PRESENTATION

SKILLS
Anum Aziz
Lecturer Humanities & Social Sciences
Bahria University, Islamabad
 Public Speaking

All great speakers were bad

speakers at first.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Stage Fright
The fear that so many beginning speakers
experience is called communication
apprehension or speech anxiety but it is
commonly referred to simply as stage
fright.
 Types of Stage Fright
• Facilitative Stage Fright:
The fear that actually makes one perform
better.
• Debilitative Stage Fright:
The fear that hinders a person from
performing well.
 Facilitative Stage Fright
• A certain amount of nervousness is not
only natural but it also facilitates a person
in performing well.
• Totally relaxed people cannot perform as
well as moderately nervous ones.
 Debilitative Stage Fright
• When the level of anxiety becomes intense
debilitative fears emerge.
• They inhibit effective self expression and
they cause trouble in two ways:
a. The strong emotion keeps one from thinking
clearly.
b. It leads to an urge to do anything to make it go
away, e.g. Speeding up the speech.
 Sources of Debilitative Stage
Fright
• Previous Negative Experience:
Past experience can lead a person to
believe that all coming encounters would
be of the same type. This type of thinking
can restrict performance and undermine
confidence.
 Sources of Debilitative Stage
Fright
• Irrational Thinking or Fallacies:
i. Catastrophic Failure: Believing that if something bad
can happen it will. This fallacy is externally motivated.
E.g. any request for clarity can be construed by the
speaker as a failure.
ii. Perfection: Expecting one to behave, perform and
speak flawlessly. It is not possible to be perfect
especially if one is a beginner. Lack of perfection is
moreover completely natural and its lacking should not
be viewed as some kind of failure. In this case if a
mistake is made speakers tend to lose all confidence.
 Sources of Debilitative Stage
Fright
• Approval: Speakers believe that it is not only necessary
but also vital to get the approval of everyone. It is
necessary to understand that one cannot win the approval
of everyone all the time especially if the speech is on a
controversial topic.

You can’t please all the people all

the time – and it is irrational to
expect you will.
Abraham Lincoln
 Sources of Debilitative Stage
Fright
• Overgeneralization: This can be called the fallacy of
exaggeration. This happens when a person exaggerates
one poor experience. For example,
– “I completely blew it – I forgot one of my supporting points”
– “my hands were shaking – The audience must have thought I was a
complete idiot”
Overcoming Debilitative Stage Fright
• Be Rational: Think about these fears in a
logical and reasoned way and accept that they
are only fallacies which can be overcome.
• Be Receiver Oriented: Concentrate on your
audience members rather than yourself. Worry
about whether they are understanding you and
whether they are interested.
Overcoming Debilitative Stage Fright
• Be Positive: Build and maintain a positive
attitude towards your audience and your speech.
Think that the speech will have a positive
outcome and do your best towards it without
worrying about it.
• Be prepared: A necessary thing in this direction
is being prepared and organised so that no points
are lost and a speaker remains confident.
 SPEECH
“Three things matter in a speech -
who says it, how he says it and
what he says, and of the three, the
latter matters the least.”
John Morley.
Main Qualities During Talk
1.Competence
2. Erudition (the quality of having or showing
great knowledge)
3. Enthusiasm and faith
“He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of
courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and
assuring trust that all will come out well - even
though to the world it may appear to come out
most badly.”
B. Forbes
 AN EXAMPLE OF PUBLIC
SPEAKING
What do we need to think about when preparing a
talk?

Structure
Grammar
Pronunciation
 Structure
Introduction: greeting, name, position
Introduction: theme and organisation of talk
Body of presentation (in three parts)
Summary of talk
Questions
 Key Phrases
Thanks for coming to my presentation
I’m going to talk to you today
First, then, after that, Finally
Let me start with
Let me add
OK, now what about..?
Finally, a few words about
Well, thanks very much for
listening to my talk
Are there any questions?
Grammar and Pronunciation
Tenses
How can we improve our speaking?
Chunking
Stress
Intonation
 What is chunking?
Good morning, everyone./
Thanks for coming to my presentation. /
My name’s is this. / I’m so and so of (a
particular place).
Phrases for giving a presentation
Introduction
Good morning/afternoon everyone…
My name is…
Today I’m going to talk about _____
My presentation will cover 3 main
points:
1. __________
2. _________
3. __________
 Transitions
Let me begin with my first
point______
Let’s move to my second
point______
Let’s focus on my third
point _______
 Conclusion and Closing
To sum up, I talked
about__________
1. _____
2. _____
3. _____
That concludes my presentation.
Do you have any questions?
I’m sorry we are out of time.
Thank you very much.
 TIPS
Find out as much as possible about your
audience
Rehearse your presentation, especially using
the equipment
Have a back-up plan
 TIPS
Think about the first two minutes
Be enthusiastic
Introduce yourself
Start with a joke
Keep eye contact
Vary the tone/speed/intonation of your
voice
Use clear visual aids
Summarise your main points
Be careful what you wear
keep it short and simple
 Now let’s sum up
1. Name three qualities necessary for a
presenter.
Competence, erudition and faith
2. What do we need to think about
when preparing a talk?
Structure, grammar, pronunciation,
general tips
What is the structure of the talk?

Introduction: greeting, name, position

Introduction: theme and organisation of talk
Body of presentation (in three parts)
Summary of talk
Questions