THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. Delivery (2)

Before you get on to the platform, be sure to do the following:
1. Try to summarise your talk into a sentence. This discipline may be difficult but it will force you to stay focused on the important points.

2. Determine beforehand, how you want to start your talk- with a quote, a story, a question, a joke or a statistic. This will help you catch the attention of your audience. However, be sure that these are related to your presentation to sustain attention.

3. Ensure your talk is not unnecessarily long. Let it contain an introduction, a body and a conclusion. I use this method to full effect when thinking through a presentation.

4. Choose the presentation aid most comfortable to you and most appropriate for the audience. These presentation aids include:

Notes: when using the note, do not read line by line from it without lifting your head. For the note to serve an optimal purpose, highlight the points you want to make in it and lift those points off from time to time. If you had spent some time thinking through your presentation, the note will be less heavily used. Please, your notes should not be pieces of papers flying around! Have a notepad, it's better.

Slides: This is supposed to serve the same purpose as the note. Your slides should only contain a summary of what you want to say, not all you want to say. It should be simple, with graphics that are only relevant to the presentation. Furthermore, don't depend on it so much that you become helpless if the lights go out or there is a system malfunction, have backup notes.

None of the above: Some people prefer to make presentations without notes or slides. However, I can assure you that these people spend time with their materials, using memory cues as remembering aids (discussing these memory cues is beyond the scope of this writeup). Please note that this method does not necessarily have to be superior to using notes or slides. I have seen presentations made with notes and slide that have left a lot of positive impressions on me.

Don't forget, proper presentation prevents poor performance

Next week, I will talk about presentation on the stage itself!
You may also like this series on my second blog. 
© 2017,  Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved