Life-hacking Your Presentation Preparation

Stanley Lee

UBC IEEE Toastmasters Club

About the Presenter

• Current Club President

• Founding charter member

• Membership w/ diverse backgrounds

• IEEE = Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (the UBC Student Branch is a sponsor)

• Professionally: writer and college success consultant

Benefits of This Workshop

• Simplified procedures

• Effective content and delivery

• Time efficiency

Overall Procedure

• Content Preparation (50%)

• Practice (50%)

Content Preparation (in 5 Simple Steps)

Step 1: Determine Your Topic

• Don’t rush to confirm on the title yet

• Same goes for your take-home message in introduction and conclusion

• Answer this question (feel free to refine later in the process): What do you want to talk about?

Step 1: Determine Your Topic

• As an example for this workshop, pretend the topic is chosen to be bicycle helmets

Step 2: Select Supporting Points

• List 3 supporting points for your presentation (listeners can only remember that many points)

• Add supporting evidence with sufficient citations to clarify, emphasize, and prove the fact/idea it supports

• Support material including statistics, testimony, examples/stories/anecdotes, visual aids, facts

Step 2: Select Supporting Points

• Topic: bicycle helmets• Supporting points

– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits

– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/ regulations vs. those w/o regulations

• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)

– Common sense cyclists

Step 3: Draft an Introduction

• You want to pique the interest from your audience on your topic

• You want to make sure it’s short but memorable

• Examples: question or challenging statement, quotation or story, display object or image, statistics

Step 3: Draft an Introduction

• Topic: bicycle helmets• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets

are not as straight-forward as you think• Supporting points

– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits

– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/ regulations vs. those w/o regulations

• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)

– Common sense cyclists

Step 4: Draft a Conclusion

• What behaviors do you want your audience to change as a result of your presentation, if anything?

Step 4: Draft a Conclusion

• Topic: bicycle helmets• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets are not as

straight-forward as you think• Supporting points

– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/

regulations vs. those w/o regulations• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-

helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)

– Common sense cyclists

• Conclusion: Just b/c you wear helmets doesn’t mean you’re immune to serious injury. But not wearing one will surely jeopardize your head if you run into an accident.

Step 5: Name a Catchy Title

• Why? You need it to attract your audience!

• Typical ways to attract them:– Benefit providing (audience attend b/c your

talk has something to offer for them)– Controversy (there’s minimal difference

between audience who react positively and negatively with respect to attracting attention)

Step 5: Name a Catchy Title

• Topic: bicycle helmets• Title: Helmets does not Equal Injury Immunity• Introduction: Arguments about bicycle helmets are not as

straight-forward as you think• Supporting points

– Safety research and statistics showing helmets benefits– Studies of traffic accidents involving cyclists in jurisdiction w/

regulations vs. those w/o regulations• Australian study of mandatory regulations (http://www.cycle-

helmets.com/helmet_damage.html)– Common sense cyclists

• Conclusion: Just b/c you wear helmets doesn’t mean you’re immune to serious injury. But not wearing one will surely jeopardize your head if you run into an accident.

Overall Procedure

• Content Preparation (50%)

• Practice (50%)

Practice

Practice: General Tips

• Separate content preparation and practice into its own work sessions maximize your attention

• Film your practice session with a camera (e.g. camcorder, digital point-and-shoot camera, smartphones)

Practice: General Tips

• Critique areas of improvement to improve your credibility

• Repeat the process for the next round of practices on a different session (ideally different days, at the minimum after a meal break)

Overall Procedure

• Content Preparation (50%)

• Practice (total: 50%)– First round (30%)– Second round (15%)– Third round (2.5%)– And so on…

About the Club

• It’s one thing to learn the techniques of this workshop

• Execution quality is a different matter (public speaking is like personal fitness)

• You can have the opportunity to practice the different types of speaking (e.g. job interviews, keynote presentations, sales pitches, etc.) on a regular basis with peer feedback during weekly club meetings

About the Club

• Details:– Where? Fred Kaiser Building, Room

2020/2030– When? Mondays, 15:00 to 16:00

• Also check out other clubs by going to www.d21toastmasters.ca

Supplementary Material

• If you leave your email after this workshop, you will receive the following supplementary material electronically (regardless whether you join the club or not):– Presentation planning worksheet for the

example– Blank presentation planning worksheet for

your own presentations (for projects or research thesis)

Questions?