1. Life-hacking Your
Presentation Preparation
Stanley Lee
UBC IEEE Toastmasters Club

2. About the Presenter
• Current Club President
• Founding charter member
• Membership w/ diverse backgrounds
• IEEE = Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers (the UBC Student
Branch is a sponsor)
• Professionally: writer and college success
consultant

3. Benefits of This Workshop
• Simplified procedures
• Effective content and delivery
• Time efficiency

4. Overall Procedure
• Content Preparation (50%)
• Practice (50%)

5. Content Preparation (in 5
Simple Steps)

6. Step 1: Determine Your Topic
• Don’t rush to confirm on the title yet
• Same goes for your take-home message
in introduction and conclusion
• Answer this question (feel free to refine
later in the process): What do you want
to talk about?

7. Step 1: Determine Your Topic
• As an example for this workshop, pretend
the topic is chosen to be bicycle helmets

8. Step 2: Select Supporting Points
• List 3 supporting points for your
presentation (listeners can only remember
that many points)
• Add supporting evidence with sufficient
citations to clarify, emphasize, and prove
the fact/idea it supports
• Support material including statistics,
testimony, examples/stories/anecdotes,
visual aids, facts

9. Step 2: Select Supporting Points
• Topic: bicycle helmets
• Supporting points
– Safety research and statistics showing helmets
benefits
– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in
jurisdiction w/ regulations vs. those w/o regulations
• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-
helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)
– Common sense cyclists

10. Step 3: Draft an Introduction
• You want to pique the interest from your
audience on your topic
• You want to make sure it’s short but
memorable
• Examples: question or challenging
statement, quotation or story, display
object or image, statistics

11. Step 3: Draft an Introduction
• Topic: bicycle helmets
• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets
are not as straight-forward as you think
• Supporting points
– Safety research and statistics showing helmets
benefits
– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in
jurisdiction w/ regulations vs. those w/o regulations
• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-
helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)
– Common sense cyclists

12. Step 4: Draft a Conclusion
• What behaviors do you want your
audience to change as a result of your
presentation, if anything?

13. Step 4: Draft a Conclusion
• Topic: bicycle helmets
• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets are not as
straight-forward as you think
• Supporting points
– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits
– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/
regulations vs. those w/o regulations
• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-
helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)
– Common sense cyclists
• Conclusion: Just b/c you wear helmets doesn’t mean
you’re immune to serious injury. But not wearing one will
surely jeopardize your head if you run into an accident.

14. Step 5: Name a Catchy Title
• Why? You need it to attract your
audience!
• Typical ways to attract them:
– Benefit providing (audience attend b/c your
talk has something to offer for them)
– Controversy (there’s minimal difference
between audience who react positively and
negatively with respect to attracting attention)

15. Step 5: Name a Catchy Title
• Topic: bicycle helmets
• Title: Helmets does not Equal Injury Immunity
• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets are not as
straight-forward as you think
• Supporting points
– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits
– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/
regulations vs. those w/o regulations
• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-
helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)
– Common sense cyclists
• Conclusion: Just b/c you wear helmets doesn’t mean
you’re immune to serious injury. But not wearing one will
surely jeopardize your head if you run into an accident.

16. Overall Procedure
• Content Preparation (50%)
• Practice (50%)

17. Practice

18. Practice: General Tips
• Separate content preparation and practice
into its own work sessions  maximize
your attention
• Film your practice session with a camera
(e.g. camcorder, digital point-and-shoot
camera, smartphones)

19. Practice: General Tips
• Critique areas of improvement to improve
your credibility
• Repeat the process for the next round of
practices on a different session (ideally
different days, at the minimum after a
meal break)

20. Overall Procedure
• Content Preparation (50%)
• Practice (total: 50%)
– First round (30%)
– Second round (15%)
– Third round (2.5%)
– And so on…

21. About the Club
• It’s one thing to learn the techniques of
this workshop
• Execution quality is a different matter
(public speaking is like personal fitness)
• You can have the opportunity to practice
the different types of speaking (e.g. job
interviews, keynote presentations, sales
pitches, etc.) on a regular basis with peer
feedback during weekly club meetings

22. About the Club
• Details:
– Where? Fred Kaiser Building, Room
2020/2030
– When? Mondays, 15:00 to 16:00
• Also check out other clubs by going to
www.d21toastmasters.ca

23. Supplementary Material
• If you leave your email after this
workshop, you will receive the following
supplementary material electronically
(regardless whether you join the club or
not):
– Presentation planning worksheet for the
example
– Blank presentation planning worksheet for
your own presentations (for projects or
research thesis)

24. Questions?