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28 August 2014
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Effective Presentations
Think about the structure

It's time to make a start on the structure of the presentation.
You should be thinking about how you are going to kick things off, the main body of the presentation and how you are going to bring it to a close.

key pointRemembering the 3 I's and the 3 C's can help with this bit.

key pointThe 3 I's:

  • Introduction
    Tell your audience what you intend to cover and what the main points are
  • Information
    Go through each of the points in turn, making sure you give the audience cues as to when you are moving from one to the other, and how they fit together
  • In conclusion
    Summarise what you’ve just said and draw your conclusions

Imagine you've been asked to give a presentation about 'Observing The Moon'.
If you use the 3 I's to help you structure your 'Observing The Moon' presentation, the outline structure could be something like this:

Introduction
You'll tell your audience that you'll be explaining what part of the moon you can see with each of three different instruments. The three instruments are:

  • The naked eye
  • Binoculars you might have in the house
  • An astronomical telescope

You'll be looking at the same view of the moon in 3 different magnifications.
(This will give you 3 visual images to illustrate your presentation.)

Information

  • Explain that with the naked eye you see what looks like the man in the moon,
    which means that you can see the major features like the big seas,
    but very little more (use a visual image at correct magnification)
  • Explain that with binoculars you can see the major craters,
    some mountains and other sharp features (another visual showing this)
  • Explain that with an astronomical telescope you can see tremendous detail,
    not quite the footprints of the men who landed on the moon,
    but certainly all the geographical features you could possibly want to see
    (your third visual)

In Conclusion
You could say something along the lines of:

'It’s a sliding scale of different information, depending on which instrument you use.
It’s well worth the effort of finding some binoculars, and even more amazing if you can manage to visit a large astronomical telescope.’

key pointThe 3 C's:

  • Context
    Introduce the issue at the heart of your topic
  • Consideration
    Describe the factors affecting the issue and how it can be tackled in different ways
  • Course of Action
    Explain your solution and its consequences

Imagine you've been asked to give a presentation with the title - Can you ever really reconstruct history?

If you use the 3 C's to help you structure your presentation, the outline structure could be something like this:

Context
You could set the context by saying that you’ll be considering whether you can ever really reconstruct history — for instance, life for soldiers in the trenches during the First World War.

Consideration
Factors affecting the issue:

  • Can you replicate the physical conditions?
  • Can you replicate the psychological conditions?

Yes, you can make a small scale replica of the trenches more or less as they were,
but you can't fill them with the decaying bodies of men and animals.
You can't have people living in those conditions, barely moving for months on end,
for a period of 3 or 4 years.

No, you can't replicate the psychological conditions at all - the greatest fear was the fear of death or injury, or the death or injury of your best friends - and you can't make that up.


Course of Action
The solution is that you can re-enact small pieces of history but you can't recreate it.
Consequently, reconstruction is helpful as an example, but there's no substitute for studying and listening to the stories of those who were there.

key pointThere's nothing stopping you using a combination of these tips.

The next screen will give you some top tips on putting your visuals together.






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