The document provides a comprehensive guide on the dynamics of professional presentations, covering topics such as audience analysis, topic selection, objective definition, and creating effective outlines. It emphasizes the importance of a strong introduction and conclusion, as well as the nuances of delivery, including verbal, vocal, and visual elements. Additionally, the guide addresses slide preparation and the effective use of visual aids to enhance presentations.

1. Unit A – Topic 2: Dynamics of Professional
Presentation
Introduction:
Definition: A presentation is the process of presenting a topic to an audience. It is typically a
demonstration, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, or to
build good will or to present a new idea or product.
Planning Your Presentation
Preparing a presentation can be an overwhelming experience if you allow it to be one. The
strategies and steps below are provided to help you break down what you might view as a large
job into smaller, more manageable tasks.
Step 1: Analyze your audience
The first step in preparing a presentation is to learn more about the audience to whom you'll be
speaking. It's a good idea to obtain some information on the backgrounds, values, and interests of
your audience so that you understand what the audience members might expect from your
presentation.
Step 2: Select a topic
Next, if possible select a topic that is of interest to the audience and to you. It will be much easier
to deliver a presentation that the audience finds relevant, and more enjoyable to research a topic
that is of interest to you.

2. Step 3: Define the objective of the presentation
Once you have selected a topic, write the objective of the presentation in a single concise
statement. The objective needs to specify exactly what you want your audience to learn from
your presentation. Base the objective and the level of the content on the amount of time you have
for the presentation and the background knowledge of the audience. Use this statement to help
keep you focused as you research and develop the presentation.
Outline:
A presentation outline is a roadmap to a more successful presentation — a general plan that
summarizes what you want to say to your audience. Your audience may be your class mates,
colleagues, prospective customers, clients or investors. It lets you organize your thoughts, group
ideas into main points and present your material logically.
An outline is a plan for or a summary of a writing project or speech. Outlines are usually in the
form of a list divided into headings and subheadings that distinguish main points from supporting
points.
Creating a Presentation Outline
1. Step 1: Decide on the Goal. The first step in creating the outline is to decide on the goal
of your presentation. ...
2. Step 2: Analyze the audience. Next, analyze your audience to determine what the starting
point is. ...
3. Step 3: Plan your content.
Introduction:
1. Outline
2. Make it interesting
Body:
3. 3 main arguments
4. Support with evidence
Conclusion:
5. Summarise

3. Structuring:
An oral presentation needs an introduction, body and conclusion. In the introduction, you may
like to include a brief (and relevant) anecdote or provocative question to engage your audience
from the beginning. A question that includes your audience will make them want to follow
through with you to find out the implications as they relate to them directly. The conclusion
should point to further research or conclusive results if possible. Try to end with a clear
concluding statement, something with rhetorical flourish perhaps, so that you aren't forced to
finish by saying, "um, that's it."
The introduction prepares the audience for what you will say in the body of the talk and the
conclusion reminds them of your key points. Good presentations raise questions in the listeners'
mind. Good speakers encourage questions both during and after the presentation and are
prepared to answer them.
Introduction
A good introduction does four things:
 Attracts and focuses the attention of the audience
 Puts the speaker and audience at ease
 Explains the purpose of the talk and what the speaker would like to achieve
 Gives an overview of the key points of the talk
It is often a good idea to begin a talk with a question, a short story, an interesting fact about your
topic or an unusual visual aid. Many speakers follow this with an overhead transparency that
shows the title, aim and outline of the talk.
Body
The body of a presentation must be presented in a logical order that is easy for the audience to
follow and natural to your topic. Divide your content into sections and make sure that the
audience knows where they are at any time during your talk. It is often a good idea to pause
between main sections of your talk. You can ask for questions, sum up the point or explain what
the next point will be. If you have an OHT (Over-head projector) with an outline of your talk on
it, you can put this on the projector briefly and point to the next section.
Examples, details and visual aids add interest to a presentation and help you get your message
through. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about the examples you include:

4.  Are they relevant to the experience of the audience?
 Are they concrete?
 Will the audience find them interesting?
 Are they varied?
 Are they memorable?
Content
It is likely that you already have a topic and you know what you want to say about it. This is the
content of your presentation. You may already have the content of your presentation in written
form: for example in a written report. Whether your content is already written down or you are
beginning from scratch, you may need to cut it down for your presentation. Why?
 You will need to fit your content within the time limit. Think carefully about how much
information you can reasonably present in the time allowed and select the most important
point.
 You will need to hold the interest and attention of your audience. Many people lose interest
towards the end of presentations that contain too much information. Think carefully about the
key points that you want to get across and build your presentation around them.
 Some kinds of information, such as technical explanations and tables of figures, are difficult for
listeners to absorb during a presentation. Think about summarising this kind of information or
referring the listeners to a document they can read after the presentation.
 You will need to leave time for examples and illustrations of your points. Think carefully about
how you will support and explain your key points.
 You will need to leave time for an introduction, conclusion and questions or comments.
Three points to think about when preparing the content of a presentation:
 What are your key points? Most good presentations have no more than 5 key points.
 How will you support your key points with examples and illustrations?
 How will you make it easy for your audience to follow your key points?
Conclusion
A good conclusion does two things:
 Reminds the audience of your key points
 Reinforces your message
Your conclusion should end the presentation on a positive note and make the audience feel that
they have used their time well listening to you.

5. Questions
Many speakers worry about questions from the audience. However, questions show that the
audience is interested in what you have to say and can make the talk more lively and interactive.
You should be more worried if there are no questions at all! One way of handling questions is to
point to questions you would like to discuss as you are talking. You can control questions better
if you leave pauses during your talk and ask for questions. It is important not to let question and
answer sessions during the talk go on too long, however. Answer briefly or say you will deal
with the question at the end. Make sure you are ready to go on with your talk when questions
have finished.
Nuances of Delivery
Delivering effective oral presentations involves three components:
 What you say (verbal),
 How you say it with your voice (vocal),
 And, everything the audience can see about you (visual).
Verbal: Verbally (and as a general rule), do not write down and memorize or read your full text,
because then your presentation will sound like what it is: a recited written text. Instead,
memorize the outline of your presentation — that is, a tree structure of main points and sub-
points — and speak ex tempore, reinventing the words as you go along. As you do, you will
occasionally need to think about what to say next and find the most appropriate words to say it.
Instead of using filler words (um, er, you know, I mean, etc.), simply pause. If you say um, you
get about half a second of thinking time and the audience is likely to notice the um and be
irritated by it. If you keep silent, you can get up to two or three seconds of thinking time without
the audience noticing anything. Even if attendees do notice the silence, they will simply think
that you are choosing your words carefully — and there is nothing wrong with that.
Vocal: Vocally, vary the tone, rate, and volume of your voice as a function of the meaning,
complexity, and importance of what you are saying. You need not invent a new intonation
pattern: You simply need to amplify your normal pattern.
Visual: Visually, control your body. Adopt a stable, confident position; move only when you
have a positive reason to do so (for example, move closer to the audience for taking questions),
not when your body seems to ask for it. When you make a gesture, make it large and deliberate;
between gestures, bring your hands down and do not fidget. Establish eye contact: Engage the
audience by looking them straight in the eyes.

6. At all times, make sure you address the audience. Even if you have slides, tell the audience your
story in a stand-alone way; do not just explain your slides. In particular, anticipate your slides.
You should know at all times what your next slide is about so you can insert an appropriate
transition.
Handling stage fright and mishaps
Most speakers, even experienced ones, are nervous before or during an oral presentation. Such
stage fright is normal and even reassuring: It shows that you care, and you should care if you
want to deliver an effective presentation. Accordingly, accept your stage fright rather than
feeling guilty about it. Instead of trying to suppress nervousness, strive to focus your nervous
energy in your voice, your gestures, and your eye contact. Do not let it dissipate into entropy,
such as by using filler words or engaging in nervous mannerisms.
Among the many ways to keep your nerves under control, the most effective ones are:
 To focus constructively on your purpose at all times
 Before your presentation, prepare your presentation well
 Identify (or even meet) your audience and know the room before your presentation
 During the presentation, do what it takes to get your message across, even if it means
doing something differently than you had planned.
 Have a positive attitude about the presentation at all times: Visualize what you want to
achieve, not what you want to avoid.
Slide Preparation
People are visual learners, so using slides does nothing but good for presenters. Experienced
speakers know that, and it comes as no surprise many of them consider slides an integral part of
successful presentations.
Seemingly easy to prepare, slides have their secrets of creation.
How to create presentation slides? What points to take into consideration to awaken audience’s
interest in presented information?
1. Slides should support ideas.

7. Newbie speakers believe slides can save their presentations, and they have no better idea than
stuffing slides with as much information as possible.
The problem is, such trick demonstrates their reading skills instead of speaking ones. And this is
one of the most popular blunders.
This mistake decreases authority and credibility of a presenter:
 people start reading slides and don’t follow a presenter’s ideas;
 overloaded slides are illegible, and people lose interest in such a presentation;
 a presenter can’t track the feedback from his audience and control the narration process,
as he’ll be busy reading texts from slides.
Taking the above into account, slides should be:
 Short. A presenter should try making phrases as laconic as possible. It can be a short
sentence, phrase, word, or even an image. Such info is capacious, and it can be read
faster.
 Simple. Too complicated phrases are hard to understand, distracting the audience from
presentations.
 Complementary. A presentation should be 100% clear even when slides are turned off.
2. Slides should deliver a message.
When used right, visual elements can strengthen ideas, while their abuse distracts an audience
and brings no emotional response.
With that in mind, a presenter should
 avoid unnecessary animation effects;
 avoid unnecessary sound effects.
One slide should support a single idea, so good presenters avoid
 adding several ideas to one slide;
 adding funny elements to serious slides.
3. Slides should be designed professionally.
A presenter can create slides that will look professional and deliver his message in whole.
How to do that?

8. a) To choose right colours.
Cold colors work best when used for backgrounds, and warm colors are good for foreground
objects.
Other tips include:
 Dark backgrounds with light texts are perfect for dark auditorium; if a presentation room
is properly lit, it’s better to use light backgrounds and dark texts.
 It’s better to highlight the most significant messages with an accent color.
b) To choose right fonts.
The best advice here would be:
 To not use more than two fonts (usually, one is enough);
 To pick easily scannable fonts (Serif fonts are highly advisable).
4. Data presentation: charts, graphs and diagrams.
Data visualization helps to support and appeal, which makes presentations more descriptive.
Visual data must be:
 Easy to understand. A presenter shouldn’t overload his presentation with elements,
using large numbers and contrast colors.
 Congruent with the message. A presenter shouldn’t look decent when speaking about
growth.
Presenters use different types of charts for different purposes:
 Pie Charts - to show the distribution of values.
 Vertical Bar Charts - to show change over time (as a rule, annual and monthly values are
compared).
 Line Charts - to show change over time (and add predictions for the future).
Use of Visual Aids:
Different types of visual aids used in a presentation:
 PowerPoint (or equivalent) Microsoft PowerPoint is probably now the most commonly
used form of visual aid. ...

9.  Overhead projector slides/transparencies. ...
 White or black board. ...
 Paper handouts. ...
 Flip chart. ...
 Video (DVD or VHS) ...
 Artefacts or props.
There are many different types of visual aids. The following advice will help you make the most
of those most commonly used.
PowerPoint (or equivalent)
Microsoft PowerPoint is probably now the most commonly used form of visual aid. Used well, it
can really help you in your presentation; used badly, however, it can have the opposite effect.
The general principles are:
Do Don't
use a big enough font (minimum 20pt) make it so small you can't read it
keep the background simple use a fussy background image
use animations when appropriate
but don't over-do the animation - it gets
distracting
make things visual
use endless slides of bulleted lists that all look
the same
Overhead projector slides/transparencies
Overhead projector slides/transparencies are displayed on the overhead projector (OHP) - a very
useful tool found in most lecture and seminar rooms. The OHP projector enlarges your slides
onto a screen or wall without requiring the lights to be dimmed. You can produce your slides in
three ways:
 pre-prepared slides : these can be words or images either hand written/drawn or produced
on a computer;
 spontaneously produced slides: these can be written as you speak to illustrate your points
or to record comments from the audience;
 a mixture of each: try adding to pre-prepared slides when making your presentation to
show movement, highlight change or signal detailed interrelationships.
Make sure that the text on your slides is large enough to be read from the back of the room. A
useful rule of thumb is to use 18 point text if you are producing slides with text on a computer.

10. This should also help reduce the amount of information on each slide. Avoid giving your
audience too much text or overly complicated diagrams to read as this limits their ability to
listen. Try to avoid lists of abstract words as these can be misleading or uninformative.
White or black board
White or black boards can be very useful to help explain the sequence of ideas or routines,
particularly in the sciences. Use them to clarify your title or to record your key points as you
introduce your presentation (this will give you a fixed list to help you recap as you go along).
Rather than expecting the audience to follow your spoken description of an experiment or
process, write each stage on the board, including any complex terminology or precise references
to help your audience take accurate notes. However, once you have written something on the
board you will either have to leave it there or rub it off - both can be distracting to your audience.
Check to make sure your audience has taken down a reference before rubbing it off - there is
nothing more frustrating than not being given enough time! Avoid leaving out of date material
from an earlier point of your presentation on the board as this might confuse your audience. If
you do need to write 'live', check that your audience can read your writing.
Paper handouts
Handouts are incredibly useful. Use a handout if your information is too detailed to fit on a slide
or if you want your audience to have a full record of your findings. Consider the merits of
passing round your handouts at the beginning, middle and end of a presentation. Given too early
and they may prove a distraction. Given too late and your audience may have taken too many
unnecessary notes. Given out in the middle and your audience will inevitably read rather than
listen. One powerful way of avoiding these pitfalls is to give out incomplete handouts at key
stages during your presentation. You can then highlight the missing details vocally, encouraging
your audience to fill in the gaps.
Flip chart
A flip chart is a large pad of paper on a stand. It is a very useful and flexible way of recording
information during your presentation - you can even use pre-prepared sheets for key points.
Record information as you go along, keeping one main idea to each sheet. Flip back through the
pad to help you recap your main points. Use the turning of a page to show progression from
point to point. Remember to make your writing clear and readable and your diagrams as simple
as possible.

11. Video (DVD or VHS)
Video gives you a chance to show stimulating visual information. Use video to bring movement,
pictures and sound into your presentation. Always make sure that the clip is directly relevant to
your content. Tell your audience what to look for. Avoid showing any more film than you need.
Artefacts or props
Sometimes it can be very useful to use artefacts or props when making a presentation (think of
the safety routine on an aeroplane when the steward shows you how to use the safety
equipment). If you bring an artefact with you, make sure that the object can be seen and be
prepared to pass it round a small group or move to different areas of a large room to help your
audience view it in detail. Remember that this will take time and that when an audience is
immersed in looking at an object, they will find it hard to listen to your talk. Conceal large props
until you need them; they might distract your audience's attention.