1. Create an easy-to-follow structure
When it comes to what you have to say, break it down into three simple sections. First of all, you need the introduction, preferably a short one. People mostly prefer when a presenter gets straight to the topic as fast as possible.
The second section is the body of your presentation. This will contain the main information you want to share. This is where you hit ’em with the facts, quotes, and evidence to back up your main points.
And the last one is the conclusion. The conclusion is where you loop back to your original statement and give the audience some key takeaways on how they can put into practice what they've learned.
2. No more than 10 slides in total.
No one wants to sit through pages and pages of slides. So try to keep up to 10 slides in your deck, even if your presentation is 30 minutes long. It's all about listening, not reading. Otherwise, the audience will just lose concentration and fall asleep.
3. Make your 10 slides look great
A good design can make or break a presentation. If your slide design is messy, the audience will try to look somewhere else. Sometimes less is more, so here are three rules of how to make your presentation look good:
Focus on one idea per slide
Use two or three fonts max
Stick to two or three colors
But if you are not sure about your graphic design skills or do not have enough time - don’t worry. There are a bunch of free to download templates, editors, and themes that will help you. Here are some of them:
https://app.biteable.com/social/ Biteable will help you to create your own video-presentation in just 10 minutes. There are many ready-to-edit videos, where you can just change the text and impress your coworkers with a well prepared and a good looking presentation.
And those are some free to download templates, which you can edit after:
https://www.slidemembers.com/en_US/
https://www.slidescarnival.com/
https://www.pexels.com/ - The best free stock photos & videos shared by talented creators.
https://unsplash.com/ - The internet’s source of freely-usable images.
4. Find someone who will listen
Let's say you already have a beautiful and readable slides. Your content is structured, your speech is prepared. But somehow you are still worried about the upcoming presentation. This tip is for you - try to find someone to listen to your presentation before giving it live in front of a big audience. This could be your friend, brother or sister. Someone who can listen to your presentation as many times as you need to in order to feel more confident and comfortable.
This is very important because you will receive your first feedback.
5. Relax and enjoy
Try to enjoy yourself during the process - it will make your presentation better. Your speech should be entertaining and informative. I’m not saying you should act like a crazy one when giving a serious presentation. But unlike an e-mail or article, people expect some emotions from you. Simply reciting dry facts without any passion or humor will make people less likely to pay attention. So try to be enthusiastic and honest, and the audience will respond.
- How do you feel when you have to make a presentation? Do you enjoy the process or not?
- Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Do you know any tips on how to overcome this fear?
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_96.htm
https://visme.co/blog/presentation-tips/
https://biteable.com/blog/how-to-make-good-presentation/
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/tips-for-giving-a-great-presentation
Comments
I find that no matter the subject, ultimately I always try to smuggle some of my views and beliefs.
Some can say that it creates bias and doesn't help to present main point.
Well, in my opinion, presentation should be something more.
It should not only deliver message, but also ask questions.
Make us reflect about our knowledge of the topic and see how well it holds, when challenged.
Everything can be trained. While some present natural talent for speaking, experience is essential.
So, there is no magic technique, at least as far as I am aware.
Looking back, I can admit that indeed, I was afraid of public speaking, but thanks to my undergraduate English course, I learned to control it better.
I think it doesn't matter for me. It is just a task. This advices in your article sounds quite good. Always when i have to do some presentation i try to do it in similar way as you mentioned e.g. it should be atractive, short slides etc. It is not always enjoying process for me it depends to topic and place where should i present it. For example if you have to do presentations about UML every semester on PJATK it is so boring, useless and you just do it as quick as possible and you don't care about quality. The oposite way is when you do it about something interesting or if you can gain something important for you.
2. Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Do you know any tips on how to overcome this fear?
In my opinion it depends to how often you present something in public. I also think best tip could be just to practice a lot and try to improve something every time. The great example is Proffessor Tomaszewski. He is recording his lectures and he works to improve himself. Right now his lectures and the way of presenting is the best arround other Proffessors in PJATK.
In my opinion, the only thing that helps to overcome this fear is practice. So i also believe that everything can be trained.
When it comes to actually presenting in front of an audience, this is what I become the most anxious about, so I can really relate to people who are afraid of public speaking. I find it hard to calm my nerves when people are listening, and when speaking I often find myself out of breath, so I have to take a second to start talking again. I think it all comes from fear of people finding you unprepared or unprofessional, but even though you try hard, it’s still hard to speak eloquently in front of an audience. Unfortunately, I don’t have any tips on how to overcome that fear and I’m still struggling to overcome it. Before presenting, I try to do breathing exercises and it helps a little with the speaking pace.
Answering the second question, I would say that the anxiety has a lot to do with it. Personally, I feel like there is nothing scary about talking publicly, however my organism somtimes decides the other way. When will it happen? Noone knows. One day I feel like I could give a presidential speech, but the other I’m afraid of having consultations with my teachers on teams. It shows that even such a sociable and talkative person as me might sometimes have social anxiety. This is why I can’t imagine what people who are always afraid of public speaking feel and I know a lot of them. I guess it might have a little to do with the way young people are living right now. We spend a lot of time using our phones and contacting people only through messages. We don’t even call each other. Sometimes when I tell my parents that I am afraid to call the doctor, they think that I am kidding. I feel like being afraid of public speaking is mostly about youth as they are not really used to talking to people in real life, especially to strangers. My main tip for them but also for myself is to realize that we don’t mean anything in this world. Maybe it is not the most positive way of thinking, but in such situations it really helps. I always imagine that all those people who are listening have their own lifes, 10 minutes after my speech they will probably forget that it even happened and no matter how great or terrible it was, we will all die anyway and no one will care or remember about our presentation. You need to be careful to whom you’re giving such advice as it might be a little depressing, but this is what helps me.
To dive straight into your questions, first of all I have to say that I love presentations. I never really struggled with them and I think that what made me be this way was the fact that some of the very first presentations I delivered were on my topics of choice. I remember that I was asked to make a presentation for kids in primary school about a certain card game that I loved (and still very much enjoy) to play.
Not only it made me excited, but I also did not feel any stress. They were kids who were genuinely interested in playing games and, well, if I somehow could fear judgement (which often is the reason for stress in such situations), who would really judge me? A bunch of 10 year old kids? Even if, I do not think they would express it in a way that some adults could. They would, at most, just be bored, instead of giving me "those" looks :)
I think that such positive start made me love presentations - both making them and delivering them. Whenever there is an occassion, I always try to choose to make a presentation - especially if I am free to choose a topic!
I think I don't have to say more about joy that presentations bring me. I just love speaking about concepts I find interesting.
To try to answer the question regarding the fear of public speaking, I think it may mainly come from unpreparation. And I am not talking about having bad slides or being not so knowledgeable about given topic. I think people mainly lack practice. Preferably practice in a somewhat safe spaces that - again, preferably - could still provide some constructive feedback. Just as you mentioned in your post!
I, ufortunately, do not know any clever tips on how to overcome this fear. I think that with practice, you can master the art of presentations, but that's nothing new - practice makes perfect.
I would also like to add that I do not quite agree with one of your points - the "10 slides" one. I do not think that such restriction (even if it's merely a guide) is that much applicable. Of course one could say that "there obviously are exceptions", but to me, the 10 slide rule is the exception - it only applies where your presentation actually can be summarised by very few keywords. In that case, you are best advised to apply that rule, but, at least I think so, it applies really rarely. Especially in the IT sector.
How do you feel when you have to make a presentation? Do you enjoy the process or not?
I like your article very useful and topic oriented.
I am really getting nervous when I am preparing presentation because it is always stressful to present it on way that everyone can understand you, get your idea and will follow and focus on your topic.
I can't say that I enjoy it, maybe I enjoy if I smooth it. However usually I always think about what I did wrong and what I missed.
It was mentioned on your article, I think it is very important to find your listener during the presentation.
Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Do you know any tips on how to overcome this fear?
I don't know why people afraid of public speaking, I can tell about myself.
I am afraid of public speaking because I am worried about my tone of voice and I am afraid to say something wrong or false information. And of course I am afraid to be laughed at.
Yeah I know those tips I have read once how to avoid this fear. As for me I think I just have to talk to them like a conversation between friends and it will go much easier
I tend to dive too deep into overthinking, which leads straight to anxiety. If I feel confident in the topic I'll be presenting and I know the audience, I often enjoy the process. I'm fact-obsessed, so writing a presentation script is an additional opportunity to fact-check myself and read up on the topic.
Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Do you know any tips on how to overcome this fear?
Interestingly it was one of my biggest fear. Ever since I was a shy person and somewhere around my 18 birthday I've identified I'll be struggling a lot in my professional life if I don't overcome it. I decided to join "toastmasters" - which is a public speaking group. There are a couple of these groups in every major city and at least one in smaller ones. I would assume "new-pandemic-world" has remote-friendly groups. You can join them no matter how unforgettable or agile you are in public speaking. You start from scratches and receive constructive feedback from other group members on each of the projects they have on the "public speaking" path. Starting from a simple ice-breaker, where you just introduce yourself for couple of minutes, through persuasion speeches, ending on comedy-oriented presentations. I helped me kill my glossophobia tremendously. Few years later I found myself completely comfortable acting in front of foreign audience in in-promptu theater :)
1. Have you ever tried Yerba Mate? If not, do you feel like it is worth trying out?
I did try couple of times, I got introduced to it by me peers at the workplace. I was initially overwhelmed by number of "rules" mate drinkers have. Proper temperature, ideal proportion and all the necessary equipment needed. Once I learnt those by heart I started enjoying both the process and the taste. My tolerance for any energy-booster substance is low (I don't drink coffee at all!) so two portions of yerba mate per day was keeping me awake till very late night. I must admit it tastes the best cooled and carbonated, that is, poured with carbonated water.
2. Do you regularly drink other caffeinated beverages? Have you ever felt like they are not enough to wake you up in the morning?
As I've mentioned above, I very rarely drink coffee. I did more in the past when I had office job (currently I work remotely, for last couple of years), but I used it mostly as social tool, not the essential ritual to start my workday. Just a great opportunity to chit-chat with my coworkers and gossip a bit. Since I work from home I don't make or buy coffee at all. Saying that, I must admit, I drink of a lot coca-cola, and I believe one bottle would equal to espresso shot? Or maybe two. If that's the case, that I might be unawarely caffeine addict for a long time.
On the top of that, aparat from utility side of the coffee - so a caffeine shot, I personally don't like the taste itself. I can't tell the difference between $7 dripped expensive coffee from starbucks and $1 coffee from mcdonald. Maybe being tasteless saved me a lot of money :)
1. Honestly, I don't like making presentations. I am not a man who likes to present something. I prefer to read silently and think over what is written in the presentation. So instead of talking, I prefer to read and listen. And I think that I am not the only one who likes it.
2. I think many people fear public speaking out of fear and fear of being misunderstood. I am not surprised at all. I have the same. I don't like presenting, as I wrote in the answer above. Do I have any tips on how to overcome this fear? Unfortunately not.
I feel good, I really enjoy this process. It is fascinating that I can make something and share it with others, ask some questions, and talk with them about their opinion.
Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Do you know any tips on how to overcome this fear?
I think the main reason is that everyone is different, a lot of people don't like to talk with others, or spend time making a presentation. In my opinion, the best tip is to try to talk a lot with other people, be more communicative.