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



 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


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 presentation, Thomson
Heinle.2002.