OVERVIEW

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Improving your Presentation Skills

Independent Study version

English Language Teaching Centre

University of Edinburgh

Introduction

You don’t have to have perfect spoken English to give a very effective presentation. In fact, even

native speakers find presenting difficult. There is a lot more to presenting than knowing the

language well.

Among the key aspects of a successful oral presentation are: having a firm idea of what your

audience already knows, careful presentation and rehearsal, making clear the structure of your talk

clear, and dealing effectively with questions.

The materials in this Independent Study guide have been designed to support international students

as they work through the various stages of preparing, rehearsing and delivering a presentation.

They take the form of five Checklists on different aspects of presenting.

Planning / choosing a topic

At this first stage, study Checklists 1-3: Preparing a Presentation (pages 2-3); Using Visual Aids,

Handouts and Notes (pages 4-5), and Signposts and Language Signals (pages 6-7).

Rehearsal

Before you start rehearsing your talk, read through Checklist 4 on Non-verbal communication

(pages 8-9) and think about the points mentioned there.

Apart from the obvious benefits of practice, rehearsing allows you to time your presentation. It

tends to takes about 20% longer to talk ‘live’ to an audience than in the rehearsal. We strongly

recommend you record yourself as you practise giving your presentation.

Replay and listen carefully to what you said and how you said it. If you can ask someone else to

listen to it and tell you where they didn’t understand, so much the better. Note the points you need

to improve. Record yourself again. The more often you can practise and reflect on your

performance, the more polished the final result will be.

Giving the presentation

At the end of your presentation, the audience will ask questions and raise points for discussion.

Think about the probable questions and discussion points before you give the presentation. In

preparing for your talk, look through Checklist 5 on Asking and dealing with questions (pages 10-

11).

Remember to repeat or summarise each question, in order to make sure you (and the audience)

have got it right – and to give yourself a little longer to think about your answer.

Good luck!

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Presentation Skills

Checklist 1 PREPARING A PRESENTATION

STEP 1 Think about the context of the presentation: who are the audience, and

what are their interests? how big will the audience be? how long is the

presentation to be? what equipment is available for visual aids? what about

time for questions?

STEP 2 Decide on your topic. Think carefully about the main point or points that

you want to communicate. You should be able to write these clearly in one

or two sentences.

STEP 3 Structure the content. Most people begin with an unordered collection of

ideas, and then put them into sequence. Then decide on the relative weight

of each section of the talk.

STEP 4 Think of ways of catching the listeners’ interest: examples, anecdotes,

impressive statistics, interesting quotations.

STEP 5 It is useful to ‘rough-draft’ visual aids at this stage, because they can help

you make the sequence of points more clear and logical. Think about

whether some information should be put into handouts.

STEP 6 Check overall length, and the relative weight of sections. A little too short

is better than even a little too long. As a rough guide, allow about one

minute for every 100 words, plus time if necessary for changing

transparencies. One A4 page, double-spaced, takes about 3 minutes of

speaking time.

STEP 7 Finish preparation of visual aids. If you are using PowerPoint data

projection, slides on transparency are a useful back-up in case of last-

minute technical problems.

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

STEP 8 Prepare handouts, if you want them. Make copies.

STEP 9 Plan the exact words you will use for the opening, the transition points, and

the conclusion. Practise them again and again. If you are anxious, write on

cards the introductory and concluding sentences. Make more notes if you

need them (see Checklist 2).

STEP 10 REHEARSE your presentation, as often as necessary. Do not omit this

step! You can practise alone, or ask a friend or colleagues to listen to you.

With practice, you will become more fluent and at ease. Make sure you

speak simply, but in academic not conversational style. Project your voice

across the room. You will find this slows your speech. Check the timing

carefully and make adjustments if necessary. Mark a time reference at one

or two points in the presentation.

STEP 11 Think about the questions the audience may want to ask you. Plan how you

will answer them.

STEP 12 On the day of your presentation, be calm and organised. If you are

unfamiliar with the location, go beforehand to plan where you will stand

and where you will put your papers, and to see how the projection works.

Arrive in good time for your presentation. Remember to take all your

visual aids, notes and papers!

If you feel nervous, do not worry. That’s normal. Breathe slowly and

deeply for a few minutes beforehand, and try to relax the muscles of your

face, mouth and neck. This will make you look relaxed, and will improve

the quality of your voice. Then remind yourself how well prepared you

are, and enjoy it. Concentrate not on yourself or your notes, but on the

audience and making clear to them what you have to say.

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Checklist 2 USING VISUAL AIDS, HANDOUTS and NOTES

VISUAL

AIDS

If you are using an overhead projector:

1. Before your presentation, check that the equipment works. Decide on

the best place to stand, so that you do not obscure the view of the

audience; decide where to put transparencies before and after use;

decide whether you will point at the transparency or at the screen (or

not at all)

2. If you point at the transparency, use a pen as a pointer.

3. Detach the transparencies from their backing paper to make things

easier during your presentation. Interleave them with plain paper

4. Number the transparencies in case you drop them.

If you are using PowerPoint data projection

1. Bring your presentation on a memory stick or CD/DVD. Please do

not bring it on a laptop.

2. If possible, set up your presentation before your talk. This can take

several minutes, even if all goes well.

3. Have a blank slide at the start and end of your presentation. This

makes your start and finish smooth.

4. PowerPoint has an excellent on-line tutorial and help system. Use it

when you are preparing your presentation so that you can make full

use of its facilities (such as time monitoring, hand-outs and notes).

5. Don’t be tempted, because of PowerPoint's capabilities, to make your

slides too ‘busy’. That will distract the audience’s attention.

6. Even if you are giving your presentation in a well-equipped room,

technology can go wrong. Print out your PowerPoint slides on to

transparencies, so that you have an alternative.

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

HANDOUTS

Handouts are useful in three ways:

1. To show data that are too detailed for a visual aid, such as transcript

data from interviews, or mathematical calculations. If there is a lot of

detail, the points you want to refer to in your presentation should be

clearly highlighted in the handout. The handout is given immediately

before the presentation, and then referred to.

2. To provide a "signposting" framework to guide the audience through

your talk. In this case, the hand-out will be a note-frame, which is

given out before the presentation. Don’t put too much into it, or the

audience will read the handout instead of listening to you.

3. To act as a record of your presentation, which the audience can take

away. This could be either a note frame or a fuller text. For this

‘record’ type of handout, it’s common practice to add your address

and email address, so that people working in the same field can

contact you later. Some presenters like to give out this type of

handout at the end of their talk, so that the audience listens with full

attention. Others give it out at the start, as a support to listening.

Keep your handout short - one page if possible.

NOTES

Visual aids often provide sufficient support for your presentation. If you

feel you need notes as well, remember that they will be more to cope with

during the presentation: you will have to deal with the visual aids, the

notes, and the audience.

1. Cards, or A5 paper, are often recommended because they are neater

in the hand than big pages. Make sure you number them clearly!

2. A good alternative is to use photocopies of your visual aids, with

notes written on them. It is then easier to coordinate your progress

through notes and visual aids.

3. Write very large and clear, with plenty space.

4. Use colour, so that you can quickly locate key points or words

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Checklist 3 SIGNPOSTS AND LANGUAGE SIGNALS

INTRODUCING THE

TALK

I’d like to talk about

I’m going to discuss

I want to tell you about

what I’d like to do is to explain to you

what I’m going to do is to describe

what I want to do is to give an account of

ORDERING POINTS

(TIME ORDER)

To begin with At the beginning At the start

Second(ly) Then Next After that

Finally At the end

ORDERING POINTS

(LISTING AND

ADDING)

First(ly Second(ly) Third(ly)

A second reason The third aspect

Another point Other factors

Also In addition

Last(ly) Finally

STARTING A NEW

SECTION

Now

Moving on to If we move on to I’d like to move on to

Turning to If we turn to I’d like to turn to

What ….? Why …? How….. ? Which….?

TRANSITION

Having considered (X), let us now move on to (Y)

So these were our methods. What about our results?

CONTRASTING

But However Nevertheless

On the other hand By contrast

REFERRING TO

VISUAL AIDS

This slide (graph, chart) shows

Here you can see Here are This is

DEFINING

By X we mean yyy We call X yy

X is defined as yy, We can define X as yy

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

REPHRASING

That is In other words To put it another way

GIVING AN

EXAMPLE

For example, For instance,

such as, say, like, including

To give you an example, An example of this is

Let me give you an example Here is an example

EMPHASISING

actually in fact indeed

importantly surprisingly interestingly

it is clear that clearly obviously

I'd like to underline highlight emphasise stress

it's important to bear in mind keep in mind remember

CONCLUDING A

SECTION

CONCLUDING THE

TALK

So Finally

To summarise Summing up To conclude In conclusion

I'd like to finish by saying

I'd like to conclude now with a few remarks about

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Checklist 4 NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

POSTURE

1 Stand straight but not stiff.

2 Balance your weight evenly on both feet.

3 Standing well allows your diaphragm to move more easily to

control your breathing and voice production. So you feel better,

sound better, and look better.

MOVEMENT

AND

GESTURES

1 Too much movement is distracting; no movement at all is

boring and uncommunicative.

2 Use movements and gestures to signal transition points or to

stress points of importance.

3 Avoid meaningless gestures and repetitive movements. Don't

wave your left hand about in circles or wave the pointer about.

Use the pointer only when necessary, and with a firm

movement. If you have a laser pointer, keep your hand close to

your body when using it; don't hold it at arm's length like a gun.

FACIAL

EXPRESSION

1 Your facial expression must match your message. If you claim

something is interesting, look as if you find it so.

2 Relax your facial muscles. If you look nervous, the audience

will not be comfortable.

3 In the ten minutes before you start, make sure your tongue is

relaxed and not raised tensely against the roof of your mouth. If

you can discreetly yawn widely once or twice, this will help to

relax your facial and throat muscles and to feel less tense.

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

VOICE

1 Speak a little louder than you think is necessary. Project your

voice to the back of the room. Use your diaphragm to do this,

not the muscles of your throat. Keep the muscles of your throat

and mouth relaxed. Otherwise your voice loses resonance and

power, and is less pleasant to listen to.

2 Speak a little more slowly than you normally do, especially if

you feel nervous. This will help you sound and feel more

confident. A useful rule-of-thumb is: the larger the audience,

the more slowly you should speak.

3 Use your voice as a communication tool. Vary the speed -

speak more slowly in the introduction and the conclusion. Use

stress for important points and contrasts. A short silence can

also serve to emphasise a point or a transition. All these

techniques contribute greatly to making a presentation

interesting to listen to.

EYE

CONTACT

1 Eye contact creates a relationship between the speaker and the

audience. It encourages the audience to listen. It helps to relax

the speaker. So look at people.

2. Start and end with direct eye contact, looking round the whole

audience. During the talk, don’t gaze over people’s heads or out

of the window. Look at your visual aids (and notes if you have

them) as much as is necessary, but don’t stare at them and talk

to them. Look at the audience as much as you can.

3. Don’t look always at the same section of the audience or, even

worse, at one ‘victim’. Don’t dart your eyes about quickly, or

sweep your gaze round like a searchlight. Focus on one person

or group for 1-

2 seconds; then look at another person or group,

then another.

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

Checklist 5 ASKING and DEALING WITH QUESTIONS

ASKING QUESTIONS

GENERAL

Make clear:

• that it’s a question I have a question

•

what the topic is ….about assessment:

•

what the point is

what’s the balance between exams and projects?

INTRODUCING A

QUESTION

I’ve got a question about …

Could I ask a question …?

Sorry, could I just ask …?

CLARIFICATION

Sorry, I didn’t follow what you said about …?

What did you mean when you said …?

Could you give me an example of …?

MORE INFORMATION

I was interested in what you were saying about …?

Could you tell us more about …?

Could you expand a bit on what you were saying about …?

CHECKING

COMPREHENSION

So you mean …?

So you’re saying …?

Can I just check I’ve understood – did you say…?

Have I got this right: …?

RESPONDING TO

ANSWERS

Yes, I see.

OK, thanks.

Thanks, that’s clear now.

That’s not really what I was asking. What I meant was …?

OK, but what I really wanted to know was …

Sorry, I’m still not clear about …

Perhaps I didn’t make my question clear. What I was really

asking was …

ELSIS Presentation Skills Checklists

DEALING WITH QUESTIONS

Look through these expressions and decide which ones you think you would like to use.

ANSWERING

DIRECTLY

Well, as I understand it …

If I’ve understood X correctly, …

Well, according to our results …

OK – I think I can answer that quite simply …

‘PLAYING FOR

TIME’

Er, let me see … Well, I suppose I’d say …

That’s an interesting / a very good question! Well, ..

HANDLING

COMPLEX

QUESTIONS

Well, those are really two different questions.

OK - let me deal with those questions one at a time. Your

first question / point was about …

I’ll deal with your second question / point first, if I may.

DEALING WITH

AWKWARD

QUESTIONS

I haven’t had time to look into that, sorry.

I really don’t know / I’m not (quite) sure / I’ve really no

idea.

I’d need to think about that.

I’m not absolutely sure, but I’d guess that …

I don’t really have any experience of that, but X might like

to comment?

I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say for sure.

I was just coming to that / I’ll come back to that in a

minute, if that’s all right. I just wanted to …

That’s rather outside my field.

That isn’t really my field, but perhaps X could say

something about …?

That’s an important question, but it’s really too complex to

deal with now.

That’s really a whole different argument / discussion /

topic.

There isn’t really time to go into that now / here.

I think we’re going off the point a little

Well, I think you’d be wrong to assume that …

You seem to be assuming that …

Do I take it you don’t think / believe / accept …?