1. Communicative act

A typical mistake of many informative speakers (lecturers etc.) is the failure to recognize their speech as an act of communication.

The main components of a presentation as a communicative act are:

1. the speaker

2. the audience

3. the speech

Communication is always a two-way process.

On the one hand, the speaker delivers a talk that is perceived by the audience:

S peaker Speech Audience

On the other hand, it is the audience that determines the character of the speech (the choice of the topic, the structure etc.) and the behaviour of the speaker during the talk:

S peaker Speech Audience

2. Attention Curve

C onsider the following graph.

Figure 1. The Attention Curve. This figure illustrates how the average audience pays attention during a typical presentation of, let’s say, 30 minutes. Almost everyone listens in the beginning, but halfway the attention may well have dropped to around 10-20% of what it was at the start. At the end, many people start to listen again, particularly if you announce your conclusions, because they hope to take something away from the presentation.

What can you do to catch the audience’s attention for the whole duration of your talk?

The attention curve immediately gives a few recipes.

1. Almost everyone listens in the beginning. This is THE moment to make clear that you will present work that the audience cannot afford to miss.

2. If you want to get your message through, you should state it loud and clear in the beginning, and repeat it at the end.

3. The best approach, however, is to divide your presentation in several parts, each ended by an intermediate conclusion, see Figure 2. People in the audience who got distracted can always easily catch up with you, particularly if you outline the structure of your talk in the beginning.

Figure 2. Ideal attention curve of an audience when the speaker divides his talk in recognizable parts, each summarized by intermediate conclusions. If people lose their attention for some reason, they can easily catch up with the speaker in one of his intermediate summaries. The big advantage of this approach is that every important item is said several times. Repeating the essentials is the key to getting your message across.

Ex. 15. Answer the following questions.

1. How can you explain that presentation is a two-way process?

2. What is a typical attention curve? What does it show?

3. What is the ideal attention curve? What recommendation does it give to the speaker?

Ex. 16. Read the following text and find answers to the following questions.

1. What are the four modes of delivery?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each mode?

3. Why is the extemporaneous mode of delivery considered preferable for presentations?