Tips and Tricks for making a Presentation

On 27-May-2020, our respected teacher Mr. Brihat gave us a short session on how to make a formal presentation and shared some mistakes he made as a beginner in his initial days. So today I'd like to discuss and share his session so that it could slightly help you while preparing a presentation. 

At first, lets discuss the common mistakes we do while preparing and presenting our presentation.

1. The Casual Attitude: The common mistakes students do while delivering their presentation is that they take it very casually. You should make your presentation formal so that even audience and jury would respect you and your work.
2. Last minute presentation: This is one of the mistake people commonly have been doing and which should be ignored as much as we can. Last minute presentation means lack of practice and rehearsal which might cause some trouble. 
3.  Improper handling of technologies: Students usually don't know how to handle mic and how to use it so that the sound is perfect for the listeners. 
4. Lack of team work: Most of the time even if a project is a group project, some people don't discuss with their teammates and do it on their own which can be properly visible during the presentation.
5. Lacking the art of slide presentation: While preparing slides, too much usage of text, improper color combination, too much animation etc can be seen which can make the slides look boring and unattractive.
6. Not understanding the norms of preparation: Reading slides, dwelling around irrelevant topics, long pauses in middle, weak opening/closing are some of the mistaken we can commonly see.

Now after we've gone through the common mistakes, lets focus on the things we can do while preparing slides.

1. Do a Good Research: Before giving presentation on any topic, make sure you have completed a good research so that even if the jury ask some cross questions you can tackle them easily.
2. Prepare your own slides by yourselves.
3. Include those content you're Confident of.
4. Practice and rehearse.
5. Have a good sleep before the night prior.
6. Make sure you log out from your social media so that irrelevant messages don't popup.
7. Be in frequent communication with your team: Even if you've made a slight change, make sure that your teammate is informed about it.
8. While we are preparing your slides you can use following tips to make your slides attractive:

• Don't use too much text.
• Use proper color combination and background.
• Use appropriate and visible font size. The best option would be 28 for size.
• Have only around 6-8 points in a single slide.
• Have a precise number of slides. Try to make it less than 10 slides.
• Add slide numbers below your slides. It will be easier for the jury to refer to a certain page.
• Use the needed images and videos. 
• Use animation but don't over use it.
• While displaying the points, use animation so that the points display simultaneously rather than all at the same time.
• Include facts/data in a good amount.
• Include short, sweet and effective demonstration of your work.
• Have some extra slides regarding the possible questions the jury might come up with.

So now that we have prepared our slides, the other thing we should think about it is how we deliver the slides we've made.

1. Keep yourself hydrated, full and calm.
2. Make sure to keep your phone and other devices silent.
3. Have a proper attire, speech and body language.
4. Make your hands a important part of the presentation and use it to communicate. 
5. Smile more often. 
6. Check your audio and visuals before you begin your presentation.
7. Don't just read the text you've written in your presentation.
8. Choose a single language and make sure you are able to communicate using it the whole time.
9. Interact with the audience: Have question and answer sections during presentation. 
10. Use your sense of humor and make jokes related to the topic.
11. Use your time properly to present the important bits.
12. Use spaces you have properly. Move around and interact.
13. Read your audience and get a good grip of them.
14. Be always prepared to be penalized from your jury.
15. Take the comments and feedback's pleasantly.
16. Accept your mistakes.

So this were the things explained by our beloved teacher during the session. Hope that this was helpful to you and thank you for taking your time to read this.