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How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

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• Peer review
• Lucia Hartigan , registrar 1 ,
• Fionnuala Mone , fellow in maternal fetal medicine 1 ,
• Mary Higgins , consultant obstetrician 2
• 1 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
• 2 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin
• luciahartigan{at}hotmail.com

The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker’s ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes

The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker’s skills in transmitting the information to the audience. 1

Preparation

It is important to be as well prepared as possible. Look at the venue in person, and find out the time allowed for your presentation and for questions, and the size of the audience and their backgrounds, which will allow the presentation to be pitched at the appropriate level.

See what the ambience and temperature are like and check that the format of your presentation is compatible with the available computer. This is particularly important when embedding videos. Before you begin, look at the video on stand-by and make sure the lights are dimmed and the speakers are functioning.

For visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Mac Keynote programmes are usual, although Prezi is increasing in popularity. Save the presentation on a USB stick, with email or cloud storage backup to avoid last minute disasters.

When preparing the presentation, start with an opening slide containing the title of the study, your name, and the date. Begin by addressing and thanking the audience and the organisation that has invited you to speak. Typically, the format includes background, study aims, methodology, results, strengths and weaknesses of the study, and conclusions.

If the study takes a lecturing format, consider including “any questions?” on a slide before you conclude, which will allow the audience to remember the take home messages. Ideally, the audience should remember three of the main points from the presentation. 2

Have a maximum of four short points per slide. If you can display something as a diagram, video, or a graph, use this instead of text and talk around it.

Animation is available in both Microsoft PowerPoint and the Apple Mac Keynote programme, and its use in presentations has been demonstrated to assist in the retention and recall of facts. 3 Do not overuse it, though, as it could make you appear unprofessional. If you show a video or diagram don’t just sit back—use a laser pointer to explain what is happening.

Rehearse your presentation in front of at least one person. Request feedback and amend accordingly. If possible, practise in the venue itself so things will not be unfamiliar on the day. If you appear comfortable, the audience will feel comfortable. Ask colleagues and seniors what questions they would ask and prepare responses to these questions.

It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don’t have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.

Try to present slides at the rate of around one slide a minute. If you talk too much, you will lose your audience’s attention. The slides or videos should be an adjunct to your presentation, so do not hide behind them, and be proud of the work you are presenting. You should avoid reading the wording on the slides, but instead talk around the content on them.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and remember to smile and pause after each comment, giving your nerves time to settle. Speak slowly and concisely, highlighting key points.

Do not assume that the audience is completely familiar with the topic you are passionate about, but don’t patronise them either. Use every presentation as an opportunity to teach, even your seniors. The information you are presenting may be new to them, but it is always important to know your audience’s background. You can then ensure you do not patronise world experts.

To maintain the audience’s attention, vary the tone and inflection of your voice. If appropriate, use humour, though you should run any comments or jokes past others beforehand and make sure they are culturally appropriate. Check every now and again that the audience is following and offer them the opportunity to ask questions.

Finishing up is the most important part, as this is when you send your take home message with the audience. Slow down, even though time is important at this stage. Conclude with the three key points from the study and leave the slide up for a further few seconds. Do not ramble on. Give the audience a chance to digest the presentation. Conclude by acknowledging those who assisted you in the study, and thank the audience and organisation. If you are presenting in North America, it is usual practice to conclude with an image of the team. If you wish to show references, insert a text box on the appropriate slide with the primary author, year, and paper, although this is not always required.

Answering questions can often feel like the most daunting part, but don’t look upon this as negative. Assume that the audience has listened and is interested in your research. Listen carefully, and if you are unsure about what someone is saying, ask for the question to be rephrased. Thank the audience member for asking the question and keep responses brief and concise. If you are unsure of the answer you can say that the questioner has raised an interesting point that you will have to investigate further. Have someone in the audience who will write down the questions for you, and remember that this is effectively free peer review.

Be proud of your achievements and try to do justice to the work that you and the rest of your group have done. You deserve to be up on that stage, so show off what you have achieved.

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: None.

• ↵ Rovira A, Auger C, Naidich TP. How to prepare an oral presentation and a conference. Radiologica 2013 ; 55 (suppl 1): 2 -7S. OpenUrl
• ↵ Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. PLos Comput Biol 2007 ; 3 : e77 . OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Naqvi SH, Mobasher F, Afzal MA, Umair M, Kohli AN, Bukhari MH. Effectiveness of teaching methods in a medical institute: perceptions of medical students to teaching aids. J Pak Med Assoc 2013 ; 63 : 859 -64. OpenUrl

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

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• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
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• About Informed Consent
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• Acknowledgments

In the social and behavioral sciences, an oral presentation assignment involves an individual student or group of students verbally addressing an audience on a specific research-based topic, often utilizing slides to help audience members understand and retain what they both see and hear. The purpose is to inform, report, and explain the significance of research findings, and your critical analysis of those findings, within a specific period of time, often in the form of a reasoned and persuasive argument. Oral presentations are assigned to assess a student’s ability to organize and communicate relevant information  effectively to a particular audience. Giving an oral presentation is considered an important learning skill because the ability to speak persuasively in front of an audience is transferable to most professional workplace settings.

Oral Presentations. Learning Co-Op. University of Wollongong, Australia; Oral Presentations. Undergraduate Research Office, Michigan State University; Oral Presentations. Presentations Research Guide, East Carolina University Libraries; Tsang, Art. “Enhancing Learners’ Awareness of Oral Presentation (Delivery) Skills in the Context of Self-regulated Learning.” Active Learning in Higher Education 21 (2020): 39-50.

Preparing for Your Oral Presentation

In some classes, writing the research paper is only part of what is required in reporting the results your work. Your professor may also require you to give an oral presentation about your study. Here are some things to think about before you are scheduled to give a presentation.

1.  What should I say?

If your professor hasn't explicitly stated what the content of your presentation should focus on, think about what you want to achieve and what you consider to be the most important things that members of the audience should know about your research. Think about the following: Do I want to inform my audience, inspire them to think about my research, or convince them of a particular point of view? These questions will help frame how to approach your presentation topic.

2.  Oral communication is different from written communication

Your audience has just one chance to hear your talk; they can't "re-read" your words if they get confused. Focus on being clear, particularly if the audience can't ask questions during the talk. There are two well-known ways to communicate your points effectively, often applied in combination. The first is the K.I.S.S. method [Keep It Simple Stupid]. Focus your presentation on getting two to three key points across. The second approach is to repeat key insights: tell them what you're going to tell them [forecast], tell them [explain], and then tell them what you just told them [summarize].

3.  Think about your audience

Yes, you want to demonstrate to your professor that you have conducted a good study. But professors often ask students to give an oral presentation to practice the art of communicating and to learn to speak clearly and audibly about yourself and your research. Questions to think about include: What background knowledge do they have about my topic? Does the audience have any particular interests? How am I going to involve them in my presentation?

4.  Create effective notes

If you don't have notes to refer to as you speak, you run the risk of forgetting something important. Also, having no notes increases the chance you'll lose your train of thought and begin relying on reading from the presentation slides. Think about the best ways to create notes that can be easily referred to as you speak. This is important! Nothing is more distracting to an audience than the speaker fumbling around with notes as they try to speak. It gives the impression of being disorganized and unprepared.

NOTE:   A good strategy is to have a page of notes for each slide so that the act of referring to a new page helps remind you to move to the next slide. This also creates a natural pause that allows your audience to contemplate what you just presented.

Strategies for creating effective notes for yourself include the following:

• Choose a large, readable font [at least 18 point in Ariel ]; avoid using fancy text fonts or cursive text.
• Use bold text, underlining, or different-colored text to highlight elements of your speech that you want to emphasize. Don't over do it, though. Only highlight the most important elements of your presentation.
• Leave adequate space on your notes to jot down additional thoughts or observations before and during your presentation. This is also helpful when writing down your thoughts in response to a question or to remember a multi-part question [remember to have a pen with you when you give your presentation].
• Place a cue in the text of your notes to indicate when to move to the next slide, to click on a link, or to take some other action, such as, linking to a video. If appropriate, include a cue in your notes if there is a point during your presentation when you want the audience to refer to a handout.
• Spell out challenging words phonetically and practice saying them ahead of time. This is particularly important for accurately pronouncing people’s names, technical or scientific terminology, words in a foreign language, or any unfamiliar words.

Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Kelly, Christine. Mastering the Art of Presenting. Inside Higher Education Career Advice; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.

Organizing the Content

In the process of organizing the content of your presentation, begin by thinking about what you want to achieve and how are you going to involve your audience in the presentation.

• Brainstorm your topic and write a rough outline. Don’t get carried away—remember you have a limited amount of time for your presentation.
• Organize your material and draft what you want to say [see below].
• Summarize your draft into key points to write on your presentation slides and/or note cards and/or handout.
• Prepare your visual aids.
• Rehearse your presentation and practice getting the presentation completed within the time limit given by your professor. Ask a friend to listen and time you.

GENERAL OUTLINE

I.  Introduction [may be written last]

• Capture your listeners’ attention . Begin with a question, an amusing story, a provocative statement, a personal story, or anything that will engage your audience and make them think. For example, "As a first-gen student, my hardest adjustment to college was the amount of papers I had to write...."
• State your purpose . For example, "I’m going to talk about..."; "This morning I want to explain…."
• Present an outline of your talk . For example, “I will concentrate on the following points: First of all…Then…This will lead to…And finally…"

II.  The Body

• Present your main points one by one in a logical order .
• Pause at the end of each point . Give people time to take notes, or time to think about what you are saying.
• Make it clear when you move to another point . For example, “The next point is that...”; “Of course, we must not forget that...”; “However, it's important to realize that....”
• Use clear examples to illustrate your points and/or key findings .
• If appropriate, consider using visual aids to make your presentation more interesting [e.g., a map, chart, picture, link to a video, etc.].

III.  The Conclusion

• Leave your audience with a clear summary of everything that you have covered.
• Summarize the main points again . For example, use phrases like: "So, in conclusion..."; "To recap the main issues...," "In summary, it is important to realize...."
• Restate the purpose of your talk, and say that you have achieved your aim : "My intention was ..., and it should now be clear that...."
• Don't let the talk just fizzle out . Make it obvious that you have reached the end of the presentation.
• Thank the audience, and invite questions : "Thank you. Are there any questions?"

NOTE: When asking your audience if anyone has any questions, give people time to contemplate what you have said and to formulate a question. It may seem like an awkward pause to wait ten seconds or so for someone to raise their hand, but it's frustrating to have a question come to mind but be cutoff because the presenter rushed to end the talk.

ANOTHER NOTE: If your last slide includes any contact information or other important information, leave it up long enough to ensure audience members have time to write the information down. Nothing is more frustrating to an audience member than wanting to jot something down, but the presenter closes the slides immediately after finishing.

Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.

Delivering Your Presentation

When delivering your presentation, keep in mind the following points to help you remain focused and ensure that everything goes as planned.

Pay Attention to Language!

• Keep it simple . The aim is to communicate, not to show off your vocabulary. Using complex words or phrases increases the chance of stumbling over a word and losing your train of thought.
• Emphasize the key points . Make sure people realize which are the key points of your study. Repeat them using different phrasing to help the audience remember them.
• Check the pronunciation of difficult, unusual, or foreign words beforehand . Keep it simple, but if you have to use unfamiliar words, write them out phonetically in your notes and practice saying them. This is particularly important when pronouncing proper names. Give the definition of words that are unusual or are being used in a particular context [e.g., "By using the term affective response, I am referring to..."].

Use Your Voice to Communicate Clearly

• Speak loud enough for everyone in the room to hear you . Projecting your voice may feel uncomfortably loud at first, but if people can't hear you, they won't try to listen. However, moderate your voice if you are talking in front of a microphone.
• Speak slowly and clearly . Don’t rush! Speaking fast makes it harder for people to understand you and signals being nervous.
• Avoid the use of "fillers." Linguists refer to utterances such as um, ah, you know, and like as fillers. They occur most often during transitions from one idea to another and, if expressed too much, are distracting to an audience. The better you know your presentation, the better you can control these verbal tics.
• Vary your voice quality . If you always use the same volume and pitch [for example, all loud, or all soft, or in a monotone] during your presentation, your audience will stop listening. Use a higher pitch and volume in your voice when you begin a new point or when emphasizing the transition to a new point.
• Speakers with accents need to slow down [so do most others]. Non-native speakers often speak English faster than we slow-mouthed native speakers, usually because most non-English languages flow more quickly than English. Slowing down helps the audience to comprehend what you are saying.
• Slow down for key points . These are also moments in your presentation to consider using body language, such as hand gestures or leaving the podium to point to a slide, to help emphasize key points.
• Use pauses . Don't be afraid of short periods of silence. They give you a chance to gather your thoughts, and your audience an opportunity to think about what you've just said.

Also Use Your Body Language to Communicate!

• Stand straight and comfortably . Do not slouch or shuffle about. If you appear bored or uninterested in what your talking about, the audience will emulate this as well. Wear something comfortable. This is not the time to wear an itchy wool sweater or new high heel shoes for the first time.
• Hold your head up . Look around and make eye contact with people in the audience [or at least pretend to]. Do not just look at your professor or your notes the whole time! Looking up at your your audience brings them into the conversation. If you don't include the audience, they won't listen to you.
• When you are talking to your friends, you naturally use your hands, your facial expression, and your body to add to your communication . Do it in your presentation as well. It will make things far more interesting for the audience.
• Don't turn your back on the audience and don't fidget! Neither moving around nor standing still is wrong. Practice either to make yourself comfortable. Even when pointing to a slide, don't turn your back; stand at the side and turn your head towards the audience as you speak.
• Keep your hands out of your pocket . This is a natural habit when speaking. One hand in your pocket gives the impression of being relaxed, but both hands in pockets looks too casual and should be avoided.

Interact with the Audience

• Be aware of how your audience is reacting to your presentation . Are they interested or bored? If they look confused, stop and ask them [e.g., "Is anything I've covered so far unclear?"]. Stop and explain a point again if needed.
• Check after highlighting key points to ask if the audience is still with you . "Does that make sense?"; "Is that clear?" Don't do this often during the presentation but, if the audience looks disengaged, interrupting your talk to ask a quick question can re-focus their attention even if no one answers.
• Do not apologize for anything . If you believe something will be hard to read or understand, don't use it. If you apologize for feeling awkward and nervous, you'll only succeed in drawing attention to the fact you are feeling awkward and nervous and your audience will begin looking for this, rather than focusing on what you are saying.
• Be open to questions . If someone asks a question in the middle of your talk, answer it. If it disrupts your train of thought momentarily, that's ok because your audience will understand. Questions show that the audience is listening with interest and, therefore, should not be regarded as an attack on you, but as a collaborative search for deeper understanding. However, don't engage in an extended conversation with an audience member or the rest of the audience will begin to feel left out. If an audience member persists, kindly tell them that the issue can be addressed after you've completed the rest of your presentation and note to them that their issue may be addressed later in your presentation [it may not be, but at least saying so allows you to move on].
• Be ready to get the discussion going after your presentation . Professors often want a brief discussion to take place after a presentation. Just in case nobody has anything to say or no one asks any questions, be prepared to ask your audience some provocative questions or bring up key issues for discussion.

Amirian, Seyed Mohammad Reza and Elaheh Tavakoli. “Academic Oral Presentation Self-Efficacy: A Cross-Sectional Interdisciplinary Comparative Study.” Higher Education Research and Development 35 (December 2016): 1095-1110; Balistreri, William F. “Giving an Effective Presentation.” Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 35 (July 2002): 1-4; Creating and Using Overheads. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Enfield, N. J. How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation . New York: Basic Books, 2017; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations. Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.

Speaking Tip

Your First Words are Your Most Important Words!

Your introduction should begin with something that grabs the attention of your audience, such as, an interesting statistic, a brief narrative or story, or a bold assertion, and then clearly tell the audience in a well-crafted sentence what you plan to accomplish in your presentation. Your introductory statement should be constructed so as to invite the audience to pay close attention to your message and to give the audience a clear sense of the direction in which you are about to take them.

Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015.

Another Speaking Tip

Talk to Your Audience, Don't Read to Them!

A presentation is not the same as reading a prepared speech or essay. If you read your presentation as if it were an essay, your audience will probably understand very little about what you say and will lose their concentration quickly. Use notes, cue cards, or presentation slides as prompts that highlight key points, and speak to your audience . Include everyone by looking at them and maintaining regular eye-contact [but don't stare or glare at people]. Limit reading text to quotes or to specific points you want to emphasize.

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How to deliver an oral presentation

Georgina wellstead.

a Lister Hospital, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

Katharine Whitehurst

b Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital

Buket Gundogan

c University College London

d Guy's St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Delivering an oral presentation in conferences and meetings can seem daunting. However, if delivered effectively, it can be an invaluable opportunity to showcase your work in front of peers as well as receive feedback on your project. In this “How to” article, we demonstrate how one can plan and successfully deliver an engaging oral presentation.

Giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference is an almost inevitable task at some point during your medical career. The prospect of presenting your original work to colleagues and peers, however, may be intimidating, and it can be difficult to know how to approach it. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that although daunting, an oral presentation is one of the best ways to get your work out there, and so should be looked upon as an exciting and invaluable opportunity.

Slide content

Although things may vary slightly depending on the type of research you are presenting, the typical structure is as follows:

• Opening slide (title of study, authors, institutions, and date)
• Methodology
• Discussion (including strengths and weaknesses of the study)

Conclusions

Picking out only the most important findings to include in your presentation is key and will keep it concise and easy to follow. This in turn will keep your viewers engaged, and more likely to understand and remember your presentation.

Psychological analysis of PowerPoint presentations, finds that 8 psychological principles are often violated 1 . One of these was the limited capacity of working memory, which can hold 4 units of information at any 1 time in most circumstances. Hence, too many points or concepts on a slide could be detrimental to the presenter’s desire to give information.

You can also help keep your audience engaged with images, which you can talk around, rather than lots of text. Video can also be useful, for example, a surgical procedure. However, be warned that IT can let you down when you need it most and you need to have a backup plan if the video fails. It’s worth coming to the venue early and testing it and resolving issues beforehand with the AV support staff if speaking at a conference.

Slide design and layout

It is important not to clutter your slides with too much text or too many pictures. An easy way to do this is by using the 5×5 rule. This means using no more than 5 bullet points per slide, with no more than 5 words per bullet point. It is also good to break up the text-heavy slides with ones including diagrams or graphs. This can also help to convey your results in a more visual and easy-to-understand way.

It is best to keep the slide design simple, as busy backgrounds and loud color schemes are distracting. Ensure that you use a uniform font and stick to the same color scheme throughout. As a general rule, a light-colored background with dark-colored text is easier to read than light-colored text on a dark-colored background. If you can use an image instead of text, this is even better.

A systematic review study of expert opinion papers demonstrates several key recommendations on how to effectively deliver medical research presentations 2 . These include:

• Keeping your slides simple
• Knowing your audience (pitching to the right level)
• Making eye contact
• Rehearsing the presentation
• Do not read from the slides
• Limiting the number of lines per slide
• Sticking to the allotted time

You should practice your presentation before the conference, making sure that you stick to the allocated time given to you. Oral presentations are usually short (around 8–10 min maximum), and it is, therefore, easy to go under or over time if you have not rehearsed. Aiming to spend around 1 minute per slide is usually a good guide. It is useful to present to your colleagues and seniors, allowing them to ask you questions afterwards so that you can be prepared for the sort of questions you may get asked at the conference. Knowing your research inside out and reading around the subject is advisable, as there may be experts watching you at the conference with more challenging questions! Make sure you re-read your paper the day before, or on the day of the conference to refresh your memory.

It is useful to bring along handouts of your presentation for those who may be interested. Rather than printing out miniature versions of your power point slides, it is better to condense your findings into a brief word document. Not only will this be easier to read, but you will also save a lot of paper by doing this!

Delivering the presentation

Having rehearsed your presentation beforehand, the most important thing to do when you get to the conference is to keep calm and be confident. Remember that you know your own research better than anyone else in the room! Be sure to take some deep breaths and speak at an appropriate pace and volume, making good eye contact with your viewers. If there is a microphone, don’t keep turning away from it as the audience will get frustrated if your voice keeps cutting in and out. Gesturing and using pointers when appropriate can be a really useful tool, and will enable you to emphasize your important findings.

Presenting tips

• Do not hide behind the computer. Come out to the center or side and present there.
• Maintain eye contact with the audience, especially the judges.
• Remember to pause every so often.
• Don’t clutter your presentation with verbal noise such as “umm,” “like,” or “so.” You will look more slick if you avoid this.
• Rhetorical questions once in a while can be useful in maintaining the audience’s attention.

When reaching the end of your presentation, you should slow down in order to clearly convey your key points. Using phases such as “in summary” and “to conclude” often prompts those who have drifted off slightly during your presentation start paying attention again, so it is a critical time to make sure that your work is understood and remembered. Leaving up your conclusions/summary slide for a short while after stopping speaking will give the audience time to digest the information. Conclude by acknowledging any fellow authors or assistants before thanking the audience for their attention and inviting any questions (as long as you have left sufficient time).

If asked a question, firstly thank the audience member, then repeat what they have asked to the rest of the listeners in case they didn’t hear the first time. Keep your answers short and succinct, and if unsure say that the questioner has raised a good point and that you will have to look into it further. Having someone else in the audience write down the question is useful for this.

The key points to remember when preparing for an oral presentation are:

• Keep your slides simple and concise using the 5×5 rule and images.
• When appropriate; rehearse timings; prepare answers to questions; speak slowly and use gestures/ pointers where appropriate; make eye contact with the audience; emphasize your key points at the end; make acknowledgments and thank the audience; invite questions and be confident but not arrogant.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no financial conflict of interest with regard to the content of this report.

Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.

Published online 8 June 2017

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How to Give an Oral Report

Last Updated: February 1, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a private tutor in San Carlos, California. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 69,807 times.

While the topic, content, and environment in which oral reports are given widely varies, there are some common steps you can take that will ensure you’re ready to give for an oral report of any type. After assembling the proper materials, practice extensively and edit as you develop the report to convey your points concisely. With a bit of preparation and a healthy amount of practice, you can give your report with both clarity and confidence.

Finding and Assembling Material for an Oral Report

• Initially, you just want to familiarize yourself with the topic. Most Wikipedia articles do a great job of including both the important facts and the tantalizing points of interest.
• Keep in mind that many teachers and professors won't accept Wikipedia as an academic source. These articles are great for familiarizing yourself with a topic. Once you know the basics, though, you will need to use sources such as books and journals for citations.

• Double check any sources you're unsure of or intend to rely upon heavily.

• Most of the content generated by Google Scholar will be firsthand research publications, which are the strongest form of reference there is.
• Don’t fall for the temptation to pepper your audience with as much info as you can fit into the presentation.
• Emphasize the one or two key elements of your presentation, and include further material only insofar as it supports those points.

• In particular, think about what a good entry point to the content of your report may be, considering your audience.
• Write down three different opening points, based on what will generate the interest of those you’re speaking to.

• For instance: “Hello, my name is __________, and today I’ll be talking about __________. My intention is to [share with / inform / convince] you [about / that] ____________. I will do so by first _______, then ________, and wrapping up with _________.”

• If you encounter a roadblock when organizing your material, think about what approach will most likely be understood by your audience.
• In general, address your simplest and most basic arguments first, and then move into your more complex arguments.

• You should verbally cite your sources if you followed their reasoning closely or if your report was based mostly on one or two sources.

Practicing and Fine-Tuning Your Oral Report

• Summarize subsidiary points into one word, if possible. This will ensure you do not forget them, but will also not be sidetracked by focusing too much on a tangential point.
• Include hard facts and statistics in your notecards too, especially numerical data, as it is beneficial to have these on hand for immediate reference.

• Save nuanced dialogue for a question and answer session, if one will be allowed. Hint at controversial or otherwise commonly contended points, and anticipate addressing at least one additional response to such a challenge if it is raised.

• While practicing, stick to the material you’ve included – tangents are confusing for the audience and will eat your time more quickly than you realize.

• As an example, a 10-minute oral report should be practiced to the point you can give it in 9 to 9.5 minutes.
• With such a time allotment, spend a maximum of 1 minute on your introduction, with 7 to 7.5 minutes on the body of your report, and 1 to 1.5 minutes left to conclude.

• Decide which visuals best suit your presentation based on their ability to support what you’re saying verbally.
• Try to keep your visuals clean and professional. An overabundance of colors, font styles, or showy effects and animations can distract from your presentation.
• In the visuals that you do include, default towards simplicity. If you’re including a graph, for instance, only plot the data and include the labels necessary to make your point, along with the source for the graph or data used.

• For a scripted oral presentation, know that a 10-minute presentation will likely run from 900 to 1200 words.

Giving Your Report with Clarity and Confidence

• Make sure your body language reflects engagement and enthusiasm by standing up straight and holding still, though comfortably so.
• Another benefit of making eye contact is that this allows you to gauge your audience. If faces are starting to go blank: slow down, speak more loudly, and give more illustrative examples of the points you’re making.

• If you’re nervous, you may wind up speaking too quickly or too softly without thinking about it. Stay aware of your voice and the speed with which you’re speaking.
• Smile. Not only will this help engage your audience, it’ll help calm you down!

• Try to prepare for questions in advance. Look over your report and find points of confusion and possible counter-arguments. Draw up a few points relevant to your anticipated questions so that you'll have them ready the day of your presentation.
• If, for example, you're presenting on financial planning to a group of college students, it's likely that many but not all of them will understand the difference between a 401(k) and an IRA. Write a notecard with the definitions of each just in case you get a question asking for clarification.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://www.gvsu.edu/ours/oral-presentation-tips-30.htm
• ↑ https://library.shsu.edu/research/guides/tutorials/googlescholar/index.html
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1857815/
• ↑ https://chem.duke.edu/undergraduate/oral-reports
• ↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/oralcommunication/guides/introductions-and-conclusions
• ↑ https://www.uow.edu.au/student/learning-co-op/assessments/presentations/
• ↑ https://urca.msu.edu/orals
• ↑ https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/think-pair-share
• ↑ https://www.uis.edu/ion/resources/oiai/oral-reports

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Oral Presentations Purpose

An Oral Research Presentation is meant to showcase your research findings. A successful oral research presentation should: communicate the importance of your research; clearly state your findings and the analysis of those findings; prompt discussion between researcher and audience.  Below you will find information on how to create and give a successful oral presentation.  

Creating an Effective Presentation

Who has a harder job the speaker? Or, the audience?

Most people think speaker has the hardest job during an oral presentation, because they are having to stand up in a room full of people and give a presentation. However, if the speaker is not engaging and if the material is way outside of the audiences knowledge level, the audience can have a difficult job as well. Below you will find some tips on how to be an effective presenter and how to engage with your audience.

Organization of a Presentation  

Introduction/Beginning

How are you going to begin?  How are you going to get the attention of your audience? You need to take the time and think about how you are going to get started!

Here are some ways you could start:

• Ask the audience a question
• make a statement
• show them something

No matter how you start your presentation it needs to relate to your research and capture the audiences attention.  

Preview what you are going to discuss .  Audiences do not like to be manipulated or tricked. Tell the audience exactly what you are going to discuss, this will help them follow along.  *Do not say you are going to cover three points and then try to cover 8 points.

At the end of your introduction, the audience should feel like they know exactly what you are going to  discuss and exactly how you are going to get there.  

Body/Middle

Conclusion/End

Delivery and Communication

Eye Contact

Making eye contact is a great way to engage with your audience.  Eye contact should be no longer than 2-3 seconds per person.  Eye contact for much longer than that can begin to make the audience member feel uncomfortable.

Smiling lets attendees know you are happy to be there and that you are excited to talk with them about your project.

We all know that body language says a lot, so here are some things you should remember when giving your presentation.

• Stand with both feet on the floor, not with one foot crossed over the other. 
• Do not stand with your hands in your pockets, or with your arms crossed.
• Stand tall with confidence and own your space (remember you are the expert).  

Abbreviated Notes

Having a written set of notes or key points that you want to address can help prevent you from reading the poster. 

Speak Clearly

Sometimes when we get nervous we begin to talk fast and blur our words.  It is important that you make sure every word is distinct and clear. A great way to practice your speech is to say tongue twisters. 

Ten tiny tots tottered toward the shore

Literally literary. Literally literary.  Literally literary.

Sally soon saw that she should sew some sheets.

Avoid Fillers

Occasionally we pick up fillers that we are not aware of, such as um, like, well, etc. One way to get rid of fillers is to have a friend listen to your speech and every time you say a "filler" have that friend tap you on the arm or say your name.  This will bring the filler to light, then you can practice avoiding that filler.

Manage Anxiety

Many people get nervous when they are about to speak to a crowd of people.  Below are ways that you can manage your anxiety levels. 

• Practice, Practice, Practice - the more prepared you are the less nervous you will be.
• Recognize that anxiety is just a big shot of adrenalin.
• Take deep breaths before your presentation to calm you down. 

Components of an Oral Research Presentation

Introduction

The introduction section of your oral presentation should consist of 3 main parts.  

Part 1: Existing facts

In order to give audience members the "full picture", you first need to provide them with information about past research.  What facts already exist? What is already known about your research area?

Part 2: Shortcomings

Once you have highlighted past research and existing facts. You now need to address what is left to be known, or what shortcomings exist within the current information.  This should set the groundwork for your experiment.  Keep in mind, how does your research fill these gaps or help address these questions? 

Part 3: Purpose or Hypothesis

After you have addressed past/current research and have identified shortcomings/gaps, it is now time to address your research.  During this portion of the introduction you need to tell viewers why you are conducting your research experiement/study, and what you hope to accomplish by doing so. 

In this section you should share with your audience how you went about collecting and analyzing your data

Should include:

• Participants: Who or what was in the study?
• Materials/ measurements: what did you measure?
• Procedures: How did you do the study?
• Data-analysis: What analysis were conducted? 

This section contains FACTS – with no opinion, commentary or interpretation. Graphs, charts and images can be used to display data in a clear and organized way.  

Keep in mind when making figures:

• Make sure axis, treatments, and data sets are clearly labeled
• Strive for simplicity, especially in figure titles. 
• Know when to use what kind of graph
• Be careful with colors.

Interpretation and commentary takes place here. This section should give a clear summary of your findings. 

You should:

• Address the positive and negative aspects of you research
• Discuss how and if your research question was answered. 
• Highlight the novel and important findings
• Speculate on what could be occurring in your system 

Future Research

• State your goals
• Include information about why you believe research should go in the direction you are proposing
• Discuss briefly how you plan to implement the research goals, if you chose to do so.  

Why include References?

• It allows viewers to locate the material that you used, and can help viewers expand their knowledge of your research topic.  
• Indicates that you have conducted a thorough review of the literature and conducted your research from an informed perspective.
• Guards you against intellectual theft.  Ideas are considered intellectual property failure to cite someone's ideas can have serious consequences. 

Acknowledgements

This section is used to thank the people, programs and funding agencies that allowed you to perform your research.

Questions 

Allow for about 2-3 minutes at the end of your presentation for questions. 

It is important to be prepared. 

• Know why you conducted the study
• Be prepared to answer questions about why you chose a specific methodology

If you DO NOT know the answer to a question

Visual Aids

PowerPoints and other visual aids can be used to support what you are presenting about.

Power Point Slides and other visual aids can help support your presentation, however there are some things you should consider: 

• Do not overdo it . One big mistake that presenters make is they have  a slide for every single item they want to say. One way you can avoid this is by writing your presentation in Word first, instead of making a Power Point Presentation. By doing this you can type exactly what you want to say, and once your presentation is complete, you can create Power Point slides that help support your presentation. ​

Formula for number of visual aids : Length of presentation divided by 2 plus 1

example: 12 minute presentation should have no more than 7 slides.

• Does it add interest? 
• Does it prove? 
• Does it clarify?
• Do not read the text . Most people can read, and if they have the option of reading material themselves versus listen to you read it, they are going to read it themselves and then your voice becomes an annoyance. Also, when you are reading the text you are probably not engaging with the audience. 
• No more than 4-6 lines on a slide and no more than 4-6 words in a line.
• People should be able to read your slide in 6 seconds.
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24 Oral Presentations

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. This is usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a power point. Students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.

For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, entertain, persuade the audience, or educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on their capacity to speak and deliver relevant information within a set timeframe. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

• Breathe and remember that everyone gets nervous when speaking in public. You are in control. You’ve got this!
• Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
• Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
• Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
• Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?

Group Presentation

• All of the above applies, however you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
• Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
• Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
• Also consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. This will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group, however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
• Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining power point slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of power point slides) for the whole group. Take turns presenting information and ideas.
• Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
• Rehearse as a group, more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.
• For further information on working as a group see:

Working as a group – my.UQ – University of Queensland

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics, do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down as demonstrated in Chapter 17 Breaking Down an Assignment. Where it differs from writing an essay is that the information in the written speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept or new information you write, think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a power point slide. After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the power point. Your presentation skills are being evaluated; this may include a small percentage for the actual visual aid. This is also why it is important that EVERYONE has a turn at speaking during the presentation, as each person receives their own individual grade.

Using Visual Aids

A whole chapter could be written about the visual aids alone, therefore I will simply refer to the key points as noted by my.UQ

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

• any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point).
• Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
• if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

• Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

• support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
• are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the power point file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
• you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
• suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

This is a general guide. The specific requirements for your course may be different. Make sure you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive power point though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

• Rehearse with the power point.
• Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
• Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
• Don’t let the power point just be something happening in the background while you speak.
• Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
• Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication are the ways that we communicate without speaking. Many people are already aware of this, however here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Fake it until you make it.

• Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence.
• Move! When you’re glued to one spot as a presenter, you’re not perceived as either confident or dynamic. Use the available space effectively, though do not exaggerate your natural movements so you look ridiculous.
• If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to constantly wave them around. They detract from your message. Occasional gestures are fine.
• Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, for example, constantly touching or ‘finger-combing’ your hair, rubbing your face.
• Avoid ‘voice fidgets’ also. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
• Avoid distractions. No phone turned on. Water available but off to one side.
• Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members; this can be intimidating.
• Have a cheerful demeaner. You do not need to grin like a Cheshire cat throughout the presentation, yet your facial expression should be relaxed and welcoming.
• Maintain an engaging TONE in your voice. Sometimes it’s not what you’re saying that is putting your audience to sleep, it’s your monotonous tone. Vary your tone and pace.
• Don’t read your presentation – PRESENT it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
• Lastly, make good eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

• Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

communication of thought by word

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Oral Presentation Structure

Finally, presentations normally include interaction in the form of questions and answers. This is a great opportunity to provide whatever additional information the audience desires. For fear of omitting something important, most speakers try to say too much in their presentations. A better approach is to be selective in the presentation itself and to allow enough time for questions and answers and, of course, to prepare well by anticipating the questions the audience might have.

As a consequence, and even more strongly than papers, presentations can usefully break the chronology typically used for reporting research. Instead of presenting everything that was done in the order in which it was done, a presentation should focus on getting a main message across in theorem-proof fashion — that is, by stating this message early and then presenting evidence to support it. Identifying this main message early in the preparation process is the key to being selective in your presentation. For example, when reporting on materials and methods, include only those details you think will help convince the audience of your main message — usually little, and sometimes nothing at all.

The opening

• The context as such is best replaced by an attention getter , which is a way to both get everyone's attention fast and link the topic with what the audience already knows (this link provides a more audience-specific form of context).
• The object of the document is here best called the preview because it outlines the body of the presentation. Still, the aim of this element is unchanged — namely, preparing the audience for the structure of the body.
• The opening of a presentation can best state the presentation's main message , just before the preview. The main message is the one sentence you want your audience to remember, if they remember only one. It is your main conclusion, perhaps stated in slightly less technical detail than at the end of your presentation.

In other words, include the following five items in your opening: attention getter , need , task , main message , and preview .

Even if you think of your presentation's body as a tree, you will still deliver the body as a sequence in time — unavoidably, one of your main points will come first, one will come second, and so on. Organize your main points and subpoints into a logical sequence, and reveal this sequence and its logic to your audience with transitions between points and between subpoints. As a rule, place your strongest arguments first and last, and place any weaker arguments between these stronger ones.

The closing

After supporting your main message with evidence in the body, wrap up your oral presentation in three steps: a review , a conclusion , and a close . First, review the main points in your body to help the audience remember them and to prepare the audience for your conclusion. Next, conclude by restating your main message (in more detail now that the audience has heard the body) and complementing it with any other interpretations of your findings. Finally, close the presentation by indicating elegantly and unambiguously to your audience that these are your last words.

Starting and ending forcefully

Revealing your presentation's structure.

To be able to give their full attention to content, audience members need structure — in other words, they need a map of some sort (a table of contents, an object of the document, a preview), and they need to know at any time where they are on that map. A written document includes many visual clues to its structure: section headings, blank lines or indentations indicating paragraphs, and so on. In contrast, an oral presentation has few visual clues. Therefore, even when it is well structured, attendees may easily get lost because they do not see this structure. As a speaker, make sure you reveal your presentation's structure to the audience, with a preview , transitions , and a review .

The preview provides the audience with a map. As in a paper, it usefully comes at the end of the opening (not too early, that is) and outlines the body, not the entire presentation. In other words, it needs to include neither the introduction (which has already been delivered) nor the conclusion (which is obvious). In a presentation with slides, it can usefully show the structure of the body on screen. A slide alone is not enough, however: You must also verbally explain the logic of the body. In addition, the preview should be limited to the main points of the presentation; subpoints can be previewed, if needed, at the beginning of each main point.

Transitions are crucial elements for revealing a presentation's structure, yet they are often underestimated. As a speaker, you obviously know when you are moving from one main point of a presentation to another — but for attendees, these shifts are never obvious. Often, attendees are so involved with a presentation's content that they have no mental attention left to guess at its structure. Tell them where you are in the course of a presentation, while linking the points. One way to do so is to wrap up one point then announce the next by creating a need for it: "So, this is the microstructure we observe consistently in the absence of annealing. But how does it change if we anneal the sample at 450°C for an hour or more? That's my next point. Here is . . . "

Similarly, a review of the body plays an important double role. First, while a good body helps attendees understand the evidence, a review helps them remember it. Second, by recapitulating all the evidence, the review effectively prepares attendees for the conclusion. Accordingly, make time for a review: Resist the temptation to try to say too much, so that you are forced to rush — and to sacrifice the review — at the end.

Ideally, your preview, transitions, and review are well integrated into the presentation. As a counterexample, a preview that says, "First, I am going to talk about . . . , then I will say a few words about . . . and finally . . . " is self-centered and mechanical: It does not tell a story. Instead, include your audience (perhaps with a collective we ) and show the logic of your structure in view of your main message.

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Chapter 12: Oral Reports

Katrina Peterson

Chapter Synopsis

This chapter shares basic principles for the preparation and delivery of oral reports. It gives an overview of expected structural conventions: how to set up an introduction, body, and conclusion. Since presentations often include a visual component, the chapter offers guidelines for creating an effective PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. It includes tips for developing effective slides, while acknowledging the drawbacks of presentation software. It also offers suggestions to help speakers prepare well, overcome anxiety, and consider their speaking context. The chapter concludes with thoughts on presentation delivery.

12.1 Introduction to Oral Presentations

Increasingly, employers report that they require excellent communication skills, not just in print but also in person. Your employer will likely call on you to deliver an oral report at some point in your career. Whether you are an engineer or a writer, a professional or a student, a business person or a scientist, you will need to communicate well with supervisors, colleagues, clients, and the public. For most, this includes at least an occasional formal presentation. Formal presentations in the workplace usually take one of three forms: 1) informational, 2) persuasive, or 3) instructional. Informational presentations are useful for reporting on research or giving a project update. Persuasive presentations can be used to make pitches to clients or supervisors. Instructional or how-to presentations are formatted to teach, explain, or train.  In each instance, you will have a chance to showcase your skills, often hybridizing or combining different modes of communication based on your past training. For example, a how-to presentation would connect your ability to write clear technical instructions with your ability to present well. Your goal as a speaker will differ based on context, but the best presentations share certain characteristics that you will want to consider.

In technical presentations, like most other genres of technical communication, good visual information design is essential. (See Chapter 5 on document design for additional tips and guidelines.) Visual aids are useful for increasing audience understanding of both the subject and the organization of a presentation. Presenters should remember they have an array of options for visuals, from live demonstrations and interactive activities to old fashioned white boards; however, presentation software is the most commonly used option. Of the presentation software choices, PowerPoint is widely used in the workplace and in educational settings. Other software like Prezi or Google Slides are becoming more popular and present may of the same opportunities and challenges.  As you think through your options, be aware that each choice has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, PowerPoint can be a very effective tool for students and professionals if used appropriately, but effective use of this tool is not as intuitive as one would think. The following sections will help you to structure your presentation well and to consider the pros and cons of each design choice.

12.2 Presentation Structure

A clear presentation structure is an essential aspect of speech preparation. Similar to the academic essay and other genres of writing, a speech has three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Each of these three parts includes certain patterns or rhetorical moves that the speaker should incorporate.

When structuring your presentation, it may be helpful to first draft an outline. This method enables you to determine essential content and main points, while excluding information that is not strictly relevant to your big-picture goals. You have different options to ensure that all the essentials are included; for example, you can place your major points on slides and then illustrate with examples you have prepared. Other options include carrying notecards or an outline to the podium, depending on the setup.

As you make these decisions, always consider who you are as a speaker, or your unique speaking style and challenges. If your hands tend to shake a bit, it may be helpful to hold something to steady them, but if you are concerned about the possibility of holding multiple materials (and possibly dropping them), you can confine memory aids to a single sheet of paper. It may be wise to carry a brief outline of major points with you to offset the possibility of omitting important information. This strategy also helps to avoid losing main points in the case of a technology malfunction if you will be referencing slides.

Introduction Introductions and conclusions are points of emphasis; psychologically speaking, we tend to remember information presented first and last more clearly than information that is buried in the middle. The first words you say will also set the tone for the rest of your speech. There may not be any one best way to start a speech, but the following are some helpful guidelines that will make starting a speech much easier.

Perhaps most importantly, capture the audience’s attention as you introduce the topic. If you do not engage the audience at the outset, it will become more difficult to do so as you continue speaking. Starting a speech with “Hey everybody. I’m going to talk to you today about soccer” already sounds boring and will not engage audience members who are not soccer fans. If your audience has deemed your speech to be boring, trying to inform, persuade, or entertain them becomes exponentially more difficult. Instead, consider utilizing some of the techniques suggested below.

When selecting an opener, you want to make sure that the option you choose is appropriate and relevant to your specific audience. Different audiences will have different backgrounds and knowledge, so you should first determine whether specific information you plan on using would be appropriate for them. For example, if you are giving a speech on family units to a group of individuals over the age of 65, starting your speech with a reference to the television show Gossip Girl may not be the best idea because the audience may be unfamiliar with that show. Also choose an attention-getting device appropriate for your speech topic. Ideally, your attention-getting device should have a relevant connection to your speech.

For easy reference, here are some common devices used as speech openers:

•   An anecdote or reference to current events engages an audience with a brief account or story. Notice the emphasis here is on the word “brief.” A common mistake speakers make when telling an anecdote is to make it too long. The anecdote should be short and have a clear point. For example, consider this attention getter for a persuasive speech on frivolous lawsuits: “On January 10 of this year, Scott Anthony Gomez, Jr., and a fellow inmate escaped from a Pueblo, Colorado, jail. During their escape the duo attempted to rappel from the roof of the jail using a makeshift ladder of bed sheets. During Gomez’s attempt to scale the building, he slipped, fell forty feet, and injured his back. Gomez then filed a lawsuit against the jail for making it too easy for him to attempt an escape.” In this case, the speaker is highlighting a news event that illustrates what a frivolous lawsuit is, setting up the speech topic about a need for change in how such lawsuits are handled. Your speech topic is the purpose of the attention getter, not the other way around, so be sure to avoid any material that seems overly personal or does not fit the subject.
• A startling statement/statistic/fact can engage your audience with relevant information about your topic. If your speech is about oil conservation, you could start by saying, “A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel.” A speech on the psychology of dreams might begin with this thought: “The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.” Although startling statements are fun, it is important to use them ethically. (See Chapter 4 on ethics for more information on ethics and professional communication.) Make sure that your opening statement is factual. The internet is full of startling claims that are simply not accurate, so when you find a statement you would like to use, you have an ethical duty to ascertain its truth (and cite it correctly) before you use it.
• A rhetorical question may be a good way to draw your audience into your topic. For example, a speaker talking about the history of Mother’s Day could start by asking the audience, “Do you remember the last time you told your mom you loved her?” In this case, the speaker does not expect the audience to shout out an answer, but rather to think about the question as the speech continues.
• A direct reference to your audience may be an excellent method to engage them. Your audience is the single most important factor is crafting your speech, so it makes sense that you might acknowledge them in some way. Here is an example: “As students at Oklahoma State, you and I know the importance of selecting a major. In today’s competitive world, we need to choose a major that will lead to employment and provide us with fulfilling careers. That’s why I want you all to consider majoring in communication.” In this example, the speaker reminds the audience of their shared status as Oklahoma State students and uses this common ground to acknowledge the importance of selecting a major.
• An opening quotation is another way to capture your listeners’ attention. Maybe you will find an interesting quotation in one of the articles or books you read while researching your speech. Quotations may add an element of fun to a speech: “As the late actress, fashion icon, and social activist Audrey Hepburn once noted, ‘Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m possible’!” As with this example, be sure to credit the source first if you use a quotation as your attention getter.
• Humor can be a great way to engage an audience, but it is a double-edged sword. If you do not wield the sword carefully, you can lose your audience very quickly. One of the biggest mistakes a speaker can make is to use some form of humor that the audience either does not find funny or, worse, finds offensive. Think about how incompetent the character of Michael Scott seems on the television program The Office, in part because of his ineffective use of humor. As with other attention-getting devices, your humor must be relevant to your topic and must respect your audience’s sensitivities.

This list of opening devices represents a starting point for beginning your speech. As indicated, your selection of attention getter is not only dependent on your audience, your topic, and the occasion, but also on your preferences and skills as a speaker.

Body As with the other sections of the presentation, keep in mind the importance of audience engagement. In general, the more interactive the presentation, the better; the more you know your audience, the better. Remember that each person’s learning style differs from the next, so do your best to engage your audience in different ways, possibly by including details that appeal to the five senses (sensory details). You might also include audio, tactile, and/or kinesthetic components in addition to your chosen visual.

With experience, you will learn to gauge your audience’s level of engagement and make small adjustments that help them to stay involved. Depending on context, it may be appropriate to include some movement; perhaps you ask your audience to engage with one another in small groups, which causes a small spatial shift, or perhaps you yourself take a few steps closer to a whiteboard. Integrating props or relevant hand gestures may achieve a similar effect. Our eyes naturally follow movement, so something as simple as walking across the room can serve to include more members of the audience and help them to re-engage. The techniques you can employ within the body of a presentation are many and various, but as above all, know yourself and know your audience. (See Chapter 2 for additional information on audience.)

Conclusion The conclusion has three specific elements that you will want to incorporate. Given the nature of these elements and what they do, these should generally be incorporated into your conclusion in the order they are presented below.

• Signal the end. A good conclusion should clearly signal the end of a speech. You may be thinking that telling an audience you are about to end is a no brainer, but many speakers do not prepare their audience for their conclusion. When a speaker just suddenly stops speaking, the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead, give listeners a clear signal so that they can mentally organize and catalog all the points you have made for further consideration later.

Generally, the easiest way to forecast the end of your speech is to include a verbal signal that is meta-discursive (or self-referential in some sense, referring back to the speech itself). Within a public speaking context, periodic meta-discursive references help an audience to track a speaker’s progress from introduction to conclusion. Common formulations include phrasings like in conclusion, in summary, and to conclude. Depending on your audience, you may choose a more conversational or creative method of signaling; you will want to make sure that the framing does not sound too cliché. You have  many options, but it should be clear to everyone that you are about to conclude. Also be aware that some of the common formulations (and saying them more than once) can have an unintended negative effect. The audience may decide you are finished and tune out, like how movie-goers get up and leave during the credits in a movie. If this is a concern, you can instead go straight to the summary explained further below.

• Restate main points. In the introduction of a speech you delivered a preview of your main points; in the conclusion you will likely deliver a review. Repetition is especially important in oral communication; include planned redundancy, but avoid being overly redundant. Just as you discussed and made transitions to your main points during the body of the speech, be sure to review the main points in the conclusion. These steps increase the likelihood that the audience will retain your main points after the speech is over.

As you review, avoid introducing new material or ideas. For example, if you said, “There are several other issues related to this topic, such as…but I don’t have time for them,” the audience may wonder why you did not address those in the body section. If you were giving a persuasive speech on wind energy and ended with “wind energy is the energy of the future, but there are still a few problems with it, such as noise and killing lots of birds,” you are bringing up a counter-argument that should have been dealt with in the body of the speech. The conclusion is not the place for new material.

• Include a clincher. The third element of your conclusion is the clincher, a memorable ending sometimes referred to as a concluding device. Make these words count, since they are the last you will include in the speech. In a sense, you could think of your speech as a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant: the introduction is the appetizer that gets everyone ready for the main course, the body section is the “meat and vegetables,” and the conclusion is like dessert. But have you ever had a nice meal that ended with an unappetizing dessert? Regardless of how good the rest of the meal was, you probably walked away with a negative final impression.

The clincher is like the inverse of the attention-getter. You want to start the speech strong, and you want to end the speech strong. There are a number of ways you can make your clincher strong and memorable. You can conclude with a challenge, or a call to action. In a speech on the necessity of fund-raising, a speaker could challenge the audience to raise 10% more than their original projections. In a speech on eating more vegetables, a speaker could challenge the audience to increase their current intake of vegetables by two portions daily, asking audience members to take a specific action or make a change. Challenges can be aspirational and they can be inspirational, but they should always be reasonable; the audience should see the challenge as attainable.

12.3 Presentation Options

Quite often, you will have to prepare visual materials to accompany your talk. You might prepare handouts, but it is even more probable that you will need to prepare materials that can be projected on a video screen. The classic version of these projected materials is the overhead transparency, a thin sheet of clear plastic that you can run through a laser printer or write on with special markers; this medium is quickly disappearing, although it still surfaces. Sometimes, you might be able to project paper documents to a screen via a document camera, but doc cams are becoming less common, and they can only present static images.

Instead, you will most likely be asked to create a dynamic presentation using software such as PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. Many other programs exist, including what Google has to offer, but these are among the three most common presentation programs. Each program has its own special abilities and strengths; however, they all share common basic principles that you can use to create memorable, effective, and interesting presentations. The following information will help you with selecting an effective presentation format.

Three Major Presentation Formats For a presentation using PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote, you can choose from three general formatting options: 1) bullet points, 2) illustrated points, and 3) speaker’s prop. The format you choose should fit your audience and your presentation’s subject.

Bullet Points. The bullet points format is the default layout for most PowerPoint users and viewers. Slides created in this format commonly include a title across the top and a cascading series of bulleted lines of text inside a slide’s main text box. Here is an example of this kind of slide:

Bullet points format presentations have several benefits. First, they are easy to prepare. (Just type, press Enter for a new line, and hit Tab to create a smaller bullet or Shift+Tab to make a larger bullet.) Secondly, they are useful for highlighting important words or naming concepts that an audience needs to learn. Finally, they project a serious tone and sense of professionalism.

As you consider these options, keep in mind that bullet points format presentations may be boring unless precautions are taken to keep the audience engaged; an overload of words may also make your audience cringe or lose interest. You have probably endured at least one bad PowerPoint in your life, and odds are, that bad presentation used the bullet points format.

Illustrated Points. The illustrated points format is similar, but slides created in this type of presentation focus on pictures, and text appears in a supporting role. An example of this kind of slide appears below.

Illustrated points format slides have several benefits. They are excellent for showing conceptual relationships or demonstrating physical relationships between objects. People often respond positively to pictures, so illustrated points format slides also tend to capture viewers’ interest more than all-text presentations do. These slides require more detailed preparation, however, and they tend to be more visually busy. If your audience has problems concentrating, if you need to highlight important words, or if you need to move quickly through the information on the slides, you may want a more text-based approach. Illustrated points format slides can also be combined with bullet points format slides inside the same presentation.

Speaker’s Prop. The speaker’s prop format is similar to the illustrated points format, but a speaker’s prop almost entirely consists of simple pictures that flash onscreen in rapid sequence. Any text that appears is very short, uses a large font, and only appears for a moment. A speaker’s prop is appropriate for abstract subjects (e.g., the nature of free will), and if it is done well, it can be fascinating and will engage an audience. However, this type of presentation is often more complex and time-consuming to prepare than a presentation in the other formats, and you run the risk of making it so entertaining that the audience may remember the presentation but forget what you said. An example of a speaker’s prop presentation appears in the YouTube video below:

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RrpajcAgR1E ).

Whichever format you choose, remember that the presentation software is your servant; do not let it tell you what to do, and always modify a template to suit your needs. As an excellent example of what not to do, consider Peter Norvig’s classic Gettysburg PowerPoint: ( https://norvig.com/Gettysburg/ ).

It serves as a satirical example of how an excellent speech—in this case, Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, widely considered one of the classic speeches in the English language—can be ruined by using presentation software default settings and following a built-in template without modifying it.

12.4 Slide Design Tips

The guidelines in the design chapter—CRAP in particular—will help you create consistent, helpful, and visually appealing slides. But all the design skill in the world will not help you if your content is not tightly focused, smoothly delivered, and visible. Slides overloaded with text and/or images will strain your audience’s capacity to identify important information. Complex, distracting transitions or confusing (or boring) graphics that are not consistent with your content are worse than no graphics at all. Here are some general tips:

• Think simplicity. Use a small number of high-quality graphics and limit bullet points and text. Also avoid thinking of a slide as a page that your audience should read; instead, elaborate on major points with examples to keep the presentation interesting and pare down text as much as possible. Remember: even if you are presenting a slideshow, you want the audience to pay more attention to your words than to the slides themselves. Too much text will make the audience concentrate on reading slides instead of listening carefully to the verbal information.
• Break up your information. Organize the information into small chunks of text—phrases rather than complete sentences—to make sure your presentation flows well. Some experts recommend having no more than five bullet points per slide. If you do have more than five, you may want to set up the bullet points to appear a few at a time (in order, on separate slides, or in different columns) to avoid the distraction of a longer list.
• Have a consistent visual theme. Some pros advise that you avoid using the stock PowerPoint templates, but the Repetition and Alignment aspects of CRAP are so important that the templates may be your best starting point.
• Choose a simple color scheme. In general, three to six colors should provide variety without overloading readers. Be consistent in how you use the colors. For example, if you use red font for the first 12 slides, you should probably not switch to blue font in the last 12 slides unless there is a clear and logical reason for doing so.
• Choose your font carefully. Make sure the text is readable from a distance in a darkened room. Many guidelines suggest that you use at least a 24-point font. Contrast is also important; place dark font on a light background or vice-versa.
• Practice your presentation. Software is only a tool, and the slide projector is not presenting—you are in charge. Realizing this is half the battle.
• Use graphics. In general, substantive slides should present a graphic that illustrates or supports your main point. Instead of the typical topic and bullet point slide layout, a more effective strategy for PowerPoint presentations slides may involve offering a claim backed by visual support in the form of a photo, graph, illustration, chart, etc.
• Be careful not to overload the slide (with either too much text or too many graphics). There is not necessarily one rule of thumb for how much is too much, but be deliberate with choices.

12.5 Pitfalls of Presentation Software

Since Microsoft introduced PowerPoint in 1990, the conference room has never been the same. Millions were amazed by the speed with which a marketing professional or an academic could put together a consistent, professional-looking slide presentation. And then . . .

At some point, somebody with critical thinking skills asked a great question: “Do we really need all these slide shows?” The stock images of arrows, business people in suits, stick figures scratching their heads, and the glowing, jewel-toned backgrounds eventually looked tired and failed to evoke the “wow” reaction presenters desired.

Microsoft is attempting to refresh the design options for PowerPoint, and there are dozens of good alternatives, some of them free (Keynote, Slide Bureau, Prezi, SlideRocket, Easel.ly, Emaze, Slidedog). But the fundamental problem remains—text-heavy, unfocused, long presentations are the problem, not the software. If you are sure that a visual presentation will provide something necessary to your audience, keep the number of slides and the amount of text on each slide to a bare minimum. Think of a slide presentation as a way of supporting or augmenting the content in your talk; the slides should not replace your content.

Above all, do not read the slides to your audience, which is considered one of the single most annoying things a presenter can do; it also makes the presenter seem unprepared. Excessively small text and complex visuals (including distracting animations) are also frequently cited as annoyances. Instead, make sure that viewers can read slides easily from the back of the room. Also try to design your slides so that they contain information that your viewers might want to write down. For example, good presentations often contain data points that speakers cannot just rattle off or quick summaries of key concepts that viewers will not be able to make up on the fly. If you cannot explain how the slides add value to your presentation, it might be best to avoid using them altogether.

To get a feel for what may annoy your audience, try Googling “annoying PowerPoint presentations.” Also consider designing your presentation to allow for audience participation instead of passive viewing of a slideshow—a good group activity or a two-way discussion is a far better way to keep an audience engaged than a stale, repetitive set of slides.

In summary, a tool is only as effective as the person using it. Presentation software like PowerPoint does not make students stupid and professors boring; rather, poor use of this tool makes for ineffective presentations and can lead to laziness in both the audience and the presenter. Many of the problems with presentations result from readily accessible tools being used by individuals untrained in rhetorical and visual design. Fortunately, students of technical communication can implement a change of strategy to make presentations more effective.

12.6 Presentation Preparation

Research shows that public speaking rates among people’s top fears; some surveys suggest that it ranks above fear of surgery, or even death. Why do so many people dislike public speaking? This is a complex question, and the answer is tied to factors both personal and psychological, ranging from past experience and training to culture and context. The term glossophobia combines the Greek words for “tongue” and “fear or dread” to reference a severe fear of public speaking. People who suffer from glossophobia tend to freeze in front audiences. This fear may surface in situations such as responding to a professor in class or having to interact with a stranger, not just giving formal speeches.

Here are some strategies to help overcome anxiety as you prepare for your presentation. In addition to planning the details of content and delivery, be sure to prepare physically. Adequate sleep and rest are crucial. You might be thinking such a thing is impossible in college or in a demanding full-time job, where sleep deprivation and late nights come with the territory. However, research shows the extreme effects a lifestyle of limited sleep can have, far beyond yawning or dozing off in class. Energy levels (and your ability to be alert during the speech) will be affected by lack of sleep.

As you prepare, you may want to eat something that is protein-based before speaking. In other words, cheese or peanut butter on whole grain toast, Greek yogurt, or eggs for breakfast would be preferable to more sugary options. Also wear clothes that are comfortable but meet the context’s formality requirements. Wear the same outfit when you rehearse the presentation so that you will feel comfortable walking and moving in that attire. Comfortable, professional shoes will give you a firm base for your posture. You might consider utilizing some stretching or relaxation techniques that will loosen your limbs or throat. Tightening and stretching your hands, arms, legs, and throat for a few seconds before speaking can help release some of the tension. Also, bring something to drink to prevent dry mouth, and take several deep breaths (to release stress and steady your voice) before climbing on stage. People tend to speak faster and at a higher pitch when they are nervous and giving a presentation. Make an effort to speak at a comfortable pace and avoid letting your voice rise too high. Do not apologize before you give your presentation; being nervous is normal, and although you may feel jittery, chances are your audience will not mind or will not even notice.

Contextual Preparation The more you can know about the venue where you will be speaking, the better. Whenever possible, check out the space in advance. For example, if you were required to give a short talk for a job interview, you would want to know what the room will be like, if there is equipment for projection, how large the audience will be, and how seating will be arranged. Consider practicing your presentation in a room that is similar to the actual space where you will deliver it. The best advice for contextual preparation is to be on time, even early. If you have to rush in at the last minute, it will be difficult to stay calm and focused for the speech. If you are early, you may be able to make sure equipment is working, or even converse with the audience as they enter. Professional speakers often do this to relax themselves, build credibility, and gain knowledge to adapt their presentations to the audience. Being on time will help you create a good first impression and thus enhance your credibility before the actual speech.

Procrastination and Preparedness Procrastination is the great enemy of preparedness. Fluid, articulate public speaking requires repeated practice before the actual delivery. The first time that you say the words should not be when you are in front of your audience. Practicing is the best way to feel confident and in control of the words you speak. As you practice, time yourself to be certain that your speech meets the time limit; speaking within the expected time is a cardinal rule of public speaking. Practice aloud, preferably with someone to listen, while using your visual aids. If you can record yourself in order to analyze gestures and delivery, you will be able to fine-tune and adjust elements of your speaking style. The most effective way to gain a reputation as someone who does not respect an audience (or someone who should not be allowed to run meetings) is to talk longer than the allotted time. Not only will practice help you to feel comfortable with presentation delivery, but it will also ensure that you do not upset your audience by running over the time limit.

Final Note: If you are an audience member, you can help speakers to feel more comfortable, at least a little bit. Be an engaged listener from beginning to end. You can imagine that a speaker is going to be more nervous if the audience looks bored from the start. A speaker with less anxiety will do a better job and be more interesting, so give the speaker your full attention, nod along to main points, ask questions where appropriate, and stay off your phone unless you are using it to take notes.

12.7 Delivery Tips

What follows are some general tips you should keep in mind, but they all essentially derive from one very straight-forward premise: practice your speech beforehand, at home or elsewhere, the way you will give it.

• Practice your speech aloud. This technique enables speakers to learn the words and be prepared, but it also lets them know of any potential problems. Sentences on paper do not always translate when spoken. Practicing out loud allows speakers to identify and fix issues with pronunciation and delivery before getting up in front of the audience.
• Avoid excessive body movements. This includes nervous or unnecessary hand motions, unnecessary tapping of feet or hands, etc. But also avoid standing stock still; some hand gestures can keep the audience engaged.
• Eliminate filler words such as “uh” and “um.” Recording yourself, or asking a friend to listen to your speech, can help you to identify this tendency. In some cases, it may be possible to integrate meaningful pauses in the place of filler words to reduce their frequency.
• Project your voice. Soft-spoken speakers may have to speak louder to ensure that everyone can hear, while avoiding the appearance of shouting or reaching an awkwardly squeaky pitch. If you will be using a microphone, practice in advance how you will hold it and the volume you will use.
• Articulate sentences clearly. Again, be aware of your own tendencies. If you tend to elide words, or if you have a regional accent that differs from your audience’s, you may need to slow down and practice enunciating in a way that sounds natural rather than forced.
• Add inflection and expression. Presenters who speak in a monotone will have difficulty keeping an audience engaged.
• Refuse to become flustered. In many cases, an apology is unnecessary and will only draw undue attention to minor oversights, whether perceived or actual. Instead, take a breath, re-focus, and move on with the speech.
• Make eye contact. If it feels awkward to maintain direct eye contact, look around the room at forehead level, or a point slightly above viewers’ heads, making sure to include the entire audience.
• Maintain an open body posture. Crossed arms, for example, can make a speaker seem closed off to the audience. In contrast, open hand gestures that are not excessive tend to communicate a corresponding openness to audience engagement and ideas.

There is no preset pattern for perfect delivery. However, with practice everyone can improve. For a few additional tips and suggestions, check out this amusing TedX talk on YouTube by Will Stephen:

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o ).

As you practice your presentation skills, remember that each speaker is entirely unique, and we each embody different experiences and interests. This means that all speakers must find their own most effective style.

Attribution

Material in this chapter was adapted from the works listed below. The material was edited for tone, content, and localization.

Exploring Public Speaking ,  by Kris Barton and Barbara G. Tucker, licensed CC-BY-NC-SA .

Technical Writing , by Allison Gross, Annamarie Hamlin, Billy Merck, Chris Rubio, Jodi Naas, Megan Savage and Michele DiSilva, licensed CC-BY-NC-SA .

ENGL 145 Technical and Report Writing ,  by the Bay College Online Learning Department , licensed CC-BY .

Chapter 12: Oral Reports Copyright © 2019 by Katrina Peterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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16 Oral Presentations

Chapter attribution.

David McMurrey and Cassandra Race

Oral Presentations

A common assignment in technical writing courses—not to mention in the workplace—is to prepare and deliver an oral presentation, a task most of us would be happy to avoid. However, while employers look for coursework and experience in preparing written documents,  they also look for experience in oral presentations as well. Look back at the first chapter. Remember how important interpersonal communication skills are in the workplace.

The following was written for a standard face-to-face classroom setting. If you are taking an online technical writing course, oral reports can be sent in as “scripts,” or audio versions can be transmitted live or recorded. In any case, students may evaluate each other’s oral reports by filling out a form like the one provided at the end of this chapter or responding through the discussion board.

If you can believe the research, most people would rather have root canal surgery without novocaine than stand up in front of a group and speak. It truly is one of the great stressors. But with some help from the resources that follow, you can be a champion presenter.

For additional information on oral presentations and public speaking in general, see Effective Presentations . This is part of an online tutorial series provided by Kansas University Medical Center. This section has many resources that will be helpful to you.

Topic and Situation for the Oral Presentation

For the oral report in a technical writing course, imagine that you are formally handing over your final written report to the people with whom you set up the hypothetical contract or agreement. For example, imagine that you had contracted with a software company to write its user guide. Once you had completed it, you’d have a meeting with chief officers to formally deliver the guide. You’d spend some time orienting them to the guide, showing them how it is organized and written, and discussing some of its highlights. Your goal is to get them acquainted with the guide and to prompt them for any concerns or questions. (Your class will gladly pretend to be whoever you tell them to be during your talk.)

As you can see, you shouldn’t have to do any research to prepare for this assignment—just plan the details of your talk and get at least one visual ready. If you have a report topic that you’d prefer not to present orally, discuss other possibilities with your instructor. Here are some brainstorming possibilities in case you want to present something else:

• Informative purpose: An oral report can be primarily informative. For example, as a member of a committee involved in a project to relocate the plant, your job might be to give an oral report on the condition of the building and grounds at one of the sites proposed for purchase. Or, you might be required to go before the city council and report on the success of the new city-sponsored recycling project.
• Instructional purpose: An oral report can be instructional. Your task might be to train new employees to use certain equipment or to perform certain routine tasks.
• Persuasive purpose: An oral report can be persuasive. You might want to convince members of local civic organizations to support a city-wide recycling program. You might appear before the city council to persuade its members to reserve certain city-owned lands for park areas, softball and baseball parks, or community gardens.
• Topics: You can start by thinking of a technical subject, for example, solar panels, microprocessors, drip irrigation, or laser surgery. For your oral report, think of a subject you’d be interested in talking about, but find a reason why an audience would want to hear your oral report.
• Place or situation: You can find topics for oral reports or make more detailed plans for them by thinking about the place or the situation in which your oral report might naturally be given: at a neighborhood association? at the parent–teachers’ association meeting? at a church meeting? at the gardening club? at a city council meeting? at a meeting of the board of directors or high-level executives of a company? Thinking about an oral report this way makes you focus on the audience, their reasons for listening to you, and their interests and background. As in all technical writing situations, identifying and understanding your audience is of the utmost importance.

Content and Requirements for the Oral Presentation

The focus for your oral presentation is clear, understandable presentation; well-organized, well-planned, well-timed discussion. You don’t need to be Mr. or Ms. Slick-Operator—just present the essentials of what you have to say in a calm, organized, well-planned manner.

When you give your oral presentation, we’ll all be listening for the same things. Use the following as a requirements list, as a way of focusing your preparations:

• Situation : Plan to explain to the class what the situation of your oral report is, who you are, and who they should imagine they are. Make sure that there is a clean break between this brief explanation and the beginning of your actual oral report.
• Timing : Make sure your oral report lasts no longer than the time allotted. Your instructor will work out some signals to indicate when the mark is approaching, has arrived, or has passed.
• Indicate the purpose of your oral report
• give an overview of its contents
• find some way to interest the audience
• Visuals : Use at least one visual—preferably slides using presentation software (such as Powerpoint) or transparencies for the overhead projector. Flip charts and objects for display are okay, but avoid scribbling stuff on the chalkboard or whiteboard or relying strictly on handouts. Make sure you discuss key elements of your visuals. Don’t just throw them up there and ignore them. Point out things about them; explain them to the audience.
• Explanation : Plan to explain any technical aspect of your topic clearly and understandably. Don’t race through complex, technical stuff—slow down and explain it carefully so that we understand it.
• Transitions : Use “verbal headings”—by now, you’ve gotten used to using headings in your written work. There is a corollary in oral reports. With these, you give your audience a very clear signal you are moving from one topic or part of your talk to the next  Your presentation visual can signal your headings.
• Planning : Plan your report in advance and practice it so that it is organized. Make sure that listeners know what you are talking about and why, which part of the talk you are in, and what’s coming next. Overviews and verbal headings greatly contribute to this sense of organization.
• summarize (go back over high points of what you’ve discussed)
• conclude (state some logical conclusion based on what you have presented)
• provide some last thought (end with some final interesting point but general enough not to require elaboration)
• or some combination of these three
• Questions : And certainly, you’ll want to prompt the audience for questions and concerns.
• Timing (again) : As mentioned above, be sure your oral report is carefully timed. Some ideas on how to work within an allotted time frame are presented in the next section.

Preparing for the Oral Presentation

Pick the method of preparing for the talk that best suits your comfort level with public speaking and with your topic. However, plan to do ample preparation and rehearsal—some people assume that they can just jump up there and ad-lib for so many minutes and be relaxed and informal. It doesn’t often work that way—drawing a mental blank is the more common experience. A well-delivered presentation is the result of a lot of work and a lot of practice.

Here are the obvious possibilities for preparation and delivery:

• Write a script, practice it; keep it around for quick-reference during your talk.
• Set up an outline of your talk; practice with it, bring it for reference.
• Set up cue cards, practice with them, and use them during your talk.
• Write a script and read from it.

Of course, the extemporaneous or impromptu methods are also out there for the brave and the adventurous. However, please bear in mind that up to 25 people will be listening to you—you owe them a good presentation, one that is clear, understandable, well-planned, organized, and on target with your purpose and audience.

It doesn’t matter which method you use to prepare for the talk, but you want to make sure that you know your material.  The head-down style of reading your report directly from a script has problems. There is little or no eye contact or interaction with the audience. The delivery tends toward a dull, boring monotone that either puts listeners off or is hard to understand. And, most of us cannot stand to have reports read to us!

For many reasons, most people get nervous when they have to give oral presentations. Being well prepared is your best defense against the nerves. Try to remember that your classmates and instructor are a very forgiving, supportive group. You don’t have to be a slick entertainer—just be clear, organized, and understandable. The nerves will wear off someday, the more oral presenting you do. In the meantime, breathe deeply and enjoy.

The following is an example of an introduction to an oral presentation. Use it as a guide for planning your own.

Oral Presentation: Enhancement of the Recycling Program

Valerie and I represent the Austin Coalition for Recycling, a group that was founded in the late 1960s, partly in response to rising utility bills and partly out of a concern for the environment and its resources. High utility bills not only hurt each of us in our pocketbooks but also hurt the quality of life of our city as a whole.

We are all particularly proud of what a fine city we live in and what wonderful citizen involvement there is herein a whole range of civic activities. These things make our city special and ought to be the force that enables us to make a recycling program an integral part of the city’s waste management program. Backed by the City, a new powerful recycling program will contribute enormously to keeping Austin the wonderful place it is.

Valerie and I want to talk to you about how recycling works currently, how it will work once integrated with the city’s waste management program, how this integration will benefit our city, and what you can do to support this plan.

Delivering an Oral Presentation

When you give an oral report, focus on common problem areas such as these:

• Timing —Make sure you keep within the time limit. Finishing more than a minute under the time limit is also a problem. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until you get the timing just right.
• Volume —Obviously, you must be sure to speak loud enough so that all of your audience can hear you. You might find some way to practice speaking a little louder in the days before the oral presentation.
• Pacing, speed —Sometimes, oral presentators who are nervous talk too fast. All that adrenaline causes them to speed through their talk, making it hard for the audience to follow. In general, it helps listeners  understand you better if you speak a bit more slowly and deliberately than you do in normal conversation. Slow down, take it easy, be clear…and breathe.
• Gestures and posture —Watch out for nervous hands flying all over the place. This too can be distracting—and a bit comical. At the same time, don’t turn yourself into a mannequin. Plan to keep your hands clasped together or holding onto the podium and only occasionally making some gesture. Definitely keep your hands out of your pockets or waistband. As for posture, avoid slouching at the podium or leaning against the wall. Stand up straight, and keep your head up.
• Verbal crutches —Watch out for too much “uh,” “you know,” “okay” and other kinds of nervous verbal habits. Instead of saying “uh” or “you know” every three seconds, just don’t say anything at all. In the days before your oral presentation, practice speaking without these verbal crutches. The silence that replaces them is not a bad thing—it gives listeners time to process what you are saying.

The following is an example of how topic headings can make your presentation easy for your listeners to follow.

Excerpt from an oral report

As you can see from the preceding, our fairly average-size city produces a surprisingly large amount of solid waste. What is the cost of getting rid of it? I can tell you from the start that it is not cheap…

The next sentence indicates that the speaker is moving on to a new topic (“cost”).

[discussion of the costs of disposal]

…Not only are the costs of getting rid of our garbage high, as I have shown, but it’s getting harder and harder for city officials to find areas in which to get rid of it. The geographical problems in disposal…

Planning and Preparing Visuals for the Oral Presentation

Prepare at least one visual for this report. Here are some ideas for the “medium” to use for your visuals:

• Presentation software slides —Projecting images (“slides”) using software such as Powerpoint has become the standard, even though maligned by some. One common problem with the construction of these slides is cramming too much information on individual slides. A quick search on terms like Powerpoint presentation will enable you to read about creating these slides and designing them intelligently. Of course, the room in which you use these slides has to have a computer projector.
• Transparencies for overhead projector —The overhead projector used with transparencies seems to have been relegated to antiquity—but not entirely. If you have to use this method, you will design your visual on a sheet of blank paper, then photocopy it, and create a transparency of it.
• Posterboard-size charts —Another possibility is to get some poster board and draw and letter what you want your audience to see. Of course, it’s not easy making charts look neat and professional.
• Handouts —You can run off copies of what you want your listeners to see and hand them out before or during your talk. This option is even less effective than the first two because you can’t point to what you want your listeners to see and because handouts distract listeners’ attention away from you. Still, for certain visual needs, handouts are the only choice. Keep in mind that if you are not well prepared, the handouts become a place for your distracted audience to doodle.
• Objects —If you need to demonstrate certain procedures, you may need to bring in actual physical objects. Rehearse what you are going to do with these objects; sometimes they can take up a lot more time than you expect.

Avoid just scribbling your visual on the chalkboard or whiteboard. Whatever you scribble can be neatly prepared and made into a presentation slide, transparency, or posterboard-size chart. Take some time to make your visuals look sharp and professional—do your best to ensure that they are legible to the entire audience.

As for the content of your visuals, consider these ideas:

• Drawing or diagram of key objects —If you describe or refer to any objects during your talk, try to get visuals of them so that you can point to different components or features.
• Tables, charts, graphs —If you discuss statistical data, present it in some form or table, chart, or graph. Many members of your audience may be less comfortable “hearing” such data as opposed to seeing it.
• Outline of your talk, report, or both —If you are at a loss for visuals to use in your oral presentation, or if your presentation is complex, have an outline of it that you can show at various points during your talk.
• Key terms and definitions —A good idea for visuals (especially when you can’t think of any others) is to set up a two-column list of key terms you use during your oral presentation with their definitions in the second column.
• Key concepts or points —Similarly, you can list your key points and show them in visuals. (Outlines, key terms, and main points are all good, legitimate ways of incorporating visuals into oral presentations when you can’t think of any others.)

During your actual oral report, make sure to discuss your visuals, refer to them, guide your listeners through the key points in your visuals. It’s a big problem just to throw a visual up on the screen and never even refer to it.

As you prepare your visuals, look at resources that will help you. There are many rules for using PowerPoint, down to the font size and how many words to put on a single slide, but you will have to choose the style that best suits your subject and your presentation style.

The two videos that follow will provide some pointers. As you watch them, make some notes to help you remember what you learn from them. The first one is funny: Life After Death by PowerPoint by Don McMillan, an engineer turned comedian.

Life After Death by PowerPoint

You may also have heard about the presentation skills of Steve Jobs. The video that follows is the introduction of the I-Phone…and as you watch, take notes on how Jobs sets up his talk and his visuals. Observe how he connects with the audience…and then see if you can work some of his strategies into your own presentation skills. This is a long video…you don’t need to watch it all but do take enough time to form some good impressions.

Steve Jobs iPhone Presentation

An Introduction to Technical Communication Copyright © by sherenahuntsman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Speaking exams
• Typical speaking tasks

Oral presentation

Giving an oral presentation as part of a speaking exam can be quite scary, but we're here to help you. Watch two students giving presentations and then read the tips carefully. Which tips do they follow? Which ones don’t they follow?

Instructions

Watch the video of two students doing an oral presentation as part of a speaking exam. Then read the tips below.

Melissa: Hi, everyone! Today I would like to talk about how to become the most popular teen in school.

Firstly, I think getting good academic results is the first factor to make you become popular since, having a good academic result, your teacher will award you in front of your schoolmates. Then, your schoolmates will know who you are and maybe they would like to get to know you because they want to learn something good from you.

Secondly, I think participating in school clubs and student unions can help to make you become popular, since after participating in these school clubs or student union, people will know who you are and it can help you to make friends all around the school, no matter senior forms or junior forms.

In conclusion, I think to become the most popular teen in school we need to have good academic results and also participate in school clubs and student union. Thank you!

Kelvin: Good evening, everyone! So, today I want to talk about whether the sale of cigarettes should be made illegal.

As we all know, cigarettes are not good for our health, not only oneself but also other people around. Moreover, many people die of lung cancer every year because of smoking cigarettes.

But, should the government make it illegal? I don’t think so, because Hong Kong is a place where people can enjoy lots of freedom and if the government banned the sale of cigarettes, many people would disagree with this and stand up to fight for their freedom.

Moreover, Hong Kong is a free market. If there's such a huge government intervention, I think it’s not good for Hong Kong’s economy.

So, if the government wants people to stop smoking cigarettes, what should it do? I think the government can use other administrative ways to do so, for example education and increasing the tax on cigarettes. Also, the government can ban the smokers smoking in public areas. So, this is the end of my presentation. Thank you.

It’s not easy to give a good oral presentation but these tips will help you. Here are our top tips for oral presentations.

• Use the planning time to prepare what you’re going to say. 
• If you are allowed to have a note card, write short notes in point form.
• Use more formal language.
• Use short, simple sentences to express your ideas clearly.
• Pause from time to time and don’t speak too quickly. This allows the listener to understand your ideas. Include a short pause after each idea.
• Speak clearly and at the right volume.
• Have your notes ready in case you forget anything.
• Practise your presentation. If possible record yourself and listen to your presentation. If you can’t record yourself, ask a friend to listen to you. Does your friend understand you?
• Make your opinions very clear. Use expressions to give your opinion .
• Look at the people who are listening to you.
• Write out the whole presentation and learn every word by heart. 
• Write out the whole presentation and read it aloud.
• Use very informal language.
• Only look at your note card. It’s important to look up at your listeners when you are speaking.

Useful language for presentations

Explain what your presentation is about at the beginning:

I’m going to talk about ... I’d like to talk about ... The main focus of this presentation is ...

Use these expressions to order your ideas:

First of all, ... Firstly, ... Then, ... Secondly, ... Next, ... Finally, ... Lastly, ... To sum up, ... In conclusion, ...

Use these expressions to add more ideas from the same point of view:

In addition, ... What’s more, ... Also, ... Added to this, ...

To introduce the opposite point of view you can use these words and expressions:

However, ... On the other hand, ... Then again, ...

Example presentation topics

• Violent computer games should be banned.
• The sale of cigarettes should be made illegal.
• Homework should be limited to just two nights a week.
• Should school students be required to wear a school uniform?
• How to become the most popular teen in school.
• Dogs should be banned from cities.

Check your language: ordering - parts of a presentation

Check your understanding: grouping - useful phrases, worksheets and downloads.

Do you think these tips will help you in your next speaking exam? Remember to tell us how well you do in future speaking exams!  

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Organizing Academic Research Papers: Giving an Oral Presentation

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• How to Manage Group Projects
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Acknowledgements

Preparing for Your Oral Presentation

In some classes, writing the research paper is only part of what is required. Your professor may also require you to give an oral presentation about your study. Here are some things to think about before you are scheduled to give your presentation.

• What should I say?  If your professor hasn't explicitly stated what your presentation should focus on, think about what you want to achieve and what you consider to be the most important things that others should know about your study. Think about: do I want to inform my audience, inspire them to think about my research, or convince them of a particular point of view?
• Oral communication is different from written communication.  Your audience only has one chance to hear your talk and can't "re-read" it if they get confused. Focus on being clear, particularly if the audience can't ask questions during the talk. There are two well-known ways to communicate your points effectively. The first is to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid). Focus on getting one to three key points across. Second, repeat key insights: tell them what you're going to tell them (Forecast), tell them, and then tell them what you just told them (Summarize).
• Think about your audience.  Yes, you want to demonstrate to your professor that you have conducted a good study. But professors often ask students to give an oral presentation to practice the art of communicating and to learn to speak clearly and audibly about yourself and your research. Questions to think about include, what background knowledge do they have about my topic? Does the audience have any particular interests? How am I going to involve them in my presentation?

Creating and Using Overheads . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking. 10th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations . Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations . The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches . The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills . Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.

Organizing the Content

First of all, think about what you want to achieve and think about how are you going to involve your audience in the presentation.

• Brainstorm your topic and write a rough outline. Don’t get carried away—remember you have a limited amount of time for your presentation.
• Organize your material and draft what you want to say [see below]
• Summarize your draft into key points to write on overheads and/or note cards.
• Prepare your visual aids.
• Rehearse your presentation and get its length right. Ask a friend to listen and time you.

GENERAL OUTLINE

I.  Introduction (may be written last)

• Capture your listeners’ attention . Begin with a question, an amusing story, a startling comment, or anything that will make the audience think.
• State your purpose . For example, "I’m going to talk about..."; "This morning I want to explain…."
• Present an outline of your talk . For example, “I will concentrate on the following points: First of all…Then…This will lead to…And finally…"

II.  The Body

• Present your main points one by one in logical order .
• Pause at the end of each point . Give people time to take notes, or time to think about what you are saying.
• Make it clear when you move to another point . For example, “The next point is that...”; “Of course, we must not forget that...”; “However, it's important to realize that....”
• Use clear examples to illustrate your points and/or key findings .
• Consider using visual aids to make your presentation more interesting [e.g., a map, chart, picture, etc.].

III.  The Conclusion

• Leave your audience with a clear summary of everything that you have covered.
• Don't let the talk just fizzle out . Make it obvious that you have reached the end of the presentation.
• Summarize the main points again . For example, use phrases like: "So, in conclusion..."; "To recap the main points..."
• Restate the purpose of your talk, and say that you have achieved your aim : "My intention was ..., and it should now be clear that...."
• Thank the audience, and invite questions : "Thank you. Are there any questions?"

Creating and Using Overheads . Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Giving an Oral Presentation. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra; Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking. 10th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008; Peery, Angela B. Creating Effective Presentations: Staff Development with Impact. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2011; Peoples, Deborah Carter. Guidelines for Oral Presentations . Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries; Perret, Nellie. Oral Presentations . The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Speeches . The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Storz, Carl et al. Oral Presentation Skills. Institut national de télécommunications, EVRY FRANCE.

Delivering Your Presentation

Pay attention to language!

• Keep it simple . The aim is to communicate, not to show off your vocabulary.
• Emphasize the key points . Make sure people realize which are the key points. Repeat them using different phrasing.
• Check the pronunciation of difficult, unusual, or foreign words beforehand . Write out difficult words phonetically in your notes.

Use your voice to communicate clearly

• Speak loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you . This may feel uncomfortably loud at first, but if people can't hear you, they won't try to listen.
• Speak slowly and clearly . Don’t rush! Speaking fast doesn’t make you seem smarter, it will only make it harder for other people to understand you.
• Practice to avoid saying um, ah, you know, like. These words occur most at transitions from one idea to another and are distracting to an audience. The better you know your presentation, the better you can control these verbal tics.
• Vary your voice quality . If you always use the same volume and pitch [for example, all loud, or all soft, or in a monotone] your audience will stop listening.
• Speakers with accents need to slow down [so do most others]. Non-native speakers often speak English faster than we slow-mouthed native speakers, usually because most non-English languages flow more quickly than English. Slowing down helps the audience to comprehend your talk. 
• When you begin a new point, use a higher pitch and volume .
• Slow down for key points . These are also moments in your presentation to consider using body language such as hand gestures to help emphasize key points.
• Use pauses . Don't be afraid of short periods of silence. They give you a chance to gather your thoughts, and your audience a chance to think.

Use your body language to communicate too!

• Stand straight and comfortably . Do not slouch or shuffle about. If you appear bored or uninterested in what your talking about, the audience will be as well.
• Hold your head up . Look around and make eye contact with people in the audience. Do not just address your professor! Do not stare at a point on the carpet or the wall. If you don't include the audience, they won't listen to you.
• When you are talking to your friends, you naturally use your hands, your facial expression, and your body to add to your communication . Do it in your presentation as well. It will make things far more interesting for the audience.
• Don't turn your back on the audience and don't fidget! Neither moving around nor standing still is wrong. Practice either to make yourself comfortable.
• Keep your hands out of your pocket . This is a natural habit when speaking. One hand in your pocket gives the impression of being relaxed, but both hands in pockets looks too casual and should be avoided.

Interact with the audience

• Be aware of how your audience is reacting to your presentation . Are they interested or bored? If they look confused, ask them. Stop and explain a point again. 
• Check if the audience is still with you . "Does that make sense?"; "Is that clear?"
• Do not apologize for anything . If you believe something will be hard to read or understand, don't use it. If you apologize for feeling awkward or nervous, you'll only succeed in drawing attention to it and your audience will begin looking for it.
• Be open to questions . If someone raises a hand, or asks a question in the middle of your talk, answer it. If it disrupts your train of thought momentarily, that's ok because your audience will understand. Questions show that the audience is listening with interest and, therefore, should not be regarded as an attack on you, but as a collaborative search for deeper understanding. However, don't engage in a conversation with an audience member or the rest of the audience will begin to feel left out. If an audience member persists, kindly tell them that the issue can be addressed after you've completed the rest of your presentation and note to them that their issue may be addressed by things you say in the rest of your presentation [it may not but at least you can move on].
• Be ready to get the discussion going after your presentation . Professors often want a brief discussion to take place after a presentation. Just in case nobody has anything to say, be prepared with some provocative questions to ask or points for discussion for your audience.

Speaking Tip

Your First Words are Your Most Important!

Your introduction should begin with something that grabs the attention of your audience, such as, an interesting statisitic, a brief narrative or story, or a bold assertion, and then clearly tell the audience in a well-crafted sentence what you plan to accomplish in your presentation. Your introductory statement should be constructed so as to invite the audience to pay close attention to your message and to give the audience a clear sense of the direction in which you are about to take them.

Another Speaking Tip

Talk to Your Audience, Don't Read to Them!

A presentation is not the same as an essay. If you read your presentation as if it were an essay, your audience will probably understand very little about you say and will lose concentration quickly. Use notes, cue cards, or overheads as prompts that emphasis key points, and speak to the audience. Include everyone by looking at them and maintaining regular eye-contact (but don't stare or glare at people).

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Patient/Physician Teamwork: Treating a Rare Oral Presentation of DLBCL

A very unusual case of lip-based diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was treated successfully thanks to prompt diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments.

A recent case report highlights a 70-year-old man who developed primary extranodal diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) centered in his lip. The authors described in Internal Medicine how swift diagnosis, followed by subsequent management with rituximab-containing chemotherapies, helped the patient achieve complete responses (CRs). 1 Extranodal DLBCL in the lip is so rare that it had been reported in the literature only twice before. 2,3

Lymphoma diagnosis | Image Credit: © Vitalii Vodolazskyi - stock.adobe.com

Upon seeing a lip lesion, a physician’s first thought would not likely be DLBCL. Indeed, such a presentation is extremely uncommon. About 30% to 40% of malignant lymphomas are DLBCL, and of these, 30% manifest as extranodal lymphomas, the authors noted. Then, of these extranodal cases, primary DLBCL in an oral lesion, particularly in the lip, is very rare. The fact that hematologists got involved in this case early on to properly diagnose and treat it was potentially lifesaving.

Patient history. When the patient was first seen, the indurated lesion on his lower left lip had grown over the previous month to 30 mm × 20 mm. It was not painful but was red and had rubber-like hardness. No B symptoms such as fever, unexplained weight loss, or night sweats were present, either.

Nonetheless, the authors performed a punch biopsy of the lower lip, they described. “It revealed the diffuse proliferation and infiltration of atypical lymphocytes extending beyond the muscle layer, characterized by nuclear irregularity and coarse chromatin,” they wrote. Immunostaining revealed that the lesion was positive for CD10, CD20, BCL-2, and BCL-6, but negative for CD3, CD5, and EBER-ISH.

Further pathological, radiographic, and karyotyping data established the diagnosis as extranodal DLBCL of the lower lip, Ann Arbor stage IE, and germinal center B-cell type. Based on age, the patient’s international prognostic index score was low—1/5 points—so the team selected rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP) chemotherapy to be administered over 8 cycles.

“The rituximab dosage was adjusted to 67% from cycle 1, considering the patient’s age, and cyclophosphamide and vincristine were reduced to 50% due to delayed bone marrow suppression starting from cycle 4,” they continued. “Posttreatment PET/CT confirmed a CR after 8 cycles.”

The patient’s CR continued for 4 years, until he experienced a relapse of DLBCL in the lower jaw and gingiva. This time, he received R-ESHAP: rituximab plus etoposide, cisplatin, cytarabine, and methylprednisolone. After the third cycle, he once again experienced a CR.

Earlier cases. In prior literature, just 2 patients had been documented to have extranodal DLBCL on the lips, the investigators wrote. The first one, a 58-year-old man, presented with a subcutaneous nodule on the left upper lip without surface changes, as well as with headaches. 2 The diagnosis of DLBCL came 3 months after his initial presentation, and “R-CHOP therapy was initiated but discontinued after 2 cycles due to the patient’s poor general condition,” according to the authors of the current study. 1

In the second instance, the patient, a 79-year-old woman, presented with an asymptomatic lump on the right upper lip and dislocation of the right nasal wing. 3 It was initially thought to be a dental abscess and was treated with a root canal procedure. When the lump persisted and grew, doctors performed a biopsy that revealed DLBCL. Her initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy was successful, but she relapsed after 8 months.

Managing extranodal lesions in DLBCL is challenging, the authors concluded. 1 In their patient’s case, the importance of a tailored treatment strategy in addressing relapse was clear. So, too, was the relatively early diagnosis, thanks initially—and significantly—to the patient’s own recognition of his lip lesion’s unusual features.

1. Seki H, Morita K, YasunagaM, et al. Primary extranodal diffuse large B-cell lymphoma presenting in the lips: a case report and literature review. Intern Med . Published online April 23, 2024. doi:10.2169/internalmedicine.3675-24

2. Kim TR, Bae KN, Son JH, et al. A case of cavernous sinus syndrome due to extranodal diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Ann Dermatol . 2023;35(suppl 2):S300-S303. doi:10.5021/ad.22.084

3. Hindocha N, Nilsson J. Oral presentation of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: a rare entity. Oral Surgery . 2019;12(4):332-334. doi:10.1111/ors.12430

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Atea pharmaceuticals reports first quarter 2024 financial results and provides business update.

Full Enrollment Achieved in Global Phase 3 SUNRISE-3 Trial for Treatment of COVID-19 with Results Expected 2H’24

Global Phase 2 HCV Study On Track to Report Complete SVR12 Results 2H’24

Multiple Presentations Showcasing Preclinical and New Phase 2 Efficacy Data to be Presented at European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Congress 2024

Conference Call at 4:30 pm ET Today

BOSTON, May 14, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVIR) (Atea or Company), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of oral antiviral therapeutics for serious viral diseases, today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024 and provided a business update.

“Our strong operational execution, in combination with the surge of COVID-19 infections related to the JN.1 variant, led to the completion of enrollment of high-risk patients in the global Phase 3 SUNRISE-3 study ahead of our guidance. This significant achievement brings us one step closer to potentially delivering bemnifosbuvir as a new oral antiviral treatment option for COVID-19,” said Jean-Pierre Sommadossi, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Atea. “COVID-19 continues to be a threat, leaving the most vulnerable, including the elderly, immunocompromised, undervaccinated, and those with underlying risk factors at risk for disease progression. We look forward to reporting the results from SUNRISE-3 during the second half of 2024.”

“In addition to our substantial progress in COVID-19, we are quickly advancing enrollment in our global Phase 2 study evaluating the combination of bemnifosbuvir and ruzasvir in treatment-naïve, HCV-infected patients, including patients with compensated cirrhosis. Despite currently available HCV treatment options, infection and reinfection rates annually exceed cure rates in the U.S. where over 2 million individuals are estimated to be infected,” continued Dr. Sommadossi. “We are very excited about the upcoming presentations at EASL, which include preclinical and new Phase 2 efficacy data from the lead-in cohort, and we look forward to reporting the full results from our Phase 2 study during the second half of 2024.”

COVID-19 Phase 3 SUNRISE-3 Trial Update

SUNRISE-3 Trial of Bemnifosbuvir in High-Risk Outpatients with COVID-19:  Atea has completed enrollment in the global, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 SUNRISE-3 trial evaluating bemnifosbuvir or placebo administered concurrently with locally available standard of care (SOC). SUNRISE-3 exclusively enrolled high-risk outpatients with mild or moderate COVID-19. Patients were randomized 1:1 to receive bemnifosbuvir 550 mg twice-daily (BID) or placebo BID for five days.

The primary endpoint of the SUNRISE-3 trial is all-cause hospitalization or death through Day 29 in the supportive care monotherapy cohort. In addition, secondary endpoints will measure patient outcomes in the trial through Day 60 post-treatment.

The trial is comprised of two study populations based on the type of SOC administered at the investigator’s discretion: 1) the "supportive care population," evaluating bemnifosbuvir as monotherapy (primary analysis), and 2) the "combination antiviral population," assessing combination therapy if the SOC includes other compatible antiviral drugs against COVID-19 (secondary analysis). In this study, 2,221 patients were randomized into the supportive care monotherapy cohort and only 74 patients were randomized into the combination cohort, with 77% enrolled in the US. The clear preference by investigators to enroll patients in the monotherapy cohort highlights the continuing unmet medical need for new oral COVID-19 treatment options for high-risk patients.

The SUNRISE-3 high risk patient population consists of those aged ≥70 years (regardless of other risk factors), individuals aged ≥55 years with one or more risk factors, those aged ≥50 years with two or more risk factors, and individuals aged ≥18 years with specific risk factors, including immunocompromised conditions, irrespective of COVID-19 vaccination status.

The evaluation of bemnifosbuvir for the treatment of COVID-19 has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

COVID-19 Program for Second Generation Protease Inhibitors:  As part of a multi-pronged approach against COVID-19, Atea is engaged in efforts directed to the identification of second-generation protease inhibitors. Activities to select a novel proprietary compound with a differentiated profile are underway.

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Phase 2 Update

Phase 2 HCV Combination Study: Atea is currently conducting a global Phase 2 clinical trial of bemnifosbuvir, an oral nucleotide NS5B polymerase inhibitor, in combination with ruzasvir, an oral NS5A inhibitor, in treatment-naïve, HCV-infected patients either without cirrhosis or with compensated cirrhosis. This study is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of eight weeks of treatment with the combination consisting of once-daily bemnifosbuvir 550 mg and ruzasvir 180 mg.

Up to approximately 280 HCV-infected, treatment-naïve patients across all genotypes, including the lead-in cohort of 60 patients without cirrhosis, are expected to be enrolled in this Phase 2 clinical trial. The primary endpoints of the study are safety and sustained virologic response (SVR) at Week 12 post-treatment (SVR12). Other virologic endpoints include virologic failure, SVR at Week 24 post-treatment (SVR24) and resistance.

Final results from the 60-patient lead-in cohort confirmed a 98% SVR4 rate across all genotypes from 58 of 59 patients. These results, which are consistent with the initial results from this cohort announced in January 2024, include a patient with poor adherence who did not achieve SVR4 and exclude one patient who did not attend the Week 4 post-treatment follow-up.

The SVR4 rate exceeded the protocol-defined efficacy criterion of ≥90% SVR4 for continuing the study. As a result, in January 2024, patient enrollment was reinitiated for up to 220 additional patients, including patients with cirrhosis. Topline results from all patients enrolled in the Phase 2 study are anticipated in the second half of 2024.

In the lead-in cohort, very rapid viral kinetics were observed with viral load for each patient near or below the lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) at four weeks of treatment, which is supportive of an eight-week treatment regimen for the combination of bemnifosbuvir and ruzasvir. All 60 patients in the lead-in cohort achieved viral load below the LLOQ by the end of the eight-week treatment.

The combination of bemnifosbuvir and ruzasvir in the lead-in cohort was generally safe and well-tolerated and there were no drug related serious adverse events, no treatment discontinuations and adverse events were mostly mild.

Favorable Bemnifosbuvir Data Presented at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global 2024

In April 2024, Atea presented Phase 1 data showing that bemnifosbuvir does not alter cardiac repolarization. Results from the study showed that the studied doses (up to 1,100 mg twice daily) did not have any clinically relevant effect on cardiac repolarization, heart rate, PR interval (time between atrial depolarization and ventricular depolarization), or QRS (ventricular depolarization) duration. The results also demonstrated that a QTc effect (the duration of the QT interval adjusted for the participant’s heart rate) greater than 10 milliseconds (established threshold of regulatory concern) is unlikely across the full observed plasma concentration ranges of bemnifosbuvir and its metabolites.

These clinical data confirm preclinical in vitro and in vivo study results, suggesting bemnifosbuvir has a low potential for cardiotoxicity with no predicted arrhythmic QTc-interval prolongation or inhibition of the human mitochondrial DNA-directed RNA polymerase.

First Quarter 2024 Financial Results

Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities : $541.5 million at March 31, 2024 compared to $578.1 million at December 31, 2023.

Research and Development Expenses: Research and development expenses increased by $28.6 million from $29.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023 to $57.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The increase was primarily driven by higher external spend related to our Phase 3 COVID-19 SUNRISE-3 clinical trial and our Phase 2 clinical trial of the combination of bemnifosbuvir and ruzasvir for the treatment of HCV. This increase was partially offset by a reduction of $1.0 million in internal costs primarily due to a decrease in consulting and other research and development expenses.

General and Administrative Expenses: General and administrative expenses decreased by $0.4 million from $12.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2023 to $12.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The net decrease was primarily related to lower professional fees.

Interest Income and Other, Net: Interest income and other, net, increased by $0.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2023, primarily due to investing in higher yield marketable securities and higher interest rates.

Income Taxes: Income tax expense of $0.2 million remained unchanged for each of the three months ended March 31, 2024 and March 31, 2023.

(1) Atea defines working capital as current assets less current liabilities. See the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2024 for further detail regarding its current assets and liabilities.

Conference Call and Webcast

Atea will host a conference call and live audio webcast to discuss first quarter 2024 financial results and provide a business update today at 4:30 p.m. ET. To access the live conference call, participants may register here . The live audio webcast of the call will be available under "Events and Presentations" in the Investor Relations section of the Atea Pharmaceuticals website at ir.ateapharma.com . To participate via telephone, please register in advance here . Upon registration, all telephone participants will receive a confirmation email detailing how to join the conference call, including the dial-in number along with a unique passcode and registrant ID that can be used to access the call. While not required, it is recommended that participants join the call ten minutes prior to the scheduled start. An archive of the audio webcast will be available on Atea Pharmaceuticals’ website approximately two hours after the conference call and will remain available for at least 90 days following the event.

About Bemnifosbuvir for COVID-19

Bemnifosbuvir, an oral nucleotide polymerase inhibitor, targets the SARS-CoV-2 RNA polymerase (nsp12), a highly conserved gene which is responsible for both replication and transcription of SARS-CoV-2. Bemnifosbuvir has a unique mechanism of action, with dual targets consisting of chain termination (RdRp) and nucleotityltransferase (NiRAN) inhibition, which have the potential to create a high barrier to resistance.  In vitro  data confirmed that bemnifosbuvir is active with similar efficacy against all variants of concern and variants of interest that have been tested, including Omicron subvariants BA.4, BA.5, XBB, EG.5.1 and JN.1.

About Bemnifosbuvir and Ruzasvir for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)

Bemnifosbuvir has been shown in in vitro studies to be approximately 10-fold more active than sofosbuvir (SOF) against a panel of laboratory strains and clinical isolates of HCV GT 1–5.  In vitro  studies have also demonstrated bemnifosbuvir remained fully active against SOF resistance-associated strains (S282T), with up to 58-fold more potency than SOF. The pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of bemnifosbuvir supports once-daily dosing for the treatment of HCV. Across both HCV and COVID-19 programs, bemnifosbuvir has been administered to over 2,100 subjects and has been well-tolerated at doses up to 550 mg for durations up to 12 weeks in healthy subjects and patients.

Ruzasvir, an oral NS5A inhibitor, has demonstrated highly potent and pan-genotypic antiviral activity in preclinical (picomolar range) and clinical studies. Ruzasvir has been administered to over 1,200 HCV-infected patients at daily doses of up to 180 mg for 12 weeks and has demonstrated a favorable safety profile. Ruzasvir’s PK profile supports once-daily dosing.

About Atea Pharmaceuticals

Atea is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing oral antiviral therapies to address the unmet medical needs of patients with serious viral infections. Leveraging the Company’s deep understanding of antiviral drug development, nucleos(t)ide chemistry, biology, biochemistry and virology, Atea has built a proprietary nucleos(t)ide prodrug platform to develop novel product candidates to treat single stranded ribonucleic acid, or ssRNA, viruses, which are a prevalent cause of serious viral diseases. Atea plans to continue to build its pipeline of antiviral product candidates by augmenting its nucleos(t)ide platform with other classes of antivirals that may be used in combination with its nucleos(t)ide product candidates. Currently, Atea is focused on the development of orally-available antiviral agents for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, and hepatitis C virus (HCV). For more information, please visit www.ateapharma.com .

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements in this press release include but are not limited to the date and time of the Company’s conference call and audio webcast and the anticipated time of release of clinical trial results from the Company’s COVID-19 and HCV programs. When used herein, words including “expects,” “may,” “will,” “anticipates,” “plans”, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements or information that refer to expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, performance or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking. All forward-looking statements are based upon the Company’s current expectations and various assumptions. The Company believes there is a reasonable basis for its expectations and beliefs, but they are inherently uncertain. The Company may not realize its expectations, and its beliefs may not prove correct. Actual results could differ materially from those described or implied by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including, without limitation, the important factors discussed and updated from time to time under the caption “Risk Factors” in the reports the Company files with the SEC, including annual reports on Form10-K, quarterly reports on Form10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and other filings each of which are accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. These and other important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent management’s estimates as of the date of this press release. While the Company may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, except as required by law, it disclaims any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Jonae Barnes SVP, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications 617-818-2985 [email protected]

Will O’Connor Stern Investor Relations 212-362-1200 [email protected]