'Successful Presentations-Overcoming Jitters and Fear' guides users towards making effective and impactful presentations regardless of the topic.

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Successful Presentations - Overcoming Jitters & Fears

What Is A Presentation?
An event using visual and/or audible communication which is conducted for the purposes of providing information, bringing understanding, gaining agreement, and/or inspiring an action.

What Makes An Effective Presentation?
An effective presentation is a combination of the four elements: Content, Structure Preparation and Delivery. When utilised correctly, these components allow you to tackle the common challenges faced when you are asked to make a presentation. These include:
a)Feeling overwhelmed
b)Lack of focus about the information to present
c)Uncertainty about the presentation format to use
d)Nervousness about how you will perform in front of an audience
e)Fear about answering questions from the audience

This document is intended to give you an overview of the presentation process focused at the key areas you need to concentrate on.

Content, Structure, Preparation and Delivery
The four components of an effective presentation are described as follows:

1.Content refers to the information and materials that you research and compile. You are guided by what you wish to convey to the audience. Ask yourself, your instructor, your teammates, your boss (whoever is applicable) these questions in an effort to clarify the assignment in your mind:
Why am I doing this presentation?
What are my objectives for the presentation? What am I expected to do?
What will the presentation cover? E.g. A Business Proposal, A Project Plan, Financial Performance of a Company, A Charismatic Leader, The Sports Industry in the 21st Century, etc
How broad or narrow should the presentations scope be?
How long do I have to present the material?
Who is my audience or target?

2.Structure is the organization of the content into an appropriate format which will be most effective in reaching your audience and achieving your presentation objectives. This may incorporate multimedia slides and graphical enhancements in the event that technology tools are used.

3.Preparation is the process of becoming comfortable with your presentation content and structure and assuming the correct persona in order to enhance the delivery.

4.Delivery is the manner in which you voice your message both verbally and with body language.

In order for the presentation to be great, there must be synergy of these four elements since each of these elements carries an equal weight of importance. Consider the scenario that follows.

Scenario-1
You have done a poor job of researching and organizing your content, but you spend hours designing the presentation with all the bells and whistles that MS PowerPoint can offer you and you spend hours practicing your delivery.
Question: What is going to happen when you get in front of your audience?
Answer: You are going to rush through your presentation, avoid interaction with your audience because you do not know much about the subject matter except what you have included in the slides. Additionally, your audience is probably going to be distracted by excessive use of the bells and whistles. In the event that there are questions from the audience, you will not be knowledgeable enough to answer since you did not bother to invest any real time or effort into your research. Inevitably, you will appear unprofessional to the audience and you will not ...