Oral Presentations On Technical Topics

Oral Presentations on Technical Topics

Good Presentations Take Time • Professional speakers spend, on average, 2060 minutes preparing for each minute of speaking. • Average: it takes 13 hours to prepare a 20 minute talk.

First Step: Analyze Audience • • • • •

Who are they? What do they know? What is level of education? Do they know the vocabulary? Do they already know the basic concepts?

• Why are they there? • What do they want to accomplish by hearing you? • Will they be neutral, enthusiastic, or maybe hostile to your ideas?

Second Step: Assess YOUR Purpose • What are you attempting to do? – Persuade? – Inform? Knowing this information helps you to organize, understand what to emphasize, and so on.

Step Three: Budget Your Time • You have a max of 7 minutes

Typical Time Table, 7 min • Intro • Body – First Major Point – Second Major Point – Third Major Point

• Conclusion • Questions

• 1 min – 1.5 min – 1.5 min – 1.5 min

• 1 min

Step Four: Preparing Materials for Yourself • Prepare an outline for yourself that will help you stay on track. • Outline is for your use. • Use sentences or fragments…whatever works best for you.

Outline, cont. • Helps re-vision material and help make a PPT (if using PPT). • No need to give outline to audience.

Step Five: Consider Media and Its Limitations • Oral presentations simpler than written work • Minimum stats and equations • Review the sheet that is handed out called “Basic Media for Oral Presentations.”

The Basics • • • • •

Don’t be afraid to move in the space Don’t be overly formal Be yourself Know your topic, but don’t memorize Be able to “talk” your speech, not give it

PowerPoint…Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages • Presents visuals • Aids understanding, if done well • Gives audience template to follow

Disadvantages • • • •

Too much reliance on it Speaker reads the slides Visuals can be poorly presented System may fail; file may fail

• Following this slide is an all-too common of over-the-top PPT use…

Driving on a Wet Road • There is a hazard in effect when you drive on a wet road. This should be avoided. • Crashes kill 15,000 people a year.

Graphics • Clarify or highlight important ideas/facts • Stats lend themselves well to graphics • Descriptions are aided by graphics

Why use graphics? Research proves that presentations with transparencies or PPT are deemed – more professional – more credible – more persuasive

than presentations without.

Retention After 3 hrs

3 days

Without Graphics

70%

10%

With Graphics

85%

65%

On-Screen Writing • At least 24 pt font • Serif or Sans Serif…general pref is Sans • Use brief phrases

Document The current system has three problems: • It is expensive to maintain. • It requires nonstandard components. • It is not compliant to the new MILSPEC.

Screen • Three Problems: • Expensive maintenance • Nonstandard Components • Noncompliant with MILSPEC

Legibility On-Screen • Clear, legible lines for drawings and diagrams • Black-and-white vs. color

Simplicity is Key • Use simple text and graphics • Present only one idea • Know that audience has not seen it before and has no time to linger over it

How many graphics? • For every 30 seconds, a graphic (generally). • Better to have a series of simple graphics than one complicated graphic.