Preparing your Presentation

A - Before Beginning

• Begin early – You can never have too much time to prepare. It always takes much longer
than you think to practice.

• Think it through – this may seem like a rather obvious point, but very few people really think
their presentation through before starting. Most people start with the content, which should
in fact be the end of thinking, not the beginning. How can you know what you need to include
in your presentation before you really know what you are trying to say, and why?

• Research audience – what do they know/feel about the subject? – You need to gather as
much information as possible about the audience. Who are they? What are their prejudices?
Never repeat things they already know. If you are unsure as to whether they know something
or not, acknowledge the fact (“You may already be aware that…” or “You’ve probably heard
that…”). Only include such information if it is strictly necessary to your presentation.

• Mission statement – This is really the key to efficient preparation of a presentation. A

mission statement is a one-sentence expression of why you are speaking. It is for you to get a
clear idea to fit your ideas around, and is not to be included in the presentation. This requires
more thought than you might expect. A mission statement is not, for example, “I want to
describe the new software my company has developed.” That is the content of your speech,
and it is good to be very clear about that too. However, before you even begin to think about
content, you need to think about what you are presenting for, what the outcome of your
speech shouldbe, why you are putting yourself through all this. A mission statement should be
something like:“I want at least 30% of the audience to buy our new software.” Then you will be
able to structure and gear your presentation to selling the software, not to describing the
software. You will be able to analyse what is strictly relevant and necessary to your
presentation and remove anything unnecessary.

• Catchy sentence – some people find it useful to come up with a punchy opening line or
catchphrase, or a central metaphor, which they can then revolve their speech around

• Time – must be considered before you start to write sothat you know how much material
you need, what kind of detail you should aim for,how strict with yourself you have to be. It is in
fact easier to prepare a one hour presentation than it is to prepare a 10 minute one.

• Focus – again, you have to urge your students only to include exactly what they need to say
and nothing more. This doesn’t mean excluding anecdotes, metaphors, or even jokes, which
can all be useful components of a presentation. It simply means that anything which does not
add to the effectiveness of a presentation has to be excluded.

• Collect material – information and evidence – most students will be comfortable with the
research component of preparation. Try to minimize the amount of research they have to do
as they have limited sources – bring in your own information, readthings together in class, give
them summaries and synopses. They will not appreciate too much unstructured homework as
they will have so much from other teachers. Any research you feel to be necessary should of
course be done in English. However, they will need evidence to prove each point that they
make.
• What do you want the audience to remember? Choose 3 things. – The great Greek orators
knew something about the way that the human brain works. That’s why they used patterns of
three in their rhetoric – three points, three items on a list, three arguments. For some reason,
we remember things in threes. I’ve even experimented on my students – when I asked them to
tell me about each others’ presentations, they almost always remembered three things.
Therefore, three seems a good number to choose. However, the mainpoint here is that the
audience will remember very little about your presentation, no matter how good it is.
Therefore, choose exactly what you want them to remember, and use repetition and emphasis
to make that point as memorable as possible.

B- Organising your Thoughts

• Choose organisation method - Mind map and card structure, or linear – most people plan
using a linear model, writing their points out as a list. However, I would encourage students to
structure their presentation as a mind map.

Beginning with a brain storm can be a useful way tomake sure that you don’t, after writing all
your notes for the speech, realise that you’ve forgotten a key point or that your argument is
not as strong as you first thought and you have to begin again. Having brainstormed all your
ideas out onto paper, without evaluating them, you can then begin to analyse and select and
draw up a mind map. A mind map is a more effective way of planning, allowingyou to actually
see connections between points and to see the points which you need to spend the most time
on. The card structure is a way of organising your presentation, and can also save you a lot of
work. Write each point on a separate card. Then you can practice making the speech; then
rearrange the cards to try a different order. Experiment to find the most effective order for the
speech. However, many people prefer the linear method, and, of course, students should use
whichever method they find comfortable. I generally require them to try mind-mapping once
to see if it works for them, then allow them to choose.

•Allow creativity – students should aim for unusual approaches to their presentations.
Encourage them to bring their own tastes and style to the way they organise their presentation
and what they decide to include.

• Novel approach – sometimes an unusual structure, such as a narrative, can be a highly

effective way to get the audience’s attention and also to reduce huge topics to a manageable
amount of material.

• How much material? – A decision that needs to be made before detailed note-taking is done.
Usually, students will find they have too manyideas or points rather than too few. •Review –
Make sure you check their plans at an early stage, to be sure that they are on the right track,
have understood the task they have been set, are working towards the right goal and so on.

1.) Structure

• Introduction – RAMP (Rapport, Attention, Main Message, Plan) – a handy mnemonic to

remember the purpose of an introduction: to establish rapport, to get the audience’s
attention, to outline the main message of the presentation and give them a plan of your
structure.
• Body – Guide the audience through the presentation; use introduction lay-out; use of clarity
and repetition – the speaker should constantly steer the audience through the presentation by
linking each point together in a logical way. He orshe should follow the lay-out and order they
have provided the audience in the introduction. He or she should be clear and repeat the main
points – not verbatim, but by paraphrasing the key arguments.

• Conclusion – a message to take away – in a way, the conclusion is the most important part
of the speech, because it is what the audience will remember. The conclusion should package
up the rest of the presentation into a nice, easy-to-remember sound bite. End on a high.

2.) Practice

• With a mirror– the best way to check on your eye contact (if you can’t see yourself, you’re
not doing it!) and realise what you really look like. Helpful for checking your body language.

• With an audience – rope in friends, family, the dog, anyone you like. You need to get used to
making your speech in front of people before you have to do it for real. Also, you can get
useful feedback.

• With a camera – Not necessary in class of course but if you have one, this can be really
helpful. It is very useful for you to take the students through their presentations in class; you
can analyse their mistakes together.

• Don't memorise – KNOW – A major point this, and one which students are very, very
resistant to. As many Spanish students have had to learn things by heart at school, they often
feel much more comfortable writing out the entire speech and memorising it. This may work
when the speaker is using his or her native language. However, in a second language, unless
the student is nearly fluent, this results in dull, parroted speeches and puts far more pressure
on the student’s memory than is useful or necessary. Students trying to remember vast chunks
of text will overlook everything else. There is no sense of communication of ideas in their
presentations. As the core objective of the Public Speaking course is to teach Spanish students
how to communicate their ideas in English, this kind of memory test is practically useless.
Therefore, even though the students hate it, I make them prepare only notes, and do not allow
them to write out sentences. They spend the time instead thinking about what they are trying
to convey. Their speeches should sound different every time, and be spontaneous and
conversational. They may make more mistakes at the beginning, but they will be learning how
to communicate in English with confidence and fluency. As the course progresses, the
grammatical mistakes will almost disappear.

3.) Troubleshooting

• Memorise introduction and conclusion – This is particularly useful for nervous students.
There is no harm in learning the introduction and conclusionby heart. That way, the students
will feel sure that they can just go up and start speaking; once started, the situation will not
feel so difficult.

• Imagine possible problems and prepare solutions

• Anticipate questions – incorporate/prepare answers