Presentation Skills Essay

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Presentation skills Students are often asked to deliver individual or group presentations as part of their units of study. As with all other assignments, the first thing to do is to check the Unit Outline to examine the presentation task, the criteria to be adopted for assessing the presentation, the length of time allowed for the presentation and any other requirements. Check with your tutor or unit co-ordinator for specific details. 11.1 What is a presentation? A presentation may be defined as a carefully planned visual and aural event, designed for the purpose of gaining understanding, agreement or action. A survey conducted by Crosling and Ward (2002) identified presentations as one of the most common forms of oral communication expected of business graduates. For a presentation to reach its objective, three things must happen: 1. the speaker must have a clear aim; 2. the material must be organised in such a way that the aim is supported; 3. and the presentation should be engaging for both speaker and audience. Similar to written assignments, all oral presentations have the same basic framework i.e. an introduction, a body and a conclusion. In delivery, this translates as: 1. tell the audience what you are going to tell them; 2. tell them; 3. tell them what you have just told them. 11.2 Planning and preparation 11.2.1 Analysing your audience Try to empathise with the people in the audience and consider the following: • What are the needs and expectations of the students? • What are the needs and expectations of the lecturer? • What do they know already? (for instance, are you merely repeating what has already been said during lectures?) • What do they need to know in order to understand your presentation? • What are their likes/dislikes in presentation style, use of technology, format, if any? 11.3 Presentation design
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