This document provides guidance on how to structure and deliver a successful academic presentation. It recommends including an introduction to introduce yourself and the topic, an overview of subtopics, a body with multiple subtopics, and a conclusion. It also provides general tips, such as maintaining good posture and varying tone of voice. The document stresses allowing time for questions and closing the presentation by thanking the audience.

1. The UK’s European university
INVESTIGATING THE
SOCIAL MIND / SUMMER
SCHOOL 2016
How To Deliver Successful Academic Presentations
Vanessa Dias (vcrd2@kent.ac.uk)

2. Contents
• The Structure of Oral Presentations
• General tips
• The General Introduction
• The Overview
• The Body
• The Conclusion
• The Chance for Discussion
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3. The Structure of Oral Presentations
• The general introduction
• The speaker greets the audience and introduces
him/herself
• The overview
• The speaker tells the audience what the topic of the
presentation will be
• The body
• The speaker talks about the presentation topic in
detail
• The conclusion
• The speaker lets the audience know that he/she is
going to finish the presentation
• The chance for discussion
• The speaker gives the audience the opportunity to
ask questions
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4. General Tips
• Body language:
• Restrict the amount of movements and gestures you
make
• Be comfortable and authoritative
• Make sure that everyone sees you
• Adopt a firm posture
• Nervous or Stressed?
• Stretches, relaxing meditation
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5. The General Introduction
• Who are you?
• What are you going to talk about?
• Examples:
• For the next ten minutes or so, I’d like to
give you some of the reasons why most
modern historians think the First World War
started.
• In my presentation, I’ll talk about four key
effects that acid rain is having on our
environment.
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6. The Overview
• What is your main topic?
• What are your sub-topics?
• Makes it easier for the audience to follow the
presentation and helps to give the presentation
a logical & clear flow
• Example:
• In my presentation today, I’m going to talk about images of
violence in the movies of Quentin Tarantino. I’ll start by looking
at Pulp Fiction, arguably his best-known work. Next, I’ll focus
on Reservoir Dogs and to finish off, I’ll consider Kill Bill.
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7. The Body
• Vary the tone of your voice
• Make pauses to create maximum impact
• Delivering an oral presentation in a monotone,
without pausing where needed:
• it will make your presentation lack sufficient
impact, and
• you will not succeed in getting the
audience’s attention
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8. The Body
• Narrow down your topic to no fewer than two sub-topics
and no more than four
• Leading phrases:
• So, for starters then, let’s look at…
• Right, to begin with, let’s look at…
• Ok, let’s start by looking at…
• Linking phrases:
• Now, I’d like to move on to the next part of my
presentation, which is how Hitler got the support of the
German people.
• Next, I’d like to look at my second point today: some of the
ways in which mobile phone technology has developed.
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9. The Conclusion
• When you reach the end of an oral
presentation, you should let the audience know
that you are going to finish
• Use suitable ending phrases
• Examples:
• Right then, as I hope to have shown this morning, it’s
clear that Scotland has many attractions for foreign
tourists. Now, does anyone have any questions?
• I hope you have enjoyed my presentation today. If
anyone has any questions, I’ll do my best to answer
them.
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10. The Chance for Discussion
• At the end of an oral presentation, it is polite for
the presenter to ask the audience if they have
any questions
• This gives people the chance to clarify anything
that they weren’t sure about or to ask the
presenter for extra information
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11. The Chance for Discussion
• There are 3 main types of questions:
• The ‘straight’ question
– “You mentioned that the monster is unlikely to be a
plesiosaur. Why do you think that is?”
• The ‘give me more’ question
– “Can you go into more detail about that?”
• The ‘I didn’t understand, so tell me again’
question
– “Can you explain about that again?”
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12. The Chance for Discussion
• Closing phrases:
• If there are no more questions, I’ll stop here. Thanks
very much for your attention.
• Does anyone have any more questions?
(no questions) In that case, I’ll finish my presentation
here. Thank you for listening.
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13. Reference
• Bell, D. (2008). Passport to academic
presentations: student’s book. Reading:
Garnet Education.
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14. THE UK’S
EUROPEAN
UNIVERSITY
www.kent.ac.uk