oral presentation examples pdf

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS - A PRACTICAL GUIDE

Related Papers

International Journal of Learning and Teaching

Rizaldy Hanifa

The importance of being able to perform a good oral presentation is undeniably necessary for academician nowadays, including students of higher education. To show their capacity, the students need to be prepared in delivering their presentation. However, the current students' presentation skill is still far from the expectation. Therefore, this article aims at sharing several facts dealing with presentation skill in terms of preparations, problems faced during presentation, and the ways to cope with the problems. This study was conducted as a qualitative research with descriptive approach. Questionnaire and interview were distributed and performed to five respondents to gather the data needed. The findings show that preparation involving content mastery and practice are the keys to be successful in presentation. Meanwhile, the problems faced are highly related to the respondents' nervousness due to time limitation and audiences, which cause losing idea while performing. To overcome these, some strategies such as believing in their abilities, skipping less important points, and anticipating possible questions from the audiences were employed. Based on the research results, it is suggested that speaker should be trained to be more aware of the preparations and strategies needed for presentation since the main keys to the success of delivering good presentation are highly determined by knowing how to prepare well and being able to use the strategies more appropriately and frequently.

How to Practice Academic Medicine and Publish from Developing Countries?

An oral presentation is a form of communication, where you impart and then exchange information with your audience. This can be either one-way, a didactic, or two-way called a Socratic or a Dialectic presentation. There are many forms of oral presentation and you should find out where and when you are required to speak [1]. The National Training Laboratory in Maine, USA has suggested a ‘cone’ of learning or learning ‘pyramid’. In this, they have found that the most effective way of learning is through teaching others. Most students remembered only 10% of the material given in books but remembered 90% of the facts they learned when they had to teach others [2] (Fig. 38.1).

Journal of advances in linguistics

Conchi Hernández

ANNALS OF THE ORADEA UNIVERSITY. Fascicle of Management and Technological Engineering.

Ioana Horea

Peter Levrai , Averil Bolster

Oral Presentations are an important part of studying in an English-medium university environment and will be something many students face, whatever their field of study. Such presentations can be particularly challenging for non-native English speakers (NNES). Despite the importance of oral presentations as a form of academic discourse, they remain a relatively underresearched area and an area where there is limited targeted EAP presentation training materials. There is no clear conceptualization in the existing literature of which the authors are aware as to the key features that make a presentation academic. This paper aims to redress that issue with the aim of then evaluating the training materials currently available to help NNES develop their academic oral presentation skills.

Johannes Junge Ruhland

This worksheet is geared towards advanced undergraduate students majoring in literature, although much of it could be adapted for other disciplines and contexts. It provides guidance on crafting and delivering oral presentations, which are typically based on an article assigned by the instructor to the presenter and to be delivered to a class who has not read the article. The typical length of these presentations is 5 minutes, and presentations may include slideshows. Longer presentations have different parameters. This worksheet is paired with “Know Your Audience: Undergraduate Writing and Speaking.” For writing assignments, readers can refer to “How Do I Efficiently Write Essays in French?” This worksheet was first created in Fall 2021 and was last updated by its author in Summer 2023 with the valuable input and feedback of former students Marley Fortin, Merve Ozdemir, and Elizabeth Swanson.

Nafiseh Zarei

Success in oral pesentation skills contributes to students’ success in academic performance as well as their social life. It is important for teachers to know their students’ needs and social background in order to encourage them to share information relevant to their interests with their peers to improve their oral presentation skills. This study investigates the factors that affect oral presentation among undergraduates. This quantitative study used Likert scale questionnaire to collect data from 100 undergraduates at a private university in Malaysia (UNITAR International University). The data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in the form of mean, standard deviation, and variance. The findings of the study showed four primary factors: confidence, nervousness, communication, and presentation skill that effect oral presentation among the undergraduate students. The results of the study demonstrated that the students were very nervous during presentat...

Averil Bolster , Peter Levrai

Australasian Journal of Paramedicine

Jamie Ranse

This article will not provide guidance on public speaking techniques or details on the use of presentation software programs commonly used at conferences.

Proceedings of CLaSIC 2014

Gavin Brooks , John Wilson

In many second language (L2) communication classes the majority of the class time is taken up by teacher-fronted, drill-oriented activities. Oral presentations are one example of a learner-centered, communicative activity that can be used to fix this problem. However, if not implemented correctly, the difficulty of the tasks involved in presenting in front of others can take away from the pedagogical benefits of using presentations in the classroom. Because of this, it is important that language teachers understand the skills involved in giving an effective presentation, and the potential difficulties oral presentations can cause for L2 learners. This paper focuses on one genre of oral presentations, the poster presentation, and examines the benefits of using poster presentations in the L2 classroom. It draws upon the practical experience the authors have gained from teaching and developing materials for presentation classes to provide a framework for how poster presentations can be used in the language classroom. By examining the tasks involved, and the pedagogical justification behind those tasks, it is hoped that this paper will encourage language teachers to use poster presentations in their classrooms in a way that benefits both the students and the teachers.

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

Search form

• Advanced search
• Search responses
• Search blogs
• How to prepare and...

How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

• Related content
• 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

3 Essentials for Preparing an Effective Oral Presentation

Giving an oral presentation at a conference or symposium is a great way to directly communicate your research to your scholarly peers. It’s a rare opportunity to have the (hopefully) undivided attention of people who care as deeply about your topic as you do; and who are well-positioned to become valuable colleagues, mentors, and collaborators.

Typically, an oral presentation gives you 15-20 minutes to speak about your research (with slides); and another 5-10 minutes for Q&A. That’s not a lot of time to demonstrate the rigour and value of your research. Even this short time slot can be compressed further if sessions are running behind schedule, or the person before you speaks too long.

So how can you make the best use of those precious minutes? In this post, we cover 3 essential considerations for preparing an effective oral presentation:

• Make it clear
• Make it impactful
• Make it enjoyable

If you can manage these three things – in both your visuals and your oration – you’ll be on track to make a positive impression on your colleagues and build your academic networks.

(1) Make it clear

Conference delegates are tired. Between long days and lingering jet lag, you can assume that your audience is not quite firing on 100% mental capacity. Make things easy for them by leading them through your essential points in a logical order, giving just enough information for audiences to understand and contextualise your research, but not so much that they become bored or overwhelmed.

A typical conference presentation structure might look like this:

This is just one way to structure a presentation – and there are others – but it’s a reliable way to organise your content so that the audience can follow along easily.

Sidenote: make sure you consider who is likely to be in your audience, and how much they know about your area of research. This will influence how much or how little explanatory work you will have to do to bring them along with you – especially with regard to context and methods.

(2) Make it impactful

Audience members will not care about your research by default; you need to show them why they should care. While the significance and impact of your research may be obvious to you, it’s worth spelling it out to the audience. The more real you can make it, the better.

There are a few ways you can do that:

• State the benefit (say very simply what positive impact your research will have)
• Quantify the benefit (using numbers and statistics to show the scale of impact)
• Depict the benefit (using emotional appeals or real cases to illustrate the impact)
• Forecast further benefits (i.e. other applications or avenues of enquiry)

Let’s say that your research addresses the (100% fictional) condition of hurdler’s toe. Hurdler’s toe (hypothetically) affects joint mobility for hundreds of hurdlers worldwide, and has even been linked (hypothetically) to arthritis in later life. Your research has resulted in a new sock design that halves the risk of hurdler’s toe. Here’s how you might illustrate your impact:

• State the benefit: “this new sock design halves the risk of hurdler’s toe.”
• Quantify the benefit: “this evidence-based invention could prevent approximately 75 cases of hurdler’s toe each year and save an estimated $750,000 in medical expenses.”
• Depict the benefit: “hurdlers like Harry Hurdlini will no longer have to live with the crippling reality of aches, pills, and surgeries.”
• Forecast further benefits: “this could have applications for other activities that cause joint pain in the feet and toes, such as dancing.”

A caveat: academic audiences have excellent bullshit detectors. Don’t overstate the significance of your research. Be clear and transparent about its limits, and don’t go into full salesperson mode. An articulate, enthusiastic, and realistic statement about why your work is important is likely to strike the right tone.

(3) Make it enjoyable

Even at a conference where everyone shares (roughly) the same academic interests, human attention spans are simply not equipped to handle solid blocks of dry information. Be sure to vary your presentation – both visually and verbally – with a mix of types of content, imagery, text, and graphics, and a modulated voice.

One common mishap is to try to cram too much into the presentation. In a 15-20 minute presentation, you will not have time to cover everything. Your thesis is the proper home for every little detail of your research; a conference presentation is the place for an overview. If your research is a movie, think of your presentation as the trailer. You want to get people interested to know more; but to do that, you have to keep their attention and show why they should buy a ticket.

So keep it simple:

• limit your scope (think a chapter of your thesis, rather than the whole thing)
• stick to a manageable slide deck (think about 8-12 slides)
• use your visuals to make an impact (think striking images and diagrammes; no walls of text)
• prioritise your time to cover your main points
• prioritise your research contribution & findings over background readings & context

Yes, you’ll be sacrificing some detail. But anyone who wants to know more can always come up and talk to you afterwards (and that’s a great way to grow your network).

Last but not least: don’t be afraid to go ‘off book.’ The vibe at an academic conference is typically professional, but not as formal as many people assume. Academics often become familiar (and, accordingly, less formal) in their professional relationships over time, and so conferences can become places for friendly banter as much as knowledge-sharing. What does that mean for your presentation? While you should definitely stay in professional mode, the odd joke, audience interaction, or light-hearted moment (in good taste) is often a valid way to build rapport with academic colleagues.

We will have lots of oral presentations from AUT postgraduate research students at the Postgraduate Research Symposium on Monday 9 September 2024. If you are speaking at the symposium, and would like some help preparing your presentation, please email the Researcher Education and Development team at [email protected].

About Anaise Irvine

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.