Dos and Don’ts for Your Oral Presentation

Dos :-)

Keep to the time limit at all cost!
Always look at your audience.
Always try to speak rather than read from your notes.
Speak loudly and clearly and try to maintain eye contact with your listeners. Make regular breaks of 3 seconds.
Give your listeners the chance to ask questions (you could tell them beforehand whether you would like them to keep their questions until the end of the presentation or whether they can ask in the course of it).
Prepare a handout which contains
- the most important points (but not your whole presentation!),
- all the sources you have used,
- perhaps important quotations or examples,
- an image or information you think is vital.
Always spell-check the handout.
Use visualising materials, e.g. mind-maps, tables, transparency, pictures, film sequences,...
Remember to entertain your audience, keep them active and awake, e.g. by discussion questions, small activities, provoking statements,...
Always practice in advance.
Be on time for your presentation, check and prepare all the technical devices you need before class starts.
Remember: Next time, you are in the audience so treat your listeners in the same way as you want to be treated.

Don’t ever exceed the time limit.
Never turn away from your audience
Don’t read from your text, speak freely.
Don’t mumble, don’t speak too quickly.
Don’t look down, don’t fiddle around with something (e.g. your hair or a pen) ;-).
Never download material from the internet when preparing your handout without acknowledging it: write your own text.
Don’t send your audience to sleep.

Presler, Gerd und Jürgen Döhmann: Referate schreiben – Referate halten. Ein Ratgeber. München: Fink, 2004.