Chapter 32
Presenting Your Work
In this chapter, you will learn how to—
32.1 get started on developing your presentation.
32.2 organize your presentation with a good introduction, body, and
conclusion.
32.3 design your visual aids.
32.4 deliver your presentation with confidence and style.
32.5 practice and rehearse your presentation.
You have probably heard that people fear public speaking more than anything else—
including death. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld once quipped, “Does that seem right?
That means if you’re going to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the
eulogy!”
With new technologies, public speaking is even more important than ever as video
streaming, video conferencing, and webinars have become common in college and in
the workplace. These new media technologies make it possible to present your ideas
in real time and answer your audience’s questions. Similarly, putting your materials
on video sharing Web sites, like YouTube or DailyMotion, is becoming a regular part of
college classes, job responsibilities, and everyday life.
Your professors will ask you to present your class projects to an audience, usually
other students. They may also ask you to speak to outside groups and non-profit organizations as part of “service learning” projects. Meanwhile, almost any professional
career will require you to pitch your ideas, offer briefings, do poster presentations,
and give seminars. Your ability to speak effectively in front of an audience will be an
important cornerstone of your success.
Of course, public speaking is still as scary as ever, even if we need to do more of
it. Everyone gets nervous about speaking in front of others. In this chapter, you will
learn some easy strategies for turning your documents into public presentations. As
you learn and practice these simple techniques, your presentations will become more
polished and persuasive.
507
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Step One: Plan Your Presentation
32.1 Get started on developing your presentation.
Because this book is about writing, not public speaking, we are going to assume that
you have already written a document that you need to turn into a presentation. Now
it is time to repurpose your paper into a presentation for an audience.
Ask a Few Key Questions to Get Started
Solid preparation is the key to successful public speaking. You can start by asking the
Five-W and How questions:
• Who will be in my audience and what do they need?
• What do I want to accomplish with my presentation?
• When will I be asked to speak?
• Where will I be giving my presentation?
• Why am I presenting this information to this audience?
• How should I give the presentation?
Answer each of these questions separately. Your answers will help you figure out
what you need to do to prepare for your presentation.
Keep in mind that your audience wants more from you than just the information
in your document. After all, if they wanted to, they could just read it themselves. So
why do they want you to present it to them instead? A presentation gives the audience
a chance to interact with you and ask questions. Your audience wants to see you in
action. They want you to perform the material for them.
Choose the Appropriate Presentation Technology
Think about what technology will be available and which type would fit your presentation. The technology you choose depends on the audience’s expectations and the
place where you will be giving your talk. Each kind of presentation technology offers
advantages and disadvantages. Figure 32.1 describes some of the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Allot Your Time
If you are new to speaking in public, a five- to ten-minute presentation might sound
like a lifetime. The time, though, will go fast. A ten-minute presentation, for example,
is only the equivalent of a four- or five-page double-spaced paper. So you will need to
budget your time carefully to avoid going over the time allowed.
Figure 32.2 shows how to budget the time for a presentation with three major topics. Of course, if your presentation’s body has fewer or more than three topics, you
will need to make adjustments in the times allowed for each one. These time limits are
flexible guidelines, not rigid rules.
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Figure 32.1 Pros and Cons of Presentation Technologies
Advantages
Genres
• Can be dynamic
and colorful
• Allows for
animation and
sound
• Creates a more
formal atmosphere
• Requires a darkened
room, which might
inconvenience your
audience
• Diverts attention
from the speaker to
the screen
• Computers are not
completely reliable
Memoirs,
Profiles,
Reviews,
Evaluations,
Literary Analyses,
Rhetorical Analyses,
Arguments,
Proposals, and
Reports
• Projectors are
available in most
workplaces and
classrooms
• Easy to print
transparencies
from most home
printers
• May seem static and
lifeless
• Need to manually
change transparencies during your
presentation
Evaluations,
Literary Analyses,
Rhetorical Analyses,
Arguments,
Proposals, and
Reports
• Allows speaker to
create visuals on
the spot
• Audience pays
more attention
because speaker is
moving
• Cannot be used with
a large audience
• Writing on board
requires extra time
• Ideas need to be
transferred clearly to
the board
Evaluations,
Commentaries,
Arguments,
Proposals, and
Reports
• Allows audience to
see whole
presentation
• Presents highly
technical
information clearly
• Allows audience to
ask specific
questions
• Cannot be
presented to more
than a few people
• Can be hard to
transport
Memoirs,
Profiles,
Reviews,
Evaluations,
Literary Analyses,
Rhetorical Analyses,
Arguments,
Proposals, and
Reports
• Helps reinforce
major points
• Can offer more
detail, data, and
statistics
• Audience has
something to take
home
• Handing them out
can be distracting in
large presentations
• Audience members
may read the
handouts instead of
listening to the talk
Profiles,
Reviews,
Literary Analyses,
Rhetorical Analyses,
Arguments,
Proposals, Research
Papers, and Reports
Digital Projector
Overhead Projector
Disadvantages
Whiteboard, Chalkboard,
Notepad
Poster Presentation
Handouts
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Figure 32.2 Allotting Your Presentation Time
When planning your presentation, budget your time carefully to scale your talk to the time allowed.
5-Minute
Presentation
10-Minute
Presentation
20-Minute
Presentation
Introduction
Half a minute
1 minute
1–2 minutes
Topic 1
1 minute
2 minutes
5 minutes
Topic 2
1 minute
2 minutes
5 minutes
Topic 3
1 minute
2 minutes
5 minutes
Conclusion
Half a minute
1 minute
1 minute
Questions and Answers
1 minute
2 minutes
3 minutes
Step Two: Organize Your Ideas
32.2 Organize your presentation with a good introduction, body, and conclusion.
The organization of your presentation will typically follow the genre you are using to
organize your document. Your talk should have a distinct beginning, middle, and end.
That advice might seem obvious, but public speakers often forget to properly introduce their talk to the audience, or they abruptly end without summing up their main
points.
There is an old saying about speechmaking that you should commit to memory:
Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.
Introduction: Tell Them What You’re Going
to Tell Them
The introduction of your talk is almost always the most critical part of your presentation.
At the beginning of your speech, you have a small window—perhaps a minute or two—
to capture the audience’s attention while stating your topic, purpose, and main point.
Speakers should make some or all of the following moves in their presentation’s
intro­duction:
Identify your topic. Tell your audience what your presentation is about.
State the purpose of your presentation. Explain the objective of your talk.
State your main point. Tell them what you want to prove or support.
Stress the importance of your topic to the audience. Explain why this issue is
important to them and why they should pay attention.
Offer background information on the subject. Provide enough information to
familiarize the audience with your topic.
Forecast the structure of your talk. Tell them how your talk will be organized.
These moves can be made in any order.
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You might also come up with a good grabber to start out your speech. A grabber
captures the audience’s attention by stating something interesting or challenging.
Some effective grabbers include:
A rhetorical question: “Do you ever wonder why child actors tend to have personal problems when they become adults?”
A startling statistic: “A recent survey shows that 74 percent of women students
report that they have been sexually harassed at this university. Meanwhile,
43 percent of male students report they have been harassed.”
A compelling statement: “If nothing is done about global climate change,
it is likely that polar bears will become extinct in the wild during our
lifetime.”
An anecdote: “Last year, I finally climbed my first mountain over 14,000 feet. In
many ways, climbing that mountain affirmed to me that I had triumphed over
the injuries I sustained in Afghanistan two years before.”
An interesting observation: “Have you ever noticed that the word ogre appears
in the middle of the word progress? I keep that ogre in mind whenever I’m trying to do something new, because I know something or someone is going to
try to hold me back.”
A show of hands: “Let’s see a show of hands. How many of you think the pizza
here in town leaves something to be desired?”
A good grabber identifies your topic while giving your audience something to think
about.
The Body of Your Talk: Tell Them
In the body, state your major points and support them with facts, reasoning, examples,
data, quotations, and other forms of proof you can offer.
In most situations, the body of your presentation should follow the same pattern
as the body of your document. Divide your text into two to five major issues that you
want to discuss with the audience. If you try to cover more than five topics, you risk
overwhelming the audience with more new information than they can handle. So
organize the body of your talk to feature the most important things you want them to
remember.
Here’s a good strategy that might help you strip your talk down to something you
can handle in a small amount of time. Look through your document and ask yourself,
“What does my audience need to know about this topic to make a decision?” Then
cross out any material that goes beyond need-to-know information.
Conclusion: Tell Them What You Told Them
Once you signal that you are about to conclude, you will have the audience’s heightened attention for the next two minutes. Take advantage of their attention by repeating your main point in a clear and memorable way. A typical conclusion will include
some or all of the following moves:
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Signal clearly that you are concluding. Make an obvious transition that signals
the end of your talk, such as “Let me wrap up now” or “Finally.”
Restate your main point. Tell your audience exactly what you have been trying
to explain or prove in your talk.
Reemphasize the importance of your topic to the audience. Be clear about why
the audience should care about your topic. Answer their “Why should I care?”
questions.
Call the audience to action. If you want the people in your audience to do something, tell them what you think they should do. Be specific about the actions
you want them to take.
Thank the audience. When you are finished, don’t forget to say, “thank you.”
This phrase signals to the audience that your presentation is done, and it usually prompts them to applaud.
Remember to keep your conclusion brief. Once you say something like, “In conclusion,” you have just one or two minutes to finish up. If you ramble beyond a couple of
minutes, your audience will become restless and annoyed.
Question and Answer
At the end of your talk, you should be prepared to answer a few questions from the audience. The question and answer period offers you a good opportunity to interact with the
audience and clarify your ideas. You should be ready to answer three types of questions:
A REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OR ELABORATION. Questions that ask you to
clarify or elaborate are opportunities to reinforce some of your key points. When you
receive this kind of question, start out by rephrasing the question for the audience.
Rephrasing will allow you to put the issue in your own words and state it loudly
enough for the audience to hear. Then answer the question, expanding on the information in your talk. Try to use each question to restate one of your major points.
A HOSTILE QUESTION. Occasionally, an audience member will ask a question that
challenges the information you provided in your talk. Here is a good three-step strategy for answering these kinds of questions:
1. Rephrase the question. State the question in terms that will allow you to answer
it in ways that reflect your own understanding or beliefs.
2. Validate the question. Tell the audience that you understand the questioner’s
concerns and even share them.
3. Elaborate and move forward. Explain that the course of action you are supporting handles the issue better or seems more reasonable.
THE HECKLING QUESTION. In rare cases, an audience member will want to challenge you with a heckling question. In this situation, you need to recognize that the
questioner is trying to sabotage your presentation. He or she wants you to become
flustered. Don’t let the heckler do that to you. After trying your best to answer a question or two from a heckler, simply say, “I’m sorry you feel that way. We have other
people with questions. Perhaps we can meet after my talk to discuss your concerns.”
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Then look away from that person. Usually, someone else in the audience will ask a
question and you can move on.
When the question and answer period is over, you should briefly thank the audience again. This will usually prompt another round of applause.
Step Three: Design Your Visual Aids
32.3 Design your visual aids.
Visual aids will help you clarify your ideas and illustrate your main points for the
audience. Perhaps the best way to create visual aids is to make slides with the presentation software (PowerPoint, Keynote, Slides, or Presentation) that was packaged with
your word-processing software.
Format Your Slides
Whether you are presenting in a large lecture hall with a projector or to a few people
with a poster presentation, slides are some of the best visual aids available (Figure 32.3).
Figure 32.3 Creating Slides
Shown here are a title slide and a body slide from a profile paper repurposed as a presentation. The
photographs add a strong visual identity to the slides.
Picture adds energy
and human touch.
Descriptive title and
subtitle.
Name of presenter.
Major topic.
Picture keeps
audience’s attention.
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Here are some strategies for formatting your slides:
• Title each slide with an action-oriented heading.
• Put five or fewer major points on each slide. If you have more than five major
points, divide that topic into two slides.
• Use left-justified text for most items on your slides. Centered text should only be
used for slide titles.
• Use dark text on a white or light background whenever possible. Light text on a
dark background can be difficult to read.
• Use bulleted lists of phrases instead of paragraphs or sentences.
• Use photos, icons, and graphics to keep your slides fresh and active for the audience. Make sure your graphics look good on the screen. Increasing the size of a
Web-based graphic, for example, can make the image look blurry or grainy.
You will be tempted to pack too much material onto each slide. Don’t do that.
Effective slides, like the ones shown in Figure 32.3, need to be simple and easy to
interpret. You don’t want your audience trying to puzzle out the meaning of your
complicated slides instead of listening to your talk.
Step Four: Prepare Your Delivery
32.4 Deliver your presentation with confidence and style.
The usual advice is to “be yourself” when you are speaking in public. Of course, that’s
good advice for people who are comfortable speaking in front of an audience, but
many of us aren’t. Instead, like an actor, you should play the role that best fits your
topic and your audience.
Body Language
Ideally, the movements of your body should help you reinforce your message and
maintain the audience’s attention.
Choose clothing that reflects your audience’s expectations and the topic of your talk. Even when you are presenting to your classmates,
you should view it as an opportunity to practice your professional persona. Dress as
though you are presenting in a professional workplace.
DRESS APPROPRIATELY.
STAND UP STRAIGHT. When speakers are nervous, they tend to slouch, lean, or
rock back and forth. These movements look unprofessional and make it difficult for
you to breathe regularly. Instead, keep your feet squarely under your shoulders with
knees slightly bent. Keep your shoulders back and down and your head up to allow
good airflow. If your shoulders are forward and up, you won’t get enough air and the
pitch of your voice will seem unnaturally high.
USE OPEN HAND AND ARM GESTURES. For most audiences, open hand and arm
gestures will convey trust and confidence. Avoid folding your arms, keeping your
arms at your sides, or putting both hands in your pockets, as these poses will convey a
defensive posture that audiences do not trust.
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MAKE EYE CONTACT. Each person in the audience should believe you made eye
contact with him or her at least once during your presentation. If you are nervous
about making eye contact, look at the audience members’ foreheads instead. They will
think you are looking them directly in the eye.
MOVE TO REINFORCE MAJOR POINTS OR TRANSITIONS. If possible, when you
make important points, step forward toward the audience. When you make transitions in your presentation from one topic to the next, move to the left or right. Your
movement across the floor will highlight the transitions in your speech.
Voice and Tone
As you improve your presentation skills, you should work toward strengthening your
voice and tone.
When speaking to an audience, you will need to
speak louder than you normally would. As your volume goes up, so will the pitch of
your voice, making it sound unnaturally high to the audience. By consciously lowering the pitch of your voice, you should sound just about right. Also, nerves may cause
you to speak too quickly. Silently remind yourself to speak slowly.
SPEAK LOWER AND SLOWER.
Each time you make a major
point, pause for a moment to let the audience commit it to memory.
USE PAUSES TO REINFORCE YOUR MAJOR POINTS.
Verbal tics like “um,” “ah,” “like,”
“you know,” “OK?” and “See what I mean?” are nervous words and phrases that
fill gaps between thoughts. If you have a verbal tic, train yourself to pause when
you feel like using one of these sounds or phrases. Not only will you eliminate an
annoying verbal tic, but your speaking will sound much more distinguished and
measured. You can practice this pausing technique in your everyday conversations.
USE PAUSES TO ELIMINATE VERBAL TICS.
MINIMIZE HOW OFTEN YOU LOOK DOWN AT YOUR NOTES. Look at your notes
as little as possible. Looking down at your notes causes your neck to bend, which
restricts your airflow and makes your voice harder to hear. Plus, notes can become a
distracting “safe place” that keeps you from engaging visually with your audience.
Step Five: Practice and Rehearse
32.5 Practice and rehearse your presentation.
Speech experts often advise people to leave plenty of time to practice their presentations out loud. Even better advice, though, is to “rehearse” what you are going to say
and how you are going to say it. Rehearsal allows you to practice your presentation in
a more realistic setting.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Practice involves speaking your presentation out loud to yourself. As you are working
through your presentation verbally, memorize its major points and gain a sense of its
organization and flow. While practicing, you should:
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• Listen for any problems with content, organization, and style.
• Edit and proofread your visuals and handouts.
• Decide how you are going to move around as you deliver the speech.
• Pay attention to your body language and voice.
If you notice any problems as you are practicing your presentation, you can stop
and fix them right away.
Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse
The secret to polishing your presentation is to rehearse it several times. Unlike practice, rehearsal means speaking from beginning to end without stopping.
As much as possible, you want to replicate the experience of giving your real talk.
After each rehearsal session, you should make any necessary revisions or corrections.
Recruit friends to listen as you rehearse your presentation. They will provide you
with a live audience, so you can gauge their reactions to your ideas. Another possibility is recording your presentation, with either audiovisual or just audio equipment.
Practicing will help you find any major problems with your talk, but rehearsal
will help you turn the whole package into an effective presentation.
Quick Start Guide
Here are some helpful guidelines for developing and giving presentations.
Answer the Five-W and How questions about your presentation. Think about the who, what, where,
when, why, and how issues that will shape the content, organization, style, and design of your presentation.
Choose the appropriate presentation technology. Depending on the size of your audience and the room
in which you will be speaking, consider what kind of presentation technology would best allow you to present
your ideas.
Organize your ideas. More than likely, the genre of your document offers a good organization for your talk.
Remember to “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.”
Design your visual aids. Slides work well for most presentations. Use presentation software, such as
PowerPoint, Keynote, or Presentations, to convert your paper into a colorful and interesting set of slides. If
slides aren’t appropriate, you should look into the possibility of using a whiteboard or handouts.
Think about your body language. Consider issues like how you will dress and how you will stand and
move when you are presenting. Practice making eye contact with people.
Improve your voice and tone. Work on speaking lower and slower, while using pauses to reinforce your
major points. Also, use pauses to eliminate any verbal tics, such as “um,” “ah,” “like,” and “you know.”
Practice and rehearse. Ultimately, practice and rehearsal are the best ways to improve and polish your
presentation. Use practice to help you revise your talk and correct errors. Use rehearsal to polish your
presentation and make it as persuasive as possible.
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Activities for Presenting Your
Work
Talk About This
1. In a small group, share your opinions about what works well in a presentation.
Discuss effective and ineffective presenters (coaches, teachers, public speakers)
that you have heard in the past. What traits made these people effective or ineffective as public speakers?
2. Find a video clip online of a particularly problematic speech. Imagine that you and
your group are this person’s speaking coach. Being as helpful as possible, what
advice would you give this person to improve his or her future presentations?
3. With your group, choose three ideas from this chapter that you would like to use
to improve your presentation skills. Then take turns presenting these three things
to your “audience.”
Try This Out
1. Find a speech on a video Web site. In a brief rhetorical analysis, discuss the
strengths and weaknesses of the presentation. Specifically, pay attention to the
content, organization, style, and use of visuals in the presentation.
2. Outline a two-minute speech on a subject that you know well. Then, without
much further thought, give a presentation to a small group of people from your
class. Practice making the six introductory moves mentioned in this chapter and
the five concluding moves.
3. Using presentation software, turn one of the papers you wrote for this class into
slides. Break your paper down into major and minor points and add pictures and
illustrations that will help your audience visualize your ideas. Print out your slides
and look for any inconsistencies in wording or places where you could reorganize.
Write This
1. Evaluate a public presentation. Attend a public presentation on your campus.
Instead of listening to the content of the presentation, pay attention to how it
was organized and presented. Then write a review, a rave, or a slam of the presentation. Use the presentation strategies described in this chapter to discuss the
strengths and weaknesses of the speaker and his or her talk.
2. Repurpose a written text into a presentation. Choose a major project for this course
or another one and turn it into a presentation. Choose the appropriate presentation
technology. Make sure you develop an introduction that captures your audience’s
attention. Divide the body of your paper into two to five major topics for your presentation. Then develop a conclusion that stresses your main points and looks to the
future. When you have finished creating your talk, spend some time practicing and
rehearsing it. Your professor may ask you to present your talk in class.
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