COMP 208/214/215/216

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COMP 208/214/215/216 Lecture 5

• Presentation Skills

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Aims

• To introduce the skills needed to present and
  defend your work effectively in oral form.
• Dawsons Chapter 9

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Different types

• Formal Presentation
• large audience
• small audience
• Informal Presentation
• as a group
• as an individual
• Demonstration

Not done on this course part of the 3rd
year project
Project Reviews
Reports at project meetings
Project Demo in week 11
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General Tips

• Prepare what you want to say
• Time
• Appropriate balance between topics
• Appropriate level of detail
• Audience
• What background do they need?
• What do they want to know?
• Show enthusiasm

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Formal Presentations Content Planning

• Clarify your objectives
• What are you required to mention?
• What do you want to say about it?
• Order your main points
• Chronological e.g. requirements, design,
  implementation, evaluation
• General to specific e.g. artificial
  intelligence, natural language, your project.

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Formal Presentations
1 2 3

• Content
• Try to have a beginning (intro/ToC), middle (main
  points) and end (summary)
• Detail for each will depend on time available and
  relative importance of the various points.

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Formal Presentations

• Allocate time to topics make sure you have time
  for all your main points
• How much background is necessary or possible?
• Equal time for each point or more time for a
  particular point?
• E.g. if you are talking about a specific project
  in natural language, keep the general material
  brief, or you wont have time for your stuff.

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Formal Presentations

• Timing
• Never over-run your time
• This will cause problems for those following you
• Have enough material
• Perhaps have some optional material if you look
  like under running
• Rehearse your talk
• So you have a good idea of how long it is.

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Formal Presentations

• Audience
• Who are they?
• Assessors, peers, clients, colleagues
• What do they already know?
• How many? Same/different backgrounds?
• What do they want to know?
• What do you want to tell them?

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Slides

• No more than 1 slide for every 2 minutes of talk
• Which tool? Any that
• Provides uniform look - consistency is good
• Makes it easy to incorporate external material
• Imposes some discipline.

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Dont put Too Much on a Slide

• The slide should not write down everything you
  want to say, otherwise it will just be a jumble
  of words that will be difficult to understand.
  Certainly, you should not include long rambling
  sentences, or photocopies of whole book
  paragraphs. The best idea is to capture some
• Key phrases
• As bullet points.
• Make sure only the main points are mentioned in a
  clear concise way and add details as you talk
  through the slides! Too many pictures or diagrams
  may be distracting too.
• According to what I just said this slide is
  RUBBISH!

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Fonts

• This is Tahoma
• This is Times Roman
• This is Courier
• This is avant garde
• This is Palatino
• This is Ariel
• This is Comic Sans Ms
• A matter of taste - but be consistent.

Useful for program code listings
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Font Size (44 point)

• This is 32 point
• This is 28 point
• This is 24 point
• This is 20 point
• This is 16 point
• This is 28 point
• This is 24 point
• This is 18 point
• This is 16 point
• This is 12 point

Depends on the size of room, to some extent. I
think 20 point is the minimum useful size If the
font size becomes too small there is too much on
the slide.
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Backgrounds

• Matter of taste
• Some people like a textured background
• Some people prefer plain
• Personally, I prefer plain.

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Light Background

• Dark Text
• Some people like this, some do not
• But important to have contrast.

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Delivery

• Make sure your slides are organised before you
  start
• Face the audience
• Try to make eye contact with the audience -
  everyone - dont pick on an individual
• Speak loudly enough to be heard all over the room
• Dont speak too fast
• Dont gesticulate widely - but controlled
  gestures are good
• Dont fidget, or walk around too much
• Dont be afraid to pause.

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Use of Notes

• Reading from full text is not advised
• It is better to have some key word prompts to
  remind you of what to say and in what order to
  say it
• You can use
• cards notes on backing sheets a piece of paper
  with key words
• Dont get lost in your notes
• Write large use different colours to separate
  points.
• If you prepare your text well, and rehearse it
  several times, you shouldnt need your notes too
  much.

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Dealing With Questions

• Try to anticipate what you will be asked
• Answer confidently
• Answer briefly - and keep to the point
• Dont argue with your questioner
• Speak to the whole audience, not just the
  questioner
• If you dont have an answer, admit it dont
  bluster.

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Are you still THERE???
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Different types

• Formal Presentation
• large audience
• small audience
• Informal Presentation
• as a group
• as an individual
• Demonstration

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Presenting as a Group

• Think as a group about
• what you need to say
• who is going to say it
• who will take the lead on answering questions
• If everyone knows what is happening, things run
  smoothly and there are no conflicts and
  interruptions.

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Review Meetings

• Decide who will introduce each item
• Keep your introduction short and to the point
• Be familiar with the material you are introducing
• Be ready to explain, clarify and answer questions.

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Reporting to a Meeting

• Know the agenda identify what you will speak to
• Know what you are going to say
• Keep it short
• Stick to the point
• Be prepared to back up what you say - make sure
  you have the detail to answer questions if they
  are asked.

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Demonstrating Software - I

• Know your software - what it can (and cannot) do
  how to access its functions
• Decide what you want to demonstrate
• Dont try to show more than the time allows
• Try to use a running example or case study to
  work through the functions you want to show in a
  logical sequence.
• Try this out beforehand
• Be prepared to answer questions as you are
  running the software
• Be prepared to deviate from your script if the
  audience requests it
• But only do things if you know what will happen.

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Demonstrating Software - II

• Dont just show the user interface - show the
  implementation view as well
• Be prepared to talk about how it works as well as
  what it does
• Try to make it interesting
• Be enthusiastic about it.

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Demonstrating Software - III

• Make sure the audience can see
• Can be a problem if there are more than 3 people
  round a machine
• Who will do what?
• Maybe one person will operate the system, while
  another describes it.
• As always, the best advice is prepare.

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Summary

• Planning is the key to success in all
  presentations
• Think about what you want to say, and what you
  can say in the time
• Rehearse formal presentations and demonstrations
• Identify possible problems beforehand