1. +
Making Oral
Presentations
Module 20 and Additional Notes

2. +
―Take-Aways‖
 What do you want your audience to do?
 Always actions.
 Change a behavior?
 Change an attitude?
 Buy something?

3. +
―Take-Aways‖
 Make them clear and explicit.
 Gives your audience a chance to make sure they understand
the points you want them to understand.

4. +
―Take-Aways‖
 Limit your main ideas to the smallest number you can.
 Spend your time—supporting , clarifying, offering evidence,
examples, interaction, etc.—in the service of that point.

5. +
Why is this a presentation, not a
document?
 Do you really need to present this?
 What does your presentation do that a document can’t?
 Expensive and inefficient to make a presentation when the
information could have been distributed as a document.
 Advantages/Disadvantages of one strategy vs. the other?

6. +
Opening/Closing
 Relevance/Importance
 Preview/Summary – Take-aways.
 Framing Techniques
(quotes, stories, analogies, metaphors, goals, missions, etc.)
 Close: look to the future, positive emphasis, call to action.

7. +
Body Language
 Gestures
 Stance
 Podium
 Visual Cues
 Relationship to your visuals
 Eye contact
 The speaker dance

8. +
Voice
 Project to the back of the room
 Tone: Confident and/or conversational

9. +
General Principles
 Enjoy yourself
 Positive emphasis
 You-attitude

10. +
Focus on Structure
 Opening
 Transitions – more than just a hand-off
 Content
 Closing
 Unity/Consistency
 Avoid redundancies

11. +
Scripting: Assignment Adjustment
 I’ve added this element as one of the requirements for the
documents you’ll submit to me the class period before the
presentations are due.

12. +
Scripting: Introduction
 Who is going to open the presentation with an introduction?
 What will they say?
 How will they transition to the next speaker?
 What visuals will be displayed while this speaker is presenting?
 Who will be controlling the slides? How will this controller know
when to advance to each next slide?
 What will the other presenters be doing, and where will they be
located, while this presenter is speaking?

13. +
Scripting: next speaker
 How will this speaker introduce/preview their main points? Will
they use a slide to preview these points?
 What is the first main point this speaker will cover? What will the
visual(s) look like for this first point?
 What is the next main point this speaker will cover? What will the
visual(s) look like for this next point? (continue for additional main
points, if necessary)
 Who will be controlling the slides? How will this controller know
when to advance to each next slide?
 What will the other presenters be doing, and where will they be
located, while this presenter is speaking?
 How will they transition to the next speaker?

14. +
Scripting: additional speakers
 How will this speaker transition from the previous speaker?
 How will this speaker introduce/preview their main points? Will
they use a slide to preview these points?
 What is the first main point this speaker will cover? What will the
visual(s) look like for this first point?
 What is the next main point this speaker will cover? What will the
visual(s) look like for this next point? (continue for additional main
points, if necessary)
 Who will be controlling the slides? How will this controller know
when to advance to each next slide?
 What will the other presenters be doing, and where will they be
located, while this presenter is speaking?
 How will they transition to the next speaker?

15. +
Scripting: Closing
 Who is going to close the presentation?
 What will they say?
 How will they summarize the content we’ve just heard?
 What visuals will be displayed while this speaker is presenting?
 Who will be controlling the slides? How will this controller know
when to advance to each next slide?
 What will the other presenters be doing, and where will they be
located, while this presenter is speaking?

16. +
Questions from the audience
 Restate the question.
 Shows you’re listening.
 Allows you to reshape the question.
 Allows the ―asker‖ to clarify.

17. +
Questions from the audience
 Ask for clarification if you don’t understand something about the
question.
 You don’t want to answer a question the asker didn’t ask.
Makes you look like a bad listener. Wastes the asker’s and the
audience’s time.

18. +
Questions from the audience
 Internally identify the asker’s best possible intentions.
 Frame your response within those possibilities.
 People generally don’t ask questions just to be jerks.
 But be careful.

19. +
Questions from the audience
 Plant a backup question. Just in case.

20. +
Questions from the audience
 Keep your answers direct and succinct.
 Check in with the asker to make sure you’ve answered their
question.

21. +
Practice, Practice, Practice
 With your team
 In front of a generous audience (trusted, helpful)
 On-camera (here your voice; see your body language)
 Get your timing down
 Avoid a sense of ―winging it‖ – project preparation

22. +
Have a backup plan
 If the technology doesn’t work
 If a team member doesn’t show up
 If the audience asks a question for which you are unprepared

23. +
Prepare to adjust
 Have a system of communication in place to help keep each
other on track
 Small window of time; must be able to adjust and compensate

24. +
Thanks.