3) Determine primary purpose

Your presentation may have an:

- informative purpose;

- instructional purpose; - persuasive purpose.

Depending on these, the structure and style, the shape of your presen­tation will vary significantly.

4) Shape your presentation

It is essential to decide upon the organisation of your presentation. The organisation you choose will depend on the overall purpose of your talk, but basically it may be of the following kinds:

Classifications - organising information into groups that share common characteristics.

Partition or spatial divisions - organising information into major compo­nents and their minor sub-components.

Segmentation - explaining the relationship of events over time.

Comparison - attempting to present one item in terms of another.

Cause and effect - describing and persuading by means of identifying causal relationships.

Problem and solution - organising material in response to a dilemma.

Experimentation - organising the information given, the purpose, aim, mate­rials, procedures, results, and discussion in that order.

5) Select effective supporting information

Provide an illustrative example for each main point and explain the relationship of the example to the point it supports. Use a variety of differ­ent kinds of support or proof for your statements, such as facts, statistics, examples, comparisons, testimonies (an eye witness account or a direct quotation), narrative (a story). This way you reach and persuade various members of your audience. Repeat key concepts/points by expressing one idea in several different ways, thereby reinforcing important points. To do this effectively, you need to answer these questions to yourself:

- what kind of information will best support your presentation?

- what kind of information will appeal to your audience?

Remember that listeners on average remember two or three suppor­tive points.

6) Choose an appropriate pattern of organisation

- for a "how to do it" presentation, use a list of chronologically or­dered instructions;

- for an experiment, use the standard descriptive pattern: introduc­tion, materials, procedure, results, discussion.

- for a cost/benefit model state the problem, solutions offered with advantages and disadvantages, sum up the reasons why your model should be accepted.

7) Select appropriate visual aids

When designing a visual, you should consider its effect on the audi­ence. When you project an image on the screen, the listeners break their eye contact with you and look at the image. They try to discern what is projected and how it fits into the scheme of presentation. When a visual works effec­tively, it orients the audience quickly to these two points. What information then do you place on visuals? You should show the presentation's organisa­tion, include important images and results. A good test for the design of visuals is how well they stand on their own as a poster summary for the pres­entation. Visual aids function as "cue cards" clarifying your message and al­lowing the audience to remember the main points. They can be:

- overhead transparencies;

- slides;

- flip charts;

- chalkboards;

- handouts;

- three-dimensional objects;

- computer-screen projection.