- Referring less to the screen
- Coordinating hand movements
- Eye-contact with the audience
After these 2 presentations, I believe referring to the screen is unavoidable. I personally think it helps to show the audience where to focus and helps emphasize the points I was making.
I also reduced my unnecessary hand movements. During this presentation, I made lesser large movements and instead used smaller movements to help emphasize points that I made. This made it less distracting for the audience and they can focus on the information I was telling instead.
I felt that I was able to talk in a confident manner for most of the presentation. However, there was one major point where I had lost track of what I was saying and fell silent for a moment. This gave off an unprofessional image, since it portrays that I was unsure about the topic being presented. While I did create notes to help, I could have referred to my notes more often to prevent this situation from occurring again.
I also noticed that while I was presenting, several members of the audience seemed uninterested. After reviewing the slides, it was most likely due to the multiple slides filled with text. In the future, it would be better if pictures were inserted between slides to help break up the monotony and attract people's attention. Of course, the pictures would have to be relevant to the topic that is being presented.
Keeping these points in mind, I'll have to strive to make sure my future presentations are better. =)
Dear Rayner,
ReplyDeleteI believe that the main problem for your team’s presentation is the technical error (projector) that frequently occurred throughout the presentation. Most of the audiences were constantly distracted by the glitch (including myself). Well, people learn from mistakes. Always make sure that everything is working well before proceeding with the actual presentation. If there is a technical problem happening halfway, rectify it immediately before continuing on.
Glitch aside, you did improve for the presentation. For your sudden silence, it may just be a mental block caused by your nervousness. Constant practice and familiarity with the content would be the solution. Other than adding pictures for your slides, also try to vary your tone and volume. It would definitely attract the audience’s attention to your presentation.
For the Q&A, it would be good if you set up some rules to maintain order. Overall, I believed that your group’s effort is evident in your presentation. Good work!
Regards,
Kevin Lin
O yes, I forgot to mention the technical errors that occurred. As you said, the technical errors should have been fixed before continuing the presentation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I felt it would be out of place for me to suddenly stand up and interrupt the presentation. But considering the consequences, it probably would have been better to do so.
Thanks for the offering other small tips and pointing out problems that I missed out! =)
Hi Rayner,
ReplyDeleteI felt on the whole you were considerably familiar with the content although that awkward period of silence might prove otherwise. As Kevin mentioned, it could be due to nerves. It happened to me during my presentation too. My mind froze and I actually forgot to elaborate more on certain slides that I was supposed to.
I cannot remember if you constantly referred to the screen but I think referring to the slides once in a while should be alright. Not referring to the screen at all is not good either. So I think striking a balance is important in this aspect.
All in all, it was a commendable effort! good job!
Hi Rayner,
ReplyDeleteI think that you have shown improvements compared to the oral presentation 1. You’re familiar with the content but there was a silent moment when you forgot what you were trying to say :). I think the note may help in this situation, and luckily, that moment did not last long :).
About the technical problem, I think we should check the projector and laptop before continuing with the presentation. Anyway, it’s unavoidable and we have tried our best to continue with the presentation. I agree that our slide had too many words and made the audiences bored. We should use more pictures and fewer words. Your eye-contact and gesture are fine.
After all, I think we can learn a lot from this presentation and improve on future ones.
Good luck for your oral defense.
Yours sincerely,
Tuan Vu
Hi Rayner,
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that the best thing about your presentation was that you remained calm in spite of all the technical faults. However, technical problems could be avoided by checking the setup before the presentation. So, you must take care of this specially because it distracts the audience and gives a bad impression upon them.
Referring to the slides during to the presentation is desirable as it helps the audience know where they need to focus. So, I think that it is not an issue.
It is necessary to make notes and keep cards in hand for reference while presenting if you are unsure of the content. This would help you maintain fluency as it would avoid sudden silences at times. So,I think that would help you to improve.
The slides should be appropriately designed to keep the interest of the audience. It should be less wordy and proper choice of background and font should be made according to the your audience.I think this would help in making your audience more interested in your presentation.
Overall, I feel that you were more confident this time.Your verbal skills were also improved. More practice would help you overcome your weaknesses and you will do better in future.
Good luck for oral defence!!
Thanks
Best Regards,
Nitika
Hi Rayner,
ReplyDeleteRegarding the problem of having too many text on the slides, having pictures will not really solve the issue. Just keeping a joke in mind here, a picture is worth a thousand words. Adding pictures to the existing wordy slides will only face the same problem. Breaking the monotony will somewhat only prolong the dreadful reading required; and not forgetting the fact that pictures require the audience to see think more to derive the relation or connection to your point. Instead, I suggest, you summarise the sentences to points while you elaborate on them.
As for the technical problem, as audiences, we are admittedly at fault for not pointing it out earlier. This made your team go through almost a third of the presentation in that state. On a side note, I felt that your team should have taken the opportunity, which Ms Happy gave, to restart the presentation.