Throughout the term you’re bound to have at least one presentation per module and further ad-hoc ones depending on your extracurricular commitments. This skill will most definitely be something you end up continuing to develop throughout your life so here are some important things to look out for and help improve the effectiveness of your presentations.

Practice like your life depended on it

If you want to minimise the chances of you stumbling or flipping through slides during your actual presentation, you must ensure to spend some time rehearsing. It’s probably best to also do a quick last minute check the night before for any typos or errors on the slides. What’s more, this can also help you prepare for any potential technical difficulties – which trust me, I’ve been through it before. It just ends up wasting everyone’s time and puts you through some really unnecessary panic.

Predict follow-up questions

As the expert, you must be able to command the stage and your crowd. So if you’re ever left speechless by someone who asks you for further information or clarification about your points, that’s not a good sign. However, if they’ve asked you about a really specific fact and you’re genuinely unsure, it’s best not to lie and claim that you know the answer. Instead, spin it and say something along the lines of “I’m not completely sure as I’ve only read something similar on X article but thank you for your insight and I could try and look into this for you after the presentation.”

Keep track of time

It can be so easy and tempting to talk for 30 minutes about a topic that you’re extremely passionate about but if you’ve only been allocated a 15-minute time slot, no matter how good or engaging your presentation is, it will make you look like you cannot follow simple instructions. The best way to overcome this issue is to prevent it from happening in the first place by timing your presentation beforehand. On the day, I would advise having a watch or timer on your phone when you’re talking so you can adapt accordingly.

Starting with an outline of your presentation and ending with a key takeaway slide can also help your audience follow the points you’re trying to make and get a better understanding of the purpose of your presentation.

Don’t engage in slide-karaoke

Nobody wants to listen to someone who just reads off the slides. It is just plain boring and looks extremely unprofessional. With so many multimedia tools available (from images, infographics, videos to platforms such as Menti, Kahoot and Padlet) life has suddenly become a whole lot easier. Our parents and grandparents didn’t have access to this technology, so realise how lucky we are and make the most of it! It’s also an added bonus as you don’t have to speak or prepare another 10 minutes of information to increase the interaction levels with your audience – a win-win situation!