Guidelines for Giving an Effective Presentation

Preparation:

Content—Spend sufficient time learning your subject.

Organization—Organize your ideas logically into introduction, body and conclusion.

Notes—Use notecards or a one-page sheet; keep notes brief and avoid reading.

Practice—Effective delivery requires practice. Practice in front of a mirror or in front of friends who will give you honest feedback.

Delivery: Conversational Quality not a Recording or a Robot.

Enthusiasm—Demonstrate your positive attitude and interest in the topic through your voice and facial expression.

Eye Contact—Maintain eye contact to increase credibility, gain audience interest, and get nonverbal feedback.

Clarity—Speak clearly and use language appropriate to your audience.

Be aware of the speech community you are addressing.

Body Language

Posture and Movement—Good posture and movement convey self-confidence, professionalism, and credibility.

Gesture—Keep gestures natural and avoid repetitive motions; use them to emphasize points and keep the audience’s attention.

How to Handle Speech Anxiety

 Speech anxiety is no rare occurrence. Everyone has probably experienced it at one point in his or her life. The following physical symptoms are typical of the beginning speaker:

Pounding heart

Trembling hands

Shaky knees

Dry, constricted throat

Quivering voice

Flushed face

To help alleviate some the sufferings of speech anxiety, here are some tips in delivering a quality presentation.

Prepare yourself thoroughly.

Never memorize a speech.

Think of communication, not performance.

Imagine yourself giving a good, strong speech.

Know that shyness is no barrier.

Pause a few moments before starting your speech.

A drink of water (bottled) can help.

Additionally, to calm those knocking knees, remember the following advice:

Know that most symptoms are not seen.

Never call attention to your nervousness or apologize for it.

Mistakes are all right.
Recovering from mistakes makes you appear more human.
Good recovery puts your audience at ease - they identify with you more.

Get familiar with your audience and setting. (public speaking environment)
Try not to get stuck in one place.
Use all the space that's available to you.
Move around.
One way to do this is to leave your notes in one place and move to another.
If your space is confined (say a meeting room or even presenting at a table) use stronger body language to convey your message.

Use visual aids. However, if you do:

Large enough for all audience members to see.

Positioned so that all audience members can see them.

Simple and easy to understand.
Speak to your audience not your slides.
Your slides are there to support you not the other way around.
Ideally, slides should be graphics and not words (people read faster than they hear and will be impatient for you to get to the next point).
If the technology fails which is often does, have a backup plan you can implement quickly. Remember it's still you they've come to hear.

A word of caution about the following. Your use of these can be very very good OR very very bad!

Stories

Stories make you a real person not just a deliverer of information.
Use personal experiences to bring your material to life.
No matter how dry your material is, you can always find a way to humanise it.

Humor
Tell jokes if you're good at telling jokes.
If you aren't good, best to leave the jokes behind.
There's nothing worse than a punch line that has no punch.
Gentle humor is good in place of jokes.
Self-deprecation is good, but try not to lay it on too thick.

Avoid jokes that might offend a particular individual or group, even if those groups are not present.