Presentations are not essays, they are illustrated talks. To ‘give a presentation’ means to talk about something in front of an audience, with an outline display of your ideas for your reference and theirs.
A computer program such as ‘PowerPoint’ provides bullet points to summarise your talk and pictures to illustrate it; these are typically projected onto a large screen behind you. The bullet points and illustrations provide a structure to remind you of what to say and also a focal point for the audience, to remind them of what you are saying. Providing these things has a purpose: people remember things much better if they see them as well hear them; they will remember your arguments better if you present them in easy chunks and with relevant illustrations.
In a presentation the main source of information for the audience is the spoken word, the display provides an outline and illustrations, not the full text of what you are saying. PowerPoint, therefore, is designed to display bullet points, not lengthy chunks of text. It is not an auto-cue. Reading is best done quietly, alone, away from an audience, not from a screen. You must not give your audience more than a few words at a time, they are not there to read but to listen. PowerPoint does provide a ‘slide notes’ facility so you can write as much as you like about each slide and distribute these notes after your presentation.
To produce a presentation in a program such as PowerPoint you should research your topic (unless you know it very well already) and prepare an outline in a word processor. Save any pictures you want to use as separate files, don’t rely on copy and paste. A typical sequence of slides might be:
Opening Slide – Title and Author
Introduction – List of Major Points, almost certainly not a list of the slides. This will allow you to summarise the information and arguments to come.
Main Section – Any number of slides here to advance your arguments and to present factual information, charts, statistics, pictures, etc.
Conclusion
This follows a fairly simple pattern, one which, in most circumstances, will not let you down: tell them what you are going to say, say it, tell them what you have said.
There are three slides you must provide, the Opening Slide, the Introduction and the Conclusion; in between you may have 4-10 slides, which, typically, present the various aspects of your topic or put forward the sides of your argument. If you are tackling a big topic, or if you spread it out across lots of slides you may have more than 10 slides.
Plan your talk carefully and prepare the slides to fit in with what you want to say. One type of presentation may be entirely factual, for example a guide to different types of volcano, a guide to one or more authors, or a guide to sources of energy. Another type of presentation might be based on a more controversial topic such as smoking, fox hunting or pollution, which will require slides which put different sides of an argument.
The structure and contents of your presentation may be determined by the material you find. Use sources such as the Internet and encyclopaedias to find basic information and illustrations. Use illustrations sparingly, don’t fill up slides with pictures, use separate slides to make your point as forcefully as possible (there’s no extra charge!). Don’t overdo the special effects (such as custom animation and sounds), they can become very annoying to an audience.
Examples
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Title: Pop Music of today (or whenever you choose). This is a factual account, nothing controversial. |
Title: Fox Hunting: should it be banned? |
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Introduction: Types of group to be covered, e.g. grunge, heavy metal, rap, hip-hop, etc. (keep the list short, you are not writing a book!) |
Introduction: Why you have chosen this topic (Cruel? Or a part of countryside life?). Government plans to make it illegal? |
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Music type 1 (this presentation gives scope for music and video clips (.wav and .avi) |
History of fox hunting. When did it start? What is it for? How ‘traditional’ is the modern hunt? Major ‘hunts’ today. |
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Music Type 2 |
Who does fox hunting now and why? (Farmers? Country squires? Country dwellers, old and new? |
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Change of topic so you don’t just give a list e.g. music technology, one major artist, record label, venues, etc. |
Hunt saboteurs |
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Music Type 3 |
Arguments against fox hunting (and other similar ‘sports’) |
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Music Type 4 – that’s probably enough! |
Arguments for hunting (e.g. control foxes, provide employment, social occasion, preserve countryside traditions) |
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Change of topic as before |
The political process – who wants to end fox hunting, who wants to preserve it? Compromises? Should it be decided democratically? Should a majority who dislike fox hunting prevent a minority from doing it? |
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Overview – changes from earlier music, likely trends in future |
Overview – before you give your views, summarise the arguments again |
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Conclusion – your favourite? |
Conclusion – |
Planning Your Presentation
Write your material here, possibly copied and pasted from elsewhere. Polish these notes into slide notes and paste them into the notes section of the slides. Refine these notes into bullet points and then paste them into PowerPoint. The following outline is for a controversial topic, one where there is more than one side of an argument.
Slide 1 – Title
Slide 2 – Introduction
Slide 3 – background
Slide 4 – one side of the argument
Slide 5 – optional, more detail from slide 4
Slide 6 – the other side of the argument
Slide 7 – optional, more detail from slide 6
Slide 8 – other aspects of the topic e.g. political
Slide 9 – review arguments
Slide 10 – Conclusion