Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Quiz

Week 3: Presentation Skills (Continued)

• Overview

  • Planning: Nature, structure, and persuasion
  • Presenting: Guiding, skills, medium, and engaging
  • Reflecting: Improving

• Planning

  • Purpose of oral presentations: Persuasion, Information, Inspiration, and Entertainment.
  • Genres of Communication: Reports, journal articles, books, thesis, posters, and thesis defenses.
  • Preparation time: 10 minutes
  • Talk time: 5 minutes
  • Purpose of reports: Present and discuss research/experiment findings, including rationale, method, findings, discussion, and conclusion.
  • Purpose of literature review: Gaining more knowledge about an existing or new field of research, requiring synthesis of many sources.
  • Purpose of journal articles: Communicate and provide valuable information about research results to the academic community, needing reliability.
  • Purpose of a thesis: Demonstrate research objectives via various methods and results, needing advanced information. Discussion and results should be key parts.
  • Purpose of a poster: Summarizing research into introduction, methodology, and results; using text, visuals, infographics; and tables/graphs. Should be creative and logical.
  • Purpose of a thesis defense: Sharing and discussing the results of a study or research.

• Nature of Public Speaking

  • Purpose: Persuasion is primary; communication of information is secondary.
  • Necessary information: Persuading the audience with presented information.
  • Memory retention: Considerations for presentation planning include how long the delivered message can be stored in audience memory (forgetting curve).
  • Planning: Presentations should be planned with memory retention in mind.

• Effective Presentations

  • Analysis: Understanding the nature of presentations.
  • Planning: Effective Planning involves a narrative structure, persuasive tools, and clear objectives communicated to the audience..
  • Presenting: Effectiveness requires effective physical presence and vocal skills (e.g., physicality, voice, convincing body language).
  • Purpose: Presentations should have a clear purpose.

• Presentations - Good vs Effective

  • Critical evaluation: Good presentations are not necessarily effective. Effective presentations must engage and convince the audience based on presentation's nature.

• Effective Presentations (Model)

  • Key message outlined for audience.
  • Context explained.
  • Reinforced (repetition)
  • Conclusion linked back to context.
  • Built into a take-home message.

• Planning Presentations

  • Structure: Analyze purpose and audience.
  • Narrative: Create a narrative and map out a story by breaking into sections and connecting them; linking to a main topic.

• Audience Analysis

  • Understanding purpose, audience: Determine the purpose of the presentation and understand your audience (knowledge base, background, level, specific needs) and their motivations. Knowing why your audience is there – whether by choice or obligation – is important for tailoring your presentation to the people.
  • Why they are there: Determine if you are invited or required.
  • Enthusiasm, care: Why should they care? Establish a hook.
  • Questions: Answer possible audience questions proactively.

• Standard Presentation Structure

  • Structure: Introduction (aim, objectives, rationale/hypothesis), Body (methods, methodology, results), Conclusion (discussion, conclusions, outcomes, consequences).

• Hint: "Start from the end"

  • Backward planning: Begin with the conclusion and work backwards.
  • Take-home message: Identify the key message and use that as a foundation for the overall presentation.
  • Outcomes, plan, clarify: Plan and clarify the first, before elaborating on the story.
  • Forecasting: Foreshadow the conclusion to build anticipation.

• Introduction

  • Content:
    • Background: Include relevant background but not just history.
    • Hook: Background information may create a hook.
    • Purpose: Clearly state the presentation’s purpose in the literature.
    • Avoid: Avoid stating the problem directly. Instead, provide context, understanding, and a narrative.
    • Aims: Define the goals of the presentation and what the audience will gain.
    • Objectives: Detail how the aims will be met.
    • Rationale/Justification: Explain the "why" – justify everything with strong academic arguments.

• Body Content

  • Focus on purpose.
  • Avoid esoteric technical detail.
  • Simplify information.
  • Focus on persuasion with examples.

• Conclusion

  • Purpose: Link back to aims and purpose.
  • Structure: The presentation should come full circle; the introduction and conclusion should be connected.
  • Planned remarks: Have a planned (memorized) and impactful final remark.
  • Avoid: Avoid weak closing remarks (e.g., "That's it" or "Thank you").
  • Key takeaways: Design the ending to include strong take-away messages to be remembered.

• Incorporating Persuasion

  • Rhetoric: Use rhetoric as an art of persuasion, using various rhetorical tools and persuasive devices in your argument.
  • Narrative: Stories help build effective arguments.
  • Intentional approach: Thoughts about persuasion must be deliberate.
  • Presentation style: Presentation method adds importance in persuasion.

• Rhetoric

  • Tools for persuading: Use logos (logic), pathos (emotions), and ethos (credibility) as key rhetorical tools to strengthen your arguments..

• Hooks

  • Purpose: To grab the audience's attention and create interest in the discussion.
  • Types: Hooks can be arguments, ideas, evidence, facts, or objects. Hooks should be effective, but not complex.

• Effective slides

  • Slides as tools: Slides complement your presentation; they are not meant to replace speaking.
  • Summarize: Use slides for summarizing key points.
  • Visuals: Words and visuals help the audience comprehend more quickly.
  • Design considerations: Slides should be simple, containing no more than three bullet points, with a discernible aspect ratio.
  • Tags: Use effective tags to communicate the message of slides.
  • Timing: Aim for one slide per minute

• Presenting Skills

  • Physical skills:
    • Presence: Be present.
    • Hand Movements: Appropriate hand movements.
    • Posture: Maintain good posture.
    • Eye Contact: Make eye contact with the audience.
  • Vocal skills:
    • Voice Projection: Project your voice clearly.
    • Enunciation: Emphasize and speak clearly.
    • Articulation: Speak clearly.
    • Pacing: Appropriate pacing.
    • Modulation: Vary tone and strength of your voice.

• Giving better presentations

  • Skill-building process: Presenting builds as you practice and refine your skills.

• Practice

  • Rehearsal: Rehearse your presentation out loud.
  • Real or imaginary: Practice with someone or imagine your audience.
  • Focus: Only memorize key points (first and last sentences).
  • Flexibility: Improvise other parts of your presentation.
  • Reflection: Enhance your practice through better reflection.

• Reflection

  • Active process: Active reflection will improve your oral presentation skill significantly.
  • Learning and improvement: Reflection helps you learn from mistakes made in presentation.
  • Maintenance: Reflection help you maintain skill through ongoing practice and analysis.

• Giving feedback

  • Purpose of feedback: Feedback aids speaker improvement.
  • Avoid judgmental feedback: Avoid being judgmental or generic feedback.
  • Specific feedback: Provide constructive and specific feedback.
  • Suggestions & praise: Frame feedback as suggestions and include praise for skills demonstrated.
  • Self-evaluation: Practicing giving self-feedback can improve presentation skills.

• Conclusion (summary)

  • Planning: Know your purpose, work backwards, use structure, write key takeaways, plan hook.
  • Presentation skills: Voice/physicality, actively guide the audience.
  • Reflection: Active choice to improve, treat it as practice, practice in a similar environment (standing, posture), and avoid internal practice, and public speaking is a rare skill – it’s worth investing the time.