CAP506
Presenting Tips

Before you have to present your profile projects this semester, I suggest you review the following tips for presenting. Continue to polish your delivery skills. Here are some suggestions related to your presentation style and techniques. This is is a review for what works best for presentations.

Those who give the most outstanding presentations have these elements in common:

1. They have an attention-getting opening with a greeting for the appropriate target audience and a clear overview of the contents of the presentation. The content is well organized and easily understood.

2. They have comfortable body language, are able to step back, open up and show a smiling and friendly attitude throughout the presentation, using expressive gestures to emphasize what they are saying.

3. They maintain contact with the audience, looking at everyone, sometimes asking a question or otherwise getting participation.

4. They have enthusiasm and high energy without overwhelming their audience. The volume and voice projection are strong and there is a natural quality (not forced or monotone) to the speaking voice.

5. Where possible, a sense of humour is used to engage everyone in the presentation. Sometimes a prop is shown to emphasize a point.

6. Presenters are neatly dressed and seem to radiate confidence and well-being. They appear to be well rehearsed.

7. They use a creative approach to the subject, one that captivates the audience and get them to listen throughout.

8. They use the tools well to create attractive slide layouts with graphics or photos to enhance the points that are brief and to the point.

9. They expand on the points (which are clearly displayed in a consistent and readable font, in good contrast to the background colours) with examples and details, telling about the points without a lot of reading from the screen or monitor.

10. Their presentation is well paced and close to the required time limit. They summarize the presentation briefly and have a closing slide to end their talk.

Those presentations that need improvement get this advice from me:

1. Greet the audience, speak loud and clearly (be articulate) and make eye contact with everyone.

2. Stand tall, step back from the computer and open up to all of the audience, not forgetting those away from the screen. Don't turn toward the screen or hover over the computer.

3. Beware of nervous movement, touching the hair, bobbing from one foot to the other, etc.

4. Try not to overuse sound and animation. Save it for special emphasis.

5. Don't hold anything in your hands - have them free for natural and expressive gestures to emphasize what you are saying.

6. Be consistent with the size and type of font, making sure you have good contrast between the background and the words.

7. No sentences - keep points brief as if headlines for the story you are telling.

8. Be careful with graphics and photos not to clutter up the slide - when re-sizing an image, keep proportions so you are not distorting the picture. It is better to put a graphic before the text rather than after when animating. When the graphic is last on the slide, we don't have much time to see it before going on to the next slide.

9. Have and opening slide, introduction or overview and a closing slide to give your presentation a definite beginning, middle and end.

10. Find ways to get participation from your audience - ask a question even if it is only to see if everyone can hear you clearly. Don't rush. Practice enough that you have a sense of timing and pace to keep within the given guidelines for the presentation.

Excellent article on Using Power Point Effectively - "Death by Power Point" by by Andrew Wahl

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You can save your Power Point presentations to be seen on the Web. Otherwise, I will expect that profile presentations are saved to a CD or diskette to be handed in when you give me the print out of your presentation (Cover sheet, six slides per page and outline, 1 page summary of how the team worked together to accomplish this project).

Power Point Resources - here you will find links to sample presentations and other helpful sites.