Learn how to prepare for a presentation in class with expert tips and strategies. Impress your audience and ace your next speech with confidence and preparation.
It’s completely normal to feel nervous in front of an unfamiliar audience. Even experienced speakers sometimes experience sweaty palms and confused thoughts. Together with MSI , we have collected tips to help you feel more confident.
Have a dress rehearsal
Experience of public speaking is sometimes limited to school literature lessons, where you had to recite poems in front of the whole class. But even those were not comfortable for everyone. At home, “My uncle has the most honest rules…” flew off the tongue, and at the blackboard, under the gaze of the teacher and classmates, the voice began to tremble, and the rhymes ran in different directions.
To avoid getting confused during a work presentation, it is better to rehearse the material not alone, but immediately in front of the audience. A friend or family member can be a good audience member, and if the topic is complex, you can ask a colleague. A person who understands the material will tell you which points need to be emphasized and which can be omitted. It is
up to you to decide whether to write the entire text or just the key points. For example, public speaking coach Elizabeth Van Den Berg believes that a share of improvisation makes a speech lively. But if this is your debut as a presenter, a prepared outline can help out.
Check the equipment and slides in advance
Rarely does a speaker not get nervous when the projector doesn’t start or the presentation freezes at a crucial moment. Awkward pauses can make the presenter feel confused and the audience lose focus and get distracted by other things. Getting back to the topic of the meeting in such an atmosphere can be difficult. To ensure your first presentation is safe, visit the venue in advance and go through the list:
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Turn on the projector and evaluate the image quality.
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Check if the microphones are connected.
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Play any video or track to adjust the speaker volume.
It will also be useful to open the presentation itself on a laptop connected to the equipment and click it with a clicker. Firstly, you will be able to make sure that the gadgets are working properly and the slides are switching normally. Secondly, double-check the material. It happens that the version of the software on which the presentation was assembled differs from the one installed on the gadget in the audience. Because of this, fonts may crash, and media files such as video or interactive infographics may not play correctly. You can also take your own laptop just in case – if something goes wrong with the presentation on a flash drive or in the cloud, you will be able to quickly fix all the problems.
A computer with powerful hardware will help you give a presentation without freezing. For example, the Summit E13 Flip Evo laptop from MSI is equipped with an updated processor up to the 13th generation Intel® Core™ i7-1360P and integrated Intel® Iris® Xe graphics. The device supports a wireless module of the Wi-Fi 6E standard – the connection will not be interrupted, even if dozens of users connect to the network.
Video conferencing options will help if the presentation is held in video format. The Noise Reduction function will muffle extraneous noise, and the smart webcam will adjust to poor lighting. And if something extraneous gets into the camera’s field of view, the lens can be quickly blocked with one button.
Sketch out a plan for the dialogue
A solo performance is an important part of a presentation, but not the only one. The audience will certainly have questions that the speaker will need to answer. Success here depends on two things: a deep knowledge of the topic and the ability to anticipate the course of the dialogue. Before the presentation, try to find the “bottlenecks” in the material – most likely, questions will arise about them. Often, these are numbers and forecasts.
Let’s say you need to hold a meeting with investors and “sell” them a product. You plan to talk about how technologically advanced and breakthrough it is, how it will shake up the market and become a benchmark among competitors. Such PR may intrigue the audience, but will not give a full picture of the investment results. Therefore, the questions will revolve around the break-even point, sales plans, and other economic indicators of the project. Play ahead and calculate these values in advance.
When preparing your speech, it would be a good idea to read up on recent materials related to the topic of your presentation. For example, reviews of market leaders or analysis of niche problems. Make a list of possible clarifications and prepare reasoned responses to them – this will help remove the surprise effect and give a convincing comment.
Get a good night’s sleep and don’t get carried away with coffee on the day of the performance.
Preparation can last until late. But painstakingly proofreading slides or staging a dialogue with the audience until late at night does not always help you perform better. Lack of sleep has a negative effect on concentration, and the speed of solving problems slows down. After a night of wakefulness, many already feel exhausted, and when the excitement of the event is added to this, the “system” can fatally freeze at the most crucial moment. So the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep the night before is a good solution.
Coffee is a constant companion of work processes, but on the day of the presentation it is better to limit yourself to one cup in the morning. The fact is that after the fourth or fifth espresso, the dose of caffeine accumulates, which increases anxiety, causes headaches and increased sweating. Coffee has another unpleasant side effect – a diuretic effect . It is quite difficult to concentrate on the presentation when the body urgently demands to be taken to the toilet.
Turn off notifications in chats
Extraneous notifications distract both the speaker and the audience. In addition, an awkward situation may arise if, in the background of a serious presentation, a message from your mother pops up asking you to go to the supermarket for milk or a love letter from your partner. If you plan to use your personal laptop, make sure that the web versions of messengers are also closed. To be on the safe side, you can also log out of your email so that your presentation is not interrupted by newsletters about promotions and work emails.
Record feedback immediately
The presentation may develop into a discussion where many interesting things will be said. Perhaps the manager will want to assign you some tasks related to the topic of the speech. Or colleagues will ask you to send the presentation to one of the clients. In order not to lose anything, it is better to immediately record everything useful. If you are more accustomed to writing by hand, you can take a notepad to the presentation. And if you type, prepare a clean note on your smartphone. This will be convenient for recording feedback.
Relying solely on memory at such a moment is a bit risky, even if you are not prone to forgetting things you heard. The thing is, stress causes a sharp hormonal surge, and when the trigger situation ends, the body tries its best to recover. So sometimes memories are “cleaned up” along with useful information.
You can also take notes in the presentation itself. For this purpose, the Summit E13 Flip Evo laptop supports the MSI Pen stylus, which is attached magnetically to the gadget’s body and can act as a clicker. The laptop is convenient to take with you on business trips and to conferences: the device opens 360° and turns into a high-performance tablet, weighs less than one and a half kilograms, and is unlocked using a fingerprint scanner or face recognition. Specialized Tobii Aware software will take care of the privacy and security of personal data. The laptop also comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro, so you won’t have to look for a licensed office suite.