1. Introduction Giving a presentation is like taking your audience from a start to finish on a journey. At the start, your audience require some basic information before they can accompany you on this journey. Once they have the information, they're on your side, attentative and ready to listen to every step of the journey along to your final message. Who Introduce yourself. Clearly, the amount of information you give about yourself and your work and the level of formality that you use depends on the presentation you're giving. For example, for a presentation to a group of colleagues, you probably don't need to give your name and background and you can use informal language. A presentation to a new client can require more detailed information about your background and experience and a more formal approach. Make sure that you're comfortable talking about your past and present experiences in such cases. Why Tell your audience your destination - the reason they're there to listen to you and the purpose of your presentation. If the audience don't know why they should listen, they won't have any reason to accompany you along your journey. The "why" is linked to the conclusion, your final message - probably, the most important of your presentation. What Outline the roadmap - the main points that you're going to develop and the ordered in which you would like to develop these. When your audience have a clear view of the roadmap you want to navigate, they can follow you more easily and can also see you've planned and prepared your presentation. There are good reasons for giving the roadmaps, as research shows your audience listen better and remember better and more when they know the structure and shape of your presentation. The technique we use to give the roadmap is called "sequencing". This is a very simple technique as it involves using language such as one, two, three or firstly, secondly, thirdly. How Put yourself into your audience's shoes: address your audience's needs. Your audience won't listen to you as you go into the main part of your presentation if they have other concerns. They may be thinking: How long do I have to sit here? Do I have to take notes? When can I ask questions? Do I have to take notes? It can therefore be useful to answer such questions in your "start" so that your audience are ready to listen. Frases related to Who, Why, What and How categories: 1. On behalf of Mr Keane, may I welcome you to Jackson Inc. My name's Jo Black and I'm responsible for ... 2. My purpose today is to ... 3. I'm going to develop three main points. First, ... Second, ... Third, ... 4. Let me introduce myself. I am ... I am a ... 5. I'll pass round copies of my slides so you can make notes as I go through the presentation. 6. Before I continue, let me tell you something about myself. 7. Today I would like to give you a general overview of ... 8. I've divided my presentation into three main points. I would like to begin with ...¨ 9. So, I'll be addressing three main points and the first one is going to be ... The second point will be ... And finally, the last point is ... 10. I'm going to outline three proposals. Firstly, I'll ... Then ... I'd like to ... and finally ... 11. Today, I'm going to bring you up to date with 12. The presentation should last about five minutes. 13. We'll take a short coffee break at about 10:30. 14. My objective today is to ... 15. Morning everyone. Thanks for coming. My name is Luca and I'm in charge of ... 16. If you have any questions, I'd be grateful if you could leave them until the end. 17. I'm happy to take any questions after that. 18. For those who don't know me, my name is Carlos Lopez and I'm the managing director. 19. We can take two or three questions at the end of each point. 20. You don't need to take notes as we'll be handing out presentation booklets. 21. I would like to start with ... And then ... Lastly ... 22. Today, I'm going to tell you ... 23. What I am going to do today is review ... 24. Please feel free to interrupt me at any time if you have a question. 25. The reason we are here today is to ... 26. Morning everyone. I'm ... I'm a ... at .... 2. Signposting Signposting helps you structure and shape the main content of your presentation. Signposts create ‘verbal paragraphs’ or ‘verbal signals’ and raise the attention curve at the beginning and end of each point of your presentation. The technique allows you to guide the audience through the structure of your presentation linking one point to the next. The audience can’t see your notes and can’t look forward to see what is coming. You know where you’re going on your journey and you need to guide your audience by telling them exactly where you are on the roadmap of your presentation. This is simple but highly effective technique that adds clarity to your presentations. 1. Moving on now to ... 2. I would like to begin by ... 3. Let’s now turn to ... 4. Let’s start with my presentation ... 5. So, first of all ... 6. Now, turning to ... 7. Now, what about ... ? 8. Let me move on to ... 9. So, that’s the general picture for ... 10. I’d like to conclude this point by saying ... 11. This leads me to a point ... 12. So, we’ve looked at ... 13. That completes my overview of ... 14. Let’s just recap ... 15. So, that’s pretty much ... 16. and this is ... 17. Next we come to ... 18. So, that was ... 19. My next point is ... 20. That’s all I want to say about ... 21. So, that covers this point. ... 22. And finally ... 3. Conclusion Make your final message clear: Stay in control until the very last second and follow these steps at the 'finish' of your presentation. Firstly, pause briefly and signal clearly that you are now ready to finish the presentation. The audience will start to listen again closely at this point. Then, make your summary, giving a brief overview of what has already been said. The summary is a reflection of your 'what' and looks back. It should not be too long as you will lose your audience's attention again, but detailed enough to cover your points. This can be a difficult balance to achieve! A good summary gives your listeners time to reflect on the content and builds up to your conclusion, making your conclusion stronger, more powerful and more effective. A conclusion without a summary can sound incomplete as your audience may not have listened to every point during the main part of the presentation and the purpose can be lost. Avoid giving any conclusions while you are making your summary. After this, give your conclusion. This is a reflection of your 'why' and looks forward to what you want people to do or think after your presentation. it should follow logically from your summary. There are different kinds of conclusions: you can make a call for action, make a recommendation or assure your audience that they're better informed. This is the destination of your journey and the most important part of your presentation. Finally, make your closing remarks by thanking your audience, asking for questions or passing round your presentation hand-outs. Phrases related to Conclusion: 1. So, that brings me to the end of my presentation 2. Let me summarise what we've looked at. 3. Thank you for your attention. 4. I'll briefly summarise the main issues. 5. I'll now hand out ... 6. I suggest Johannes ... and Michel ... 7. I'd like to summarise. 8. I'd like to conclude by strongly recommending ... 9. So, that completes my presentation. 10. Let me just go over the key points again. 11. To sum up ... 12. I trust you gained an insight into ... 13. To conclude, I'd like to leave you with the following thought ... 14. Well, that covers everything I want to say. 15. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. 16. At this stage, I'd like to go over ... 17. In my opinion, the only way forward is to ... 18. Thank you for listening. 19. To summarise, I'll run through my three topics. 20. In conclusion, I'd like to leave you with the following idea. Source: Williams, Erica J. Presentations in English. Honkong: MacMillan, 2008.