Presentation skills – Guidelines

   Stating your purpose:

   OK, let´s get started. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming. I´m………….

   

   This morning I´m going to be :

   talking to you about | showing you how | taking a look at | reporting  on| telling you about

   

   ……..so, I´ll begin by:

   filling you in on | making a few observations about | outlining company policy | giving you an
   overview of | bringing you up-to-date on

   

   ……and then I´ll go on to:

   highlight  what I see as | put the situation into some kind of perspective |make detailed
   recommendations regarding | discuss in more depth sth

   

   Signposting – telling what comes next in a presentation

   +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |           |make your next point             |      |To move on to our next point           |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |           |change direction                 |      |To turn to last year´s figures         |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   | when      |refer to an earlier point        |      |To go back to what I said earlier      |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |  you      |repeat the main points           |you   |To recap on the main figures           |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   | want      |give a wider perspective         |      |To expand on this a bit more           |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |   to      |do a deeper analysis             |say   |To elaborate on this particular feature|
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |           |give the basics                  |      |To summarize the points                |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |           |depart from your plan            |      |To digress from                        |
   |           |---------------------------------|      |---------------------------------------|
   |           |finish your talk                 |      |To conclude                            |
   +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

   

   Commenting on visuals

   To highlight important information in a visual, you can use the following:

   

   +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |            |us to look                    |at this part of the graph in more detail.       |
   |            |------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   |I´d         |us to focus our attention     |on one particularly important feature.          |
   |            |------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   |like        |you to think                  |about the significance of this figure here.     |
   |            |------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   |            |to point                      |out  one or two interesting details.            |
   |            |------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   |            |to draw your attention to     |to the upper half of the chart.                 |
   +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

   

   To conclude:

   Thank you for your attention and if you have any questions, I´ll  be happy to answer them.

   

   You can also ask the audience to ask questions during your speech by saying:

   If you have any questions during my talk, don´t hesitate to interrupt me/feel free to ask.

   

   To ask your colleague to carry on:

   Now I would like to hand over to Mark.

   

   Source: Powell, M.: Presenting in English – how to give successful presentation, Thomson
   Heinle.2002.