Presentation Skills

Although not a formal part of your assessment for this Unit, you will be expected to present your dissertation to other people at the end of the year. This will be a presentation in BSL. Most of the previous lectures have been about presenting your work in written form for someone to read. Now we turn to live presentation. The skills required to present information to others should serve you well in whichever career path you choose to follow.

[The following notes were written by Andy Wilson, Staff Development, Loughborough University.]

5P’s - Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Consider the following when thinking about your presentation:

Purpose. Always identify the purpose of your presentation. Often the real purpose will be to do with persuasion. It often helps to ask the question, "What's the one thing I want them to take away with them?" The answer is usually more complex than this, but trying to identify one thing will help you to prioritise your objectives.
People. Think about the people at your presentation. What do they know? What can they do? How do they feel? Think about what they want from your presentation, and about what you need to give them. You will probably want to do some homework on this. Talk to colleagues who have worked with these people in the past, talk to the organiser, talk to the participants themselves.
Problems. Ask yourself what can go wrong with your presentation, and have contingency plans to help you cope and to boost your confidence. It may be that the OHP bulb blows - what will you do? It may be that numbers are not what were expected - what will you do? It may be that people turn up late - what will you do? It may be that they already know all about your topic - what will you do?

4. Professionalism. One of your main purposes is likely to be to present yourself as a thoroughly competent and professional person. Think about how you can do this, and don't restrict yourself to the presentation itself. Perhaps you could put a decent sign on the door. Maybe you could make an OHP out of your audience's crest or logo. You might customise your handouts. There are all sorts of things you can do, but do think about it.

5. Patterns. Try to find patterns or shapes to your presentation that will help your audience to remember what you say. People understand things more easily if they fit in some way with what they already know, and the way in which information is structured is a key factor in how easily people can absorb it.

Pitfalls in Presentations

This section highlights some of the possible pitfalls in delivering a presentation, and offers some strategies to help you avoid them.

Nerves
Dry throat.	Have a glass of water.
Shakes.	Stand firm.
Tremulous voice.	Breathe deeply and talk slowly.
Feeling under pressure	Know what you are going to do.
Feeling intimidated	Don’t think of it as me vs. them.
Forgetting what you want to say.	Have prompts, e.g. cards or OHPs.
Not being able to operate the equipment.	Arrive early, practise beforehand.

Content
Trying to cover too much.	Cut the amount substantially.
Being too technical.	Avoid unnecessary jargon.
Giving too much detail.	Provide structures rather than detail.
Not explaining the basics.	Ask the key questions like "What is...?"
Not finishing.	Have stuff that you can leave out.
Not giving the audience what they want.	Put yourself in the audience’s position.

Room and Equipment
Room wrong size.	Check beforehand.
Seating not properly set up.	Get there early and set it up.
No signs to the room.	Take some and put them up.
Equipment not there.	Have contingency plan.
Equipment not working.	Have contingency plan.
Bulb blows.	Keep calm - and have contingency plan.
Wrong type of slide projector/video.	Check beforehand.
Screen/video wrongly positioned.	Get there early and set it up.
OHP too small for your acetates.	Limit your OHPs to 9" x 9".

Audience
Too many/too few of them.	Check beforehand - change your style.
Mixed ability.	Assume ignorance, but not stupidity.
They know more than you do.	Offer your experience and perspective.
Difficult customers.	Clarify their reasons. Take it seriously.
Bad feeling because of earlier speakers.	Acknowledge it? Start afresh.
Giving offence.	Think about equal opportunities.

Stress

Remember that stress can help improve your performance. Most experienced presenters feel some measure of stress before an important presentation. There’s some evidence - from performers - that they actually perform better under levels of stress that they feel are making them perform worse.

5W’s - How to Start a Presentation

Here’s a quick checklist of things to do at the start of a presentation...

w Who?

w What?

w Why?

w When?

w Where?

Who – Am I? The audience needs to know a bit about you. So tell them your name (slowly - you’re very used to it, they may be hearing it for the first time), and - very briefly - where you’re from.
What – Am I Going to Talk About? You may find this hard to believe, but people can sit through presentations and still now know what the topic was. Again, tell them this slowly. The words in your title are very familiar to you, but the audience may well not know them. This is also important as a way of managing expectations. It defines the areas that you are not going to address.
Why – Am I Talking to You? Don’t overdo this, or it will look as though you feel the need to justify your presence, and that looks like weakness. But do explain very briefly why it’s you that’s standing up there.
When – Will I Take Questions? Questions can be one of the big problems in presenting - especially for inexperienced presenters. Questions in the middle of a presentation can be quite disruptive. So it’s often better the take them at the end; you can manage this by setting out your approach at the outset.
Where – Is This Presentation Going? Structure is critical in effective presenting. A brief overview of the direction of your talk - probably with the major sections identified - helps both the audience and yourself to feel comfortable.

Making Presentations Interesting...

Clarity. It's hard be interested something in that is confusing.

Interest. Your own interest must show. If you're not interested, why should they be?

Logical Organisation. This is an important contributor to clarity. The structure should become clear.

Relevance to Audience. The audience will be asking, "So what?" about everything you say.

Emphasis on Important Points. There is a tendency for presentations to pay too much attention to details. The audience needs a context in which to set the information, and some guidance on its implication. And do tell them which points are important.

Apt Examples. Concrete and relevant examples help a lot.

Appropriate Audio Visual. Few things make presenters look sillier than bad AV.

Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm can promote interest in the strangest things.

Short Sentences. Long sentences, however carefully they may be structured (and often they are not structured very well), tend - by and large - to be much harder to follow than shorter sentences which, by their very nature, are more likely to be conducive to the effective transmission of ideas.

Direct Speech & Active Mood. These help.

Appropriate Vocabulary. This is a chronic problem.

Links Between Sections. These are important in helping the audience to know where they are.

Presenter’s Checklist

w Where is it?

w When is it?

w How long will I have?

w Who are the participants?

w How many will there be?

w How does it fit in with the rest of their programme?

w Are there any areas of sensitivity?

w How much setting up time will I have?

w Why do the organisers want me to do it?

w Why do I want to do it?

w What image do I want to present?

w Do I need to produce any publicity beforehand?

w What room requirements do I have?

w What audio visual requirements do I have?

w What consumables will I need?

w What handouts will I need?

w What OHPs etc will I need?

w Is there a handout/OHP housestyle?

w Should I use a data projector?

w Is there an Internet connection?

w Who will produce the handouts/OHPs, and how?

w Do the handouts need hole-punching?

w What shall I wear?

w How shall I present myself?

w Do the participants need to do any advance preparation?

w What are my deadlines for any of the above?

OHP Production Techniques

Hand Drawn. No longer acceptable for pre-prepared OHPs for all but the most casual of presentations, though they may be used live within a presentation.

Photocopier or Thermal Copier. Photocopiers or thermal copiers can be used to make OHPs from hard copy originals. Single colours can be produced on thermal copiers, more than one will have to be done by separations and overlays, or by full colour process. Thermal OHPs shade after a few months, especially purple and red.

Colour Printers. They typically need OHPs that feel rough. Can be slow.

Word Processing or PowerPoint. These now define the minimum standard. PowerPoint is pretty automatic, but some of the design are very odd. You can often do just as well using Word. Keep it simple is the key message.

Using Illustrations, Objects, etc. Anything that can be photocopied can be made into an OHP. Some photographs can reproduce well. Line drawings and objects are fine. Scanners can be useful, and remember that you can often copy images from the Web. But make sure you have copyright clearance.

Full Colour OHPs. Fairly expensive - around £2.00 for A4 -and not always as bold as you’d like.

Copyright Free Artwork. Word - especially on CD-ROM - has quite a good collection of images, although some of them are becoming a bit over-familiar. There are lots of other CD-ROMS too. They can be sexist.

Quantity. Try to limit yourself to 6-8 lines of 6-8 words.

Margins. If you're using a word processor then set the margins for the narrow side of the paper to the smallest possible figure, 0.5" or less.

Lettering. Lower case is easier to read than upper. Try not to go below 24 point lettering. Serif (like this, Times) and sans serif (like this, Arial) have quite different feels to them. Match them to your audience. Avoid fancy fonts or fancy effects (such as shadow or emboss) they just look fussy on-screen, or disappear altogether.

Justification. Usually best to avoid right-justification in OHPs. The large font sizes can produce large gaps between words.

Boxes and Frames. Best avoided. Unless your screen is perfectly set up - and this almost never happens - then the boxes will just look odd.

Using Overhead Projectors

Position of the OHP. Make sure everyone can see the screen. Think about how you are going to move around the OHP and screen - to pick up the transparencies for instance.

Working with Other Projectors. If you’re using a slide projector as well, or a data projector, then work out how you’re going to manage the transitions.

Your Position. These three options have very different impacts:

Standing at the OHP makes you very much an authority figure.
Looking at the screen makes it more of a shared experience.
Sitting with the group to look at the screen makes it much more shared.

Keystone Effect. Tilt the screen so that the sides of the image are parallel to the sides of the screen.

Movement. Don't move the OHP when the bulb is on or just switched off. This can damage the bulb.

Breakdown. Some OHPs contain two bulbs and you can quickly switch from one to the other. Many don't, so either have a spare OHP or have a contingency plan.

On and Off. It is probably better to put an acetate onto the OHP with the OHP switched off. But switching on and off can be irritating.

Revelation and Highlighting. A piece of paper across the acetate will conceal the image from the viewers, but you will still be able to see what's there. Some people find this style very irritating, you could try highlighting. This uses a strip of yellow acetate to highlight lines of text.

Overlays. Several acetates - or a sheet that has been cut - can be folded over to build up an image. Four thicknesses is about the limit. This can be too complicated for comfort.

Frames. You can write a fair amount of information on the cardboard or plastic frames. This can be used to impress with your grasp of detail.

Numbering OHPs. You need to number them in case they get shuffled. You may not want to number them where the audience can see the number - you may want to skip a few and you might not want it to show. If you’re using Word you can use a header with automatic page numbering to handle this.

Pointers. You can point to things on the OHP, or on the screen. These have different dynamics.

Objects. You can use objects on the OHP to illustrate ideas. For instance a worked piece of metal can be used to demonstrate projections.

Collecting Ideas. You can get groups to put ideas onto sheets. These can then be presented to the full group, but you retain control.

PowerPoint

There are several software packages available - a very common one is Microsoft’s PowerPoint.

An Overview of PowerPoint

PowerPoint can produce:

w OHPs (black and white or colour)

w Presentations for data projectors

w Handouts (2, 3 or 6 slides per page)

w Speaker’s notes

Its greatest advantages are that:

w It’s easy to use - anyone familiar with Word can adapt very quickly

w It encourages good design - by offering lots of ready-prepared templates

w It stops you putting too much material on - by having biggish default fonts

w It integrates well with other Microsoft applications - so you can import Excel charts, etc

w It lets you produce a wide range of effects

w It lets you drive data-projected presentations easily

w You can produce handouts easily, or drop copies of slides into Word documents

Its greatest disadvantages are that:

w You need to learn a new piece of software - there’s always an entry fee

w It's easy to produce over-elaborate presentations

w Your OHPs will look just like everyone else’s

Using the Data Projector

More and more presentations are delivered with the aid of a data projector. This allows you to project a copy of your computer screen - usually a laptop - onto an OHP screen. (Sometimes you can't see the image on the projector screen and the computer screen at the same time. On many laptops you can use function F5 to toggle through the options.)

It enables you to make use of some of the fancier effects available within PowerPoint. Colour shows up well, and you can add bullet points one at a time and build up diagrams stage by stage. You can also amend your presentation right up to the last minute.

Current versions of PowerPoint offer hyperlink capabilities, so you can move around your material in a very flexible way. This is probably too much for all but the most confident and capable of presenters to cope with.

The big danger is that the effects take over and your audience is left wondering what the next one will be rather than paying attention to the content.

Make sure that you design any presentations to fit the resolution of the data projector. Some of them only work at 640 x 480, well below what most computers now use. They solve this by losing lines of pixels, so with some fonts a t can look like an l because the cross-bar is lost.

Don't assume that your laptop will drive another data projector. I had to abandon plans to use one at a major conference centre, in spite of having discussed the specification beforehand. So take OHP copies - which rather defeats the point.

Handouts

You need to decide whether to give people a handout.

Advantages

w Makes it easier for people to follow

w Gives them a record

w Indicates preparation and hence concern

Disadvantages

w More work

w Uses paper

w Can remove the element of surprise

Advice

w Keep handouts very short

w Give them out before the presentation

w Think about what people will put them into - if ring binders then punch holes.

w Consider copies of overheads straight out of PowerPoint.

From PowerPoint

w You can print your slides directly from PowerPoint (2, 3 or 6 to a page).

w You can also drop them into Word documents.

w In Slide Sorter View select the slide, copy it, and paste it into your Word document. Then process it like a graphic.

w To make a dynamic link between your PowerPoint presentation and your Word document then use Paste Special to paste it as a link. Changes in PowerPoint are then automatically updated in Word.

Questions

Questions often present problems. The presentation can be planned and delivered; the questions are less easily controlled.

There are three key areas in managing questions:

w Managing expectations

w Controlling interruptions

w Responding to questions

Managing Expectations

The difficult questions are often those that are tangential to your topic. You can’t stop these coming, but you can give yourself a way out.

At the start of the presentation, be sure to indicate the limits to your coverage. This will help generally, but it has the particular virtue - with questions - of allowing you to say that that’s interesting, but really beyond the scope of today’s talk.

Controlling Interruptions

It’s often easier to manage questions of you know when they’re coming. A question in the middle of your talk may seem more like a heckle than a question.

So - again at the start of the presentation - tell them when you’re willing to take questions. If they interrupt at other times then you’re perfectly entitled to say that you’ll deal with questions at the end - as you said you would.

Responding to Questions

Many of the problems with questions come from a rush to respond. You’re under stress, you want to show how competent you are. So you tend to rush to provide an answer. And because you’re rushing you can all too easily misinterpret the question. So you may see a perfectly gentle question as a very vicious one, or you may get the wrong end of the stick altogether.

If you’re at all uncertain about what the question is asking, seek elaboration. Say something like, "That’s really interesting, could you expand on that a little?" This flatters the questioner - we all like to think we ask interesting questions - and it gives you time to make a more careful judgment of the question and to prepare your answer.

Finally - don’t try to pretend you know the answer if you don’t.

Text and Sub-Text

A useful concept in presentations - and especially when answering questions - is the idea of text and sub-text.

Text is what you say; sub-text is what you mean.

Text is what you say; sub-text is how you say it.

Everything you say in your presentation will be subject to interpretation. You need to develop a sensitive ear and to listen carefully to what you are saying. It is entirely possible to say "...I'm very glad to be here today" and for people to realise that what you actually mean is, "...anywhere, ANYWHERE, would be better than here."

You need to be careful. Consider this exchange between a member of the audience (A.) and the presenter (P.).

A. One thing I find very difficult is ........... I wonder if you have any suggestions.

P. Yes, well of course it's really very simple. What you should do is...

The presenter may think that this remark is encouraging. The member of the audience may interpret it as saying: "You must really be dumb if you can't cope with something this simple." An alternative response might be:

P. Yes, it can be rather tricky. What I find helpful is...

This acknowledges that there may be valid grounds for the difficulty. There is also quite a difference between "What you should do is..." and "What I find helpful is..."

Advice to Those About to Present

1. Cut down the amount of your material by 50 per cent.

Ask yourself why you are giving this presentation.
Ask what is the one thing you really want your audience to take away.
Meet your audience's needs rather than your own.
See yourself as someone sharing something interesting …
… rather than as someone trying to dominate the audience.
Produce appropriate handouts and AV.
Use plenty of structuring moves.
Don’t think that having something in your head means it's also automatically in your audiences' heads.
Ask the key questions

Preparing a Presentation

Preparing a preparation can be frustrating and time-consuming. The following steps will help you to be more efficient.

Choose Your Topic. It may have been given to you. Always try to find aspects of the topic that interest you. If they don’t interest you then you can be pretty sure that they won’t interest your audience.
Research Your Audience. Find out what they know, what their backgrounds are, what their attitudes will be, how many of them there will be, etc. Think about equal opportunities and about people with special needs.
Free Associate. Write down whatever comes to you about the topic - facts, ideas, and questions. Never mind the quality - feel the width. Then cross out things that are not likely to be relevant to your audience, and highlight the important ideas etc.
Produce a Working Title. Base this on the ideas you have highlighted. This working title may well not turn out to be the title that you will actually use, but it will help to give your presentation a sense of identity and direction.
Set out a Structure. Produce a rough structure of the presentation. It can often come from the free associate stage. Put lines around the items that belong together, and then decide the best order for these different elements. Answer the basic questions.
Research. Read for specific ideas and facts. Don't read too much. Reading can become a delaying strategy for the next important stage.... And don’t think that using somebody else’s words makes something more true than if you said it.
Plan the Presentation. Set out the lecture, any audio-visual aids, student activities etc. Check the order of sub-topics is OK. If not change it. Prepare a summary sheet of the presentation.
Prepare the Start and the Finish. Think of a good way of starting the presentation that will gain interest and provide the framework. Think of a good way of finishing - one that will end on a bang rather than a whimper. Often you can return to an opening question.
Deliver the Presentation. Remember to introduce yourself. Keep track of time and leave things out if you are over-running. (Rehearse it privately if you are at all worried about it. But remember that it will take about twice as long when you do it for real.)
Reflect. Think about how it might be improved next time.