Chapter - 02 - (Topic - 1) What is Presentation?

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Chapter – 2 - What is Presentation?

•  Now-a-days, presentation is one of the most important qualities for a successful career.
•  Presentation is an effort of presenting (providing) information in a systematic way which   takes place between the presenter and the audience.
•   In presentation, audience demands clear information about a specific topic. On the other     hand, presenter‘s job is to provide clear information according to audience‘s demands.
•  In speech, information is presented orally while in presentation information is presented with the help of various illustrations and techniques which make the presentation very simple to understand and effective.
•     For example: in the presentation on the geographical structure of the earth, we tries to provide information with the help of maps, charts, animations, movies, clips etc. such kind of illustrations helps us in understanding the topic in a better way. 

Defining the Purpose of the Presentation

Presentation is very effective technique in spreading information among large number of people. To become a good presenter, we should be very clear about various purposes of the presentation. We generally prepare presentation:

§  To present the information in a systematic way.

§  To explain the difficult point through illustrations.

§  To provide information and analyse the situation.

§  To persuade the audience to take a particular action.

§  To spread the message to large number of people with the help of technology.

§  To provide facts and figures that increase audience's understanding of the subject.

§  To solve the confusion, doubts and problems of the audience. 

How to Make an Effective Presentation?

§Planning a Presentation:

It is well said that prior proper planning and preparation prevents poor performance. Planning and Preparation are the first two steps to deliver an effective presentation.

Effective planning requires two things:

      (1)  Analysing audience and locale

      (2)  Organizing content and preparing an outline

(1) Analyzing audience and locale:

(a) Analyzing audience:

For any kind of presentation, audience is very important because it is the receiving part of the communication. Audience completes the cycle of communication at the presentation. The audience may be your friends, clients, colleagues or sometimes unknown audience. The nature of the audience has a direct impact upon the presentation. As a presenter, a person should learn the nature of the audience to make his presentation effective. This is why it becomes very important to have some prior knowledge of the audience‘s characteristics and background.

A person presenting his or her presentation in a foreign country (unfamiliar environment) should keep following things in mind before the presentation:

§  Audience's linguistic background

§  Audience's cultural background

§  Audience's pronunciation

§  Audience's ideology and philosophy

§  Audience's interest

§  Audience‘s likes and dislikes

§  Audience‘s attitude 

A person presenting in a familiar or local region or environment should learn following things in advance:

§  Prepare presentation according to the nature of the audience.

§  Know audience's likes and dislikes.

§  Know whether there is hostility towards the topic or presenter.

§  Find out their degree of knowledge of the topic.

§  Age range of the audience

§  Whether the audience is already familiar with the topic. 

All these above mentioned points are essential because the style and content will be dependent on audience‘s background, needs, interests and attitudes.

(a) Analyzing locale

Locale is a place and environment (situation) where the presentation is presented. Every location has its unique physical situation. Normally, presentation is given in seminar hall, auditorium, conference room etc. Environment of such places largely affects the presentation. While presenting a presentation, a person should keep several following things in his or her mind:

§  Size of the auditorium or conference room.

§  Seating arrangement for audience.

§  Physical setting like podium, table, room temperature, lighting etc.

§  Time span of the presentation.

§  Electric devices like: microphones, speaker, computers etc.

If a presenter found such problems regarding the location in advance, s/he can either ask for alternative arrangements or modify his/her materials, visual aids and style to suit the environment. Thus, the presenter should have proper understanding of the audience‘s nature and locale makes our presentation effective and successful.