Presentations: PowerPoint and Beyond: Components of a Speech

Focusing

• Clarity of purpose (thesis)
  • Develop a thesis statement
  • Generate main ideas
  • Using resources to develop ideas
  • Understand  the interactional goal: Examples
    • To teach presentation skills
    • To convey research and find it compelling
    • To win a contest
    • To build community
  • You may not overtly state it in your presentation, but have it in mind.
• Know your audience (setting)
  • Who is your audience?
  • One-on-one, 50 people, three people at a poster?

Framing

• Organizing your main points (structure)
  • Example: Start with one anecdote, then content, and then circle back to anecdote

Hook

How will you grab your audience’s attention?

• Anecdote
• Quote
  • From movie / show
  • Proverb (foreign or local)
• Statistic
• Poem
• Rhetorical questions
• Catchy phrase or sound bit
• Contrarian approach (universally accepted concept and the go against conventional wisdom)
• Startling assertion / fact
• Reference to historical event
• Use the word “imagine”
• Tell a (short) story / arouse curiosity
• What if scenario

Researcher Identity

• Who are you? Why are you invested in this research?
• Your passion and interest in topic could be enough!
• Beyond I’m a student in the class and I have to do it.

Context:

• Is there anything that needs to be contextualized for your audience before you dive in?

Purpose

• What is the purpose of your research?

Elaboration

• How are you supporting your ideas? (Evidence)
  • Literature review, data collection, interviews, surveys, primary sources, etc.

Connecting Ideas

• How are you connecting ideas? (Transitions)
• How do you show the relationship between ideas?
• This helps listeners keep track of your content.

Conclusions

• Very important to reiterate thesis and main ideas – it’s okay to repeat yourself to keep audience on track
  • Make this concise!
• Call for further research
• Connect back using first hook

Effective Nonverbal Communication

Evidenced through…

• eye contact
• tone
• pitch of voice
• volume
• breath
• posture
• intentional use of hand gestures
• movement
• not overly relying on notes
• pauses

Video yourself to learn about your habits!