Presentation - points to consider . Review on Delivering an Effective Speech

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rachana and I am going to talk about making effective presentations to all you wonderful people here. My presentation will highlight certain things that are necessary for effective presentation.

Audience and technique - First of all you must know the audience properly whether they are students, business people, housewives, etc depending on audiences one decides the technique of presenting like using transparences, PowerPoint slides, pictures, or simple writing on white board. Generally PowerPoint slides are used for business people or students of graduate level or above, pictures and charts for housewives and children or maybe whiteboard too.

Delivery method and pace - Knowing the audience also helps in way of delivering speech, whether it should be slow/fast, humourous, quantitative, example oriented, illustrative etc. In case of housewives while delivering presentation or speech on topics related to health or awareness on diseases or some home matters one should know what audience expect and what way will they understand better. Housewives understand when their days to day examples are used as analogy.

Contents? contents again depends on audience along with the time frame available for the speech. One must never go on more than time permitted.

Research- research stands first, one must know about the topic thoroughly, all the facts and details should be knows such that the speaker can further clear out doubts or is able to give additional information is asked for.

Presentation of speaker? speech should be clear and pronunciation should be good. Also pace of speech should be moderate and average sentence, which are not too long. Many a time I have come across speakers who keep on adding to a sentence and it becomes a long one and really difficult to understand. It also leads to confusion. Its obvious that the speaker tend to add information as it come to his/her mind but he must also think that audience needs to understand what he wants to express, thereby he needs to break the information into understandable small parts.

Dress is also part of presentation. The speaker must be dressed according to the audience and one step above the audiences such that he is identified as a speaker. When we learnt business communication in management our professor said this that dress should be one step above meaning you wear a suit or a tie with shirt and trousers. For ladies, a saree or a formal salwar kameez which is presentable.

Remember in a public speaking or presentation one must always be calm and avoid abusive words. Using a single language as far as possible, using a local language is permitted if necessary when you use certain dialouge. Using some hindi words today is common in speech. Some of them have has been also a part of dictionary so no harm using it. But talking other language where not needed is wrong. Out of habit is absolutely not appreciated.

Above all the presentation/talk must start and end in time. The speaker should be ready for changes or interruption between the presentation. Speaker must be well prepared and knowing what has to be said. Overall planning should be done. We all know?practice makes man perfect?. There are some born speakers but some are also made. So there is nothing difficult in learning to deliver speech, it comes in you as you do more of it.

It?s a learning process throughout. I am still learning. So all the best to all of us. Anything I missed out please suggest.

Rachana