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Communication, facilitation, ​powerspeaking blog: tips and strategies for crafting presentations, deliver more powerful technical presentations: 8 techniques.

by Ralf Wolter     Aug 4, 2022 1:36:00 PM

Before moving into training and coaching, I was an IT Consulting Engineer for 25-plus years.  To this day, I have a left-brain bent.  But I remember the experience that changed my perspective on what makes a powerful technical communicator (hint: it involves both hemispheres).

I was watching a very senior engineer at Cisco give a technical presentation.  This engineer was so senior and well-regarded, he held a prestigious Fellow position at the high-tech company.  

What struck me was that he was so good at illustrating his points and keeping the audience rapt.  I approached him after his talk and asked him, ‘What’s your secret sauce?’  He said, ‘Whenever I give a technical talk, I start by explaining in a way that my mum would understand it.’

I really liked the way he dove into deep technical detail only after he introduced the concepts with brief, compelling stories and vivid analogies.  To me, that was a perfect way to make sure everyone understands what you’re talking about, without dumbing down the content.

What I’ve learned since then is that this kind of approach to technical presenting doesn’t take away from the content expert’s credibility; as a matter of fact, it adds to it, especially if they’re addressing a mixed audience.

Delivering clear, complex data in a meaningful way to the people and businesses impacted is more important than ever—at work and in our communities.  

To do it well, you might need to rethink some of the hallmark left-brain preconceptions about how to craft and deliver your talk.  But trust me, it’s well worth the journey.

Here are our top pointers . . .

1. Start With Your Audience in Mind

Who are you presenting to, and how is your main message or proposal relevant to them?  How much detail do they really want or need? Your technical peers might be happy to dive into lots of detailed data.  But how about a mixed audience of engineers, salespeople, and potential customers?  Or maybe senior executives , who just want the bottom line?

For example, let’s say you’re presenting to a mixed audience. The best strategy would be to organize your presentation so you begin with a big-picture overview and main message/proposal for the non-technical people; then a strategic level of detail for technical managers and technical specialists outside your area; and last, a deep dive for content experts who are familiar with your work.  

Senior-level executives prefer content focused on the overall impact of your data or proposal: the cost, ROI, and benefits. They want the high-level view, with executive summaries, solutions, and future business implications. (Check out our downloadable PDF, “ How to Present to Executives: 23 Proven Tips ”)

Non-technical audiences and technical people in different disciplines also appreciate higher-level content.  In addition, they typically want to know how what you’re presenting will affect them directly.  Will it impact their workload or priorities?  Will it delay other projects they’re working on?  Will it shift roles or responsibilities?

Technical audiences want content rich in detailed data analysis, design specifications, theory, and statistics. They expect you to know the jargon and to use technical terms. They want to know about the research behind your data, and they appreciate information such as algorithms, process-flow diagrams, feature lists, and coding examples.

One presenter we worked with noted that with mixed audiences, he starts by announcing, "Today, I'll be doing a split-level presentation. The first 10 minutes will be a big-picture, market-focused summary. In the next 10 minutes, I will provide an overview of the technology involved. In the last 10 minutes I will go into the detail and present the results of our code review. Feel free to leave before the next level of detail if that is not what you want."

So remember, consider your audience before you get too far in crafting your presentation.  By doing so, you will be more . . .

Engaging By directing your presentation to the audience’s needs, you’ll increase attention and retention.

Efficient By creating an audience-centric presentation from the start, you’ll find it easier to plan and deliver a relevant and memorable talk.

Effective By communicating an action the audience can take as a result of the presentation, you’ll have a greater impact (we go into this in “Identify an Action Step,” below).

Here’s a helpful Audience Analysis checklist we developed for workshop participants.

Next, what do you want the audience to do with the data you’re presenting? 

2. Identify an Action Step

Once you’ve analyzed your audience, the next best step is to ask yourself, "What do I want the audience to do, think, or feel as a result of hearing this presentation?" 

One common mistake many presenters make is to assume the audience understands what they’re being asked to do.  Unless your request is clear and concrete, you risk creating confusion and losing their support.

Here are some quick examples of effective vs. ineffective action steps . . .

Now it’s time to dive into the core content of your presentation . . .

3. Develop a Clear Main Message

Even if you have complex ideas or data to discuss, your presentation should have a clearly stated central purpose or key message.  Why are you presenting the data?  What do you want your audience to remember?  

A short, clear, and compelling main message accomplishes several important things . . .

Here are some best practices for developing your main message so it’s clear and memorable . . .

As PowerSpeaking, Inc. Master Facilitator Rita Williams emphasized in the video, repetition of your main message—word for word—is key.  Research has shown that people are much more likely to retain your clear, concise main message if you repeat it at least three times throughout your presentation, at the beginning, middle, and end.

Once you’ve analyzed your audience, identified an action step, and crafted your main message, it’s time to turn to the substance of your presentation . . .

4. Make Your Content Relatable and Memorable

Maybe you want to get a group of teams fired up about the next phase of product development.  Perhaps you need to enlist support from other departments to make a system change. Or maybe your team needs budget approval from senior management to launch a new project.

No matter your purpose, you’re far more likely to succeed if you help your audience relate to your content and remember (and maybe act on) it after the presentation is over.

We’ve found that the best way to do that is to craft a technical presentation that balances analytical and anecdotal evidence— and connects with people on a human level.

Analytical Evidence: Facts and Figures

Analytical evidence is typically evidence drawn from statistical information—especially data collected by systematic methods. for example, the number of component failures reported in a quarter, the percentage of people who had adverse reactions to a new drug, or the roi on a new service offering over a specified period of time would all be considered analytical data. , anecdotal evidence: stories, analogies, case studies, examples.

Anecdotal evidence tells a story rather than drawing solely on numbers or percentages. Examples:  A story about how a seriously ill patient responded to a new drug, reading a letter from a satisfied customer, or talking about an experience you had when calling your own company for customer service. 

Some technical people in our workshops bristle at the idea of storytelling or, as they’ll say, “trying to be entertaining.”  But being an entertainer isn’t the point here.  The point is that we’re all human, and images, metaphors, and stories spark our interest and lodge in our memories more easily than facts and figures alone.

  “In fact, the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe. That's the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point.”   

In his book “Actual Minds, Possible Worlds,” psychologist Jerome Bruner estimated that facts are about 22 times more memorable when they are delivered via a story.  

When the brain sees or hears a story, it mimics the pattern of the writer’s or speaker's brain. This is known as neural coupling, where in effect,  the storyteller literally shares their sensory experience with another person.  (A much more memorable experience than looking at a spreadsheet in a slide presentation.)

“ You cannot reach a person's head without first touching their heart, and the path to the heart runs through the brain, starting with the amygdala . . . We now know which brain chemicals make us pay attention to a speaker (cortisol) and which make us feel empathy toward another person (oxytocin)." — Carmine Gallo, "Storyteller's Secret.”

  “ You can’t play tennis with a bowling ball.”  

So, remember that research proves you will increase the impact of your data and your message by reaching people through their hearts and minds .

Next, use the power of imagery to help people understand and remember key points . . .

5. Be Creative With Visual Aids

Whether you’re presenting in person or virtually, there are several ways you can hold people’s interest and drive home your message by getting creative with visuals.

Add Imagery to Explain Data

You already know not to clobber your audience with endless data-dense slides, right?  Good.  The more you can convey data/key messages via imagery, the more engaging and memorable your content will be.

Here are a few more examples of combining simple, powerful images with (few) words to deliver a message . . .

Don’t Limit Yourself to Slides

Think about introducing a variety of visual aids to make your presentation more interesting . . .

Whiteboards : A virtual whiteboard or an in-person flip-chart are still great ways to emphasize key points, capture audience feedback or questions, or explain a concept. 

Props: Use props to illustrate a key metaphor or idea from your presentation. A world globe could help illustrate the global marketplace, or an apple could evoke preventive health care (“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”) 

Handouts: A handout allows the audience to take something back to work that can be used as a reference or summary of your content.

Video Clips: These are a great way to break the monotony of still slides, and often introduce a more human factor to the topic. 

6. Use Pattern Disruption to Hold Attention

There’s nothing like breaking a pattern to snap people back to attention.  Think of a presenter who suddenly turns off the screen or introduces music.  Or how about a presenter who’s been talking for five minutes then suddenly . . . stops.  Silence, for like 30 seconds.  You’d look up, right?

Consider places in your presentation where people might need something fresh to keep them engaged.  Some examples . . .

• Stories and analogies
• Video clips or sound recordings
• Style changes (vocal, movement, gestures, pausing)
• Blanking the screen
• Visuals (graphics, illustrations, images)
• Audience participation (small group discussion, brainstorming)

Next, let’s look at one aspect of successful presenting that causes many techies to roll their eyes:  an engaging delivery style.  

Stay with me.  It’s relatively painless . . .

7. Don't Underestimate the Power of Style

A speaker who stands statue-still, stares at their slides or notes, and speaks in a monotone is enough to put anyone to sleep—no matter how interesting the content.  

Remember, even scientists, engineers, and system programmers are human.  And research has shown that we humans are moved by nonverbal communication.  We “read” a lot into its presence or absence, which means it can either obscure or make clear what we’re saying out loud.

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you’re preparing to make a presentation or give a talk, it’s likely you do what most people do: focus solely on your content. While what you have to say is definitely key, how you say it—through nonverbal “language”—is a lot more important than you might think.

Research has shown repeatedly that your posture, gestures, facial expressions, and the tone and cadence of your voice play a huge role not only in getting your message across to an audience, but also, in engaging them, building trust, and increasing your credibility.

Your tone of voice, for example, has a big impact on how your content is received. 

Not being able to hear a speaker, either because of poor audio or a too-soft voice, isn’t just an annoyance. In a USC study that looked at the effects of poor audio in scientific presentations, they found that, “When the video was difficult to hear, viewers thought the talk was worse, the speaker less intelligent and less likable, and the research less important.”

Speaking in a dreary monotone is another way to lose your audience.  Watch how to avoid it and instead, create energy and interest . . .

source: Great Speech Writing, "How to Avoid Speaking in a Monotone," via YouTube

If you’d like more tips on making nonverbal communication work for you, check out our blog, “ Use the Power of Nonverbal Communication to Connect with Your Audience: 7 Tips .”

8. Bring Your Authentic Self to the Table

Speaking of the human factor when it comes to presentations, know that authenticity, openness, and passion go a long way in engaging your audience, building trust—and yes, even establishing your credibility. 

NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson once revealed her childhood passion for numbers in a very simple, relatable way . . .

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed ... anything that could be counted, I did.” 

Now, if you had been in the audience when she led with that, she’d have your attention, right?  

No matter how complex the data or the message, an audience-centric, authentic, human approach is a good place to start.

Join Us in Conversation . . .

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Ralf Wolter

Topics: Effective Technical Presentations

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7 Steps to Delivering a Technical Presentation

June 21, 2021 - Dom Barnard

So you want to share the fruits of your technical labor with a presentation? Perhaps, you’re an engineer, a maker, a coder, or a designer, and you’re looking to discuss a research study, explain a process, or demonstrate a product.

Regardless of the agenda,  speaking to a group  can be intimidating. However, there are steps you can take to deliver an effective technical presentation that gets your point across and appeals to the audience.

Whether you’re presenting in person or via  web conferencing software , the following tips and best practices will help you be prepared, feel more confident, and set up the tools you need to conduct your presentation without any issues.

Know your subject matter

A great presentation isn’t about reading a bunch of slides – your attendees are capable of reading much faster on their own.

If you are going to pack your slides with dozens of details and bullet points, you might as well ditch the slides and write an article instead. It’s difficult for the audience to listen to a presenter and read a lot of information at the same time.

Your job as a presenter is to be the expert that your attendees expect you to be. Keep your slides simple and minimal. In fact, 91% of people say that  well-designed slides  help  boost their confidence  when giving a presentation.

Remember that your slides are not the star of the show, you are. Help your audience understand and make sense of what they are reading in your slides. To do this, make sure you are using a  suitable structure  for your presentation.

You can do these things only when you’re well-versed in what you’re presenting. The slides are supposed to be your outline, or simply a table of contents to remind you what to cover during the presentation.

Know your audience

Knowing your audience  is crucial for any presentation, but it’s even more important for a technical one. If your audience is as experienced and comfortable with the topic of your presentation as you are, then you don’t want to dumb it down to the extent that it bores them.

On the other hand, you don’t want to give a complex presentation to an audience with no clue of what you’re talking about.

There may also be times when your attendees are people with different levels of technical skill, experience, and interests. Then your job is to make sure that the content of your presentation is relevant and doesn’t alienate any of those segments.

Image Source:  Digital Clarity Group

To understand how technical you need to be, consider what your audience might already know and how much is required for them to understand to meet your goal.

If your objective is to acquire funding, for instance, your audience will be more interested in financial benefits than the technical details of your product. The idea is to meet the needs of your audience, not to fuel your passion for engineering.

Configure your IDE

Since you’re delivering a technical presentation, there may be instances where you’ll want to walk your audience through your development environment, code scripts, software demos, or other technical components.

However, you may have adjusted how things look on the screen according to what’s the most convenient for your usual workflow. And what’s good for working in your day-to-day routine may not render well as you go full screen in presentation mode.

If the attendees can’t decipher what’s on the screen, they’ll get confused and will find it hard to focus on your talk. So it’s important that you customize whatever you’re going to show in your presentation such that it’s easily readable and viewable.

There are several steps you can take to make this happen. First of all, don’t use dark backgrounds. Light-colored backgrounds are easy on the eyes. Second, adjust your font styles and sizes to make sure they’re big enough.

And finally, learn to zoom in on specific areas as required, depending on whether you’re using a  Windows PC  or a  Mac system .

Practice Presentation Skills

Improve your public speaking and presentation skills by practicing them in realistic environments, with automated feedback on performance. Learn More

Minimize distractions

Nothing is more annoying than to keep getting disruptive notifications or popups from in the middle of your presentation. These can be from your operating system (Windows or Mac), or apps such as Slack, Email, Twitter, and more.

At times, these notifications can be personal, embarrassing, or contain confidential information that you don’t want your audience to see.

Therefore, it’s best to make sure in advance that there are no unpleasant surprises. Before you get up to give your presentation, turning off your notifications can go a long way.

This will also reduce the number of processes running on your machine and free up available resources. As a result, the resource-intensive programs that are part of your presentation will run a lot smoother. Here’s how to turn off  notifications for Windows ,  Google Chrome , and  Mac .

Get the right equipment

If you want to be a master presenter, you should have the proper tools for the job. The basics include a desktop or laptop machine with good configuration, a big display screen, presentation software (usually MS Powerpoint or Keynote), and a clicker/pointer device.

A clicking device, like the  Logitech Wireless Presenter , can help you switch slides from wherever you are in the room, point to a specific part of a slide, and add an overall professional touch to your presentation.

In addition, you should have any cables (HDMI, VGA, USD, etc) and adapters required to connect the devices you are going to use for the presentation.

Conrad Delock USB 3.0 Network adapter

If you have no idea about what will be available at your presentation venue, then carry one piece of each of the commonly used cables and adapters. You’ll thank us later.

Rehearse in advance

Practice your slides and your demo multiple times before the presentation, even if you have presented the exact same thing in the past. Do not make any assumptions about your actual presentation environment based on your practice environment.

Technologies and situations change, and you may find things that catch you off guard. Run through everything at least once the night before just to be sure.

Practice your presentations with  interactive exercises .

Even better if you can record yourself during these rehearsal presentations and watch the recordings later to find areas of improvement.

Also, if you’re relying on downloading or doing something in front of the audience that may require a high-speed internet connection, don’t assume you’ll have access to such a network during your presentation. Download and install whatever you need ahead of time.

Finally, enjoy the experience

You’re giving a technical presentation, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring, or that you have to be serious all the time as you talk.

It’s okay to have fun, crack some jokes,  tell a story ,  ask a rhetorical question  or invite participation from the audience when presenting. In fact, a study showed that presentations that don’t let the audience participate see a  drop of 14%  in engagement.

Don’t worry too much about things going wrong. See every presentation as a dialogue with your attendees and an opportunity to learn and be a better presenter. If you are enjoying yourself, so will your audience.

Craft Effective Technical Presentations: 5 Success Strategies

Dominik Sumer

August 30, 2023 · 8 min read

Technical presentations can be tricky to execute. You know your subject inside out, but is that enough?

How do you ensure your audience stays engaged throughout the presentation, and how do you answer their questions effectively?

This blog post provides modern strategies for crafting effective technical presentations, covering all aspects, from understanding your audience to handling questions and feedback.

You will also learn about the practical parts of technical presentations, including proper tools and examples.

These tips will help you deliver a successful presentation that makes a lasting impact on your audience.

Anyone can use this guide as a checklist , but the following can get huge benefits:

• Software Engineers or Developers
• Tech YouTubers
• Candidates who are presenting in tech interviews
• Social Media Influences like tech on LinkedIn
• Students, Tech Teachers, and much more.

Identify your Audience:

In our previous guide about technical writing , we shared 19 expert tips you should know.

Let me quickly highlight the five most important tips:

• Understand Audience
• Define Purpose
• Always do your research
• Organize thoughts
• Avoid Jargon and Acronyms

Understanding your audience is not a first step but why?

Because first, you need to identify WHO is your target audience.

Question it by yourself, and write down the three closest audiences like:

• JavaScript Developers: Those who want to learn about JavaScript technologies. You can help them learn the tech faster by sharing beautiful code snippets .
• SaaS Owners: Those tech founders who want to learn about the ongoing development progress of their software. Give them tips on how to tackle obstacles in software development by using technical presentation slides .
• Tech Talks: Those interested in code screencasts within the video content like YouTube or TED Talks. You can use rich animated content, like videos created with snappify.

So, identify your audience first and use the smart tools to simplify things for you and the audience.

Use Smart Tools:

So, what are smart tools in the digital world?

Smart Tools are intelligent software applications that help users perform complex tasks more efficiently and effectively.

They simplify processes, improve productivity, and help achieve goals quickly and easily online.

You can learn about our curated list of technical writing tools , which comes with Artificial Intelligence.

Before using your tool for technical presentations, make sure to check these features first:

• Can you create a fully animated slide?
• Is there any feature for Video Export?
• The tool must be user-friendly to avoid presentation disruptions.
• Clear and visually appealing infographics are important for tools with graphs, diagrams, or slides.

Now that you know enough about the features, here is another list of modern tools to help you become a good presenter.

• Snappify: It can help you present code beautifully and has all the features I have mentioned above. It also has pre-made templates to help you create and share snippets faster.
• PowerPoint: A user-friendly software for creating dynamic presentations with text, images, charts, and multimedia elements.
• Google Slides: A web based presentation tool that lets users create basic presentations and save them online.

Let's take a closer look at the Slides and Video Export features of snappify and how it can become your new companion for your technical presentations.

It comes with a Present button at the top of the bar, which can help you show your code snippets in the presentation mode.

In slides, there are several options for animations:

Besides showing your presentation, you can download all slides or export videos to share on social media.

You can follow this tutorial on creating code presentations with snappify .

Video Export : TypeWriter Example

Video showcasing the TypeWriter transition

Structure Your Presentation

To craft an effective technical presentation, it is crucial to structure your content in a clear and logical flow .

Begin with an attention-grabbing introduction that captivates your audience and sets the tone for the presentation.

Organize your content into sections or chapters, making it easier for your audience to comprehend and follow along.

• Divide your presentation into key sections or points.
• Each section should have a clear focus and contribute to your main message.
• Use bullet points and concise text to support each point.
• Transition smoothly between sections to maintain a logical flow.
• Include visuals such as images, charts, graphs, animations , and videos to enhance understanding and engagement.
• Share real-life examples or case studies that illustrate your points.
• Use relevant data and statistics to back up your points and add credibility.

Finally, remember to summarize key points and provide a memorable conclusion to leave a lasting impact.

Create your next presentation

snappify will help you to create stunning presentations and videos.

This video was created using snappify 🤩

Choose a good Font and Color for the Slides

Font and color choices in slides play a key role in shaping the impact and effectiveness of your presentation.

These choices go beyond aesthetics; they influence how your content is perceived, understood, and remembered.

Here are quick tips to make effective font and color choices:

• Readability: Use simple, easy-to-read fonts that can be seen from far away. Avoid fancy or complex fonts that can make reading difficult.
• Consistency: For a professional look, limit your presentation to two font styles: headings and body text.
• Contrast: Use contrasting fonts for headings and body text for better readability. Headings should be in bold or larger font, while body text should be in regular font.
• Hierarchy: Establish hierarchy with color by using bold or contrasting hues for headings and more subdued tones for body text.
• Limit Bright Colors: While bright colors can add visual interest, avoid using too many as they can be distracting and make your presentation look unprofessional.

Remember that your font and color choices should support your technical content and help convey your message effectively.

Test your chosen fonts and colors on different screens to ensure they appear as intended.

Consistency in font and color usage contributes to a polished and visually appealing presentation.

Also take a look at our handcrafted templates to get started with your technical presentations.

Engage with Stories

People remember stories better than facts alone.

Include relatable case studies to illustrate your points and make your presentation more relatable.

Storytelling is a powerful technique that can elevate your technical presentation from informative to captivating.

Humans have been using stories to communicate and connect for centuries, and integrating this approach into your presentation can help you create a deeper and more lasting impact on your audience.

Here's how you can effectively use storytelling to engage your audience during your technical presentation:

Quick Story Example:

Meet Maya, a talented developer on a mission to make her technical presentations truly captivating.

One day, she discovered snappify, a tool rumored to bring code snippets to life .

Maya decided to give it a shot.

With snappify, Maya's code snippets transformed into dynamic visuals that got animated smoothly across the screen.

During her presentation, she used it to break down complex algorithms step by step.

The audience was captivated, effortlessly following along as the code was visually displayed.

Impressed by Maya's presentation, fellow developers asked about snappify.

Maya shared how the tool had elevated her delivery, making code accessible to all.

Afterward, snappify was known for its captivating technical demonstrations.

Developers worldwide used it to transform complex code into interesting visuals, captivating audiences and enhancing code comprehension.

Now, turn your boring code into fancy and beautiful snippets before sharing it on social media or inside your technical presentation.

In conclusion, delivering a successful technical presentation requires technical skills, engaging visuals, and audience interaction.

A compelling story and utilizing effective visuals are crucial for delivering a memorable and impactful presentation.

Following the tips in this comprehensive guide, you can always deliver successful technical presentations for interviews, YouTube videos, tech talks, social media posts, and much more.

How can I adjust my technical presentation to different levels of expertise among the audience?

Adjust technical depth and terminology based on audience familiarity. Provide real-world examples for beginners and deeper insights for experts.

What is the difference between presentation and technical presentation?

Presentations can be either general or technical. General presentations inform or persuade, while technical presentations explain complex concepts to an audience with relevant expertise like engineering, coding, or more.

How do I overcome nervousness before a technical presentation?

Practice is key. Familiarity with your content and great rehearsal can help reduce anxiety during the presentation.

What is most important in technical presentation?

Effectively convey complex concepts with clear explanations, visuals, and relevance to the audience's needs and expertise - that's clarity.

What are the four essential components of a technical presentation?

A technical presentation has four parts: intro, content, conclusion, and Q&A. Introduce, present, summarize, and impress.

How do you engage your audience during a technical presentation?

To keep your audience engaged during a technical presentation, use relatable examples, break down complex information, and include interactive elements like polls or Q&A sessions. Personal stories can also make it more interesting.

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Scott Hanselman

11 top tips for a successful technical presentation.

Here's my five-years-later Updated Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation.

1. Have a Reset Strategy (One-Click)

If you're going to give a talk, you'll probably have to give it more than once. If you have demonstrations of any kind, have a "one-click" way to reset them. This might be a batch file or Powershell script that drops a modified database and reattaches a fresh one, or copies template files over ones you modify during your demo.

Personally, I'm sold on Virtual Machines. I have seven VMs on a small, fast portable USB drive that will let me do roughly 12 different presentations at the drop of a hat. You never know when you'll be called upon to give a demo. With a Virtual Machine I can turn on "Undo Disks" after I've prepared the talk, and my reset strategy is to just turn off the VM and select "Delete Changes." A little up-front preparation means one less thing for you to panic about the day of the talk.

2. Know Your Affectations (Ssssssseriously)

I have a bit of a lisp, it seems. I also hold my shoulders a little higher than is natural which causes my neck to tighten up. I also pick a different word, without realizing it, and overuse it in every talk. This is similar to how Microsoft Employees overuse the word "so" (which is actually Northwestern Americans, not MSFTies) too much.

It's important to know YOUR affectations so you can change them. They may be weakening your talk. Don't try to remember them all, though. Just pick two or three and focus on replacing them with something less detracting. Don't overanalyze or beat yourself up, though. I've spoken hundreds of times over the last 15 years and I'm always taking two-steps forward and one step back. The point is to try, not to succeed absolutely.

3. Know When To Move and When To Not Move (Red light!)

One of the most powerful tips I ever received was this: "When you move, they look at you. When you stop, they look at the screen." Use this to your advantage. Don't pace randomly, idley or unconsciously. Don't rock back and forth on your heels. Also, empty your pockets if you tend to fiddle with lose change or your keys.

4. For the Love of All That Is Holy, FONT SIZE, People (See that?)

It just tears me up. It physically makes me ill. To give a presentation and utter the words "um, you probably won't be able to see this" does everyone in the room a disservice.  Do NOT use the moment of the presentation as your time to do the font resizing.

Lucida Console, 14 to 18pt, Bold.  Consider this my gift to you.  This is the most readable, mono-spaced font out there.  Courier of any flavor or Arial (or any other proportionally spaced font) is NOT appropriate for code demonstrations, period, full stop.  Prepare your machine AHEAD OF TIME.  Nothing disrespects an audience like making them wait while you ask "Can you see this 8 point font? No? Oh, let me change it while you wait."  Setup every program you could possibly use, including all Command Prompt shortcuts, before you begin your presentation.  That includes VS.NET, Notepad, XMLSpy, and any others, including any small utilities.

I've found that the most readable setup for Command Prompts is a Black Background and with the Foreground Text set to Kermit Green (ala "Green Screen."  Yes, I was suspicious and disbelieving also, but believe it or not, it really works.)  I set Command Prompts to Lucida Console, 14 to 18pt, Bold as well, with much success.

Also, set the font size to LARGEST in Internet Explorer and remember that there are accessibility features in IE that allow you to include your own Large Font CSS file for those web pages that force a small font via CSS.

Learn how to use ZoomIt and practice before-hand. It can be an incredibly powerful tool for calling out sections of the screen and making it so even the folks way in the back can see what's going on.

For simplicities' sake, I like to keep a separate user around call "BigFonty" (choose your own name).  He's an Administrator on the local machine and he exists ONLY for the purposes of demonstrations.  All the fonts are large for all programs, large icons, great colors, etc.  It's the easiest way to set all these settings once and always have them easily available.

5. Speak their Language (Know the Audience)

When I was in Malaysia for TechEd, I spent 3 full days exclusively with locals before the talk, I learned snippets of each of the languages, tried to understand their jokes and get an idea about what was important to people in Malaysia.  American analogies, much humor, and certain "U.S. specific" English colloquialisms just didn't make any sense to them.  When it came time to give the presentations, I better understood the Malaysian sense of timing, of tone and timbre, and I began each of my presentations by speaking in Bahasa Malaysia.  I changed aspects of my slides to remove inappropriate content and add specific details that would be important to them.

I've used this same technique in a half-dozen countries with success. While this is an extreme example, the parallels with any audience are clear.  If you're speaking to a room full of IT guys who work in the Automotive field, or the Banking industry, the fact that we are all programmers only gives you a small degree of shared experience.  Remember no matter the technical topic, try to get into the mind of the audience and ask yourself, why are they here and what can I tell them that will not be a waste of their time.  What would YOU want to hear (and HOW would you like to hear it) if you were sitting there?

6. Be Utterly Prepared (No excuses)

Short of an unexpected BSOD (and even then, be ready) you should be prepared for ANYTHING.  You should know EVERY inch of your demos and EXACTLY what can go wrong.  Nothing kills your credibility more than an error that you DON'T understand.  Errors and screw-ups happen ALL the time in Presentations.  They can even INCREASE your credibility if you recover gracefully and EXPLAIN what happened.  "Ah, this is a common mistake that I've made, and here's what you should watch for."  Be prepared with phrases that will turn the unfortunate incident around and provide them useful information.

7. CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT (Have some)

Every move, phrase, mistake, anecdote and slide should actually contain content.  It should be meaningful.  Your mistakes should teach them, your demos should teach them; even your shortcut keys, utilities and menu layout should teach them.  A presentation isn't an opportunity to read your slides.  I'll say that again. Don't READ your slides. I can read faster than you can talk.

Remember that most people can read silently to themselves 5 to 10 times faster that you can read to them out loud.  Your job as a presenter is to read in between the lines, and provide them structure.  Your slides should be treated as your outline – they are structure, scaffolding, nothing more.  If you jam your slides full of details and dozens of bullets, you might as well take your content and write an article.  It's difficult to listen to someone talk and read their slides at the same time – remember that when you design your content. YOU are the content, and your slides are your Table of Contents.

8. System Setup (Be unique, but don't be nuts)

When you a presenting, remember that you are looked upon as an authority.  Basically, you are innocent until proven guilty.  It's great to have a personality and to be unique, but don't let your personal choice of editors or crazy color scheme obscure the good information you're presenting.  I appreciate that you may like to use VI or emacs to view text files, but let's just say that sometimes Notepad has a calming effect on the audience. 

I give Microsoft talks, usually, so I tend towards Visual Studio, but 99% of my talks use a limited number of tools. Basically Visual Studio, Notepad, the Command Prompt and a Browser.

Remember that while you may prefer things a certain way while your face is a foot away from the screen, it's very likely the wrong setup when 500 people are more than 100 feet away.

I really like to get Toolbars and things out of the way. I use F11 (Fullscreen) in the Browser a lot, as well as Visual Studio's Shift-Alt-Enter shortcut to FullScreen. Turn off unneeded flair and toolbars. Also, turn on line-numbering so you can refer to lines if you're presenting code.

9. Speaking (Um…)

"Volume and Diction," my High School Drama teacher said to me.  Speak clearly, authoritatively, project your voice to the back of the room.  The best speakers don't even need microphones.  If you have a speaking affectation (I had a lisp growing up) or you tend to say, um, etc, or find yourself overusing a specific phrase ("a priori", "fantastic", "powerful", etc) take it upon yourself to NOTICE this mannerism and avoid it.

Practice multi-tasking.  It seems silly to say, but although we can all multitask to a certain degree, when we hit a real snag in a presentation, many of us tend to freeze.  Silence is deadly.  Remember, since all eyes are on you, complete silence and apparent introspection says "I don't know know what I'm doing."  When you need to get to a particular file, don't make the audience wait for you while you putter through explorer.  Have shortcuts ready (and explain when you use them).  Move fast and efficiently, but annotate your actions.  You should continue to "color-commentate" your actions like a sports announcer.  Don't allow "dead-air," unless it's silence for effect.

10. Advancing Slides (No lasers!)

I always used to hate slide-advancers, you know, those little remotes with forward and backward buttons. Then I tried one and I'm hooked. I use the Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000 and totally recommend it. It isn't just a great Bluetooth mouse, but flip it over and it's a great Powerpoint slide advancer. 

Take a look at Al Gore's excellent presentation in "An Inconvenient Truth." It's seamless and flows. Now imagine him running over to his laptop to hit the spacebar each time he wanted to advance a slide. My presentations have gotten better as I've started incorporating this technique.

11. Care (deeply)

I really avoid presenting on topics that I don't care about. I avoid it like the Plague and I encourage you to do so as well. There's nothing more important that truly caring about your topic. If you care, it'll show. If you eschew all the other tips, at the very least care.

What are YOUR tips, Dear Reader? What tips, mantras or preparations have you used to make your presentations that much better?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

Comments are closed.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.

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How to Give a Killer Presentation

• Chris Anderson

For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

• Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
• Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
• Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
• Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
• Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

Lessons from TED

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

• CA Chris Anderson is the curator of TED.

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10 Tips For Giving Effective Virtual Presentations

What to know before you go live.

September 26, 2016

Presenting online? Try these suggestions to improve your results. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

As audiences go global and you need to reach more people through technology (including webinars, conference calls and teleconference), you must consider the challenges to connecting with a virtual audience. Here I pinpoint 10 valuable best practices to ensure you communicate successfully.

1. Be Brief

Audiences begin to lose attention after roughly 10 minutes of hearing from the same presenter. If you have more than 10 minutes of content, use interactive activities to keep your audience engaged (for example, take a poll, give quizzes, or ask audience members for their opinions via chat).

2. Be Simple

Keep slides simple — avoid too many words, graphics and animation features. Less is definitely more!

Light yourself well | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

3. Be a TV Personality

Look straight into your camera, not the screen. Wear clothing that is neutral in color (no plaids or stripes). Light yourself well and from above. Be mindful of what appears behind you in the background. Invest in a good microphone.

4. Be Standing

Even though your audience cannot see you, stand when you present. This allows you to stay focused and use good presentation delivery skills such as belly breathing, vocal variety, and pausing.

5. Be Prepared

Practice delivering your presentation with your technology in advance of your talk. Make sure all of the features of the technology work. Record your practice using the recording feature of your tool. Watch and listen to learn what works and what you can improve.

6. Be Assisted

Have someone available to deal with technical issues and to field email/text questions. Also, if you have multiple remote audience members in one location, be sure to pick one of them to be your “eyes and ears.” Ask them to queue up questions and facilitate discussion on your behalf.

7. Be Specific

Ask pointed questions to avoid too many people answering at once. For example, rather than ask, “Are there any questions?” try “Who has a question about the solution I provided?” Set a ground rule that people state their names prior to speaking.

Imagine your audience | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

8. Be Synchronized

Transitions are critical. You must connect what you just said to what is coming next when you move from point to point. Transitions between topics and slides are good opportunities to get people reengaged to your talk.

9. Be Connected

Imagine your audience even though you can’t see them. You can place pictures of audience members behind your camera so you can look at people as you present.

10. Be Early

Encourage your audience to access your call or webinar in advance of the start time so you can iron out any technical issues in advance and get them familiar with the technology.

Matt Abrahams is a Stanford GSB organizational behavior lecturer, author, and communications coach.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

Power, culture, persuasion, and the self: communication insights from stanford gsb faculty, lose yourself: the secret to finding flow and being fully present, speak your truth: why authenticity leads to better communication, editor’s picks.

April 04, 2016 A Big Data Approach to Public Speaking Key takeaways from analyzing 100,000 presentations.

November 19, 2014 Matt Abrahams: The Power of the Paraphrase An expert on public speaking shows how paraphrasing can help you navigate tricky communication situations.

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Can't find what you're looking for?

How to Deliver a Memorable Technical Presentation

Master the art of technical presentations, whether it's in your project meeting or an industry conference. Unleash your potential with these invaluable tips to ensure your presentation success.

What's Inside?

Tips to Ace Your Technical Presentation

Let’s say your company launched a SaaS application a few days ago. As head of the team, the onus is on you to spearhead the sales process. And the first step started with drafting a technical presentation explaining the product. Yes, you are a pro who knows all about the technical aspect, and you might be confident too.

But there are several questions you should ponder over

• Who will you be presenting to?
• How well is everyone aware of SaaS products?
• What should be your approach to drive sales and convince people of the product?

The answers to these questions will change the course of your presentation each time because the content will have to be modified accordingly. 

Technical presentations are lengthy, specific, and involve complex information/ideas (often dreary and detailed), making them difficult to deliver over non-technical ones. And that’s why they require a different approach, which we have covered in this article. 

How to Deliver a Winning Technical Presentation?

Here are some pro tips for creating impeccable slides and leaving your mark.

1. What is the core message and purpose of your presentation?

Structure your presentation around the key goal, which could be anything from sharing information and eliciting feedback to getting funding or a job offer, etc. 

Organizing your presentation around a core theme will help your audience identify and follow the central points that support your content.

For instance, if your goal is to present a scientific result, include more information about what the result means and how it can be used rather than focusing on your methodology.

Or if your goal is to elicit response/feedback on some experiment, focus more on the methods, i.e., advantages, disadvantages of different models, your assumptions, how your model is more useful, etc.

Tell your audience what you want them to do. Why should they do it, and how?

2. Who is your audience?

Knowing your people (audience analysis) will help you stick to the right chord. 

It will also help you know how much technical jargon you can rely on and whether images and analogies would suit the audience better.

Your audience might be diverse (investors, clients, customers, etc.) with different interests, knowledge bases, goals, and concerns. And, mind you, they are as central to your presentation as you are. So, know as much as you can about them and structure your presentation accordingly. Highlight how your message overlaps with what these people care about, and remember to include the diverse backgrounds and experiences in the introductory part. And you will have everyone’s attention right from the start. 

3. Define a clear outline

You can divide the content into three sections for clear structure and easy comprehension. The first section gives an outline/summary of the main topic and illustrates why it was important enough to become the subject.

The second part can elaborate on the main subject with its minute technical details and everything that the audience needs to know.

The third section can highlight the resolution, solution, CTA, and course of action to the problem presented.

An effective presentation is not one where you detail every possible information about the topic or include as many issues as possible. It is when you can get people to build understanding and support for your central message. 

4. Take help of everything that can explain the concept 

For any presentation, words/text are not enough. And it becomes all the more imperative in a technical presentation slide.

According to a survey, people prefer 1/4th of the slide composed of text at most.

Since you will have to use jargon here and there, you can’t rely just on your speech. Use pre-designed PowerPoint templates comprising graphs, diagrams, animations, videos, infographics, etc., to help people understand technical concepts and information clearly. You can also use other experiential methods like prototypes, handmade models, or real-time experiments. 

For a better understanding, go through this video showcasing paper prototyping of a mobile application :

5. Remember to be consistent

When your presentation slides differ in size, display, structure, etc., it can distract or confuse people and make them lose attention. Creating a consistent theme is important to help people focus and keep your presentation aligned.

Take the help of these tips to incorporate consistency in your work-

• Go for colors that complement each other, following the preferred color scheme.
• Choose fonts that are easy to read in a presentation or digital content like Serif or Sans-serif.
• Go for the same layout for a similar kind of content. Use one kind of layout for cover slides, one kind for section introduction, and one for content slides. It will help your audience categorize the content and know where to look for what information. 

And, of course, don’t forget how immensely it will help you as a presenter.

And yes, keep your presentation short – not more than 10 slides. You can go for the 10/20/30 rule, i.e., 10 slides, 20 minutes, and 30 font size.

6. Leave space for questions and queries

Since your presentation is technical and the audience might be diverse, be prepared to answer questions. The major cause of anxiety before a presentation is a lack of preparation. Being thorough with the subject matter will also aid you in answering any questions being asked, apart from avoiding presentation jitters.

Allocate a well-designated time to interact with the audience. You can also do that during the course of the presentation if it doesn’t interfere with your speech. It will keep people engaged and alert as they get small windows to pose queries throughout. 

7. Practice sessions

You might be confident about your content, but when you speak/deliver, your words and ideas might come out in a different way and not as you intend. 

It could so happen that you are not too good with voice modulation or at specifying relevant points. That’s why it is imperative that you have multiple practice talks before delivering the presentation.

Keep your practice audience small and diverse so that you get relevant opinions and everyone has something to share. 

You can share hard copies and remember to number your slides as well. It will help people annotate them and return them at the end. You can videotape yourself as well to see how you come across and improve accordingly.

8. A few quick tips  

Keep in mind where you want to take your audience through the presentation. What perspective shift do you seek? 

Do you want them to invest in the product? Or is it just an internal meeting highlighting the attributes of the product?

WIIFY is an acronym for What’s in It for You. Make sure you present it to your audience. For example, in the case of the SAAS application, your WIIFY to your potential investors would be - Investing in our product will get you an excellent ROI. 

Let them know the USP of your proposition and the concept you are presenting. For example, you could highlight your USP as the one place for everything from website development to QA testing.

Use a short statement to capture everyone’s attention. It may be anecdotes, statistics, analogies, aphorisms, a question, etc. 

For example, you could start with a statement like - Keep track of how many times I shall say ‘if’ when I explain the success of this product.

Or an analogy like - SAAS is like traveling by train where you have assigned routes and co-ride with other passengers. 

Do’s and Dont's  

• The presentation should start with the motivation, i.e., why this particular thing needs to be presented.
• Every presentation slide should contain only relevant information and not more than that.
• Titles should be enough on their own (self-explanatory); the rest of the text should be there to support the visuals, comprising relevant graphs, charts, histograms, etc. 
• And most importantly, the audience properly understands the message the presenter desires to convey. Also, be mindful of overusing jargon. 

In a Nutshell

Be thorough about the topic, learn about your audience, take the help of props and visual aids, and structure your presentation well. Don’t forget to interact with your audience as and when you get the chance. Also, make sure your audience knows what to do with the information you shared, i.e., give them a proper course of action.

Keeping these points in mind will help you create a coherent technical presentation that can serve its purpose. 

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A quick guide to building effective technical presentations.

As an expert in a technical field, you will occasionally be called upon to give a presentation on your work to people who are not very familiar with your field, such as your company's sales and marketing team. You need to be aware of the proper communication techniques to be able to place highly technical facts before your listeners in a manner they can understand.

Here is a quick guide to building an effective technical presentation:

1. know your audience.

There are a few questions you will need to ask yourself before your technical presentation to determine the type of presentation to prepare. How familiar is the audience with the subject? Are they experts or novices in the field? What style of presentation are they used to sitting through? Will they understand technical terms or do you need to use simpler language? Do they respond better to a lecture or a more interactive learning session?

Once the answers to these questions have been determined, you can set about creating a technical presentation that caters specifically to the tastes and preferences of your audience.  

2. Limit Your Subject

Determine beforehand how technical your presentation needs to be in order to get the point across. Only go as deeply into the subject as required, and avoid throwing in terms and references which have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

3. Make an Outline

Now it's time to break down the presentation into smaller chunks that focus on one point at a time. With technical presentations, it is useful to have three sections to a presentation. The first section identifies the main subject and provides a summary of its broad definition and why it has become the subject of the presentation.

The second section goes more deeply into the main subject and provides the minute technical details which the audience needs to understand about the topic. The final section offers a solution or resolution to the problem presented through the presentation. You can also add in a course of action that is being taken or should be taken in the near future at the end of the technical presentation.

4. Use Visual Aids

When dealing with technical jargon, don't just depend on your speech to get the point across to the listeners. Ensure that they truly grasp the meaning of your words with the help of visual aids. Creating a PowerPoint presentation is the most useful tool in this regard since it will allow you to add graphs, statistics, and animation to your technical presentation. But you can also make use of handmade models, working prototypes and other visual aids in your presentation.   

5. Approach the Subject from Different Angles

Don't focus only on your work in relation to the subject. Try to present a comprehensive view of the topic which also includes its sales, marketing, and business side. Remember that the audience likely has a different relationship to the subject matter than you do, so try to include content relating to the subject from their point of view as well.  

6. Be Prepared for Questions

Finishing your lecture won't be the end of your technical presentation. There is almost always a question and answer session afterward during which the audience will ask you for greater details about the information presented. Do your homework beforehand to prepare for any questions that might be asked.

Keeping these points in mind will help ensure that your knowledge is presented in an attractive and easily understandable manner which will create a positive impression and provide a useful, comprehensive and enlightening technical presentation to the audience. 

At Bliley, we often collaborate on projects and presentations. Learn about our favoriate collaboration tools here . What applications do you use to collaborate or prepare presentations? We'd love to hear from you!

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11 Tips for Giving Technical Presentations

The following are eleven tips I’ve learned over the years of giving technical presentations at work, meetups, or at conferences that I wanted to share with the community so that it might help someone else that is new to presenting or wants to refine their presentation process. So let’s get started.

1. Get out of the dark

If you’re using Dark Mode for your tools, please switch to the light theme as it provides a better viewing experience when used with a projector.

2. Enable Presenter Mode

This extension works great for Visual Studio 2017 but doesn’t currently work in Visual Studio 2019 unless you also have Visual Studio 2017 installed. Surprisingly this hasn’t been fixed yet, so for Visual Studio 2019, I found Presenter a good replacement. Both of these tools will increase the font size for Visual Studio panes and the text editor. This saves you from changing it on every code file. When you’re done just exit presenter mode.

3. Bigger is better

Increase your font size. You might be able to see your content but think about the people at the back of the room. Do them a favour and use a tool called ZoomIt which is part of SysInternals.

4. Remove the distractions

Hide your desktop icons, close down any apps unrelated to your presentation/demo, and finally turn on Focus Assist. If you’re on Windows 10 then please turn on Focus Assist. People don’t want to get distracted by your notifications.

5. Have a backup plan

In case there is no internet, have a plan for how you can do your demo. People have gone so far as recording their desktop during a rehearsal and then playing that video back and talking through it like no one is the wiser. You should also keep a copy of your presentation file locally.

6. Use standard tools

You should always go with the standard applications for your talk. If there is a glitch, or you need to borrow a machine then you don’t need to worry about special downloads and installation. If you’re going to try and use a different tool, then do your audience a favour and quickly mention what tool you’re using, why and where to get it. For one of my talks, I was using the REST Client extension for Visual Studio Code and the audience found that interesting that I was using this instead of Postman. So I quickly told them why and it probably encouraged a few dozen downloads that day.

7. No updates and no notifications!

It’s funny how often this bites people in the behind but the golden rule is to never apply Windows or application updates the day of your talk. The “demo gods” will tempt you and offer an update…please resist. I lost count how many times Visual Studio got an update on the day of my talk, same with Azure Functions SDK, even Windows 10 wanted to install an update. The last thing you need is to go into an update cycle and not know how long it will take or how it will affect your presentation and demo. Be safe and wait until after your talk. You should also turn on Focus Assist , which is a setting in the Windows 10 Action Center to hide any unwanted notifications.

8. The pen is mightier than the sword

Invest in a presentation remote. This keeps you away from your laptop and allows you to stay focused on your talk and the audience. If you have a Microsoft Surface Pen then your in luck as you can use it as a presentation remote. Just click the eraser to go forward or click and hold to go back. Although not as fancy, it does the job and is what I use for every presentation I do.

9. Practice and know your content

There is no rule here for how much prep work you should do for your talk, but a guideline that was given to me by a fellow MVP is to factor in 20 hours of work for a 40-60min talk. This includes the research, working on the presentation (PowerPoint and demos) and then rehearsing. If it’s a new topic I’m not familiar with then 20 hours is about correct, otherwise for something I’m well versed in I can usually put something together in a relatively short amount of time. When it comes to practicing make sure to actually practice. Speak out loud to an imaginary audience and go through your demos. You will find that speaking out loud will give you a more accurate feel for how the talk will go and you will find what works and what doesn’t.

10. Rogue One

Rogue One is a Star Wars movie (one of my favourite) and worked in the movie. However going rogue and off-script from what you rehearsed for can have consequences you might not have been prepared for. Some presenters are good at doing this and others fall flat on their face. If you do decide to go rogue, know when to bring it back in and get back on track, otherwise your audience might lose interest and it makes you look un-professional.

11. Have fun

Seems obvious but seriously make sure you’re having fun doing your talk. Your attitude projects out to the audience and they will feel your excitement and be more engaged. Also if you’re having fun, then that easily provides cover for any blunders that might happen along the way and your audience is more forgiving and understanding.

I hope you enjoyed my presentation tips and they help make you a better presenter.

11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation

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How to give a technical presentation (how to give a scientific talk)

By michael ernst, january, 2005 last updated: march 21, 2022, introduction, the content, answering questions, in-class presentations, practice talks, other resources.

(Also see my advice on giving a job talk and on making a technical poster .)

A successful career depends on the ability to give effective technical presentations, whether at a conference, to your research group, or as an invited speaker. This page notes some problems that I very frequently see in talks.

Get feedback by giving multiple practice talks ! One of the most effective ways to improve your work is to see the reactions of others and get their ideas and advice.

Think about the presentations you attend (or have attended in the past), especially if they are similar in some way to yours. What was boring about the other presentations? What was interesting about them? What did you take away from the presentation? What could you have told someone about the topic, 30 minutes after the end of the presentation?

Before you start preparing a talk, you need to know your goal and know your audience. You will have to customize your presentation to its purpose. Even if you have previously created a talk for another venue, you often need to make a new one, particularly if the audience differs or you have done more work in the meanwhile.

The goal of a talk you give to your research group is to get feedback to help you improve your research and your understanding of it, so you should plan for a very interactive style, with lots of questions throughout. In a conference talk , questions during the talk are unlikely, and you have much less time; your chief goal is to get people to read the paper or ask questions afterward. In a seminar or invited talk , you want to encourage questions, you have more time, and you should plan to give more of the big picture.

The goal of a talk is similar to the goal of a technical paper : to change the audience's behavior. Therefore, you should also read and follow my advice about writing a technical paper . Decide what the change is, and focus your talk around that. Typically, you have done some research, and to effect the change you need to convince the audience of 3 things: the problem is worthwhile (it is a real problem, and a solution would be useful), the problem is hard (not already solved, and there are not other ways to achieve equally good results), and that you have solved it. If any of these three pieces is missing, your talk is much less likely to be a success. So be sure to provide motivation for your work, provide background about the problem, and supply sufficient technical details and experimental results.

When you give a talk, ask yourself, “What are the key points that my audience should take away from the talk?” Then, elide everything that does not support those points. If you try to say too much (a tempting mistake), then your main points won't strike home and you will have wasted everyone's time. In particular, do not try to include all the details from a technical paper that describes your work; different levels of detail and a different presentation style are appropriate for each. Never paste PDF of a table from a paper to slides. Reformat the table to be more readable and to remove information that is not essential. The talk audience does not have as much time to comprehend the details as a paper reader does.

Before you create slides, a good way to determine what your talk should say is to explain your ideas verbally to someone who does not already understand them. (You may use a blank whiteboard, but that often is not necessary.) You may need to do this a few times before you find the most effective way to present your material. Notice what points you made and in what order, and organize the talk around that. Slides should not be an obstacle that constrains your talk, but they should support the talk you want to give.

Do not try to fit too much material in a talk. About one slide per minute is a good pace (if lots of your slides are animations that take only moments to present, you may have more slides). Remember what your key points are, and focus on those. The key point should be written on the slide, for example as its title or as a callout. Don't present more information than your audience can grasp; for example, often intuitions and an explanation of the approach are more valuable than the gory details of a proof. If you try to fit the entire technical content of a paper into a talk, you will rush and the audience may come away understanding nothing. It's better to think of the talk as an advertisement for the paper that gives the key ideas, intuitions, and results, and that makes the audience eager to read your paper or to talk with you to learn more. That does not mean holding back important details — merely omitting less important ones. You may also find yourself omitting entire portions of the research that do not directly contribute to the main point you are trying to make in your talk.

Just as there should be no extra slides, there should be no missing slides. As a rule, you shouldn't speak for more than a minute or so without having new information appear. If you have an important point to make, then have a slide to support it. (Very few people can mesmerize an audience on a technical topic, and leave the audience with a deep understanding of the key points, without any visual props. Unfortunately, you are probably not one of them.) As a particularly egregious example, do not discuss a user interface without presenting a picture of it — perhaps multiple ones. As another example, you should not dwell on the title slide for very long, but should present a graphic relevant to the problem you are solving, to make the motivation for your work concrete.

Slide titles. Use descriptive slide titles. Do not use the same title on multiple slides (except perhaps when the slides constitute an animation or build). Choose a descriptive title that helps the audience to appreciate what the specific contribution of this slide is. If you can't figure that out, then you do not yet understand your own material.

Introduction. Start your talk with motivation and examples — and have lots of motivation and examples throughout. For the very beginning of your talk, you need to convince the audience that this talk is worth paying attention to: it is solving an important and comprehensible problem. Your first slide after the title slide should be motivation, such as an example of the problem you are solving.

Outline slides. Never start your talk with an outline slide. (That's boring, and it's too early for the audience to understand the talk structure yet.) Outline slides can be useful, especially in a talk that runs longer than 30 minutes, because they help the audience to regain its bearings and to keep in mind your argument structure. Present an outline slide (with the current section indicated via color, font, and/or an arrow) at the beginning of each major section of the talk, except for the introductory, motivational section.

Conclusion. The last slide should be a contributions or conclusions slide, reminding the audience of the take-home message of the talk. Do not end the talk with future work, or with a slide that says “questions” or “thank you” or “the end” or merely gives your email address. And, leave your contributions slide up after you finish the talk (while you are answering questions). One way to think about this rule is: What do you want to be the last thing that the audience sees (or that it sees while you field questions)?

Builds/animations. When a subsequent slide adds material to a previous one (or in some other way just slightly changes the previous slide), all common elements must remain in exactly the same position, pixel-for-pixel. A good way to check this is to quickly transition back and forth between the two slides several times. If you see any jitter, then correct the slide layout to remove it. You may need to leave extra space on an early slide to accommodate text or figures to be inserted later; even though that space may look a little unnatural, it is better than the alternative. If there is any jitter, the audience will know that something is different, but will be uneasy about exactly what has changed (the human eye is good at detecting the change but only good at localizing changes when those changes are small and the changes are smooth). You want the audience to have confidence that most parts of the slide have not changed, and the only effective way to do that is not to change those parts whatsoever. You should also consider emphasizing (say, with color or highlighting) what has been added on each slide.

Keep slides uncluttered. Don't put too much text (or other material) on a slide. When a new slide goes up, the audience will turn its attention to comprehending that slide. If the audience has to read a lot of text, they will tune you out, probably missing something important. This is one reason the diagrams must be simple and clear, and the text must be telegraphic. As a rule of thumb, 3 lines of text for a bullet point is always too much, and 2 full lines is usually too much. Shorten the text, or break it into pieces (say, subbullet points) so that the audience can skim it without having to ignore you for too long.

Do not read your slides word-for-word. Reading your slides verbatim is very boring and will cause the audience to tune out. You are also guaranteed to go too fast for some audience members and too slow for others, compared to their natural reading speed, thus irritating many people. If you find yourself reading your slides, then there is probably too much text on your slides. The slides should be an outline, not a transcript. That is, your slides should give just the main points, and you can supply more detail verbally. It's fine to use the slides as a crutch to help you remember all the main points and the order in which you want to present them. However, if you need prompting to remember the extra details, then you do not have sufficient command of your material and you need to practice more before giving your talk.

Just as you should not read text verbatim, you should not read diagrams verbatim. When discussing the architecture of a system, don't just read the names of the components or give low-level details about the interfaces between them. Rather, explain whatever is important, interesting, or novel about your decomposition; or discuss how the parts work together to achieve some goal that clients of the system care about; or use other techniques to give high-level understanding of the system rather than merely presenting a mass of low-level details.

(It's possible to overdo the practice of limiting what information appears on each slide, and you do want to have enough material to support you if there are questions or to show that the simplified model you presented verbally is an accurate generalization. But the mistake of including too much information is far more common.)

Text. Keep fonts large and easy to read from the back of the room. If something isn't important enough for your audience to be able to read, then it probably does not belong on your slides.

Use a sans-serif font for your slides. (Serifed fonts are best for reading on paper, but sans-serif fonts are easier to read on a screen.) PowerPoint's “Courier New” font is very light (its strokes are very thin). If you use it, always make it bold, then use color or underlining for emphasis where necessary.

Figures. Make effective use of figures. Avoid a presentation that is just text. Such a presentation misses important opportunities to convey information. It is also is wearying to the audience.

Images and visualizations are extremely helpful to your audience. Include diagrams to show how your system works or is put together. Never include generic images, such as clip art, that don't relate directly to your talk. For example, if you have a slide about security, don't use the image of a padlock. As another example, when describing the problem your work solves, don't use an image of a person sitting at a computer looking frustrated. Just as good pictures and text are better than text alone, text alone is better than text plus bad pictures.

When you include a diagram on a slide, ensure that its background is the same color as that of the slide. For example, if your slides have a black background, then do not paste in a diagram with a white background, which is visually distracting, hard to read, and unattractive. You should invert the diagram so it matches the slide (which may require redrawing the diagram), or invert the slide background (e.g., use a white slide background) to match the diagrams. A light-colored background with dark text is usually the best choice (preferably white background with black text; see the next paragraph about eye candy).

Do not use eye candy such as transition effects, design elements that appear on every slide, or multi-color backgrounds. At best, you will distract the audience from the technical material that you are presenting. At worst, you will alienate the audience by giving them the impression that you are more interested in graphical glitz than in content. Your slides can be attractive and compelling without being fancy. Make sure that each element on the slides contributes to your message; if it does not, then remove it.

Emphasis. Slides that are monocolor black on a white background can be boring. This tires the audience, and it may prevent them from appreciating the big picture. Use color, callouts (e.g., arrows or speech bubbles), or other mechanisms to draw attention to the most important parts of your slides or graphs. For example, suppose you have a list of 3-5 bullet points, each one line of text long. You might want to emphasize the 1-3 most important words in each bullet point.

Color. About 5% of American males are color-blind, so augment color with other emphasis where possible. For example, on an outline slide, in addition to color I use boldface and also a right arrow (⇒) in the left margin to indicate the current section of the talk.

The presentation

Make eye contact with the audience. This draws them in. It also helps you determine when they are confused or have lost interest, and whether your pacing is too fast or too slow.

Stand and face the audience.

• Don't give a talk while seated. Standing gives you more energy, the talk is more dynamic, and it is easier to maintain eye contact.
• Do not face the screen, which puts your back to the audience. This is offputting, prevents you from getting feedback from the audience's body language, and can cause difficulty in hearing/understanding you. Do not look down at your computer, either, which shares many of the same problems.
• Don't stand in front of the screen. This prevents the audience from viewing your slides.
• Being animated is good, but do not pace. Pacing is very distracting, and it gives the impression that you are unprofessional or nervous.

When giving a presentation, never point at your laptop screen, which the audience cannot see. Amazingly, I have seen many people do this! Using a laser pointer is fine, but the laser pointer tends to shake, especially if you are nervous, and can be distracting. I prefer to use my hand, because the talk is more dynamic if I stride to the screen and use my whole arm; the pointing is also harder for the audience to miss. You must touch the screen physically, or come within an inch of it. If you do not touch the screen, most people will just look at the shadow of your finger, which will not be the part of the slide that you are trying to indicate.

If you find yourself suffering a nervous tic, such as saying “um” in the middle of every sentence, then practice more, including in front of audiences whom you do not know well.

If you get flustered, don't panic. One approach is to stop and regroup; taking a drink of water is a good way to cover this, so you should have water on hand even if you don't suffer from dry throat. Another approach is to just skip over that material; the audience is unlikely to know that you skipped something.

Think about your goal in giving the talk. When presenting to your own research group, be sure to leave lots of time for discussion and feedback at the end, and to present the material in a way that invites interaction after and perhaps during the talk. (When presenting to your own group, you can perhaps give a bit less introductory material, though it's hard to go wrong with intro material. It should go quickly for that audience; you ensure that everyone is using terms the same way; and it's always good to practice presenting the motivation, context, background, and big ideas.)

For computer science conferences, the typical dress code is “business casual”. (For men, this is a dress shirt with slacks or jeans.) Some people dress more formally, some more casually. The most important thing is that you are comfortable with your clothing; if you are not, your discomfort will lead to a worse presentation.

Answering questions from the audience is very hard! Even after you become very proficient at giving a talk, it will probably take you quite a bit longer to become good at answering questions. So, don't feel bad if that part does not go perfectly, but do work on improving it.

Just as you practice your talk, practice answering questions — both the ones that you can predict, and also unpredictable ones. Give practice talks to people who are willing to ask such questions.

When an audience member asks a question, it is a good idea to repeat the question, asking the questioner whether you have understood it, before answering the question. This has three benefits.

• You ensure that you have understood the question. When thinking under pressure, it can be far too easy to jump to conclusions, and it is bad to answer a question different than the one that was asked. A related benefit is that you get to frame the question in your own words or from your own viewpoint.
• You give yourself a few moments to think about your answer.
• If the audience member does not have a microphone, the rest of the audience may not have been able to hear the question clearly.

Be willing to answer a question with “no” or “I don't know”. You will get into more trouble if you blather on or you make up an answer on the fly.

For an in-class presentation by a student, you will be judged on how well other people understand the material at the end of the class, not on how well you understand the material at the beginning of the class. (You do need to understand the material, but that is not the main point.)

When you present someone else's paper in class, you should cover not only the technical details (people generally do a good job of this), but also what is novel and why others didn't do it before. That is just as important but very often overlooked. Focus on what is important about the paper, not just on what is easy to explain or to give an example for.

Know what your main point is, and don't get bogged down in easier-to-understand but less interesting details. Try not to bring up a topic until you are ready to discuss it in detail — don't bring it up multiple times.

Encourage questions — it's the best way to deepen understanding — and be able to answer them. If other students wrote questions in a reading summary, be responsive to them. When you ask a question, don't assume the answer in the form of your question. For example, don't ask, “Was there anything novel in the paper, or not?” but “What was novel in the paper?” It can be very effective to ask a question that reveals understanding of a subtle or easy-to-misunderstand point (but an important one!) in the paper, because this will lead the audience members to reflect both on the paper and on the way they read and understood it. Don't be too abstruse, and don't get bogged down in unimportant details just to show your mastery of them.

Examples are often very helpful. Augment your talking with visuals on the board or slides. Either is fine. The board may encourage more interaction (and it slows you down in a beneficial way), but does require pre-planning; don't just go up and start drawing. Most people find comfort in having pre-prepared slides, and slides can be a good choice because they can be more legible and detailed, can include animations, etc. Don't waste a huge amount of time on elaborate slide decks, though; that is not the point.

Always give at least one practice talk before you present in front of an audience. Even if you have read over your slides and think you know how the talk will go, when you speak out loud your ideas are likely to come out in a different way. (This is true about writing , too: even if you know what you want to say, it takes several revisions to figure out the best way to say it.) In fact, you should practice the talk to yourself — speaking out loud in front of a mirror, for example — before you give your first practice talk. In your individual practice session, you must say every word you intend to in the actual talk, not skipping over any parts.

It can be a good idea to keep your practice talk audience relatively small — certainly fewer than 10 people. In a large group, many people won't bother to speak up. If the pool of potential attendees is larger than 10, you can give multiple practice talks, since the best feedback is given by someone who has not seen the talk (or even the material) before. Giving multiple practice talks is essential for high-profile talks such as conference talks and interview talks. Avoid a small audience of people you don't trust, who might be unanimous in a wrong opinion; getting a balance of opinions will help you avoid making too many mistakes in any one direction.

Videotape yourself to see how you come across to others. This information can be a bit traumatic, but it is invaluable in helping you to improve.

When giving a practice talk, number your slides (say, in the corner), even if you don't intend to include slide numbers in your final presentation.

When giving a practice talk, it is very helpful to distribute hardcopy slides (remember to include slide numbers) so that others can easily annotate them and return them to you at the end of the talk. (Also, the audience will spend less time trying to describe what slide their comment applies to, and more time writing the comment and paying attention to you.) For non-practice talks, don't give out hardcopy slides, as they would tempt the audience to pay attention to the piece of paper instead of to you.

Go to other people's practice talks. This is good citizenship, and cultivating these obligations is a good way to ensure that you have an audience at your practice talk. Furthermore, attending others' talks can teach you a lot about good and bad talks — both from observing the speaker and thinking about how the talk can be better (or is already excellent), and from comparing the feedback of audience members to your own opinions and observations. This does not just apply to practice talks: you should continually perform such introspective self-assessment.

(Also see Tessa Lau 's advice on giving a practice talk — which focuses on a practice talk for a PhD qualifying exam, but is relevant to talks in general.)

Here are some other good resources for speakers who wish to give a good talk.

See Ian Parberry's speaker's guide .

The LaTeX Beamer documentation has some good advice.

Back to Advice compiled by Michael Ernst .

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 10. Designing and Delivering Presentations

In this chapter.

• Strategies for developing professional oral presentations and designing clear, functional slides
• Discussion of what makes presentations challenging and practical advice for becoming a more engaging and effective presenter
• Tips for extending the concepts of high quality presentations to creating videos and posters

Presentations are one of the most visible forms of professional or technical communication you will have to do in your career.  Because of that and the nature of being put “on the spot,” presentations are often high pressure situations that make many people anxious. As with the other forms of communication described in this guide, the ability to present well is a skill that can be practiced and honed.

When we think of presentations, we typically imagine standing in front of a room (or auditorium) full of people, delivering information verbally with slides projected on a screen. Variations of that scene are common. Keep in mind, though, that the skills that make you a strong presenter in that setting are incredibly valuable in many other situations, and they are worth studying and practicing.

Effective presentation skills are the ability to use your voice confidently to communicate in “live” situations—delivering information verbally and “physically,” being able to engage your audience, and thinking on your feet. It also translates to things like videos, which are a more and more common form of communication in professional spheres.  You will have a number of opportunities during your academic career to practice your presentation skills, and it is worth it to put effort into developing these skills. They will serve you well in myriad situations beyond traditional presentations, such as interviews, meetings, networking, and public relations.

This chapter describes best practices and tips for becoming an effective presenter in the traditional sense, and also describes how best practices for presentation skills and visuals apply to creating videos and posters.

Process for Planning, Organizing, and Writing Presentations

Similar to any other piece of writing or communication, to design a successful presentation, you must follow a thoughtful writing process (see Engineering Your Writing Process ) that includes planning, drafting, and getting feedback on the presentation content, visuals, and delivery (more on that in the following section).Following is a simple and comprehensive way to approach “writing” a presentation:

Step 1: Identify and state the purpose of the presentation. Find focus by being able to clearly and simply articulate the goal of the presentation—what are you trying to achieve? This is helpful for you and your audience—you will use it in your introduction and conclusion, and it will help you draft the rest of the presentation content.

Step 2: Outline major sections. Next, break the presentation content into sections. Visualizing sections will also help you assess organization and consider transitions from one idea to the next. Plan for an introduction, main content sections that help you achieve the purpose of the presentation, and a conclusion.

Step 3: Draft content. Once you have an outline, it’s time to fill in the details and plan what you are actually going to say. Include an introduction that gives you a chance to greet the audience, state the purpose of the presentation, and provide a brief overview of the rest of the presentation (e.g. “First, we will describe the results of our study, then we’ll outline our recommendations and take your questions”). Help your audience follow the main content of the presentation by telling them as you move from one section of your outline to the next—use the structure you created to keep yourself and your audience on track.

End with a summary, restating the main ideas (purpose) from the presentation and concluding the presentation smoothly (typically thanking your audience and offering to answering any questions from your audience). Ending a presentation can be tricky, but it’s important because it will make a lasting impression with your audience—don’t neglect to plan out the conclusion carefully.

Step 4: Write presentation notes. For a more effective presentation style, write key ideas, data, and information as lists and notes (not a complete, word-for-word script). This allows you to ensure you are including all the vital information without getting stuck reading a script. Your presentation notes should allow you to look down, quickly reference important information or reminders, and then look back up at your audience.

Step 5: Design supporting visuals. Now it’s time to consider what types of visuals will best help your audience understand the information in your presentation. Typically, presentations include a title slide, an overview or advance organizer, visual support for each major content section, and a conclusion slide. Use the visuals to reinforce the organization of your presentation and help your audience see the information in new ways.

Don’t just put your notes on the slides or use visuals that will be overwhelming or distracting—your audience doesn’t need to read everything you’re saying, they need help focusing on and really understanding the most important information. See Designing Effective Visuals .

At each step of the way, assess audience and purpose and let them affect the tone and style of your presentation. What does your audience already know? What do you want them to remember or do with the information? Use the introduction and conclusion in particular to make that clear.

For in-class presentations, look at the assignment or ask the instructor to make sure you’re clear on who your audience is supposed to be. As with written assignments, you may be asked to address an imagined audience or design a presentation for a specific situation, not the real people who might be in the room.

In summary, successful presentations

• have a stated purpose and focus;
• are clearly organized, with a beginning, middle, and end;
• guide the audience from one idea to the next, clearly explaining how ideas are connected and building on the previous section; and
• provide multiple ways for the audience to absorb the most important information (aurally and visually).

Developing a Strong Presentation Style

Since presentation are delivered to the audience “live,” review and revise it as a verbal and visual presentation, not as a piece of writing. As part of the “writing” process, give yourself time to practice delivering your presentation out loud with the visuals . This might mean practicing in front of a mirror or asking someone else to listen to your presentation and give you feedback (or both!). Even if you have a solid plan for the presentation and a strong script, unexpected things will happen when you actually say the words—timing will feel different, you will find transitions that need to be smoothed out, slides will need to be moved.

More importantly, you will be better able to reach your audience if you are able to look up from your notes and really talk to them—this will take practice.

Characteristics of a Strong Presentation Style

When it comes time to practice delivery, think about what has made a presentation and a presenter more or less effective in your past experiences in the audience. What presenters impressed you? Or bored you? What types of presentation visuals keep your attention? Or are more useful?

One of the keys to an effective presentation is to keep your audience focused on what matters—the information—and avoid distracting them or losing their attention with things like overly complicated visuals, monotone delivery, or disinterested body language.

As a presenter, you must also bring your own energy and show the audience that you are interested in the topic—nothing is more boring than a bored presenter, and if your audience is bored, you will not be successful in delivering your message.

Verbal communication should be clear and easy to listen to; non-verbal communication (or body language) should be natural and not distracting to your audience. The chart below outlines qualities of both verbal and non-verbal communication that impact presentation style. Use it as a sort of “rubric” as you assess and practice your own presentation skills.

As you plan and practice a presentation, be aware of time constraints. If you are given a time limit (say, 15 minutes to deliver a presentation in class or 30 minutes for a conference presentation), respect that time limit and plan the right amount of content. As mentioned above, timing must be practiced “live”—without timing yourself, it’s difficult to know how long a presentation will actually take to deliver.

Finally, remember that presentations are “live” and you need to stay alert and flexible to deal with the unexpected:

• Check in with your audience.  Ask questions to make sure everything is working (“Can everyone hear me ok?” or “Can you see the screen if I stand here?”) and be willing to adapt to fix any issues.
• Don’t get so locked into a script that you can’t improvise. You might need to respond to a question, take more time to explain a concept if you see that you’re losing your audience, or move through a planned section more quickly for the sake of time. Have a plan and be able to underscore the main purpose and message of your presentation clearly, even if you end up deviating from the plan.
• Expect technical difficulties. Presentation equipment fails all the time—the slide advancer won’t work, your laptop won’t connect to the podium, a video won’t play, etc. Obviously, you should do everything you can to avoid this by checking and planning, but if it does, stay calm, try to fix it, and be willing to adjust your plans. You might need to manually advance slides or speak louder to compensate for a faulty microphone. Also, have multiple ways to access your presentation visuals (e.g., opening Google Slides from another machine or having a flash drive).

Developing Strong Group Presentations

Group presentations come with unique challenges. You might be a confident presenter individually, but as a member of a group, you are dealing with different presentation styles and levels of comfort.

Here are some techniques and things to consider to help groups work through the planning and practicing process together:

• Transitions and hand-off points. Be conscious of and plan for smooth transitions between group members as one person takes over the presentation from another. Awkward or abrupt transitions can become distracting for an audience, so help them shift their attention from one speaker to the next. You can acknowledge the person who is speaking next (“I’ll hand it over to Sam who will tell you about the results”) or the person who’s stepping in can acknowledge the previous speaker (“So, I will build on what you just heard and explain our findings in more detail”). Don’t spend too much time on transitions—that can also become distracting. Work to make them smooth and natural.
• Table reads. When the presentation is outlined and written, sit around a table together and talk through the presentation—actually say what you will say during the presentation, but in a more casual way. This will help you check the real timing (keep an eye on the clock) and work through transitions and hand-off points. (Table reads are what actors do with scripts as part of the rehearsal process.)
• Body language. Remember that you are still part of the presentation even when you’re not speaking. Consider non-verbal communication cues—pay attention to your fellow group members, don’t block the visuals, and look alert and interested.

Designing Effective Visuals

Presentation visuals (typically slides, but could be videos, props, handouts, etc.) help presenters reinforce important information by giving the audience a way to see as well as hear the message. As with all other aspects of presentations, the goal of visuals is to aid your audience’s understanding, not overwhelm or distract them. One of the most common ways visuals get distracting is by using too much text. Plan and select visuals aids carefully—don’t just put your notes on the screen, but use the visuals to reinforce important information and explain difficult concepts.

The slides below outline useful strategies for designing professional, effective presentation slides.

• Write concise text. Minimize the amount of reading you ask your audience to do by using only meaningful keywords, essential data and information, and short phrases. Long blocks of text or full paragraphs are almost never useful.
• Use meaningful titles. The title should reveal the purpose of the slide. Its position on the slide is highly visible—use it to make a claim or assertion, identify the specific focus of the slide, or ask a framing question.
• Use images and graphics. Wherever possible, replace wordy descriptions with visuals. Well chosen images and graphics will add another dimension to the message you are trying to communicate. Make sure images are clear and large enough for your audience to see and understand in the context of the presentation.
• Keep design consistent. The visual style of the slides should be cohesive. Use the same fonts, colors, borders, backgrounds for similar items (e.g., all titles should be styled the same way, all photos should have the same size and color border). This does not mean every slide needs to look identical, but they should be a recognizable set.
• Use appropriate contrast. Pay attention to how easy it is to see elements on the screen. Whatever colors you choose, backgrounds and overlaid text need to be some version of light/dark. Avoid positioning text over a patterned or “busy” background—it is easy for the text to get lost and become unreadable. Know that what looks ok on your computer screen might not be as clear when projected.

Key Takeaway

• Create a structure for your presentation or video that clearly supports your goal.
• Practice effective verbal and non-verbal communication to become comfortable with your content and timing. If you are presenting as a group, practice together.
• Use visuals that support your message without distracting your audience.

Additional Resources

Fundamentals of Engineering Technical Communications Copyright © by Leah Wahlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Chapter 16: Technical Presentations

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One important, but often overlooked, skill in engineering is presenting. From talking with students, I have noticed that a lot of engineering students are intimidated by public speaking. In fact, I have almost a decade of experience lecturing, but I still am a little scared standing in front of a large classroom! It is OK to be a little nervous. I tell students being a little nervous means that you care, and caring is part of successful presentations. This chapter aims to reduce your presentation anxiety by teaching you the skills you need. The main key is to practice, know the format, and be prepared.

Learning Goals

In this chapter we will learn:

• Why it is important to practice and get comfortable presenting technical information.
• What your presentation should entail for the main type of engineering presentations.
• How to present technical information professionally and engagingly.
• What “audience” means and how to use what you know about your audience to your advantage.
• The art of PowerPoint and how to use the features in a non-distracting way.
• What should (and should not) be included in a technical presentation.

Why Learning How to Present Is Important

It is one thing to have a good idea, invent something cool, or develop new technology, but it is a whole other thing to successfully disseminate that information. A lot of people don’t realize that presenting is a skill and like all skills requires practice and study to perfect. It seems like it is easy to slap together a PowerPoint and talk about your project, but if you do not put the time and effort into the presentation to ensure that it impacts your audience, your work will be wasted.

Key Concept: You have to learn how to present in a compelling manner in order to get people to pay attention to your product/idea/report/etc.

For example, I have been an instructor and advisor for several senior design teams. I have seen team projects range from truly impressive to mediocre. I have also seen the impressive teams be dismissed at competitions and the mediocre teams win awards at competitions because of presentation skills alone. What I am trying to convey to you is that presenting can be the “make or break” for a project. No matter how good your project is if you can’t describe to people how good your idea is, no one will care. That being said, the moral of this story is not to do a mediocre project and coast on your presentation skills. Combining a good project with a good presentation should be your goal.

Finally, it should be noted, that engineers have to present a lot . In fact, engineers have to do presentations a lot more than you might think. You might have to present your design idea to your research and development team. You might have to present to the entire company describing how you optimized a system process for efficiency. You might have to present to shareholders the newest technologies your team is working on. You might have to present to future customers on how your technology can improve their productivity. The point is, that engineers are expected to be good presenters and historically, University education in engineering does not explicitly address this skill. Hopefully, this chapter and your subsequent education reverses this.

Presentation Anxiety

Before we jump into some examples and tips, I wanted to take a quick note on presentation anxiety. As I mentioned before, there is no getting around it, you will probably be a little nervous when you present. That is ok! Almost everyone feels a little nervous. However, there are tactics that you can use to reduce your anxiety when stepping up in front of an audience.

One of the biggest keys to reducing your anxiety is preparation . In fact, there is no such thing as “over preparing”. The more you prepare for your presentation the better you will feel because you will be more confident about what you are speaking on.

Here are three tips that should help when it comes to preparation and alleviating anxiety:

Anxiety Reduction Mechanism 1) Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse…

Although it might seem self-explanatory or obvious, rehearsing is the most important step in reducing presentation anxiety. In my experience, this is the step that most students spend the least amount of time on even though it is the most important.

Out of all of the time you budget to create your presentation, the majority of time needs to be spent rehearsing.

The more you rehearse, the smoother your delivery will become and the more confident you will feel. Rehearse in front of your roommates. Rehearse in front of your classmates. Rehearse in front of a mirror. Rehearse to your parents (this is a great idea as it will probably impress them about how far you have come in your education and maybe get a few more bucks thrown on your campus cash card!). Rehearse in front of your grandparents (I am sure grandma would love to hear from you anyway). I think you get the idea. Rehearsing is key and the more that you practice your presentation, the more comfortable you will feel. Rehearsing in front of people that aren’t familiar with the course is even better. It will generate questions and make sure that you are explaining things in an optimal manner.

What I suggest to students is, that they time each of the rehearsals of their presentation. The key is to continue to practice rehearsing and practicing until the group can finish the presentation without making any mistakes and when they can finish within +/- 5 seconds of the same time (if it is a 10-minute limit presentation, the team can finish each practice session in 9:50 seconds to 9:55 seconds every time). As you can imagine, this takes a ton of practice but does reflect the level of polish necessary to feel confident about your presentation.

Anxiety Reduction Mechanism 2) Anticipate questions.

The next key to preparation for your presentation is to anticipate the questions you think the audience will ask, and be prepared with answers to those questions. You can’t anticipate every single question that you may get asked, but you can probably think of a few avenues that your audience members’ minds might wander.

For example, let’s imagine that you are giving a presentation on the efficacy of a vaccine. Depending on your audience, you should be prepared to answer the following questions:

• What is a vaccine?
• Specifically, how do vaccines work?
• Do vaccines cause autism? (Spoiler: NO )
• What types of adverse reactions might there be to the vaccine?
• How long will it take to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine?
• Are there specific storage requirements for this vaccine?

Preparing detailed answers to these questions will strengthen your knowledge of your presentation topic and alleviate your anxiety. Since you anticipated the questions your audience will ask, you don’t have to worry as much about looking like a fool on stage. This is also where rehearsing in front of someone who is not familiar with the course or topic can be very beneficial since it will generate a lot of these types of questions that you may have not considered.

Anxiety Reduction Mechanism 3) No one in the audience cares about you.

Sometimes students interpret this incorrectly. I am not saying that no one cares about you. Lots of people do. Your professor does, you have friends in the class, etc. What I mean by this is that it is important to remember that when you give class presentations, often, your classmates and peers have to give presentations as well.

Think back to the last class you were in where you had to present. Think about sitting in your chair, while another team is presenting, waiting for your turn. Be honest. Were you even listening to them? Or were you anxiously awaiting your turn at the presentation? Well, the reality is, everyone else is only thinking about themselves and their presentation while you are presenting . When you make a tiny mistake, no one notices. The only thing they will notice is if you totally bomb the presentation (which you won’t because you rehearsed so much).

So as part of your preparation, relax . The selfish and narcissistic tendencies of your classmates ensure that they won’t be paying as much attention to you as you think they might. Hopefully, that relieves a little bit of the pressure.

Discussion 16.1: How do you feel about presentation anxiety?

What Your Presentation Should Entail

As an engineer, you will typically be presenting on projects you are proposing or presenting data from projects that you have already completed. All of the advice from this chapter (no such thing as over-preparing, etc) will be helpful in reducing stage anxiety but to make sure that your presentation is well received, you need to make sure that the presentation contains the appropriate material.

You will be expected to have the following sections: title, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. The following example presentation will highlight the most important and standard slides that your presentation should (probably) entail.

To describe each of the required sections (keep in mind that I am showing only one slide for each section but it is likely that you will need multiple slides) I included example slides from a presentation I gave at an American Society for Engineering Education conference in 2019 in which I won the “Best Presentation” award. Note, that the slides shown below are only a subset of the slides that I presented at the conference. For the full slide deck, you can click here.

Title Slide

The title slide is just a place to include the names of all the people that worked on the project and their affiliations. And the title. Duh.

• Keep it simple.

Introduction / Background Slide(s)

The purpose of the introduction slide is to outline your current understanding of the subject. You need to include specific examples of previous work/research.

• Clearly explain the importance of the current project and what the significance of the project will be.
• Justify the merit of your project by presenting significant information.
• End with a specific, clear, and explicit purpose for the project. Some of the projects that you complete during your undergraduate career will be chosen for you. It does not mean that the purpose of the project is “because the professor told me to do it”. Spend some time thinking about the project and what learning outcomes you are expected to gain from it.

Materials and Methods

The purpose of the materials and methods slide is to list the necessary steps for your audience to interpret the results.

• You should include: sample sizes, how the data will be processed, everything that was used in the project, and what statistical tests if any will be used.
• It should be clear how the materials and methods relate to the purpose of the project.
• The audience should feel that presenters fully understand the scope and details of the work (especially if it is a proposal).

The results slide is the place where you describe what you found from your project.

• Present the data from the project. What did you do? What did you find?
• Do not interpret your results yet! Just show what you gathered.
• Visual descriptions of your data are important. Be sure to include figures and tables as appropriate.

Although it might seem like your results are the most important slide, I would argue that it is actually your discussion slide. Whereas in your results section you simply tell your audience what you found, in your discussion section, you need to interpret the results for your audience.

• Interpret the data from the results section.
• Answer the “why” of the data.
• Draw conclusions about the project.
• List any limitations of the project.
• Discuss future work.

Conclusion / Significance

Finally, we get to the conclusion slide. This is another very important slide as it can be an opportunity to reinforce the takeaway message that you want to give your audience.

• Should be a “natural” conclusion. Your presentation should not end abruptly. The audience should feel it coming.
• Summarize the major points from your presentation. Be sure to provide your audience with a take-home message.
• Summarize the weaknesses of the project. It shows that you can critically think about your own work and makes your audience more sympathetic to your position. Admitting what you would change actually strengthens your position.

How To Give a Dynamic Engineering Presentation

There are two main things to worry about when presenting engineering information in a dynamic and interesting way; the content and yourself.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to convey what makes for a dynamic and engaging presentation is to have you look at one of the worst. What follows is one of the worst presentations I could find on the internet. To set the stage for you, it is from a British show in which people pitch their ideas to a group of investors (it is similar to the American show Shark Tank). I chose this particular clip for a few reasons:

It is supposed to be entrepreneurs getting the opportunity of a lifetime to get their dream invested. They should be excited and passionate by default! The following pitch is atrocious but the product is actually kind of an interesting idea. It seems to me that if she had given a more dynamic and engaging pitch, the investors may have been more interested. In fact, one of the investors says as much. With that out of the way, watch the following pitch from Gayle Blanchflower (I couldn’t find out if this spelling was correct). Note: the video should automatically start at 30:12 for you. If it doesn’t you can skip there. Also, be prepared to answer some questions on what you think went wrong with her pitch.

Discussion 16.2: An atrocious presentation

I am truly sorry for putting you through that. However, I hope you agree that it gives you some ideas of what NOT to do when trying to give a dynamic and interesting presentation. Here are some more tips about both the content of your presentations and tips for you.

Know your audience Your audience will dictate what you are presenting. If you are presenting on the efficacy of vaccines to a group of doctors, you can assume that they know what vaccines are and how they work, therefore, you can leave that information out of the presentation. However, if you are giving the same presentation to a group of middle schoolers, it might be a good idea to include that background information. The key is to know your audience and tailor the presentation to their knowledge.

Convey your excitement If you aren’t excited about your project, your audience surely will not be. Get excited and make your presentation exciting the best that you can.

Tell a story This chapter gives you the basic framework (you can think about it like the beginning, middle, climax, end, or a story) but you need to tell it. The more you can make your presentation flow like a story, the better.

Keep it simple (communicate, don’t obfuscate) Every field has jargon and acronyms that make people feel smart for knowing. Don’t lose your audience in the lingo! This is where knowing your audience is critical but in reality, even scientists and engineers appreciate brief definitions of scientific terminologies and processes.

• Set the stage. Clear the podium of distractions. Have whatever tools you need for your presentation ready to go ahead of time.
• Get ready to perform Presentations are performances. Know your subject and know your main talking points. Do not memorize a script! Your rehearsing should have been so extensive you don’t need one anyway.
• Stride up to podium / stage / front of room. Be proud! Don’t sulk.
• Stand tall, keep your chest lifted, and smile. If you aren’t confident by nature, learn to fake it. It goes a long way.
• Pay attention to your teammates when it is their turn to talk. Remember, if you look bored, your audience will interpret that as if they should be bored.
• Speak loudly and project your voice clearly. For some, this is not natural and will take practice. Good thing you rehearsed so much!
• Take your time. A moment or two of silence is a powerful tool.
• Talk to the audience, not the screen.
• Stay on time.
• Rehearse a lot. Remember, there is no such thing as being over-prepared.

PowerPoint Tips

As I stated before for dynamic presentations , I think it is a good idea to look at bad PowerPoint decks to understand what makes the good ones, good. Before moving on, take a look at the slides here: https://www.slideshare.net/Kshivets/...cancer-surgery –4936542. When you have finished looking at those slides, participate in the following discussion prompt before moving on.

Discussion 16.3: A really terrible slide deck

Well after reviewing that horrible slide deck, you should actually probably have a good idea of what makes for a good slide deck. Here are my tips:

• Less is more. Less slides, less text. Trim off the fat and concentrate on the coolest most relevant things.
• Create sections. Title slides to start new sections can help break the presentation into a logical flow. Specifically, you should use the sections that we discussed earlier in the chapter.
• Avoid clutter. 3–5 bullet points per slide at most! Bullets should be keywords, not sentences.
• Make it readable for old people. Sans serif fonts. 28–40 point for headline text, 18–28 point for normal text, and 12–14 point font for references is a good place to start.
• Ensure that there is a clear contrast between the background and all text.
• Use visuals. Steer clear of videos unless completely necessary or exceptionally cool. In my experience, they NEVER work and they take lots of time away from your presentation. Figures are your best bet.
• Triple-check your spelling. A sure-fire way to lose credibility is to have typos in your presentation

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10 Dos and Don'ts for Technical Presentations

Designing a technical PowerPoint presentation

• Brock University

Yuri_Arcurs / Getty Images

When using PowerPoint or other presentation software for a technical presentation, your primary concerns should be:

• How technical should this presentation be?
• Can I make this information clear and concise?

A technical presentation is the most difficult type of presentation to make. Your audience may include highly skilled individuals as well as those who are not as familiar with the concepts or terminology. You will need to address both learning styles. Audience analysis is an important skill in itself and should be one of the first items on your presentation checklist.

• Keep the fonts consistent in both style and size throughout the whole presentation.
• Use common ​ fonts that are available on every computer , such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri. This way, there will not be any surprises if the computer used for the presentation does not have the unusual font you chose installed, and therefore substitutes another font.
• Include relevant photos and graphics such as simple charts or diagrams. Consider whether the audience can understand the information presented or if you need to simplify the chart/diagram for clarity.
• Make sure that graphics are of good quality so the information is easily deciphered at the back of the room.
• Make labels on charts large enough to be read at a distance.
• Use heightened contrast on your slides. Consider creating the same presentation in two formats — one presentation with dark text on a light background, and a second, duplicate presentation using light text on a dark background. This way, you are ready for either a very dark room or very bright room to present in and can choose the suitable presentation accordingly.
• Keep the number of slides to a minimum. Present only what is necessary and don't overwhelm the audience with too much information. Technical information is hard enough to digest.
• Allow time for a question period at the end of your presentation.
• Know everything about your topic so that you are prepared for any question that arises, even if the question was not covered in the material you presented.
• Have detailed handouts ready to give out after the presentation. This allows the audience to later reflect on the presentation and the information is ready at hand for any necessary follow-up.

The Don'ts

• Don't confuse the audience with disorganized slides so that the purpose of the presentation is not crystal clear.
• Don't overwhelm your audience with busy slides. Think of that old cliché — "less is more."
• Don't use small images or small text on your slides. Think about those people at the back of the room.
• Don't use script type fonts. They are notoriously difficult to read at the best of times, let alone on a screen.
• Don't use more than three or four related points on each slide.
• Don't use a fancy background . It may be pretty or even on topic, but the text will be difficult to read. Keep to a subtle backdrop for the information.
• Don't add pictures for the sake of decoration. Make sure there is a point to be made and that information is obvious to the viewer.
• Don't use sounds or animations unless they are to emphasize a point. Even then, it is risky as they can detract from the main focus of the presentation.
• Don't use acronyms unless all members of the audience are familiar with them.
• Don't include more than four or five items on a chart. Even though Excel charts can be made to show great detail, a slideshow is not the place for this information. Stick to important facts only.

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15 Essential Presentation Techniques for Winning Over Any Audience

• The Speaker Lab
• April 13, 2024

Table of Contents

Ever found yourself standing before an audience, your heart racing? That’s the moment when knowing effective presentation techniques can prove to be your unwavering ally. But what are presentation techniques? And what makes them so powerful? In this article, we’re going to answer those questions.

Before we can talk about presentation techniques, though, we first have to talk about good communication. The power of effective communication isn’t just in what you say. It’s how you say it; it’s in those deep breaths that steady nerves, and in maintaining eye contact. It’s about turning a room full of strangers into an engaged audience hanging onto your every word. When it comes to public speaking, real success comes from mastering non-verbal cues to punctuate our words and using visual aids not as crutches but as tools for engagement.

As you hone your communication skills, you will begin to form effective presentation techniques. Expect rough patches as you get the hang of things, but view them as mere footholds propelling you towards your ultimate triumph. Keep pushing forward.

Mastering Presentation Techniques for Impactful Delivery

Presentation techniques are more than just standing in front of a crowd and talking. They’re about making connections, telling stories that resonate, and leaving your audience with something to remember you by.

Elements of an Effective Presentation

For your presentation to resonate, ensure the visuals are straightforward and supportive, rather than distracting. Your message should be concise yet powerful enough to stick. And let’s not forget engagement; keeping your audience on their toes is key.

• Visuals: Keep them simple but impactful.
• Message: Make every word count.
• Engagement: Interact with your audience, ask questions, make them think.

We’ve all seen those slides crammed with text or charts. When you make your slides, don’t cram information, because nobody wants to squint at tiny fonts or decipher complex graphs while trying to listen to you speak. This resource suggests focusing on clarity and simplicity when designing slides—advice worth taking.

Strategies for Delivering a Successful Presentation

To deliver a knockout presentation, start strong. Grab attention from the get-go with an intriguing fact or story related directly back into the topic at hand. Maintain eye contact across the room so everyone feels included in the conversation. Finally, end on a memorable note, either with a call to action or insight gained during the time together. Leave them wanting more information and eager to learn about the subject matter discussed today.

• The opener: Hook your audience with a relevant fact or anecdote.
• Maintain connection: Eyes up, engage everyone around.
• Closing remarks : Last chance for impact–what’s your mic drop?

As author Lilly Walters once said, “The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.” This quote reminds us that the true goal of any speech is the understanding achieved between the speaker and the listeners.

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Engaging Your Audience with Nonverbal Communication

As the name implies, nonverbal communication denotes all of the ways you communicate without using words. This includes eye contact, body language, and facial expressions. Although nonverbal communication might not be the first presentation technique that comes to mind, it’s nevertheless a very powerful tool to have in your arsenal. Let’s take a look.

The Power of Eye Contact, Body Language, and Facial Expressions

Making eye contact isn’t just about looking someone in the eye; it’s about forging a connection. Aim for brief moments of eye contact across different sections of your audience throughout your presentation. Establishing fleeting eye connections across diverse audience segments fosters a sense of trust and keeps them hooked, all while ensuring no one feels on edge.

Body language is similarly important. Stand tall with good posture; it exudes confidence even when you feel nervous. As you grow more confident, mix up standing still with moving around subtly. This dynamic shift holds attention better than being rooted to one spot or nervous pacing. Use your hands to gesture naturally as you speak—it adds emphasis and keeps things lively.

If there’s one thing people can spot from miles away, it’s insincerity. So let those facial expressions match your words. Smile when you share something amusing, and furrow your brow when diving into serious stuff. After all, it’s not just what you say but how visually engaged and passionate you appear while saying it that counts.

Tying these elements together helps you deliver impactful, memorable talks. When done right, folks will leave feeling more connected, understood, and fired up by your presentation, all thanks to your techniques.

Designing Compelling Presentation Materials

Knowing how to design engaging presentation materials is one technique you can’t do without. Far from mere embellishments, these implements are crafted to hammer your message home. Hence, it’s vital to select these aids with great care and discernment.

Tips for Creating Effective Slides

When it comes to crafting slides, think of each as a billboard advertisement for your idea. You want it clear, impactful, and memorable.

• Keep it simple : One idea per slide keeps confusion at bay and attention locked in.
• Use bullet points : Break down your points so your audience can track.
• Pick a font size : Generally speaking, bigger is better.
• Use color : Harness colors that pop without blinding anyone; contrast is key.
• Use images with purpose : A good picture or chart can help illustrate your point, but keep it relevant and don’t overdo it.

With a few helpful visuals, your presentation can go from good to great. For more on creating slides, check out this link here .

Handling Questions and Interactions Professionally

For some speakers, it’s not the presentation itself that makes them nervous—it’s the Q&A session that follows. This is the moment where you get to shine or stumble based on how well you handle those curveballs from your audience. If you want to round off your presentation well, you’re going to want to learn a few techniques for fielding these questions. Let’s look at a few ways of doing this.

Preparing for Audience Questions and How to Address Them Effectively

Below are six techniques that will help you address audience questions effectively.

• Listen Up : The first rule of thumb is to listen like it’s a superpower. When someone throws a question at you, don’t just hear them out—really listen. Demonstrating this level of attentiveness not only conveys your respect but also affords you a brief moment to collect your ideas.
• Stay Calm : You’ve got this. Even if a question catches you off guard, take a deep breath before diving into your answer. No one expects perfection, but showing confidence matters.
• Practice Beforehand : Before presentation day arrives, think about potential questions folks might ask and prep some responses in advance. Practice makes perfect, after all.
• Vary Your Techniques : Not every question needs an essay as an answer; sometimes short and sweet does the trick. Mix up how detailed or brief your answers are depending on what’s asked.
• Show You Care : If you ever get a question that leaves you stumped, say so honestly—but add that magical line: “Let me find out more and I’ll get back to you.” Then actually do it.
• Appreciate Audience Curiosity : Remember that the reason you audience is asking questions is because they’re interested. So no matter what questions you get, keep engaging with enthusiasm.

Go forth with confidence, knowing not only can these moments boost credibility—they make connections too. So next time when facing down those queries remember to listen hard, stay calm & always engage warmly. With these techniques under your belt, answering audience questions after your presentation will feel much less daunting.

Techniques for a Memorable and Effective Presentation

No matter what topic you cover in your presentation, you can easily add in a story, and more likely than not you can add a little humor too. Together, these two presentation techniques are perfect for making your speech memorable.

Incorporating Storytelling into Your Presentation

One great technique for making your presentation stick is telling stories. Stories have the power to touch people profoundly, especially when they depict relatable experiences. So, when you’re up there presenting, kick things off with a story that ties into your main message. It could be personal, something from history, or even an anecdote that gets your point across. Stories are not just fluff; they’re the glue of your presentation. They make complex ideas digestible and memorable.

Using Humor to Connect with the Audience

Another great way of engaging your audience is by using humor. But here’s the deal—use humor wisely. Keep it tasteful and tied closely to the content at hand so it enhances rather than detracts from your message.

• Pick universal themes everyone can relate to.
• Avoid anything potentially offensive.
• Tie jokes back to your key points to make them relevant.

If humor isn’t your thing, or you’re worried about your comedic timing, it’s perfectly okay to skip the jokes. Especially if you’re new to public speaking, humor can be hard to nail immediately. But as you grow and hone your presentation techniques, consider stretching yourself a bit. By starting small, you can practice using humor to connect with your audience. That is your goal, after all—to leave a positive, memorable impression on your audience.

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Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety

For some speakers, stepping in front of a crowd to speak causes immediate anxiety. But fear not! Conquering public speaking anxiety is entirely within your grasp.

Techniques to Manage Stage Fright and Boost Confidence

First off, feeling nervous before taking the stage is completely normal. Even Mark Twain admitted, “There are two types of speakers. Those who get nervous and those who are liars.” So take that flutter in your stomach as a sign you care deeply about delivering value to your audience. In addition, consider the following tips as you prepare to hit the stage.

• Breathe Deep: Before stepping up, take some deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel every muscle relax with each exhale.
• Mind Over Matter: Visualization is key. Picture yourself nailing that presentation, because if you can see it, you can achieve it.
• Keep It Simple: Stick to what you know best; this isn’t the time for surprises or untested waters.
• Pace Yourself: Speak slowly but surely—there’s no rush here.

Believe it or not, acting relaxed often leads to actually being relaxed. Remember when we said mind over matter? Well, it applies here big time. The power pose backstage might just be what turns those nerves into excitement.

So next time you feel stage fright coming on, fight back with these techniques. With these tricks up your sleeve, you’re more than ready. So go ahead, breathe deep, and step onto that stage. You’ve got this.

Using Different Presentation Methods to Engage Your Audience

While learning styles is “ little more than urban myth ,” presenting your material in a variety of ways is a great technique for engaging your audience. By switching it up, you increase your chances of explaining something in a way that clicks with individual audience members. This is especially helpful for more complex topics that might be hard to grasp.

There are three main ways of presenting your material to your audience: through visuals, audio, and hands-on activities.

• Visuals: Use slides packed with images, graphs, and bullet points.
• Audio: Tell stories, play audio clips or engage in discussions.
• Hands-on Activities: Include activities or demonstrations that allow audience members to participate physically.

Making sure everyone gets something from your presentation means considering these techniques when planning content. Not only can incorporating various methods increase audience engagement, but it can also elevate your presentation from decent to memorable.

Essential Tips for First-Time Presenters

Stepping onto the stage or logging into that webinar platform as a first-time presenter can feel nerve-wracking. But fear not! With these tips on how to dress appropriately, arrive early, and make your presentation shine, you’ll be ready to confidently nail that presentation.

Dress Appropriately

Your outfit is your armor. Choose something professional yet comfortable. Whether it’s in-person or online, dressing one notch above what you expect your audience to wear usually hits the sweet spot. Aim for solid colors that won’t distract your audience.

Arriving Early

If possible, arrive at the venue before your audience does. This gives you time to settle in, test any tech gear like microphones or projectors, and take those deep breaths. This extra time also lets you chat with early birds. By connecting with people before taking center stage, you can ease nerves significantly.

Making Presentation Time Count

You only have the audience’s attention for so long. Keep an eye on the clock as you present, but avoid rushing through content. It especially helps to pause after key points, letting information sink in. Your end goal? Leave you’re audience wanting more. You’ll know if you succeeded based on the number of questions you get during the Q&A.

So there you have it—the techniques you need to deliver an engaging presentation. By honing nonverbal communication, like eye contact and posture, you can captivate your audience with your energy. And visual aids? They’re not just ornamental; they help bolster your point and drive it home.

We also learned that tackling audience questions is not an art reserved for the eloquent few but a skill sharpened by preparation and presence. While it takes a little work to nail good storytelling and well-timed humor, the ultimate outcome is worth it.

So while standing before an audience may set your heart racing, know that arming yourself with knowledge and technique can transform not just your presentation, but you yourself. So don’t be afraid to try your hand at these skills; in doing so, you build your own confidence and become a better speaker in the process.

• Last Updated: April 11, 2024

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• Undergraduate Studies
• Presentations
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Enthusiasm and Expertise
• Organization
• Visual Aids
• Presentation Skills
• Answering Questions
• Acknowledgements

Guidelines for Giving Technical Presentations

by Douglas Wilhelm Harder

A good technical presentation is a work of art, and, like any art, there are rules and guidelines. Even a cursory search yields many sources in the library and on the Internet where each gives advice as to what makes a good presentation. This collection of guidelines has been the product of suggestions and comments from numerous sources tempered with experience. As with any art form, there are opposing views and consequently there will be numerous sources which will contradict some of the rules and guidelines stated here. It is up to the reader to determine what is most appropriate for the given situation.

While giving presentations is an art, one cannot simply throw together a few slides, stand up in front of an audience, and give a reasonable presentation; otherwise, the presentation will be the technical-presentation-equivalent of the work of art shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. In the Cat's Mouth , an acrylic on canvas, probably by Pangorda, from the Museum of Bad Art .

While there may be individuals willing to collect bad paintings, there is, unfortunately, no place in engineering for bad technical presentations except, perhaps, the front door.

In fine art there are ideas and concepts which must be understood by the artist. For example, an artist must understand perspective which is so beautifully used in Leonardo da Vinci 's painting The Last Supper shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper .

Failure to understand the underlying principles will result in a product which will appear to be defective and the errors will attract the attention of the audience. For example, consider the painting in Figure 3, the Reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem , where the lines on either side of the structure should meet at the same point but do not. This work, from the 13th century, was commissioned two hundred years before Filippo Brunelleschi introduced perspective to European art. Al-Hasan (a.k.a. Alhazen), an 11th century Mesopotamian mathematician and the father of modern optics, set the foundations for perspective; however this was a theoretical understanding not immediately translated into art.

Figure 3. Reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem .

However, once an artist understands the concepts and rules and has spent sufficient time mastering then, the artist is also able to understand when those rules must be followed and when they may be broken. For example, consider the Calvin and Hobbes strip from Bill Watterson (distributed by Universal Press Syndicate ) shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. An excerpt from a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Watterson. (Links to a similar comic strip on the Universal Studio's web site.)

Watterson's comment on this particular comic strip was "It's surprisingly tricky to draw things exactly wrong, because you have to know the rules pretty well to break every single one." ( Sunday Pages 1985-1995 , Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2001).

This collection of guidelines will attempt to give a reasonable overview as to the rules and concepts relevant to the giving of technical presentations. We begin by considering what is a technical presentation, how it differs from other forms of communication, and why this milestone is part of an engineer's education. Next, we define what we consider to be the four key aspects of a technical presentation: organization, visual aids, presentation skills, and addressing questions.

These web pages have been transferred to a PDF available here: On Technical Presentations (recent of September 26th, 2008).

A sequence of two lectures entitled On Technical Presentations have been based on these guidelines and they will be presented during the first week of the 2A Academic Term. The slides used in these lectures are available here:

• On Technical Presentations: Part 1
• On Technical Presentations: Part 2

Please note, however, that reading these slides is not a substitute for either attending the actual lectures or reading the detailed guidelines presented here.

Copyright © 2008-2010 by Douglas Wilhelm Harder. All rights reserved.

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• About Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Risk and Protective Factors
• Program: Essentials for Childhood: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action
• Adverse childhood experiences can have long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being.
• Adverse childhood experiences are common and some groups experience them more than others.

What are adverse childhood experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). Examples include: 1

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide.

Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability, and bonding. Examples can include growing up in a household with: 1

• Substance use problems.
• Mental health problems.
• Instability due to parental separation.
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison.

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination. 2 3 4 5 6

Quick facts and stats

ACEs are common. About 64% of adults in the United States reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18. Nearly one in six (17.3%) adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. 7

Preventing ACEs could potentially reduce many health conditions. Estimates show up to 1.9 million heart disease cases and 21 million depression cases potentially could have been avoided by preventing ACEs. 1

Some people are at greater risk of experiencing one or more ACEs than others. While all children are at risk of ACEs, numerous studies show inequities in such experiences. These inequalities are linked to the historical, social, and economic environments in which some families live. 5 6 ACEs were highest among females, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native adults, and adults who are unemployed or unable to work. 7

ACEs are costly. ACEs-related health consequences cost an estimated economic burden of $748 billion annually in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States. 8

ACEs can have lasting effects on health and well-being in childhood and life opportunities well into adulthood. 9 Life opportunities include things like education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, and involvement in sex trafficking. They can also increase risks for maternal and child health problems including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death. Also included are a range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide. 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, can cause toxic stress. Toxic stress, or extended or prolonged stress, from ACEs can negatively affect children’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision-making, and learning. 18

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. 18 These effects can also be passed on to their own children. 19 20 21 Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas. These historical and ongoing traumas refer to experiences of racial discrimination or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities. 1 6

Adverse childhood experiences can be prevented. Certain factors may increase or decrease the risk of experiencing adverse childhood experiences.

Preventing adverse childhood experiences requires understanding and addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence.

Creating safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children can prevent ACEs and help all children reach their full potential. We all have a role to play.

• Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1 .
• Cain KS, Meyer SC, Cummer E, Patel KK, Casacchia NJ, Montez K, Palakshappa D, Brown CL. Association of Food Insecurity with Mental Health Outcomes in Parents and Children. Science Direct. 2022; 22:7; 1105-1114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2022.04.010 .
• Smith-Grant J, Kilmer G, Brener N, Robin L, Underwood M. Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 23 U.S. States and 11 Local School Districts. Journal of Community Health. 2022; 47: 324-333.
• Experiencing discrimination: Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health | Annual Review of Public Health ( annualreviews.org).
• Sedlak A, Mettenburg J, Basena M, et al. Fourth national incidence study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress. Executive Summary. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health an Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.; 2010.
• Font S, Maguire-Jack K. Pathways from childhood abuse and other adversities to adult health risks: The role of adult socioeconomic conditions. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;51:390-399.
• Swedo EA, Aslam MV, Dahlberg LL, et al. Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Adults — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2011–2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:707–715. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7226a2 .
• Bellis, MA, et al. Life Course Health Consequences and Associated Annual Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences Across Europe and North America: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Public Health 2019.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021 | MMWR
• Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):320-7.
• Miller ES, Fleming O, Ekpe EE, Grobman WA, Heard-Garris N. Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. Obstetrics & Gynecology . 2021;138(5):770-776. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004570 .
• Sulaiman S, Premji SS, Tavangar F, et al. Total Adverse Childhood Experiences and Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review. Matern Child Health J . 2021;25(10):1581-1594. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03176-6 .
• Ciciolla L, Shreffler KM, Tiemeyer S. Maternal Childhood Adversity as a Risk for Perinatal Complications and NICU Hospitalization. Journal of Pediatric Psychology . 2021;46(7):801-813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab027 .
• Mersky JP, Lee CP. Adverse childhood experiences and poor birth outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample. BMC pregnancy and childbirth. 2019;19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2560-8.
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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

ACEs can have a tremendous impact on lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.