ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS

1. Planning your presentation

Stage 1: Think and read

 Think about your presentation at times when you are doing something
routine.
 Discuss it with friends
 Jot down notes
 Read all you can about the subject
 Gather all your material together
 Decide on your objective or theme, and start to break it up into key
ideas

Stage 2: Ask yourself the basic questions

 Why: What is my reason for presenting this?
 Why: What am I hoping to achieve?
 Why: What is my purpose?
To inform? To persuade? To educate? Why would my audience listen
to what I have to say?
 If you can answer these, you will have a clear objective. Write it down.
 What exactly do I want to say? What is the angle?
 What do I need to say?
 What does the audience need to know?
 What information can I leave out?
 What information must I include?
 Who exactly will my listeners be?
 Who: What kind of people are they? Will they understand me, or do I
have to simplify?
 Who: How will they react?
 How am I going to communicate most effectively? What kind of visual
aids can I use?
 How will I arrange my ideas? Shall I use a deductive sequence (start
with main point and go on to an explanation) or an inductive sequence
(start with the question and build up to the answer through
explanation)?
 How will I achieve the right effect?
 How much time do you have?

Stage 3: Plan the structure

1. Objectives: Write down your objectives in one or two sentences
2. Assemble your information: Write down all the points you want to
make, the headings and the subheadings.
3. Select your information: You need to look at all your material, your
notes and select only the essential information.
4. Prepare your notes: use simple headings on the file cards. Your notes
are: to prompt your memory, to ensure that you follow your sequence,
to prevent omission.
 5. Structure your talk: You will need to have a definite beginning, middle
and end.
Beginning: Introduction; aims and objectives; the reason why;
background
Middle: Present the material in sections; use natural breaks in the
material; summarise at the end of each section
End: Give time for questions; allow discussion; summarise the main
points; summarise the theme or objective; draw a conclusion

6. Plan your timing: Work out a time allocation for each section to help
you control this. Use linking sentences.

Managing questions

Question and answer sessions offer an opportunity to:

 Cover additional points
 Respond to any concerns of your audience
 Re-emphasise your message
Guidelines:
 Anticipate the questions that may be asked
 Actively listen to the question
 Restate the question. This serves to signal that you have heard it and
gives you time to consider your answer
 Stay with the question topic – do not re-define
 Use other people in the group to offer comments, information and
views
 Keep the focus of the discussion on the stated objectives

Delivering your presentation:

Impression
 Impact – Purpose. Presence. Enthusiasm
 Manner – Attitude to audience. Attitude to subject. Use of humour
 Non-verbal – Audience scan. Posture. Gesture. Dress

Skills
 Preparation – Knowledge of subject. Well planned. Objectives set
 Content – Appropriateness to audience. Interest, clarity and
completeness
 Structure – Suitable introduction. Purpose stated. Logical
development
 Delivery – Audibility. Tone. Pace. Enunciation. Fluency. Eye contact
 Timing – Within allocated time
 Discussion – Questions well handled. Discussion facilitated
 Summing up – Effectiveness of closure