If you want to stand up for an academic degree, if you want to aim at achieving success during your thesis’ presentation to the Academic Board you should know how to prepare and organize your presentation.
The way you look in front of the audience is very important. When on rostrum, try to behave properly. Stop swinging the pointer, keep from waving hands, abstain from shouting, and control your voice. While you are speaking you should keep eye contact with members of the audience. This gives you information about the audience’s reaction. You are able to check that they understand what you are speaking about.
The start of a presentation is very important. It gives the audience their first impression of you and the topic you are going to speak about. It also gives you the chance to get over your nerves with a confident start. The introduction should be brief about 1-2 minutes of speaking.
It’s better to start with the greeting of the audience and introducing yourself. When you greet the audience and introduce yourself it is best to be formal.
Here you can use such phrases as:
| ● Good morning (afternoon, evening), everyone …… ● Thank you for coming …… ● Let me introduce myself. My name is …… ● My name is ……. I am from …… ● I would like to introduce myself to those who don’t know me, I am …… ● I would like to welcome you to my talking today …… |
After you have greeted the audience and introduced yourself you need to
tell the audience the exact purpose of your presentation. The audience should
understand the overall reason for your presentation. Here is a list of phrases,
which introduce purposes:
| ● The aim of my presentation is to …… ● The subject of this presentation is …… ● Today I am going to talk about …… ● My topic today is going to be …… ● The purpose of this talk is to …… ● The presentation will consider …… |
The next step of your presentation is telling the audience how you are going to structure your talk. The audience should understand how many main points are going to be made and how they are going to be structured. The order of your main points must be easy for the audience to follow. There is usually a logical sequence, which is suggested by the topic. That’s why it’s better to use here the following phrases:
| ● In particular there are (4) main ideas which I wish to put to you this (afternoon). 1. I will start by arguing …… (I will begin by considering ……, The first problem I want to consider is …….); 2. Secondly I am going to explain …… (Next I look at ……, Secondly I will look at ……); 3. My third point is that ……. (Then I will explain how ……, Following this I will examine ……); 4. Lastly, I want to show …… (Fourthly, I want to discuss ……, Finally, I will discuss). |
The main body is the “heart” of your presentation, which contains the most important points that you wish to make. Every main point contains an introduction and summing up. A clear speaker will tell the listener which point is going to be made and how it is related to the previous points, if at all. Here the speaker usually uses the phrases to indicate the end of the point and to introduce the next point. They are:
| Phrases used to show start of new point. | Phrases used to show end of each point |
| ● The first point that I’d like to make is about…… ● I’d like to turn now to …… ● So I’ll now consider …… ●The final question that I am going to consider is ………… | ● Ok, having looked at the …… ● That covers the point I wished to make about …… ● So, that concludes my points about ……. ● Right, that covers the main ideas about …… |
The conclusion is as important as the introduction. The conclusion to your talk is important for two reasons. Firstly, it gives you a chance to tell the audience again what the main points of your presentation were; it is therefore a chance to summarize for the audience the information got. Secondly, the conclusion acts as a bridge between you speaking and the chance for the audience to participate and to respond to the ideas that you have put across. The following phrases could be used to introduce your conclusion:
A)
| 1. I started by arguing …… (I began by considering ……, The first problem I considered was …….); 2. Secondly I explained …… (Next I looked at ……, Secondly I looked at ……); 3. My third point was that ……. (Then I explained how ……, Following this I examined ……); 4. Lastly, I showed …… (Fourthly, I discussed……). |
B)
| Thank you for your attention, are there any questions? That concludes my talk, are there any questions? That’s all I wish to say, thanks for listening, and I’d be happy to answer questions. That is the end of my presentation, I should be grateful for your ideas, comments and reaction. I thank you for your attention. |
Following your presentation there is usually a chance for the audience to ask you questions and put their ideas to you. When you deal with questions from the audience try to follow the advice:
1. Listen carefully to all the questions.
2. If you don’t understand the question ask for a repetition.
3. Always be courteous to your questioners.
4. Admit if you don’t know the answer.
5. If the question has more than one part – deal with each part separately.
LISTENING