Structure of a presentation

Structure of a presentation

A presentation:

• has an introduction, body and conclusion 

• may include visual aids 

• is usually followed by questions and discussions 

• may also have a handout for the audience to take away.

Introduction

• The introduction should orient the audience to your subject and purpose. To capture interest and set up rapport, it should tell the audience what to expect. 

• Be sure to carefully define the central point (or thesis) that is the basis of your talk and ensure that your supporting argument or information relates closely to it. 

• If you are not proceeding from an already written assignment, it might help to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped, with the content coming out of the funnel. See the diagram below:

Useful language for presentations

Staging the introduction

FUNCTION	EXAMPLES OF SIGNPOST LANGUAGE
Greet the audience	Good morning/afternoon distinguished guests/ladies and gentlemen/colleagues (whichever is appropriate)
Express special acknowledgements if appropriate	I’d especially like to welcome… I’d like to thank…
Signal question/discussion opportunity	There will be time for questions and discussion at the end of my talk. If you have questions, please feel free to interrupt.
Introduce your carefully defined topic	I’d like to talk to you about…
Explain the topic area and purpose	This presentation will cover mainly… I am going to show that… I will argue that…
Dispose of a distraction or side issue	Before I start, let me clarify one point… My discussion will not cover…
Briefly preview the organisation of the body of your talk	The main points I will make are, first… second… and third… The subject can be examined under the following headings… We can divide this area into a number of fields. They are…
Provide important history and/or definitions	As background, it’s important to note that… By X I mean…
Remind the audience of the topic and give it status	So we can see that (the topic) involves…

Main points

The main points are the backbone of your talk. They play an important role in helping you prioritise, focus and sequence your information. When planning your presentation you should put aside your research notes and produce a list or summary of the main points that you would like to make, expressing each in a few words or a short sentence. Ask yourself: “what am I really telling them? what should they be learning here?”. Your answers to these questions will help you communicate clear and effective messages to your audience.

After you have identified your main points, you should embellish them with supporting information. For example, add clarity to your argument through the use of diagrams, illustrate a link between theory and practice, or substantiate your claims with appropriate data. Use the supporting information to add colour and interest to your talk, but avoid detracting from the clarity of your main points by overburdening them with too much detail.

Transitions

Transitions are the signposts that help the audience navigate their way through your presentation. They can help divide information up into sub-sections, link different aspects of your talk and show progression through your topic. Importantly, transitions draw the audience’s attention to the process of the presentation as well as its content. Examples include:

• “I will begin by discussing …”;
• “Now that we have explored the ... I would like to move on to …”;
• “In contrast to my earlier statements concerning …”;
• “Moving away from a focus on .…”;

Transitions can also be made without speaking. Non-verbal transitions include pausing, changing a slide or other visual aid, moving to a different area of the room before resuming speaking, or making eye contact with a different group in the audience.

Body

The body of the presentation should meet the promises of purpose and information made in the introduction.

The structure of the presentation is crucial.

Whether you organise:

• chronologically,
• by priority,
• or theme

the body of your talk must proceed logically. The main points should be brought out one by one, with concise and relevant supportive evidence, statistics or examples and verbal ‘signposting’ of your progress through your argument or report.

You could present each important idea or point several times in different ways, because a listening audience needs several opportunities to fully absorb meaning.

You need to state clearly the links between your ideas and always signal when the next point is coming. If you think something is particularly important, say so and why.

If you don’t have a written assignment, it will help to think of your main points as paragraph topic sentences, each of which needs to be followed by supporting sentences and a conclusion.

Staging the body of your talk

FUNCTION	EXAMPLES OF SIGNPOST LANGUAGE
Begin the body of the talk	The first point I would like to address is… Let me first raise…
Develop the first point	For example… This is especially important because…
Sum up the first point	So, we can see that…
Introduce the second point	Secondly, I’d like to turn to…
Develop the second point	An important statistic in this area is… It means that…
Sum up the second point	It’s evident that…
Bring in the final point	Finally, we need to look at…
Develop the final point	This situation exists because… It’s worth noting that…
Sum up the final point	Thus, the result is…
Emphasising a point	I’d like to stress that… Let me repeat that…
Introducing a contrasting idea	By the way… Incidentally…
Sum up the body of the talk and remind listeners of the topic	To summarise… To review, we have found that… What I have been saying is that…

Group Presentations

It may be that you are making a presentation as part of a group. Essentially the same information applies to group presentations as individual ones. It is important that they are logical and well structured as well as professional and meaningful. It is also doubly important that the group rehearse and practise together several times to ensure the presentation runs smoothly on the day.

Handing over to a co-presenter

Your talk may involve several speakers in your group presentation. You need to manage the handover smoothly and professionally, for example:

“I would like to conclude my discussion/report at this point and hand over to my partner/colleague XYZ who will examine/discuss/report the area/topic/perspective of…”

Conclusion

Similar to a written assignment, the conclusion again states your main points and what has been learned or shown but you also may raise implications inherent in the findings and offer creative recommendations.

Staging the conclusion

FUNCTION	EXAMPLE OF SIGNPOST LANGUAGE
Signal the end of your talk is coming Remind the audience again of the topic	In conclusion, we have examined the question that…
Remind the audience of your argument	We discussed…
Remind the audience of your findings	The evidence shows that…
Alert the audience that you have thought deeply about the topic	An important implication is…
Offer an innovative, provoking thought to take away	I would like to offer recommendations to address this. Firstly… Secondly…
Signal the end of your talk	Thank you for your time and attention today.
Signal the question/discussion session	I’d now like to open the floor for questions and  discussion.

Presentation Techniques

1. Show your Passion and Connect with your Audience

It’s hard to be relaxed and be yourself when you’re nervous.But time and again, the great presenters say that the most important thing is to connect with your audience, and the best way to do that is to let your passion for the subject shine through. 

Be honest with the audience about what is important to you and why it matters.
Be enthusiastic and honest, and the audience will respond. 

2. Focus on your Audience’s Needs

Your presentation needs to be built around what your audience is going to get out of the presentation.
As you prepare the presentation, you always need to bear in mind what the audience needs and wants to know, not what you can tell them.
While you’re giving the presentation, you also need to remain focused on your audience’s response, and react to that.
You need to make it easy for your audience to understand and respond.

3. Keep it Simple: Concentrate on your Core Message

When planning your presentation, you should always keep in mind the question:
What is the key message (or three key points) for my audience to take away?
You should be able to communicate that key message very briefly.
Some experts recommend a 30-second ‘elevator summary’, others that you can write it on the back of a business card, or say it in no more than 15 words.
Whichever rule you choose, the important thing is to keep your core message focused and brief.
And if what you are planning to say doesn’t contribute to that core message, don’t say it.

4. Smile and Make Eye Contact with your Audience

This sounds very easy, but a surprisingly large number of presenters fail to do it.
If you smile and make eye contact, you are building rapport, which helps the audience to connect with you and your subject. It also helps you to feel less nervous, because you are talking to individuals, not to a great mass of unknown people.
To help you with this, make sure that you don’t turn down all the lights so that only the slide screen is visible. Your audience needs to see you as well as your slides. 

5. Start Strongly

The beginning of your presentation is crucial. You need to grab your audience’s attention and hold it.
They will give you a few minutes’ grace in which to entertain them, before they start to switch off if you’re dull. So don’t waste that on explaining who you are. Start by entertaining them.
Try a story (see tip 7 below), or an attention-grabbing (but useful) image on a slide.

6. Remember the 10-20-30 Rule for Slideshows

This is a tip from Guy Kawasaki of Apple. He suggests that slideshows should:
Contain no more than 10 slides;
Last no more than 20 minutes; and
Use a font size of no less than 30 point.
This last is particularly important as it stops you trying to put too much information on any one slide. This whole approach avoids the dreaded ‘Death by PowerPoint’.
As a general rule, slides should be the sideshow to you, the presenter. A good set of slides should be no use without the presenter, and they should definitely contain less, rather than more, information, expressed simply.
If you need to provide more information, create a bespoke handout and give it out after your presentation.

7. Tell Stories

Human beings are programmed to respond to stories.
Stories help us to pay attention, and also to remember things. If you can use stories in your presentation, your audience is more likely to engage and to remember your points afterwards. It is a good idea to start with a story, but there is a wider point too: you need your presentation to act like a story.
Think about what story you are trying to tell your audience, and create your presentation to tell it.
Finding The Story Behind Your Presentation
To effectively tell a story, focus on using at least one of the two most basic storytelling mechanics in your presentation: 

Focusing On Characters – People have stories; things, data, and objects do not. So ask yourself “who” is directly involved in your topic that you can use as the focal point of your story.
For example, instead of talking about cars (your company’s products), you could focus on specific characters like:
The drivers the car is intended for – people looking for speed and adventure
The engineers who went out of their way to design the most cost-effective car imaginable

A Changing Dynamic – A story needs something to change along the way. So ask yourself “What is not as it should be?” and answer with what you are going to do about it (or what you did about it).

For example…
Did hazardous road conditions inspire you to build a rugged, all-terrain jeep that any family could afford?
Did a complicated and confusing food labelling system lead you to establish a colour-coded nutritional index so that anybody could easily understand it?

8. Use your Voice Effectively

The spoken word is actually a pretty inefficient means of communication, because it uses only one of your audience’s five senses. That’s why presenters tend to use visual aids, too. But you can help to make the spoken word better by using your voice effectively.
Varying the speed at which you talk, and emphasising changes in pitch and tone all help to make your voice more interesting and hold your audience’s attention.

9. Use your Body Too

It has been estimated that more than three quarters of communication is non-verbal.
That means that as well as your tone of voice, your body language is crucial to getting your message across. Make sure that you are giving the right messages: body language to avoid includes crossed arms, hands held behind your back or in your pockets, and pacing the stage.
Make your gestures open and confident, and move naturally around the stage, and among the audience too, if possible.

10. Relax, Breathe and Enjoy

If you find presenting difficult, it can be hard to be calm and relaxed about doing it.
One option is to start by concentrating on your breathing. Slow it down, and make sure that you’re breathing fully. Make sure that you continue to pause for breath occasionally during your presentation too.