease interest in your presentation and vice-versa.
 Practice as much as possible – Rehearsing your presentation will help you
overcome public-speaking anxiety and become more confident in the process
of presenting.
 Know your audience – Understand your audience’s needs and learn as much
about them as you can. This will help you choose the proper language and
organize the information based on their needs.
 Get ready for questions – Each presentation is accompanied by questions
from the audience. Imagine possible questions and find the answers to them
in advance. That way, you’ll avoid confusion and feel more confident.
  Consider feedback – Even if your last presentation wasn’t a big success, it’s
useful. Consider the feedback from your audience and work on your
weaknesses for future presentations.

Presentation Skills for Students

A presentation is an integral part of modern classrooms. Having presentations helps
the students practice their language systems, improve public-speaking skills, learn
how to find and organize information, create slides, and share information with the
audience.

Therefore, developing presentation skills is very important in the developmental

stage of students. Making a presentation is a great way for students to become more
confident in themselves.

During the process of presentation preparation, they learn plenty of useful technical
skills, and sometimes they even learn scientific presentation techniques that can be
useful in their career development.

Developing presentation skills will help the students learn how to express their ideas
clearly and become more creative. All these things pave the way to the future world
of work.
Definition of Technical Writing

Technical writing is a type of writing where the author is writing about a particular subject
that requires direction, instruction, or explanation. This style of writing has a very different
purpose and different characteristics than other writing styles such as creative writing,
academic writing or business writing.

Uses for Technical Writing

Technical writing is straightforward, easy to understand explanations and/or
instructions dealing with a particular subject. It is an efficient and clear way of
explaining something and how it works.
The subject of technical writing can either be:
 Tangible - Something that can be seen or touched, such as a computer or
software program, or information on how to assemble a piece of furniture.
 Abstract - Something that involved a series of steps that aren't related to a
tangible object. One example of this might be steps required to complete an
office process.

Tips for Good Technical Writing

Regardless of the type of document which is written, technical writing requires the
writer to follow the properties of knowing their audience, writing in a clear, non-
personal style and doing extensive research on the topic. By including these
properties, the writer can create clear instructions and explanations for the reader.

Know your audience. An expert in the field will understand certain abbreviations,
acronyms, and lingo that directly applies to such a field. The novice will not
understand in the same manner and, therefore, every detail must be explained and
spelled out for them.
Use an impersonal style. Write from a third person perspective, like a teacher
instructing a student. Any opinions should be omitted.
The writing should be straightforward, to the point, and as simple as possible to
make sure the reader understands the process or instruction. This at times may
appear as simply a list of steps to take to achieve the desired goal or may be a short
or lengthy explanation of a concept or abstract idea.
Know how to research. Gather information from a number of sources, understand
the information gathered so that it can be analyzed thoroughly, and then put the
information into an easy to understand format to instruct those who read it. The more
inexperienced your audience, the more information you will need to gather and
explain.
Be thorough in description and provide enough detail to make your points; but, you
also have to consider that you need to use an economy of words so that you do not
bore your reader with gratuitous details.
A good technical writer can make a difficult task easy and can quickly explain a
complex piece of information.

Some examples of technical writing include:

 Instruction manuals
 Policy manuals
 Process manuals
 User manuals
 Reports of analysis
 Instructions for assembling a product
 A summarization of a long report that highlights and shortens the most
important elements

Technical writing process

Step 1 PLAN
All projects need to be planned – at least at some level. When you’re planning to write
technical documents, you should ask yourself:

 Scope – How many documents do I need to write? What are their key
characteristics? Am I going to publish them in multiple formats – if so, are
there any production requirements I should be aware of?
 Timing – How long do I need to schedule for review cycles? What’s the final
deadline?
 Process – What are the high level steps that I need to follow to create the
documents?
Along with these basic questions (which apply to almost any project – not just
technical writing) there are some specific writing-related questions that you’ll need to
consider in your documentation project:

 Audience – who am I writing for? Do they have a sophisticated command of

language? What are their education levels?
 Reviewers / Subject Matter Experts – these are the people who’ll lend their
technical expertise in the creation of the documents and review them for
accuracy
 Existing information
 Style guide / templates

STEP 2 – STRUCTURE
A structure is the backbone of your document – the hierarchy of headings that define
the logical order that it will progress. Structure is absolutely essential to successful
documents, and it’s something that you should develop before you start writing. A
well-structured document is one that has had thought go into it beforehand, which
means you’re less likely to need to rehash it later on.
It’s important to understand that structure isn’t a straightjacket – it’ll evolve and
change as you write and review the document. After you publish, you may end up
with a very different-looking document to the one you envisaged – that’s perfectly
normal and there’s nothing at all wrong with it!

There are a number of common structural approaches when it comes to technical

documents:

 Narrative structure – The traditional approach – intro, body, conclusion

 Process-based structure – Common in technical documentation such as procedures

and user guides

 Library structure – A collection of articles on a common topic, loosely structured

 System-based structure – Describing the components of a system such as an auto

manual

Whatever approach you choose, you’ll need to work with your subject matter experts
to understand how the structure you’ve developed will accomplish the purpose
you’ve set out to do – whether it’s explaining how a product works, how to carry out a
procedure, presenting information in a tender or sales document, and so on.

STEP 3 – WRITE

Writing is where you convert your bare-bones table of contents and notes into a
series of drafts, culminating in a draft that’s ready for formal review. Contrary to
popular impression, writing is only about 20-30% of the process in a well-planned
document – much of the effort goes into planning, structuring, and reviewing your
work. In fact, the more time you spend planning and structuring your work,
the less time you’re likely to spend on writing.
Writing well is one thing – but if you want to produce good documents, you’ll need to
engage your subject matter experts.

 rely on a subject matter expert – someone who’s an expert in a particular field – to

lend their technical expertise to whatever it is you’re writing about.

At this stage, engaging your subject matter experts means a lot of informal one-on-
one discussions – or even workshop-style if you have a large group of them. At this
stage, you should be asking your expe)rts to contribute raw material, review and / or
test what you’ve written and so on. Remember – at this stage, it’s all fairly loose and
informal – the formality comes in the next step, Review.

STEP 4 – REVIEW

In the Review step, there are a number of discrete activities going on (depending on

the type of document being written):

 Review by subject matter experts

 Testing a procedure / instruction to make sure you / a subject matter expert
can follow the steps
 Peer review by a colleague

 Editing and proofing
 (Editing is the process of reviewing for content, logic, and other high-
level elements, while proofreading is reviewing for misspelled and
misused words, mechanical errors, and punctuation mistakes. Editing
and proofreading are, in fact, two distinct processes that should not be
conducted simultaneously.
 PLAGIARISM.
 (Plagiarism is when you take (i) somebody else's idea, or (ii) somebody else's
words, and use them such that you appear to be the original creator or author
of the idea or words. Even if you change a few words of someone else's
sentence, it is still plagiarism if the same idea is presented.)

STEP 5 – PUBLISH
Publishing can be a complicated process – or it can be extremely easy. Publication
is where writers manufacture and launch the final product. This might be as
straightforward as emailing an approved document to your manager, or uploading it
to a content management system or intranet. On the other hand, it might involve
some fairly complicated logistics.

7 C’s of Technical Report Writing 

1. Clarity
 

A Technical report should be clear and easy to understand. Where adding

ambiguities in the report will confuse the readers, removing vagueness will be a
better option for the convenience of the audience. The report should clarify your
target audience’s doubts as that’s what they will be there to read in the first place.

2. Correctness 

Rectifying your grammatical mistakes, factual errors, and even typos before
publishing will help the reader in understand the context of the report without a
pause. Your audience will not be stopped while reading to discover a mistake which
eventually will make the reading experience of the user, smooth. Incorrectness often
disturbs the flow of reading.

3. Conciseness 

If a report is presented keeping your matter to the point and without overdoing the
context of the document, helps with making the user understand the same clearly,
concisely, and conveniently. It is always recommended to replace long drawn-out
phrases with single words. However, make sure to not lose the main context of the
subject.

4. Consistency 

Having a persistent flow of the content is vital as the readers should feel drawn into it
after reading more and more. Keep the style of formatting and terminology uniform
during the whole document as it assists the users to understand the concept swiftly.

5. Coherence

 
Steps for drafting any piece of writing include planning, searching and researching,
and finally organizing the document. Connecting these pieces of information is a
tricky yet crucial process. However, following this procedure diligently will contribute
to the users following the flow of the document while reading.

6. Completeness

After choosing a topic, determining the requirement of the topic is the next necessary
step. Identifying what needs to be added is essential. Providing the promised
required information should be the next main focus of the document. This process
demands a lot of research and pre-arranged resources to provide answers to your
target audience.

7. Credibility 

High-quality content is the need of today where the attention span is significantly
less, which is why your content should be a form of credible to your target audience.
If answers are provided to them not satisfying their questions, they will not come
back. Hence, having credibility in your process and content is necessary.

 Steps to follow for Technical Report Writing:  

The Title Page and the Cover Page

The cover page is the first impression of your technical writing report. It’s the very
first thing that your target audience will see and hence it is not wrong to determine it
as ‘the face of the project’.

To give it a professional and informative look, details like the name of the author or
team, name of the institution, and title with the logo is added on the very first page
which makes it convenient for the receivers to understand what they are going to
know about in the particular report.

Abstract:

 
Abstract allows having a brief and unambiguous outline of the project. It should be
written keeping in mind the perspective of the reader. The person going through the
report should be able to perceive complete details of the project in one simple go.

Preface:

Adding this step to your report will work as a proclamation determining that you have
granted people or sources with their due credit who helped you in the formation of
the report.

As plagiarism plays a vital role in any form of writing, so does it in Technical writing.
Hence, in the Preface section, you will also have to declare that the research you
have done is not plagiarized from anywhere. Not only that, but the writers will also
have to mention that whatever they have found are via their analysis.

Acknowledgment:

Now it’s time for being thankful to the people who helped you in the process of
creating the report. This is the place where you add people, parties, and even
institutions that assisted you in the research. And also to the ones who inspired the
idea of the report.

Table of Contents:

It is seen in almost all sorts of research-based papers and even novels and other
writing forms. The sole reason is that the Table of Contents proves to be an easy
pathway for the readers to understand what they are going to discover in the book or
report.

Introduction:

This marks the official commencement of the project report. The writer should clarify
with the readers what they are going to expect from this report. Make sure to
incorporate your goals, purpose, and objective of the report in the introductory
section.

Also, add the questions that have been answered by you in the report. If possible, do
include a synopsis of the project. Keeping in mind that your conclusion should be
able to give answers to the objective questions, write it in the same way.

Body:

It included the central chapters wherein the writers provide detailed information
about the topics they talked about at the beginning of the report. Now is the time the
readers have come to finally read about it, basically to find their answers.

Hence, it is necessary to keep the matter detailed and systematic, which means it
should add sections and subsections. According to experienced technical writers, a
report can even include sub subsections if required. Following this step makes the
report look concise which pleases the eyes of the readers and eventually helps them
to read and understand better.

Before beginning each chapter, it’s better to start by introducing the objective of this
chapter in the first paragraph. Technical reports do not welcome the personal
opinions of their creators. It is expected to write only facts collected after days and
months of research. Hence, only verifiable facts should be presented.

Conclusions:

Finish, ending, or closing, are some synonyms of conclusions, meaning its sole
motive should be that it concludes every prospect the writer has opened in the
report.

The writer will have to explain that he had talked about a particular topic and now it
has been concluded with a specified purpose. The meaning, objectives, and
purposes of the report should be mentioned in the conclusion section.