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



Personalization
  * You might be interested in why I chose this particular topic.
  * I should tell you how I became interested in this topic.
  * There is a personal story connected to the topic of today´s presentation.
  * The first time I thought about this issue was when I…..



Giving information on the Question and Answer Session:


Questions after the presentation:
  * I´d like to ask you to hold your questions till the end.
  * There will be time for questions after my presentation.
  * We will have at least fifteen minutes for questions during the discussion period.
  * Because of the tight time schedule, I´d like you to hold your questions till the end.
  * Since the subject matter is rather complex, I´d appreciate it if you´d save your questions
until after the presentation.
  * In order to bring everybody to the same level of understanding, I´d like to give you a general
overview first, and answer questions in the discussion period after my presentation.


Questions during the presentation:
  * If you have any questions, feel free to interrupt me at any time.
  * Don´t hesitate to ask questions during my presentation.
  * Please share your questions with us as they come up; I´ll be happy to answer them right  away.



Signposting – telling what comes next in a presentation




 when

  you

 want

   to

     make your next point




                              you


                              say

                                 To move on to our next point

     change direction

                                 To turn to last year´s figures

     refer to an earlier point

                                 To go back to what I said earlier

     repeat the main points

                                 To recap on the main figures

     give a wider perspective

                                 To expand on this a bit more

     do a deeper analysis

                                 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


vocab.

digress from – odbočit od


Commenting on visuals


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



I´d

like

    us to look

                             at this part of the graph in more detail.

    us to focus our attention

                             on one particularly important feature.

    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 presentations, Thomson
Heinle.2002.