Presentation Preparation Notes

Presentations are daunting. Even though I always prepare, have detailed notes just incase I lose track of what I was going to say, I always end up rushing through my slides, hardly saying anything that I was originally going to say.

I found the Presentation on 'Effective Presentations' really helpful as it broke down presentation to the basics and gave useful tips on how to present yourself when presenting your work.

• Presentations are about communication, a portrayal of your journey in which you can share your ideas, thoughts, progress and concepts. This leads to an opportunity for constructive feedback that can lead to improvement of work, or reveal an idea for your work that you wouldn't have necessarily considered. This feedback would come from your tutors and peers.
•  Presentations are a form of conveying meaningful information.
• Know your audiences, which are most likely to be your peers, this could include other audiences such as third or second years who don't know your work, therefore you need to inform them of what you are doing, so that anyone can understand what you are making.
• Explain what you are doing, how you got there, or even how you plan to get to the next stage; how you are going to move forward. 
• It is not about you. No one is judging you. A presentation should not be stressful. Have confidence in what you are saying.
• You need to be prepared. Run through the presentation a couple of times so that you know and understand your subject. Be prepared to answer questions and keep it simple, not a lot of content but each slide does need to make a point. 
• You can use imagery to illustrate a point but only when necessary as too many images clutter the powerpoint, and escapes the actual point of the slide. 
• Using too much text will put off the viewer, they will end up switching off and not paying attention to the points made. It will make people go to sleep. 
• People are here to listen to you, so don’t make the powerpoint a replacement for you, or else there's no point in being there.
• No bullet points and no transitions, this distracts the viewer and it is not very professional looking...
• The 8ft rule
  All slides should be readable from a distance think about the distance in which are from the audience and how big the screen is.
• You need to be enthusiastic, don’t have a monotone voice as that’s boring! Be persuasive, confident and be interested in what you are interested in!
• If you make a mistake just rewind, slow down and correct yourself, then move on. 
• You must know your script! Know what you are going to say in advance, don't wing it as that leads to forgetting important parts of the subject you are talking about.
• DO NOT LEAVE TILL LAST MINUTE, YOU'LL END UP WORRYING! Practice the week before as it'll give you a confidence boost.
• On the day of your presentation, arrive early to ensure that your presentation works and you can calm yourself down and run through the powerpoint in your head. Remember that less is more.
• Always offer the opportunity for the audience to ask questions.