Lecture Slides on Oral Presentations | EEE 101, Study notes of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Download Lecture Slides on Oral Presentations | EEE 101 and more Study notes Electrical and Electronics Engineering in PDF only on Docsity! Oral Presentations Dragica Vasileska Understanding the Speaking/Writing Relationship Being an effective speaker and an effective writer requires you to  Understand the context for your presentation,  Analyze your audience,  Understand and articulate your purpose clearly,  Develop sufficient and appropriate supporting material,  Organize the material so it is easy for the audience to follow,  Choose a speaking style, level of language, approach to the subject, and tone suitable to your role as well as your audience and purpose,  Select graphics that will enhance your audience's understanding of your message. Audience Analysis Questions:  How much does my audience know about the subject?  How much do they know about me?  What do they expect from me?  How interested will they be in what I say?  What is their attitude toward me?  What is their attitude toward my subject?  What is their age group?  What positions do their occupy in the organization?  What is their educational background?  What is their cultural/ethnic background?  What is their economic background?  What are their political and religious views?  What kinds of cultural biases will they likely have toward me and my topic? Determining the Goal of Your Presentation Oral presentations, like written presentations, must be designed around a specific purpose. As a writer and a speaker, you must know your purpose. You must conceive your purposes in terms of your audience's perspective. By knowing what they will be hearing from the beginning of the presentation, the audience can more easily focus their attention on the content presented and see connections between parts of the talk. As you plan, state your goal in one sentence. Then, as you begin your presentation, state your goal in terms of your audience's background and attitude; announce your purpose early in the presentation to prepare your audience for the main ideas to come. You may want to restate the purpose in words familiar to the audience. Choosing and Shaping Content Preparing the oral presentation often requires the same kind of research needed for the written report. To achieve your goal, you will need to determine what information you will need. You will also want to choose information that will appeal to your audience--particularly their attitudes, interests, biases, and prejudices about the topic. In selecting content, consider a variety of information types: statistics, testimony, cases, illustrations, history, and particularly narratives that help convey the goal you have for your presentation. Because listening is more difficult than reading, narratives can be particularly effective in retaining the attention of your listeners. While statistics and data are often necessary in building your argument, narratives interspersed with data provide an important change of pace needed to keep your listeners attentive. Choosing an Appropriate Style You want to sound respectful, confident, courteous, and sincere. The most effective style is usually a conversational style: short sentences, concrete language, speech that suggests to your audience that you are really talking to them. The tone and degree of formality will be dictated by your organizational role and your relationship to your audience.  Do they know you?  Is your rank in the organization above or below them?  Are you speaking to an audience of individuals from all levels within the organization?  What demeanor, approach, and level of formality does the organization usually expect from those giving oral presentations?  Is the audience composed of people who understand English? How well do they understand English? Choosing Visual Aids to Reinforce Your Meaning Because we live in a time when communication is visual and verbal, visual aids are as important to oral communication as they are to written communication. Visual aids  help your audience understand your ideas;  show relationships among ideas;  help the audience follow your arguments [your "train" of thought]; and  help your audience remember what you said. In addition, the presentation that uses visual aids effectively is more persuasive, more professional, and more interesting. Many of the guidelines for using visual aids in oral presentations mirror those for written documents: they need to fit the needs of the audience; they must be simple; they must be clear and easy to understand. How many visual aids? Some kinds of oral presentations will require one kind of visual aid; presentations conveying complex information may require several kinds of visual aids. The point, quite simply, is that listeners are as resistant to an unbroken barrage of words as readers are to unbroken pages of prose. You can use drawings, graphs, props and objects, a blackboard with an outline, charts, demonstrations, pictures, statistics, cartoons, photographs, and even "interesting" items or maybe a map . Planning Your Presentation--Questions You Need to Answer Thus, when you learn that you are to give an oral presentation, the first step in preparing for the presentation is to analyze each point listed above by answering the following questions, just as you did in planning your written communication. Once you have done so, you are ready to design, structure, and organize your presentation so that it will effectively satisfy the constraints that arise from your consideration of each point. Situation  What situation creates the need for this presentation? Who is involved? What is the scenario for this situation?  Where will I be speaking? Audience  Who is my audience?  What do I know about my audience's background, knowledge, position in the organization, attitudes toward me and my subject? Purpose  What is my purpose in giving this oral presentation?  Is there (should there be) a long-range purpose?  What is the situation that led to this presentation?  Given my audience's background and attitudes, do I need to reshape my purpose to make my presentation more acceptable to my audience? Content  What issues, problems, questions or tasks are involved in the situation?  What ideas do I want to include or omit?  Based on the audience and the context, what difficulties do I need to anticipate in choosing content?  Can any ideas be misconstrued and prove harmful to me or my organization?  What questions does the audience want answered? Graphics  What kinds of visual aids will I need to enhance the ideas I will present?  Which points could be understood better with a visual?  Where should I use these in my presentation? Style  What kind of tone do I want to use in addressing my audience?  What kind of image of myself and my organization do I want to project?  What level of language do I need to use, based on my audience's background and knowledge of my subject?  What approach will my audience expect from me?  How formal should I be? Five things to do when you are done 1.Thank them! 2.Make materials available 3.Make yourself available 4.Provide them with a method of reaching you 5.Get feedback -- Find out what they thought of you, what they learned, what they were hoping to learn but didn't, how you can improve your presentation, how to improve your communication skills. Five other things you could be doing now instead of reading this (don't think you can get away this easily) 1.Link to other sites (with similar or related information). Also sites that are relevant to your career. 2.Start working on your next presentation 3.Review your last presentation, analyze it based on what you have learned, and figure out how it can be improved. 4.Link to an on-line bookstore and buy a book on better presentations. 5.Log off, visit a friend, a spouse, take a vacation, TAKE A BREAK! Five items we appreciate you are doing! 1.Bookmark our site! 2.Purchase a projector, film recorder or other presentation products from us! 3.Tell or email colleagues about our site, great products, great prices, etc. And don't forget to give them our email and web address. 4.Visit us again for the latest news, trends and tips in the presentation world. Plus the latest product introductions and Special Pricing and Programs. 5.Accept our thanks for visiting us, providing feedback, spreading the word, and giving us the opportunity to provide you with your presentation equipment.