How to Make Appealing Visual Presentations?
The oral presentation or presentation is an exercise that is increasingly in demand as a way of highlighting one’s writing. This format is becoming more and more attractive to pupils/students and teachers because of its playfulness. The aim of a presentation is to answer a problem by organising ideas in a synthetic and visual way. The student prepares a support and the teacher usually asks questions at the end of the visual presentation. This allows the teacher to judge the understanding of the topic.
There are some tips on how to make a good presentation and how to communicate effectively. Find out how to make a captivating and interactive presentation.
1. Evaluation of the oral presentation
How do teachers assess the oral presentation?
First of all, the assessment of your oral presentation depends on what you have prepared and your attitude towards the examiner, as 93% of communication is non-verbal. Albert Mehrabian’s 3V rule explains that the perception of the message received is made up of:
- 55% VISUAL (what we see: facial expression and body language)
- 38% VOCAL (what we hear: intonation and sound of the voice)
- 7% of VERBAL (what we understand of the words: the content of the message itself)
Your communication support and your presence are therefore very important to work on.
Then, your mark also depends on your research (clear, effective and structured ideas), your presentation visual and your attitude (presence, ease, answering questions). As you can see, for your presentation to be successful, you need to practise your text orally and check that everything works as you want it to.
2. Supporting an oral presentation
What is the best tool to create an attractive slideshow?
To make your slideshow a success, you must first choose the right tool. After testing a few, choose the one you are most comfortable with, even if it is the least efficient. This will save you precious time.
The three best-known programs for creating slides in no time are Powerpoint, Google slide, and Canva.
The templates stored in the tools are easy to use. However, if you want to be a little more original, you can download other templates for free:
3. The oral exercise: the connection with your audience
How can you create a relaxed atmosphere from the start of your oral presentation?
Public speaking can be scary or impressive. To regain confidence in your speaking skills, practice before the exam. Familiarise yourself with the words you want to say. The body language that will make your oral presentation come alive with the right posture. Poise and general non-verbal communication are part of the scoring.
Make eye contact with your audience. Participants feel stimulated when you look at them in the eyes.
During your pitch, if you don’t know what to do with your hands, you can put one hand in a pocket. You will feel more comfortable with one hand to accompany your speech. However, do not put both hands in your pockets. This gives an impression of casualness, unconventional for public speaking.
The first 90 seconds should serve to connect with your audience. Here are some ideas to help you to do this:
- Ask an engaging question
- Use impactful numbers
- Show pictures and ask your audience to guess what you are going to talk about
- Talk about a general fact and then refocus on your subject: “as you know…”
4. A visual, precise and efficient summary
How can you stimulate the audience’s curiosity right from the summary of an oral presentation?
The titles of the sections should attract interest without giving too much away. They also provide part of the answer to the general problem of your presentation.
They can be presented in different ways:
- traditional way,
- questions,
- hypotheses to be tested,
- in the form of a picture,
- or as a Mind Map.
The words “introduction” and “conclusion” should not appear in a visual presentation summary, just in the titles of the corresponding slides.
The titles of the slides could be questions and hypotheses to be verified. They should be interesting without going into too much detail. They must provide part of the answer to the problem. They can be presented as a statement, or in the form of an image or Mind Map.
Your score, therefore, depends on your research (clear, effective and structured ideas), your visual presentation and your attitude (presence, ease, sharing with the audience). Thus, for your presentation to be successful, you must repeat your text and check that everything is set up as you wish.
5. Clear and captivating slides
How to format slides of a visual presentation?
First of all, think about who you are talking to; who is your audience? Professionals/amateurs or adults/children? Your speech should be adapted in a way that makes it understandable to your audience.
Later, if your audience is professionals and you decide to work on an SMS marketing campaign, email newsletter, or social media posts, your audience be able to identify your tone and voice and resonate with you.
While you certainly have a lot of information to give, your speech should be light rather than dense in order to be appropriately understood.
- One slide = One idea
- One point of information at a time
- A word or image to summarise an idea
- A clean visual: be careful with overloadeding the background, use background removal solution if needed.
- A maximum of ten points
- Use subtle colors so as not to hide the text
- Employ the same graphic rule for the whole document (same color, same font, same animation…)
6. A dynamic and interactive oral presentation
How to make an oral presentation fun, attractive and interactive?
Animations
To begin with, you can use animations between slides (transitions) and on the elements of your pages (text, images, etc.). The listener will be tempted to read what is written on the slide before listening to you. It is better to make the text appear as you say it. Animations add movement to your oral presentation. However, be careful not to use too many. Also, choose 2 or 3 types of animations, but not more.
Questions to the audience
In order to involve the audience, you can ask them questions. In this way, you give your audience the opportunity to participate in your oral presentation. Choose questions with short answers. You can shorten the interactivity if it lasts too long.
A defined rhythm
To make sure you finish on time, you announce the approximate time for each section of your assignment. In addition, when you ask your audience to react, you use a timer with an announced time. Finally, you have the option of appointing a time keeper. His/her role is to announce when half the time is up and when there are a few minutes left to conclude your presentation.
Polls
Quizzes are very popular for students and are a great success during an oral presentation. Using a mobile phone, the audience enters a code on a website. They give their opinion on a question and observe the answers of other participants. Beforehand, you will have to create questions and integrate the survey into your presentation. The quiz is quite fun.
Several tools offer this service: Kahoot ! , Get plickers, Mentimeter.
7. Final adjustments before D-Day
What should you check to make sure you are ready for your oral exam?
The conclusion, an answer to the question
It is an answer to the problem raised in the introduction. It should briefly summarise each point. It must impact your target audience and end with an opportunity for further learning: a link to a site to learn more, a comparison of the subject of other countries..
The PC / MAC adapter
Be aware of the difference between PC and MAC and the differences in adapters for the overhead projector.
Preparing for the post oral questions
It is strongly advised to think about questions you might be asked at the end of your oral presentation and answer them.
Anticipating the stress of the oral
If you are stressed on the day, you can yawn or chew gum beforehand. Your body will reduce the Cortisol level by itself. And above all, breathe deeply.
Citing your sources
Make sure you have cited all your sources: quotes, images, websites, graphics, cut and paste… Even in an oral presentation, you can be accused of plagiarism if you do not respect intellectual property. After all that effort to get a good grade, that would be a shame!
More about Compilatio Studium
Discover Compilatio Studium to check your writing and cite your sources correctly.
Don’ts :
- Forget to mention your sources > Remember to check your writing with Compilatio Studium. “Quote” Author + where you found the information + date of publication
- Use non royalty-free images > Be a digital citizen, be respectful of those who produce images.
- Put a lot of animations and all different > You will confuse your reader.
- Read the visual support during the presentation > You are there to present and to bring your subject to life, not to read the slides.
- Turn your back on the audience > This can be considered a lack of respect and you will be much less audible.
This infographic is available to you, you can save it and use it simply, without a contact form. All we ask is that you cite your source!
How to make an oral presentation fun?
The objective is to capture the audience’s attention.
Public speaking is an enriching academic training in oral expression. It is also used in the professional world.
One may have stage fright before speaking in front of an audience. One may lack charisma or self-confidence. In any case, good preparation always helps you to know how to speak in front of an audience for an oral presentation.
To convince and captivate your audience, learn to control your verbal and non-verbal communication, avoid improvisation and structure your ideas.
Good luck with your oral presentation!
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Mohamed BADI
Committed to academic integrity and authenticity, I help students and teachers understand and prevent the risks associated with plagiarism and generative AI.
