phrases in oral presentation

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35 Powerful Presentation Phrases in English for Engaging Your Audience

Your palms are sweating. 

For a moment, your mind goes blank. 

All eyes are on you.

That moment right before you start presenting – as you take in your audience – is usually the scariest. The nervousness lessens with practice, but even the most frequent public speakers still get butterflies in their stomach sometimes. Whether you’re facing an entire room of people or looking at everyone through your laptop screen, giving a presentation can still be intimidating – or exciting, once you move beyond the fear. 

There’s an extra layer of challenge too if you have to speak in your non-native language. For a more professional-sounding and engaging presentation, we’ve compiled some of the most useful English presentation phrases below.

We’ll also explore what else you can do to make even more of an impact on your audience. With the right intonation, body language, and gestures, you’ll really be able to catch their attention and emphasize your points. 

If this sounds interesting to you, you should check out the Creativa business meeting mastery course . There’s an entire video episode about giving a stunning presentation. You’ll learn about how to structure your ideas, deliver a report, and conclude a discussion. It covers not only fluent native phrases but also body language demonstrations that you can apply to your work right away. 

On top of this, the course has plenty of other engaging, high-quality video episodes that help you present your best self in English. Curious about it? You can access a free video here . 

Delivering a Powerful Presentation 

To lay the groundwork for your presentation in English, here’s what you’ll have to do first:

Consider the audience  

You’re probably always going to need slides, but every presentation will be different – and the audience that you’ll be presenting to won’t always find the same points interesting. Because of this, you’ll have to tailor your message to them. What style of presentation would be a good fit? For example, some audiences would want to see a lot of number-crunching, while others might be looking for more personal storytelling .

Prepare a structure 

Structure is key in presentations. People have short attention spans, and they can be forgetful. At the end of the day, your goal is for them to remember at least the main points in your presentation. What message do you want to convey? Since you might be discussing a lot of information, you can make it more digestible by ensuring that there’s a logical progression and then ending with a summary. 

Whatever your topic is, it’ll benefit from having a well-defined structure to guide your audience from start to finish. For a cheat sheet on this, scroll down here to download a free PDF worksheet with exercises about structuring your presentation so you can be clear and convincing. This way, you can have a presentation that’s strong in all sections – beginning, middle, and end. 

Key Business Phrases

Once you’ve decided on the style and message of your presentation, you can take it up a notch by including certain English presentation phrases all throughout. Let’s break it down from start to finish: 

Introduction

This is when you’ll be warming up your audience before you proceed to your main points. 

Greeting the audience

If you’re presenting to people who aren’t too familiar with you, you can quickly introduce yourself and mention your role or company. 

• Good morning, everyone. I’m glad to be able to present to all of you. 
• Hello, everyone! It’s nice to see all of you today. I’m [name], the [position] from [company].

Describing your topic

After greeting the audience, you’ll be explaining to them what your presentation is all about. To set their expectations, you might show them an outline of the talk and mention if there’ll be any activities such as breakout discussions.

• I’ll be talking about…
• I’ll be talking about our financial metrics over the past year.
• The topic of this presentation will be…
• The topic of this presentation will be major trends in the logistics industry.
• I’ll be discussing first the [first topic], next [second topic], and finally [third topic].
• I’ll be discussing first the project’s ideation process, next our initial trial, and finally, presenting our results.

Addressing questions and technical concerns

People might be wondering if they can ask questions during your presentation, so you can clarify this at the start. If you’re providing handouts or presenting online, it’s useful to ask people to alert you about any technical concerns. 

• Please feel free to ask any questions during the talk.
• For questions, there will be a Q&A section at the end.
• Can all of you see and hear me properly? Please let me know if you have any technical difficulties during the presentation.  

The body will make up the bulk of your presentation. Ideally, you would go through each of your points logically while letting your audience know when you’re moving on to the next section. 

The longer your presentation, the more important it is to use sequencing phrases. These act as cues that let your audience know where you are in the presentation. You can think of these as similar to detour signals that make the audience much more likely to get your meaning. 

• First, let’s discuss the…
• First, let’s discuss the initial spark for this idea.
• Moving into [the next item / point] …
• Moving into item 4, we can see that this is a major pain point for our target market.
• This leads us to the next…
• This leads us to the next section, where we’ll be looking at the facts and figures.

Linking is closely related to sequencing. Similar to writing, you can have a smoother presentation by connecting your ideas rather than suddenly jumping from one point to another. You can also refer back to points that you’ve mentioned before to make your presentation more cohesive. 

• In connection to what I said earlier…
• In connection to what I said earlier about growing our online presence, we can now look into potential social media campaigns.
• What this means is…
• What this means is that most of our growth is coming from a certain sector. Let’s analyze the data for this in the next section.
• This ties in with…
• This ties in with our survey findings about user reactions. I’ll go into detail about changes we’ve made to the app as a result.

Giving examples

To fully convey your point, you can bring up specific examples and case studies. These are much more memorable as well as engaging because you can tell these in the form of a story.

• For example…
• For example, costs were reduced significantly when we switched to the following materials.
• To demonstrate this point…
• To demonstrate this point, I’ll be showing you a video of a business that used this problem-solving method.
• Here’s an example of…
• Here’s an example of a seasonal product that our customers loved.

Showing visuals 

Visuals naturally attract people’s attention. If you’re using slides for your presentation, take the opportunity to include images, diagrams, infographics, or even charts. 

• As you can see from this…
• As you can see from this photo, we’ve redesigned our office space.
• Here’s a diagram / picture / chart that shows…
• Here’s a diagram that shows a high percentage of people are comfortable with online shopping.
• If you look at this…
• If you look at this infographic, you can see that the new color palette comes off as fun and casual.

Citing data

Citing data from research makes your presentation more persuasive. When you’re talking about results that you’ve achieved, try to bring up actual numbers – this can go a long way towards impressing your audience. 

• According to this study…
• According to this study from [journal], 65% of eCommerce companies are looking for more efficient payment methods.
• Based on our research…
• Based on our research, the most enthusiastic buyers of wellness products in this city are in the 20 to 30 age range.
• Looking at the data…
• Looking at the data, you’ll notice that there’s been an 18% spike in sales since we migrated our platform.

Restating an idea

Sometimes you’ll want to restate an idea so it’s easier to understand. This also serves to emphasize it. Because of the repetition, people are more likely to remember it compared to if you’d only mentioned it once. 

• In other words…
• In other words, partnering up with this client can make our operations more efficient and seamless.
• Another way of saying this is…
• Another way of saying this is that there might actually be more demand than supply by next year.
• What I mean is…
• What I mean is we’re already more than halfway to our business objective.

Handling technical issues

When you’re presenting on video call, all kinds of glitches can happen. Someone might have connection issues, you might have to figure out an app feature you’ve never used before, or background noises might keep interrupting your call. The phrases below can be very handy in these kinds of situations.

• If you can’t hear me, can you type in the chat, please?
• Could everyone mute their mic? There’s a lot of background noise.
• Sorry. The call dropped. I’m back through.

Concluding the Presentation 

By this time, the hardest part is already over! Still, you’ll have to wrap up your presentation nicely by going over the key takeaways during the conclusion. Your audience might also have questions that they’ll want you to address.

Summarizing the presentation

Out of everything that you’ve discussed, what would you like people to get out of it? A short summary towards the end serves to highlight your main ideas. 

• To wrap up…
• To wrap up, I’d like to point out three major takeaways.
• As a summary…
• As a summary of this report update, I would say we have seen a positive uptick in our workflow and productivity.
• All in all…
• All in all, we believe we’ve seen good results for this stage of our progress.

Thanking the audience

Similar to your greeting at the start, it’s common to address your audience again towards the end by thanking them for their time. 

• Thank you for listening!
• Thank you to everyone for being here. 
• I’d like to thank you all for coming here.

Addressing questions

If you’re open to questions from your audience, you can have a short question-and-answer session after your presentation. 

• Do you have any questions or clarifications?
• Feel free to ask me about any of the points I made during the presentation.
• Let me know if you have any questions. 

Practice is Crucial

When you’re all set with the content of your presentation, the next step is to practice your delivery. Regardless of how well you know the topic of your presentation, practicing it at least once will help you be more confident. You’ll discover potential issues that you can fix too before you go live. 

Do a run-through

The most basic way to practice is to do a run-through of your entire presentation . Set a timer on your phone, open up your slides, then start talking – all while imagining that you’re already presenting to your audience. Since you’re acting as if it’s in real-time, this means avoiding any pauses where you have to look up information. 

A run-through can pinpoint any weaknesses in your presentation, and you’ll notice any parts where you might be uncomfortable talking. You’ll also be able to see how much time you’ve spent so you can pace yourself accordingly.  

Record yourself

A more intensive version of the run-through basic would be to record yourself presenting. You can either record your voice or take a full video of yourself. People often notice that they use filler words a lot such as “um” or “uh.” You’ll also be able to check your pronunciation and whether you sound confident and natural all throughout.

Since body language can make or break your delivery, watching a video of yourself presenting is an incredibly effective way to improve your performance. Do your facial expressions match what you’re saying? Are you maintaining good posture throughout and making efforts to connect with the audience?   

When you combine a confident, approachable body language with the right business vocabulary, your ideas shine through better than ever. You can get a play-by-play of how exactly to do this with the Creativa business meeting mastery course . It features video sections that are all about making powerful transitions and expressing your points clearly during presentations. You’ll learn about specific native English phrases and gestures so you can move fluidly from one idea to the next. 

Together with the other episodes, the course dives deep into how you can be a strong communicator during professional meetings. For a preview, check out this free episode .  

Presenting on Video Call

Technical issues happen often enough in face-to-face presentations, but they’re even more frequent during video calls. To avoid any awkward delays when you’re presenting, get comfortable with the platform that you’ll be using. 

If it’s a face-to-face presentation, double-check your slides and make sure any images or videos are showing properly. For video calls, try doing a test call on the app or even call up a friend to practice. You can also get familiar with the app’s basic features, such as screen-sharing or inviting people to breakout rooms. 

But sometimes, even when you’ve practiced your presentation perfectly on video call, the unexpected can still happen. Scroll down here to download a free worksheet that we made precisely for dealing with technical issues in presentations. You’ll get an extensive list of English phrases to use for all sorts of video call glitches, along with practical tips for handling them in the moment. With enough preparation, you’ll be able to roll with surprises and conquer even video call presentations. 

Let’s explore some of the most common glitches (and how you can deal with them gracefully!):

Situation 1: You’re having a hard time hearing other people because of their laggy connection. 

For a presentation to work, everyone needs to have a decent internet connection. If someone’s connection drops, they won’t be able to see or hear you properly, and you won’t understand what they’re trying to say, either. In this case, let them know right away that you can’t hear them. You can also ask them to talk to you over chat instead. 

Example Phrases:

• [Name], you’re cutting in and out. Would you mind reconnecting?
• Audio problems – can you type it on chat instead?

Situation 2: You get disconnected from the call. 

In the case that it’s your connection that’s faulty, you might have to disconnect then reconnect your call. This can be awkward because it interrupts the flow of your presentation. Alerting your audience using certain English phrases can reassure them while getting you back on track with what you were saying.

• Sorry, guys, dropped call. But I’m back.
• Connection problems, everyone. Gonna log out and back in. 

Situation 3: People are having a hard time figuring out how to turn on their audio or video.

Another reason why you’d want to be really familiar with the video platform is you might have to coach people when they experience glitches. It’s almost expected that a few people might accidentally forget to turn on their mic while speaking. Alternatively, they might have issues with turning on their camera.

• I can’t see you, [name]. [Give instructions on how to turn on their video.]
• I can’t see you, Fatima. Look for the camera icon and make sure there’s no red line through it.
• Typing in chat: “Make sure your mic’s unmuted.” [Clarify how they’ll know if they’re unmuted.]
• Typing in chat: “ Make sure your mic’s unmuted. There should be no red lines through it.

The best presentations excel in all three areas: content, structure, and delivery. 

Including some of the key English phrases above will upgrade your performance. Aside from setting a professional tone, these English presentation phrases set the pace for your audience so they’re aware of where you are in the discussion. Your message will sound clearer, and your audience will be able to follow your ideas better.

The basic rules for presentations are the same, whether you’re on a video call or stepping in front of a stage. With the tips above, you’re all set to prepare an amazing presentation in English.

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Learning English with Oxford

The latest language learning tips, resources, and content from oxford university press., useful phrases for giving a presentation in english.

• by Oxford University Press ELT
• Posted on April 21, 2023 February 2, 2024

Giving a presentation in English can be challenging, but with these helpful phrases, you can feel confident and ready to make a good presentation in English. 

Starting your presentation

So how to start a presentation in English? Begin by saying hello and welcoming everyone. You can also thank the audience for being there with you. 

The beginning of the presentation is one of the most important parts because you need to make sure your audience is interested from the start. 

You could tell a short story, give a fact, or simply tell the audience a little bit about yourself, e.g. ‘ Let me start by telling you a little bit about myself …’ 

Then, introduce what your presentation is about by giving an opening statement or an overview of your session. For example, ‘Today, I am going to talk to you about …’ or, ‘Today, we’ll be looking at/focusing on …’. 

You can also tell the audience, ‘ If you have any questions, please raise your hand and I’ll be happy to answer them’ … or ‘ We’ll have time at the end for questions.’

Presenting the topic

When you get into the main part of giving your presentation in English, remember that what you’re saying to your audience is new information. Speak slowly, organise your ideas, and make sure your pronunciation is clear. You can learn more about boosting your pronunciation here . 

Use expressions to order your ideas and introduce new ones. You can use words and phrases to sequence like, firstly/first of all, secondly, then, next, following this, and lastly/finally. 

If you want to introduce the opposite point of view, you can use language like however, on the other hand, contrary to this and then again. 

It’s a good idea to link what you are saying back to previous things you have said. This shows you have a well-organised presentation and also helps keep people engaged. For example, ‘as I said previously/at the beginning …’, ‘as you may remember’ and ‘this relates to what I said about ….’

Highlighting information during your talk 

When you are giving a presentation in English, you might want to highlight a particular piece of information or something that’s important. You can use phrases such as ‘Let’s focus on …’, ‘I want to highlight …’,   ‘Pay attention to …’, ‘Let’s look at …’, ‘I want to briefly address …’, or ‘Now, let’s discuss ….’ You can use these phrases after your sequencing words to help you with your structure. 

You can also highlight information by asking your audience their opinion of what you are saying or having them engage with the presentation in some way. For example, you could ask a question and have the audience raise their hands if they agree, or disagree, or if you want to find out how many of them have experience with the situation you’re discussing. Asking questions is a good way to make sure you still have the audience’s attention after you’ve been speaking for a while.

You can also highlight information on your visuals if you’re using them. Use bright, impactful pictures and colours, and don’t include too much writing on your slides.  

Finalising the talk 

At the end of the presentation, you should summarise your talk and remind the audience of the things you have discussed, and the new information you have given them. You can say things like ‘In summary, we have looked at …’, ‘I’d like to finish by …’, and ‘We’re coming to the end of the presentation. We’ve discussed …’. 

You can then ask the audience for any questions you haven’t already answered. 

What are your experiences of giving a presentation in English? Do you have any other tips to add? Share below!

Billie Jago is an ELT writer and teacher trainer, specialising in digital & assessments. She is the founder of the professional development podcast ELTcpd and co-founder of the digital ELT content agency, otterelt .

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Author: Oxford University Press ELT

Every year we help millions of people around the world to learn English. As a department of the University of Oxford, we further the University’s objective of excellence in education by publishing proven and tested language learning books, eBooks, learning materials, and educational technologies. View all posts by Oxford University Press ELT

before You start your presentation ,try please to mention the time duration . sometimes people should be informed so that we can take a coffe break or cigarettes break in order to make evry one happy with the topics

Here is the tip I would add according to my experience :

end your presentation on a positive note, for example with a funny sentence /image /meme / an inspirational quote, in short something that will make your talk pleasant to remember.

Valentina T.

You need to chill out and show calmness and confidence. You should rehearse your presentation on the stage some time before its previously stated time.

Clear, cogent & commanding. Thanks.

I think to get better respond to presentation you can do some mistakes in it and then explain it the end or in the next presentation. Because if anyone would like to learn something also should show involvement.

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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Blog > English Presentation Structure (Introduction, Closing) & useful Phrases

English Presentation Structure (Introduction, Closing) & useful Phrases

02.21.20   •  #powerpoint #presentation #english.

When giving a presentation in english, there are certain guidelines you should follow. Maybe you haven't got a lot of experience presenting - or you would simply like to refresh your already existing knowledge - we're here to teach you the basics about presenting and provide you with a free list of useful phrases and the basic structure you can in your presentation!

1. Structure

The general structure of a presentation is the following:

• Introduction

It is up to you to design these three parts. Using videos or everyday-examples can be a great way to introduce the audience to the topic. The important thing is that you capture the audience's attention from the beginning by making an interesting introduction. The main part is where you present your topic, ideally divided into sections. You can be creative with it - incorporate images, videos, stories or interactive polls . We generally recommend using different kinds of elements, as that makes the presentation more lively. Make sure your main part is well structured, so your audience can follow. In the conclusion, you should give a short summary of the points you made without adding any new information. You can also make an appeal to your audience in the end.

2. Useful Phrases

Here you'll find several phrases that you'll need in every presentation. Of course, you should adapt them and use them in a context that is suitable for your setting. The phrases are divided into subcategories so you can find what you're looking for more easily.

Starting your Presentation

In your introduction, you should:

Welcome your audience

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to my presentation about...

Introduce yourself

I am ... (from company ...) and today I would like to introduce you to the topic of ...

My name is ... and I am going to talk about ... today.

Icebreakers (for audience engagement)

Icebreaker polls are an amazing way to engage your audience instantly. They function as a fun and playful element at the beginning, giving you the perfect start you need to give a successful presentation. Click here to read our detailed post about icebreaker polls!

Mention the presentation topic and the reason for giving the presentation

I am grateful to be here today and tell you you about...

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about ...

I am here today to talk to you about ...

The reason why I am here today to talk about ... is ...

The purpose of this presentation is to ...

My goal today is to ...

Hopefully, by the end of the presentation, you will all know more about ...

Give a short overview of the content

To make it as understandable as possible, I divided my presentation into ... parts. In the first part, I will concentrate on ..., the second part will be about ..., ...

First of all, I will give you a short introduction, then we will move on to ...

... and finally, I will give you some insights to ...

Here are a few phrases that you could use during the whole presentation, but especially in the main part.

Engage your audience

In order to raise the audience's attention and improve their engagement, it is extremely important to make contact with them. A great way to do so is by adding interactive elements such as polls. If you would like to know more about this topic, read our article on How To Boost Audience Engagement . You can also use a software like SlideLizard , which allows you to conduct live polls, do Q&A sessions with your audience, share your resources and many more benefits that take your presentation to the next level.

Please raise your hand if you ...

Have you ever thought about ... ?

I would like to do a poll about ...

Please ask any questions as soon as they arrive.

On one hand, … on the other hand…

Comparing … with …, we can see that…

Clearly, … makes more sense than …

Whereas Option A is …, Option B is …

Making new points

Firstly,… Secondly,…

What also has to be mentioned is…

Next, I would like to bring up the topic of…

That being said, now we are going to take a look at…

Let's move on to the next topic.

On the next slide,…

The last thing I would like to mention is…

We made a whole blog post about how to pose questions in your presentation: The Right Way to do a Question Slide .

Talking about images or videos

In this image you can clearly see that ...

We are now going to take a look at a picture/video of ...

I'm going to show you a video by ... about ... now.

I've prepared a video about ...

Talking about statistics and charts

I am now addressing this graph that refers to the results of study XY.

In the graph on this slide, you can see that ...

The average is at ...

This graph clearly shows that the majority ...

According to this graph, the focus should be on ...

What that study tells us for practice is that we should ...

Emphasizing

I would like to emphasize the importance of ...

Moreover, it has to be said that ...

I want to stress the importance of ...

We always have to remember that ...

This is of high significance because ...

That part is especially important because ...

When something goes wrong

I am sorry, but it seems like the projector isn't working.

Could someone please help me with ...?

Is anybody here who knows how to ...?

Could someone give me a hand with ...

I would like to apologize for ...

I apologize for the technical problems, we are going to continue in a minute.

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

End of Presentation

In the conclusion, you should...

Sum up the main points

In conclusion I can say that…

To sum up the main points,…

With all mentioned aspects taken into consideration, I can say that…

Make an appeal

So please, in the future, try to be conscious about...

Please take a moment to think about...

I would like to encourage you to...

Thank your audience and say goodbye

It was a pleasure being here today.

Thank you for listening and goodbye.

Thank you for being such a great, engaged audience. Goodbye.

Thank you so much for listening, see you next time.

What is the structure of a presentation?

Your presentations should always have an Introduction, a Main part and a Conclusion.

What is a good way to begin a presentation?

You can start by introducing yourself, giving an overview of your topic, telling a little story or showing the audience an introductory video or image.

What are good phrases to use in English presentations?

There are many phrases that will make your presentation a lot more professional. Our blog post gives you a detailed overview.

Related articles

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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The big SlideLizard presentation glossary

Internal preview.

An Internal Preview is a statement, which is made in the body of the speech, so that the audience knows what the speaker is going to discuss next.

Informal Communication

informal communication can be used when talking to your friends or your family

Master view

In the master view in PowerPoint you can edit the Slide Master.

Multimedia Presentation

A multmedia presentation is a speech in which several types of visual and audio aids are combined in the same speech with the help of computer software. .

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How to make a great presentation

Stressed about an upcoming presentation? These talks are full of helpful tips on how to get up in front of an audience and make a lasting impression.

The secret structure of great talks

The beauty of data visualization

TED's secret to great public speaking

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37 Useful Phrases For Presentations In English

• Post author: Harry
• Post last modified: 07/02/2024
• Post category: Business English Vocabulary
• Reading time: 10 mins read

Here you will learn at least 37 useful phrases for presentations in English. Improve your business English skills and feel confident when making presentations in English.

Presentation phrases for setting the scene, recapping, ending a presentation in English and more. 

Listen to the podcast Speak Better English with Harry or watch it on YouTube at Learn English with Harry .

List of phrases for presentations in English

useful phrases for presentations in English

Hi there, this is teacher Harry, and welcome back to my English lessons where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language.

Okay, so what are we going to cover in the lesson today? Well, all of us, myself included, have to make presentations, from time to time to staff or to bosses, or to clients or customers, whoever it may be. And if you’re using English, not as your native language, then it can be a bit of a challenge. You might feel lacking in confidence. You might feel that you’re not up to the other guys.

But you can do it.

So I’m going to give you some useful phrases that you can use in relation to presentations.

give a gift of learning Offer up to 50% off

Great way to improve your English. Use code LOVE24  

setting the scene

You might just simply say at the presentation particularly if it’s online,

• It’s good to see you all here.
• It’s great that you could join me.
• I’m very pleased to be here.
• I’m very pleased to be talking to you today.
• I’m very pleased to be presenting to you today.
• I’m glad you could all make it.
• Thank you all for coming.
• Thank you all for joining in.
• Thank you all for coming together on Zoom.

Whatever it might be, you can adjust the words to suit the media and the medium by which you’re presenting to your guests. Staff, colleagues, clients. 

common  phrases  for starting off  presentations

And then if we talk about other useful expressions and phrases.

It’s a good idea to spend 30 seconds introducing yourself.

So my name is Harry, I work in this department, I’d like to talk to you today about…

• The topic of my presentation today is….
• I’m planning to tell you about today….
• I’d like to introduce you to….

So in those sorts of expressions, you’re setting the scene again, you’re telling them exactly what you’re going to cover. And that’s a really good idea in a presentation because then everybody knows what’s going to be spoken about.

My name is Harry, I work in the marketing department. My presentation today is about a new product. The presentation is probably going to take about 20 minutes. And if you have any questions, then please ask them as we go through the presentation. 

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Introducing a talk.

Now, if you want to introduce the talk, you could say:

• What I’d like to do in this presentation is…
• First of all, I’ll give you a brief overview of…

A brief overview of the product, a brief overview of the background, a brief overview of our plans.

• Okay, then I’ll talk about….
• And after that, I’d like to show you some market research.
• After that, I’d like to show you our projections.
• After that, I’d like to show you this specific plan for the launching of this product.

So you go step by step by step. 

referring to visuals

So in any presentation, visuals are really important, and they can help you.

And they can also support you if you’re a little bit lacking in confidence about the presentation itself.

And you perhaps don’t want to be the focus of everything.

So the type of phrases you might use in that context would be something like:

• You will notice on this chart…
• If you look at this slide, we can see…
• Have a look at these figures…

As I said, it helps you, it supports you and enables you to just sort of hide a little bit behind those slides that focus on the screen, not specifically on you.

Useful Phrases For Presentations In English​

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Finishing off a section.

And when you want to finish off in relation to those sort of aspects, you might just summarise by saying,

• Well, that’s all I wanted to say on that particular topic.
• If you’ve got any questions, I’d be happy to take them now.
• To summarise what I said is…
• If you want to contact me offline, just send me an email.
• As I promised, I’ve now finished the presentation, it only took 20 minutes.
• I appreciate you watching and listening and your attention.
• If I have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them now.
• Have you any questions?

So again, helpful information directly in them, how they can get in touch with you after your presentation.

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Checking and moving on.

So during the presentation, we want to make sure that the people are listening, but you also don’t want to spend too much time on each particular point.

So you check their understanding so far, and then you move on. So you might say to the people,

• Does that sound okay to you?
• Do you follow that?
• Is it clear?
• Can I clarify anything else?
• If not, let’s move on.
• Let’s look at the next slide.
• Now, let’s move on to the really important topic of…
• Let’s turn to the topic of budgets.

So you pinpoint exactly what you want to cover. When you’re going to cover it and then you move on. So you check that they understand it. 

I also find in these types of presentations, particularly if they’re a bit longer than a few short slides, that it’s a good idea to do some recapping.

To recap means to go over what you’ve done before. Not a huge amount of detail because you don’t want to bore them by going through everything, but you recap quite quickly.

• Before I move on…
• I’m going to recap quickly…
• Let me summarise briefly…
• Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered today.
• I’d like to recap the main points.
• Let me go over the main points for you once more.

All of those good, acceptable expressions and words that you can use. 

coming to an end

And then when you come to the end of the presentation, you want to sign off, you want to finish them. We can say,

• Well, this is my key point.
• This is the key point in all of this, so let me finish on this.
• This is what I want to say to sum up in a few words.
• I’d like to finish now by thanking you all for your kind attention. 
• I look forward to joining you again soon.
• I look forward to any questions.
• I look forward to receiving your emails.
• I’d be happy to take any questions now. 

All nice and polite ways of informing people that this is the end. 

So there’s somebody out there in the audience who’s asleep, they’ll probably wake up at that point when you say and finally or, in conclusion

Well, hopefully you’ve got something in particular that you can hold onto there. Something that can help you if you’re making presentations in English.

If you have any other queries, come to me, I’m very, very happy to help you. My contact details are www.englishlessonviaskype.com .

And indeed, if you want some help, how to make presentations, if you want some help, how to get through interviews, or you just want general help with your English well, why not try our one-to-one online English lessons . 

Thanks for listening. Join me again soon.

More information

For more information on English grammar rules, English collocations and English idioms, check out the links below:

How to learn English vocabulary easily

English idioms about holidays and travel

You can always study English advanced level at Learning English with the BBC  and British Council Learn English .

9 English Collocations With Beyond

Here you will learn useful English collocations with beyond. Learning collocations will help you speak more freely and comfortably in

14 English Collocations with Cooking

Here you will learn 14 English collocations with cooking. british council learn english These English phrases will help you talk

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Speech transitions: words and phrases to connect your ideas

June 28, 2018 - Gini Beqiri

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant.

This can be done using speech transitions because these act as signposts to the audience – signalling the relationship between points and ideas. This article explores how to use speech transitions in presentations.

What are speech transitions?

Speech transitions are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

This makes it easier for the audience to understand your argument and without transitions the  audience may be confused  as to how one point relates to another and they may think you’re randomly jumping between points.

Types of transitions

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different types, here are a few:

Introduction

Introduce your topic:

• We will be looking at/identifying/investigating the effects of…
• Today I will be discussing…

Presentation outline

Inform the audience of the structure of your presentation:

• There are three key points I’ll be discussing…
• I want to begin by…, and then I’ll move on to…
• We’ll be covering… from two points of view…
• This presentation is divided into four parts…

Move from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shift between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Shift between disagreeing points

You may have to introduce conflicting ideas – bridging words and phrases are especially good for this:

• Conversely…
• Despite this…
• However…
• On the contrary…
• Now let’s consider…
• Even so…
• Nonetheless…
• We can’t ignore…
• On the other hand…

Transition to a significant issue

• Fundamentally…
• A major issue is…
• The crux of the matter…
• A significant concern is…

Referring to previous points

You may have to refer to something that you’ve already spoken about because, for example, there may have been a break or a fire alarm etc:

• Let’s return to…
• We briefly spoke about X earlier; let’s look at it in more depth now…
• Let’s revisit…
• Let’s go back to…
• Do you recall when I mentioned…

This can be also be useful to introduce a new point because adults learn better when new information builds on previously learned information.

Introducing an aside note

You may want to introduce a digression:

• I’d just like to mention…
• That reminds me…
• Incidentally…

Physical movement

You can  move your body  and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Emphasising importance

You need to ensure that the audience get the message by informing them why something is important:

• More importantly…
• This is essential…
• Primarily…
• Mainly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Cause and effect

You will have to transition to show relationships between factors:

• Therefore…
• Thus…
• Consequently…
• As a result…
• This is significant because…
• Hence…

Elaboration

• Also…
• Besides…
• What’s more…
• In addition/additionally…
• Moreover…
• Furthermore…

Point-by-point or steps of a process

• First/firstly/The first one is…
• Second/Secondly/The second one is…
• Third/Thirdly/The third one is…
• Last/Lastly/Finally/The fourth one is…

Introduce an example

• This is demonstrated by…
• For instance…
• Take the case of…
• For example…
• You may be asking whether this happens in X? The answer is yes…
• To show/illustrate/highlight this…
• Let me illustrate this by…

Transition to a demonstration

• Now that we’ve covered the theory, let’s practically apply it…
• I’ll conduct an experiment to show you this in action…
• Let me demonstrate this…
• I’ll now show you this…

Introducing a quotation

• X was a supporter of this thinking because he said…
• There is a lot of support for this, for example, X said…

Transition to another speaker

In a  group presentation  you must transition to other speakers:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Gayle will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Gayle”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Simon.”

From these examples, you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

You can  tell personal stories  or share the experiences of others to introduce a point. Anecdotes are especially valuable for your introduction and between different sections of the presentation because they engage the audience. Ensure that you plan the stories thoroughly beforehand and that they are not too long.

Using questions

You can transition through your speech by asking questions and these questions also have the benefit of engaging your audience more. There are three different types of questions:

Direct questions require an answer: “What is the capital of Italy?” These are mentally stimulating for the audience.

Rhetorical questions  do not require answers, they are often used to emphasises an idea or point: “Is the Pope catholic?

Loaded questions contain an unjustified assumption made to prompt the audience into providing a particular answer which you can then correct to support your point: You may ask “Why does your wonderful company have such a low incidence of mental health problems?”.

The audience will generally answer that they’re happy. After receiving the answers you could then say “Actually it’s because people are still unwilling and too embarrassed to seek help for mental health issues at work etc.”

Transition to a visual aid

If you are going to introduce a visual aid you must prepare the audience with what they’re going to see, for example, you might be leading into a diagram that supports your statement. Also, before you  show the visual aid , explain why you’re going to show it, for example, “This graph is a significant piece of evidence supporting X”.

When the graphic is on display get the audience to focus on it:

• The table indicates…
• As you can see…
• I’d like to direct your attention to…

Explain what the visual is showing:

• You can see that there has been a reduction in…
• The diagram is comparing the…

Using a visual aid to transition

Visual aids can also be used as transitions and they have the benefit of being stimulating and breaking-up vocal transitions.

You might have a slide with just a picture on it to signify to the audience that you’re moving on to a new point – ensure that this image is relevant to the point. Many speakers like to use cartoons for this purpose but ensure its suitable for your audience.

Always summarise your key points first in the conclusion:

• Let’s recap on what we’ve spoken about today…
• Let me briefly summarise the main points…

And then conclude:

If you have a shorter speech you may choose to  end your presentation  with one statement:

• In short…
• To sum up…
• In a nutshell…
• To summarise…
• In conclusion…

However, using statements such as “To conclude” may cause the audience to stop listening. It’s better to say:

• I’d like to leave you with this…
• What you should take away from this is…
• Finally, I want to say…

Call to action

Requesting the audience to do something at the end of the presentation:

• You may be thinking how can I help in this matter? Well…
• My aim is to encourage you to go further and…
• What I’m requesting of you is…

Common mistakes

When transitions are used poorly you can annoy and confuse the audience. Avoid:

• Using transitions that are too short – transitions are a key part of ensuring the audience understands your presentation so spend sufficient time linking to your next idea.
• Too many tangents – any digressions should still be relevant to the topic and help the audience with their understanding, otherwise cut them out.
• Incompatible transitions – for example, if you’re about to introduce an example that supports your statement you wouldn’t introduce this by saying “but”. Use transitions that signify the relationship between points.
• Over-using the same transition because this is boring for the audience to hear repeatedly. Ensure that there is variety with your transitions, consider including visual transitions.
• Miscounting your transitions – for example, don’t say “first point”, “second point”, “next point” – refer to your points consistently.

Speech transitions are useful for unifying and connecting your presentation. The audience are more likely to remain engaged since they’ll be able to follow your points. But remember that it’s important to practice your transitions beforehand and not just the content of your arguments because you risk looking unprofessional and confusing the audience if the presentation does not flow smoothly.

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• Speaking exams
• Typical speaking tasks

Oral presentation

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Useful language for presentations

Explain what your presentation is about at the beginning:

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

Use these expressions to order your ideas:

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

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

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

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

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

Example presentation topics

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

Check your language: ordering - parts of a presentation

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

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

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• Grammar & vocab

Making a presentation: language and phrases (1)

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This is a list of phrases to help you make a professional presentation in English.

Clear structure, logical progression

Good presenters always use language (sometimes single words, sometimes phrases) which shows where they are in their presentation. These ‘signposts’ make it easier for the audience to:

• follow the structure of the presentation
• understand the speaker more easily
• get an idea of the length and content of the presentation.

We’ve divided the phrases and sentences into sections which follow the logical progression of a well-balanced presentation.

1. Welcoming

• Good morning and welcome to [name of company, name of conference hall, hotel, etc.].
• Thank you all very much for coming today.
• I hope you all had a pleasant journey here today.

2. Introducing yourself

• My name is Mark Watson and I am responsible for … .
• My name is Mark Watson from [name of company], where I am responsible for … .
• Let me introduce myself; my name is Mark Watson and I am responsible for … .

3. Introducing your presentation

• The purpose of today’s presentation is to … .
• The purpose of my presentation today is to … .
• In today’s presentation I’d like to … show you … . / explain to you how … .
• In today’s presentation I’m hoping to … give you an update on… / give you an overview of … .
• In today’s presentation I’m planning to … look at … . / explain … .

You can also outline your presentation to give the audience a clear overview of what they can expect:

• In today’s presentation I’m hoping to cover three points:
• firstly, … , after that we will look at … , and finally I’ll … .
• In today’s presentation I’d like to cover three points:
• firstly, … , secondly … , and finally … .

4. Explaining that there will be time for questions at the end

• If you have any questions you’d like to ask, please leave them until the end, when I’ll be happy to answer them.
• If there are any questions you’d like to ask, please leave them until the end, when I’ll do my best to answer them.

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• Making a presentation: language and phrases (2)
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• Dynamic verbs for describing a graph and making a clear presentation
• Telephone language
• Business letter writing phrases
• Business Correspondence Language e-book
• American Sign Language (ASL) speaker learning to write English
• Business vocabulary exercise: phrases in business emails
• More useful phrases for business emails and letters

Vocabulary and Phrases for Making Presentations in English

Here’s a step-by-step guide for making presentations in English. You’ll find the phrases you need for each step of your presentation.

After you give your opening statement, give a brief overview of your presentation. Say what your presentation is about, how long you will take and how you are going to handle questions.

For example, a presentation to sales staff could start like this: “Welcome / “Hello everyone.”

(Opening statement) “As you all know, this company is losing its market share. But we are being asked to increase sales by 20 – 25%. How can we possibly increase sales in a shrinking market?”

(Overview) “Today I am going to talk to you about how we can do this. My presentation will be in three parts. Firstly I am going to look at the market and the background. Then I am going to talk to you about our new products and how they fit in. Finally, I’m going to examine some selling strategies that will help us increase our sales by 20%. The presentation will probably take around 20 minutes. There will be time for questions at the end of my talk.”

Useful language for overviews

“My presentation is in three parts.” “My presentation is divided into three main sections.” “Firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally…” “I’m going to… take a look at… talk about… examine… tell you something about the background… give you some facts and figures… fill you in on the history of… concentrate on… limit myself to the question of…

“Please feel free to interrupt me if you have questions.” “There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.” “I’d be grateful if you could ask your questions after the presentation.”

The main body of the presentation

During your presentation, it’s a good idea to occasionally remind your audience why your presentation and ideas are important or relevant.

“As I said at the beginning…” “This, of course, will help you (to achieve the 20% increase).” “As you remember, we are concerned with…” “This ties in with my original statement…” “This relates directly to the question I put to you before…”

Keeping your audience with you

Remember that what you are saying is new to your audience. You are clear about the structure of your talk, but let your audience know when you are moving on to a new point. You can do this by saying something like “right”, or “OK”. You can also use some of the following expressions:

“I’d now like to move on to…” “I’d like to turn to…” “That’s all I have to say about…” “Now I’d like to look at…” “This leads me to my next point…”

If you are using index cards, putting the link on the cards will help you remember to keep the audience with you. In addition, by glancing at your index cards you will be pausing – this will also help your audience to realise that you are moving on to something new.

Phrases for introducing visuals

It’s important to introduce your visual to the audience. You can use the following phrases:

“This graph shows you…” “Take a look at this…” “If you look at this, you will see…” “I’d like you to look at this…” “This chart illustrates the figures…” “This graph gives you a break down of…”

Give your audience enough time to absorb the information on the visual. Pause to allow them to look at the information and then explain why the visual is important:

“As you can see…” “This clearly shows …” “From this, we can understand how / why…” “This area of the chart is interesting…”

Summarising

At the end of your presentation, you should summarise your talk and remind the audience of what you have told them:

“That brings me to the end of my presentation. I’ve talked about…” “Well, that’s about it for now. We’ve covered…” “So, that was our marketing strategy. In brief, we…” “To summarise, I…”

Relate the end of your presentation to your opening statement:

“So I hope that you’re a little clearer on how we can achieve sales growth of 20%.” “To return to the original question, we can achieve…” “So just to round the talk off, I want to go back to the beginning when I asked you…” “I hope that my presentation today will help you with what I said at the beginning…”

Handling questions

Thank the audience for their attention and invite questions.

“Thank you for listening – and now if there are any questions, I would be pleased to answer them.” “That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you for your attention. I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have.”

It’s useful to re-word the question, as you can check that you have understood the question and you can give yourself some time to think of an answer. By asking the question again you also make sure that other people in the audience understand the question.

“Thank you. So you would like further clarification on our strategy?” “That’s an interesting question. How are we going to get voluntary redundancy?” “Thank you for asking. What is our plan for next year?”

After you have answered your question, check that the person who asked you is happy with the answer.

“Does this answer your question?” “Do you follow what I am saying?” “I hope this explains the situation for you.” “I hope this was what you wanted to hear!”

If you don’t know the answer to a question, say you don’t know. It’s better to admit to not knowing something than to guess and maybe get it wrong. You can say something like:

“That’s an interesting question. I don’t actually know off the top of my head, but I’ll try to get back to you later with an answer.” “I’m afraid I’m unable to answer that at the moment. Perhaps I can get back to you later.” “Good question. I really don’t know! What do you think?” “That’s a very good question. However, we don’t have any figures on that, so I can’t give you an accurate answer.” “Unfortunately, I’m not the best person to answer that.”

What to say if things go wrong during your presentation

You think you’ve lost your audience? Rephrase what you have said:

“Let me just say that in another way.” “Perhaps I can rephrase that.” “Put another way, this means…” “What I mean to say is…”

Can’t remember the word?

If it’s a difficult word for you – one that you often forget, or one that you have difficulty pronouncing – you should write it on your index card. Pause briefly, look down at your index card and say the word.

Using your voice when making presentations

Don’t speak in a flat monotone – this will bore your audience. By varying your speed and tone, you will be able to keep your audience’s attention. Practise emphasising key words and pause in the right places – usually in between ideas in a sentence. For example “The first strategy involves getting to know our market (pause) and finding out what they want. (pause) Customer surveys (pause) as well as staff training (pause) will help us do this.”

Don’t forget – if you speak too fast you will lose your audience!

Making Presentations

Your answer:

Correct answer:

Your Answers

Useful English phrases for a presentation

Presentations have the advantage that many standard phrases can be used at various points. Perhaps you wish to welcome the audience, introduce the speaker and the topic, outline the structure, offer a summary, or deal with questions. In all these situations, you can apply a number of useful expressions that will make your presentation a linguistic success.

At the beginning of each presentation, you should welcome your audience. Depending on who you are addressing, you should extend a more or less formal welcome.

Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen/everyone.

On behalf of “Company X”, allow me to extend a warm welcome to you.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to “Name of the event”.

Introducing the speaker

The level of formality of your welcome address will also apply to how you introduce yourself. Customize it to match your audience.

Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am delighted to be here today to talk to you about…

First, let me introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am the “Position” of “Company X”.

I’m “John” from “Company Y” and today I’d like to talk to you about…

Introducing the topic

After the welcome address and the introduction of the speaker comes the presentation of the topic. Here are some useful introductory phrases.

Today I am here to talk to you about…

What I am going to talk about today is…

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about…

I am delighted to be here today to tell you about…

I want to make you a short presentation about…

I’d like to give you a brief breakdown of…

Explanation of goals

It is always recommended to present the goals of your presentation at the beginning. This will help the audience to understand your objectives.

The purpose of this presentation is…

My objective today is…

After presenting the topic and your objectives, give your listeners an overview of the presentation’s structure. Your audience will then know what to expect in detail.

My talk/presentation is divided into “x” parts.

I’ll start with…/First, I will talk about…/I’ll begin with…

…then I will look at…

and finally…

Starting point

After all this preparation, you can finally get started with the main part of the presentation. The following phrases will help you with that.

Let me start with some general information on…

Let me begin by explaining why/how…

I’d like to give you some background information about…

Before I start, does anyone know…

As you are all aware…

I think everybody has heard about…, but hardly anyone knows a lot about it.

End of a section

If you have completed a chapter or section of your presentation, inform your audience, so that they do not lose their train of thought.

That’s all I have to say about…

We’ve looked at…

So much for…

Interim conclusion

Drawing interim conclusions is of utmost importance in a presentation, particularly at the end of a chapter or section. Without interim conclusions, your audience will quickly forget everything you may have said earlier.

Let’s summarize briefly what we have looked at.

Here is a quick recap of the main points of this section.

I’d like to recap the main points.

Well, that’s about it for this part. We’ve covered…

Use one of the following phrases to move on from one chapter to the next.

I’d now like to move on to the next part…

This leads me to my next point, which is…

Turning our attention now to…

Let’s now turn to…

Frequently, you have to give examples in a presentation. The following phrases are useful in that respect.

For example,…

A good example of this is…

As an illustration,…

To give you an example,…

To illustrate this point…

In a presentation, you may often need to provide more details regarding a certain issue. These expressions will help you to do so.

I’d like to expand on this aspect/problem/point.

Let me elaborate further on…

If you want to link to another point in your presentation, the following phrases may come in handy.

As I said at the beginning,…

This relates to what I was saying earlier…

Let me go back to what I said earlier about…

This ties in with…

Reference to the starting point

In longer presentations, you run the risk that after a while the audience may forget your original topic and objective. Therefore, it makes sense to refer to the starting point from time to time.

I hope that you are a little clearer on how we can…

To return to the original question, we can…

Just to round the talk off, I want to go back to the beginning when I…

I hope that my presentation today will help with what I said at the beginning…

Reference to sources

In a presentation, you frequently have to refer to external sources, such as studies and surveys. Here are some useful phrases for marking these references.

Based on our findings,…

According to our study,…

Our data shows/indicates…

Graphs and images

Presentations are usually full of graphs and images. Use the following phrases to give your audience an understanding of your visuals.

Let me use a graphic to explain this.

I’d like to illustrate this point by showing you…

Let the pictures speak for themselves.

I think the graph perfectly shows how/that…

If you look at this table/bar chart/flow chart/line chart/graph, you can see that…

To ensure that your presentation does not sound monotonous, from time to time you should emphasize certain points. Here are some suggestions.

It should be emphasized that…

I would like to draw your attention to this point…

Another significant point is that…

The significance of this is…

This is important because…

We have to remember that…

At times it might happen that you expressed yourself unclearly and your audience did not understand your point. In such a case, you should paraphrase your argument using simpler language.

In other words,…

To put it more simply,…

What I mean to say is…

So, what I’m saying is….

To put it in another way….

Questions during the presentation

Questions are an integral part of a presentation. These phrases allow you to respond to questions during a presentation.

Does anyone have any questions or comments?

I am happy to answer your questions now.

Please feel free to interrupt me if you have questions.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Please stop me if you have any questions.

Do you have any questions before I move on?

If there are no further questions at this point, I’d like to…

Questions at the end of a presentation

To ensure that a presentation is not disrupted by questions, it is advisable to answer questions at the very end. Inform your audience about this by using these phrases.

There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

I’ll gladly answer any of your questions at the end.

I’d be grateful if you could ask your questions after the presentation.

After answering a question from the audience, check that the addressee has understood your answer and is satisfied with it.

Does this answer your question?

Did I make myself clear?

I hope this explains the situation for you.

Unknown answer

Occasionally, it may happen that you do not have an answer to a question. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Simply use one of the following phrases to address the fact.

That’s an interesting question. I don’t actually know off the top of my head, but I’ll try to get back to you later with an answer.

I’m afraid I’m unable to answer that at the moment. Perhaps, I can get back to you later.

Good question. I really don’t know! What do you think?

That’s a very good question. However, I don’t have any figures on that, so I can’t give you an accurate answer.

Unfortunately, I’m not the best person to answer that.

Summary and conclusion

At the end of the presentation, you should summarize the important facts once again.

I’d like to conclude by…

In conclusion, let me sum up my main points.

Weighing the pros and cons, I come to the conclusion that…

That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you for listening/your attention.

Thank you all for listening. It was a pleasure being here today.

Well, that’s it from me. Thanks very much.

That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thanks for your attention.

Handing over

If you are not the only speaker, you can hand over to somebody else by using one of these phrases.

Now I will pass you over to my colleague ‘Jerry’.

‘Jerry’, the floor is yours.

We hope that our article will help you in preparing and holding your next presentation. It goes without saying that our list is just a small extract from the huge world of expressions and phrases. As always, the Internet is an inexhaustible source of further information. Here are the links to two websites that we would recommend to you in this context.

usingenglish

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• Introduction

Transitions

• Referring to visuals
• Eye contact
• Taking part in discussions
• Giving opinions
• Agreeing/disagreeing
• Other skills

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• Presentations

Language for presentations Some formulaic phrases

On this page you will find some language for presentations, also known as 'signpost' phrases. Many of these are similar to (or the same as) the lecture cues a lecturer uses. They are another example of the formulaic language used in academic contexts. You do not need to learn all of these phrases. Your basic aim is to be able to use at least one phrase for each function (e.g. expressing purpose and showing the structure in the introduction , using transitions between sections, referring to visual aids , concluding ).

How many more you learn after this is up to you. Presentations usually have many visual aids and transitions, so it would be useful to learn two or three different phrases for these functions. On the other hand, you will only state the purpose once in a presentation, so one phrase is enough for life!

Introductions

The introduction is a crucial part of any presentation. There are many functions which you need to achieve:

• greet the audience
• express your purpose
• give the structure
• give the timing
• handle questions

Phrases for all of these are given in the box to the right.

 Greeting the audience

• Good morning/afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
• Good morning/afternoon, everyone.

 Expressing the purpose

• My purpose/objective/aim today is...
• What I want to do this morning/afternoon/today is...
• I'm here today to...

 Giving the structure

• This talk is divided into four main parts.
• To start with/Firstly, I'd like to look at...
• Then/Secondly, I'll be talking about...
• My fourth point will be about...
• Finally, I'll be looking at...

 Giving the timing

• My presentation/talk/lecture will take/last about 20 minutes.

 Handling questions

• At the end of my talk, there will be a chance to ask questions.
• I'll be happy to answer any questions you have at the end of my presentation.

Visual aids

It is important to be able to refer to your visual aids appropriately. Some useful phrases for visuals are shown to the right.

 Visual aids

• As you can see here...
• Here we can see...
• If we look at this slide...
• This slide shows...
• If you look at the screen, you'll see...
• This table/diagram/chart/slide shows...
• I'd like you to look at this...
• Let me show you...
• Let's (have a) look at...
• On the right/left you can see...

A vital part of any presentation is 'transitioning' (moving on) to a new section. Why is this so crucial? Mainly because of the difference between listening and reading. When you are reading, you can easily see where one section (or paragraph) ends, and another begins. This is not true when you are listening. To help with this, good academic speakers, whether in presentations or lectures , give cues to signal the end of a section. This helps the listener understand the structure and follow the main points.

Some useful transition phrases are shown to the right.

 Transitions

• Let's now move on to/turn to...
• I now want to go on to...
• This leads/brings me to my next point, which is...
• I'd now like to move on to/turn to...
• So far we have looked at... Now I'd like to...

Other phrases

There are some other phrases which are useful in a presentation. These include giving examples, summarising a point or section, and making a digression.

 Giving examples

• Let me give you an example...
• for instance...
• A good example of this is...

 Summarising

• What I'm trying to say is...
• Let me just try and sum that up before we move on to...
• So far, I've presented...

 Digressing

• I might just mention...
• Incidentally...

The conclusion, like the introduction, has several functions which you need to achieve:

• sum up the main points of the presentation
• conclude (by giving a 'take-away' message)
• close (by thanking the audience)
• invite questions

 Summing up

• Summing up...
• To summarise...
• So, to sum up...
• To recap...
• Let me now sum up.

 Concluding

• Let me end by saying...
• I'd like to finish by emphasising...
• In conclusion I'd like to say...
• Finally, may I say...
• Thank you for your attention/time.
• Thank you (for listening/very much).
• If you have any questions or comments, I'll be happy to answer them now.
• If there are any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
• Are there any more questions?

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Below is a checklist for presentation language. Use it to help you prepare. You can download a copy of the checklist from the speaking resources page .

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• Body language

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 10 January 2022.

Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

The language for presentations involves common 'signpost phrases' which help understand the structure.

The structure of a presentation is straightforward, with introduction, main body, conclusion, and Q&A.

Taking part in academic discussions increases your understanding and challenges your ideas, and may form part of your assessment.

Agreeing and disagreeing in academic discussions is always done politely, often using certain common phrases.

Asking for and giving opinions is important if you want to express your ideas and have a voice in discussions.

Visual aids such as PowerPoint and handouts, help your audience to follow your spoken presentation.