Student Team Tips: Developing your approach to presenting
Our Student Team at the Library have some great advice to suggest whether you are new to presenting or you are experienced and need some extra tips and new approaches.
Contents
- Introduction
- Presentation format
- Structure, preparing and practising
- Accessibility
- Conclusion
- Helpful resources
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this blog post aimed to help you Present Like a Pro! This will hopefully provide some top tips for your presentation assignments in terms of the creation, preparation and delivery. The team provides their experience and advice on different areas within presentation formats as well as structuring, preparing and practicing. Accessibility adjustments for a presentation assessment and making your presentation accessible to others are also discussed.
Presentation format
Online setup
When you are presenting online, it is important to consider your setup prior to this and during the time in which you are presenting. For example, have you thought about:
- Technical aspects such as wifi availability and connection quality
- Your familiarity and current experience with the technology
- How you could utilise software to make it more engaging
- Contacting someone to allow you to access the features you wish to use where appropriate
Furthermore, Olivia and Isabella have suggested thinking about the positioning of your camera as well as your lighting choice.
“If the camera is on a laptop, consider placing the laptop on top of a box (or a laptop stand) on your desk so you do not have to look down during the presentation”. Isabella, Materials Science and Engineering
Presenting online also requires consideration for the setup in the background of the environment that you are presenting from.
“Ensure that you do not leave distracting materials in your background. You do not want to distract your audience from your presentation. You could use background filters but be sure to you use the right image”. Fatimah, Law
Body Language
Using appropriate body language has the potential to make your presentation more engaging and impactful. Whether in person or online, facing your audience and using gestures — including but not limited to hand and facial — can be great ways in signalling passion and emphasis on your content.
“It is very easy to talk faster than normal during presentations due to nerves. A workshop I attended mentioned an app called Metronome Beats which can help you to slow down your pace of speaking”. Olivia, Psychology
“Focus your eye contact towards the audience where possible”. Nuura, Architecture
The positioning of presentation notes can help with body language.
“When presenting online it can be hard to properly display engaging body language and create a proper interactive presentation with your audience. This can be aided by trying to look towards the screen and computer camera instead of down at any notes”. Jade, Medicine
If you are nervous, you are not alone.
“I deal with nerves and engage with my audience by looking at their foreheads, instead of their eyes, and by looking at the wall at the back of the room — just above attendees’ heads. This gives the impression that I am looking into their eyes.” Fiona, Law
Further down the post we will be talking about body language in the context of accessibility.
Using notes and prompts
The use of notes can also vary and be utilised in online presentations too. Further to Jade’s point above, Olivia and Isabella suggest that where you decide to use notes during an online presentation, keeping them at eye level — whether that is on the wall behind your screen or on your screen to the side of your video call window — is a great way to maintain eye contact and engage with your audience.
Having notes on the wall but slightly off-centre is a helpful strategy.
“If you briefly look at one of them, it looks like you’re just thinking rather than forgetting what you want to say!” Olivia, Psychology
Group Presentations
It is very often easy to dread working with others, particularly given individual demands and the allocated workload that you rely on others for. However, working with others in this capacity is great practice for future collaborative team experience in your future jobs. It might be a good idea to address any individual boundaries and needs, as well as approaching group presentation work with a mindful attitude towards others’ commitments and personal challenges. For example, by addressing a personal commitment — only as much as you feel comfortable to disclose — that is creating an emotional drain, you will learn a lot about effectively communicating and being open with your peers.
“I had a few group presentations whilst dealing with a family illness and working at the weekends. I found I had a lot of the work for some tasks whilst with others, I noticed some impatience from peers with my slower speed. I found that I tended to judge myself a lot due to not feeling enough but gently reminded my coursemates of what I was going through. Though this was a challenge, I learned a lot about the importance of regular communication with teammates as well as allocating a fair workload with boundaries is helpful.” Rachel, Sociology
Structure, Preparing and Practising
Understanding your words
Understanding what you are talking about rather than just running off a script can be really helpful in memorising the content of your presentation. It can also help you to be flexible and adapt to how you feel on the day as to what you say. Having cue cards can be really helpful in providing prompts for what you intend to say during each part or slide of the presentation. This way, you can help to build more confidence in what you are presenting as well as a better ability to be more engaging with your audience where required.
Further on in this post is a great relevant strategy from George.
Visual aids are also quite helpful to make a powerful presentation.
“I see lots of tips on visual aids and structuring your presentations. Slidesgo is one resource I go for free templates.” Salma, Politics and Regional Relations
Knowing your audience
It is important to understand the brief and marking criteria for your presentation to ensure that you deliver information for the appropriate register and assumed knowledge of your audience. It is never a bad thing to get really passionate about your topic, however it is important to be mindful that not everyone will understand the jargon and terminology that you include. The size of the audience is also likely to indicate how you engage with the participants.
“Consider the size of the audience as this will affect your presenting style. For example, is the presentation on a larger scale or more intimate? Knowing this before the presentation and practicing the style you will use will help with any nerves”. Nuura, Architecture
Building on Nuura’s point, if the audience is more aware of the ‘niche’ aspects of your presentation, it may be more appropriate to include subject specific language and jargon. The audience size is also likely to determine which engaging activities may or may not be appropriate as part of the presentation. For example, with larger audiences, asking closed questions might demonstrate the quantitative impact of your subject. Whereas asking more open questions with a smaller audience might be more appropriate to open a discussion.
“For presentations to smaller audiences, group activities could be used”. Jia Xuen, Accounting
A Story with a strategy
“Knowing your lines off by heart and being able to present without a script is a great way to elevate your presentation and grow your confidence”. George Urban Design & Planning
This does not necessarily mean that you need to have scripted each individual line that you intend to say for your presentation. It does however show that regular practice helps build confidence to be flexible and adaptable to our audience on the day as well as the benefits of having a strategy to tell your story. George has suggested a great method of learning your lines through a strategy that tells a story if you would like a more structured approach to your presentation.
Format: Format your script in a way that is easy to memorise. Split your presentation up into sections on the page (that correspond with your slides if you have them). This will make it a lot easier to visualise your lines on the page when delivering and learning it.
- Understand your content: Just ‘going with the motions’ and learning a bunch of words in a specific order without understanding what you are saying is much harder — you may as well be memorising the order of a shuffled deck of cards. Get to grips with the content of your presentation and the background knowledge first. That way, you will appear more comfortable, confident and knowledgeable. And if you accidentally say one of your lines wrong, it will be easier to get back on track!
- Practice: With the script in front of you, deliver it over and over again. You can do it to your computer screen, in the mirror, to the wall, wherever you want! If you say something wrong, stop and go back to the start of the sentence or paragraph. This is also where you might realise that certain words or phrases you’ve written look better on paper than they do spoken aloud. If you’re getting the odd word wrong or swapping some words for others, that’s actually a good thing! It shows that you are able to improvise and that you understand the meaning of what you’re saying.
- Cue Cards: Now you can make cue cards. The purpose of cue cards is not to remind you of your lines (you know them off by heart at this point), but to keep you on track. They can also be a mental crutch — just having them in your hand makes you feel more confident. You might not even need to look at them! Remember, only you are going to look at these cue cards, so you can use doodles, notes, abbreviations… anything that will help you to keep you on course. General rule of thumb is maximum one card per slide (if you have multiple cards per slide, you’ve either got too much on your cue cards or the slide). Also, the act of writing cue cards itself is a good way of learning your lines.
- Final practice: Practice again with the cue cards, and more importantly, if this is a group presentation, with your group members. You need to know the order of who is speaking before and after each of your parts (you can include this on the cue cards). Add in natural segues such as “now [name] is going to tell you more about the topic” or “I’m going to build on what [name] has just explained.” A little pause in between people speaking is OK, but don’t make it too long or it will make it look like someone’s forgotten their lines.
For those who find scripting words, improvisation techniques can be a great way of working in the moment based on what you have rehearsed too. The library currently offers a workshop to help with public speaking through improvisation techniques. Read our blog post on Enhancing public speaking skills using improvisation techniques for example of exercises that can help you develop improvisation techniques.
Accessibility
Although each student will be assessed on the same marking criteria, it is important to remember that you have a right to ask about any disability related adjustments you may be entitled to. Arranging accessibility requirements can help to ensure you are able to reduce any potential stress factors on your presentation day.
After all, this is your time and dedication so it is always worth asking for extra support where you feel you may need it. If you have a disability such as dyslexia, autism spectrum condition (ASC), medical or mental health condition, low vision, hearing or mobility requirements, register with the Disability Advisory and Support Service (DASS) for advice and support to help you perform to the best of your ability.
Accessibility requirements will depend on your specific needs. They may include for example extra time, making the assessor aware of your eye contact and body language if these are challenging for you, access to the room that your presentation will be held in advance, room lighting considerations and hearing loops.
On this subject, have you thought about what you can do to make your presentation more accessible for your audience? Is this a requirement for your assignment or could you receive more marks for choosing to apply accessibility guidelines regardless? For more information about how to make slides more accessible, visit the National Disability Authority website.
Conclusion
So now you have a few tools to help you ace presentation assignments, which you can refer back to at any point for help with structuring, practising, setting up your space, your audience and accessibility. The skills developed in presenting are highly applicable across multiple areas including but not limited to public speaking, communications and time management too. We wish you all the best with your future presentations!
