 Hi and welcome to a short video on engaging and informing oral presentations from the Language and Learning Support Team at Charles Darwin University. Before we begin, I'd just like to recognise the traditional owners and Indigenous cultures of the land on which we're meeting and working today. In this presentation today, we'll think about the purpose of oral presentations and the audience you're addressing, we'll look at the structure and design of good oral presentations, we'll think about how to deliver them and consider some useful phrases for academic oral presentations. What is the purpose of oral presentations at university? Let's think about that. One of your main goals is to persuade your audience of the validity of your argument or the value of your information and present research and evidence to support that. Before you do that, you need to remember what you're being asked to do by your lecturer. They want you to unpack the task and understand the assignment. They want you to check if it's connected to other tasks, maybe it's a follow-on assessment. They want you to check the rubric or grading criteria. They also want you to demonstrate your academic knowledge and professional communication skills. But you can also see it as an opportunity to motivate and inspire your audience. Think about this side of your presentation as well. So what are the different types of oral presentations you might encounter at CDU? You have your individual ones to an audience, whether that's online or in a classroom. There are your virtual ones, which can be either live or recorded. And then your long or extended ones, which are sometimes part of a group presentation. Today we're just going to focus on individual oral presentations. Before you begin planning, the first thing to consider is your audience. Are they your colleagues or classmates? Are they here because they want to or have to? How much jargon can I use? And how much will I have to explain? And am I just informing them or actually convincing them of an argument? These are really important starting points before you start to plan. And always remember, you're the expert. The other thing to consider before you continue is how people learn and function. Now a lot of research has gone into this, but here are five tips that I think are really helpful. Firstly, people learn best in small chunks. Can you find a way to break up your presentation? People's visual sense often trump their other senses. Do you want your PowerPoint presentation to override what you're saying? The third point is that your words are only part of the message. What you're wearing, your body language, the tone in your voice also carry a message. The fourth point is that people respond to a call for action. Are you actually giving them a reason to be there or listen to what you've got to say? And the fifth point is that people imitate your feelings and feel your emotions. So if you're feeling bored or anxious, they might feel the same. Okay, let's look at starting your design and your structure. What are your key objectives and messages? Do you have a logical order? Is there an intro? What's the body of your presentation? What's the conclusion? And what are the number of slides you're going to use? A good rule of thumb is one to two minutes per slide. One way you might like to begin your planning is to get a pro forma like this and start to plan out each slide and some of the content in the same way you might plan an essay. In your planning, you need to think about starting strongly. How am I going to engage the audience? Grab their attention and get them interested. As well, how am I going to greet the audience? Get their attention on the topic that I'm going to present and how am I going to outline the presentation for my audience? Remember, memorizing your intro deduction is okay. It helps you with your confidence and helps you get started. The next thing to think about is the logical flow of your presentation. How are all of my ideas and slides connected? Think about it a little bit like telling a story. What journey am I taking my audience on? The other thing to consider in your planning is how to finish strongly. In your conclusion, you need to signal the close of the presentation. You need to find a summary or at least a summary of the take home messages for your audience. You want to thank them for being there and you want to provide an opportunity for questions. This should be clear and concise because you want to make sure you finish strongly. Now we're looking at the design of your slides. Remember, visual trumps are all. If your slides are too visually demanding, the audience may not listen to what you've got to say. So choose a light-colored background for clarity and be consistent with your design. Many organizations have their own style guide for presentations and documents like this one from CDU. So check, do you need to follow a particular style guide with your slides for an oral presentation? Think about your layout. Is it too busy and distracting for your audience? Think about the text on your slides. Is there too much or is the font too small? So not too much and keep the key points or bullet points in your text, not everything. Think about your use of text and font. Minimize the use of italics and capitals because they can carry unnecessary messages. Be consistent with your use of font and font sizes for your slides. Think about a font that is easy to read or identifiable by your audience, such as Arial or Times New Roman. Think about what size works well for headings and bullet points to ensure your audience can read the content. When you start to think about the visual support on your slides as part of your presentation, such as images or graphs, make sure they're relevant. They're simple and clean on the eye. What's the problem with this example? Of course, the image doesn't match the text. What's the problem with this image? Maybe it's too confronting for your audience unless it's particularly relevant to the context. Here's a good example where the text matches the images. It's easy for the audience to read it and it's an opportunity for the presenter to add the additional information they want to make their point. When you're using images or any kind of visual content in your slides, you need to apply the same academic rules as any other assignment. You need to acknowledge where they've come from. If you're using images from the internet, you often have to get permission to use them. However, you can go to certain websites, such as this Creative Commons one, and use the images for free from the source, provided you acknowledge where they've come from. CDU has their own version of this, which you can access. Again, you need to acknowledge where they've come from. Here's an example of a graph that might distract your audience and take them away from the information you're actually wanting to present. Find ways to present your graphs and tables and numerical information in clean, simple ways. Remember, graphs and tables are there to present complex information in a more simplified way. They should help your audience understand information, not get confused by it. They should simply create a visual representation of the ideas or information and give you an opportunity to highlight significant points or ideas. Transitions, animations, and sound effects. They're a great part of PowerPoint and they're fun to use, but not too many. And be consistent. Don't use lots of different types. Remember, you don't want to distract your audience, so maybe you're just going to use them to break up your presentation rather than be a major part of it. Let's revisit our five tips to understanding people. People learn best in small chunks. Can you put a slide or two in to break it up? Maybe there's a question to your audience. Maybe there's something that offers some light relief. People's visual sense trumps their other senses, so the design of your slides becomes really important. Your words are only part of the message. The images you use are also carrying a message. Your body language, your eye contact, these also carry a message, the tone of your voice as well. People respond to a call for action. Are you giving your audience a purpose to be there? People imitate your feelings and feel your emotions. If you're feeling anxious or bored, the audience is likely to feel that as well. Here are some general tips to help you. Remember, it is an academic and a formal assessment, so you still have to follow the academic conventions and academic language that's expected. Think about the time limit. Don't be too over or too under. If it's a live presentation, have you been to the venue already and checked out the technology? If you're using Zoom or Collaborate, do you know all the features of those tools to use them to your best advantage? Arrive early. That helps reduce anxiety and stress. Have a checklist. That also helps reduce anxiety and stress. And have a backup plan if it's a live presentation and you've got your presentation on a USB or you've emailed it to yourself. Do you have a backup copy? You've developed your PowerPoint presentation and now you're ready to present. Do you write out a script or do you use cue cards? The audience is not there to listen to you read. They want to connect to you. So cue cards are a much more useful tool. You can use them to guide you with your presentation, help with your confidence, but not allow you to be distracted too much by what you've got written down. When you're practicing or rehearsing your presentation, you need to focus on your voice. That's your main tool. Think about speaking clearly at a reasonable pace in a conversational tone. Vary your tone of voice to highlight a point. Don't just read from a script and don't just memorize a script. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Rehearse aloud if you can. Rehearse aloud in front of the mirror if you feel confident. Find friends to give feedback on your presentation. The more you practice, the more confident you're gonna feel and your audience is gonna feel that too. When you're thinking about your language and speaking with your audience, remember you need to have verbal signposts to inform your audience of the stages of your talk. It is an academic presentation. You are taking them on your journey and you need to help your audience do that. As well, you need to find different ways to repeat key points to allow your audience to absorb the information you're presenting. Here are some useful phrases that you might like to use in your presentation. And here are some more. You're ready to give your presentation. The final thing to think about is what's happening on the day. What am I wearing? And what message is that sending? Am I using good body language and eye contact? The last thing to consider is managing questions and answers with your audience. Remember, you manage the Q&A part of your presentation. What are your strategies for this? If there are problems, what are you gonna do? Do you understand the question asked? Do you need the question clarified or restated? And what if you don't know the answer? Maybe just say so. Nerves and anxiety. Pretty common feelings when people have to give presentations. And the adrenaline that comes from this shows that you probably care enough about the quality of your presentation to feel nervous about it. So you can actually use that adrenaline to energize your talk. However, you do need strategies to manage these feelings and everyone has different strategies. Whether it's to get a good night's sleep, not drink too much coffee, breathing, exercises, having a friend in the audience, everyone has a different strategy. So it's worth thinking about yours. There's a nice quote from Plato to finish on. Hopefully this presentation has been helpful for you. Good luck with your studies and assignments. And don't forget there's lots of other services that our language and learning support team offer at Charles Darwin University.