How To Prepare A Presentation

Good Preparation
Leads to
Good Performance
Setting Priorities:
Choosing the Main Ideas
A
presentation can be considered a form of formalized
conversation. In order for you to get your pointacross to your
audience, you must have a clear picture of the nature of your
audience and its relationship to your topic. To transmit your message
efficiently, you must have a listener or audiencefocus.What is the audience’s attitude toward the topic? What is the relevancy of this topic to
the audience? What is the state of audience’s current knowledge of the
topic? Is the audience homogeneousor heterogeneous in terms of attitude and knowledge, and how will this impact the receipt of your message? Is there only one opportunity to speak in front of this audience or
will there be multipleopportunities? These are the types of questions
you must ask yourself when you are organizing and developing your talk.
The essence of organizing an idea is actually very simple:
■
Make a point.
■Explain it.
■ Support it.
■ Conclude it.
Organizing a presentation then becomes a matter of developing connections between the ideas that you have already organized.
good preparation leads togood performance

Organizing the Main Ideas into a
Coherent Presentation
In order for you to speak effectively, it is imperative that you know your
topic well or can know it well by the time thepresentation is to take
place. Often the subject matter is dictated by the nature of your discipline or by a syllabus.As the speaker, your role is:
. to clarify the purpose, goal, or thesis of yourtalk, and
. to make rhetorical choices that maximize the communication of
your purpose, goal, or thesis to your audience.
The most effective way to ensure that you know your topic well is bydeveloping a thesis statement: a single simple statement that clearly and
concisely states what you wish to accomplish with your presentation
(Cooper, ). Developing a thesis statement necessarily...