“A presentation is a means of communicating ideas, knowledge or information effectively to a group of interested listeners”.

PURPOSE: To seek effectively, interestingly and pervasively at small or big gatherings.

POSTURE: Standing or Sitting depending on the situation

DURATION:
* 5 min to 1 hr
* 20 min t o 1h r t o prepare an outline
* 10 min to 30 min to revise it

Effective 5 minute speech will take a novice 30 minutes to 2 hrs.

FACTORS: 3 important factors are:
i. The structure of the presentation
ii. The presenter
iii. The audience
A good presentation will have an effective opening, a body, a summary and a conclusion, lastly question and answer session.

i) OPENING / INTRODUCTION: It achieves 3 purposes
a) It attracts the attention of the audience
b)I t involves t h e audience by being relevant to their n e e d s and being perceived by them as useful i n fulfilling t h e s e needs in s o m e way.
c) It purposes the central idea or purposes of the presentation - Announce the objective

- Break the audience pre-occupation with other matters.
- Facilitate audience involvement and participation
- Clearly set the mood of presentation
ii) BODY: Content of your presentation and most informative section, the body of the presentation argues your case with facts and the principles holding them together in such a way as to persuade the audience to accept your central purpose, remember it and pay attention to flow of ideas.
- If your presentation conveys information that is heavy and difficult to understand intersperse it with jokes and anecdotes.
- Ask the audience questions in the course of your presentation instead of stating facts
- State main points first then supplementary details
- Make sure that you have researched your topic thoroughly and have included all the relevant information.
iii) SUMMARY: Important points are put together like to summarize their ideas at the end of every important concept. Some like to summarize when they conclude the presentation.
iv) CONCLUSION: The conclusion sums up your presentation preparing the audience for its end, reminding the audience that its needs are being fulfilled, reiterating the central idea, highlighting its main but not subordinate points, ending with a memorable and appropriate anecdote, quote or maxim. You can close a presentation with

a) An apt quotation
b) A call for action on a particular issue
V) QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION: Any presentation skill should ideally be followed by a question and answer session.

THE PRESENTER: The presenter has to organize presentation in nine steps:
i) Know your audience: What are its interests, values, social status, age, knowledge level? What is the occasion on which you are speaking? Duration of the speech, physical setting – size of the room, the seating, whether you can use slides a projector, location, how long it will take you to reach it from wherever you are starting off, the time, is it a pre or post lunch or an evening function? Take the next step and start preparing for your speech.
ii) Choice of subject: What are the subjects you are knowledgeable about? Make a list would all of them interest your audience?

- decide how you can have an impact on your audience with your talk?
- Can you persuade it to change its life style to a healthier one?
- How much does it already know about the subject?
- How much more does it need to know?
- Will it keep the audience interested?
- Will it be persuaded of your point of view?
- Are contrary points of view foreseen and answered by the information and arguments extended?
- Will the audience be entertained and stimulated to remember and act on your words?
- Select all the material available to you to achieve the foregoing results.
iii) How to address your audience’s needs: your audience may not be homogenous. But human beings have common needs like a) comfort b) economic gain c) fulfillment of curiosity d) freedom
from anxiety e) acceptance by their group and f) security. Your presentation should appeal to one
or more of theses needs.
– Be authoritative in your subject
–Talk in a clear, c o n c i s e , entertaining, easy to understand and memorable style. So ask yourself: what needs of this particular audience does my topic fulfill?
iv) Catch your audiences attention:
- Just wait for audience to settle down
-Then introduce your subject but keep it short
-Don’t give the audience false expectations
-You can begin with a joke / story but it should be short and relevant.
-You can also challenge the audience, I have a question which I wonder how many of you can answer?
-You can get attention by using visual aids, or playing a portion of an audio – cassette relevant to your presentation.
– change your tone, level of voice and pitch to suit the intended effect and use gestures.
v) Develop the body of your speech: your arguments and facts should be interlinked. Emphasise important points by developing them at greater length and repeating then. Present your ideas beginning with the least complicated ones and preceding to more complex ones. Also present
the least controversial and most acceptable arguments first and develop logically from there.
vi) Make your talk meaningful and memorable: - illustrate with examples so that the audience can relate to them and remember them.
- Make as many points as possibly personally applicable to your audience
- Even if you are talking about a distant historical situation, remind the audience what conditions it would be facing if it lived in the times you are talking about

- Be clear and vivid in your descriptions
- Collect plenty of support material
- Use day’s news item / advertisement
- Also use case histories statistics, surveys
- surveys, repots, analogies.
vii) Connect your thought: Don’t form one argument to another and back again.
- proceed logically by adding more arguments repeat a point to emphasis it using a visual aid as a signpost
viii) Conclusion: use an attention getter to show your audience that you are coming to the end
– You can do so, by pausing and repeating the theme of your lecture
– Tell them, next how it is related to them.

–repeat its central purpose and the enumerated important points for easy recall
ix) Final statement: This should be an anecdote that dramatically illustrates the point of your presentation or a call to action summed up in a maxim or a quote.

THE AUDIENCE: Important elements use different presentation tools, handouts, video, clippings, presentation software, transparencies, and pictures. 

REVISE AND PREPARE TO PRESENT : While revising your presentation as you have written it down check the following
1) Have you written it down fully sentence by sentence not just points or ideas?
2) Are you satisfied with every argument illustration anecdote?
3) Does it all fit together or does it fall apart?
4) Can it be easily followed?
5) Try it out at home on your family and question them for their understanding
6) Does it have unity, coherence and right emphasis
7) Are the main points memorable and meaningful
8) Are you distributing handouts at the end
9) Make a check list of what are you carrying so you don’t forget half of them at home
10) Make sure the quality of your aids does not win your presentation
11) What visual aids are you using? Films/ Slides/ Flip/ Charts/ Diagrams/ Illustrations models/ Tapes.
(The author is Asst Professor– School of Management Science, NNRGI. E-mail:madhurabn@gmail.com)