Preparing and Delivering Presentations

In business and industry, employees are frequently asked to give presentations to customers,
managers, team members and others. Many qualifications will help to prepare you for the world of

work by asking you to deliver presentations to your fellow students.

Before you start

Stop and think! 


The purpose of a presentation is to convey information, in spoken form, clearly and effectively. You need to do this in a way that engages interest, provokes thought and grabs attention. You will NOT be able to accomplish this by heading straight to your computer and opening MS PowerPoint.

Aren’t Presentations and PowerPoint the same thing?

Not at all! A set of PowerPoint slides is one type of aid to giving a presentation, nothing more. A Presentation is a talk illustrated by using any number of aids, for example:

• Artefacts and models
• Simulations and animations
• Posters and charts
• Music or video
• Presentation software
• Role play
• Practical demonstration

Presentation Planning Checklist
 Plan the presentation using a mind map
 Write a set of speaker notes
 How long will you speak for?
 How will you introduce the presentation?
 What will you say in the main section?
 How will you finish your talk?
 What images, charts and artefacts do you need?
 How will you respond to questions?

Preparation
1. Mind map your ideas for the presentation. You could either draw this freehand or use a Mind Mapping tool like Inspiration (on the College System under the ‘Learning Support’ tab).

2. This is a Mind Map for a 5 minute presentation on Victorian Transport Engineering.

3. Next you need to write out a set of speaker notes.

There are a number of ways of making speaker notes. Try to avoid writing your notes out in full like an essay or report. If you do this you will be tempted to read aloud from your notes. Reading aloud is NOT a presentation.

We suggest making brief notes with timings in a table like this:

If you wish to write out key detail behind what you will say, do by all means do this. It is important however to then learn these facts so that you can talk without constantly referring to notes.

4. Now practise the talk part of your presentation to check that it is the right length. Stand up and imagine you are addressing an audience rather than simply reading through your notes. Remember that they are there to remind you of what you want to say.

5. Now think about a series of slides to accompany your talk. Can you include any video or artefacts? This is where you might now want to open up PowerPoint or Keynote.

Keep your slides simple and easy to read. Keep text clear, short, and easy to read. Try to avoid animations and special effects. These are rarely used in professional presentations.

Here is an example from the same presentation:

This is an example of an image based slide:

This is an ideal type of slide. It enables you to talk your way through the topic talking about the
content of each picture and why it is important or significant.

Your accompanying talk might include something like:

On the left is a picture of Brunel’s steamship, the Great Eastern. When it was designed it was significantly larger than any ship ever built. It was built to travel the passenger route between the UK and Australia carrying 4,000 passengers. By building such a large ship Brunel showed how fuel efficient longer ships could be. His design set the standard for the much larger ships of the modern

era.
On the top right is a picture of a train arriving at Paddington Railway station in London. Brunel surveyed and designed a railway between London, Bristol and the South West. He linked important ports with a faster, more efficient transport system and greatly improved communications between cities.
Bottom right is Brunel’s Great Britain in Bristol Docks. This ship was the first commercial screw propeller ship in service. By designing a ship this way, Brunel improved passage times, passenger safety and the fuel efficiency of ships. The screw propulsion system is still used by ships today.

6. With your slides in place, now practise your timings for the talk with the slides. Both Keynote and PowerPoint have tools to help you rehearse timings.

7. Make sure that you back up your slides onto a suitable data drive.

Giving the Talk
On the day, make sure you have:
 Your slides
 Your notes
 Something to time your presentation
 Any artefacts or models you want to show
 Any printouts or hand-outs (you may want to print out thumbnails of your slides with spaces for your audience to make notes.

Make sure you:
 Dress smartly to impress
 Speak clearly but remember to vary your pace
 Are ready to answer questions