Presentation

Giving a presentation terrifies most of us, especially when talking before a crowd of people
about an unfamiliar topic. Never fear! There are ways to make a good presentation. The more
presentations you do, the easier they will become!
Preparing for the Presentation

Focus your presentation. Having a long, rambling presentation that is hard to follow is not
going to win you any audience interest. You need to make sure that your presentation is clear and
focused and that any asides you throw into it are there to back up the main point.

 It's best to have 1 main thesis statement or overarching theme and 3 main points that
back-up or flesh-out your main theme. Any more than that and your audience is going to
start losing interest. This means that any facts and information that are a part of your
presentation should back up these 3 main points and overarching theme.

Less is more. You don't want to overwhelm your audience with information and important
points. Even if they're interested in your topic they'll starting spacing out and then you've lost
them. You need to stick to your 3 points and overall point and you need to make sure that you
only use the information that you need to support and clarify those points.

 Pick your very best supporting facts, information, or quotes for your presentation. Don't
bury your audience in information.

Decide whether to use media or not. It isn't always necessary to use a powerpoint, or visual
representation, especially if you're already an engaging speaker and have interesting subject
matter. In fact, a lot of times, using visual media simply distracts from the focal point, that is the
presentation.

 Make sure you're using media to enhance your presentation and not to drown it out. The
presentation is key. Anything else is just accessorizing.

 For example: to get back to 17th century alchemy, to back up your information about
alchemy in the public opinion, you might want to show images from public pamphlets
about the dangers of alchemy and see what people of the time period had to say about it
and see what the more famous alchemists had to say about it.

 Also, you want to make sure that you pick a medium that you are comfortable in and
thorough in knowledge. If you don't know a thing about powerpoint, maybe consider
writing your main points on a white board, or passing out handouts with your main points
and evidence on them.

Practice. This is one that for some reason, lack of time perhaps, people neglect to do and it is
absolutely key to giving a good presentation. Running through the presentation before the actual
event gives you time work out any kinks or problems with your notes and with your technology
and makes the presentation itself go more smoothly.

 A good tip is to film yourself or audiotape of yourself giving your practice presentation
so you can see what distracting verbal and physical tics you have, so that you can work
on eliminating them before the presentation itself. (Verbs tics would be things like
"um..." and "uh..." and using "like" inappropriately; physical tics are things like shifting
your weight from foot to foot or messing with your hair.)

 Just remember that rehearsals usually run about 20% shorter than your actual
presentation, so take that into account if you're running on a time limit.

Visualize success. It may seem like a silly thing to do, but visualizing a successful presentation
can actually help you achieve a successful presentation. You'll be more inclined towards success
if you've been prepping your brain for it. So beforehand, sit somewhere quietly for a few minutes
and picture the presentation going well.
Dress appropriately. You want to dress for success. Wearing nicer clothes can help get you into
the mindset of giving a good presentation. You also want to be comfortable, however, so you
should try to find a reasonable medium between dressing super snazzy and dressing comfortably.

 For example, if you aren't comfortable wearing heels, don't wear them just for the
presentation. You'll be distracted by your discomfort and that will come across in the
presentation. There are plenty of good shoe choices that have no or a low heel.

 Clean, nice slacks or a skirt and nice, button-down shirt in neutral colors are always good
choices for presentation wear. You also don't particularly want your clothing choice to
distract from the presentation, so perhaps avoid that brilliant hot pink shirt.

Giving the Presentation

Deal with the jitters. Pretty much everyone gets nervous about presenting, even when it isn't in front of a
bunch of people. That's okay. All you have to do is mask the fact that you're nervous, since you won't be
able to avoid the jitters themselves.

 Before the presentation, clench and unclench your hands several times to deal with the adrenaline
and then take 3 deep, slow breaths.

 Call up a smile, even if you feel like hurling. You can trick your brain into thinking that
you're less anxious than you actually are and you'll also be able to hide your nervousness
from your audience.
Engage the audience. One way to make your presentation memorable and interesting is to
interact with your audience. Don't act like there's a wall between you and your audience, engage
them in the material. Talk directly to them, not at them or at the back wall, but to your audience.

 Make eye contact with your audience. Don't stare at one particular person, but section up
the room and make eye contact with someone in each section on a rotational basis.

 Ask questions of your audience and take questions during your presentation. This will
make it more of a conversation and therefore more interesting.

 Tell an amusing anecdote to illustrate your point.

Give an engaging performance. Giving an engaging performance isn't the exact same thing as
engaging your audience (although, hopefully, your performance will engage your audience). It
simply means that you make the performance itself interesting and dynamic.

 Move around, but make your movements deliberate. Don't nervously shift your feet (in
fact, it's a good idea to imagine that your feet are nailed to the floor except for those times
you deliberately choose to move).

 Use your vocal inflections to create a more dynamic presentation. Vary your voice as
you're talking. Nobody (ever) wants to sit there and listen to someone drone on and on in
dull monotone, no matter how interesting the material.

 Try to create a balance between rehearsed and spontaneous. Spontaneous, on the spot,
movement and asides can be great as long as you are really comfortable; otherwise they
can sidetrack your presentation and make it rambling. Mess around with spontaneous and
rehearsed when you're practicing and you'll get a feel for it.

Treat your presentation as a story. To get your audience's interest you'll need to connect them
with the material on an emotional level and the best way to do that is to think of your
presentation like a story you're telling.

 Quickly introduce your topic and don't assume that your audience is familiar with all the
terms, especially if your topic is one that isn't widely known.

 Figuring out why you want (or have to) give this presentation will help you work with an
overarching story/theme. Maybe you want to pass the class. Maybe you're convincing
people to give you money or join you in a philanthropic endeavor or act for a social or
political reason. Channel that desire into your presentation. You're answering the
question of why they would want to pass you or why they would want to fund you. That's
the story you're telling.

Talk more slowly. One of the most frequent things that people do to sabotage their own
presentation is talking way too quickly and so many people make this mistake. They get nervous
and they whip through their presentation, leaving the audience gasping at the tidal wave of
information. Don't do this.

 Have water with you and take a sip when you feel you're going too fast.

 If you have a friend in the class or meeting, arrange with them beforehand that they will
let you know with a signal whether you're talking too quickly. Look over their way
occasionally and check your progress.

 If you find that you're running out of time and you haven't finished, simply drop or
summarize your leftover material. Acknowledge the leftover material as something that
can be discussed later or in the Q&A.

Have a killer closing. The beginning and the closing of a presentation are the parts that people
tend to remember, so you want to make sure that you end with a punch to the gut (figuratively
speaking; don't hit your audience). You'll need to reiterate those 3 most important points and
make sure the listener knows why they should care about your topic.

 Make it clear what the listeners now know and why it is important that they have this new
information.

 Conclude with examples or stories about your main point and take home message. You
might want a slide which summarizes your presentation.
 How to Create a PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint is a program that's part of the Microsoft Office suite, which is available for both
Windows and Mac computers.

1. Open PowerPoint. Click or double-click the PowerPoint app icon, which resembles an
orange box with a white "P" on it. This will open the PowerPoint templates page.
2. Review the available templates. Scroll through the templates page until you find one which
you like.

 Templates include things like custom color schemes, fonts, and general appearance.

3. Select a template. Click the template that you want to use. Its window will open.

 If you don't want to use a template, just click the Blank option in the upper-left side of
the page and skip the next two steps.

4. Select a theme if possible. Many templates have different color schemes or themes indicated
by colored boxes in the lower-right side of the window; clicking one of these boxes will
change the color scheme and/or theme for your template.

 Skip this step if your selected template doesn't have any themes available.

5. Click Create. It's in the bottom-right corner of the window. Doing so selects your template
and creates your PowerPoint presentation.
Creating the title slide:

Understand how your title slide should appear. Contrary to the rest of your PowerPoint
presentation, your title slide should be completely devoid of content other than the title and
subtitle. This is considered a professional must when creating a PowerPoint.

 If you're creating a PowerPoint presentation for which an elaborate title slide has been
requested, ignore this step.

Add a title. Click the large text box in the middle of the first slide, then type in your title.
  You can change the font and size of text used from the Home tab that's in the orange
ribbon at the top of the window.

Add the subtitle. Click the smaller text box below the title box, then type in the subtitle that you
want to use.

 You can also just leave this box blank if you like.

Rearrange the title text boxes. Place your mouse cursor over one of the edges of a title box,
then click and drag the box around the slide to reposition it.

 You can also click and drag in or out one of a text box's corners to shrink or enlarge the
text box.
Click the Transitions tab. It's at the top of the PowerPoint window. Doing so brings up a list of
possible slide transition effects at the top of the page.

Select a transition for your title slide. Click a transition you want to use to apply it to the slide.
This completes the title slide process; you can now move on to adding another slide for your
presentation's main content.

 Placing your mouse over the transition will cause the slide to demonstrate what the
transition will look like in practice.
Click the Insert tab. It's at the top of the PowerPoint window. A new toolbar will open near the
top of the window.

 On a Mac, you'll click the Home tab instead.

Click New Slide. It's on the far-left side of the toolbar. Doing so prompts a drop-down menu to
appear.

 On a Mac, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the New Slide icon in the
toolbar.
  Clicking the white slide-shaped box above this option will result in a new text slide being
inserted.

Select a type of slide. In the drop-down menu, click one of the following to add it to your
presentation:

 Title Slide

 Title and Content

 Section Header

 Two Content

 Comparison

 Title Only

 Blank

 Content with Caption

 Picture with Caption

Add any other slides that you think you'll need. You can certainly add slides as you go, but
adding a few slides up-front will give you an idea of the layout of the presentation as you
progress through it.
Reposition your slides as needed. Once you have more than one slide in your PowerPoint
presentation, you can move the slides around by clicking and dragging a slide's preview box up
or down on the left-hand column of the PowerPoint window.

 Naturally, the title slide should be the first slide in your presentation, meaning that it
should be the top slide in the left-hand column.

Select a slide. In the left-hand column of slide previews, click the slide that you want to edit.
This will open the slide in the main presentation window.
Look for a text box. If you selected a slide that has a text box, you can add text to the slide.

 Skip this step and the next two steps if your selected slide uses a template that doesn't
have text boxes in it.

Add text to the slide. Click the text box, then type as needed.

 Text boxes in PowerPoint will automatically format the bulk of your text for you (e.g.,
adding bullet points) based on the context of the content itself.
Format the slide's text. If necessary, select the text that you want to change, then click the
Home tab and review your text formatting options in the "Font" section of the toolbar.

 You can change the font of the selected text by clicking the current font's name and then
clicking your preferred font.

 If you want to change the size of the text, click the numbered drop-down box and then
click a larger or smaller number based on whether you want to enlarge or shrink the text.

 You can also change the color, bolding, italicization, underlining, and so on from here.

Add photos to the slide. If you want to add a photo to your slide, click the Insert tab, then click
Pictures in the toolbar and select a picture.
Rearrange the slide's content. Just like your title slide, you can move items around the slide by
clicking and dragging them.

 Photos in particular can be enlarged or shrunk by clicking and dragging out or in one of
their corners

Repeat this for each slide in your presentation. Once you've created each of your
presentation's slides, you can proceed to the next part.

 Remember to keep slides uncluttered and relatively free of distractions. It's best to keep
the amount of text per slide to around 33 words or less.

Add a transition to slide content. You can apply transitions to specific pieces of slide content
(e.g., a photo or a bullet point) by selecting the content, clicking the Animations tab at the top of
the window, and selecting the transition that you want to use there.

 Slide content will animate in the order in which you assign transitions. For example, if
you animate a photo on the slide and then animate the title, the photo will appear before
the title.

Review your PowerPoint. Once you've finished adding the bulk of your PowerPoint
presentation's content, skim through it slide-by-slide to ensure that you haven't left anything out.
Click the Slide Show tab. This tab is at the top of the window. Doing so opens the Slide Show
toolbar.
Click From Beginning. It's in the far-left corner of the toolbar. Your PowerPoint presentation
will open in slide show view.
Page through the slide show. You can use the left and right arrow keys to move back and
forward through the presentation.

 If you need to exit the presentation, press Esc.

Make any necessary changes before proceeding. When you're done scrolling through the
presentation, add any details that you forgot, delete any content that you want to remove, and so
on.

Save your PowerPoint. This will save your presentation as a file which can be opened on any
Windows or Mac computer that has PowerPoint installed:

 Windows - Click File, click Save, double-click This PC, select a save location, enter a
name for your presentation, and click Save.

 Mac - Click File, click Save As..., enter the presentation's name in the "Save As" field,
select a save location by clicking the "Where" box and clicking a folder, and click Save.