8 Chapter 7: Professional Presentations
Chapter 7 Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Identify ways to manage presentation anxiety.
- Apply an appropriate delivery method for a particular speaking situation.
- Select an appropriate organizational pattern.
- Create an outline for a presentation.
- Create well-designed presentation slides.
- Identify the principles and types of nonverbal communication.
- Identify and be able to create effective transitions within a presentation.
- Understand how to use a variety of strategies to help audience members follow a presentation’s content: internal previews, internal summaries, and signposts.
Priming the Mind:
Beginning of class pre-write or pre-discussion questions
7.1 How do you feel and behave when you are anxious? How anxious are you speaking in front of different-sized groups of people? How do you manage your nerves when you are speaking to others?
7.2 What method of delivering a presentation (memorized, reading, using brief notes, no preparation at all) are you most comfortable with a why?
7.3 How have you developed past presentations? What’s your process?
7.4-7.5 Why bother outlining your presentations?
7.6 When and how do you create presentation slides? Which is more comfortable—speaking with or without presentation slides? Why?
7.8 How do you move when you present? Are these movements deliberate?
7.1 Managing Speech Anxiety
- Effective communication is essential for professional success, encompassing various communication scenarios.
- Public speaking develops vital skills including critical thinking, leadership, persuasion, and professionalism.
- Despite its importance, public speaking anxiety is prevalent.
- Fear of public speaking is rooted in human biology, often exacerbated by modern communication challenges.
- Understand the root cause: Recognize that the fear of public speaking is a common human response.
- Desensitize yourself: Gradually expose yourself to public speaking situations.
- Focus on the audience: Shift attention from personal anxiety to audience engagement.
- Build confidence: Practice and preparation can significantly boost confidence.
- Seek professional help: Consider seeking guidance from a therapist or communication coach if anxiety is overwhelming.
- Additional strategies for managing anxiety:
- o Preparation and Practice: Thoroughly research and organize content, rehearse presentation multiple times.
- o Visualization: Imagine successful delivery to boost confidence.
- o Deep Breathing and Relaxation Techniques: Employ relaxation exercises to manage physical symptoms of anxiety.
- o Positive Self-Talk: Challenge negative thoughts with positive affirmations.
- o Seek Support: Share concerns with mentors, peers, or a therapist.
- o Gradual Exposure: Start with smaller speaking engagements to build confidence.
- o Focus on Audience: Shift attention to audience needs to reduce self-consciousness.
- o Accept Imperfection: Understand that mistakes are normal and part of the learning process.
Activity
Practice different relaxation exercises listed in the text.
7.2 Methods of Presentation Delivery
- Proper attire, language, and demeanor are essential.
- Impromptu Speaking: Spontaneous delivery without preparation. Ideal for brief responses but lacks structure.
- Manuscript Speaking: Word-for-word reading from a script. Ensures precise delivery but can hinder audience connection.
- Memorized Speaking: Reciting a memorized script. Offers freedom of movement but requires significant preparation and practice.
- Extemporaneous Speaking: Combining preparation with spontaneity. Delivers a well-structured presentation in a conversational style. Generally considered the most effective method.
Extemporaneous speaking is often preferred due to its balance of preparation and flexibility, allowing for audience engagement and adaptability.
Effective delivery requires Practice, preparation, and audience awareness.
7.3 Structuring Your Presentation
A simple and standard structure will include an introduction, body, and conclusion. Include the following in each part to help ensure your presentations are professional, clear, concise, evidence-driven, and persuasive.
Introduction:
- Attention-getter/grabber: A very brief and interesting statement or question that grabs the audience’s attention. See Grabber Types below for more details.
- Self-introduction: (Place before or after the grabber) Tell the audience your name and credentials.
- Thesis: The main point or argument of your presentation. Be brief and precise, not general or vague.
- Overview of main points Briefly outline the main points that you will cover in your presentation. To help your audience, list these in the same order that you will deliver them later on.
Attention-getter types:
- Bold statement
- Strong statistics
- Story
- Question
- Invitation to imagine something
- Quote
- Proverb
- Prop
- Media
- Humor
- Something creative
Body:
Organize the main points in a logical manner, what makes the most sense for your topic, content, and audience.
Here are some common organizing principles:
- Time (chronological): Structuring your speech by time shows a series of events or steps in a process, which typically has a beginning, middle, and end. “Once upon a time stories” follow a chronological pattern.
- Comparison: Structuring your speech by comparison focuses on the similarities and/or differences between points or concepts.
- Contrast: Structure your speech by using contrasting points highlights the differences between items and concepts.
- Cause and Effect: Structuring your speech by cause and effect establishes a relationship between two events or situations, making the connection clear.
- Problem and Solution: Structuring your speech by problem and solution means you state the problem and detail how it was solved. This approach is effective for persuasive speeches.
- Classification (categorical): Structuring your speech by classification establishes categories.
- Biographical: Structuring your speech by biography means examining specific people as they relate to the central topic.
- Space (Spatial): Structuring your speech by space involves the parts of something and how they fit to form the whole.
- Psychological (Monroe’s Motivated Sequence): The speaker calls attentionto a need, then focuses on the satisfaction of the need, visualization of the solution, and ends with a proposed or historical action. This is useful for a persuasive speech.
- Elimination: Structuring your speech using the process of elimination involves outlining all the possibilities.
Transitions: Transitions both connect to your thesis and indicate a shift to your next point.
Conclusion:
- Summary of main points
- Conclusion: restate your thesis in the past tense
- Call to action
Activity
Play a short presentation for students and have them outline it.
7.4 Outlining Your Presentation
Full-sentence outline:
- Lays a solid foundation for your message,
- Helps you test the logical relation of parts,
- Tests the relevance of supporting ideas
- Includes sources of information
- Balance proportion
- Serves as notes
- Contains full sentences
A working outline has more flexibility
Speaking outline:
- Use five note cards, one for each part of the presentation
- o Note cards are quiet, full sheets of paper are noisy
- o Cards look more polished than paper
- o Helps you keep your slides more concise
- o Cards are easier to navigate than a manuscript or regular piece of paper
- Use sentence fragments
- o Avoid reading a manuscript
- o Allow you to speak more naturally
Check your outline for:
- Thesis should have one main point
- Consistency in tenses, language choice, terms
- Adequacy, use concrete language, provide support (evidence) for claims
- Uniformity, giving equal time to three main points
- Parallelism
- Conclusion that completes the presentation as a “full-circle”
Activity
Have students randomly draw speaking topics, create an outline, and speak extemporaneously.
7.5 Transitioning Among Presentation Parts
Transitions guide your listeners through your message, keeping them on track and comfortable. They tell the audience you are moving on to a new point and identify relationships between points.
Here are common words to signal your transitions:
| Addition | also, again, as well as, besides, coupled with, following this, further, furthermore, in addition, in the same way, additionally, likewise, moreover, similarly |
| Consequence | accordingly, as a result, consequently, for this reason, for this purpose, hence, otherwise, so then, subsequently, therefore, thus, thereupon, wherefore |
| Generalizing | as a rule, as usual, for the most part, generally, generally speaking, ordinarily, usually |
| Exemplifying | chiefly, especially, for instance, in particular, markedly, namely, particularly, including, specifically, such as |
| Illustration | for example, for instance, for one thing, as an illustration, illustrated with, as an example, in this case |
| Emphasis | above all, chiefly, with attention to, especially, particularly, singularly |
| Similarity | comparatively, coupled with, correspondingly, identically, likewise, similar, moreover, together with |
| Exception | aside from, barring, besides, except, excepting, excluding, exclusive of, other than, outside of, save |
| Restatement | in essence, in other words, namely, that is, that is to say, in short, in brief, to put it differently |
| Contrast and Comparison | contrast, by the same token, conversely, instead, likewise, on one hand, on the other hand, on the contrary, nevertheless, rather, similarly, yet, but, however, still, nevertheless, in contrast |
| Sequence | at first, first of all, to begin with, in the first place, at the same time, for now, for the time being, the next step, in time, in turn, later on, meanwhile, next, then, soon, the meantime, later, while, earlier, simultaneously, afterward, in conclusion, with this in mind |
| Common Sequence Patterns | first, second, third… |
| generally, furthermore, finally | |
| in the first place, also, lastly | |
| in the first place, pursuing this further, finally | |
| to be sure, additionally, lastly | |
| in the first place, just in the same way, finally | |
| basically, similarly, as well | |
| Summarizing | after all, all in all, all things considered, briefly, by and large, in any case, in any event, in brief, in conclusion, on the whole, in short, in summary, in the final analysis, in the long run, on balance, to sum up, to summarize, finally |
| Diversion | by the way, incidentally |
| Direction | here, there, over there, beyond, nearly, opposite, under, above, to the left, to the right, in the distance |
| Location | above, behind, by, near, throughout, across, below, down, off, to the right, against, beneath, in back of, onto, under, along, beside, in front of, on top of, among, between, inside, outside, around, beyond, into, over |
Beyond transitions, there are several other techniques that you can use to clarify your presentation organization for your audience:
- internal previews: internal preview is a phrase or sentence that gives an audience an idea of what is to come within a section of a presentation
- internal summaries: reminds an audience of what they just heard within the presentation
- signposts: guides a speaker gives her or his audience to help the audience keep up with the content of a presentation
7.6 Creating Slides for Presentations
- Organization: follow the organization of your presentation
- Titles and text:
- Consistency: Be consistent in your fonts, sizes, positioning, bullet style—all formatting
- Brevity: Slides are not a script. Too much information and your audience will be reading and not listening to you
- Font Style: Sans-serif font is easier to read, at least 32-point, use high-contrast colors for text
- Check spelling and grammar
- Animations: use sparingly and to control the view of your content
- Transitions: use sparingly and to control the view of your content
- Visual Design
- Consistency: consistent design logic, careful when working with a team
- Alignment: text is almost always aligned left. Space text and images so they are balanced.
- Branding: Use branded elements to make your slides look professional. Your organization might provide branded templates (such as FHSU does). Check your branding standards for specific fonts, text sizes, colors that are approved for use.
- Images: High-quality, high resolution, no watermarks, approved usage, relevant
- Understand copy right and usage laws. Many images you find online are copyrighted and you would need permission to use them, which may require payment.
- You can find free-use images online under Creative Commons Licenses or generate them with AI
- Charts and graphs: display data so that it is easy to understand and remember. Make visuals easy to see.
- Pie charts show percentages, portions of a whole.
- Bar graphs allow comparison between different values, and can show changes over time (if the difference in values are large).
- Line graphs show a trend or progress over time.
- Heatmap charts use color to convey the magnitude of certain values.
- Content:
- One slide for each key point—only the most important information should be included on slides
- Be sure content is well-researched
- Provide content that fits your audience’s needs.
- Citations and references: list citations in notes and at the end of your presentation
- Include your name and contact information
- Balance logical and emotional appeals
- Audience experience
- Slides enhance the oral presentation, not replace it. They are there to help you, not be a crutch. Do not turn your back to the audience to read your slides or use them as a teleprompter.
- Make sure the number of slides fits your time allotment—budget at least 1 min or more per slide depending on its content.
- Include an agenda/overview for longer or complex presentation
- Practice with animations and transitions
Activity
Provide students with sample (bad) presentation slides and have them evaluate them in small groups and then report back to the class.
7.7 Movement and Vocal Qualities in Your Presentation
Body Language: Audiences typically respond better to speakers who convey a feeling of being at ease with their bodies.
- Confidence: Project comfort and ease through posture and movements. Be natural, but avoid constant repetitive movements (rocking on heels, pacing)
- Movement: Use purposeful and meaningful gestures to emphasize points.
- Gestures: Using your arms and hands while communicating. Choose gestures to repeat and/or emphasize your verbal message.
- Openness: Avoid closed body language like crossed arms or legs.
- Eye Contact: Maintain eye contact with the audience to build rapport (Western convention, eye contact and meaning may differ culturally). Move your eyes gradually and naturally across the audience, both close to you and toward the back of the room.
- Facial Gestures: Use facial gestures to convey emotions and reinforce your message. People often focus more on how we say something than what we actually say, and place more importance on our nonverbal gestures.
- Stage Positioning: Indicates where the speaker starts in the introduction, moves to the second position for the first point, across for the second point, then returns to the original position to make the third point and conclusion. Utilize the speaker’s triangle to guide the audience’s attention and structure your presentation.
Voice:
- Pleasant Tone: Convey warmth and sincerity in your voice. A conversational tone is appropriate for most business audiences.
- Natural Delivery: Speak in a way that reflects your personality and authenticity.
- Dynamism: Vary your volume, pace, inflection and pitch to keep the audience engaged. Avoid monotone delivery that often comes with reading a presentation.
- Vocal fry: A low growl at the end of a sentence, or an uplift at the end of a declarative statement—these habits can make you seem less confident and credible, thus less professional.
- Resonance: Resonance is the strength, depth and force of your voice. Project your voice from your chest and diaphragm for a powerful delivery.
- Clarity: Enunciate words clearly and avoid filler words to make your message easy to hear and understand. Avoid mumbling or slurring words.
- Volume: Adjust your volume to ensure the audience can hear you comfortably. You can use fluctuating volume to convey meaning and make your presentation more dynamic.
- Pitch: how high or low a speaker’s voice is. Pitch, like volume, should vary with your content. Lower your pitch when you want to convey authority. It is fine to raise your pitch slightly at the end of a sentence when you ask a question.
- Pace: The speed or rate at which you speak. Speak at a moderate pace to allow the audience to follow your thoughts. Many less experienced speakers tend to talk faster when giving a presentation because they are nervous, want to get the presentation over with, or fear that they will run out of time.
- Take a few deep breaths before you speak. Make sure to breathe during your presentation.
- Build these pauses into your presentation.
- Edit your presentation content to ensure that you stay within the allotted time.
- Remind yourself on note cards to slowdown and take a pause.
