POWER POINT PRESENTATION

• Introduction
Well-developed presentation skills enable you to communicate clearly, precisely and
effectively in a variety of modes or registers and settings. It should be pointed out that
they are rated as one of the most important soft skills. The ability of communicating
with the audience and giving presentations should be seen as a mandatory prerequisite
for both the effective learning process and the successful working life.
Thus, it is imperative to gradually increase and enhance your presentation skills through a
continuous training that will help you to become more competent, confident and
competitive.

• Objectives
 To develop your skills to communicate clearly, effectively and confidently with a
range of audiences in a range of different contexts.
 To improve your research and design skills, and strengthen your delivery techniques.
 To enhance your use of different support electronic and other visual tools.
 To reinforce your performance skills (verbal and non-verbal).
 To increase your confidence level in interacting with audience and control your
nervousness.
 To promote critical and reflective thinking by dealing with feedback on your
presentation skills.

 Types of Presentations
There are two basic types of presentations
1. Informative Presentations
The purpose of informative presentations is to promote understanding of an idea or to
convey information. They are often used to provide people with information about a
concept or idea that is new. A presentation on "Endangered Species in the South
American Rain Forest" is an example of an informative presentation.
2. Persuasive Presentations
The second type of presentation is a persuasive presentation. The goal of a
persuasive presentation is to influence a change in the belief, attitude, or behavior of
another person when that person has some degree of free choice. Expanding upon
the example provided above, a persuasive presentation would not only inform the
audience members about the South American rain forest and its endangered species,
but would also try to get them to take specific and appropriate actions to save these
species.
 Both types of presentations can be used to start a discussion by providing information
on a given topic followed by time for questions, answers, and discussion.

 Steps in Preparing a Presentation

• 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.
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.
• Preparing the content of your presentation Step 4: Prepare the body of the
presentation
• After defining the objective of your presentation, determine how much information
you can present in the amount of time allowed. Also, use your knowledge about the
audience to prepare a presentation with the right level of detail. You don't want to
plan a presentation that is too basic or too advanced.
• The body of the presentation is where you present your ideas. To present your ideas
convincingly, you will need to illustrate and support them. Strategies to help you do
this include the following:
• Present data and facts
• Read quotes from experts
• Relate personal experiences  Provide vivid descriptions
• And remember, as you plan the body of your presentation it's important to provide
variety. Listeners may quickly become bored by lots of facts or they may tire of
hearing story after story.
Step 5: Prepare the introduction and conclusion
• Once you've prepared the body of the presentation, decide how you will begin and
end the talk. Make sure the introduction captures the attention of your audience and
the conclusion summarizes and reiterates your important points. In other words,
"Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Then, tell them what you told
them."
• During the opening of your presentation, it's important to attract the audience's
attention and build their interest. If you don't, listeners will turn their attention
elsewhere and you'll have a difficult time getting it back. Strategies that you can
use include the following:
• Make the introduction relevant to the listeners' goals, values, and needs
• Ask questions to stimulate thinking
• Share a personal experience
• Begin with a joke or humorous story
• Project a cartoon or colourful visual
• Make a stimulating or inspirational statement
• Give a unique demonstration
• During the opening you want to clearly present your topic and the purpose of your
presentation. Clearly articulating the topic and purpose will help the listeners focus
on and easily follow your main ideas.
• During the conclusion of your presentation, reinforce the main ideas you
communicated. Remember that listeners won't remember your entire presentation,
 only the main ideas. By reinforcing and reviewing the main ideas, you help the
audience remember them.  Practicing and Delivering
Step 6: Practice delivering the presentation
• Most people spend hours preparing a presentation but very little time practicing it.
When you practice your presentation, you can reduce the number of times you utter
words and phrases like, "um,""well," and "you know." These habits can easily
diminish a speaker's credibility. You can also fine-tune your content to be sure you
make your most important points in the time allotted.
• In addition to planning the content of your presentation, you need to give advanced
thought to how you want to deliver it. Do you want to commit your presentation to
memory, use cards to guide you, or read from a script? Or, you might want to use a
combination of methods. To help you decide, read.

 Advantages and disadvantages of the four delivery methods described below:

 Speaking from Memory

A distinct advantage of speaking from memory is your ability to speak to the audience
without relying on notes or a script. This allows you the flexibility to move away from
the podium and to maintain eye contact with the audience. However, speaking from
memory has disadvantages, too. Presentations from memory often sound rehearsed and
the possibility exists that you’ll forget an important point, present information that’s
inaccurate, or completely loses your train of thought. If you decide to deliver your
presentation from memory, have notes handy to jog your memory just in case!
• Speaking from Notes
Many people like to speak from notes. Typically these notes are either on cards or
paper in outline form and contain key ideas and information. If you are using an
electronic presentation tool, you may be able to include your notes in the presentation
itself. The benefit of delivering a presentation from notes is that you sound natural
rather than rehearsed and you can still maintain relatively good eye contact with the
audience. The down side is that you might not express your key ideas and thoughts as
well as you may have liked had you planned your exact words in advance.
• Speaking from Text
Speaking from text involves writing your speech out, word for word, then basically
reading from the text. As with speaking from memory, an advantage of this method is
that you plan, in advance, exactly what you're going to say and how you're going to say
it. A disadvantage is that you might appear to the audience to be stiff or rehearsed. You
will need to make frequent eye contact and speak with expression to maintain the
audience's interest.
• Using a combination of methods
You may find the best method to be a combination of all three. For instance, experts
suggest you memorize the first and last ten minutes of your talk so that you can speak
flawlessly and without notes. Notes may be suitable for segments of your presentation
that you know very well, for example, relating a personal story. Finally, speaking from
a text might be appropriate when you have quotes or other important points that you
want to make sure you communicate accurately and completely. You can make a
smooth segue to written text by saying something like: "I want to read this quote to you
verbatim, to ensure that I don't distort the original intent."
 Step-7: Being a credible speaker
• Have you heard someone speak whom you thought lacked credibility? Did you
dismiss what he or she had to say because you thought it was probably not true?
That's what typically happens when a speaker lacks credibility. While it's always
 important to be thought of as believable, it's especially important when you speak
to a group of people, and vital if you plan to deliver a persuasive presentation.
Without credibility, members of the audience may dismiss what you have to say
as either unimportant or untrue. The guidelines that follow are provided to help
you learn how to become a more believable speaker.
• Be accurate and exact with quotes, names, dates, and facts
• If you want people to believe you, you have to earn their trust. That means getting
the facts straight. Research the information you're going to present to make sure
it's accurate and make sure you report it correctly. Practice pronouncing names
correctly, and state dates, facts, and quotes accurately. Copy information that you
think you might state incorrectly and read it from your notes if necessary.
• Provide support for your ideas
• It's not enough just to make a statement, you need to back it up by providing
factual information, quoting an expert, or speaking from experience. The point is,
it's not enough to state your ideas, you need to be able to explain why you have
those ideas.  Dress in a professional manner
• If you want to be taken seriously, then dress accordingly. Being the worst dressed
person in the room just won't do. You don't need to have the most expensive
clothes or the most current wardrobe, but do look well groomed. Like it or not,
research has determined that people are influenced by the appearance of the
speaker.
• Use visual aids that look professional
• Visual aids can enhance your presentation if they are well designed and look
professional. Be certain to use the visual aids when you practice your
presentation.  Know your material
• Knowing the material will help you speak more quickly and fluidly. Research has
shown that a speaker's credibility is enhanced by speaking more quickly and
without hesitation (uh, well, you know) or qualifiers (sort of, kind of, I guess).
People who speak faster are perceived to be more intelligent, more confident, and
more effective than people who speak slower. Knowing your material will also
help you reduce hesitations and qualifiers that might diminish credibility.
• Use language that's appropriate for the audience
• Don't try to impress them by using words they don't understand. If your subject is
new to audience members, be certain to explain jargon they might not
comprehend. Also, be certain to use your best grammar. Slang can be appropriate
for the right audience, but the use of incorrect grammar may be taken as a lack of
knowledge on your part.

Step-8: Using humour effectively and controlling your nervousness

 Using humour effectively

Integrating humour into your oral presentation helps enhance and maintain the audience's
attention and interest. Here are some pointers for effectively incorporating humor into
your presentation.

 Beginning a presentation with a joke or humorous story is a great way to break the
ice. It can help audience members relax, which will help you relax, too.
 Using humor and stories in the body of the presentation is a great way to emphasize
key points, and recapture the attention of the audience.
 Use topic-related cartoons, drawings, or illustrations that can be projected for all to
see.
  Use humor that maintains your personal dignity as well as the dignity of audience
members. Never use humor that would embarrass an audience member or damage his
or her self-esteem.
 Try out your stories or jokes on a couple friends and/or acquaintances to make sure
they are humorous. Practice telling the stories or jokes before the presentation to
improve your delivery.
 Use humor that's acceptable to the group and not offensive. Avoid references to
ethnicity, religion, politics, and gender.
 Most humor is very culturally specific and in some cases regionally specific. Make
sure you know who your audience is and what they find humorous before using any
jokes.

 Controlling your nervousness

Most people are a little nervous when they speak in public. In fact, a little nervous energy
can enhance a performance or presentation. It is important to control this nervous energy,
however, so that it remains a positive motivating force rather than a debilitating one.

 If you are well prepared you will be less nervous. Practice your oral presentation in
advance and keep rehearsing it until you're satisfied. Then, when the time comes to
deliver the presentation, you'll be confident in your ability to do well.
 Prior to the presentation dedicate time to focus and clear your head of other thoughts.
Run through the presentation in your head one final time and remind yourself of how
well prepared you are.
 Greet the people with whom you'll be speaking. This helps you create a rapport with
the audience from the beginning and helps you recognize that the audience "isn't out to
get you" — they want you to deliver a good presentation.
 Take deep breaths and consciously relax your body from head to toe to reduce some of
the physical symptoms of being nervous.
 Make eye contact with members of the audience before you begin your presentation.
If you've already established a rapport with them by greeting them, this will re-
establish in your mind that the audience wants you to succeed.

Step-9: Delivering the presentation

How you say things may often appear to be more important than what you say. Have you
listened to charismatic speakers who gain and maintain the attention of the audience? Have
you also encountered speakers who quickly put an audience to sleep? Experienced
presenters learn to communicate effectively by using voice, gestures, and visual aids while
trying to establishing a comfortable environment for the audience.

 Voice

Using your voice effectively can have a great impact on your delivery. The best speaking
voice is conversational, natural, and enthusiastic. Use the following guidelines to develop
an effective speaking voice:

 Alter the pitch (high and low) of your voice to prevent yourself from sounding
monotone. Don't alter the pitch too much, however, because this may make you
sound unnatural.
  Speak loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the room, but vary the volume of
your voice to maintain interest and emphasize key points.
 Stress certain words as another way to add emphasis. Typically when you stress a
word, the pitch and the volume increase.
 Alter the rate at which you speak to maintain interest and add emphasis. Speak faster
to show excitement and/or build suspense. Speak slower to show the importance of
an idea. Pause after important ideas to allow the audience time to grasp them.

 Gestures

 Speakers often communicate with their audience either intentionally or

unintentionally using gestures and other physical behaviours. Use the guidelines
below to help use gestures to your benefit:
 Maintain eye contact with members of the audience to keep their attention level high.
Eye contact signals that you care about the audience and you are attuned to their
needs. Also use eye contact to detect confusion or boredom so that you can then
modify your approach.
 Use positive facial expressions such as smiles, expressive eyes, and looks of empathy
and encouragement to communicate feelings and emotions.
 Stand naturally with your feet spread slightly apart and arms relaxed at your sides.
 Minimize gestures like pacing back and forth, rocking back and forth, playing with
coins in your pocket, wringing your hands, and other types of fidgeting. These
gestures not only signal that you are nervous, but they are distracting to the listener as
well.
 Use quick and energetic movements of your hands and arms to add expression to
your talk. Maintain the attention of the audience by making your movements
unpredictable.

 Visual-aids in presentation

 Visual aids can help you emphasize main ideas, illustrate a concept, or stimulate the
interest of your listeners. Examples of visual aids include posters, overheads, flip
charts, photographs, computer-generated slides, and three-dimensional effects.
 Use visual aids to emphasize important points and add interest to your presentation
— don't put every word of your entire presentation on them.
 Select the appropriate visual aid for the environment. It may be possible to pass
visuals around to a small audience but in large groups you'll need to project them.
 Give the visuals a consistent appearance including color and spacing. Start the text at
the same place on each visual.
 Try to observe the seven by seven rule: on an overhead slide have no more than
seven lines and seven words per line. Similar rules would also pertain to flip charts,
PowerPoint and other computer generated slides, and posters.
 Use a simple typeface or font. Don't use more than two different typefaces, if
possible.
 Make sure the text is large enough for people in the back of the room to read. Letters
on a flipchart should be at least 3 inches in height. For a projected overhead or slide,
fonts between 20 and 48 points are customary.
 Don't show visuals that conflict with what you're saying — this includes displaying
them once you've moved beyond their content.
 Don't read the text that's on the visual, but do paraphrase and add to it.

Step-10: Establishing a comfortable environment

While you won't always have control over the environment when you do a presentation,
there may be ways you can modify the environment so that it is both comfortable for you
and the audience members. The guidelines that follow to help you become aware of
environmental factors that can affect the delivery of your presentation are as follows: 
Make sure the lighting is adequate.
 Locate the temperature controls and regulate the temperature if necessary. If it is too
warm or too cold, audience members will focus on their discomfort rather than on
your presentation.
 Conduct a test of any audiovisual equipment to ensure it's in working order. Have a
backup plan in place just in case — whatever can go wrong, will go wrong at the
worst possible time.
 Clean off any white boards or chalk boards that might distract the audience.
 Make adjustments to the setup of the room to ensure everyone in the audience will
be able to see you. Make sure that everyone can see the visuals you plan to use.
 If possible, practice your talk in the setting where you are scheduled to speak. This
will not only help you determine what other factors you might have to overcome, but
also make you feel more comfortable. If practicing in the room isn't possible, try to
visit it prior to your presentation so you know what to expect.
 When possible, greet members of the audience as they come into the room. Not only
will this make them feel welcome and at ease, but it may also help reduce your
nervousness.
 Try to eliminate barriers between you and the audience. These kinds of barriers
include lecterns, tables, or audiovisual equipment. Physical barriers communicate
that you're trying to maintain your distance from the audience.

Step-11: Handling questions from the audience

What is audience analysis?

Audience analysis is the process of examining information about your listeners. That
analysis helps you to adapt your message so that your listeners will respond as you
wish.

In everyday conversations you adapt your message to your audience. For example, if you
went to a party the night before, you would explain the party differently to your friends
and family. To your best friend you might say, "We partied all night and there were tons of
people there." To your mother you might say, "Oh, I had fun with my friends." And to
your significant other you might say, "It was fun, I had a great bonding time with my
friends." In each of these situations, you are adapting your message to your listening
audience. There are three phases in audience analysis: adaptation before, during, and after
the speech.
Using the word "A-U-D-I-E-N-C-E" as an acronym we can determine some general
audience analysis categories that these surveys should include. Analysis - Who are they?
How many will be there?
 U-Understanding - What is their knowledge of the subject?
 D-Demographics - What is their age, sex, educational background?
 I-Interest - Why are they there? Who asked them to be there?
 E-Environment - Where will I stand? Can they all see & hear me?
 N-Needs - What are their needs? What are your needs as the speaker?
 C-Customized - What specific needs do you need to address?
  E-Expectations - What do they expect to learn or hear from you?

 Six steps to become an effective presenter

1. Practice The more familiar you are with your material the more you will be able to
inspire your audience’s trust and confidence. Do more than practice reading through
your material to yourself. If possible, stand up in a room and deliver your presentation
to the walls. Get used to hearing your own voice filling a room. Familiarize yourself
with the words and phrases in your presentation. Play around with different volumes
and see how well you can hear your own voice. Above all, familiarize yourself with
the main thrust of your argument and explore how the individual elements of your
presentation piece together. This will help you to keep to your chosen objectives and
avoid distractions when it comes to your actual delivery.

2. Assert yourself: An effective presenter needs to be assertive, not aggressive. There

are two important points.

• Posture: It is important to appear confident at all times. Different postures

create different moods. A very formal, upright and still posture will create a
very different atmosphere from a relaxed and active one. Remember to
match your physical behaviour to the objectives underpinning your
presentation. If you want to be either formal or informal, make deliberate
choices about your physical style and stick to these.

• Presence: Have the confidence to fill your space in front of an audience.

Avoid apologizing for your presence by saying “sorry” (although you must
be polite if circumstances demand— e.g. the session is running over time,
or the microphone has stopped working). Also, avoid physical apologies by
hiding behind a desk or lectern. You must be confident that the audience
wants to listen and that you have something interesting to tell them. Don’t
be afraid to wait for an audience to settle down before you start speaking or
to ask for quiet if this does not happen.

3. Make contact with your audience

One of the key challenges faced by the presenter is to establish links with her/his audience
(a poor presenter appears to be speaking to an empty room). Making contact helps to
maintain an audience's interest and encourages them to believe that you are genuinely
interested in talking to them. You can make contact with your audience in a number of
ways, including:

• Eye contact: Eye contact is part of everyday communication and an audience can feel
uncomfortable if they are denied it. Making eye contact with individuals gives them a
sense of involvement in your presentation and helps to convey your objectives on a
personal level. Make sure that you share eye contact with all members of a small
audience and all areas of a large audience. Regularly shift your focus around the room,
not so that you look nervous, but to help involve as many people as possible in your
talk. A handy tip: if you can’t make eye contact in a large group, don’t look at the
floor or ceiling (this looks like boredom or rudeness). Try looking at people’s
 foreheads. The people sat around them will read this as eye contact even if the
individual won’t.

• Gesture: People use their arms and hands in every day conversation to add emphasis
or to help describe events. Presenters will therefore look rather awkward if they keep
their hands in their pockets or rooted firmly at their sides. Use gestures to welcome
your audience, to add emphasis to your main points or to indicate an ending. Try to use
open gestures which move away from your body, extending them out to your audience.
This helps to break any audience/presenter divisions. Make sure that all gestures are
controlled and precise; too much movement will appear nervous and unfocussed.
Always watch against distracting your audience from the content of your presentation.
You should continually be trying to find ways to help them listen and understand.

• Spoken contact: Acknowledge your audience by making verbal contact with them. At
the beginning of your talk ask if they can see and hear you, or check that lighting and
sound levels on audio-visual equipment are satisfactory. During your presentation, ask
rhetorical questions that you can then answer (e.g. “How do we know this was true?”
or “So, what does this prove?”). At the end of your talk give the audience an
opportunity to ask questions or to clarify detail— this encourages them to take
ownership of your material.

The use of questions is an important tool. Questions involve your audience’s mind in a
more stimulating way than simply asking them to sit and listen to your talk. Draw an
audience in with clear, focused questions.

• Language: Your use of language is particularly important in developing and

sustaining a relationship with your audience. Try using language that involves your
audience. For example, asking questions such as “What can we learn from this?” or
“How did we arrive at this conclusion?” involves your audience in an exploratory
process or discussion. When looking at visual aids, introduce them by saying “If we
look at this slide we can see that.” or “This slide shows us that…”.Use language that is
welcoming and involving throughout your presentation.

4. Use your voice: Your voice is a very flexible and powerful tool. You can use it in
many different ways by varying the:
• Volume: Make sure that your voice is loud enough for your audience to hear clearly.
Speaking too loudly or too quietly can make it difficult for your audience to follow
your presentation. Listen to people speaking in normal conversation. They tend to raise
or lower their volume for emphasis. For example, they may speak loudly when giving
an instruction but softly when apologising. To add energy to your presentation, use
these colourful changes to your best advantage: a conspiratorial whisper can draw an
audience in; a loudly spoken exclamation can make them sit up and listen.

• Pitch: The pitch of your voice also varies in day to day conversation and it is
important to play on this when making a presentation. For example, your pitch will rise
when asking a question; it will lower when you wish to sound severe. Play around with
the volume, pace and pitch of your voice when practicing your presentation. Find
different ways of saying the same sentence. Explore different ways of adding emphasis
 to your main points. Always try to convey enthusiasm and energy through your use of
your voice.

5. Breathe: Always remember to breathe steadily and deeply. If you are anxious
about making a presentation your breathing will become fast and shallow. This will affect
the quality of your voice and your ability to speak clearly for extended periods of time. Try
to take a few deep breaths before you make your presentation, making a conscious effort
to slow your breathing down and taking in more air with each breath. During your
presentation, use pauses after questions or at the end of sections to allow comfortable
breathing patterns. Don’t be afraid to slow down the pace of your presentation if your
breathing becomes uncomfortable.

6. Drink: It is a good idea to have some liquid to hand to quench your thirst if you are
speaking for a long time. However, be careful not to gulp ice-cold water before you go on
as this constricts your throat and affects the quality of your voice. Drink a warm (not hot)
cup of tea to relax your throat and ease your speaking voice