Presentations

1
Presentations
2
Material Adapted From

• Colley Hodges, UH Writing Center
• Presentations on Presentations by Paul
  Ruchhoeft, Dept. of Electrical and Computer
  Engineering
• Slides Are Written Documents by Jenna Terry,
  ENGI 2304, Spring 04
• Oral Presentation by Kyung-Hee Bae, ENGI 2304,
  Spring 04
• Posters by Elena Poltavtchenko, ECE/MECE/INDE
  4334, Fall 04

3
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your visuals
• Conclusion

4
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your visuals
• Conclusion

5
Presentations

• Know the Situation
• Know your Task
• Know your Audience
• Know your Material

6
Know the Situation

• Consider the location, size, and spatial
  arrangement of the presentation area
• Consider the length of time for the speech, and
  match the length of time with the focus of your
  topic
• Are there other situational constraints?

7
Know Your Task

• Identify the topic of your presentation and its
  significance to the listeners
• Consider any background information relevant to
  the topic
• Identify key points that you want the audience to
  understand
• List the important questions that you want to
  answer in your presentation

8
Know Your Audience

• What are the notable characteristics of this
  audience?
• What is the extent of their knowledge on the
  topic?
• Does this audience respect a formal or informal
  style?
• Does this audience value simplicity or complexity?

9
Presentations

• Know the Situation
• Know your Task
• Know your Audience
• Context
• Information
• Attention
• Know your Material

10
Three Audience Principles

• The audience will learn easily if information is
  presented in context
• Only a small amount of information can be
  absorbed in a short time
• The audience will not learn if they dont pay
  attention to you

11
Principle 1 Context

• interrelated conditions in which something
  exists (www.m-w.com)
• Basically context is additional or background
  information the audience needs to understand what
  you are presenting

12
Principle 2 Information

• Information Paradox
• By presenting less information, more information
  is communicated to the listener.
• This does not seem to make sense, but it is true.

13
Know Your Audience

• Context
• Information
• Definition
• Limiting
• Presenting
• Attention

14
Defining Information

• Information is knowledge
• Derived
• Gathered
• Used
• for a specific purpose.

15
Limiting Information

• Each slide should contain only
• 1 clear idea or concept
• - or -
• 2 or 3 related ideas or concepts

16
Presenting Information

• Repeat key concepts or points by expressing one
  idea in several different ways, thereby
  reinforcing important points
• Different ways are oral, visual, experiential

17
Principle 3 Attention

• In order to keep the audiences attention
• Engage the audience
• Change or vary delivery

18
Know your Materials

• Practice your presentation to make sure it fits
  your time constraints
• Practice in the setting in which you will deliver
  the presentation, if possible
• Remember, practice will also make you more at
  ease during your presentation

19
Delivery

• Dont just read your slides, verbally expound on
  their information
• Maintain eye contact with the audience
• Use natural hand gestures
• Limit body movements
• Maintain appropriate voice volume
• Maintain a constant rate of speech

20
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your visuals
• Conclusion

21
Structuring Your Presentation

• Outline
• Introduction
• Body of Information
• Conclusion

22
Outline

• It is helpful to have an overall outline slide
  that you refer to throughout the presentation
• This helps the audience keep up with the
  progression and relevance of the material

23
Introduction

• The Introduction should
• Immediately gain the audience's attention by
  connecting their needs, values, and knowledge to
  the topic
• Create expectations that you will fulfill in the
  course of the presentation

24
Introduction

• At a minimum, your introduction should
• Get the audiences attention
• Identify your topic
• Express why the audience should care the
  significance of your topic

25
Attention getters

• Technology some presenters use a video or flash
  intro to their presentation
• Visual display some presenters include an
  elaborate visual aid
• Emotional connection others immediately try to
  connect with the audience emotionally

26
Introduction

• Familiarity and Credibility
• Credibility is a prerequisite to your audience
  taking what you present seriously
• Tell the audience who you are and why you are
  qualified to speak to them on this topic

27
Body

• Break information into pieces
• Try to identify several main points you want the
  audience to grasp by the end of the presentation
• Reinforce those points in different ways,
  including oral, visual, experiential, and through
  a review at the end of the presentation

28
Conclusion

• Your conclusion should provide
• A summary of key points and/or sections of the
  presentation
• A reminder of the significance of your topic
  (what is important about your topic/position on
  the issue, and why the audience should care )

29
Linguistic Clues

• Provide clues that you are ending
• In conclusion
• As I have demonstrated today
• Thank the audience for their participation/attenti
  on

30
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your Visuals
• Oral Presentations
• Posters
• Conclusion

31
Evaluate Slides Critically

• Check your slides for appropriate
• Layout
• Sequencing
• Text
• Graphics
• Colors

32
Layout

• Try to have a logical, consistent layout for your
  slides
• That way the audience learns where to look for
  information

33
Sequencing

• Make sure the order of your slides makes sense
• It helps to have an outline slide that you
  present in the introduction and refer to as you
  switch to different sections of your presentation

34
Text

• Follow all rules of good writing
• Use concise but information-rich text
• Keep slides readable

35
Concision

• In an effort to maintain grammatical
• correctness, connective coherence, and
• stylistic flair, sentences may contain words
• extraneous to the most important
• information and simply become too long
• for an audience to read in the time allotted.

36
Concision

• Use phrases or bulleted points
• Choose information-rich words
• Minimize extraneous words

37
Arranging Text Visually

• Color tends to draw attention
• Color is relatively inexpensive to use when
  presenting and printing.
• Dont use color in ways that distract from,
  confuse, or hide your point.

38
Font Selection

• Use large fonts (18 point minimum)
• Use sans-serif fonts
• Avoid using ALL CAPS or underlining
• Titles and figure labels, even though theyre not
  a main part of the text, should also be readable

39
Slide Background

• Light background with dark text works best
• Otherwise, it strains the eye and makes things
  seem dark and gloomy

40
Graphics

• Select types of visual aids well matched to the
  needs of your audience
• Present visuals that correspond to specific
  portions of your presentation

41
Graphics

• Table - presents groups of detailed facts
• Bar graph - represents numerical qualities
• Line graph - shows changes as a function of
  change in another quantity
• Pie graph - depicts the parts of a whole

42
Graphics

• Diagram assists in understanding of process or
  structure
• Flow chart - represents succession of events
• Organizational chart - depicts hierarchical
  arrangement

43
Graphics

• Critique your graphics from the perspective of
  the audience
• Is it large enough to be easily seen or too small
  and detailed?
• Is the contrast/color effective or distracting?
• Does it clarify a difficult concept or introduce
  confusion?

44
Types of Graphics Example

• What is the main message of these graphics?
• Which one conveys this message clearer, distracts
  less, and looks more attractive?

45
Effective Title Examples

• Which is the best title for this chart?
• Figure Group B
• Figure 1 Earnings Breakdown
• Figure 1 Group B 3rd Quarter Earnings

46
Evaluate Slides Critically

• Check your slides for appropriate
• Layout
• Sequencing
• Text
• Graphics
• Colors

47
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your Visuals
• Oral Presentations
• Posters
• Conclusion

48
Posters

• deliver a clear message
• are highly visual
• are easy to read from 1-2 meters away (about 3-6
  feet)

49
Common Problems

• Many posters suffer from problems that make them
  ineffective, including
• text too small
• poor graphics
• objective and main points hard to find
• poor organization

50
Poster Layout

• Headings direct readers to key information
• If possible, use both text and graphics
• Use white space effectively to define flow of
  information
• Don't fight "reader gravity" that pulls eye from
  top to bottom, left to right

51
Layout in Column Format

• Columns let your audience read the entire poster
  as people proceed from left to right

52
Poster organized in rows

• Rows may force viewers to fight their way back to
  the beginning once they finish the first row

53
Sequencing

• Supply clues to help viewers follow your
  presentation
• Arrange the panels in logical sequence
• Panels placed in regular columns are easier to
  follow than panels placed asymmetrically

54
Indicate the Sequence

• USE
• numbers,
• letters,
• arrows,
• or color coding.

55
Presentation Outline

• General presentation information
• Structuring your presentation
• Composing your visuals
• Conclusion

56
Conclusion

• We covered the most important aspect of
  presentations dealing with the situation and the
  audience.
• As we went on, we discussed effective ways to
  deliver your information through text and
  graphics
• Anything you want to review?

57
The End