Presentations

Organising the content of a presentation is very similar to planning an essay or coursework assignment. You need to spend some time thinking about your content (planning), perhaps by using a mind-map of ideas or just scribbling out a basic outline of what you should include. You then need to narrow this down to the most important and relevant points, just as you would in an essay - you don't want to go off-topic in the middle of your talk or start talking about one thing and end up on a completely different subject!

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However, an added aspect of a presentation is that you need to decide which points you will get across verbally and which would be better explained with a slide or other illustration. Remember, as we discussed in the previous section, a picture or graph can be really useful in saving you time and making your point clearer, but too much information can also be confusing.

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Check that you are not being repetitive in your content, and that you also haven’t missed out anything important. Whether you are writing an email, talking on the phone or giving a presentation, the person at the other end needs to be able to follow your train of thought.

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Once you have your content plan, you can start creating your talk. If you are using PowerPoint - which, let's face it, is the most popular approach - start by placing a heading on the top of each slide to represent each of your points. This should give you an idea of whether or not you have too many points to cover already (or not enough!). Can you combine any of your points?

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Next, start to add a few notes beneath the headings - just a few relevant points and, if necessary, an illustration. Again, have you got too much to say on any of your topics, or not enough? Should you move any of the slides around so that you can combine the points more easily? You might need to start with more content than you will eventually use, so that you can gradually reduce it as you improve your draft and practice speaking alongside the slides.

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Whilst working through your draft presentation, remember to consider:
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• the amount of time available for your presentation – this will dictate the amount of detail and the number of examples you can include; and
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• the audience’s knowledge – this will help you decide where you need to include the most explanation and where you might particularly want to use slides to illustrate what you say.
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You should have already made some notes about this from the previous sections, so don't forget to review those as you continue to create your draft presentation.

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Make sure you are keeping your own separate speaker's notes about what you will say alongside each slide or illustration - but don't make a script! You will not be reading anything out word for word as this will sound boring to your audience. You just need a few key phrases or words that you know you should include in your description of each slide. It may seem nerve-wracking to not have the exact words available, but if you are constantly looking down at your notes or losing your place, it will be less engaging for the audience and could even make things more stressful for you.

The best talkers know their subject well (through researching, planning, preparing and practicing) and are therefore able to look at the audience as they speak. It can be a good idea to use the PowerPoint slides as your notes, so that you don't need any extra pieces of paper. Just make sure your slides have all the important points on them which you want to cover. It's OK to glance up at the slides for a prompt, as your audience will be doing the same, but as soon as you have the point in your head, turn back to the audience and speak directly to them.

The same goes with using small prompt cards - glance down, but speak up and out to your audience! To make sure you don't muddle your cards up, each time you have finished with a prompt card, put it down somewhere in front of you, rather than placing it at the back of the pile in your hand.

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