October 31, 2006

• Content?
• Speaker’s delivery?
• PowerPoint slides?
Mark your choice and hand it in!

Despite their seeming self- confidence,
North Americans say they fear presentations more than death (or the dentist)!

A successful oral presentation is a process of finding good arguments for the right audience and organizing them memorably
Need to consider:
– Speaker’s role?
– Audience’s role?
– Effects from place and time?
– Outcome you want?

• Invention - find what you want to say
• Arrangement - organize your ideas to advance your argument
• Style - pick the right words, visuals, and type of speech for your audience
• Delivery - use appropriate body language
• Memory - practice, practice, practice! (until you can work without notes)

• Analyze the audience
• Identify your purposes (inform, persuade, build goodwill, refute, honor)
• Understand time/ place limitations
• Narrow the scope of your topic
• Combine purpose and topic to create a central idea, thesis, or claim
• Choose one visual strategy to make your presentation effective

Decide:
• what to emphasize
• what is the most appropriate organizational pattern
• what to leave out
• where to highlight signposts and transitions
(key points and argumentative twists)
• what you want your audience to remember when you finish

• Keep your presentation simple
• Focus on a few key points
• Break your message down into secondary points
• Throw out anything that doesn’t support the principal issue
• Relate everything you say to the main topic
• Reinforce key points by repetition or interaction don’t stress your audience’s memory…

Each oral presentation has at least 3 parts:
• Introduction (opener and advance organizer) that provides a preview
• Body (based on a logical organizational pattern) that develops your themes
 Point 1/ Example 1
 Transition statement/ Point 2/ Example 2
 Transition statement/ Point 3/ Example 3
• Close that reviews and leaves the audience with a final, memorable point or call to action

• Get your audience’s attention
– welcome them to your talk (weak opener)
– tell a story that creates a context (better)
– state a general principle
– create a sense of urgency (if you need a decision)
• Establish your credibility
• Provide the background to the issue
• Give an advance organizer for the rest of the speech

Credibility comes from “ethos”
Project ethos by:
• your posture, dress, speech, or smile
• the way you describe your background and position yourself as a professional
• your consideration for your audience
• the way you treat questions or interruptions
How will you dress to present to your client?

The organization of your talk should be clear :
• Order of importance
• Categorical/ Chronological/ Sequential/
Historical/ Spatial Order
• General > Specific
• Problem > Solution
• Cause > Effect
• Argument/ Evidence/ Logical Conclusion
• Comparison/ Contrast

• Constantly reinforce where you are in the talk
– first, second, third
– that was the problem, here is our solution
• Use concrete details or examples to help people imagine/ empathize
– facts
– psychological and emotional appeals
• Tell a story or draw a “word picture”

• Make sure the audience knows when you are nearing the end
• Restate the problem, summarize arguments, reinforce key points, make it clear what you want (add nothing new) – a “call to action”
• Ask for the minimum action to do the job
• Create a memorable closing (refer back to the start or use a metaphor, vision statement, or quote to control mood)
• Make your closing short and to the point

• Never give up
• Whatever you do, finish!
• Always come to some conclusion
… otherwise you and your audience have wasted each other’s time…

• Word choice one advantage of oral presentations is that you can see when your listeners need clarification or detail
• Metaphors and preferred visuals
• Type of speech - corporations have favorite formats (so do universities!)
 five-minute chalk-talks
 full PowerPoint
• Use of graphics, statistics, and charts

Some people estimate more than 90% of the information in a speech is non-verbal
Body language allows you to connect to your audience
Listeners build their impressions of your argument and your credibility from your body language and vocal style

• Types
• Gestures: illustrators vs. emphasis
• Body position
• Vocalics
• silence
• speed of speech
• stress
• enunciation
• Relaxation
• Mime

• Kinesics
• Appearance
• Proxemics
• Vocalics
• Haptics
• Chronemics
Not in order of importance…

• Illustrators: give a nonverbal description; reinforce the text
• Emphasis: let audience know importance
• Pick a slogan; deliver it without words and let us guess!

Orientation of the body:
• conveys information about the speaker
• inhibits/encourages interaction with the audience
Two basic types:
• Open vs. closed
• Forward vs. backward
Can be used to manipulate response

• What is the cultural expectation?
• Silent periods (+10 sec) per 30 min:
– Japanese: 5.5
– United States: 3.5
– Brazilians: 0
• What does silence mean?
– opportunity for the audience to reflect?
– thought?
– trouble with the speaker’s memory? (don’t be too helpful with team questions)

Speaking uses muscles; like all exercise, you need to practice
• Speed of speech creates engagement; listen to yourself/observe the audience; vary your speech rate to draw their attention
• Stress can change meaning
– I can give you a four-hundred dollar raise in six months
• Enunciation critical to clarity; try tonguetwisters for specific problems

Nervous energy is good:
• Use it to project enthusiasm
• Be prepared but also love your topic
• Work the audience
I don’t recommend imagining your audience without clothes! Think of them hanging on every word…

• Vocabulary of movement
• Allows you to project affect and emotions that you want your audience to feel
• Theatre training is excellent for business
– not just an issue of comfort
– more an issue of connection
How do you show: thought? vision? determination?

• Reading from a prepared text
– when exact words are important
– often creates unnatural speech
• Memorizing
– problems of forgetting sequences
• Impromptu speaking
– rare; but often pivotal in establishing credibility
• Extemporaneous speaking
– work from an outline or template
– use slides for notes

Varies in some dimensions from male norms:
• Physical presence (height, weight, etc.)
• Voice quality/ range
• Hedging
• Directness/ indirectness
• Assertiveness
• Listening skills
• Dress

• Rapport-Talk vs. Report-Talk
 useful when it improves contact with the audience
• Lecturing
• “Gossip”
• Ability to give and receive compliments
Gendered speech only a problem when it limits communication

Introduce your group and organize your speaking roles to reinforce the organization of your talk
– Speaker 1 – Introduction
– Speaker 2 – Presents the problem
– Speaker 3 – Discusses 2 solutions
– Speaker 4 – Recommends a plan of action
– Speaker 1 – Summarizes and gives “call to action”

People watch how you treat each other
 Indicates how you will treat them
 Refer to each other by name (be consistent
– not Miss Li and Xiaofeng)
 Listen respectfully to each other
 Make smooth transitions
 Help one another out

• If someone doesn’t understand, help them understand the question so that they can answer
• Don’t answer for them unless they don’t know
Audience wants to know that all the speakers are competent

Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
2 Th
3:15 Th
4 TH
Group 5
Group 6

• Why use PowerPoint slides?
• What problems have you seen/ encountered in the grammar modules?
• Review a slideshow
– Are these slides successful in communicating their information?
– How would you improve them?
• Some tips for using PowerPoint slides
• Graphics (to read)

• Choice of template and page layout
• Headings (structure; parallelism)
• Amount of text (use of concise language)
• Bullets (logical and grammatical parallelism)
• Fonts and font sizes; capitalization
• Highlighting techniques (bullets, boxes, etc.)
• White space
• Colours
• Illustrations and graphics
• Visual variety

Don’t try to cover the same information on slides (or flipcharts) as in a paper
• Pick a few points and focus on them
• If you have prepared a written report, refer listeners to it for details
• Don’t let your visuals diminish your message > make them reinforce it!

• Replaced overheads and flipcharts
• Somewhat controversial:
– Often seen as a “disease” or lazy person’s way of developing a presentation
– Potential to remove focus from the presenter
– Too easy to produce – people lose their perspective on what their main points
• Popular (nonetheless) because they reflect visual/cognitive processing
– Bullets ~ chunking

Having a giant lit screen in front of your audience takes the focus off you
You must reclaim it by learning how to use your slides as a backdrop:
– don’t get in the way of the image
– don’t turn your back on your audience
– point and turn
– advance in the space (people follow movement) and interact with the audience
– vary informative and summary slides

Williams’ four graphics principles:
• Proximity
• Alignment
• Repetition
• Contrast
Human factors concerns:
• Memory (chunking and structure)
• Recall vs. recognition
• Issues with vision

• Focus the reader’s attention with interpretative titles and graphical bullets
• Focus on one point per slide
• Use powerful words (verb phrases, words that imply action)
• Maintain grammatical consistency (e.g. all titles and capitalization parallel as well as text on a page)
• Maintain visual consistency on/ between slides
• Use contrast to make important points memorable

• Use at least
20 point in a small room; 28 point in a large room (this is 32 point)
• Make titles bold and several points larger
• Avoid Times Roman (and other skinny fonts)
• Use heavy sans serif font (like Arial Black
) when the room is large or has poor lighting
• Add bullets/ indentation for subordination
• Remember -- lack of parallelism is very noticeable in a 32 point font

Saturation levels are changed by projection
• Use highly contrasting colors for words and background (black and white always work)
• Limit the number of bright colors; use different colors to enhance meaning
• Dark colors disappear against dark backgrounds (and light against light)
• Pale blue lacks enough contrast for backgrounds

• Remember 5% of the male population is color-blind; don’t put important information in red text
• Use colors to communicate content
(redundant coding)
• Avoid distracting colors
• The current professional color palette is very cool and uses muted tones

• Enhance corporate identity with logos, headers, or footers
 Companies often emphasize corporate themes with slide backgrounds
• Microsoft clipart is overused
• A lot of commercial clipart is trite, sexist, or both
• Graphics may be fun to add to a talk but can annoy listeners

• Animation should be used rarely
• It can add suspense but quickly becomes expected
• Each animation effect slows down your pace
• Best use is pacing your interactions with your audience

Consider whether audience may need slides to follow your talk:
– is there a language problem?
– is the room is large or obstructed?
– will people be making notes?
– will everyone stay to the end of the presentation?
– is this a corporate culture that “files” stuff?

• How many people in your group?
• What is the purpose of the presentation
• How much information do you have; how will you arrange it for the presentation?
• Do you have a story to tell your client?
• Is the news good or bad?
• What kind of evidence do you have?; what type of evidence do yu think they want?

• Good news (positive or informative)
• Bad news (negative)
Should you use “You Attitude?

• Distribute good news immediately
• Reassure readers
• Manage uncertainty (may include negatives)
• Give readers enough information to act
• Build a good image of the writer/ writer’s organization
• Strengthen relationships
• Prevent unnecessary correspondence and further clarifications

– How do you get readers to read your memo?
– How do you get readers to act?
(good news, by definition, is rarely pressing)

• Anticipate topic in the subject line
• Give good news first; summarize main points
• Identify and explain reader benefits
• Give background, details, clarification
• Structure information to make reading easy
• If limitations or restrictions exist, present them as positively as possible ( buffer them).
If no buffer is possible, present problems indirectly
• Use a goodwill ending: positive, personal, and forward-looking

• Framing
• Reader benefits
• Common ground
• Cohesion (coherence)
• Buffers
• Expressing goodwill

Normal in memos; optional in letters; automatic in most email packages
Subject lines frame the reader's impression of the content. They must be:
• specific
• concise
• appropriate to positive or negative content of the message
Highlight good news; use neutral terms for non-critical information or negative messages
Staff holiday declared for Christmas week

Benefits are generally persuasive, but sometimes they may be inappropriate…
Use benefits when:
– you are presenting policies
– you want to shape the reader’s attitude to the information or sponsoring organization
– you can present the reader’s motives in a positive way
– some of the benefits are not obvious

Don’t identify or explain benefits when:
– you are only presenting factual information
– you don’t care about the reader’s attitude to the information
– stressing benefits makes the reader look selfish
– the benefits are obvious
– your readers are likely to respond cynically

One person’s benefit is another’s disadvantage - adapt the benefits to the audience
You may need to identify multiple benefits for primary and secondary audiences
– A reader benefit is a claim that some reward will come from doing what you ask; if the claim fails, your credibility is affected
– Explain benefits in enough detail that the reader knows exactly what you’ve promised

Where possible, base reader benefits on intrinsic (internal, not extrinsic) rewards
• Think seriously about financial commitments
• What rewards most motivate you?
• When have you been surprised about what motivates someone else?
Better website for Computer Science
Better website for Engineering
Better website for Wong Centre, etc.

Support action by reestablishing common ground
– Give details, clarification, and background (don’t repeat information already given)
– Restate what you believe is the reader’s view
(but show it is also your own)
Persuasive technique – remember, even good news is sometimes a hard sell!
“Common ground” not necessary if everyone has been actively communicating
– Secondary audiences may not be in that loop
– In such cases, de-emphasize but include

Specific organizational patterns help support your claims by increasing cohesion :
• Build on mutual knowledge by working from old ( given ) to new information
• Work from inclusive to particular terms ( general to particular )
• Use connecting words ( and, however, but, in fact, in conclusion ) to surface the document’s logical structure
Pay attention to vocabulary to improve coherence :
– Limit your use of technical terminology
– Always use the same term for the same thing

Use buffers to minimize the effect of negative elements in a positive message
– Be honest about the existence of problems
– Don’t focus unnecessary attention on them
– Present positive side-effects when possible
• may require a different time frame
• may require focus on customer advantage

Expressions of goodwill are not always necessary in positive or informative messages
Useful when you want to enhance your relationship with the reader (or reader's organization). In that case, mention:
• reader benefits
• compliments
• good wishes
Omit pleasantries ("Feel free to call") unless you really do want people to act; then make it easy

• Give readers the bad news they need to know
• If possible, balance it with good news
• If the bad news is really bad, be direct
• Ask yourself whether everyone needs to know > narrow your audience
• Motivate readers to act constructively
• Support credibility of you / your organization
• Maintain as much goodwill as possible
• Prevent unnecessary correspondence and further clarifications

– How do you preserve the relationship?
– Do you want to preserve the relationship?
Structure your message to make readers feel:
– they have been given serious consideration
– they understand (and can accept) your logic
– they would make the same decision if they were in your position

• Framing
• Tone and positive emphasis
• Clarity and sincerity
• Buffers
• Good reasons
• Alternatives
(Note overlap with positive memos)

Use neutral language in the subject line
(unless the company culture prizes direct communication)
The lack of affect prepares people for your
“bad news” (another example of framing )
If you need to make sure the message is heard clearly, highlight the information in the subject line

Protect the reader’s ego:
• Avoid “you attitude” when you might be directly criticizing the reader (implies either your anger or their guilt)
• Use passive voice to avoid assigning blame
• Remove negative terms and negative connotations
– “failure,” “error,” “afraid,” “I’m sorry,” etc.
Watch out for feeding anger and cynicism

Even though you don’t want to overemphasize the negative --> you still need to make it clear
– Don’t provide an excuse for inaction
– Don’t underestimate the intelligence of employees / customers (they know when a policy benefits management more than them)
• Use a negative subject line if you need to focus reader attention
• End positively - but avoid insincerity
– Don’t refer to your own sorrow in failing to give people what they want

Use when the news is not too bad. Buffers
(neutral/ positive statements) delay the negative:
– Start with any good news or positive elements
– State a fact or present a chronology of events
– State a general principle (this can be very powerful)
– Thank readers for something they have done

Omit buffers when:
– readers cannot possibly be expected to have a positive reaction to the bad news
– readers may ignore or skim the message
– readers and organization prize direct messages
– readers are suspicious of the writer
– readers won’t take “no” for an answer

When you have a good reason that readers can accept, give that reason before the negative statement or refusal
– Put reason in the same paragraph as the refusal, rather than in another paragraph
– Emphasizes cause/effect to prepare the reader for the outcome
Avoid justifications that don’t apply to your primary and secondary readers (e.g., unrelated others)
Remember you will have secondary / watchdog audiences

If possible, give readers another way to get what they want. Alternatives :
– suggest you really care about the readers; help end the letter on a positive note and present you and your organization as friendly and helpful
– help readers re-establish their psychological freedom (limited by your refusal) by suggesting other actions
– shift responsibility to the readers – let them participate in finding other solutions to the problem

Alternatives are not the same as reader benefits.
In a negative context, reader benefits sound false but alternatives may let you recast the situation

Can you convert the bad news into a positive message?
– If the negative situation is the result of a desired benefit, include as part of the overall positive message (don’t handle it separately)
Can you redefine the problem?
– Ask audience to help you solve the situation
– Present alternatives so that the negative option is one of a set of choices; show why the other options won’t work

You can sometimes defuse negative tone through humor … but it is often a risky strategy:
– Such humor must be highly focused and universally understood
– Do not use humor that diminishes anyone
– Do not use humor when people feel their personal autonomy is at stake
– Recognize that humor can be culturally limited
– Watch out for humor that dates quickly
Avoid self-deprecation for yourself (~ ethos)

• Address:
– Miss, Mrs., Ms.
– Emilie is a very good woman professor
• Non-gendered references
– Avoid gender in constructing sentences
– Particularly important when stating general principles

1. Use plurals: Visitors to websites want to complete their tasks
2. Use you: When you visit a website, you want to complete your task
3. Use indefinite articles: A visitor to a website wants to complete a task
4.
Use pronoun pairs (“he or she”): A visitor to a website wants to complete his or her task

• Readers will follow you much more easily if you prepare them for the structure of your argument
• Add an advance organizer to the end of your introduction or beginning of the body of your talk: Usability depends on three things – navigation, content, and appearance
• Fulfill your audience’s expectations by following this structure – P2 = navigation;
P3 = content; P4 = appearance

When you write a series or develop a bulleted or numbered list, make sure all the elements in the list are grammatically parallel:
– All nouns – Structure, Content, Relationship
– All verbs – Provide, Identify, Make
– All gerunds – Providing, Identifying, Making