by Marijane Suttor

Created on: July 02, 2009   Last Updated: May 02, 2010

Being able to create and share a presentation with the public is an essential skill for students beginning in middle school on through high school and beyond. Public speaking is a component of many careers and giving students a strong foundation of the presentation process is essential to successful opportunities that lie ahead.

This is a step-by-step guide for preparing students for presentations.

Step 1: Determine the purpose of the presentation

The first step in preparing a presentation is to clearly understand what the purpose. Three common purposes of presentations are to inform, to persuade and to entertain. Most topics and presentation requests will fall into these categories. For example the approach is much different for a speech persuading the public to vote for a new elementary school than informing the public about the services that a school district offers new students. Having a clear purpose before committing time and resources to the project is essential.

Step 2: Determine the audience

An often overlooked component of presentations is the audience. The speaker should be clear about who will be in the audience. Speaking to a group of 6 year olds is much different than speaking to classmates or to a group of senior citizens at a retirement community. Before preparing the presentation, the speaker must have fairly clear expectations about who will be in the audience. Failure to correctly analyze the audience can result in a presentation that is not as effective or well received.

Step 3: Determine the topic

Once the purpose and the audience are determined, selecting a topic is the next step. Decide which aspect of a topic will be the area of focus.  This can be the most crucial aspect of the presentation process, often because failure to promptly select a topic neglects the time that is available for the preparation of the presentation. This also leads to less practice time and a less polished end product. Set a definite time and date in which a choice must be made about the topic.

Step 4: Determine specific time guidelines

It is important that the presentation is long enough to fully cover the topic while at the same time short enough to capture the attention of the audience for the allotted amount of time. If there are going to be several speakers at the occasion, shorter times may be warranted as the audience may feel they have information overload and become impatient with the presenters. Generally in the classroom setting a 5-7 minute presentation

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>