Oral+presentations


 * Oral Presentations **
 * Making a good oral presentation is an art that involves attention to the needs of your audience, careful planning, and attention to delivery. This page explains some of the basics of effective oral presentation. It also covers use of notes, visual aids and computer presentation software. **

The audience

 * Some basic questions to ask about an audience are: **
 * 1.Who will I be speaking to? **
 * 2.What do they know about my topic already? **
 * 3.What will they want to know about my topic? **
 * 4.What do I want them to know by the end of my talk? **
 * By basing the content and style of your presentation on your answers to these questions, you can make sure that you are in tune with your audience. What you want to say about your topic may be much less important than what your audience wants to hear about it. **

Planning your presentation

 * In an effective presentation, the content and structure are adjusted to the medium of speech. When listening, we cannot go back over a difficult point to understand it or easily absorb long arguments. A presentation can easily be ruined if the content is too difficult for the audience to follow or if the structure is too complicated. **
 * As a general rule, expect to cover much less content than you would in a written report. Make difficult points easier to understand by preparing the listener for them, using plenty of examples and going back over them later. Leave time for questions within the presentation. **
 * Give your presentation a simple and logical structure. Include an introduction in which you outline the points you intend to cover and a conclusion in which you go over the main points of your talk. **


**The two most common forms of visual aid are overhead transparencies (OHTs) and computer slide shows (e.g. PowerPoint). Objects that can be displayed or passed round the audience can also be very effective and often help to relax the audience. Some speakers give printed handouts to the audience to follow as they speak. Others prefer to give their handouts at the end of the talk, because they can distract the audience from the presentation.**
 * Visual aids help to make a presentation more lively. They can also help the audience to follow your presentation and help you to present information that would be difficult to follow through speech alone. **


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