Designing a Presentation

PowerPoint is a software tool designed to assist with the creation and delivery of presentations. A presentation is often used as a slide show, providing text and pictures to help an audience understand what a speaker is telling them.

An effective presentation combines short, simple text headings and statements (bullet text) with interesting pictures, charts, tables, movies, and sounds.

PowerPoint helps you to create text, pictures, and charts and diagrams, import other media elements, format the presentation, and deliver it as a slide show or printed handouts.

PowerPoint will enable you to create and deliver professional presentations. However, like any tool it must be used well. Unless you understand the concepts involved in designing a good presentation, what you create in PowerPoint may not have much impact on your audience.

There are four stages to creating and delivering a presentation:

• Planning
• Preparation
• Practice
• Delivery

To plan your presentation

• Understand the needs and knowledge of your audience (\"Will they understand what I am talking about?\")
• Determine the purpose of the presentation (\"What is it that I want to achieve by giving this presentation?\")
• Plan the content of the presentation based on its purpose and your knowledge of your audience

To prepare your presentation

• Be confident about the information you will be giving - if it is not important to you then it will not be important to your audience.
• Write an opening to the presentation that will grab the audience\'s attention from the outset to ensure their concentration.
• Structure the presentation around key points of information - where necessary back up any statements that you make but be brief and to the point; do not cram your slides full of information.
• The end of the presentation is as important as the beginning - make sure that your audience leave with a lasting impression of what was said and shown
• Format the presentation consistently, following any style rules required by your organisation (house style) or using an appropriate template

To practise your presentation

If at all possible try to practise delivering your presentation, both to a colleague who is familiar with the information contained in the presentation and to someone who has little or no knowledge of your subject matter, so that you can check levels of understanding.

• Try to practise your presentation in the actual room that you will deliver it (\"Can you read the presentation from the back of the room?\"; \"Are any graphics used relevant to the presentation, and clearly visible to all in the room?\")
• Are you getting your message across? Have you achieved the purpose of your presentation?
• Can you deliver the presentation in the time allowed and leave time for questions at the end?
• If you have to start late, do you know what points to skim over or miss out to save time?

To deliver your presentation

To deliver your slide show, you will need a computer with at least the same specification as the one you used to test it (in terms of CPU speed, memory, graphics card, and disk space). You can run a presentation using a mouse or keyboard.

If you are delivering a slide show in a large room, it is normal to connect the computer to a display screen rather than a monitor.

• Arrive early and leave plenty of time to set up your equipment and run through your presentation
• Be positive, be yourself, and relax - you can enjoy it too!
• Speak slowly and clearly, emphasising important points
• Ask your audience questions at key stages during the presentation to check whether they have understood and to maintain their interest
• Involve the audience where possible
• At the end of the presentation recap the main points and if necessary restate the purpose of the presentation
• If appropriate ask the audience for feedback at the end of the presentation
• Try to leave time at the end of the presentation for a question and answer session