At some point in time everyone needs to make presentations. Presentation skills are not limited to professionals and there are no specific courses to train and qualify a presenter. Anyone can develop these skills through preparation and practice. Successful presentations can differentiate efficient people from inefficient ones.
Presentation skills are applicable to a variety of people ranging from students to professionals to general public as …show more content…
While speech delivery is used, presentation skills are not the same as speaking skills.
What are Presentation skills?
A presentation is a form of ‘public speaking’. Most often these two terms are used interchangeably. In business contexts, presentation means presenting or delivering one’s point of view on a subject verbally, formally and often with the support of an audio-visual presentation. A lot of communication skills such as informing, arguing out a case or persuading are used during a presentation. Effective speakers deliver successful presentations. One can plan, prepare, and deliver presentations with support from technology tools. Presentation skills involve planning, preparing and delivering organised talks on specific topics for specific purposes to specific audiences.
Presentation skills are important for every student both for scholastic purposes and for academic growth. Students are often asked to make presentations for purposes of grading as an assignment or for job selection by a company. Many research based assignments have presentations as the format to demonstrate learning. Higher education stresses on making presentations of one’s academic work for awarding MPhil and PhD …show more content…
An organised approach means meticulously following key steps in planning and background work. Garr Reynolds, bestselling author and speaker, suggests 10 steps in planning and preparation. A trainee presenter should read them carefully and incorporate these steps in their planning.
(i) Steps to Planning a Presentation
Following are 10 key steps involved while planning a presentation according to Reynolds:
Start with the end in mind – Before starting the content or script writing or the presentation of slides in PowerPoint, it is better to think of the D day. The real purpose of the talk, need for a particular speaker, and knowledge about the audience, expectations of the audience and the outcome of the session will lead to the design and delivery of the presentation.
Know your audience as well as possible – Once the purpose of the presentation is clear and before beginning to research on the content, the presenter should review the audience awareness. A presentation is made to the audience and is meant to seek these ‘W questions’:
i. Who is the audience? – their background information like age, profession,