1. Effective Presentations
A Guide

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The Four Key Elements

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1
2
3
4
Understanding your audience
Preparing your content
Delivering content
Controlling the environment

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1. Understanding your
audience

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Did you know…
The average
attention
span is only
20 minutes

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What do they do?
What are their roles?
What are their preferences?
What do they need to learn?
What do they already know?
What would a generic profile of them look like?

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What questions might
your audience want to
ask?
Prepare for tricky
questions…

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Do you use any technical jargon that might be
difficult for the audience to understand?

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What will leave your audience wanting more?
How will you capture attention?

10. 2. Preparing Your
Content

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Often, it helps to draft on a piece of paper what
you want each slide to look like.
Don’t let a computer stifle your creativity!

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Use splashes of colour that
stand out!

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White
Space
Can
Appear
Calming
And
Clean

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Arial
Gill Sans
MT
Tahoma
Sans serif fonts are the most readable…

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In your text, use three-part
sentence structures to increase
the impact of the statement…
Veni vidi vici

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Always distinguish the
importantparts of your slides.

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Less is often more. Presentations will often
be most effective when there are a
maximum of six lines of text and
a maximum of seven words per line.
More than one paragraph decreases attention and
can cause the audience to read on.

18. 3. Delivering confidently

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Take speaker notes. Even if you don’t
use them you will feel more confident
knowing they are there.

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Pay attention to what you’re going to wear. You may
have hundreds of eyes on you. Look the part as well
as sounding the part!

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Modulate your voice – speak as if to a friend
rather than an audience.

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Summarise key points at the end of the
presentation. It will reinforce your messages.

23. 4. Controlling the
Environment

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Practice in the same environment, or a
similar environment, to which you will be
presenting in

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Keep the lights on!
Don’t shy away, be bold, confident and memorable.

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Have a back up plan in case of any technical problems…

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1. Understanding your audience
2. Preparing your content
3. Delivering confidently
4. Controlling the environment
Summary