There are two facts about presentations: firstly, they are a part of college life that can be difficult to avoid and secondly the whole process can be nerve-wracking. For many of us, speaking in public is the stuff of nightmares and it can also be a bit of a struggle to put together the visual part of the presentation. But presentations do help develop your oral and visual communication skills, which are seen by employers as very important "soft skills", so presentations are not going anywhere!
Many presentations are done using Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint is part of the Microsoft Office suite of office software and is an app that lets you create and display slides to support a presentation. Other platforms are available but PowerPoint is the most popular. It's been suggested that PowerPoint is installed on over one billion computers and 30 million new PowerPoint presentations are created each day. You probably have seen your teachers use it and you might be expected to use PowerPoint if you have to make a presentation.
You can break up a presentation into three parts:
Treat the presentation like an assignment. You need to do some or all of the following:
Look at the Assignment Planning section of this website. The same advice stands for your presentation.
Instead of typing your material into a blank document, you'll be creating a presentation using PowerPoint or some other presentation software. You start with some blank slides, but don't be intimated; it's easier than it looks. There are design templates that you can use to make your slides more... well, presentable.
One of the menu headings in PowerPoint is "Design". Click on that to see a number of templates for your slides
Also under the Design menu is "Design Ideas, which will give you some ideas for the layout of your slides. You might be a graphic design wizard and don't need these ideas, but if you need some assistance, press the button!
The "good" slide has a clean look and not too much text. The "bad" slide hurts the eyes. There's too much text and too many images. Which of these slides would you rather look at?
Like your assignments, your presentations should tell a story and have a beginning, a middle and an end. Introduce what you're going to say, say it and then tell the audience that you have said it. Make sure you structure your presentation like this.
How many slides do you need? If you look this up online, you'll get a million different answers. A rule of thumb, used by some, is to have one slide for roughly every minute you speak. If you're speaking for 10 minutes - then 10 slides, if you're speaking for 20 minutes - then 20 slides. Another rule used by some people is the 10-20-30 rule: ten slides for a twenty minute presentation with no font smaller than thirty point. In other words, there is no right answer. Just remember not to put too much information on a slide.
Public speaking is not easy. A lot of people find it difficult, if not terrifying. Fortunately there are steps you can take to make your presentation more successful, You don't even have to imagine that your audience is naked!
The most important thing you can do to help your presentation and make you feel better is organise a "dry run". Get a couple of friends or classmates together, present to them and then get their feedback. Also, ask someone to time your dry run.
A dry run is essential because:
You might need more than one dry run. That's fine. Just make sure that you give yourself time to act on any feedback you're given. Don't do your dry run the same day as your presentation!
Be prepared! Some tips:
Also, pay attention to Morpheus and the best of luck!
Morpheus image generated at Meme Creator
