how to do a presentation script

Presentation Script | Ultimate Guide To Engage Your Audience in 2024

Jane Ng • 05 Apr 2024 • 7 min read

How can you organize a PowerPoint presentation so it engages the audience? this is a hot topic! Are you looking for a script presentation example? Every memorable presentation starts with a single blank page and a writer’s determination to create something extraordinary. If you’ve ever found yourself staring at that intimidating blank canvas, unsure how to transform your ideas into a captivating script, fear not. 

In this blog post, we’ll guide you on how to write an impeccable presentation script that will mesmerize your audience. Moreover, we’ll provide you with practical tips and real-life examples that help you kickstart your journey toward crafting a compelling presentation script.

Learn how to write a presentation script with AhaSlides, today!

Table of Contents

Why a well-written presentation script matters, how to write a presentation script, expert tips for writing an engaging presentation script.

• Presentation Script Example 
• Key Takeaways

Overview – Presentation Script

• Presentation description
• Title ideas

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A well-written presentation script is the backbone of your delivery, ensuring structure, engaging your audience, boosting your confidence, and providing adaptability.

• An excellent presentation script brings structure and clarity to your message.
• It keeps your audience engaged and helps them understand your ideas. 
• It also ensures consistency and repeatability, especially when presenting multiple times. 
• A good script for presentation provides adaptability and preparedness, enabling you to adjust and handle unexpected situations. 

In addition, for many presenters, nerves and Glossophobia can be significant hurdles to overcome. A well-written script provides a sense of security and confidence. Like a safety net, it ensures that you have your key points and supporting details at your fingertips. This boosts your confidence and reduces anxiety, allowing you to deliver a more polished presentation.

So, how to make a script for a presentation?

Before writing a presentation script, you need to know your audience’s background, interests, and knowledge level. Then clearly define the purpose of your presentation. Having a clear objective will help you stay focused while writing your script.

1/ Outline The Structure

Start with an attention-grabbing introduction, followed by the main points you want to convey, and conclude with a strong summary or call to action.

For example:

• Introduction – The introduction script for presentations should be a welcome and personal connection to the topic. 
• Main Points – Benefits of “topic”
• Transitions – Use phrases like “Now let’s move on to,” or “Next, we’ll discuss.” 
• Conclusion – Recap key points and call to action.

You can consider using bullet points or headings to organize your ideas within each section.

2/ Craft A Powerful Opening

Crafting a strong opening statement is crucial to capturing your audience’s attention and setting the tone for your entire presentation. Here are some key elements to consider when creating an impactful opening statement:

• Hook the Audience: Start with a captivating hook that immediately grabs the audience’s attention
• Establish Relevance: Communicate the relevance and importance of your topic to the audience. Highlight how it relates to their lives, challenges, or aspirations.
• Create an Emotional Connection: Appeal to your audience’s emotions and create a sense of resonance or empathy. Connect with their desires, challenges, or aspirations to make a personal connection.

3/ Develop Key Points

When developing the key points in your presentation script, it’s essential to provide supporting information, examples, or evidence that reinforces your message. Here’s how you can expand on each main point:

Supporting Information:

• Present facts, data, or expert opinions that support your main point.
• Use credible sources to strengthen your arguments and provide context.
• Use evidence to back up your claims and increase credibility.

Logical Order or Narrative Flow

• Organize your main points in a logical order to facilitate understanding.
• Consider using a narrative flow to create a compelling storyline that connects your main points.

4/ Incorporate Visual Aids

Incorporating visual aids strategically into your presentation can significantly enhance understanding, engagement, and retention of information.

• Example: If you’re discussing the features of a new product, display images or a short video demonstrating its functionality as you describe each feature.

5/ Include Transitions and Signposts

Including transitions and signposts helps guide your audience through your ideas and ensures they can easily follow your train of thought.

You can use concise and engaging language to introduce the upcoming subject matter.

• Example: “Next, we’ll explore the latest…”

Or you can use questions to transition between sections or engage the audience’s attention.

• Example: “But how can we tackle this challenge? The answer lies in…”

6/ Summarize and Conclude

• Recap your main points to reinforce key messages concisely.
• End with a memorable conclusion that leaves a lasting impact or a call to action for your audience.

7/ Seek Feedback and Revise

• Share your script with a trusted colleague, friend, or mentor for constructive feedback.
• Once you have made revisions based on feedback, practice delivering your revised script.
• Refine and fine-tune your script as needed through practice sessions and additional feedback.

Involve The Audience

Boost audience participation and engagement by leveraging interactive features such as Q&A session , live polls, quizzes and small activities through AhaSlides . By utilizing these interactive elements, you can transform your presentation into a dynamic and engaging experience for your audience.

You also can ask your audience for feedback by rating scale or Likert scale !

Use Conversational Language

Write your script in a conversational tone to make it more approachable and relatable. Avoid jargon and complex terminology that might alienate your audience.

Know Your Key Takeaways

• Identify the main messages or key takeaways you want your audience to remember.
• Craft your script around these key points to ensure they are emphasized throughout the presentation.

Address Potential Questions or Concerns

By proactively addressing potential questions or concerns within your presentation script, you demonstrate thoroughness, credibility, and a genuine commitment to addressing your audience’s needs. 

This approach helps foster trust and ensures that your presentation provides clear and comprehensive information, leaving your audience feeling satisfied and informed.

Presentation Script Example

Here’s an example of a presentation script about “The Power of Effective Communication”: 

Key Takeaways 

In conclusion, crafting a well-written presentation script is essential for delivering a successful and impactful presentation. By following the steps and tips outlined in this guide, you can create a script that engages your audience, communicates your message effectively, and leaves a lasting impression.

Remember, incorporating interactive elements can significantly enhance audience engagement and make your presentation more memorable. AhaSlides, with our wide range of templates and interactive features like questions, polls , and activities, provides a powerful platform to involve your audience actively and create an interactive and dynamic presentation experience.

How do you write a script for a presentation?

Here are steps on how to write an effective presentation script: Outline the structure, including an attention-grabbing introduction, main points, and a strong conclusion.  Craft a powerful opening that hooks the audience, establishes relevance, and creates an emotional connection.  Develop key points with supporting information and logical order.  Incorporate visual aids strategically to enhance understanding.  Use transitions and signposts to guide your audience.  Summarize and conclude with impact .  Seek feedback, revise, and practice for a polished presentation.

How do you start a presentation script example?

Here’s an example of how you can start a presentation script: – “Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for being here today. My name is_____, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak with you about_______. Over the next _______, we will explore [briefly mention key points or objectives of the presentation].” The opening lines should aim to grab the audience’s attention, establish your credibility, and introduce the topic you will be discussing. 

Is it okay to read a script for a presentation?

While it’s generally recommended to avoid reading directly from a script, there are situations where it can be beneficial. For formal or complex presentations like academic or technical talks, a well-crafted script ensures accuracy and keeps you on track.  However, in most cases, a conversational style with notes or prompts is preferred. This allows flexibility, spontaneity, and better audience engagement. 

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Crafting an engaging presentation script

Crafting a presentation goes beyond simply putting together content. It also involves mastering the art of scripting by the speaker. Learning how to write a script for a presentation can take some time and effort to master, and similar to designing Google slides or PowerPoint presentations, there are several important rules to follow.

From developing a compelling storyboard and adding strategic pauses to making sure the words match the slides and maintaining a natural flow, delivering an effective presentation speech is a skill that needs to be honed.

In this article, we aim to provide comprehensive guidance on all these aspects and more, making it easier for you to create a presentation script that effortlessly resonates with your audience.

Top 10 tips on how to write a script for PowerPoint presentation

1. finalize the storyboard.

When it comes to crafting presentation scripts, planning is vital. A speaker must be well-prepared and have ample time before the event to practice and make sure the content flows naturally. Therefore, clear storyboarding must come first if you want to produce excellent presentation content. This is particularly true when the script and design are being done by the same person.

2. Follow the KISS rule

‘KISS,’ or Keep It Short and Simple, is the number one rule for crafting a fantastic script for presentation. Short and concise sentences can help you get the message across much faster, especially if your presentation’s emphasis is placed more on the visuals than the aural aspect.

3. Make sure your script for presentation introduction is engaging

A strong introduction is critical to captivate the audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say. This can be done through a compelling narrative, a thought-provoking question, or a startling fact. Remember, your introduction for presentation script should be designed to hook the audience and make them want to keep listening.

4. Aim for well-structured content

The presentation script’s content needs to be well-organized and structured. It has to have natural transitions from one idea to another, as well as distinct breaks between sections. And to make each argument more convincing and relatable to the audience, you should back it up with examples or evidence.

5. Stick to the slide content

It’s important to keep in mind that the information on your slides must serve as the basis for your script. It should be closely related to the presentation material you have already storyboarded and be simple to follow.

In case your script for PowerPoint presentation doesn’t match the content on the slides, the audience will likely feel confused and lose their place. That’s why it is recommended that you always have the presentation’s material nearby. Divide the text into chunks corresponding to the slides’ arrangement so that the two complement one another perfectly.

6. Add pause breaks

When attending a presentation, an audience member has two tasks: first, taking in the speaker’s words, and second, understanding the information offered by the presentation content. Therefore, when writing a script for a presentation, it’s essential that you always put yourself in the audience’s shoes and include pauses in the script.

Remember, when the speaker pauses, the audience has a chance to digest what has just been said and absorb as much information as possible from the visual aids. Additionally, it gives you, as a speaker, more control over the audience’s attention during the entire speech.

7. Use engaging language

Whether it’s an introduction for presentation script or a closing part, your entire content should be written in clear and engaging language. Refrain from using technical or jargon terminology that the audience might not understand. Instead, speak in plain English and incorporate jokes, rhetorical questions, or storytelling to keep the audience interested throughout your presentation.

8. Don’t forget about calls to action

Strong presentation scripts always end with a clear call to action. This could be requesting that the audience takes a specific action, such as subscribing to a newsletter, making a purchase, or putting the concepts discussed into practice in their own lives or places of employment. Your call to action must be captivating and inspire the audience to do the desired action.

9. Practice and rehearse

Practice and rehearsal are essential components of a good script. That’s why it is crucial to rehearse your script several times, ensuring a smooth delivery. Additionally, practice helps boost self-assurance and ease presentation-day nervousness. By including these components in your PowerPoint presentation script, you can create a persuasive and memorable presentation that effectively conveys your message and interests your audience.

10. Enlisting key points is also an option

Writing down every word you intend to say might sometimes result in overly scripted content, which can lack empathy and prevent you from connecting with the audience. Therefore, sometimes it is enough to simply focus on the key points or even use slide content as a starting point, keeping in mind the presentation’s structure and your time limit. Now that you know how to write a presentation script, let’s look at some examples to see the above tips in practice.

Presentation script example

Detailed presentation script:

https://www.slideshare.net/aland/script-for-perfect-presentation

Presentation script containing only key points:

All in all, having a presentation script is essential for delivering a great audience experience. It gives you flow, structure, and two times more confidence than when you are simply improvising or reading off your slides.

Use the above guidelines to ensure you are starting with a strong script, and remember that our presentation design company is here to help 24/7! SlidePeak’s dedicated team can not only help you improve your old presentation but can also design a professional pitch deck with unique infographics to wow potential investors, clients, and employers.

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How to write a presentation (and deliver it, even via Zoom)

Jack elliott.

31 minute read

You’ve been asked to give a presentation. Chances are, your response will be roughly one of the following:

1. It’s a subject you’re passionate about and you’re a confident speaker. You’re pleased to have the opportunity.

2. You secretly worry that your style is flat and unengaging. You’re not looking forward to it.

3. At best, the prospect makes you nervous; at worst, terrified. You’d rather have root canal surgery.

If you belong in one of the last two categories, you probably know you’re not alone. You may have heard the statistic that public speaking is more widely feared even than death .

However you feel about the prospect of presenting, this comprehensive guide will take you step by step through the process of planning, writing and delivering a presentation you can be proud of (even via Zoom).

Use the contents links below to jump to the section you need most, make your way through methodically from start to finish, or bookmark this page for next time you need it.

What is a presentation?

Essentially, it’s a story. And its origins go back thousands of years – to when our ancestors gathered around the campfire to listen to the wise elders of the tribe. Without PowerPoint!

These days, presentations encompass the glitz and scale of the Oscars or the new iPhone launch through to business briefings to smaller audiences, in person or – increasingly – online. We’re focusing on the business side.

Whatever the occasion, there’s always an element of drama involved. A presentation is not a report you can read at your leisure, it’s an event – speakers are putting themselves on the spot to explain, persuade or inspire you. Good presentations use this dynamic to support their story.

Always remember: everyone wants you to do well

If you are nervous, always remember: no one sets out to write a poor presentation and no one wants to go to one either. There may be private agendas in the room, but for the most part audiences approach presentations positively. They want to be engaged and to learn. They want you to do well.

First things first: the date’s in the diary and you need to prepare. Let’s break it down.

1. Preparing your presentation

Imagine you’re a designer in the automotive industry and your boss has asked you to give a presentation. The subject: the future of the car and how it will fit with all the other modes of transport.

Where to start? How to approach it? First you need an angle, a key idea.

We talk about ‘giving’ a presentation – and of course it’s the audience who will be receiving it. So, instead of beginning with cars (in this case), let’s think about people. That way we can root the talk in the everyday experience we all share.

Maybe you remember a time you were stuck in traffic on a motorway. Morning rush hour. No one moving. Up ahead children were crossing a footbridge on their way to school, laughing at the cars going nowhere. And you thought, ‘Enjoy it while you can! This will be you one day.’ But maybe not. Surely we can do better for future generations!

There’s your opening – the whole issue captured in a single image, and you’ve immediately engaged your audience with a simple story.

The who, the why and the what

Always begin with the people you’ll be addressing in mind. Before you start writing, answer three fundamental questions: who is your audience, why are you talking to them and what do you want to say?

The answers will provide the strong foundations you need and start the ideas flowing. Ignore them and you risk being vague and unfocused. Clear writing is the result of clear thinking and thinking takes time, but it’s time well spent.

Got a presentation to write? Before you do anything else, answer three fundamental questions: who is your audience, why are you talking to them and what do you want to say? @EmphasisWriting Click To Tweet

Start with the audience

Are you a senior car designer talking to your team? If the answer’s yes, you can assume high-level, shared knowledge.

But if you’re talking to the sales or marketing departments, you can’t make the same assumptions – there are issues you might have to explain and justify. And if it’s a press briefing, it’s about getting the message out to the general public – a different story again.

Knowing your audience will also dictate your tone. Your presentation to the board is likely to be quite formal, whereas a talk for your team can be more relaxed.

And what’s the audience’s mood? On another occasion you might have bad news to deliver – perhaps the national economy and the company’s finances are threatening people’s jobs. Then you must empathise – put yourself in their position and adapt your tone accordingly.

I want to …

You also need a clear objective (the why ). For our car designer, the overriding objective should be to plant a key idea in the audience’s mind. Starting with that image of the schoolchildren, it’s to convince the audience that the company has a radical and distinctive design future.

That’s the takeaway. How should they do that? Should they explain, persuade or inspire – the three key strategies for any presentation? You may need to use several of them to achieve your goal.

Objectives should always complete the statement ‘I want to …’. What do you want to do ?

It’s about …

The what is the substance of your presentation – the building blocks, all the facts and figures that tell the audience ‘It’s about …’.

Back to our designer. The move away from petrol and diesel will allow a complete rethink of car design. The electric power unit and battery can lie under the car’s floor, freeing up all the space taken up by the conventional engine. And then there are all the issues around emission-free, autonomous vehicles in the ‘smart’ cities of the future.

When you’re planning, it can be helpful to get all the information out of your head and onto the page, using a mind map , like the example below (for a talk on UK transport policy).

This is an effective way of unlocking everything you know (or still need to do more research on). Start with your main topic, then keep asking yourself questions (like who, what, when, where, how and why) to dig into all the aspects.

Mind map with the topic of ‘UK transport policy at the centre. Arrows point out to six bubbles with the labels ‘Who’, ‘When’, ‘Why’, ‘How’, ‘What’ and ‘Where’. More arrows point out from each of these bubbles to explore related points in each area, and still more arrows from some of those points to expand further. The information reads:

• Special interests / NGOs
• Need for clear government direction
• What industry will do
• R&D spend
• What industry is doing
• Congestion [this leads to the sub-point ‘Wasted time and money’]
• More pollution
• More congestion
• More wasted time and money
• Climate change
• Road pricing
• Legislation
• Working together
• New technology
• Exports/revenue
• Social policy
• Rest of world
• Emerging economies

Once you’ve got it all out on the page, you can identify which parts actually belong in your presentation. Don’t try to include every last detail: audiences don’t want to process piles of information. They are more interested in your ideas and conclusions.

Now let’s put all this research and planning into a structure.

2. How to structure your presentation

On 28 August 1963, Dr Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and delivered one of the most powerful speeches in history: ‘I have a dream’.

He was the leader of the civil rights movement in the US and his audience that day numbered in the hundreds of thousands. His goal was to inspire them to continue the struggle.

Presentations usually aim to either explain, persuade or inspire – sometimes with elements of all three. Your aim will determine your structure. This will be the backbone of your presentation, giving it strength and direction.

Explain in a logical sequence

When you explain, you add to people’s knowledge to build the key idea. But ask yourself, what does this audience already know?

If you’re an astrophysicist talking to an audience of your peers, you can use terms and concepts you know they’ll be familiar with. If you’re explaining black holes to Joe Public, you can’t do that. Typically, you’ll have to use simple analogies to keep the audience with you (‘Imagine you’re in a huge dark room …’).

Whether it’s black holes or new software, good explanations start with what we know and then build on that understanding, step by step, layer by layer. The audience will stay with you if they can follow your logic and you can help this with linking comments – ‘Building on that … ‘, ‘This means …’, ‘To illustrate that, I’ve always found …’.

Presentations usually aim to either explain, persuade or inspire – sometimes with elements of all three. Your aim will determine your presentation's structure. @EmphasisWriting Click To Tweet

We need to change

If you’re writing a persuasive presentation, you also need to follow a particular sequence.

Whether you’re writing a pitch for a prospective customer or making research-based recommendations to a client, you follow the same structure. That structure is the Four Ps . It’s a powerful way of leading your audience’s thinking.

Start with the current situation – where you are now ( position ). Explain why you can’t stay there, so the audience agrees things have to change ( problem ). Suggest up to three credible ways you can address the issue ( possibilities ). Then decide which one is the optimum solution ( proposal ).

Three is a magic number for writers – not too many, not too few. But there may be one standout possibility, in which case you go straight to it ( position, problem, proposal ).

Think about how the pandemic has profoundly changed our working lives. Towns and cities are full of offices that people used to commute to. But to maintain social distancing, we’ve been encouraged to work from home where possible and to stay away from public transport.

At some point, decision-makers within organisations will have to make a call – or share a recommendation – about what to do long term. Should we go back to the office, stay at home or combine the two?

If we had to present on this choice using the Four Ps structure, we could outline the pros and cons of each possibility and then make a push for the one we recommend above the others. Or we could join the likes of Google and Twitter and simply propose purely remote working well into the future.

I have a dream

A presentation that inspires is about the future – about what could be. Scientists inspire children to follow careers in astronomy or physics with their passion and stunning visuals. Designers re-energise companies with their radical, exciting visions. Business leaders convince their staff that they really can turn things around.

An audience watching an inspirational presentation is not going to take away lots of facts and figures. What’s important is their emotional and intellectual engagement with the speaker, their shared sense of purpose. One way to build that engagement is with your structure.

From dark to light

The most inspiring presentations are so often born of shared struggle. On 13 May 1940, Winston Churchill addressed the British parliament – and the British people listening on their radios – in the darkest days of the Second World War.

He was brutally realistic in his assessment of the current position: ‘We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.’ He then set out his policy: ‘To wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might … against a monstrous tyranny’, and the prize: ‘Victory, however long and hard the road may be.’

In difficult situations, audiences immediately see through false hope and empty rhetoric. They want honest acknowledgement, and the determination and clear strategy to lead them to the future.

We can imagine how the same structure could show up in a more business-related context:

‘I’m not going to sugar-coat the figures. We have to change to save jobs and secure our future. There will be dark days and sacrifices along the way, but what’s the hardest part of any turnaround? It’s getting started. To do that, we all need to keep asking two fundamental questions: where can we improve, how can we improve? And if we push hard enough and if we’re utterly relentless, change will come and our momentum will build.’

Are you going to appeal to your audience’s

• habits of thought (current beliefs)?

If your recommendations run counter to their current beliefs, try appealing to their emotions.

3. Writing your presentation script

You don’t have to write a script. Some people put a few PowerPoint slides together and wing it; others make do with bullets on a smartphone, laptop or cue cards. It depends on the event and the presenter.

Writing a full script takes time, but if it’s a very important presentation and you might use it again – perhaps to appeal for investment – it will be worth it.

Some people will write a full script because the company or organisation that’s commissioned a presentation will want to see a copy well ahead of the event (often for legal reasons). Others will write the script, edit it down to the required time and then edit it down again to bullets or notes.

If the presentation is to a small audience, your notes or bullets will suit a more conversational approach. There are no rules here – see what works best for you. But what you must do is know your subject inside out.

To write clearly, you must think clearly and a full script will expose the areas that aren’t clear – where an explanation needs strengthening, for example, or where you should work on a transition.

Timing is everything

A full script also helps with working out timing, and timing is crucial. TED talks, for example, have a strict 18-minute limit, whether in front of an audience or online. That’s short enough to hold attention, but long enough to communicate a key idea. (The ‘I have a dream’ speech lasted 17 minutes 40 seconds and it changed the world.)

It takes a very skilled presenter to go much over 30 minutes. If you are taking questions during or after your presentation , however, it’s fine to build in extra time.

Imagine you’re writing your presentation in full and your slot is 20 minutes. On an A4 page with a 14-point Calibri font and 1.5 line spacing, that will equate to about 10 pages.

You can also divide the page in two, with slides on the left and text on the right (or vice versa). Then you can plan your words and visuals in parallel – and that will be roughly 20 pages.

Script page with a slide on the left-hand side and text on the right. The slide has the heading ‘What is your purpose?’ and has a photo of a smiling person at a whiteboard mid-presentation. The text on the slide reads:

Do you want to:

• do a combination of all three?

The notes next to the slide read:

How should they do that? Should they explain, persuade or inspire – the three key strategies for any presentation? You may need to use several of them to achieve your goal.

The most powerful key on your keyboard – Delete

Use these numbers as your goal, but your first draft will probably be longer. That’s when you start deleting.

Be ruthless. Anything not adding to the story must go, including those anecdotes you’ve been telling for years ( especially those anecdotes). It’s not about what you want to tell the audience, it’s about what they need to hear.

Don’t feel you have to include every single issue either. Dealing with two or three examples in some detail is far better than saying a little bit about many more.

And interpret visual material you’re displaying rather than describing it, just as you wouldn’t repeat the text that’s on the screen. The audience can see it already.

It’s a conversation

Be yourself – don’t write a script that’s not in your style. We want the real you, not a supercharged version.

Some people are naturals when it comes to presenting – which can mean they’ve learned how to draw on their authentic strengths.

Sir David Attenborough is a great example. He has a wide-ranging knowledge of the natural world. He has an infectious passion and enthusiasm for his subject. And most importantly, he doesn’t lecture the camera: he talks naturally to his audience (and he’s now using Instagram to inspire new generations).

You can take a cue from Sir David and make your presentation style your own. Knowing your own strengths and really understanding your why will help you speak with purpose and passion.

And aim to speak naturally. Use conversational, inclusive language. That means lots of personal pronouns ( I believe, we can) and contractions ( Don’t you wonder …, you’re probably thinking …).

Sir David Attenborough introduces his new series, Our Planet at its premiere. He builds up our awareness by layering information alongside arresting statistics. These are framed simply, in relatable terms (‘96% of mass on the planet is us …’), so we easily grasp their shocking significance. He also uses ‘we’ and ‘us’ a lot to underline how this environmental emergency affects us all on ‘the planet we all call home’.

Finding the right words

Imagine you’re talking to someone as you write. And try saying the words out loud – it’s a good way to catch those complex, overlong sentences or particular words that will be difficult to say.

Presentations are not reports that can be reread – the audience has to understand what you are saying in the moment . Don’t leave them wondering what on earth you’re talking about, as they will only fall behind.

So avoid using long or complex words, or words you wouldn’t hear in everyday conversation (if your everyday conversation includes ‘quarks’ and ‘vectors’, that’s fine). And beware of jargon – it can exclude the audience and it quickly becomes clichéd and outdated.

Here are some more hints and tips on how to write effectively for speaking:

Syntax (word order): Disentangle your thoughts and arrange the words in your sentences to be simple and logical. Often, complex syntax shows up when the main point is getting lost inside excess information (or that the speaker is unsure what their main point is).

Pace, rhythm and tone: Varying the pace, rhythm and tone of sentences makes both the speaking and listening experience far more enjoyable.

Make sure the stress falls on the most important words. For example, ‘To be or not to be ‘ (where the stress rises and falls on alternate words) or ‘I have a dream ‘ (where the stress falls on the final word).

Vary the length of sentences and experiment with using very short sentences to emphasise a point.

Play with rhythm by arranging words in pairs and trios. Saying things in threes gives a sense of movement, progression and resolution: Going, going … gone . Saying words in pairs gives a more balanced tone (‘courage and commitment’, ‘energy and effort’) or a sense of tension between the words (‘war and peace’, ‘imports and exports’).

Analogies: Good analogies can work well in presentations because they paint vivid pictures for the audience. The best way to do it is to use either a simile (‘It wasn’t so much a dinner party, more like feeding time at the zoo’) or a metaphor (‘He was the fox and the company was the henhouse’).

Alliteration: This means using two or more words that start with the same sound, like ‘big and bold’, ‘sleek and shiny’ or ‘key components’. On the page alliteration may look contrived, but it can effectively highlight important phrases in a presentation.

Words to avoid: Be careful about using clichés like ‘pushing the envelope’, ‘playing hardball’ and ‘thinking outside the box’. And think carefully about using any word that ends with -ism, -ise, -based, -gate, -focused and -driven.

Be careful with humour too: don’t write jokes unless you can naturally tell them well. Keep the tone light if it fits the occasion, but a badly told joke can be excruciating.

4. How to start your presentation

People tend to remember beginnings and endings the most, so make sure your opening and conclusion are both strong.

You have about a minute to engage an audience. You want them to be intrigued, to want to know more, to come slightly forward in their seats. If you only learn one part of your presentation by heart, make it that minute.

A quick ‘thank you’ is fine if someone has introduced you. A quick ‘good morning’ to the audience is fine too. But don’t start thanking them for coming and hoping they’ll enjoy what you have to say – you’re not accepting an Oscar, and they can tell you what they thought when it’s over. Get straight down to business.

There are four basic types of introduction which will draw your audience in:

• News – ‘Positive Covid-19 tests worldwide have now reached …’
• Anecdotal – ‘About ten years ago, I was walking to work and I saw …’
• Surprise – ‘Every five minutes, an American will die because of the food they eat.’
• Historical – ‘In 1800, the world’s population was one billion. It’s now 7.8 billion.’

You can interpret these beginnings in any number of ways. If you were to say, ‘I have an admission to make …’, we will expect a personal anecdote relating to your main theme. And because you’re alone in front of us, it’s playing on your vulnerability. We’re intrigued straight away, and you’ve established a good platform for the rest of the presentation.

You can also combine these techniques. The historical beginning creates a sense of movement – that was then and this is now – as well as a surprising fact. It may prompt a thought like, ‘Wow, where’s this going?’ And you can trade on this with your own rhetorical question: ‘What does this mean for everyone in this room? It’s not what you think …’.

As well as setting up your story, you need to quickly reassure the audience they’re in safe hands. One way to do that is to give them a map – to tell them where you’re going to take them and what they’re going to see along the way.

Then you’re starting the journey together.

5. How to end your presentation

Your ending is what you want the audience to take away: your call to action, your vision of the future and how they can contribute.

If your presentation is online or to a small group in a small room, your ending is not going to be a battle cry, a call to man the barricades – that would be totally inappropriate. But equally don’t waste it with something flat and uninspiring.

Here are four effective ways to end your talk (like the intros, you can combine them or come up with your own):

• Predict the future – ‘So what can we expect in the next ten years? …’
• Quotation – ‘As our chief exec said at the meeting yesterday, …’
• Repeat a major issue – ‘We can’t carry on with the same old same old.’
• Summarise – ‘Continuous improvement isn’t our goal. It’s our culture.’

Predicting the future fits well with a historical beginning – it completes the arc of your presentation.

If you end with a quotation, make sure it’s relevant and credible – it has to be an authoritative stamp.

Repeating a major issue means pulling out and highlighting a major strand of your presentation, while summarising is about encapsulating your argument in a couple of sentences.

Your ending can also be a change of tone, perhaps signalled by the single word ‘Finally …’. It’s the audience’s cue to come slightly forward again and pay close attention.

As with your opening, it will have more impact if you’ve learned your ending – put down your notes, take a couple of steps towards the audience and address them directly, before a simple ‘Thank you.’

6. Creating your PowerPoint slides

We’ve all been there – watching a seemingly endless, poorly designed slide deck that’s simply restating what the presenter is saying. So common is this tortuous experience that there’s a name for it: Death by PowerPoint. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Do you need slides at all?

As with your script, the first thing you should ask is ‘Do I actually need this?’ In 2019, Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave the Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC. He spoke for about 40 minutes with no autocue (he’d memorised his script) – and no speaker support.

This is a uniquely powerful form of presentation because the audience’s attention is totally focused on that one person. The call to action at the end of a presentation and delivering bad news are also best done without visuals.

Visual support

But if they’re well-judged and relevant, slides or other visuals can add enormously to a presentation – whether it’s photography, video or the ubiquitous PowerPoint. There are, however, two things everyone should know about PowerPoint in particular:

• It’s incredibly versatile and convenient.
• In the wrong hands, it can be unbearably tedious.

Your PowerPoint slides should not essentially be your cue cards projected onto a screen. They shouldn’t be packed margin to margin with text or full of complex diagrams.

If the presentation is live, the audience has come to watch you, not your slide deck. Online, the deck may have to work harder to sustain visual interest.

As with the script, keep your finger poised over that Delete key when you’re putting the deck together.

How many slides?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how many slides you should use, but think in terms of no more than one or two a minute on average. And don’t use more than a couple of short video inserts in a 20-minute presentation.

You might have a section where you show a few slides in a sequence or hold a single slide for a couple of minutes, which is fine. Varying the pacing helps to keep a presentation moving.

Optimise for psychology

As self-professed presentation aficionado David JP Phillips notes in his TEDx talk , people – and that includes your audience – have terrible working memories. If you don’t account for this fact in your slides, your talk will not have a lasting impact. In fact, most of it will be forgotten within around 30 seconds.

To counter this effect, David identifies five key strategies to use when designing your PowerPoint:

• Only have one message per slide: more than that and you’re splitting your audience’s attention.
• Don’t use full sentences on slides, and certainly don’t imagine you can talk over them if you do. People trying to read and listen at the same time will fail at both and absorb nothing. Move your running text into the documentation section instead, and keep the slide content short and sweet.
• People’s focus will be drawn to the biggest thing on the slide. If your headline is less important than the content below it, make the headline text the smaller of the two.
• You can also direct people’s attention using contrast. This can be as simple as guiding their point of focus by using white text (on a dark background) for the words you want to highlight, while the surrounding text is greyed out.
• Including too many objects per slide will sap your audience’s cognitive resources. (Your headline, every bullet, any references, even a page number each count as an object.) Include a maximum of six objects per slide and viewers will give a mental sigh of relief. This will probably mean creating more slides overall – and that’s fine.

More Powerpoint and visual aid tips

Here are a few more guidelines for creating your visual aids:

• Never dive into PowerPoint as job one in creating your presentation. Work out your talk’s structure (at least) before designing your slide deck. Making a genuinely effective PowerPoint requires that you know your subject inside out.
• List any visuals you’ll need as you prepare your script. That terrific photo you saw recently could be difficult to track down, and you might need permission and to pay to use it.
• It bears repeating: keep each slide to one key idea.
• Use the build effect of adding one bullet at a time (or use the contrast trick above) and try not to use more than three bullets per frame (or six objects overall).
• Strip each bullet to the bare minimum – no articles (‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’), no prepositions (‘in’, ‘at’, ‘to’ etc) and cut right back on punctuation.
• Every word that’s not there for a reason has to go. Delete, delete, delete.

‘Extra’ slides

• Use a ‘walk-in’ slide. Rather than have the audience arrive to a blank screen, this tells them who you are and your presentation’s title.
• Use occasional holding slides in between those with more content – perhaps an image but no text. They give the audience a visual rest and put the focus back on you.
• A plain white background might look fine on a computer monitor, but it will be glaring on a big screen. Invert the norm with a dark background, or use shading or ‘ghosted’ images to break up backgrounds and add visual interest.
• Some colours work better than others on-screen. Blues and greys are soft and easy on the eye. Red is a no-no, whether for backgrounds or text. And if you stick with a light background, favour a more subtle dark grey over black for the text.
• Use sans serif fonts (like Arial, Helvetica or Calibri) and think about point size – make sure it’s easily legible.
• Only use upper case where absolutely necessary.

Images and data

• Photos work well full screen, but they also really stand out well on a black background.
• Make sure your charts and graphics aren’t too complex. The dense information that’s fine on the page will not work on-screen – it’s too much to take in. Graphs behind a TV newsreader are often reduced to a single line going dramatically up or down.
• Don’t present data or graphs and expect them to speak for themselves. You need to find the story and significance in the data and present that .

And finally

• Proofread, proofread, proofread – or risk standing in front of an embarrassing spelling mistake.

Technical check

• Check what laptop they’re using at your venue. If you’ve written your deck on a PC, run it on a PC (and, of course, the same rule applies if you’ve used a Mac).
• If you’ve emailed your presentation to the venue, take a USB copy along as back-up.
• If you’re presenting online, check which platform you’ll be using and get comfortable with it. If someone else will be hosting the event, make sure you arrange a time for a rehearsal, especially if there will be a producer.

7. Delivering your presentation

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into preparing your presentation and now you’ve come to the sharp end – it’s time to stand and deliver.

Run it through

You don’t have to rehearse, but most presenters do and for good reason – it catches weak points and awkward transitions. And, crucially, it bolsters confidence.

Read your script or go through your bullets aloud – it will help to settle your nerves. If you use colleagues as a dummy audience, you can do a sense check too: ‘Does that bit work?’ ‘Have I explained it clearly?’ ‘Do you get the big picture?’ And rehearsing out loud will catch those words and sentences you thought you could say but can’t.

The more you rehearse, the more familiar and natural the presentation will become. Rehearse the technical side too – where the video is going to come in, how you’re going to vary your pace and tone to maintain interest.

Try speaking slightly more slowly than you would normally so the audience catches every word, and don’t be afraid to pause now and again. It gives a breathing space for you and the audience.

Connect with your audience

When you deliver your presentation for real, establish eye contact with the audience, just as you would in a conversation. In a small room with a small audience, talk to individuals. In a larger space, don’t talk to the first couple of rows and ignore the rest – include everyone.

And if you stumble over your words here or there, carry on and don’t dwell on it – you’ll lose your concentration. Audiences are generally forgiving and they might not even notice.

Each audience is unique: they react differently in different places. And although tomorrow might be the tenth time you’ve done the same presentation, it will be the first time this audience sees it. Your duty is to keep it fresh for them.

A final point

This is your presentation – you’re in control and the audience needs to feel they’re in safe hands.

It’s perfectly natural to feel nervous , but it’s the thought of doing it that’s the worst bit. Once you get going – and especially when you sense the audience is with you – the nerves will start to disappear. Try to enjoy it. If you enjoy it, it’s far more likely the audience will too.

And remember: everyone wants you to do well.

8. How to present online

Taking to Zoom or another online platform to present was once the exception. These days, online presenting is as essential a skill as presenting in person.

The switch to online can be nerve-wracking and cause even usually skilled presenters to falter. But there’s no need for that to happen.

Indeed, all of the advice we’ve talked about on preparing, structuring and writing for in-person presenting is equally relevant for your online delivery. You just need to be ready for the unique challenges that remote presentations pose.

An obvious one is that while you still have an audience, it will probably be muted and possibly even unseen (if webcams are switched off). This makes it far more difficult to gauge audience reaction, and if the event is pre-recorded, there might not be any at all – at least not immediately. Clapping and laughing emojis are not quite like the real thing.

Keep eye contact

But although your audience may be many miles away, there are still ways you can – and should – create a sense of connection with them. Your presentation will have much more impact if you do.

Whether the event is live or recorded, at least start with your webcam on (unless you really can only use slides). If it’s an option and feels appropriate, consider keeping your camera on throughout – remember, you are the presentation as much as any visuals.

If you will be on display, make sure you know where your webcam’s lens is and at key moments of your talk look directly into it – and out at your audience – to punctuate those points.

And don’t look at a second screen to cue up your PowerPoint – viewers will think your attention is wandering.

Engage your online audience

Being an engaging speaker is always important, but remember that the online world is already a place we associate with distraction. It’s also easier for a viewer behind their laptop to disguise their wandering attention than it would be for one in an auditorium or boardroom.

This isn’t to say your audience don’t want to give you their attention. But it is more important than ever to keep your presentation sharp and concise. Revisit your structure, your script or cue cards and your slides. Take a really critical eye to it and (as always) delete, delete, delete anything that’s not directly relevant.

If it works for your format, you can look at making your presentation interactive. You can then break the content into short segments, interspersed with comment, polls, questions and discussion. The variety will be a welcome change for your viewers.

Your visuals are part of what will keep people with you – along with the interplay you create between you and them. This means following the best-practice guidance we covered earlier is even more important.

Using Zoom for your presentation? Master the art of online delivery through this simple mix of set-up, delivery and technical tricks @EmphasisWriting Click To Tweet

Modulate your voice

Your tone of voice is extremely important here because presenting online is like radio with pictures. When people say ‘You have a great voice for radio’ what they mean is that it’s easy to listen to, often because you’re using quite a low-pitched, warm and relaxed register.

Listen to voices on the radio and voiceovers and identify the ones you particularly enjoy. What do you like about them? Why do you enjoy some voices and not others?

A flat, unmodulated voice, for instance, is difficult to listen to for long periods (and isn’t likely to inspire anyone).

Experiment with intentionally adding energy to your voice, as internet audio can have a dulling effect. As our trainer Gary Woodward puts it: ‘Turn up the enthusiasm dial even higher than you think, to make sure it comes through.’ And always vary your pace and tone as you would in a normal conversation.

And if it suits the tone of your talk, smile now and again. Smiling is contagious, and people will hear it in your voice even if they can’t see you.

Perfect your transitions

One of the other key challenges of remote presentations is that you have another layer of technology to wrestle with: sharing your PowerPoint online.

This means that many presentations begin with the popular catchphrase ‘Can you see my screen?’

This can also cause many presenters to stumble through their transitions, making the links between their slides clunky. And while remote audiences may be forgiving, for a slick presentation it’s best to prevent these sort of fumbles.

Naturally, practice plays a part here. But you can also give yourself the advantage with your set-up.

Dave Paradi from Think Outside the Slide explains one great way of setting up Zoom so you can smoothly cue up and run your slide deck – and be certain what’s being displayed.

You’ll even be able to see the rest of your screen (but the audience won’t). As you’ll be able to see what’s coming up, your transitions can also be seamless.

The trick is to use one of Zoom’s advanced settings after you hit ‘Share screen’, to share only a portion of your screen:

Advanced screensharing options pop-up box in Zoom, with the options ‘Portion of Screen’, ‘Music or Computer Sound Only’ and ‘Content from 2nd Camera’. The ‘Portion of Screen’ option is highlighted in blue.

This will give you a frame you can move to the part of the screen you want the audience to see.

Put your PowerPoint slides into ‘presenter view’ before launching the screenshare. Then you’ll be able to see the upcoming slides and your notes throughout, and your animations (like build slides) will work as normal.

Zoom’s ‘portion of screen’ setting in action

Presenter view in PowerPoint, with the current displayed slide on the left and the upcoming slide displaying smaller on the right, with notes below it. There is a notification saying ‘You are screen sharing’ at the top and a sharing frame positioned around the current slide.

The other part of the trick? Set it up in advance shortly before you’re due to speak. Once you’re happy with the set up, you can stop sharing until it’s time to kick off your talk. When you return to ‘Share screen’ again, it will reopen the frame in the same place.

Dave shows you the process in this video:

Five practical tips for a truly professional online presentation

You’re happy with the content of your talk, you’ve ruthlessly streamlined your slides and mastered your radio voice. Now just make sure you cover these crucial practicalities for a polished presentation:

1. Create a good space Make sure you have your environment well set up:

• Keep the background on display as tidy and minimalist as possible – a plain wall or backdrop is great, if you can.
• Manage and minimise background noise (shut the window, ensure your phone’s on silent, put the cat out, make sure someone’s watching the kids in another room – whatever it takes).
• Check your lighting: have your light source in front of you, not behind you (or you’ll be in shadow).
• Set up your computer or device at eye level so that you are well-framed and facing it straight on – avoid looming above it while providing a lovely view into your nostrils.

2. Think about your appearance Dress in the same way you would if the presentation were in person, and judge your choice of attire based on the formality of the event and your audience.

3. Practise! Run through the presentation and rehearse the technical side. Practise your transitions, including the initial cueing up of your slides (perhaps using the Zoom tip above), so that you can be confident in doing it all smoothly.

4. Be primed and ready Log in early on the day of your talk. Check all your tech is working, get your headset on and ensure everything is set up well ahead of time. This will save any last-minute issues (and stress) and means you can hit the ground running.

5. Stand and deliver Even online, consider giving your presentation standing up, if you can do so comfortably (adjusting your device or webcam accordingly). This may put you more into a presenting frame of mind and will differentiate you from most remote presenters.

Are you still there?

Live audiences have a group dynamic – as soon as a few people start laughing it becomes infectious and the others join in. It’s naturally different online. But that doesn’t have to throw you.

You might not get that immediate feedback, but don’t overcompensate and feel you have to win them back.

Yes, it’s often more difficult to gauge an audience’s reaction online – especially if their audio is muted and their webcams off. Yes, this can be daunting. But they are still out there listening. You may or may not hear (or see) laughter, but they could still be smiling and very interested in what you have to say. Have faith in your own content. Whatever form your delivery will take, keep coming back to your purpose and message for giving this talk – and keep considering the people you’ll be talking to. Whether the address will be online or in person, it is keeping this focus which is the key to every powerful presentation.

Ready to learn even more? Work one-to-one on your presentation-writing skills with one of our expert trainers or join our scheduled presentation-writing courses . If your team are looking to upskill, we also offer tailored in-house training . And if fear of presenting is holding your team back, check out our in-house course The reluctant presenter .

Image credit: lightpoet / Shutterstock

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These days he's one of Emphasis' top business-writing trainers, but in previous career lives Jack has written for many public and private sector organisations. He has an in-depth knowledge of the engineering and manufacturing sectors, particularly the UK automotive industry. As the lead scriptwriter for chairmen and CEOs, he has been responsible for proposals, pitches and reports as well as high-profile speeches and global product launches.

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How to write an engaging and effective presentation script?

Explore expert tips and techniques to elevate your script, ensuring it resonates with your audience and enhances your message.

Bharti Jain

Delivering presentations

In today's world, presentations are a crucial part of professional communication, whether for pitching a new idea, educating an audience, or persuading potential clients. However, the backbone of any successful presentation is its script. A well-crafted presentation script can captivate your audience and deliver your message effectively. In this blog, we’ll explore the intricacies of crafting such a presentation that not only delivers information but also engages your audience, drawing insights from the tools and strategies provided by Prezent.

What is a presentation script?

It is much more than a mere set of words to be read or spoken; it is a strategic narrative designed to communicate ideas effectively. It’s the roadmap of your presentation content, detailing every turn of your story, every fact you want to highlight, and every emotion you wish to evoke. A well-written script aligns with your visuals and delivery, creating a harmonious and impactful presentation.

Here’s an example of presentation script containing key points only:

What are the key elements of a compelling presentation script?

When we talk about crafting a presentation script that captivates and engages, it's essential to focus on the following elements.

1. Write a script with a clear objective

It's a common misconception that the sole purpose is just to relay whatever is on your mind. Every presentation has a specific goal, and it's crucial to identify this goal right from the start. Are you looking to inform, persuade, inspire, or motivate your audience?

For example, if your goal is to persuade your audience, you need an approach as if you're a lawyer making a closing argument. This means your script should be filled with strong, convincing evidence and delivered in a tone that's persuasive and compelling. On the other hand, if your aim is to inform, it should resemble a teacher's lesson plan: well-organized, clear, and educational. Here, the focus is on clarity and thoroughness.

2. Audience-centric approach

Tailoring your content to resonate with your audience's interests and level of understanding is crucial. It’s similar to a chef knowing his diners' preferences before crafting a menu.

For example, If your audience comprises young entrepreneurs, using startup success stories and Silicon Valley anecdotes can make your content more relatable and engaging.

Ignoring the audience’s background and interests is like serving a steak to a vegetarian – it just won’t connect. So you need to ensure that you get your audience to listen.

3. Need to write a strong narrative

A strong narrative structure in your script is essential – consider it the spine of your presentation. It should have a compelling introduction (like the opening scene of a gripping movie), an informative body (similar to the plot development of a novel), and a memorable conclusion (the final scene that leaves the audience thinking).

For instance, Steve Jobs’ iconic iPhone launch presentation in 2007 masterfully followed this structure in his presentation speech, captivating the audience from start to finish.

4. Emotional engagement

Creating an emotional connection with the audience can be achieved through storytelling , anecdotes, or humor.

Take, for instance, the iconic "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. His powerful storytelling and emotional appeal transformed statistical data about racial injustice into a palpable narrative that moved an entire nation.

Similarly, humor can play a significant role in keeping the audience engaged. Ellen DeGeneres' commencement speech at Tulane University in 2009 is a prime example. She skillfully blended humor with her personal life story, especially her struggles and achievements.

5. Simplicity and clarity

Conveying your ideas in a straightforward and understandable manner is vital. Think of it as the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Your presentation should be like clear, concise instructions, not a complex, hard-to-decipher manual. Avoid jargon and technical terms unless absolutely necessary.

Remember, Albert Einstein once said,

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Your script should reflect clarity of thought and simplicity of expression.

How to write a presentation script that is effective?

Crafting an engaging presentation script is a multifaceted process that requires attention to detail, a deep understanding of your subject, and a keen sense of audience engagement. Here are some crucial strategies that you should know:

1. In-depth research

To lay a solid foundation for your presentation, start with comprehensive research. Dive deep into your topic to ensure every aspect of your script is well-informed and accurate. This doesn't mean just skimming through the top Google search results. Explore various sources, from scholarly articles to industry reports, to gather a rich array of information.

This depth of understanding not only boosts the credibility of your presentation but also prepares you to confidently handle any questions that might arise during or after your presentation.

2. Conversational tone

A key aspect of a good script is its tone. Aim for a conversational style – as if you're talking to a friend over coffee rather than memorising & lecturing in a formal setting. This approach makes your presentation more relatable and engaging. Avoid complex jargon and technical terms unless necessary, and instead, opt for simple language that flows smoothly. Think of it like storytelling with data.

Check this example to understand better:

Without conversational tone

“In today's discourse, we shall examine the multifaceted and intricate ramifications of digital transformation on global business paradigms."

With conversational tone

"Let's talk about how digital transformation is changing the way we do business around the world. It's pretty fascinating stuff!"

In the first sentence, the formal tone and complex language create a barrier, making the content feel distant and academic. The second sentence, conversational in nature, uses simple language and a friendly approach, inviting the audience into an engaging discussion.

3. Proper visual integration

Visuals are not just decorations; they are integral to reinforcing your message. While scripting, think about how each segment of your speech can be accompanied by relevant visual aids, whether it's a slide, an infographic, or a short video clip. For instance, when discussing a complex process, a diagram can make it easier for your audience to grasp. The key is to ensure that your visuals complement your words, adding clarity and keeping the audience visually engaged.

4. Interactive elements

Engaging your audience is crucial, and interactive elements can significantly boost this engagement. Incorporate rhetorical questions to provoke thought or invite audience participation at certain junctures. You might include a quick poll, a show of hands, or even a brief Q&A session. These elements transform your presentation from a monologue into a dialogue, making it a two-way interaction that keeps your audience actively involved.

5. Rehearse and practice your presentation

The final and perhaps most critical step for the presenter is to refine and rehearse the script several times . This is where you fine-tune your pacing, adjust your tone, and smooth out any rough edges. Rehearsing out loud, ideally in front of a mirror or a test audience, helps identify parts of the script that may need reworking. Pay attention to timing, pauses, and emphasis on key points. Remember, practice doesn’t just make perfect; it builds confidence, ensuring that when it's showtime, you deliver with poise and impact.

How to enhance the effectiveness of a powerpoint presentation through engaging designs?

The integration of engaging presentation designs in your presentation can significantly boost it's effectiveness. Thoughtfully chosen visuals and layout strategies not only grab attention but also make your message more impactful. Let’s delve into how to achieve this synergy:

1. Slide with complementary visuals

Utilize design elements like relevant images, charts, and infographics that reinforce your script’s message. For example, if you're discussing market growth, a well-designed graph can visually represent the data you're talking about, making complex information more accessible and engaging. The key is to choose visuals that directly support and enhance what you're saying.

2. Consistent theme

Maintaining a consistent design theme throughout your presentation helps in creating a visually cohesive experience and makes your brand image stronger. This includes consistent use of color schemes, fonts, and graphic styles that align with the tone and content of your presentation. A uniform theme not only looks professional but also helps in keeping the audience’s attention focused on your message.

3. Focus on readability

Ensure that any text on your visuals is clear and easy to comprehend. Overloading slides with text can overwhelm your audience. Instead, opt for key phrases or bullet points that complement your spoken words. The text should be large enough to be easily readable from a distance, and the color contrast should make it stand out against the background.

4. Balanced layout

Achieving a balance between visual elements and white space is crucial for a clean and effective slide design. A cluttered slide can distract and confuse your audience, while too much white space may lead to a lack of visual interest. Aim for a layout that emphasizes key elements, using white space to highlight important information without making the slide feel overcrowded.

Expert tips for great presentation speech

Delivering a strong presentation is more than just writing; it involves a nuanced blend of delivery techniques, audience interaction, and adaptability. Here are some expert tips presentation style:

1. Dynamic pacing

Varying the pace of your delivery keeps your audience engaged. For example, slow down during complex topics for better understanding, and speed up during familiar or lighter segments to maintain energy. This dynamic pacing ensures that important points are emphasized and the audience remains attentive throughout.

2. Feedback loop

Gathering feedback on your script and presentation style can offer invaluable insights. It’s like holding a mirror to your performance. Present it  to a small group or a trusted colleague and solicit a honest feedback from your audience. Pay attention to their responses and suggestions - they can help you identify areas for improvement that you might not have noticed on your own.

3. Body language and voice modulation

Being conscious of your non-verbal cues and voice modulation can dramatically enhance the effectiveness of your delivery. Your body language should complement the tone of your message.

For instance, use open gestures for welcoming or inclusive points, and firmer gestures for strong, decisive statements. Similarly, modulate your voice to match the content - a softer tone for sensitive topics, or a stronger, more assertive tone for key arguments. This congruence between your words and your delivery makes your presentation more convincing and engaging.

4. Stay adaptable

Adaptability is crucial in presentations. Sometimes, despite all the planning, the audience's reaction may not be what you expected, or technical issues may arise. Be prepared to improvise your approach on the fly.

For instance, if a particular part of your presentation isn't resonating as expected, be ready to shift gears, perhaps by moving to an interactive Q&A earlier than planned.

Staying adaptable ensures that you maintain control of the presentation, no matter the circumstances.

What are the benefits of a good presentation script?

It enhances your ability to connect with the audience. It serves as a guide, ensuring that you deliver your message in a clear, engaging, and relatable way. When you have a well-crafted script, it's easier to explain complex topics in a way that's easy for everyone to understand. This not only keeps your audience attentive but also makes your presentation more memorable.

Additionally, as the presenter, you get confidence boost. Knowing that you have a solid foundation for your presentation helps reduce anxiety and allows you to focus on delivery. As a result, your message doesn't just get heard; it resonates with the audience, leaving them informed, inspired, and often impressed by the clarity and effectiveness of your communication.

How can Prezent help with great presentation scripts?

Prezent, the communication productivity platform for enterprise teams, can significantly enhance the process of writing and delivering presentation scripts in various ways:

1. Efficiency in slide creation: Prezent's AI capabilities streamline slide creation. With a library of over 35,000 slides , presenters can quickly find and customize them, allowing more time to focus on writing a script with great content and delivery.

2. Consistency and brand alignment: Prezent ensures that all slides adhere to brand guidelines , maintaining a professional and cohesive look throughout the presentation. This consistency is crucial for the visual elements.

3. Enhanced storytelling through visuals: The AI-driven slide creation tools in Prezent suggest visual storytelling elements relevant to the script. This enhances audience engagement and understanding, particularly when complex points need to be conveyed.

4. Best practice examples and learning: Prezent offers a feature of best practice examples – a curated collection of exemplary presentations. These examples showcase industry norms and creative approaches, providing valuable insights into effective presentation styles and structures.

5. Personalized insights with fingerprints: The ' Fingerprints ' feature in helps understand your and your audience's strengths, preferences, and areas for growth. This leads to personalized insights, enhancing communication skills and ensuring that the presentation resonates with the audience. Create your Fingerprint today !.

6. Adaptability to content: Prezent adapts slide design based on the script's content, suggesting appropriate charts for analytical sections or illustrative visuals for narrative parts, ensuring the slides are in perfect harmony.

7. Feedback and improvement suggestions: With its advanced AI capabilities, Prezent can offer feedback and improvement suggestions on both the content and design of the presentation, based on communication and design best practices.

Overall, Prezent acts as a comprehensive tool for enhancing presentation scripts, ensuring that the visual components effectively support and elevate the spoken content, while also offering insights and suggestions for continuous improvement. To see Prezent in action you can sign up for our free trial or book a demo today!

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How to write an effective presentation script

If putting together presentation content wasn’t tough enough, a script also has to be written for, or by, the speaker. Learning how to write a presentation script can take some time to master, and just like a presentation design , there are some important rules to remember.

From putting together a storyboard and ensuring the words complement the slides, to inserting pause breaks and not sounding too scripted, delivering a presentation speech is a skill that needs to be honed. In this article, we will help you with all of that and more, so you can learn how to write a presentation script your audience will easily connect with.

1. Finalise the storyboarding

Planning is everything when it comes to  writing a script for a presentation . In order to make the content flow naturally, a speaker needs to be well-prepared with enough time ahead of the event for them to practise.

In order to achieve great presentation content , clear and concise storyboarding needs to be the first step. This is especially true in situations where the same person is writing the script and also putting together the design. It can be tempting to write the content first before attempting to retrofit the design elements so it matches the script.

However, following this method rarely ever works, and it only serves to increase frustration and stress levels. By using a storyboard it becomes much easier to plan the length of the presentation along with its content. It also creates a guideline that will enable the speaker to direct the audience from start to finish.

2. Stick to the slide content

A key point to remember is that the content of your slides must provide the foundation of your script. When you sit down to begin writing it can be easy to follow the flow of ideas to create a script that reads wonderfully on its own. What you can’t forget is this must tie directly into the presentation content you have already storyboarded.

Writing a script for a presentation that doesn’t match the content will leave the audience feeling confused. As the script starts wandering off into tangents that do not relate to the slides, the crowd will quickly lose their place and their concentration will soon follow.

An easy way around this is to write the script with the presentation content close to hand. Break down the words into sections that reflect the order of the slides so the two are always complementing each other perfectly.

3. Remember to add in some pause breaks

When an audience attends a presentation they have two tasks to juggle: firstly, to digest the words being delivered by the speaker, and secondly, to understand the information provided by the presentation content.

It’s important to place yourself in the shoes of the audience to remember this when writing a script for a presentation. You want as much of the information you are providing to be taken in by the audience, which means you need to factor in some time that will enable them to process your words and the visual data.

Writing pause breaks into the script plays a key role in achieving this. When the speaker pauses it gives the audience a moment to reflect on what has just been said. It also allows the speaker to create a  rhythm of speech  and have more control over the attention of the audience from start to finish.

4. Write, practice, iterate and repeat

Once you have your script ready to go, you will need to set aside a good amount of time to practice it. Don’t forget, the script is one half of the content you will be delivering to the audience, so you should always practice the material alongside the finalised slides, as this gives you a better feel for how it all comes together.

This also allows you to make final tweaks and changes to the script, as well as physically practicing how you will deliver it on the day. You can then rehearse the way you stand, your eye contact and the management of your overall body language in front of an audience.

It is also worth remembering that when you write a script for a presentation, it will be written more formally compared to the way you naturally speak. If the script isn’t changed to reflect this, it will sound unnatural and awkward and the audience will pick up on it very quickly.

5. Remember, You don’t always need to write a script

Please note that this final point isn’t intended to undermine everything we have talked about above! As we mentioned in the previous point, sometimes writing every word you are going to say can sound overly scripted, which can lack empathy and struggle to connect with the audience.

If you are experienced and confident enough, or if it fits the type of audience you will be speaking to, you can work around key points you have written down, or simply use the slide content as your start point.

This usually suits a more informal setting and you always have to be careful not to wander off on long tangents that will lose the audience in the process. Always remember the structure of your presentation and have a time limit so you will still deliver the information concisely and effectively.

Script writing is no easy task!

Just like creating content for your presentation, writing a script requires practice. With each one you write you will gain more confidence and improve the way they are structured and delivered. Use the guidelines above as a foundation for your scripts and you’ll soon be able to find a voice and style that will add real value to your presentations.

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How we write presentation scripts that captivate audiences.

Having written thousands, this is our advice on how to write a presentation script and how to use scripts in your presentations.

What’s the most important factor in any presentation?

It’s got to be the design, right? Making your slides so beautiful, so chic, and so damn on-brand that your audience will weep at their magnificence?

That’s important, but no – we’re talking about something more fundamental than that.

Ok, then. How about the  animation ? Slick, professional and seamless. That premium, professional sheen that shows your quality through and through.

Again, really love your thinking here, but before that too.

Before you even open PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides. Before you get stuck into Photoshop, XD, or whatever design software you prefer.

In many cases, before you even fire your trusty PC or Mac up.

Which brings up back to answering that original question. The first – and most important – part of any presentation is the story. It’s the structure on which those other visual elements can hang, and with a great narrative, your design and animation can take it to another level of excellence.

But the story needs to be delivered. And in most cases, that’s down to you, the presenter. So you need a way to make sure you talk through the story in the right order. Hitting the right highs and lows. Without missing anything out. And without rambling on and going over your time limit.

What you need, my friend, is a presentation script.

The benefits of a great presentation script

OK, before we go any further, I can already see some of you grimacing at the thought of a presentation script.

I don’t need a script , you might be thinking – and you may well be right.

Scripts make presenters sound all robotic and boring , you could be muttering – and again, good point.

I want my  salespeople  to be able to think on their feet and adapt to any situation , you might be screaming into your screen. OK, chill out – you’re not wrong.

But let’s not be so black and white about things, eh?

Like presenters, presentations and audiences, each script should be different.

Your presentation script will likely be based on your experience as a presenter, your knowledge of the presentation subject, the level of detail you want to go into, the type of audience you’re presenting to, your time allowance, and many other variables.

So, it’s a good idea to start with the maximum amount you need, and then chip away as necessary. Think of it like Michelangelo’s David. To create his masterpiece, the Italian sculptor took a huge block of Tuscan marble, whittling it down for over two years to reveal the final result.

Can you imagine if he just took a small torso-shaped piece, and then glued a few bits and bobs on as he went along?

It’s the same for your presentation script: write it out in full, and see how it feels when you speak it out loud. What’s that? You probably wouldn’t speak it out loud? Well, you should – some phrases sound all wrong spoken aloud, even when they look fine on the page.

Speaking aloud also gives you a much better estimate of the time it will take to present it in full; reading it in your head, or even muttering it softly to yourself just won’t give you the same timings.

Each time you speak it aloud, it will get a bit tighter, a bit stronger and a bit more personalised to the way you speak.

And, after a few drafts, you’ll have something approaching your final presentation script. Just be careful to leave it when it’s ready – it can be tempting to tweak and tweak ad infinitum, and it’s sometimes difficult to know when to leave it alone.

Now it’s decision time. What will you do with this script? There are basically three choices here:

• Read the full script.
• Cut it down to bullet points.
• Memorise it.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each in turn.

1. Read the full script

This is the safest method.

You separate your script out throughout your slides in the speaker notes section. This means you see them on your laptop, but your audience doesn’t on the big screen (or their Zoom screen).

Most people new to presenting, nervous of public speaking, not experts in the subject matter, or just a bit cautious, might initially choose this option, but it’s not without risks.

Yes, you won’t forget anything and yes, it gives you something to focus on other than the audience, but that can become an issue.

If you stand in front of your audience with your eyes glued to PowerPoint’s speaker notes, then it’s often not the best experience for them. People like to connect with one another, and eye contact – even over video calls – is an important part of this. So, if you don’t even glance up from time to time, you and your presentation can come across as cold, at a time when you should be sharing emotion.

And another issue is it can be hard to portray that emotion when you’re reading out loud, rather than speaking from the top of your head. It can be a bit like listening to kids reading out loud in primary school: sure, they are saying all the words right, but the speed, the cadence, the emphasis and passion can all be lost.

So how can you get around this conundrum: you’re not confident enough to go without a presentation script, but you don’t want to sound like an emotionless reading drone. The answer, whether you like it or not, is to practice.

Most people don’t practice, so most presentations aren’t very good. Don’t be that guy.

The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel delivering your presentation script. You’ll find that certain sentences and phrases slip off the tongue a bit easier, so you are able to make eye contact from time to time. Keep practicing and there may be whole slides or sections that you can talk around – maybe not word-for-word – but close enough.

And this is where you’re getting closer to that audience connection – in fact it’s arguably better to falter every now again – it proves you’re just human like the rest of us.

It also gets you closer to option 2.

2. Cut it down to bullet points

For most of our clients , who are pretty experienced presenters, this is the best option. It gives you the flexibility to talk around the main points, but with a safety net of all the key points written down as memory aids.

These bullets, tucked away in the speaker notes, can be a presenter’s secret weapon. With just a discreet glance towards their screen every now and again, they can make sure the whole story is delivered in full, in order, and with a healthy amount of audience connection thrown in too.

Don’t forget that speaker notes – whether a full presentation script or bullet points – are really easy to edit. So, if you tend to use a presentation multiple times, you can go in each time afterwards to tighten up a word or two here, or perhaps a couple more pointers there.

Or maybe edit them beforehand to personalise the script a bit to your specific audience – it’s a good way to mitigate on blanking the company or individual names you’re meeting.

It’s still important to practice with just speaker noters though, and you’ll find those glances become fewer and the eye contact increases as you do so. And the more you practice speaker notes, the better you’ll get, perhaps ultimately getting to option 3.

3. Memorise it

Let’s face it, the best presenters don’t need any kind of script. When was the last time you saw someone delivering a TED talk with a fistful of cue cards? Or referring back to their laptop every couple of minutes?

It’s all just there, in their heads, effortlessly transitioning through and out of their mouths. Or so it appears… again, don’t kill the messenger but these people practice over and over and over.

But memorising it doesn’t always mean literally reciting every exact word. That can be useful when you have a very strict time to work within, but the best presenters can flow in and out of their memorised script at will. It’s really something to behold.

This means they can slip in relevant stories or recent events seamlessly. Or can refer back to other talks that day, personalise their story to the audience and generally make it much more of a flexible experience.

But of course, there’s a flip side. Less experienced speakers might lose their place, miss a whole chunk out, or go off on a rambling tangent that has no relevance, like that time I went to do a talk and it was really early in the morning and usually I set my alarm for 6.45 except for Thursdays when I get a lie in but actually the Thursday before I had a meeting so I turned that alarm off, but left on the 8.30 alarm and this talk happened to start at 8.15 and I didn’t realise but the alarm was still on but the talk didn’t actually start on time because there was an issue with the pastry delivery because we usually use this one company but they couldn’t deliver them so we had to use another company which was actually run by the husband of a client we used to work with who used to be a designer but then realised that he preferred to actually bake and……… you get the point there I hope.

Your presentation script. Your way.

All in all, presentation scripts are essential in creating and presenting a great audience experience. They give you structure, flow, and confidence that simply reading off your slides, or ad-libbing it can’t.

Start with a strong presentation script, and remember that it’s entirely up to you to decide how to use it to make the most out of your own style.

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From Start To Finish: How To Write A Presentation Script

• Posted On - October 24, 2023
• By - contributor

Presentation scripts have the potential to capture the attention of listeners and viewers. It can establish yourself as a credible speaker in the industry. No matter your aim to do marketing, branding, or just captivating the audience, a presentation can help you achieve all your goals. But writing presentations is an art; everyone can’t do it professionally. Let us tell you a step-by-step guide on how to write a presentation script. So read on to be a good writer.

Importance Of A Presentation Script

In any presentation, a well-written script plays a crucial role. It helps capture the audience’s attention and deliver a memorable message. A strong script enables you to articulate your ideas clearly, structure your content effectively, and engage your audience from start to finish. A presentation script also boosts your confidence as a speaker. It allows you to deliver your message with conviction and impact.

Benefits Of A Compelling Script

A script for a presentation offers benefits that can enhance your delivery and impact. Let’s explore some of the key advantages of having a well-crafted and engaging script:

Captures audience attention

One of the primary benefits of a script is its ability to maintain your audience’s attention. A well-written script helps you structure your content in a way that hooks your listeners from the beginning and keeps them engaged throughout the presentation.

Incorporate engaging storytelling or thought-provoking questions. You can also use powerful statements to captivate your audience and keep them focused on your message.

Enhances Message Clarity

A script allows you to present your ideas and information in a clear and organized manner. By carefully structuring your content, you can convey your message effectively. Your audience will easily understand it. A presentation script enables you to articulate your thoughts and concepts with clarity. It helps you avoid confusion or ambiguity.

Provides A Logical Flow Of Information

A well-structured script helps you organize your presentation in a logical sequence. By outlining key points, supporting details, and transitions between topics, you create a smooth flow of information that guides your audience through the content. This logical flow makes it easier for listeners to follow your thoughts. This way, they comprehend the overall message you are conveying.

Supports Effective Time Management

Having a script allows you to manage your time during the presentation effectively. By pre-determining the length of each section and allocating time accordingly, you can ensure that you cover all the essential points within the given time frame. This helps you maintain a good pace, avoid rushing, and prevent exceeding the allotted time.

Boosts Speaker Confidence

When you have a well-prepared script, you gain confidence as a speaker. Knowing that you have a solid structure and carefully chosen words to guide you through the presentation gives you a sense of preparedness and control. This confidence translates into a more engaging and impactful delivery. You can focus on connecting with your audience rather than worrying about what to say next.

Enables Customization For Different Audiences

You can customize any script to suit different audience demographics, needs, and preferences. By understanding your target audience, you can adapt your script to resonate with their interests, knowledge level, and expectations. This customization helps you establish a stronger connection with your listeners. It also makes your presentation more relevant and relatable.

Increases Audience Retention And Comprehension

A script that is well-crafted with compelling content increases audience retention and comprehension. By using techniques such as storytelling, visual aids, and repetition of key messages, you reinforce important concepts and make them more memorable. This results in a higher likelihood of your audience retaining the information. It helps them understand the core message of your presentation.

Step 1: Understanding The Purpose And Audience

Knowing the objective and audience of your presentation is crucial. It helps you write an effective script. Let’s delve into the importance of understanding these aspects and how they influence your scriptwriting process:

Clarify The Purpose

Before you begin writing your script, understand the purpose behind your presentation. Ask yourself what you aim to achieve through your talk. Are you seeking to inform, persuade, entertain, or inspire your audience? You can tailor your script to align with your goals by identifying the primary purpose.

Consider the desired outcome you want from your presentation. Do you want your audience to take specific actions, change their perspective, or gain knowledge?

Identify The Target Audience

The next crucial step is identifying and understanding your target audience . Who will be attending your presentation? What are their characteristics, interests, and knowledge levels? Analyzing your audience helps you tailor your script to resonate with their needs.

Consider demographic factors such as age, gender, profession, educational background, and cultural diversity. These insights will guide your tone, language choice, and content selection.

For example, if you’re presenting to a group of industry professionals, use technical terminology and delve deeper into specific details. On the other hand, if your audience consists of a general public with limited knowledge of the topic, you would need to explain concepts in a more accessible manner.

Adapting The Language And Tone

Once you understand your purpose and audience, adapt the language of your script. Use a style that resonates with your audience, whether formal, informal, or a blend of both. Consider the tone you want to convey—authoritative, enthusiastic, empathetic, or conversational. Incorporate it consistently throughout your script.

You create a sense of connection and engagement by aligning your language and tone with your audience’s expectations. Avoid jargon or complex terms if your audience is unfamiliar with them. Instead, focus on clarity and simplicity to ensure your message is easily understood.

Incorporating Relevant Content

Understanding your audience enables you to include content that is meaningful to them. Research and gather information addressing their needs, challenges, or interests. Incorporate examples, anecdotes, or case studies that resonate with your audience. It can make your presentation more relatable and impactful.

Consider the knowledge level of your audience. Strike the right balance between providing enough background information and advanced concepts. Use visuals, statistics, or examples to support your points and enhance audience understanding.

Aligning With The Expectations

Every audience has certain expectations when attending a presentation. Understanding these expectations allows you to meet them and exceed them where possible. For instance, if your audience expects a lively and interactive session, consider incorporating interactive elements such as audience participation, Q&A sessions, or group exercises into your script.

Step 2: Preparing For Script Writing

Scriptwriting is a crucial step. It sets the foundation for creating a compelling and well-structured presentation. Let’s explore the key aspects to consider during the preparation phase:

Researching The Topic

Before you start writing your script, conduct thorough research on your topic. Gather reliable information from sources like books, articles, research, or credible websites. Take notes and organize your research materials. Ensure that you have a solid understanding of the subject matter.

Defining The Key Message

Your presentation should have a clear and concise central message. Spend time defining and refining your key message, as it will serve as the backbone of your script. The key message should align with the purpose of your presentation. It must encapsulate the main idea or argument you want to convey to your audience.

Outlining The Structure

An effective presentation script follows a well-defined structure. Create an outline that outlines the main points, subtopics, and supporting details you want to cover. Consider the logical flow of information and how each section connects to the next. The structure will help you maintain focus, stay organized, and ensure a smooth delivery.

Step 3: Crafting Engaging Content

Content creation is an essential step. It captivates your audience and keeps them interested throughout your presentation. Here are some effective strategies to create compelling and impactful content:

Start With A Hook

Begin your presentation with a strong opening that grabs the audience’s attention. This can be a thought-provoking question , an interesting fact, a story, or a powerful quote. The hook sets the tone for the rest of your script and establishes a connection with your listeners.

Clearly Outline Your Main Points

Organize your content in a logical and structured manner. Outline the main points you want to convey and arrange them coherently. Each point should be clear and concise, focusing on the most critical information. Consider using headings and subheadings to guide your audience and facilitate understanding.

Tell Stories And Use Examples

Storytelling is a powerful tool to engage your audience. Incorporate relevant narratives, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate your main ideas. Stories create an emotional connection. It makes the information more relatable and helps your audience retain the information. Additionally, examples and real-life scenarios can enhance comprehension. It can make your content more tangible.

Use Visual Aids

Visual aids such as slides, charts, images, and videos enhance presentation engagement. They provide visual support, help illustrate complex concepts, and add variety to your content. Ensure that your visual aids are clear. They must be appealing and aligned with your message. Use them sparingly and strategically to avoid overwhelming your audience. 

Use video script template s to save time. Incorporate all these elements in a script and see how it captivates your audience with an organized structure.

Incorporate Interactive Elements

Engage your audience by incorporating interactive elements in your script. This can include asking questions or encouraging participation. You can also conduct polls or surveys or incorporate hands-on activities. Interactive elements make your presentation more dynamic and involve your audience actively.

Inject Humor

Humor is a powerful tool to grab attention and create an enjoyable atmosphere. Incorporate appropriate humor throughout your script to lighten the mood. It will make your presentation memorable and build rapport with your audience. However, be mindful of cultural sensitivities. Ensure that your humor aligns with the context and tone of your presentation.

Use Emotionally Compelling Language

Use language that appeals to their emotions to evoke a strong response from your audience. Use vivid and descriptive words that paint a picture in their minds. Emphasize the benefits, the impact, and the relevance of your message. Connect with your audience on an emotional level. Express empathy and understand their needs and concerns.

Step 4: Writing For Oral Delivery

Writing for verbal communication requires a specific approach to ensure your presentation script is effective when spoken aloud. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when writing for oral delivery:

Using Conversational Language

When writing a presentation script, aim for a conversational tone. Use simple, clear, concise language your audience can easily understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms unless necessary. Create a friendly and relatable atmosphere through your writing.

Incorporating Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical devices such as repetition, rhetorical questions , metaphors, and parallelism can add flair to your presentation script. Strategic use of these devices can create rhythm. It can help you emphasize key points, evoke emotions, and make your script more engaging.

Balancing Script And Improvisation

While it’s important to have a well-written script, it’s also crucial to allow room for improvisation and flexibility during the presentation. Be prepared to adapt to the audience’s reactions. Address questions and engage in spontaneous interactions. Strive for a balance between following the script and connecting with the audience.

Step 5: Refining And Practicing The Script

Once you have written your presentation script, refining and practicing it is essential to ensure a smooth and engaging delivery. Here are some steps to refine and practice your script:

Review And Edit

Read through your script multiple times to identify any areas that can be improved. Look for opportunities to make your message clearer. Eliminate unnecessary details and enhance the flow of your script. Pay attention to the overall structure. Ensure that your main points are well-organized and easy to follow.

Seek Feedback

Share your script with colleagues, friends, or mentors and ask for their feedback. Their fresh perspective can help you identify any areas that may need improvement. Consider their suggestions. Make revisions accordingly to enhance the overall quality of your script.

Practice Out Loud

Once you are satisfied with the refined version of your script, it’s time to practice delivering it out loud . Stand in front of a mirror. Record yourself to observe your body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Pay attention to your pacing, pauses, and emphasis on key points. Practice until you feel confident and comfortable with the delivery.

Time Yourself

Timing is crucial when delivering a presentation. Ensure your script fits within the allotted time frame by synchronizing yourself during practice sessions. If necessary, make adjustments to the script by shortening or expanding certain parts. It will help you maintain a balanced and well-paced presentation.

Rehearse With Visual Aids

If you plan to use visual aids such as slides or props during your presentation, incorporate them into your rehearsal. Practice syncing your delivery with the visual elements to ensure a seamless presentation. Familiarize yourself with the order and content of the visual aids to enhance the overall impact of your message.

Seek Opportunities For Practice

Take advantage of opportunities to practice your script in front of a live audience. Consider participating in mock presentations, workshops, or public speaking events where you can receive feedback and gain experience in delivering your script to a real audience. This will help build your confidence and fine-tune your delivery.

Power Of A Well-Crafted Script

Following these 5 steps of how to write a presentation script, you can create a perfect speech to engage your audience throughout your speech. Remember, writing a script is an art you can master only with time and constant practice. Use our guide as a starting point and begin writing a compelling script.

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Starting a presentation in english: methods and examples.

• By Jake Pool

If you’re going to make it in the professional world, most likely you’ll have to give a presentation in English at some point. No reason to get nervous!

Most of the work involved lies in the introduction. You may or may not need an English presentation PPT file, your topic, audience, or time limit may vary, but a strong opening is a must no matter what! Everything that follows can build from the opening outline you present to your audience.

Let’s look at some guidelines for starting a presentation in English. If you can master this part, you’ll never have to worry about the rest!

Opening in a Presentation in English

While it’s important to have your entire presentation organized and outlined, planning and organization are especially important in the introduction. This is what will guide you through a clear and concise beginning. Let’s look at how to start a presentation with well-organized thoughts .

Introduction Outline

• Introduce yourself and welcome everyone.
• State the purpose of your presentation
• Give a short overview of the presentation

As we say, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. (No need for a more detailed English presentation script!) Let’s examine the first step.

1. Introduce Yourself & Welcome Everyone

The self-introduction is your opportunity to make a good first impression. Be sure to open with a warm welcome and use language that is familiar and natural. Based on your audience, there are a few different expressions you can use to start your presentation.

If you’re presenting to coworkers who may already know you:

• Hello, [name] here. I would like to thank you all for your time. As you may know, I [describe what you do/your job title] I look forward to discussing [topic] today.
• Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone. Thank you for being here. For those who don’t know me, my name is [name], and for those who know me, hello again.

If you’re presenting to people you’ve never met:

• Hello everyone, it’s nice to meet you all. My name is [name] and I am the [job/title].
• Hello. Welcome to [event]. My name is [name] and I am the [job/title]. I’m glad you’re all here.

There are certainly more ways to make an introduction. However, it’s generally best to follow this format:

• Start with a polite welcome and state your name.
• Follow with your job title and/or the reason you’re qualified to speak on the topic being discussed.

2. State the Purpose of Your Presentation

Now that your audience knows who you are and your qualifications, you can state the purpose of your presentation. This is where you clarify to your audience what you’ll be talking about.

So, ask yourself, “ What do I want my audience to get from this presentation? ”

• Do you want your audience to be informed?
• Do you need something from your audience?
• Do you want them to purchase a product?
• Do you want them to do something for the community or your company?

With your goal in mind, you can create the next couple of lines of your presentation. Below are some examples of how to start.

• Let me share with you…
• I’d like to introduce you to [product or service]
• Today I want to discuss…
• I want to breakdown for you [topic]
• Let’s discuss…
• Today I will present the results of my research on [topic]
• By the end of this presentation, you’ll understand [topic]
• My goal is to explain…
• As you know, we’ll be talking about…

When talking about the purpose of your presentation, stick to your goals. You purpose statement should be only one to three sentences. That way, you can give your audience a clear sense of purpose that sets them up for the rest of the presentation.

3. A Short Overview of the Presentation

The final step in starting your presentation is to give a short outline of what you’ll be presenting. People like a map of what to expect from a presentation.

It helps them organize their thoughts and gives a sense of order. Also, it lets the audience know why they’re listening to you. This is what you’ll use to grab their attention, and help them stay focused throughout the presentation.

Here are some examples of how you can outline your presentation:

• Today, I’m going to cover… Then we’ll talk about… Lastly, I’ll close on…
• We’re going to be covering some key information you need to know, including…
• My aim with this presentation is to get you to… To do that we’ll be talking about…
• I’ve divided my presentation into [number] sections… [List the sections]
• Over the next [length of your presentation] I’m going to discuss…

That’s it! It’s as simple as 1-2-3. If you have a fear of public speaking or are not confident about presenting to a group of people, follow these three steps. It’s a simple structure that can get you off to a good start. With that in mind, there are other ways to bring your introduction to the next level too! Read on for bonus tips on how to really engage your audience, beyond the basics.

For a Strong Presentation in English, Engage your Audience

Presentations aren’t everyone’s strongest ability, and that’s OK. If you’re newer to presenting in English, the steps above are the basics to getting started. Once you’re more comfortable with presenting, though, you can go a step further with some extra tricks that can really wow your audience.

Mastering the skill of engaging an audience will take experience. Fortunately, there are many famous speakers out there you can model for capturing attention. Also, there are some common techniques that English-speakers use to gain an audience’s attention.

*How and when you use these techniques in your introduction is at your discretion, as long as you cover the 3 steps of the introduction outline that we discussed earlier.*

Do or say something shocking.

The purpose of shocking your audience is to immediately engage them. You can make a loud noise and somehow relate the noise to your presentation. Or, you can say, “ Did you know that… ” and follow with a shocking story or statistic. Either way, the objective is to create surprise to draw their attention.

Tell a story

Telling a story related to your presentation is a great way to get the audience listening to you.

You can start by saying, “ On my way to [location] the other day… ” or “ On my way here, I was reminded of… ” and then follow with a story. A good story can make your presentation memorable.

Ask your audience to take part

Sometimes a good introduction that captures attention will involve asking for help from the audience. You can ask the audience to play a quick game or solve a puzzle that’s related to your presentation. Also, you could engage the audience with a group exercise. This is a great way to get people involved in your presentation.

There are many more ways to engage the audience, so get creative and see what you can think up! Here are some resources that will help you get started.

Also, if you want to get better at public speaking (and help your English speaking too!), a great organization to know about is the Toastmasters . The organization is dedicated to helping you be a better speaker, and there are many local groups in America. They offer free lessons and events to help you master your English speaking, and also offer additional help to paying members.

The Takeaway

A presentation in English? No problem, as long as your introduction sets you up for success . Admittedly, this can be easier said than done. Native speakers and non-native speakers alike sometimes struggle with getting a good start on their English presentation. But the advice above can help you get the confidence you need to lay a good foundation for your next speech !

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How to write a presentation script

The title of this article may be a little misleading as many people want to know how to write a presentation script but the truth is you do not need one. bear with me here because you may well need to write one to get the information you need in to your head,but when you get to the presentation itself you will only need bullet points., so here, i am going to show you, in four simple steps, how to sort and organise yourself for your presentation. this is a systematic approach that you can apply to any subject., step one: listing, this approach is often called mind mapping and involves getting everything you think you should say down on paper. there should be no filters here. do not think i can’t say that or i won’t have time for that. get everything down even if it will be discarded later. write down everything you know about the subject and also things you think you think you should know about it. you can always research and learn later if it does in fact,need to be said., if you write it down as a list it will help to sequentially order your thoughts but you may want to write it as a thought bubble. having a list of the main topics coming away from the subject and then other points or thoughts coming from each of those sub subjects., when we start out to write our presentation most of us fear we won’t have enough to say but usually the reverse is true and a common mistake is to try to get it all in, ending in a rushed and often confusing presentation., step two: sorting, so now we have too much information and it needs sorting. take your list and sort it into similar subject matters. you will probably need to sort it into about three or four sections or headings. the items in your list will then fall into those headings or they won’t. if they don’t then discard them., if you don’t discard them they will make your presentation messy and no one likes or understands a messy presentation. stick to your three or four headings depending on length of presentation and only keep the points that logically fit into those headings., step three: arranging, now is the time to arrange your information., now take the next logical heading and do the same and so on until you have the headings in a logical list and you have elaborated on the points under that heading. those elaborated thoughts may include jottings of ideas for powerpoint slides to include or other visual aids. take a look at my post on powerpoint presentations here., you should now have several pages which are more formally arranged and hopefully you are now feeling like you have the start of a presentation., step four: review, now you have a written structure to your presentation you need to take the time to see if it works. the best way of doing this in my opinion is saying the stuff you have written down out loud. you can say it aloud in your head but actually saying it will also be the first part of rehearsing. i also think talking to the mirror works well for me., yes like an actor you will need to rehearse for this presentation. an unrehearsed presentation will likely end in a disaster. even professional speakers rehearse. i also find talking to the mirror helps me., don’t worry if it comes out badly first time as this is where you find out if things you want to say work or not. if it doesn’t fit, take it out and rejig your structure., in conclusion, so now i have given your the four steps to writing a script, though please remember you should not read from this script when you actually present. these four steps can be done relatively quickly or take some time depending on the complexity of the subject and your own knowledge of it. please do not skip this step out, when preparing for your presentation as preparation is vital to your success., to present successfully you need a clear objective. take a look at my post on setting objectives here . you must prepare in a way that is systematic, thorough and detailed., i hope that this has helped you in writing your presentation script but remember this is only one step in presenting brilliantly. you may want to take at look at my posts on communication skills as a next step in getting your presentation, audience ready., as always i am here to help and if you have any questions please ask by leaving a comment below and i will get back to you as soon as i can, with grace and gratitude.

Hi Karen Thanks for your presentation. The steps you put forth are very helpful to create order in my mind. The script is well balanced with picture and is written in a simplified way that I can relate to easily. You also make yourself available, which is a welcome feeling as you stand behind what you are selling compared to many others who I feel are just selling. Thanks again Cheers Orion

Thank you for your kind comments Orion.

I am a firm believer that people buy people first and the product or idea second. We are all fed up with being sold to with promises of riches that are unachievable. As with anything if you are going to be good at presentations you have to but the effort in. To be great, you need to be good. To be good you have to be bad. To be bad you have to start.

No one gets to be great at something without effort.

With Grace and Gratitude 

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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🤗 Models on Hugging Face   | Blog   | Website   | Get Started  

Meta Llama 3

We are unlocking the power of large language models. Our latest version of Llama is now accessible to individuals, creators, researchers, and businesses of all sizes so that they can experiment, innovate, and scale their ideas responsibly.

This release includes model weights and starting code for pre-trained and instruction tuned Llama 3 language models — including sizes of 8B to 70B parameters.

This repository is intended as a minimal example to load Llama 3 models and run inference. For more detailed examples, see llama-recipes .

In order to download the model weights and tokenizer, please visit the Meta Llama website and accept our License.

Once your request is approved, you will receive a signed URL over email. Then run the download.sh script, passing the URL provided when prompted to start the download.

Pre-requisites: Make sure you have wget and md5sum installed. Then run the script: ./download.sh .

Keep in mind that the links expire after 24 hours and a certain amount of downloads. If you start seeing errors such as 403: Forbidden , you can always re-request a link.

Access to Hugging Face

We are also providing downloads on Hugging Face , in both transformers and native llama3 formats. To download the weights from Hugging Face, please follow these steps:

• Visit one of the repos, for example meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct .
• Read and accept the license. Once your request is approved, you'll be granted access to all the Llama 3 models. Note that requests used to take up to one hour to get processed.
• To download the original native weights to use with this repo, click on the "Files and versions" tab and download the contents of the original folder. You can also download them from the command line if you pip install huggingface-hub :

To use with transformers, the following pipeline snippet will download and cache the weights:

Quick Start

You can follow the steps below to quickly get up and running with Llama 3 models. These steps will let you run quick inference locally. For more examples, see the Llama recipes repository .

In a conda env with PyTorch / CUDA available clone and download this repository.

In the top-level directory run:

Visit the Meta Llama website and register to download the model/s.

Once registered, you will get an email with a URL to download the models. You will need this URL when you run the download.sh script.

Once you get the email, navigate to your downloaded llama repository and run the download.sh script.

• Make sure to grant execution permissions to the download.sh script
• During this process, you will be prompted to enter the URL from the email.
• Do not use the “Copy Link” option but rather make sure to manually copy the link from the email.

Once the model/s you want have been downloaded, you can run the model locally using the command below:

• Replace Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct/ with the path to your checkpoint directory and Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct/tokenizer.model with the path to your tokenizer model.
• The –nproc_per_node should be set to the MP value for the model you are using.
• Adjust the max_seq_len and max_batch_size parameters as needed.
• This example runs the example_chat_completion.py found in this repository but you can change that to a different .py file.

Different models require different model-parallel (MP) values:

All models support sequence length up to 8192 tokens, but we pre-allocate the cache according to max_seq_len and max_batch_size values. So set those according to your hardware.

Pretrained Models

These models are not finetuned for chat or Q&A. They should be prompted so that the expected answer is the natural continuation of the prompt.

See example_text_completion.py for some examples. To illustrate, see the command below to run it with the llama-3-8b model ( nproc_per_node needs to be set to the MP value):

Instruction-tuned Models

The fine-tuned models were trained for dialogue applications. To get the expected features and performance for them, a specific formatting defined in ChatFormat needs to be followed: The prompt begins with a <|begin_of_text|> special token, after which one or more messages follow. Each message starts with the <|start_header_id|> tag, the role system , user or assistant , and the <|end_header_id|> tag. After a double newline \n\n the contents of the message follow. The end of each message is marked by the <|eot_id|> token.

You can also deploy additional classifiers for filtering out inputs and outputs that are deemed unsafe. See the llama-recipes repo for an example of how to add a safety checker to the inputs and outputs of your inference code.

Examples using llama-3-8b-chat:

Llama 3 is a new technology that carries potential risks with use. Testing conducted to date has not — and could not — cover all scenarios. In order to help developers address these risks, we have created the Responsible Use Guide .

Please report any software “bug”, or other problems with the models through one of the following means:

• Reporting issues with the model: https://github.com/meta-llama/llama3/issues
• Reporting risky content generated by the model: developers.facebook.com/llama_output_feedback
• Reporting bugs and security concerns: facebook.com/whitehat/info

See MODEL_CARD.md .

Our model and weights are licensed for both researchers and commercial entities, upholding the principles of openness. Our mission is to empower individuals, and industry through this opportunity, while fostering an environment of discovery and ethical AI advancements.

See the LICENSE file, as well as our accompanying Acceptable Use Policy

For common questions, the FAQ can be found here which will be kept up to date over time as new questions arise.

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