The Trick to Leading an Engaging Oral Presentation

-An instructional guide

Posted on July 4th, written by Omar Said

When I was in high school, I used to hold this false notion that oral presentations were only ever as good as the amount of information they presented. Embarrassingly enough, looking back, you can see this idea shine through in a lot of my old work. You would see a boring and repetitive PowerPoint template with hundreds of words cramped into a single slide. You would see weirdly compressed images that I had haphazardly attempted to fit in between the mountains of text, as if my audience would be able to see both at the same time, let alone want to. Worse of all, my preferred method of orally presenting all of this information was, by far, the most boring and least elegant way imaginable. I would (and this hurts a lot to say) read it all. I would get in front of the class and just stand there, reading. Sometimes I'd look back at the audience as I ruthlessly beat them over the head with an unending stream of information that I had somehow managed to present in a way that made that information seem somehow more boring than it already was. For all intents and purposes, I was doing the equivalent of holding my classmates hostage. I was a little younger back then, and teachers were a little more lenient, but what I really think is important for you to understand through this story is that what I was doing (and what you may still be doing right now) was accomplishing nothing more than hurting the presentations I had spent many nights toiling over. Here at EGS Tutoring, we'd like to give you the tools to understand not only what leads to these mistakes, but also how to avoid them and truly connect with your audience in real, authentic, and entertaining ways.

Firstly, what leads us to build presentations in such rote and uninspired ways as the one I previously described? Well, the truth of the matter is that it's rooted in insecurity and fear. Fear that, without having the text to read on screen, you won't be able to effectively communicate the points you want to get across. It's rooted in the insecurity that the text you wrote is more competent at explaining your idea than you are. This is the case because, ultimately, you know deep down that you haven't actually learned or mastered the content; you've just regurgitated it onto a page and expect that page to carry you through. Hence, the first step is mastering your presentation topic. When I say mastering, I don't mean having a decent grasp on some general points; I mean truly and deeply understanding all the intricacies and tensions that lie within your argument. I mean, understanding it well enough to be able to hold a conversation on the topic with zero notes or visual aids. This step is, by far, the hardest. But, once you've completed step 1, the rest becomes not only significantly easier, but also funner too. 

Now that you actually understand your topic and have formulated an argument that you know like the back of your hand, you can use the time you would have spent writing mountains of text to, instead, make your PowerPoints visually interesting and informative. Sprinkle in some bullet points as small aids to guide your discussion and add diagrams and infographics to visually represent your information and the points you find relevant. The trick to this is knowing the PowerPoint (mostly) isn't for you; it's for your audience to be able to follow along. Choose an appropriate visual template, try keeping up with a consistent theme, and as long as you don't overdo it, you'll make something eye-catching and easy to understand all on your own.

Lastly, the best tip I can give you when presenting all of this information orally is to drop reading and monotone scripting to the side and instead engage in an actual conversation with your audience. I don't mean in the way that you speak and wait for their response; I just mean that you speak to them as if you were explaining something you had learned with a friend. You treat your audience like human beings instead of graders only out to get you or puppets who are fine listening to someone read at them for 20 minutes. When I was in 11th grade, a teacher once told me that you want to give your audience a narrative to hold onto and that humans need stories to keep them engaged. Suffice it to say, he wasn't wrong. Once you start doing that, everything comes together. Your visuals start pulling their weight, your confidence in your topic keeps you loose and able to answer questions, your conversational tone keeps you grounded, and the story you present gives your audience something to remember and hold onto. Do all of these, and I can personally guarantee that both your outlook on presentations as well as your grades will improve. Trust me, I know from experience.