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?
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