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How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

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• Peer review
• Lucia Hartigan , registrar 1 ,
• Fionnuala Mone , fellow in maternal fetal medicine 1 ,
• Mary Higgins , consultant obstetrician 2
• 1 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
• 2 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin
• luciahartigan{at}hotmail.com

The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker’s ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes

The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker’s skills in transmitting the information to the audience. 1

Preparation

It is important to be as well prepared as possible. Look at the venue in person, and find out the time allowed for your presentation and for questions, and the size of the audience and their backgrounds, which will allow the presentation to be pitched at the appropriate level.

See what the ambience and temperature are like and check that the format of your presentation is compatible with the available computer. This is particularly important when embedding videos. Before you begin, look at the video on stand-by and make sure the lights are dimmed and the speakers are functioning.

For visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Mac Keynote programmes are usual, although Prezi is increasing in popularity. Save the presentation on a USB stick, with email or cloud storage backup to avoid last minute disasters.

When preparing the presentation, start with an opening slide containing the title of the study, your name, and the date. Begin by addressing and thanking the audience and the organisation that has invited you to speak. Typically, the format includes background, study aims, methodology, results, strengths and weaknesses of the study, and conclusions.

If the study takes a lecturing format, consider including “any questions?” on a slide before you conclude, which will allow the audience to remember the take home messages. Ideally, the audience should remember three of the main points from the presentation. 2

Have a maximum of four short points per slide. If you can display something as a diagram, video, or a graph, use this instead of text and talk around it.

Animation is available in both Microsoft PowerPoint and the Apple Mac Keynote programme, and its use in presentations has been demonstrated to assist in the retention and recall of facts. 3 Do not overuse it, though, as it could make you appear unprofessional. If you show a video or diagram don’t just sit back—use a laser pointer to explain what is happening.

Rehearse your presentation in front of at least one person. Request feedback and amend accordingly. If possible, practise in the venue itself so things will not be unfamiliar on the day. If you appear comfortable, the audience will feel comfortable. Ask colleagues and seniors what questions they would ask and prepare responses to these questions.

It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don’t have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.

Try to present slides at the rate of around one slide a minute. If you talk too much, you will lose your audience’s attention. The slides or videos should be an adjunct to your presentation, so do not hide behind them, and be proud of the work you are presenting. You should avoid reading the wording on the slides, but instead talk around the content on them.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and remember to smile and pause after each comment, giving your nerves time to settle. Speak slowly and concisely, highlighting key points.

Do not assume that the audience is completely familiar with the topic you are passionate about, but don’t patronise them either. Use every presentation as an opportunity to teach, even your seniors. The information you are presenting may be new to them, but it is always important to know your audience’s background. You can then ensure you do not patronise world experts.

To maintain the audience’s attention, vary the tone and inflection of your voice. If appropriate, use humour, though you should run any comments or jokes past others beforehand and make sure they are culturally appropriate. Check every now and again that the audience is following and offer them the opportunity to ask questions.

Finishing up is the most important part, as this is when you send your take home message with the audience. Slow down, even though time is important at this stage. Conclude with the three key points from the study and leave the slide up for a further few seconds. Do not ramble on. Give the audience a chance to digest the presentation. Conclude by acknowledging those who assisted you in the study, and thank the audience and organisation. If you are presenting in North America, it is usual practice to conclude with an image of the team. If you wish to show references, insert a text box on the appropriate slide with the primary author, year, and paper, although this is not always required.

Answering questions can often feel like the most daunting part, but don’t look upon this as negative. Assume that the audience has listened and is interested in your research. Listen carefully, and if you are unsure about what someone is saying, ask for the question to be rephrased. Thank the audience member for asking the question and keep responses brief and concise. If you are unsure of the answer you can say that the questioner has raised an interesting point that you will have to investigate further. Have someone in the audience who will write down the questions for you, and remember that this is effectively free peer review.

Be proud of your achievements and try to do justice to the work that you and the rest of your group have done. You deserve to be up on that stage, so show off what you have achieved.

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: None.

• ↵ Rovira A, Auger C, Naidich TP. How to prepare an oral presentation and a conference. Radiologica 2013 ; 55 (suppl 1): 2 -7S. OpenUrl
• ↵ Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. PLos Comput Biol 2007 ; 3 : e77 . OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Naqvi SH, Mobasher F, Afzal MA, Umair M, Kohli AN, Bukhari MH. Effectiveness of teaching methods in a medical institute: perceptions of medical students to teaching aids. J Pak Med Assoc 2013 ; 63 : 859 -64. OpenUrl

How to Create Effective Speaking PowerPoint Presentations

• Carolyn Manion Kinnie
• January 23, 2023

Table of Contents

Introduction.

On your path to becoming a speaker, you overcome a lot of hurdles. You find your niche, you market yourself, you land a few local gigs, and then your first big keynote. You’ve finally “made it” in your industry and you’ll be speaking to thousands at a conference. During your last check-in with the event planner, they ask: “can you send your slides to our A/V guy before the talk?” You freeze. Nobody ever taught you how to create effective speaking powerpoint presentations! Will the same powerpoint template you used for that final project in high school suffice? 

While that may not be exactly how this scenario plays out for you, at some point, probably early on in your speaking career, the question will arise. How do you create effective speaking PowerPoint presentations? Do they really matter? Can you just copy some sentences from your talk onto slides and call it a day? 

We get questions about this a lot, and we’re here to help. We’ve covered the topic of speaking PowerPoint presentations a few times on the TSL podcast, specifically on episodes 190 – 191 and  262 . Today, we’ll go over when and why you should use slides (and if you really should)! Then we’ll cover some of the essential strategies for creating effective slides to go with your talk. 

Do you really need slides? 

A lot of aspiring speakers over-emphasize the role PowerPoint plays in their speaking engagements. Before we get into how to create your slides, let’s get one fundamental principle out of the way. 

You can’t rely on your PowerPoint.

Slides are an enhancement , not a replacement for good content or your presence onstage. If your talk can’t stand on its own, even the most beautifully formatted PowerPoint can’t cover up for you. You should always be able to give your talk just as compellingly without a slideshow, video, photos, etc. Practice and hone your talk first, then create slides to go with it.

Preparedness is absolutely essential to the art of speaking, and even the best PowerPoint cannot cover for your unpreparedness. Slides exist to help the audience, not as a reminder for you. If you’re trying to make up for poor speaking skills with a fancy slide deck, that time is better spent working on your content and on-stage presentation. The order of importance is content first, delivery next, and only then your PowerPoint. 

After all, you could be that unlucky speaker who walks on stage just before a power outage happens. Or the event planning intern loses your flash drive. Or the battery on the mac connected to the projector dies. Sure, those are all worst case scenarios. But anybody who’s been around in the conference space for a while will tell you they do happen. Unfortunately, many speakers treat their PowerPoint as a crutch, and fumble around if something goes wrong on the technical end. The ability to deliver your talk seamlessly without slides in such a situation will set you apart and endear you to event planners and audience members alike. 

OK, so a PowerPoint isn’t absolutely essential. But when slides do enhance, they can be powerful! Some examples of their use include:

• Adding structure e.g. showing when you’re moving onto a new topic or reviewing points you’ve already made. 
• Orienting your audience toward your message by highlighting key words or points that they should listen for.
• Presenting data, statistics, and research conclusions, especially if your field has a commonly used “visual shorthand”. 

Your PowerPoint should work alongside your storytelling to keep your audience engaged and to the point. In our next section, we will dig deeper into how you can make your slides as effective and impactful as possible. 

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Creating effective content in speaking PowerPoint Presentations

You should approach your speaking PowerPoint with an attitude of intentionality and minimalism. The number of slides is irrelevant–it’s how you present information on them that counts. Craft your words beautifully, and it will be easy to create slides alongside them.

When it comes to text on the screen, less is almost always more. Avoid redundancy–those blocks of text that you are going to say out loud anyway can go. Use big, readable fonts in a high-contrast color. Often, a single word to keep the audience on track is more compelling than a long block quote that would only distract them.

Minimalism doesn’t mean you should do away with images, but you must use them wisely! Two of the best uses for images are as an illustration or a visualization of a step-by-step process. Only images of the highest quality belong in your presentation, so ditch the grainy screenshots and dimly-lit photos. Free resources like Pixabay , Pexels , and Unsplash will provide you with great high-res stock images. For charts and diagrams, TSL friend Nancy Duarte offers a free PowerPoint-ready tool called Diagrammer . You can hear Nancy’s advice for slides and storytelling on Episode 262 of the Speaker Lab Podcast. 

As we’ve mentioned before , reminding people that you are a professional speaker is essential to building your network and brand recognition. Don’t underestimate the possibilities your slides offer for self-promotion! Do you offer additional services such as courses or coaching? Integrate stories of past client work with images alongside. Have you spoken for audiences similar to those that your listeners are part of? Include a picture from one of those events. Here’s one way to gain fans and followers with your speaking PowerPoint that you can implement anytime: at the end of your talk, display your social media handle or a QR code that leads to an email subscriber form. If you give away a free resource to email subscribers ( as you should ), this is a great chance to mention it.

You shouldn’t create an entirely new PowerPoint every time you speak. Once you develop a signature talk, develop an easily adaptable PowerPoint template to go along with it. Use the same color scheme, fonts, and voice as your website and other business materials (more tips here for developing your speaker brand ). 

It’s also in your own brand’s interest to design your slides with the client in mind. If there is a color, logo, or hashtag that unites your PowerPoint to an overarching event theme, it will be a big hit with audience and planners alike. Consider asking your point of contact if there’s a theme you should be aware of ahead of time. Integrating the theme into your template in small or subtle ways will take no time at all–and neither will your content if you follow our principles of intentionality and minimalism! Learn more about making the most of minimalist slides on Episode 190 of our podcast. 

Presenting your speaking PowerPoint: technical tips

Once you’ve nailed down your content, you should run through your speech alongside your slides at least once. Knowing how to create effective speaking PowerPoint presentations is half the battle; presenting them onstage presents its own set of challenges. Here are some tips for jumping through technical hoops and making sure nothing in your control goes wrong. 

When it comes to the template we mentioned in the previous section, you’ll have the option of creating it in a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Always ask your client if they know the projector dimensions, but 4:3 is the safest by default. It’s far better to have smaller slides centered on a widescreen projector than unexpected cropping! Once you have the time, creating two templates will allow you to make the most of widescreen projectors when they are available. 

If music or video is an absolutely essential part of your message, it can totally have a place in your PowerPoint. But if it’s not essential, leave it out! The A/V team will be relieved and it’s one less thing that can go wrong. If you must include animations, videos, music, etc., do so in the way that creates the least friction by requiring the least technical support. Have a game plan for smoothly moving on if it doesn’t work. If you’ve focused properly on crafting your talk, it will still have the same impact. 

Here’s one tip we can’t stress enough: always bring backup. Even if you sent your slides to the client a week ago, bring a flash drive. If you’re supposed to project from your own device, send the file to the client or upload it to google slides just in case. And this tip doesn’t just apply to your PowerPoint! Put together a little tech bag stocked with cables, clickers, microphones, adaptors, and chargers. Many speakers even bring an ethernet cord. 

Preparedness is key when it comes to effectively presenting your speaking PowerPoint. Ask about deadlines and technical requirements well in advance. At the same time, you can’t prepare for every scenario, so being easy to work with is equally important. If you can roll with the punches, event planners and A/V teams alike will look forward to seeing your name on the program. Those good relationships are essential to the referrals that will ensure you future gigs down the road. 

If you’re looking for more details of technical success with your speaking PowerPoints, head over to episode 191 of the TSL podcast.

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Click below to discover your Speaker Archetype and how to start getting booked and paid to speak!

Some speakers, like TSL founder Grant Baldwin or famous keynoter Simon Sinek avoid using slides whenever possible. 

Others, like our friend Melanie Deziel , love creating effective speaking PowerPoints that help maximize their message. 

Wherever you fall on the question of slides, it’s important to use them intentionally and without overwhelming the audience. While every speaker will have their own characteristic style, these tips should set you well on your way to creating amazing speaking slides! 

• Last Updated: February 29, 2024

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Using PowerPoint or Prezi Effectively

Using powerpoint or prezi effectively  (view pdf) .

Powerpoint and Prezi presentations are meant to serve as visual aids that can enhance audience engagement and their understanding of your speech. These 10 tips will set you on the path to presentation success.

Best Practices

• Only use bullet points . You should not have full sentences on PowerPoint or Prezi because they distract from your speech and you want your audience to listen, not read. Use short fragments or keywords to keep your presentation organized.
• Have a backbone slide . Have a slide that demonstrates the direction your presentation will have by outlining the major elements of your speech.
• Use Animations VERY carefully.  It may look nice, but it can also be a distraction. Only use them if they play an essential role in your presentation (such as concealing a bullet point for a later point in the presentation).
• Make sure the text is visible.  Your text should be large enough to be visible from the back of the room for someone with average eye sight. Sometimes, the text may get lost in the background of the slide (especially if the background includes a picture) or the text color is too close to the background color. Be sure to avoid red/green and blue/yellow color schemes as people with colorblindness may not be able to differentiate the text from the background.
• Keep the focus where you want it.  If you are going to incorporate a graph or a quote into your presentation, be sure to have a slide with only the graph or quote, allowing you to speak about it to your audience and to use it as a reference. If you use an image, you should generally limit yourself to one image per slide.
• Cite your sources . For many of your presentations, you will be using outside sources. If so, be sure to cite them in the proper format on the last slide or throughout your presentation. For pictures, include an indication of the source next to the image. Be sure the pictures you chose are freely available for use. See creativecommons.org for great searching tools.
• Show a slide when it’s relevant. Use black screen or a blank slide to hide slides you’re not ready to show the audience. If you are going to speak for any length of time without a relevant slide, add a slide to your presentation that is simply black. You can keep your audience’s focus on you rather than on the slides.
• Provide a warning when necessary. If you are using graphic images that may seem unsettling to members of your audience, be sure to let them know before revealing the image(s).
• Have a backup. Sometimes you lose wifi access and sometimes your USB drive suddenly stops working. Be prepared by being able to access the presentation in multiple ways (e.g., have a copy in your email and on your laptop that you bring with you).
•   Do not depend on the PowerPoint or Prezi. Technical difficulties occur all the time, so you may have to deliver your presentation without a PowerPoint. Also, you should not have to read off the PowerPoint or Prezi. Remember: you are the expert on the subject!

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Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

Kristen m. naegle.

Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

Funding Statement

The author received no specific funding for this work.

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How to Do an Oral Presentation

Last Updated: April 15, 2024

This article was co-authored by Vikas Agrawal . Vikas Agrawal is a Visual Content Marketing Expert & Entrepreneur, as well as the Founder of Full Service Creative Agency Infobrandz. With over 10 years of experience, he specializes in designing visually engaging content, such as infographics, videos, and e-books. He’s an expert in Making content marketing strategies and has contributed to and been featured in many publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, and INC.com. This article has been viewed 48,179 times.

The power of words can control the thoughts, emotions and the decisions of others. Giving an oral presentation can be a challenge, but with the right plan and delivery, you can move an entire audience in your favor.

Researching Your Presentation

• If speaking about the effect of junk food on an adult’s mind, include the increase of serotonin, a happiness hormone. Then inform the audience how fast the hormone drastically depletes to give out worse feelings. This gives the perspective that even the advantages of junk food are outweighed by the negative effects.

Writing Your Script

• Make sure to begin each argument with a clear description of the content such as. "The result of eating junk food has increased negative emotions such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem". This gives the audience a quick outlook of what the argument is about. Always remember to state how the argument relates and supports the topic question.

• If necessary, this is where you could include, "My name is ___ and I will be speaking about the effect on junk food on our minds." Then you include a brief out view of each argument you will be speaking about. Do not include any information about your arguments in the introduction.

• Some example concluding sentences include, "The entire process of the mind, changed by a simple bite of a cookie. Our entire body's control system, defined by our choices of food. The definite truth. You are what you eat."

Practicing and Performing

• Taking the effort to memorize your script allows you to keep eye contact with the audience and brings confidence to your speech. Reading from an entire script can easily cause you to lose your place and stutter. Also make sure they are the same size and only put important key words or those that are hard to remember. This allows you to easily flip through and read off the cue cards.

What Is The Best Way To Start a Presentation?

Expert Q&A

• Research persuasive language techniques. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• Watch online speeches to get an idea of how to tone your presentation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• Color code each sentence on your cue cards to never lose track. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ https://www.princeton.edu/~archss/webpdfs08/BaharMartonosi.pdf
• ↑ https://education.seattlepi.com/give-good-speech-presentations-college-1147.html

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• TABLE OF CONTENTS

Oral Presentation and Powerpoint

I once attended a talk where the speaker held everyone’s attention for a key five minutes by pulling the Seinfeld trick—putting on "a show about nothing." An engineer at a small, struggling company, he was near the end of a slick Powerpoint presentation about whether the design for a critical machine should be modernized to speed up production, and he presented three options:

• Retool the machine in-house, which would sacrifice a month of production time but result in faster output in the long run.
• Buy a new machine from a known distributor, which would involve a hefty up-front expense but save labor costs and time;
• Do nothing.

That’s right—do nothing. Continue with production and learn to live with the sacrifices.

To dramatize this third point, the speaker filled the presentation screen—which up to then had held colorful Powerpoint slides employing slick transitions and graphics—with nothing. He simply left the screen blank, proposed the option of taking no action, and then shut off the projector. For the next five minutes, he engaged the audience members—which included the company president and the company accountant—by switching to a lecture format, moving around the room without so much as a pointer or note card, and arguing his case: that it was smarter for the company to maintain status quo, especially since it was struggling financially. Ultimately, he impressed his point on the audience not with the magic of presentation software, but with reasoning, creativity, common sense, and the bottom line. As the speaker hoped, the company bought into option number 3.

As this example demonstrates, effective oral presentation is more about creative thinking on your feet and basic skills than about wearing good shoes and knowing how to turn on the computer projector. Companies have long cried for graduates who can give dynamic talks, and they have long relied on talks as a key way to sway concerned parties towards a desired outcome. But many presenters make the mistake of trying to let the computer, bells and whistles blaring, do all the work for them. They forget the fundamentals of oral presentation, and thus whatever polish they have quickly loses its luster.

To become a modern speaker worth listening to, whether you’re serving as a company representative or presenting at a conference, you must come fully prepared, engage your audience’s attention and memory, attend to some visual design basics, and take stock of how you come across as a speaker.

Preparing for a Talk

There’s a rule-of-thumb in carpentry: Measure twice, cut once. The tenets behind this principle should be obvious—once a mistake is made, it’s difficult or impossible to undo. Though the carpenter can usually spackle or glue to repair, as a speaker you simply cannot get back those three minutes you just wasted in a fifteen-minute presentation. The following preparation principles will keep you right on plumb.

• Practice your talk straight through, and as you go jot quick notes to yourself about how to improve it. If you cannot manage to practice your talk straight through, perhaps you are not yet ready to offer it.
• Ideally, practice your talk under conditions similar to those in which you will give it, considering such factors as acoustics, distance from the audience, lighting, and room size. Lighting becomes especially important when computer equipment is involved. Be mentally prepared to adapt to the environmental conditions.
• As a draft, present your talk to a friend or two first and have them critique it. If you’re really gutsy and can tolerate the unforgiving lens of the camcorder, videotape your practice talk and critique it afterwards.
• View all of your visuals from your audience’s perspective prior to your talk. Be sure that your audience can easily see all that you want them to see, especially material that appears in the lower half of the screen.
• When you give a talk professionally, always request presentation guidelines from any relevant organizations and conform to them explicitly. It would be embarrassing for you if you were expected to present units in metric, for example, and you did otherwise because you failed to request or follow the available guidelines.
• As part of your preparation, choose an appropriately snappy and helpful title. You are expected not to come off as stodgy. Which talk would you rather attend: "Specific Geometrical Objects with Fractional Dimensions and Their Various Applications to Nature in General and The Universe At Large as we Know it" or "And On The Eighth Day, God Created Fractals"?
• Become highly familiar with any technology you’ll be using. Practice with the actual hardware or type of hardware you’ll be working with, making sure that compatibility or speed issues don’t get in your way. I’ve seen students go to present at a conference with a zip disk of their talk confidently in hand, only to find that the computer they were using didn’t have a zip drive. To facilitate faster computer speed, load your presentation onto the desktop if possible rather than run it from a CD or flash drive. If websites are needed as part of your presentation, check connection speeds and make sure all URLs are up and running.

Helping Your Audience Remember Your Key Points

Andy Warhol is known for the comment that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. If your 15 minutes of fame is during your oral presentation, you want to be sure not to blow it. I’m amazed at how many times I’ve sat through a talk and come away with only a vague sense of what it was about. There are many reasons for this—some speakers view their talk as simply a format for reading a paper, while others fill the air with many words but little substance—but the most common reason is the simplest one: the speaker showed uncertainty about the talk's alleged subject. If you don’t spell out your premise, highlight your key points, and make it easy for your audience to remember the thrust of your presentation, you can’t expect your listeners to come away with understanding and investment.

To ensure an engaged audience for your talk, follow these practices:

• Introduce and Conclude . Use a formal introduction at the beginning of your talk and a summary afterwards to highlight your major points. Make sure your audience can remember your key points by keeping them simple and straightforward—even enumerated.
• Present in Sections . Give your talk "parts" —usually no more than three major parts for practical purposes—and let us know when we’re transitioning from one part to the next. This will help your audience to remain interested and focused.
• Spell out the Objective . Give the talk’s objective and even a hint of the conclusion right up front. Articulate the objective on its own slide so we can’t miss it. Revisit the objective at the end if necessary to underscore how it was realized.
• Use Props . Consider the use of some simple, meaningful props—even pass them around. Props can generate audience interest and, especially if they represent the actual work you did, they make the nature of that work more concrete. I’ve been to great talks where an experimental sample or photographs representing production sites were passed around, and they often generated focused questions from the audience members afterwards.
• Use Handouts . If appropriate, give a handout. As long as it’s well-designed, a concise written summary with bulleted points on a handout will ensure that your talk can be followed throughout. Such a handout should ideally be just one or two pages long, and be sure to time and manage its distribution so that it doesn’t take away attention from you as you speak. One possibility for handouts is an actual printout of your slides through the "Handouts" option in Powerpoint, but be certain that your audience actually needs all of your slides before electing this option.
• Offer Q&A . If question and answer is involved as part of the end of the talk, don’t let any questions deflect our interest. Some audience members might try to draw the attention to themselves, or focus on a mistake or uncertainty in your presentation, or even undermine your authority directly with an intimidating challenge. (I recall one speaker at a professional conference being tossed the strange question, "Your data is crap, isn’t it?") Remember that the stage and agenda are yours, and it’s your job to keep it that way and end your talk with a bang, not a whimper. If you don’t know the answer to a question, admit it or offer to discuss it privately after the presentation, then move on. One savvy way to handle questions is to turn back to your presentation slides as you answer them—call up a slide that will help repeat or explain the relevant point—and this will remind your audience that your talk had substance.

Mastering the Basics of Slide Design

Powerpoint helps us to think of each projected page as a "slide" in a slideshow. But just as someone else’s home movies can be thoroughly uninteresting if they’re grainy, poor in quality, and irrelevant, Powerpoint slides that are too flashy, cluttered, meaningless, or poorly designed can quickly turn a darkened room full of smart people into a mere gathering of snoozers. As you design your slides, consider these factors:

• Templates . Even though Powerpoint helps you design your slides, don’t assume that someone else’s template will always match your needs. Take charge of slide design by considering first the most efficient way to transmit the necessary information.
• Simplicity . Keep slides as simple and uncluttered as possible, and if the information must be complex, prioritize it for your audience as you present it (e.g., if presenting a ten-column table, direct your audience to the most significant columns). Offer only one major point per illustration. If you need to focus on more than one point, re-present the illustration in another form on a separate slide with the different point emphasized.
• Titles . Give most slides titles, with a font size of at least 36 points, and body text with a font size of at least 24 points. If you need to cite a source of information, include the citation in a smaller font size at the bottom of your slide.
• Rule of 8s. Apply the "rule of 8s": include no more than 8 words per line and 8 lines per slide.
• Bullets . When using bulleted lists in slides, present each bulleted line in parallel fashion—i.e., if the first line is a fragment, the others should be as well; if the first line opens with a verb, so should the others.
• Design . Design slides so that their longest dimension is horizontal rather than vertical. Use both uppercase and lowercase letters and orient pictures left to right. Avoid the overuse of animations and transitions, especially audio-based transitions, which can be distracting and downright silly.
• Color . Make sure the color for both the background and text are highly readable, especially under less than optimal lighting conditions. There’s nothing wrong with basic dark lettering and white background for your slides, particularly if they’re text-based. If you do choose a background theme or color, enhance continuity and viewability by keeping it consistent and subtle.
• Images . When possible, replace words with images. Use images in particular when presenting data, demonstrating trends, simplifying complex issues, and visualizing abstractions.
• Spelling. Spelling does count, and you can’t rely on Powerpoint to be an effective proofreader. Be sure your slides are free of grammatical and spelling errors. As Will Rogers quipped, "Nothing you can’t spell will ever work."

Maintaining the Look and Sound of a Professional Speaker

Public speaking is often cited by people as their number one fear (with death, ironically, as number two. Clearly, no one overcomes such fear overnight, and no one set of tips can transmogrify you into a polished speaker. However, you can work through that fear by learning from the successes of others. As Christopher Lasch once noted, "Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success." Good speakers attend first to their wardrobe, dressing as well as their "highest ranking" audience member is likely to dress. An equally important part of looking and sounding like a professional speaker is how you handle your body language and your voice. You must exude confidence if you want to be taken seriously, and remember that a high percentage of your audience’s perception is not about what you say but about how you look when you say it. The following guidelines will help you to look good and sound good as you give a talk:

• Take care not to stand in the way of your own slides—many speakers do this without even realizing it. Especially when using an overhead projector, point to the projected image of your slide (ideally, use a stick pointer or laser pointer) rather than the original source. This helps you avoid covering up more of the image than you intended and keeps our focus on the projected image rather than your accidental hand shadow puppet.
• Ideally, use the mouse pointer, a stick pointer, or a laser pointer to draw our attention to a particular item on the screen. One simple circle drawn briefly around the selected information is enough to draw our attention. Beware of slapping a stick pointer loudly against a screen, or leaving a laser pointer on for so long that its bright dot shakes all over the screen as a blazing red mirror of your nervousness.
• When you are not using a slide directly, keep it out of sight or out of your audience’s line of attention. Turn off the projector or create a dark screen when no visuals are relevant; literally invite your audience to turn its attention away from one thing to another.
• When working with computer projection, do not trust that hardware will always perform as you anticipate. Sometimes equipment fails midstream, or what worked fine for one speaker in a group doesn’t work for the next. If necessary, take backup transparencies of your slides ready for use on an overhead projector. Be certain that an overhead projector is available beforehand as a fallback.
• Don’t forget the value of a good old-fashioned easel or chalkboard. Not only do they offer variety, they are especially good for writing down basic information that you also want your audience to muse over or write down, or for presenting a picture as it evolves via its individual pieces (e.g., a flow chart, schematic, or simple experimental set-up).
• Maintain eye contact with at least a few people—especially those who are being the most responsive—in various parts of the room. Conversely, if you’re especially nervous about one or two audience members or you note some audience members looking sour or uninterested, avoid eye contact with them.
• Refer to time as an organizational tool: "For the next two minutes, I will summarize the city’s housing problem, then I will move on to . . . " This keeps both you and your audience anchored.
• Use the "point, turn, talk" technique. Pause when you have to turn or point to something, then turn back towards the audience, then talk. This gives emphasis to the material and keeps you connected with audience members. Strictly avoid talking sideways or backwards at your audience.
• Use physical gestures sparingly and with intention. For instance, raise three fingers and say "thirdly" as you make your third point; pull your hands toward your chest slightly as you advocate the acceptance of an idea. Beware, though, of overusing your body, especially to the point of distraction. Some speakers habitually flip their hair, fiddle with their keys, or talk with their hands. I’ve heard some people recommend that speakers keep one hand in a pocket to avoid overusing physical gestures.
• Minimize the amount of walking necessary during your talk, but do stand rather than sit because it commands more authority. As you speak, keep your feet firmly rooted and avoid continual shuffling of your weight. Intentionally leaning slightly on one leg most of the time can help keep you comfortable and relaxed.
• Take care to pronounce all words correctly, especially those key to the discipline. Check pronunciation of ambiguous words beforehand to be certain. It would be embarrassing to mispronounce "Euclidian" or "Möbius strip" in front of a group of people that you want to impress. I once mispronounced the word "banal" during a speech to English professors and one of the audience members actually interrupted to correct me. Most of that speech was—as you might guess—banal.
• Dead air is much better than air filled with repeated "ums," "likes," and "you knows." Get to know your personal "dead air" fillers and eliminate them. Out of utter boredom during a rotten speech a few years ago, I counted the number of times the speaker (a professor) used the word "basically" as an empty transition—44 times in just five minutes. Don’t be afraid to pause occasionally to give your listeners time to digest your information and give yourself a moment for reorientation. To quote Martin Fraquhar, "Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
• If you know that you have a mannerism that you can’t easily avoid—such as stuttering or a heavy accent—and it distracts you from making a good speech, consider getting past it by just pointing it out to the audience and moving on. I’ve been to several talks where the speaker opened by saying "Please accept the fact, as I have, that I’m a stutterer, and I’m likely to stutter a bit throughout my speech." One such speaker even injected humor by noting that James Earl Jones, one of his heroes, was also once a stutterer, so he felt in good company. As you might guess, the following speeches were confidently and effectively delivered, and when the mannerism arose it was easy to overlook.
• Avoid clichés, slang, and colloquialisms, but don’t be so formal that you’re afraid to speak in contractions or straightforward, simple terms. Use visual language, concrete nouns, active single-word verbs. When using specialized or broad terms that might be new or controversial to some audience members, be sure to define them clearly, and be prepared to defend your definition.
• Be animated and enthusiastic, but carefully so—many notches above the "just-the facts" Joe Friday, but many notches below the over-the-top Chris Rock.

For more advice on giving oral presentations and the use of Powerpoint, visit these websites:

"Powerpoint Presentations That are Not so Pretty" from about.com

"Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides" Powerpoint by author Michael Alley

24 Oral Presentations

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. This is usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a power point. Students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.

For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, entertain, persuade the audience, or educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on their capacity to speak and deliver relevant information within a set timeframe. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

• Breathe and remember that everyone gets nervous when speaking in public. You are in control. You’ve got this!
• Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
• Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
• Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
• Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?

Group Presentation

• All of the above applies, however you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
• Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
• Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
• Also consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. This will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group, however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
• Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining power point slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of power point slides) for the whole group. Take turns presenting information and ideas.
• Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
• Rehearse as a group, more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.
• For further information on working as a group see:

Working as a group – my.UQ – University of Queensland

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics, do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down as demonstrated in Chapter 17 Breaking Down an Assignment. Where it differs from writing an essay is that the information in the written speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept or new information you write, think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a power point slide. After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the power point. Your presentation skills are being evaluated; this may include a small percentage for the actual visual aid. This is also why it is important that EVERYONE has a turn at speaking during the presentation, as each person receives their own individual grade.

Using Visual Aids

A whole chapter could be written about the visual aids alone, therefore I will simply refer to the key points as noted by my.UQ

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

• any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point).
• Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
• if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

• Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

• support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
• are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the power point file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
• you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
• suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

This is a general guide. The specific requirements for your course may be different. Make sure you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive power point though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

• Rehearse with the power point.
• Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
• Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
• Don’t let the power point just be something happening in the background while you speak.
• Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
• Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication are the ways that we communicate without speaking. Many people are already aware of this, however here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Fake it until you make it.

• Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence.
• Move! When you’re glued to one spot as a presenter, you’re not perceived as either confident or dynamic. Use the available space effectively, though do not exaggerate your natural movements so you look ridiculous.
• If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to constantly wave them around. They detract from your message. Occasional gestures are fine.
• Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, for example, constantly touching or ‘finger-combing’ your hair, rubbing your face.
• Avoid ‘voice fidgets’ also. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
• Avoid distractions. No phone turned on. Water available but off to one side.
• Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members; this can be intimidating.
• Have a cheerful demeaner. You do not need to grin like a Cheshire cat throughout the presentation, yet your facial expression should be relaxed and welcoming.
• Maintain an engaging TONE in your voice. Sometimes it’s not what you’re saying that is putting your audience to sleep, it’s your monotonous tone. Vary your tone and pace.
• Don’t read your presentation – PRESENT it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
• Lastly, make good eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

• Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

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Academic Writing Skills Copyright © 2021 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

Updated: January 15, 2024

Published: August 09, 2023

Cooking is easy. The puzzle is figuring out what to eat. As soon as you know that, you can get started. The same holds for presentations. The sooner you can whip up a good, informative, and catchy topic, the easier the rest of the process becomes.

Pick a good topic that resonates with you and your audience to set a strong foundation. But select the wrong topic, and it becomes difficult to connect with your audience, find mutual interests, or hold their attention.

So, let’s learn how to develop thought-provoking and relevant topics for your presentations. You’ll also find some best practices to make your presentation memorable.

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Table of Contents

How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic in 5 Steps

120 presentation topic ideas, 5 presentation tips.

Step 2: Know your audience.

Your audience is the star of the show. Get to know them by figuring out the who, what, and why.

Who is your audience? Profile your audience. Know their demographics, beliefs, knowledge level, and cultural backgrounds.

What are the problems that your audience is facing? Think about their pain points. Consider what they are going through and what situations they face daily. Maybe they’re already looking for a solution, or they need additional information to decide.

Why should they listen to you? Identify one or more clear benefits for your audience they will take home.

Pro tip: Always consider your audience’s knowledge level on the topic before drafting your presentation. For example, a presentation on social media targeted at Gen Z will differ from that targeted at Millennials.

Step 3: Be novel.

Make sure you either select a new topic or bring an entirely new and unique perspective to an already covered issue.

For instance, don’t make a presentation on the “best lead generation strategies.” Your audience has probably heard those dozens of times already. Corny.

Instead, discuss “How companies are using AI technology to implement lead generation strategies without lifting a finger.” Or add your own perspective, “How to seal a 1M deal: Our five best lead generation strategies.” Open a new window and let your audience see a fresh view.

Step 4: Be precise.

Once you have completed the first three steps, you probably have a few topic ideas ready. Now, cut out all the excess and select a niche topic with a very specific goal.

The broader your topic, the more difficult it will be for your audience to take away key ideas and actionable tips. Also, it’d be more difficult to gather an audience.

Discuss one problem and solve that problem only. By the end, your audience should have a clear idea of what they’ve gained from the presentation and what one (several at max) problems you helped solve.

4. Choose an appropriate presentation style.

There are many ways to present a topic. Your personality, the topic at hand, and your audience’s personas will help you determine which style would best fit you and your audience.

Select a presentation style that will communicate the main idea clearly and have a lasting impact on your audience.

For instance, explore a freeform style presenter by Sir Ken Robinson.

5. Engage with your audience.

Work on your presentation skills to make a strong connection with your audience, get through to them and leave a mark.

Think of the presenter as the link between the topic and the audience. A strong or a weak presenter can make a difference between a presentation being a thriving success or a boring failure.

Hone your skills by engaging and interacting with your audience. Make them feel like a part of the presentation and not just spectators. 70% of marketers have found presentations with interactive content to be more effective than those without.

Here are a few ways you can make your presentation interactive:

• Start your speech with uncommon questions to your audience. Involve them from the get-go, like ask to raise their hands if X.
• Make eye contact to build credibility and show confidence. Don’t stare at your slides or notes. Smile occasionally and talk to the audience directly.
• Have an active and confident body language. Don’t stand in the same place the entire time. Move around the stage.
• Don’t be monotonous. Speak as you would to a colleague — with enthusiasm.
• Ask close-ended questions in between to keep the audience engaged without losing time. Address them using their names to keep things interesting.
• Share personal experiences and stories that your audience will find fascinating and relatable.
• Practice thoroughly before you present so you’re fluent with the material and delivery.
• Energy and excitement can be quite contagious. Make sure you exude enough to spread some to your audience.

Feeling Inspired Yet?

Now you have all the right ingredients for choosing amazing topics and a hundred ideas to drive inspiration from. So, go ahead and start cooking presentations that will blow your audience away.

Don’t forget to choose a super-relevant topic and add meaty information. Do it with excitement to make it enjoyable for you and your audience. Best of luck!

Don't forget to share this post!

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Like what you're reading?

Need a good presentation topic? Here are hundreds of them.

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Anete Ezera November 04, 2022

If you’re looking for good topics for presentations, you’ve landed on the right page. In this article, you’ll find plenty of good presentation topics, tips on choosing the most suitable topic for you, and essential design elements to make your presentation a success. 

Many factors go into an excellent presentation. You need to have confident body language and engage your audience to hold their attention. You also need eye-catching visual aids like images, data visualizations, GIFs, and others (all of which you can find in Prezi ), not to mention a great opening to grab attention and a strong closing line to stay memorable. However, the most essential aspect of your presentation is the topic. It’s the core of your presentation, so it has to be strong, insightful, attention-grabbing, and appealing to yourself and your audience in order to evolve into a successful presentation everyone will love. 

How to choose a good presentation topic

There are millions of topics you could create a presentation on, but what defines a good topic? If you’re struggling to either come up with a good topic for a presentation or you can’t decide between multiple ones, here are a few questions you should ask yourself before choosing a topic. 

What’s the goal of your presentation? 

When you’re choosing a topic, consider the meaning behind it. Ask yourself what the purpose of talking about this topic is, and what you want to say about it. Whatever topic you choose to present, the conclusion needs to provide a takeaway or lesson you want to communicate to your audience. A meaningful goal will make your presentation more memorable.  

Are you interested in the topic?

If you’re not interested in the topic, others won’t be curious either. Interest, enthusiasm, and passion enrich your presentation and are noticeable when presenting. Interest shines through and inspires others to find the topic as fascinating as you do. Think about the last time you saw someone sharing something they were passionate about – their excitement drew people in to pay closer attention to what they were saying. 

When choosing a topic, you need to find it or a particular angle of it interesting for yourself. For example, perhaps you’re not a pop music enthusiast, but you’re passionate about studying cultural phenomena. In this case, you can talk about pop music’s influence on early 2000s youth culture. 

Will your audience find this topic relatable? 

While you have to find the topic you’re presenting interesting, you also have to think about your audience. When choosing a subject, consider your audience’s background in terms of demographics, interests, culture, and knowledge level about the topic. Think about what others will find fascinating and relevant, so they’re not bored or confused during your presentation.

Do you have prior experience or knowledge about this topic?

Personal experiences are always great to share in a presentation, providing your unique perspective for anyone listening. While you can easily prepare your presentation based on a quick Google search, it won’t make the same lasting impact on your audience. Choose a topic you have some prior knowledge about, or have an interesting opinion you can share with others. It’ll make your presentation more engaging and memorable.

Ideas for good presentation topics

It’s not easy to come up with a good presentation topic from scratch. It’s much easier to get inspired from other good presentation topics to build your topic on. Whether you’re looking for presentation ideas for work, about me presentation ideas, unique or easy presentation topics, you’ll find them all here.

Without further ado, here are some good presentation topics to choose from or get inspired by.

Presentation topics about social media

• The role of social media in portraying gender stereotypes
• How social media impacts our body image
• How social media shaped Gen Z 
• The most significant differences between the Facebook and TikTok generations
• The negative effects of social media
• The positive impacts of social media 
• The effects of social media on behavior 
• How social media impacts our physical (or mental) health
• How social media has shaped our understanding of mass media
• Should we teach about social media in schools?
• The rise of social media influencers
• How AR Instagram filters impact our self-image
• How to go viral on social media?
• The origins of social media echo chambers
• Social media as a news outlet

Author: Ish Verduzco

Presentation topics about movies

• How movies influence our understanding of good and evil
• Beauty standards represented in movies
• How female characters are depicted in Hollywood movies
• How horror movies and global fears have developed through time
• The adverse effects of romance movies
• How movies have changed our understanding of the Western culture
• Charlie Chaplin and the silent movie era
• The globalization of culture: Hollywood vs. Bollywood
• The psychology behind the music in films
• The ethics of using animals in movies
• Social media’s influence on the film industry
• The history of filmmaking
• The role of color in movies
• The cultural impact of romance movies
• How are gender stereotypes depicted in Hollywood movies?

Author: Cinto Marti

Presentation topics about music

• The impact of pop music on beauty standards
• Should digital music be free for everyone?
• The psychology behind the music in advertisements 
• The effectiveness of sound therapy
• Can music inspire criminal behavior?
• The psychological effects of metal music
• The origins of K-pop
• How does music influence our understanding of the world?
• Can music help in the learning process?
• The positive effects of classical music
• The history of hip hop
• Why is music education essential in schools?
• The psychological benefits of playing piano
• Can anyone become a famous musician?
• The role of music in fashion

Author: Prezi Editorial

Presentation topics about health

• The link between food and mental health
• Inequality in the healthcare system
• Myths about healthy practices
• Simple practices that help you stay healthy
• Health education in schools: Should it change?  
• Toxic positivity and mental health
• The impact of superfoods on our health
• The psychology behind unhealthy eating habits
• Sex education in schools: Why should we have it?
• How to trick yourself into getting better: The placebo effect
• How to strengthen your immune system
• How to tell if someone is depressed
• The health benefits of regular exercise
• The impact of junk food on mental health
• Stress-caused diseases

Author: Prezi Education Team

Presentation topics about human psychology

• What is social depression?
• What triggers panic attacks?
• The impact of testosterone on aggressive behavior
• How to overcome social anxiety
• Differences in the functioning of the brain of a child and adult
• The impact of violent video games on children’s brain development
• How does the use of social media influence our attention span?
• How to overcome childhood trauma
• The influence of marijuana on the human brain
• How does behavioral therapy work
• The psychology behind fame
• The causes of personality disorders
• The differences in brain functioning between men and women
• What happens in therapy sessions?
• The psychology of substance abuse 

Presentation topics about self-development

• The impact of exercise on productivity
• How to deal with stress
• How to deal with procrastination
• The positive effects of meditation
• Why new–year’s resolutions don’t work
• How to overcome bad habits
• The impact of negative thoughts
• The negative effects of self-criticism
• The role of creativity in self-development
• Benefits of journaling
• How to learn something fast
• How to be mindful
• The importance of curiosity 
• How to become more self-aware
• Why it’s essential to spend time with yourself

Author: Nir Eyal

Presentation topics about education

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of online education?
• The positive effects of a gap year
• Should university education be free?
• Inequality in education access
• How language learning benefits brain development
• Emerging gender issues in education
• The importance of socialization in school
• School bullying and student development
• The benefits of reading 
• Is the education system broken?
• What you don’t learn in college
• The link between education and brain development
• The history of schools
• The gender gap in STEM
• The connection between equality in education and economic growth

Presentation topics about culture

• Is graffiti a form of art or street vandalism? 
• Cultural diversity in the workplace
• The impact of culture on gender roles
• The issue with orientalism
• Are humans the only species that has culture?
• How do different cultures view death? 
• The ethical issues of pop culture
• The impact of culture on personal development
• Sexism in different cultures
• The impact of globalization on local cultures
• The viral spread of the #metoo movement
• The history of subcultures
• The problem with romanticizing toxic relationships in movies
• 90s pop-culture influence on fashion trends
• The evolution of cultural psychology 

Author: Devin Banerjee

Presentation ideas for work

• What it’s like to be a digital nomad?
• How to deal with workplace conflicts
• The secret to a productive day
• How to set achievable goals
• The importance of diversity in a workplace
• The positive effects of creative thinking at work
• How to give constructive feedback
• The characteristics of a valuable team member
• Inequality and the glass ceiling
• Racial discrimination in the workplace
• Work habits of different cultures
• How is work perceived in various countries?
• Technological development and the future of work
• The importance of a healthy work/life balance
• The rise of health problems in office work

Author: Charles Huang

Presentation topics about hybrid work

• The positive effects of hybrid work on work/life balance
• Is hybrid work the future work model? 
• How to stay connected in a hybrid work model
• The challenges of hybrid work nobody talks about
• How to stay productive when working from home
• The social effects of hybrid work
• The economic impacts of hybrid work
• Case study: Hybrid work model in [company]
• What causes Zoom fatigue?
• The problem with online meetings
• Is hybrid work better than remote work?
• How to develop a close relationship with colleagues in a hybrid work model
• What kind of company culture is best for a hybrid work model?
• Is hybrid work sustainable?
• Cybersecurity consideration for hybrid working

Author: Barbie Brewer

Presentation topics about public speaking

• The importance of body language in public speeches
• How to appear confident when you’re not
• How to become a better orator
• The use of eye contact in public speaking
• Breathing exercises that will calm you down before public speaking
• The benefits of public speaking
• Ways to improve public speaking skills
• How to leave a great first impression on stage
• How to engage your audience during a public speech
• How to best structure your public speech
• How to end your presentation speech
• Can anyone learn to be good at public speaking?
• How to prepare for a public speech
• What not to do right before a public speech
• How to address a controversial topic in a public speech  

Author: Prezi Team

Presentation topics about entrepreneurship and leadership

• The main principles of a good leader
• The impact of leadership skills on professional performance
• The mistake every entrepreneur makes
• How to successfully lead a cross-cultural team
• How to celebrate inclusivity in a diverse team
• What are the common personality traits of a successful entrepreneur?
• The impact of entrepreneurship on the global economy
• The characteristics of a leader
• The most common challenges of entrepreneurship
• Can anyone learn to become a successful leader? 
• What affects new venture growth?
• The psychology of leadership
• What is crowdsourcing? 
• The benefits of being an entrepreneur
• Common mistakes leaders make

Author: Jill Sinclair

Presentation topics about technology

• The rise of technological development
• Is technology addictive?
• Should we use drones for military and non-military purposes?
• The sustainability of electric cars
• What are deepfakes?
• Limitations of AI machines
• The future of programming
• Ethical issues of AI
• The future of AR in business
• How VR can be used in the medical field

Author: David Vandegrift

Sales presentation topics

• How to make a cold email intro
• What is sales enablement?
• How to build better relationships with customers
• The best way to improve pipeline management
• Coaching via verbal and written role-play
• How to plan cold calls
• What’s a deal-breaker for most customers? 
• All about personalized coaching
• How to manage objections
• How to close more deals
• How to keep your prospects engaged
• Effective sales communication strategies
• How to conduct a competitor analysis
• The most valuable sales skills
• What soft skills do you need to become a successful sales rep?

Author: Cindy McGovern

Easy presentation topics

• Benefits of daily exercise and how to incorporate it into your routine
• Simple and nutritious meal recipes
• Tips for improving time management and productivity
• The importance of recycling
• The history of a local landmark or festival
• Ways to reduce stress
• Exploring different types of renewable energy sources and their impact on the environment
• The basics of budgeting and saving money for future goals
• The benefits of social media for professional use
• Tips for overcoming stage fright
• How to start a meditation practice
• The impact of technology on modern society
• The basics of personal finance
• The health benefits of a plant-based diet
• The history of Earth Day

Good how to presentation topics

• How to create a successful social media marketing strategy
• How to give a persuasive presentation
• How to create effective and engaging content for your blog
• How to discover your strengths and weaknesses
• How to use project management tools to increase productivity
• How to make the most out of boring meetings
• How to build a personal brand
• How to conduct effective market research
• How to use data analytics to improve decision-making
• How to improve your decision-making process
• How to write a winning proposal
• How to create a visually stunning presentation
• How to manage stressful situations at work
• How to make friends as an adult
• How to network at work events

About me presentation ideas

• My journey to becoming who I am today
• My passion for [insert topic or activity]
• My career aspirations and goals
• My travels and adventures around the world
• My hobbies and interests outside of work/school
• My role models and influences
• My strengths and weaknesses
• My favorite books, movies, and TV shows
• My proudest achievements and accomplishments
• My favorite childhood memories
• My family and friends
• My education and academic background
• My volunteer and community service experience
• My personality traits and values
• My vision for the future and how I plan to achieve it

Author: Adam Grant

Student presentation ideas

• The history and evolution of video games
• The history and cultural impact of tattoos
• The impact of social media on body image and self-esteem
• The effects of globalization on local cultures and economies
• The role of education in promoting social justice and equity
• The ethical implications of autonomous weapons in warfare
• The impact of mass media on society and culture
• The causes and effects of deforestation on biodiversity and climate change
• The history and cultural significance of dance in different parts of the world
• The psychology of addiction and recovery
• The impact of the gig economy on labor rights and job security
• The history and impact of feminism on gender equality
• The benefits and drawbacks of renewable energy sources
• The impact of colonialism on indigenous cultures and identities
• The role of technology in promoting global connectivity and intercultural understanding

Author: Edward Quinn

How to create a good presentation 

If you know what you want to present on, it’s time to create an impactful presentation that grabs everyone’s attention. Presentation design plays a crucial role in how your presentation is received and remembered. To stand out and leave a memorable impact on your audience, create a Prezi presentation. Instead of a linear, slide-based presentation, offer an engaging and dynamic storytelling experience to your audience. Breathe life into your presentation with motion, zoom, and spatial relationships. When creating your presentation, consider the following three essential elements: 

Visuals play a significant part in presentation design. They evoke emotions, make a memorable impact, and give more context to the story. Not to mention, 65% of people are visual learners , so visual aids are helpful when explaining a complex topic. 

In your presentation, include different types of visuals, such as images, videos, GIFs, and stickers, all of which you can find in Prezi’s content library. When selecting your visuals, consider what’s relevant and brings additional value to the story. Only add what’s meaningful and necessary. A video or image at the right place and time will enrich the viewing experience and make your presentation more memorable. 

The layout of your presentation is the structure of your story. It’ll help you introduce the topic, intrigue your audience, and unfold the layers of your topic one by one until you disclose your main arguments and summarize the presentation. A good presentation layout has a hierarchical, chronological, or logical flow that leads the viewer from start to finish. 

If you’re creating a Prezi presentation, you can create a dynamic storytelling experience by experimenting with your layout. Instead of going from slide to slide, you can zoom in and out of topics and experiment with different shapes, animations, and effects that draw the viewer into your story world. Here’s an example of a Prezi presentation with a great storytelling layout:

Author: Lydia Antonatos

Data visualizations can elevate your presentation from being a good one to a great one. By providing data behind your arguments, you’ll appear more trustworthy and confident in your audience’s eyes. 

Add charts, graphs, interactive maps, and more to your presentations with Prezi Design. You can choose from a wide selection of charts and maps to illustrate your data. With interactive elements, you’ll be able to engage your audience and make a memorable impact. 

Engaging visuals, a well-structured layout, and relevant data visualizations will provide a great starting base to create a memorable presentation. Discover other tips and tricks that make your presentation effective and capture people’s attention. 

Choosing a topic for a presentation isn’t easy. When selecting a topic, think about the goal of your presentation, your interest and knowledge about the topic, and whether or not your audience will find it relevant and interesting for them. Also, get inspired by other topics that’ll help you figure out what you want to talk about. Lastly, when creating your presentation, consider the impact of visuals, layout, and data visualizations. To simplify the creation process, follow the step-by-step process of making a presentation with helpful tips and resources.

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Rubrics for Oral Presentations

Introduction.

Many instructors require students to give oral presentations, which they evaluate and count in students’ grades. It is important that instructors clarify their goals for these presentations as well as the student learning objectives to which they are related. Embedding the assignment in course goals and learning objectives allows instructors to be clear with students about their expectations and to develop a rubric for evaluating the presentations.

A rubric is a scoring guide that articulates and assesses specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics identify the various criteria relevant to an assignment and then explicitly state the possible levels of achievement along a continuum, so that an effective rubric accurately reflects the expectations of an assignment. Using a rubric to evaluate student performance has advantages for both instructors and students.  Creating Rubrics

Rubrics can be either analytic or holistic. An analytic rubric comprises a set of specific criteria, with each one evaluated separately and receiving a separate score. The template resembles a grid with the criteria listed in the left column and levels of performance listed across the top row, using numbers and/or descriptors. The cells within the center of the rubric contain descriptions of what expected performance looks like for each level of performance.

A holistic rubric consists of a set of descriptors that generate a single, global score for the entire work. The single score is based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Often, sentence- or paragraph-length descriptions of different levels of competencies are provided.

When applied to an oral presentation, rubrics should reflect the elements of the presentation that will be evaluated as well as their relative importance. Thus, the instructor must decide whether to include dimensions relevant to both form and content and, if so, which one. Additionally, the instructor must decide how to weight each of the dimensions – are they all equally important, or are some more important than others? Additionally, if the presentation represents a group project, the instructor must decide how to balance grading individual and group contributions.  Evaluating Group Projects

Creating Rubrics

The steps for creating an analytic rubric include the following:

1. Clarify the purpose of the assignment. What learning objectives are associated with the assignment?

2. Look for existing rubrics that can be adopted or adapted for the specific assignment

3. Define the criteria to be evaluated

4. Choose the rating scale to measure levels of performance

5. Write descriptions for each criterion for each performance level of the rating scale

6. Test and revise the rubric

Examples of criteria that have been included in rubrics for evaluation oral presentations include:

• Knowledge of content
• Organization of content
• Presentation of ideas
• Research/sources
• Visual aids/handouts
• Language clarity
• Grammatical correctness
• Time management
• Volume of speech
• Rate/pacing of Speech
• Mannerisms/gestures
• ​​​​​​​Eye contact/audience engagement

Examples of scales/ratings that have been used to rate student performance include:

• Strong, Satisfactory, Weak
• Beginning, Intermediate, High
• Exemplary, Competent, Developing
• Excellent, Competent, Needs Work
• Exceeds Standard, Meets Standard, Approaching Standard, Below Standard
• Exemplary, Proficient, Developing, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Marginal, Unacceptable
• Advanced, Intermediate High, Intermediate, Developing
• Exceptional, Above Average, Sufficient, Minimal, Poor
• Master, Distinguished, Proficient, Intermediate, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Poor, Unacceptable
• Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never
• Exemplary, Accomplished, Acceptable, Minimally Acceptable, Emerging, Unacceptable

Grading and Performance Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Creating and Using Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Using Rubrics Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation

Rubrics DePaul University Teaching Commons

Building a Rubric University of Texas/Austin Faculty Innovation Center

Building a Rubric Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning

Rubric Development University of West Florida Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Creating and Using Rubrics Yale University Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Designing Grading Rubrics ​​​​​​​ Brown University Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Examples of Oral Presentation Rubrics

Oral Presentation Rubric Pomona College Teaching and Learning Center

Oral Presentation Evaluation Rubric University of Michigan

Oral Presentation Rubric Roanoke College

Oral Presentation: Scoring Guide Fresno State University Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Presentation Skills Rubric State University of New York/New Paltz School of Business

Oral Presentation Rubric Oregon State University Center for Teaching and Learning

Oral Presentation Rubric Purdue University College of Science

Group Class Presentation Sample Rubric Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School

Home Blog Presentation Ideas How To Do a Proper Thesis Defense Using the Right PowerPoint Presentation

How To Do a Proper Thesis Defense Using the Right PowerPoint Presentation

Writing a thesis is stressful, but preparing an oral defense can be even more painful. But it doesn’t have to be; with proper preparation and a good presentation, you will be able to better equip yourself comes time to present your thesis defense.

But what makes a good thesis defense?

A proper presentation helps you with your thesis defense because it helps you capture the panels’ attention and gives you cues and reminders on what to say as well.

It also helps keep your data organized while visually looking good and provides a flow structure for the rest of your presentation.

In today’s article, we will be giving you The Right PowerPoint Templates for Your Thesis Defense and a powerful outline composed of best practices and layouts specifically designed to help you defend your thesis in both written and oral presentations.

In the next segments of this article, we’ll walk you through the most feasible process on how to ace this kind of presentation.

Let’s dive into the outline of what makes a great thesis defense.

Thesis Defense Overview

Similarities.

• Type of Degree

Thesis and Dissertation Distinction Varies on Location

Three most common thesis defense myths, how to use chatgpt to structure your thesis.

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology
• Acknowledgements
• Questions and Answers
• Contact Information
• Tips During Your Oral Defense
• More Quick Tips on How to Present

A thesis defense is composed of two parts – a thesis and a defense.

The thesis, according to Grad School Hub , represents a student’s collective understanding of his or her program and major.

Universities often include a thesis in every course as one of the final requirements to earn a particular graduate or postgraduate degree.

The thesis, however, isn’t just a mere requirement.

It helps the students to grow out of their shell from their respective discipline and give them the opportunity to present all the findings of their study.

Moreover, some people think a thesis is just a long essay, but it’s not. Unlike an essay, a thesis needs to assert something.

This can be considered one of the most crucial research documents that a student makes during their academic schooling .

On the other hand, defense is the presentation of the pieces of evidence to support and prove your research.

It’s the most essential part of the thesis process.

Your presentation has to be prepared to answer questions from members of the committee and any other panel present, and it’s your job to convince them and defend your thesis with ample proof.

Prior to presenting, you have to carefully determine what appropriate evidence should be presented before the panel, depending on what thesis you have to defend.

Thesis and Dissertation Distinguished

A thesis or dissertation is usually required to complete a particular graduate degree. These two words are often used interchangeably by most students when referring to research studies.

But while being almost similar in format or structure, it’s worth noting that they have significant differences that set them apart from each other.

The very reason why thesis and dissertation are treated the same is that these two are both extensive papers. Not just merely long essays like what others are claiming.

Both of these papers are extensive. This is why students are given ample time, usually the entire last semester of the last year of study, to complete all the requirements and finally acquire their degree.

With regards to structure, both papers are very similar with few differences.

Differences Between Thesis and Dissertation

One of the significant differences between the two is to whom the paper is assigned. A thesis is usually required for those students earning a bachelor’s or master’s degree. While a dissertation is for those, who want to obtain a doctorate degree.

However, not all students taking a master’s degree are required to make a thesis. Prior to their enrollment, they have been given a choice of whether they’ll go for a non-thesis program or with a thesis.

Those who have a plan to escalate their degree to a doctorate eventually should take the path of a thesis. This is to prepare themselves for a more extensive dissertation requirement as doctorate students. Otherwise, they will be only limited to earning a master’s degree.

But above all, the most significant difference between the two papers is the purpose for which it is written.

A thesis, like what has been mentioned above, is being done by students obtaining a bachelor’s or master’s degree and has the purpose of testing their understanding of the discipline they’re engaged with.

A thesis is focused on obtaining technical expertise.

On the other hand, a dissertation is made for students to come up with an original study that other researchers haven’t already studied.

USA: In the United States of America, they consider a thesis shorter than a dissertation. In fact, aside from being a requirement to graduate in college, a thesis is now also inculcated in master’s degree programs. And since the dissertation is more extensive, the thesis is treated as preliminary in gaining a doctorate degree.

Europe: The distinction between the two papers is almost opposite to that of the USA. In Europe, a dissertation is only a broader research study from a post-graduate program and not the making of original research. Instead, educational systems in the said continent treat the doctoral thesis as a more elaborate paper writing.

The difference between a thesis and a dissertation might not seem that big, but it’s important that we know what makes them different.

If your upcoming defense gives you pressure and uneasiness, it could be cause you are not sure what to expect. Today we will dispel three common thesis defense myths that will help you be more confident in your presentation.

“Answer all the questions correctly. Otherwise, your thesis won’t get approved.”

You are expected to have a focus on your research.

That being said, you have to study each part of your thesis, every detail, and even your sources.

You have to study and practice how to effectively deliver your presentation.

But don’t overthink to the extent that you’re stressing yourself to know everything perfectly.

Don’t overstress if you can’t answer one of the questions, this doesn’t necessarily mean the committee won’t approve your thesis.

You should know that research is a continuous study.

So you should expect that your committee will always be able to find a gap in your study to fill in future related research .

So in times you don’t exactly know the answer, admit it, and you’ll learn as they give their sides or suggestions.

Making up an answer will only displease your committee, so it’s to be upfront, honest, and transparent.

“The committee is just there to find holes in your study. They don’t care about you.”

One of the typical descriptions students have of the committee is that they are just there to poke holes in your thesis.

Going in with this perspective makes standing before them a nerve-wracking experience.

They’re not your enemy.

In fact, they are there to help you polish your study.

They might challenge you with difficult suggestions and tricky questions.

In the end, they will walk you through the process to come up with better results that won’t only benefit you but also your research.

They care about you and your study, and they’re ultimately there to make your thesis and the research better.  Separate yourself from your work look at it objectively, and don’t take their comments personally .

“If your thesis defense isn’t successful, you have to start your thesis all over again”

An unsuccessful defense is one of the worst-case fears most students have.

One thing that you should be aware of is when you aren’t able to please your committee, you don’t need to start a new thesis again or go back to square one with your existing paper.

It’s unusual that your committee will ask you to change your topic and start from scratch again.

The fact that you’ve been permitted to defend your study means your research is almost complete.

They might suggest further details or ask you for minor revisions, and that’s normal.

But overall, you need to go into this defense thinking that your presentation will be successful. Otherwise, you are already setting yourself up for failure with the wrong mindset.

Remember that positive thoughts attract positive results.

Thesis Defense Presentation Structure and Slides Content

We can use language learning models like ChatGPT to help us curate the structure of our thesis presentation. Let’s see a step-by-step solution on how to apply this.

Step 1: Define the thesis topic and research questions

You can set the environment for ChatGPT to work by explaining what your thesis is going to cover and which specific questions you aim to address through the course of that document. This gives ChatGPT the context from which it shall formulate the structure. A prompt can be written like this:

“Take the role of an academic professional who shall help me to write my thesis. This thesis is going to cover the topic of (insert topic), and through its course, I want to answer these questions: Question 1 – Question 2 – Question 3 – Consider this information as the starting point for this chat.”

Step 2: Ask for an outline

With the previously provided information, ask ChatGPT to generate an outline for your presentation. If some of the points listed in the output don’t convince you, then chat with the interface until you reach a final outline. Then, ask to elaborate on each specific point for information or cues you may have overlooked.

Step 3: Ask ChatGPT which content should you place per slide

Instead of debating how are you going to trim your thesis into a presentation format, ask ChatGPT to do the decision process for you. You can be as specific as asking how many words per slide, how many slides should the presentation have, if you need any visual element, etc.

N.B.: We don’t recommend using ChatGPT to retrieve academic references as, in some cases, it can provide faulty results. You can ask if any facts on this presentation need to be checked or similar questions. ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it shouldn’t be considered a bible, so be extra cautious about grabbing content directly from its outputs.

1. Title Page

This slide should contain the information that is provided on the title page of your hard copy . Here is an example of title page or cover slide for your title defense or thesis presentation.

• The title of your research paper
• Where you are studying
• Name and details of your course
• Name of Adviser

2. Introduction Slide

Your introduction slide should provide the committee with an idea of the following:

• What is the topic area that you are investigating ?
• What are the specific research questions that you set out to answer?
• Why is this question important to answer?
• What were the objectives of your research?

3. Literature Review Slide

It’s not necessary to cover everything that’s currently understood in the available literature. You may want to present the following content under a Literature Review slide:

• Relevant current research that is close to your topic
• Different theories that may apply to your specific area of research
• Areas of weakness that are currently highlighted

4. Methodology Slide

Make sure to touch the factors below within your process, and include the following in the Methodology slide:

• The type of study you have conducted: qualitative, quantitative, or mixed
• The methods that you chose and why
• Details of the population, sampling methods, and other information
• Provide information regarding how you have analyzed the data that you have collected

5. Results Slide

This part should give the committee/audience a good understanding of what you’ve discovered during your research. The statistics & results slide could include the final results of your analysis, here is an example:

• An overall description of the data that you collected during your research
• The results of the analysis that you have done on that data
• What were the most significant findings from your data

6. Discussion Slide

Highlight here the meaning of the findings in relation to your discipline program and the research that you have done:

• What are the major findings, and what do they mean with regard to your research
• How do these findings relate to what others have found in the past
• How can you explain any unusual or surprising result

7. Conclusions Slide

You have to end your presentation with a conclusion summarizing all that you have found within your research. Here is an example of a Conclusion slide in a Thesis presentation:

• Restate your research questions
• Show how your results answer these questions
• Show what contribution you have made
• State any limitations to the work you have done
• Suggest future research
• Make any recommendations

See Also: How to Create a Great Investors Pitch Deck and Close the Deal

8. Acknowledgements Slide

Express gratitude to your advisor, committee members, peers, and others who supported your research journey. This slide provides a moment to acknowledge the collaborative nature of academic work.

9. Questions and Answers Slide

Dedicate a slide for audience questions at the end of your presentation.

Encourage engagement by inviting questions from the audience.

Be prepared to provide clear and concise responses to inquiries.

10. References Slide

Include a slide listing your cited sources throughout your presentation.

Use a consistent citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

The References slide demonstrates your thorough engagement with existing literature.

11. Contact Information Slide

If you’re open to further inquiries or collaborations, consider adding your contact information.

Include your email address or relevant professional social media handles.

How to use SlideModel AI Presentation Maker for your Thesis Presentation

If you want to save hours of manual time, you can leverage AI tools to make your thesis presentation. The best part of integrating AI tools into our workflow is that we can pair them to get even better results than we expected. With SlideModel’s AI presentation maker , users can create an entire slide deck by introducing these variables:

• Topic of your thesis
• Number of slides to include in your thesis presentation
• Outline checkup

And that’s it! Download the AI-generated presentation in PPTX format or for Google Slides, and edit it if you require adding some extra content. The core elements are already done, and you can save countless hours of hard work.

Tips During Your Oral Defense!

Review your materials.

Even if you already feel confident with your upcoming presentation, you still need to review your materials.

You can bring the hard copy of your thesis with you during the defense, but you don’t want to get lost in your presentation when you forget some specific details and have to scan your papers.

You should know your paper in and out.

Rehearse Your Presentation

It’s not wrong if it sounds like a script when you speak in your oral defense. It’s expected and understandable.

You need to practice your presentation, especially when there’s a time restriction given to every presenter.

You only need to prepare enough slides that would fit your time limit. A hundred slides aren’t suitable for a 15 to 20-minute presentation, nor 10 slides for an hour of defense.

Your rehearsal will be more effective if you practice it in front of an audience.

Note: You will experience complete silence in the defense room. You might feel awkward because, most of the time, you’re the only one speaking out loud.  This is completely fine, and it’s something you should practice in rehearsal should you be afraid.

Narrow the Presentation of Ideas

Regarding your slides, you don’t have to include everything that’s in your paper. You should narrow down your ideas to the main points and the most important details, such as the statistics and findings.

If the members of your committee think you lack details or they want to hear a further explanation, they won’t hesitate to ask you.

Prepare for the Unexpected Questions

The panel tends to challenge the presenters, usually through some hard questions.

Its aim is how well do you you have done your research and how prepared you are.

But as long as you know the ins and outs of your paper, you shouldn’t lose your confidence regardless of which questions they ask.

Just keep in mind that what you’re saying in your oral defense is not in conflict with what is written on the hard copy you provided them.

What To Do When You Don’t Know the Answer

If the committee asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, don’t make up a baseless answer.

Baseless means out-of-context answers or something without proof or backup.

How To Deal With The Nervousness

The committee expects you to be nervous. Of course, it’s normal.

However, one effect of being nervous is the changes in your behavior.

There’s a tendency for you’ll talk fast, which will make it hard for the committee to understand you.

It might also cause you to have a mental block.

So try to slow down. Take a deep breath.

Inhale, exhale.  Remember to breathe!

It’s OK to pause, and it’s OK to take your time; it’s more important that the committee clearly understands what you are trying to articulate.

More Quick Tips on How to Present!

• Introduce yourself at the beginning
• Introduce the title of the presentation
• Don’t read your notes if possible
• Don’t speak too fast
• Put an emphasis on what you’re saying so you don’t sound monotonous
• Look at your adviser once in a while for possible signs
• Stand on the right of the white screen if you are right-handed so you can easily refer to the slide without giving your back to the committee
• Face the audience when you talk
• Keep an eye contact
• Make sure to keep attention to the reactions of the committee and don’t forget to react in turn

We hope you enjoyed this article on how to do a proper thesis defense and how to best prepare for one using proven tips and techniques to help you get through this.  Hopefully, after your defense, you will be set as the one in your class to deliver an inspiring graduation speech for your peers. If you have value, please remember to share this article. We also recommend you read these Thesis Statement Examples for inspiration to create your own professionally.

1. MasterDoc PowerPoint Template

Creating a Thesis presentation should be a straight forward task; based on your thesis document and following the tips described above you have a high level structure already outlined. The MasterDoc PowerPoint template provides professional layouts with texts and image placeholders; so you can create document like slides using your thesis defense as your content. This template is ideal for a highly detailed documents, where visuals and words unite to illustrate one concept per page. The result is an asset that can be read and digested more quickly than either your thesis document or a presentation created for assisting a speech. A document created with the MasterDoc PowerPoint templates is meant to be printed or distributed, read on screen without the accompaniment of a presenter or used in an e-learning platform as pure learning content.

Use This Template

2. Thesis Presentation PowerPoint Template

You had invested a considerable time researching, testing hypothesis and confirming your thesis. Craft your thesis presentation with the same level of detail you applied in your work. Using the Thesis Presentation PowerPoint Template you will focus only in your content and your message. The layouts, images,design and structure will be taken care by the template.

3. Master Thesis PowerPoint Template

The Master Thesis PowerPoint Template is a professional document designed for postgraduate degrees presentations. It provides simple sections that follow  the structure and best practices of traditional research thesis presentations. Starting with the introduction to the theory and state of the art scenario; following with hypothesis research and its findings and concluding with the confirmation or negation of the initial thesis statement.

4. Essay Outline PowerPoint Template

Your thesis defense can be accompanied by an essay, that states your thesis and argues about it using several supporting paragraphs. This kind of document is ideal to be an intermediate step between reading assisting to the thesis presentation and reading the complete thesis documentation. It has more information that your thesis defense abstract, but does summarizes the supporting evidence and examples that allows the argument of each idea behind the thesis. You can use the Essay Outline Template to present your Essay outline and create an essay linked to your thesis defense documentation.

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Academics, Degree, Dissertation, Doctorate, Education, Faculty, Master, PhD, Student, Thesis Filed under Presentation Ideas

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36 Responses to “How To Do a Proper Thesis Defense Using the Right PowerPoint Presentation”

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Resources for written reports and oral presentations

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Crediting others

• If your report or presentation uses an active format such as PDF or HTML, URLs in citations should be clickable.
• For citations, submit a working link to a freely-readable copy if available, and also submit a working link to a URL based on digital object identifiers (DOIs) if available.

Here is an example citation using Vancouver system format:

Breaking this citation down:

• The citation's title hyperlinks to a freely-readable resource < https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3638552 > .
• " ACM Comput Surv " is a standard abbreviation for ACM Computing Surveys . See Web of Science Journal Title Abbreviations for a list of reasonably-standard journal-title abbreviations.
• "2024;56(6):148" contains the year, volume, issue, and page numbers or (in this case) article number.
• The DOI hyperlinks to < https://doi.org/10.1145/3638552 > ; this permanently nails down the final, stable version even if it's not freely readable.
• The URLs use HTTPS , which is more secure than HTTP .

Not every source is published in a scholarly paper, and citations to less-formal sources need not contain so much detail. However, the idea is the same: let the reader know how to easily get the material if its URL works, or even if its URL becomes broken in the future (as too many do).

Written reports

• Simon Peyton Jones's How to write a great research paper (2016) contains a brief and pleasant section about how to write a good research paper.
• Derek Dreyer's How to write papers so people can read them (2016) gives more-constructive advice that provides an interesting contrast with Peyton Jones.
• Roy Levin and David D. Redell's How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper (1983) points out common problems in technical papers, and gives suggestions for how to fix them.
• The UNC Writing Center's Scientific Reports (2021) describes how to write and organize a scientific research report.
• David A. McMurrey's Online Technical Writing (2022) contains many examples and much discussion of technical writing. For example, it has a chapter on recommendation and feasibility reports that contains several sample reports.
• George Gopen and Judith Swan's The Science of Scientific Writing (1990) briefly summarizes some of the science behind writing clear writing for scientific audiences.
• The USENIX Templates for Conference Papers provides LaTeX and DOC templates and style files for computer science research papers. The USENIX templates use a two-column format with 10-point font for most of the text, on an 8½"×11" page. LaTeX typically generates higher-quality output for technical papers. An example of the output format is available.
• S. Whalen's Research Paper Rubric is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your report.

Oral presentations

• Simon Peyton Jones's How to give a great research talk (2016) almost makes it look easy and covers the essentials. He's brave enough to point you to a video of himself, giving the talk.
• Michael Ernst's How to give a technical presentation (how to give a scientific talk) (2022) contains workable and up-to-date advice for giving computer science talks.
• Mark D. Hill's Oral Presentation Advice (1997) briefly describes how to give a good talk. It contains a summary of David Patterson's classic How to Give a Bad Talk (1983).
• Judith P. Rhodes et al. 's Scientifically Speaking: Tips for Preparing Scientific Talks and Using Visual Aids (2005) contains advice and observations on preparing and delivering a scientific talk. Its advice on poster presentations is also valuable, though you can skip it if you are not making a poster.
• The Science and Engineering Library (SEL) has a learning center with equipment with which you can rehearse your presentation. Reserve a time slot by visiting the circulation desk in Boelter 8270.
• Caroline McCullen's Student Presentation Rubric (1997) is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your presentation.

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St. Mary's Project in Psychology Oral Presentations - Monday, April 29

St. mary’s projects in psychology lecture symposium in goodpaster hall 195 monday, april 29, 2024.

9:30 AM Merel Verhoeven: The Impact of Binge Diphenhydramine Exposure During Adolescence on Memory in Adulthood (Dr. Torry Dennis)

10:00 AM Jason Caro: The Effect of Meta-stereotypes on College Student-athletes (Dr. Kristina Howansky)

10:30 AM Hailey Findley: Supporting Teachers of Exceptional Students (Dr. Ayse Ikizler)

11:00 AM Gabrielle Blew: To Gift or Not to Gift: Examining the Impact of Telehealth on Client Gift Giving (Dr. Libby Williams)

11:30 AM Raina Crew: Compassion Fatigue in the COVID-19 Era: Exploring the Strain on Mental Health Providers (Dr. Libby Williams)

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1:00 PM Katya Scott: Art Therapy with Ukrainian Refugees: A Pilot Program (Dr. Libby Williams)

1:30 PM Angelie Roche: First-Year Camp Counselor Experiences: The Effects of Self-Efficacy, Organizational Cohesion, and Training (Dr. Libby Williams)

2:00 PM Holly Vallone: The Effects of Having Polyamorous Parents on Child Socialization (Dr. Libby Williams)

2:30 PM Aryn Wilson: Have You Heard of Occupational Therapy? (Dr. Nayantara Kurpad)

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