Hello everyone, welcome to this ELC video about academic presentations!
Many of you may have given a presentation at school before.
Academic presentations though,
are a little bit different, and in this video we’re going to learn about some of the
key features of a good academic presentation.
Watch this video to do better in your presentations
for the ELC and for other subjects at university!
OK, it’s essential that you use and cite evidence from academic sources to
support your arguments.
You need to convince your audience that your claims are believable,
and to do this, you need credible and reliable sources.
The planning stage is critical.
Many students skip this stage because of time constraints.
But the best presenters know that thinking about what they want to
achieve in their presentation,
and how they’re going to achieve this, is crucial to success.
First, think about your audience.
How much do they know about your topic?
How does it affect them?
Prepare your presentation with your classmates and teachers in mind.
Next, think carefully about your content.
It’s not a good idea just to use your essay as it is.
Which points from your essay can you present?
Which can you leave out?
What evidence do you need to add to further support your points?
How can you hook the audience and make the presentation memorable?
Thirdly, make sure you organise the content in a logical way.
One way to approach this
is to prepare a presentation outline.
Think about your main points that you will cover in your presentation.
Remember, you do have time constraints,
so don’t try to cover too much!
Then, once you have a logical structure
you can start adding the information you need to the outline.
As a final point, it’s not a good idea to try to memorise your script.
If you memorise
a script your interaction with the audience will likely not be very natural and you may lose
the thread of what you are saying.
This will likely affect the quality of your presentation.
Instead, know your content well enough,
so that you have the confidence to speak naturally!
So, now you’ve thought about your audience,
your content and your structure, it’s time
to think about how you will help your audience
follow what you are saying.
Signposting language
is commonly used in presentations for this purpose.
One important signpost is the outline.
Presenters usually tell audiences how they've organised
the content of their presentation,
as this helps the audience prepare for what they’re going hear.
It's best to do this at the end of your introduction.
Let’s listen to an example.
created by building flats in the country parks.
some possible solutions for the problem.
There are also phrases you can use to get started on a point or a section.
Let’s listen to some examples.
And here are some phrases you can use to show
you are moving between points or sections.
Finally, to use some of these signalling phrases effectively,
you need to think about the importance of pauses.
Your audience needs time to process what you’ve said and to think about where
you are taking them next.
So, it’s often helpful to pause for a moment after you have
used a signalling phrase.
Next, as we have mentioned already, the language
in an academic presentations is normally less
formal than in an academic writing.
You need to engage with the audience and get their interest,
and one way of doing this is by
using more spoken language.
Here are some examples.
the impacts of the government’s housing policy
propose a possible solution to alleviate the Hong Kong housing problem.
During an academic presentation, it’s acceptable
to use “I” or “we” and short forms,
and to ask your audience a direct question.
You can also use more informal vocabulary.
However, because it’s still an academic presentation,
your presentation will probably also contain some features of academic language.
For example, don’t make sweeping claims like this example.
Remember, it’s relatively easy to prove these to be inaccurate.
Instead, hedge your claims like this example.
Also, you should refer to sources in your presentation
but this can be done in a slightly
more informal way than in academic writing.
Listen to this example.
Finally, one way of helping your audience follow your arguments is by making use of
visual aids.
Good presenters, however, use their visual
aids to support what they are saying and not to replace what they are saying.
This means you shouldn’t put all your text onto a slide as then the audience will probably
read your slides and not listen to what you are saying.
Rather, use keywords, short phrases,
diagrams or visuals to provide background support to the points you are making.
Also, remember that this is an academic presentation.
It is not appropriate to use GIFs, for example.
And you may think that the exciting transition you use between slides is entertaining,
but the audience will probably be wondering how professional you are.
So, let’s conclude, shall we?
when preparing to give your academic presentation,
remember these key points.
Finally, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that practising and timing yourself is
an essential aspect of preparation.
This will help you feel more relaxed and confident on the day.
Best of luck!