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Preparing your presentation:
Oral presentations require a certain
amount of redundancy for the audience to follow your message. Dividing
your presentation into an introduction,
a main body,
and a conclusion,
gives you the chance to reiterate the main points and put your ideas
across clearly. A good model for the interaction between the introduction,
the body, and the conclusion is the old newspaper maxim:
First, you tell them what you're
going to tell them, then you tell them,and then you tell them
what you have told them
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Introduction
The introduction clearly notifies the audience
the main point (or purpose) of your presentation, and previews the rest
of the talk. It "tells what you're going to tell".
Focus your audience's attention by:
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Choosing a title
that reflects the content of your presentation, but does so in an
interesting way.
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Introducing your topic an attention-getting
method, i.e. a short anecdote, a rhetorical question, a surprising
fact.
Again, the titles and methods you use will depend on the audience and
purpose of your presentation.
Body
The body develops each point you stated in
the introduction. It "tells".
The information here should be well structured. Decide on an organizing
principle. It
could be in a chronological sequence,
by order of importance, or a simple topical sequence. Offer evidence
to support ideas. This should be the longest section.
Conclusion
The conclusion restates the ideas presented,
and reinforces the purpose. It "tells what you have told".
Briefly and clearly restate and reinforce
the main ideas you have developed in the body. Do not introduce any
new information here. The end of your presentation is important, since
it's the part most likely to be remembered later.
Exercise:
Imagine that you are delivering an oral presentation on the topic of
car accidents. In which section of your presentation would you place
these sentences?
One
out of fifteen people in this room will die of a car accident
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Who can tell us roughly how many
Europeans drive to work every day?
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Firstly… Secondly…. Finally…
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I asked before how many Europeans
drive to work. Now I hope it's clear that…
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Get Rid of Your Car and Grab the
Bus!
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Statistics show the overuse of
private cars is clearly anti-economical. In 2003, for instance,
the amount of…
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