presenting in english golden rules for becoming a good presenter always be enthusiastic, both about...

Presenting in English

Golden rules for becoming a good presenter

• Always be enthusiastic, both about the subject and the audience. Remember that enthusiasm is infectious

• Always prepare well, not only the script but also acoustics, seating, visibility and technical equipment

• Always have stage presence, a bright smile, contact with the audience, naturalness

Presenting in English• It’s important to start well and to end well,

spend more time on these two essential moments to show confidence and control

• Be concise, short and simple sentences work best and punctuate your speech with deliberate pauses

• Get straight to the point, plan your powerful statements and make the first come early on

• Speak naturally, don’t worry unduly about hesitating or forgetting the script. It happens

Presenting in English• Be yourself, take your time and don’t try to

be what you are not. If you want to joke, fine, but if it isn’t natural don’t force it

• Remember the audience, always address their needs, their goals and concerns, as well as those of the chair. Never bore them, and never run over time

• Treat the audience as equals, never talk up or down to them, enjoy your rapport with them, welcoming interruptions and questions

Presenting in English• Make good use of your visuals as prompts,

don’t repeat what everyone can read, presenter and visuals are complementary

• Don’t compete with your visual, give your audience time to absorb them, though you may well point out the most salient points

• Keep your visuals as light-hearted as possible, jokes and cartoons are preferable to complex charts, graphs and diagrams

• Take your time, don’t rush


Set the tone immediately by deciding on the formality of the presentation

• Compare “Good morning ladies and gentlemen” with “Morning everyone”

• Compare “On behalf of my Company, I’d like to welcome you and thank you for coming” with “Welcome and thanks for coming”

• Compare “my name is....” with “I’m...”

Presenting in English• Compare “I am sales manager” with “I’m in

charge of sales”

• “This morning I would like to start by” “now, I’m going to start by...”

• “discuss/talk”, “report/tell”, “present/show”

• “If you have any questions you’d like to ask, I’ll be happy to answer them (later)”

“Feel free to shoot any questions at me as we go along ” or “don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time for questions at the end”


• Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I’m John Smith from IBM, marketing division, and this morning I’m going to be......

• talking to you about/discussing with you

• reporting to you on/telling you the results of

• taking a look at/showing you/demonstrating

• describing/outlining/bringing you up-to-date


This morning, as you all know, I’m going to be showing you our latest product in the XL range. I’ll start off by...

• filling you in on the background to...

• giving you an overview of...

• making a few observations about...

• bringing you up-to-date on...

Presenting in EnglishThen I’ll move on to...

• a discussion of the main advantages of...

• explain in greater depth...

• an analysis of...

• talk about the implications this has on...

I’ll then conclude my talk by

• making my recommendations regarding...

• looking to the future/forecasting...

• highlighting the main advantages...


Communication theorists agree that the first minutes can make or break a presentation. Here are some techniques or “hooks” used to attract and keep the audience’s attention:

• Give them a problem to think about• Give them some amazing facts or figures• Give them a story or personal anecdote• Ask rhetorical questions


• “Suppose your advertising budget were cut overnight by 50%. What would you do to keep quality in your product promotion?” Well, here are some of the things we’ve been suggesting at A&GM International.”

• Imagine/just think/what would you do/how would you go about/what would your strategy be/how would you handle

• How many people here this morning have...


• “According to research published just last month, by the year 2050 only one in four people in Western Europe will be travelling to work. Now what this means for us is...”

• According to a survey/statistics show/I’d like to start by giving you some surprising figures/researchers all agree that...

• Did you know that/I’ve heard that/I read somewhere the other day that...


“I remember on one occasion when I was in Beirut in a marvellous Lebanese restaurant and my hosts kept on talking about the food and refused to talk about the business in hand. This just goes to show that culture...”

• Have you ever been in a situation where...

• I’m reminded of the time/when I think about what could have happened that time I.../it turned out when I was in...


• It is important to present a few (not too many) of your ideas as questions rather than direct statements

• these are questions that do not require answers from the audience but

• they do involve the audience and keep them alert

• they create anticipation in the audience and• they tend to make the presentation more

conversational

Presenting in English• The rhetorical question is particularly good

for introducing powerful or emphatic statements.

• A very effective structure for giving power and emphasis to what you are saying is

statement + question + answer• especially with a repetition of key words or

phrases, e.g. “The problem is that cheap imitations are flooding the market. So, what exactly is the solution to this problem? Well, the solution quite simply is to...”

Presenting in EnglishJust a few standard examples:• “So just how do we get over this hurdle?”• “What, ladies and gentlemen, is the point to

all this? Well, I’ll tell you. The point is...”• “how can we possibly hope to gain from

this unfortunate situation?”• “how much longer do we have to go on...?”• “how soon will it be before we can say...?”• “Just why was it we got ourselves into this”


• Other rhetorical techniques are commonly used in presentations to make them more striking, more dramatic. One very common device is the dramatic contrast, as people are very aware ideas in opposition. The most frequent are:

• past v. present, present v. future etc• good and bad, positive and negative• them and us, our company v. the

competition etc.

Presenting in EnglishSome examples:• “Ten years ago we were just a small family

concern, today we’re a huge multinational, who knows where we’ll be tomorrow?”

• “At a time when the market is flooded with cheap imitations, everyone knows we still represent quality products and services”

• “While our competitors are making futile attempts to penetrate new markets, we have successfully been consolidating our European sales network”


• Tripling is simply structuring discourse into three parts or “chunks”, as it seems lists of (two or ) three are more striking or more memorable than other structures. A single item is too short while a list of four too long

• The structure of a rhetorical question being followed by a triple answer is typical:

• “How did we reach our goals? Easy. Good ideas, hard work and keeping costs down.”

Presenting in EnglishSome more examples:• “How? Simple. Cut expenses, cut staffing

requirements and, if necessary, cut wages.”• “What would these cuts mean? Certainly no

new blood, probably staff discontent with the distinct possibility of industrial action.”

• “Others have been down that road and it isn’t easy. Ask IBM, Apple and Sony. They’ll tell you.”

• “We’ve got to improve things. In terms of output, productivity and, in a word, profit.”


Successful presenting depends a great deal on the voice:

• your audience must be able to hear you, so check the microphone setting or project your voice so that everyone can hear you

• exaggerate normal stress and intonation

• think and speak in small, manageable “chunks” of meaning and pause between each one


Split the following introduction into chunks, by “scripting” your stresses and pauses:

• “Years ago, only senior members of staff were given the chance to become managers. Today, anyone can be become a manager at any age or at any point in his or her career. But, of course, the untalented, the unprepared and the untrained are usually destined to fail. That’s what this morning’s presentation is all about”

• “Years ago, /only SENIOR members of staff/ were given the chance to become MANAGERS./ Today, ANYONE/ can be become a MANAGER/ at ANY age/ or at ANY point/ in his or her career. But, of course, /the UNTALENTED, /the UNPREPARED/ and the UNTRAINED/ are usually destined to FAIL./ THAT’S/ what this morning’s PRESENTATION/ is all about”

Presenting in English• The ability to script a speech may seem

complicated at first but it comes quite naturally after a little practice

• Just as you can write into your script your stressed words and phrases and your pauses, you can also start working on varying your pace, i.e. Some chunks delivered more quickly, others more slowly

• You can indicate a slower paced chunk simply by spacing out the words in your script

Presenting in EnglishHere’s the previous example of a scripted speech

with pacing added:• “Years ago, /only SENIOR members of staff/

were given the chance to become MANAGERS./ Today, ANYONE/ can be become a MANAGER/ at ANY age/ or at ANY point/ in his or her career. /But, of course, /the UNTALENTED, /the UNPREPARED/ and the UNTRAINED/ are usually destined to FAIL./ THAT’S/ what this morning’s PRESENTATION/ is all about”

presenting in english golden rules for becoming a good presenter always be enthusiastic, both about...

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