Presentation+Skills

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The use of positive body language enhances your oral presentation. Stand erect and avoid sitting, and make use of hand gestures and facial expressions to emphasize a point. Speak with conviction and attempt to make eye contact with the entire audience by sweeping your gaze across the room. Avoid fixating on a single person or object.
 * Body Language and Eye Contact **

Avoid reading from a text, as this prevents you from making eye contact and causes your audience to lose attention. You don't have to memorize your presentation, but you should know the material well enough that you can give the presentation by using only note cards or visual aids to jog your memory.
 * Avoid Reading **

Organize your oral presentation so that it flows logically from one point to the next. Your presentation should have an introduction which gives an overview and states your main point. The body of the presentation should consists of material that support your main point. The conclusion should summarize the contents of your presentation while reemphasizing your main point.
 * Organization **

Use pauses after making an important point. This allows time for the information to sink in with the audience. Pauses can also help with the pace of your presentation and give you the opportunity for a quick breather or to take a sip of water.
 * Appropriate Pauses **

Use visual aids to enhance your presentation, but be careful not to let them overwhelm it. Too many visual aids can distract the audience which can cause you to be tuned out. You should also keep handouts to minimum to keep your audience from shuffling through papers or reading while you are speaking.
 * Visual Aids **

Take questions from your audience at the end of the presentation if time permits. This gives you the opportunity to clarify any points for the audience and allow for more personal contact.
 * Take Questions **

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How to Build Confidence for Public Speaking
//Your audience can be your friend// To help you gain more confidence when speaking in public, think of ways to engage your audience. When you make an important point pay attention to the people who are nodding in agreement and the ones who are frowning in disagreement. As long as you are creating a reaction in your audience you are in charge.

//Keep them awake// The one thing you don't want is for them to fall asleep! But make no mistake public speaking arenas are designed to do just that: dim lights, cushy chairs, not having to open their mouths - a perfect invitation to catch up on those zzzzs. Ways to keep them awake include
 * Ask rhetorical questions
 * Maintain eye contact for a second or two with as many people as possible
 * Be challenging
 * Change the pace of your delivery
 * Change the volume of your voice

Hints and Tips for Effective Public Speaking
//Mistakes// <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tell stories //
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mistakes are all right.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Recovering from mistakes makes you appear more human.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Good recovery puts your audience at ease - they identify with you more.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Stories make you a real person not just a deliverer of information.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use personal experiences to bring your material to life.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No matter how dry your material is, you can always find a way to humanise it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//How to use the public speaking environment//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Try not to get stuck in one place.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use all the space that's available to you.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Move around. One way to do this is to leave your notes in one place and move to another.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Technology//
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Speak to your audience not your slides.Your slides are there to support you not the other way around.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ideally, slides should be graphics and not words (people read faster than they hear and will be impatient for you to get to the next point).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If all the technology on offer fails, it's still you they've come to hear.

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Video demonstration of a good presentation
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