Presentation Skills

College had set up for a lecture on presentation skills that wasn't mandatory but required for us to sign up fr it. I feel that personally i lack in presentations as i struggled to articulate myself in public situations and i wanted to help it give me a grounding and capability in arguing and projecting an idea.

The lecturer said that we should communicate in three ways:
The way we say the words should be 38% of message we are getting across
Body language is 55%
And the words actually spoken make up the remaining 7%

the way we convey a message is dictated buy the behaviour we display e.g. if i talk in a more projected and direct voice with gestures referring to the topic rather than an uncertainty with where to put my hands and a silent monotonous voice I'm not going to convey the right message or intent behind the presentation

These factors are further enforced through speed, pitch, and volume to get people to listen to you and to get people interested in what your talking about. And avoid crutch words, such as um, err, okay etc, use pauses when appropriate almost as if your trying to build tension as a story teller. Like a story teller you need to engage with the audience through appropriate eye contact drifting from person to person every so often and not staring into space.

The presentation isn't just held up by the person but the structure of the overall presentation as well has to be prepared and organised.

A good presentation should include:
Introduction
First section
Second Section
Third Section
Conclusion

the introduction and conclusion should be book ended by some common clause to bring us back to the beginning of the presentation so we can recall it all.

What goes into the presentation is dictated by head and heart, a purpose for the presentation and so heart is what should be put forward over head otherwise your presentation will be stale and lifeless as its all been calculated.