1. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 What Material Goes into an Oral Presentation? (1) u Only highlights go into a briefing

2. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 What Material Goes into an Oral Presentation? (2) u What gets emphasized depends on the audience and the purpose of the briefing u Technical audiences want methodology and process emphasized u Decision makers want conclusions and recommendations emphasized

3. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 What Material Goes into an Oral Presentation? (3) u The level of generality must remain high on slides (speaker can elaborate orally)

4. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Audience u Why am I giving them this presentation? u What is the audience’s goal ? u What information will the audience expect me to provide? u What preconceptions or prejudices might the audience have?

5. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Questions to Ask About Your Material u What are the 2 or 3 important ideas I want to convey? u How can I organize my presentation around those ideas? u How will the parts of the presentation fit together? u How much detail does my audience need? u Which details does my audience need?

6. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Why Use PowerPoint Slides? u To guide the speaker u To guide the audience u To emphasize main ideas u To promote retention of main points u To allow audience to have a record of the briefing (hard copies)

7. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Why Use PowerPoint Slides? (con’t) u No hassle with transparencies u Slides can be stored on disk u Able to create color slides for emphasis and flash

8. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 General Qualities of Effective Slides u One central idea u Appropriate format u Plenty of white space u Visuals

9. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Design Tips for Creating Effective Slides (1) u Title should state the main message of the slide u Limit text on any slide u Maximum of 7-8 words per line u Maximum of 7 lines per slide (8 here) u But no more than 30 words total (40) u Avoid jargon, abbreviations u Use short words

10. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Design Tips for Creating Effective Slides (2) u If information will not fit on one chart, use two u Avoid excessive detail u Don’t end entries with periods

11. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Design Tips for Creating Effective Slides (3) u Not necessary to use complete sentences u Type titles with initial capital letter for each word u Type text with initial capital letter for each bullet

12. Oral Report Contents6/27/2015 Five Steps to an Effective Presentation u Tell us immediately why we should care u Tell us how the presentation will be organized u Tell us only what we need to know u Use simple, precise language u Make the visuals work for you