Creating a Great Presentation

Today I will discuss how to prepare a great presentation. My discussion presumes that you are preparing a presentation based on your technical paper. If this is not the situation, there are still many guidelines that apply.

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Begin with a couple of questions: What’s your point…your core message? Why does it matter? If you wantt your audience di to t remember b only l one thing, what do you want that to be? Write down your answers, and be specific.

You will compose your presentation to convey this core message.

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Using the content from your paper, identify the topics you want to cover in your presentation. A suggestion is to review the headings of your paper that might be suitable. Next, determine the main points that you want to discuss.

REMEMBER: You only have enough time to discuss a few topics.

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Maker sure the text size is large enough to be legible several rows from the screen. Keep the images simple. Photographs g p must be high g enough g resolution so they are clear when displayed.

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You might want to consider storyboarding, a technique where you shape your presentation by sketching it out. This doesn’t mean you have to be an artist and actually draw it out using pen and paper. paper Use the form that suits you best, whether it’s with a legal pad and a pencil or pen or on the computer.

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Simplicity matters. You want clarity that gets to the essence of an issue, you want to be clear and to the point. Use plenty of empty space. Place only a few elements on a slide. Eliminate non-essential elements.

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For example, let let’s s say you want to discuss several points.

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If your slide displays more than one main point, use multiple slides. This approach helps the audience understand your information more quickly.

Now, let’s talk about bullets in slides.

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Many presentation slides include too many bullets. Bulleted slides should be rare. Use visual representation instead. People remember visual images better than bullet points. Talk to your slides, your notes can include bullet points, i t so can your handouts, h d t but b t reduce d their th i presence on your slides.

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So if you need to use bullets, follow this rule: • Maximum of three lines of text • Maximum of six words per line

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You will probably prepare three items for your presentation.

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The slides the audience will see.

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Your notes you use during your presentation.

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Handouts enable you to focus only on the most important points. You won’t feel pressured to include everything about your topic in your presentation. Handouts can be your abstract or technical paper, or your presentation with detailed notes when there is no required technical paper.

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I m going to show an example of a presentation that I’m was given at the 2010 World Oil HP/HT Drilling and Completions Conference. I will comment on it to illustrate a few points.

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Here’s Here s the authors authors’ agenda…

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Here s one of the slides that provides some Here’s background information.

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This is what y you often see: a g graphic p and multiple bullet points with lots of words. Text in the image is too small.

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Here is the slide with some changes. Taking the first material that needed to be covered, here’s the first image. You really y don’t even need the bullets, as y you can talk to this. BUT, if you really prefer to have a few bullets, then at least make them concise.

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Here is the summary slide. There’s no reason we can’t give it a more imageoriented appearance, when possible.

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The content is almost the same, but it is more appealing to the eye.

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Now that I have reached the end of the presentation, let me summarize a few key points.

Determine y your Core Message g and work to convey y this in your presentation. Produce slides that are NOT complicated or cluttered. Try to use visual images instead of bullets.

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