Presentations

1  Greeting the Audience 2  Announcing the Purpose of Your Talk 3  Previewing the Main Points 4  Announcing the Main Items In Order 5  Starting the Main Part of Your Presentation 6  Referring To Visual Aids 7  Introducing A New Point 8  Giving An Example

9  Giving A Balanced Veiw 10  Adding A Comment 11  Making A Generalization 12  Drawing A Conclusion From The Evidence 13  Reviewing The Main Points 14  Ending The Presentation 15  Inviting Questions From Your Listeners 16  Thanking Your Listeners

There is a story about an old preacher at a small country church in America. Every Sunday, people from all around would crowd into that little church to listen to him preach. They would even stand outside and listen through the windows. One day, a young preacher came to find out the secret to his successful preaching. When asked about it, the old preacher said, "Well, son, it’s really very simple. I always follow a three-step structure. First, I tell them what I’m going to say. Second, I say it. Third, I tell them what I just said. They seem to like that approach."

The arrangement of the presentation signals on these pages follows a three-step strategy of beginning, middle, and end. In addition, please notice that in the beginning, there are signals for previewing the main points (#3), and in the end there are signals for reviewing the main points (#13).

There are other good strategies for organizing speeches and presentations, but Americans generally like this three-step approach. 

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1  GREETING THE AUDIENCE

Good morning, gentlemen. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Hello. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Johnson,  for that introduction.

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2  ANNOUNCING THE PURPOSE OF YOUR TALK

I am here today to talk about … My intention is to convince you that … The aim of my talk is show you that … The purpose of my presentation is to inform you about ...  I'm going to talk about … I would like to talk about …

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3  PREVIEWING THE MAIN POINTS

My talk today consists of three main points. I'd like to cover four main points in my talk today. I will address three separate issues in my talk today.

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4  ANNOUNCING THE MAIN ITEMS IN ORDER

First …    Second …       Third …          Last (but not least) … First of all …    Next …       Then …          After that …             Finally …

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5  STARTING THE MAIN PART OF YOUR PRESENTATION

I'd like to start by saying that … Let me begin by saying that … Okay, let's begin by looking at … To begin with, I'd like to discuss …

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6  REFERRING TO VISUAL AIDS

Let's take a look at the next foil (transparency / overhead / slide). As you can see from this chart, … We can see from this chart that … You will notice from this graph that … The table clearly shows that …

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7  INTRODUCING A NEW POINT

Now, I'd like to talk about … Next, let's turn to … Let's move on to …

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8   GIVING AN EXAMPLE

Let me give you an example. To show you what I mean, let's examine … For example, let's take a look at … To illustrate my point, consider … A case in point is …

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9  GIVING A BALANCED VIEW

On the other hand, … Nevertheless, … Still, … Having said that, …

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10   ADDING A COMMENT

By the way, let me say that … Incidentally, I'd like to say that … I might add that … Let me add a comment here.

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11  MAKING A GENERALIZATION

On the whole … In general … Generally speaking … By and large … For the most part …

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12  DRAWING A CONCLUSION FROM THE EVIDENCE

From this, we can conclude that … From this, we can infer that … Based on this, we can draw the following conclusion / inference.

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