5 little-known mistakes *most* students make when creating and delivering PowerPoint presentations (and what to do instead)

Studying at an English-speaking university can pose many challenges. Students are preoccupied with improving their research and writing skills, but they often forget about another thing. Without strong writing skills you will struggle but so will you without strong presentation skills. As an academic lecturer, who has assessed thousands of individual and group presentations, I know a thing or two about the most common mistakes students make when it comes to creating and delivering presentations and what’s even more important, how to avoid them. In this week's newsletter, I write about the reasons which make giving presentations difficult, and I share tips and advice on delivering an outstanding academic presentation.

What makes giving presentations so difficult?

Reason #1 Little relevance to everyday?life

What do I mean by saying 'little relevance to everyday life'? Answer the following question. 'When was the last time you gave a presentation outside of work or study circumstances?' Or try to answer this question. 'When was the last time you gave a public speech?' Quite?honestly, before the pandemic started, I guess I could name one or two situations, but no more than that, and definitely, I?can't recall any public speaking I've done over the pandemic, at least nothing major that I would have vivid memories of. And that's my point. In everyday life, we do not give presentations. We do all sorts of transactional speaking such as getting other employees or colleagues?to do certain activities?for us, we delegate tasks, or e.g at home we just tell our children to make their beds and so on, but we do not perform in front of them on a daily basis nor in front of big audiences. For these reasons, presentation?skills do not come naturally to most of us and as a result, they need to be taught in a classroom. As with any skill, the more you practice, the more confident you become.?

Reason No 2 Lack of confidence?

This point ties back in a way to what I said before. Because we do not give presentations on a daily basis, we do not get to practise doing them, and therefore, we lack confidence in talking to big audiences when e.g. giving PowerPoint or poster presentations. So, the question is how can you become more confident or how can you practise confidence? Unfortunately, I don't have a simple piece of advice that will solve your problem immediately. What is more, I don't believe in many things I read about becoming confident e.g. how can speaking to a mirror help you with becoming more confident when in fact you are talking to yourself? It is also quite difficult to get the family members to listen to you as some sort of audience for simple reasons such as different?timetables and schedules that we all have.

So again, the question is what can you do? How can you build your confidence?

First of all, you need to ask yourself what is it that holds you back? What is it that makes you freeze when you think about public speaking? Is it what you look like? Or is it what you sound like? I know of people who are slightly?overweight and do not accept?their bodies, therefore they do not feel comfortable in the spotlight. I know of others who feel that their English or even their native accent is not good enough, and that's why they feel judged and consequently, they lack confidence. But what you need to remember is that people listen to you for your ideas, the message that you want to convey, the content of your presentation. They do not come to just look at you. Otherwise, they would go to watch a beauty competition. From a more practical perspective, what I tell my students is that there is nothing in the marking rubrics about your look or your native accent that can bring your score down as long as you are understandable. Of course, if your accent is strong and the audience cannot follow you easily, they will not be able to understand your message, but other than that, there is in fact nothing that you should be beating yourself about.?Remember, people are interested in you and what you are about, not what you look like (at least in the academic or university context).

Reason No 3 The structure of the presentation

This one you might think is simple. What can be difficult about structuring a PowerPoint presentation?! You open PowerPoint on your computer, choose your favourite design, insert the images and the text you have prepared beforehand and off you go. Job's done! Not really. In fact, the simplest thing is to open the software but pretty much that’s where the simplest part of the presentation finishes. In ma career as an academic lecturer, I have seen a lot of mistakes with this initial stage of preparing a presentation, and this is what I'll be talking about below. Let's examine now the main mistakes students?make when preparing?a presentation and what can be done instead.

The ins and outs of 5 most common mistakes students make and what you can do about them

Mistake No 1 The choice of the slides

Many times, we choose what we like, but we tend to forget about our audience. Once again, remember that you are creating a presentation?for others not for yourself. As a result, nothing too fancy or too bold will work well. My advice is: be strategic and keep your presentation?simple! It's good practice to choose simple slides. No bright colours or fancy fonts. What is important to keep in mind is the logo of the university or company you are working for. It always leaves a good impression on the audience if they see who you are affiliated with. It increases your level of credibility. That’s why, it is important to place the logo in the top corner.

Mistake No 2 The place of the presentation where it’s going to be held

The other thing that is often overlooked but so important is the place where?you will be delivering?your presentation. Is it online or in a conference room? If it is online, you need to run tests to make sure that your technology will not let you down. It seems that the pandemic times have made us aware of the technology issues but oftentimes it is the simple things that let us down. But what if you're delivering your presentation?in a lecture theatre or a conference room? What should you bear in mind? The best thing would be to check the room for the little things such as the equipment, lights or the projector. You might want to consider bringing your own laptop so that you will not get surprised on the day of the presentation. Keep in mind the natural light might have an effect on your presentation. That's why, it is crucial to choose a plain and bright background and dark fonts so that the natural?light will not have a detrimental effect on your work. On a technical note, I also strongly suggest having a couple of copies of your PowerPoint presentation, especially when you cannot check the room before the presentation. I highly recommend having your PowerPoint slides saved on Google Drive and also as a pdf file simple bacause not all the computers have Microsoft Office installed on their hard drive. As they say, better safe than sorry. Believe me, you don’t want to add more stress to your presentation.

Mistake No 3 The choice of images, clip arts and fonts

One of the most common pieces of advice I see in the textbooks about presentation skills says that it is essential to include images, that the text itself is boring and monotonous. But, they rarely tell you what kind of images you should select. You cannot just insert an image for the sake of having it. The image you choose to include in your presentation needs to help you convey your message. In other words, instead of using too many words, you need to use a picture or a photograph, something that will make your presentation not only more interesting but more relatable. The purpose of using images is not to make presentations more colourful or vivid, but to convert text information into an image so that our brain finds it easier to digest. In addition, you need to be mindful of using clip arts. Again, you might not see a problem with them yet, but in my experience, some students have a tendency to choose sound clip arts that can be really annoying, and in fact, not matching the context or the register of the presentation, which is formal. Same goes with the choice of fonts. Again, select simple fonts, nothing fancy, just what people are used to and what would not strain your audience's eyes.

Mistake No 4 Being monotonous

Being monotonous is often associated with intonation, which is an important part of public speaking. However, it is not what I will be talking about. In general, non-native speakers of English come across as rather monotonous, that’s why, word stress and sentences stress with the right intonation play such a huge role in delivering presentations. But, I would like to draw your attention to something else. Research says that first 30 secs are crucial to the success of your presentation, and this is why, you need to grasp your audience attention at the start. How can you do it? Instead of going right to the topic, think how you topic relates to everyday life. Let me give you an example. I remember one of my students talking about speech recognition system. At first, I thought it was super technical, but what she did she started off with a real-life example of how speech recognition system works when e.g. we are trying to log in to our bank accounts. Automatically, I found that relatable and consequently, I was more interested in what she was saying. Remember to make your presentation interesting but making it relatable to people’s lives.

Mistake No 5 Too much information?

Not being selective is what makes a student's life difficult. And it's not only about writing but also, it's about giving presentations as well. How many times have I heard from students that 10 min is not enough for the presentation they have to deliver to pass a module? The piece of advice I give is BE SELECTIVE. Remember that if your audience is interested in the details of your research, they will request a report or a handout, which will lay out all the details. But when people come to a presentation, they want to see the most important aspects of your research. They are interested in the methodology of your research, the research findings and its limitations, and in my experience, you can successfully talk about those parts of your research in 10 mins. On a more technical note, you should remember to have 6 items at most, organised in the form of bullet points. Otherwise you will lose your audience as they will be reading ahead. You audience won’t be able to focus their attention. In order to help them stay focused, show them one point at a time. To be able to do so, if you use Power Point, you need to go to the tool bar, choose animation, and then select the animation type called ‘fly in’. As a result, you’ll stay in control of your presentation, and I control of your audience.

Thanks for reading this edition of the Academic English Made Easy newsletter, I hope you enjoyed the topic this week. Here are some ways to access more advice and tips:

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