3 Tips to Ace Your Presentations This Semeste
By Darren Lacsado
Everyone gets anxious about public presentations. Standing in front of your peers and
presenting on a topic, whether for a research review, book analysis, or seminar, it is an
unnatural situation. But like most things in life, it is a skill, one that you are more than
capable of improving on given enough experience and effort. To get you started on your
journey to nailing your first TED Talk, here are three tips for you improve your
presentations this semester.
1. Recognize that anxiety is a normal response. As I’ve already mentioned, the
presentation setting is unnatural. You stand up in front of the class awkwardly as
your peers judge you and your professor evaluates you. Keep in mind, though,
that from a psychological perspective, anxiety has an evolutionary function: its
main purpose is to set off a physiological alarm for you to prepare for a future
uncertainty. In this case, it’s public speaking. You have no control over how
others will perceive your presentation. Instead, shift your focus on what you can
control. Write a script and practice your presentation alone in front of a mirror. If
that’s too much work for you, then rehearse your first three slides until you have
it one hundred percent down. Another quick, practical tip from personal
experience: right before you start your presentation, announce to everyone that
you are anxious. Most people will smile at you because they too understand how
anxiety-inducing public speaking is, and it cuts the tension in the room, thus
setting a more forgivable tone for the rest of your presentation.
2. Work on your nonverbal communication. There is an old saying: how you say
something almost matters as much as what you are saying. For presentations, it’s
half true! Nonverbal communication—so, body language, vocal loudness and
tone, cadence, enthusiasm, eye-contact—is important to keep in mind while you
practice. For the most part, it is an unconscious process, but if you practice it
enough, effective nonverbal communication can come off as second nature. Use
open body-language and always orient yourself towards your peers and not your
slides. Speak in an assertive tone and take breaks or pauses when you need to
think about what you are going to say. Make good eye contact, or at least pretend
to by looking at the gaps between people—no one will ever know!
3. Design your slides with intention. You are the presentation, not your slides. They
are there to enhance whatever you are saying. Generally speaking, you want to
avoid reading off your slides, and your design should reflect that. Avoid
paragraphs of text by using bullet points of main points. Ensure that the slide
design is eligible, meaning that you should be able to read it from the far back of
the classroom with no problems. That means avoiding problematic colour
contrasts and using easily readable fonts and large font sizes. Also, slides serve as
a visual enhancer: load it up with an appropriate amount of pertinent pictures.
