 Hello everyone, welcome to this ELC video about academic presentations. Many of you have given a presentation at school before. Academic presentations though are a little bit different and in this video we are going to learn about some of the key features of a good academic presentation. Watch this video to do better in your presentations for the ELC and for other subjects at university. Okay, it's essential that you use and cite evidence from academic sources to support your arguments. You need to convince your audience that your claims are believable and to do this you need credible and reliable sources. The planning stage is critical. Many students skip this stage because of time constraints but the best presenters know that thinking about what they want to achieve in their presentation and how they are going to achieve this is crucial to success. First, think about your audience. How much do they know about your topic? How does it affect them? Share your presentation with your classmates and teachers in mind. Next, think carefully about your content. It's not a good idea just to use your essay as it is. Which points from your essay can you present? Which can you leave out? What evidence do you need to add to further support your points? How can you hook the audience and make the presentation memorable? Thirdly, make sure you organise the content in a logical way. One way to approach this is to prepare a presentation outline. Think about your main points that you will cover in your presentation. Remember, you do have time constraints so don't try to cover too much. Then, once you have a logical structure, you can start adding the information you need to the outline. As a final point, it's not a good idea to try to memorise your script. If you memorise a script, your interaction with the audience will likely not be very natural and you may lose the thread of what you're saying. This will likely affect the quality of your presentation. Instead, know your content well enough so that you have the confidence to speak naturally. So, now you've thought about your audience, your content and your structure. It's time to think about how you will help your audience follow what you're saying. Signposting language is commonly used in presentations for this purpose. One important signpost is the outline. Presenters usually tell audiences how they've organised the content of their presentation as this helps the audience prepare for what they're going to hear. It's best to do this at the end of your introduction. Let's listen to an example. The remainder of our presentation is as follows. First, we will outline the problems created by building flats in the country parks. Secondly, we will discuss some possible solutions for the problem. Based on this discussion, we will summarise the impact of the problem and give some recommendations. There are also phrases that you can use to get started on a point or a section. Let's listen to some examples. Okay, I'm now going to introduce the first problem. Let me start by discussing the first issue. And here are some phrases you can use to show that you are moving between points or sections. Right, I've talked about the problems. Now, I'm going to introduce some possible solutions. Now, moving on to the solutions. This brings me to the conclusion of my presentation. Finally, to use some of these signalling phrases effectively, you need to think about the importance of pauses. Your audience needs time to process what you've said and to think about where you're taking them next. So it's often helpful to pause for a moment after you have used a signalling phrase. Next, as we have mentioned already, the language in academic presentations is normally less formal than in academic writing. You need to engage with your audience and get their interest. And one way of doing this is by using more spoken language. Here are some examples. Do you know how many people in Hong Kong live in a subdivided flat? So today, we'll be looking at the impacts of the government's housing policy and we'll also propose a possible solution to alleviate the Hong Kong housing problem. During an academic presentation, it's acceptable to use i or we and short forms and to ask your audience a direct question. You could also use more informal vocabulary. However, because it's still an academic presentation, your presentation will probably also contain some features of academic language. For example, don't make sweeping claims like this example. All PolyU students would agree that the workload is too heavy. Remember, it's relatively easy to prove these to be inaccurate. Instead, hedge your claims like this example. Most PolyU students would probably agree that the workload is too heavy. Also, you should refer to sources in your presentation, but this can be done in a slightly more informal way than in academic writing. Listen to this example. We've found some useful studies about the overuse of social media. For example, this study made a link between overusing social media and a failure to develop real-life social skills. Finally, one way of helping your audience follow your argument is by making use of visual aids. Good presenters, however, use their visual aids to support what they're saying and not to replace what they're saying. This means you shouldn't put all your text onto a slide, as then the audience will probably read your slides and not listen to what you're saying. Rather, use key words, short phrases, diagrams or visuals to provide background support to the points you're making. Also, remember that this is an academic presentation. It's not appropriate to use GIFs, for example. And you may think that the exciting transition you use between slides is entertaining, but the audience will probably be wondering how professional you are. So let's conclude, shall we? When preparing to give your academic presentation, remember these key points. Finally, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that practicing and timing yourself is an essential aspect of preparation. This will help you feel more relaxed and confident on the day. Best of luck.