Delivering good presentations

University: Business Studies

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In this essay the process and elements of preparing and delivering successful presentations will be described. Presentations are concerned with communicating a message to groups of people and they have various purposes and uses depending on the field we talk about. They are used widely in business, education, politics and the media today for the purposes of giving information and instructions, or to persuade and to entertain (Payne & Whittaker, 2000). The ability to give successful presentations is a key skill that is required in academic life and often students are asked to give presentations throughout their studies because they not only stimulate useful discussion but also produce a variety of perspectives which of course helps the understanding process to become easier for many (Cottrell, 1999). However, most of the times giving presentations is problematic and stressful for many students simply because we are not born with a natural ability to do so but of course it can be improved by practice and good organisation which means effective background research, especially for students, and careful structuring.

One may have to give presentations of all four types mentioned above or it may be that all of those elements are contained in a single presentation. No matter what every presentation is unique and is clearly designed to have a particular focus which influences, and influenced by a number of factors such as; the material used in it, the breadth and depth of the topic, audience size, the layout of the presentation space, duration and the desired result (Payne & Whittaker, 2000). Obviously some of these factors may not be specified by oneself, for example, in the last presentation that I have taken a part, me and the group were allocated 20 minutes to present to a group of 20 people which accordingly led us to structure the presentation in such a way that every one gets enough time to do their parts effectively. Therefore, it can be said that such factors influence the presenters approach and the structure of a presentation and accordingly the preparation that goes into it.
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