Chapter 4 Notes

1. Basic Presentation Skills

Ø  Preplanning

¨      Who is my audience? Know the age group, prior knowledge, and demographics about the topic, and what positions or opinions may hold.

¨      What is my purpose? What do I hope to accomplish? What response do I expect? What will the audience learn from my speech?

¨      Where is all the equipment I need? Where will the talk be held?

¨      When am I on the program agenda? Will I be the first presenter? Or the last one before lunch? If I’m first, the audience will be more alert. If I’m last, the audience will be more restless. What can I do to keep the attention of my audience?

¨      Why am I doing this talk? Why are they here?

¨      How long should I talk? Only few people can focus for more than 20 minutes. Shorten your talk so that people will ask for more information.

Ø  Preparing the Verbal Elements

¨      Which of the following statements makes more sense?

Ø  A: wile perambulating in the antithesis of the metropolis to evade the intemperate brouhaha thereof, my visual cortex perceived an ophidian.

Ø  B:  I saw a snake while taking a relaxing walk in the woods.

¨      Although A seems more intriguing, it obscures the underlying meaning.

¨      Remember the 4S formula:

Ø  Shortness: Use short sentences, avoid too many details, and do not talk too long.

Ø  Simplicity: Avoid wordy, lengthy phrases.

Ø  Strength: Use active voice and action verbs, not passive voice and “to be” verbs.

Ø  Sincerity: Convey empathy, understanding, and respect for the audience.

Ø  Three Structural Parts

¨      Introduction: Purpose: to capture the interest of the audience. Hook your audience.

¨      Body: Purpose: to keep your audience interested. They will continue to pay attention if you keep the material interesting and relevant to them.

¨      Conclusion: Purpose: to pull it together.

Ø  Summarize the major points

Ø  Show appreciation for the audience’s attention.

Ø  Allow for few question’s

Ø  Be sensitive to your audience.

Ø  Visual Aid Helpful Hints

¨      Keep slides simple

¨      Make slides in landscape format.

¨      Present data in simple graphs rather than in lists or tables.

¨      Lots of media

¨      Use bullet points

¨      Large text is the best

¨      Use high contrast colors, no light colors or fancy fonts

¨      Use a light background and dark print.

¨      Keep backgrounds simple.

2. Presentation Dos and Don’ts

Ø  Dos and don’ts

¨      DO:

Ø  Relax

Ø  Speak slowly and clearly

Ø  Drop your hands

Ø  Rehearse

Ø  Arrive early

¨      DON’T:

Ø  Turn your back to the audience

Ø  Read verbatim from the screen

Ø  Cover your mouth

Ø  Chew gum

Ø  Play with your notes

Ø  Fidget

Ø  Tell inappropriate jokes

Ø  Say ‘um’ or ‘uh’

3. Basic Technical Writing Skills

Ø  General Guidelines

¨      Be clear.

¨      Use 10 point font size and 1.5 line spacing.

¨      Generally, prefer past tense verbs.

¨      Define any terms.

¨      Present facts or inferences.

¨      Number and caption all tables, figures and appendices.

¨      Proofread and edit several times

¨      Read it twice.

¨      Spell out a number that starts with a sentence.

¨      Keep the leading zero with a decimal.

¨      For long numbers don’t spell them out.

¨      Use the dollar symbol

¨      Watch for significant figures.

4. Proper Use of References

Ø  ABCs of evaluating information offer a useful start.

¨      Authority: is it clear who is responsible for the site?

¨      Bias: what is the purpose of the article? Is it free of obvious bias?

¨      Currency: When was the information created or last updated?

¨      Use sources that have been reviewed by experts.

¨      Secure a peer review

¨      Compare the information found with content from other websites or from reviewed sources.

¨      Corroborate the information.

5. E-mails to your college Instructors

Ø  Email etiquette

¨      Be sure to correctly address the recipient.

¨      Use an appropriate subject line.

¨      Sign your full name and include contact information if appropriate.

¨      Change your sending name to your full name

¨      Keep it brief don’t use one continuous paragraph.

¨      If you expect a response, be sure items are clearly defined.

¨      Use correct capitalization and punctuation. Spelling does count.

¨      Check your work before sending it.

¨      When waiting for a reply, give a grace period of 48-72 hours.

Ø  Example:

¨      I don’t know what is going on with the computer but I have been trying to upload the assignment for an hour now and it will not work. I have to drive to (State) tonight so I wont be able to fix this problem later. I can not files on Monday so you can see when they were last saved and show you them then. I really need this one point. Please consider this.

Ø  Better Solution:

¨      I have been trying to upload the assignment since 6 pm, and will continue to try; however, I wanted to email you this assignment since the deadline of 10 pm is approaching. The system will let me browse and select a document but not do anything when I hit submit. I have tried to use a wired connection instead of a wireless, with no luck. Do you have any suggestions for fixing this problem? Thank you in advance for your assistance.