Presentation Skills.docx

1、Presentation SkillsPresentation Skills Preparing Effective Oral PresentationsEmphasizes scientific and academic settings for presentations. The Virtual Presentation AssistantProduced by the University of Kansas, is an online tutorial to help you improve your presentation skills. Dealing with Present

2、ation DisastersGeared to the business world, this site has some relevant information for an academic setting.Designing Visual Aids Designing Effective VisualsAn online tutorial aimed towards students and academics in scientific fields.Poster Presentations Creating Posters for Humanities and Social S

3、ciencesHas information on giving a poster presentation. Developing a Poster PresentationLooks at designing effective poster presentations for science majors.Other Online Resources Effective PresentationsIf youre doing an assignment on speaking or communicating, this site has comprehensive lists of r

4、elated links./ Main Menu /I have separated the process of preparing a talk into a series of stages. Review each stage in succession, at least on the first time through the tutorial.1. Planning 2. Preparation 3. Outlining 4. Important Elements 5. Practice 6. Presentation 7. The Moment of Truth 8. Han

5、dling questions Initial PlanningThis is where you begin to tailor the talk to the situation, and for that reason this stage is very important for a successful presentation. Talk to your host and clarify these points before you spend much preparation time. If the environment and audience are unfamili

6、ar to you, this is a critical stage. You may even want to do a literature search on potential audience members to identify areas of common interest or potential questions which may arise. Begin this stage early - the more lead time you allow yourself, the more time you will have to think up novel ap

7、proaches to the topic and the more interesting and substantial your presentation will be. Before you begin preparing the presentation, youll need to determine: 1. The type of talk you will be expected to give o will this be an informal chat, a seminar discussion, or a more formal presentation? o dif

8、ferent talks have different purposes; the intent of a conference presentation is not the same as a job talk. When in doubt, ask for guidance from your host. 2. The composition of the audience o will you be speaking to a general audience or specialists? o how many people are expected to attend? o is

9、this likely to be a friendly audience? An interactive audience? 3. The time allotted for the talk o the longer the talk, the more freedom you will have to explore the topic o a short talk needs to be very clear and to address the topic directly o is question time included? 4. Expectations for inform

10、ation content o is there a specific purpose for having you give a talk? Clarify the expectations beforehand and plan to address them during the presentation. o will you be presenting novel concepts to this audience, or building upon their prior knowledge? Either way, make sure you cover the basics c

11、learly, and early in the talk, to avoid loosing the audience. PreparationOnce you have a general idea of what you want to say, youll have to decide how to say it. Unlike a conversation or a written document, a talk is a one-shot attempt to make a point. By contrast, a conversation consists of repeti

12、tions and clarifications based on questions and immediate feedback, while a written paper allows a reader to puzzle through its contents as often as necessary. It is essential that your talk be well-constructed and tidy, and that your points be presented to the audience both a logical sequence and u

13、nambiguously. This all takes a fair amount of preparation. Start early! Here are a few pointers to get you started:1. Start preparing far in advance by thinking through what needs to be said. Collect material which may relate to the topic from unusual sources, and sleep on these ideas. The final pro

14、duct will be more fully-developed and interesting. 2. Using big letters and a bold pen, write a clear statement of the problem and its importance, and then pin that statement on the wall above your desk. 3. Develop this theme into one jargon-free sentence that will catch the attention of the audienc

15、e. Next, identify the issues you plan to address (brainstorm, then trim back; see the portion of this tutorial on outlining). 4. Arrange these issues in a logical sequence (which may change as you develop the talk). This process is easier if you use index cards to organize your talk, with one idea p

16、er card. 5. Computer-based presentation programs (PowerPoint, Persuasion, etc.) can be wonderful time-savers. The time invested in learning to use these programs is rewarded by the speed with which a presentation can be created, even by a moderately-skilled user. These programs are good tools for or

17、ganizing your presentation (an electronic version of the index cards idea), they can be used to create visuals for the presentation (e.g., slides and transparencies), and even project those visuals during the presentation. 6. Avoid using lists (First ., Second .); you may confuse listing systems (Fi

18、rst ., Point B., and another thing .), or you may discover later in the talk that youve missed a point entirely, and then youll be forced to backtrack. Both of these problems tend to distract your audience away from the points you are trying to make, and both give the appearance of poor organization

19、al skills. 7. Retention of information by the audience is reduced as a talk proceeds, so if you do want to make a series of points, organize them from the most to the least important. That way, the audience is more likely to remember the important points later. You may even find that the less import

20、ant points become irrelevant to the focus of the talk as you practice. 8. Determine transition elements which will help your audience to follow the link from one issue to the next. These should be logical, and may presented by posing a question, or explaining your own discovery of the links existenc

21、e. 9. Use short sentences with simple constructions. The concept will be made more clear, and the sentence structure is more similar to conversational styles. 10. Run through the talk once, early. Go back and re-think the sequencing. Discard non-essential elements. 11. Dont assume the audience will

22、be familiar with basic concepts that form the foundation of your talk. Outline these concepts briefly but clearly early in the talk to avoid confusion. 12. Attempt to identify problems or questions the audience may have and address them in the talk, before the audience has a chance to think of these

23、 things themselves. 13. Determine which elements would benefit by being presented with visual aids. Spend time working out the best way to present the material. Head on over to the accompanying tutorials for information on presenting material in an effective way using visual aids. 14. Prepare thumbn

24、ails sketches of these visual aids, then run through the talk again. Re-work the most appropriate and essential visual aids and discard the rest. Dont forget to proof-read your visuals! Do so while there is plenty of time to re-print that critical slide with the glaring typo. 15. The earlier you sta

25、rt on the visuals, the better they will be. On the other hand, avoid fine tuning each visual endlessly; if you find yourself diddling the details, go on to do something more productive instead. 16. When in doubt about which presentation medium to use (transparencies, slides, videos, multimedia, etc.

26、), choose the format which is the least complex which remains consistent with both clarity and content of the presentation. Keep in mind that the more technology you use, the more things there will be which can go wrong. These technological difficulties may develop into a gruesome presentation exper

27、ience, particularly if you are giving the talk in an unfamiliar setting! 17. If you do need to use multimedia technology in your presentation, call ahead to make sure the technology you require is supported in the room where youll be talking! 18. The most important preparation factor is to REHEARSE!

28、 Do so in private at first. Then for a real acid test, videotape yourself and watch the results with a critical eye. Its often a painful and humbling experience, but the results will be worth it. 19. You can then try the presentation out in front of a few colleagues. Ask for feedback, then act on th

29、at information. Select those who know a little about your topic, and not those who know a lot. This will focus your attention on attempting to explain why you did what you did in simple terms, rather than encouraging attention to details only specialists care about. 20. If you start preparing early,

30、 youll have plenty of time to refine the presentation based on your colleagues feedback. This is always a useful process. 21. Dont waste your colleagues time; if you are sincere about wanting that feedback, dont wait until the night before the presentation to ask for other peoples input. 22. Remembe

31、r, the shorter the talk, the more difficult it will be to cover the material clearly and completely. Be strict about including only what is essential information for the presentation, and removing all the non-essential tidbits. OutliningThe primary purpose of a presentation is to provide information

32、 which the audience will then remember at a later date. Detailed referencing of material or extensive review of data wont be remembered - and may put the audience to sleep! One way to maintain interest is to organize and present the material in a novel manner. Using a non-standard ordering of material will help to keep the audience interested. Similarly, organizing your material in a new way (rather than re-working an old talk) will help to keep your own interest in the topic, and will result in a talk which is