(There are four blog posts to Day Nine…get pumped)
I woke up this morning, still cold from the previous night. I was feeling a little weak from being sick, and a little nervous for my presentation. I packed my stuff and went downstairs to eat a little breakfast, and mentally review my presentation one more time.
Eventually all the students came down and gradually filled the spaces in the common area. I ate my fried egg and plain bread with jam quickly, waiting for Father Eugene to call on me to present. He introduced my topic: Music in China. I went to the front, pulled out my laptop, referred to my notes and began.
This presentation reminded me of an interesting fact when it comes to human psychology. Whenever I looked down at my notes, my eye contact was gone and therefore the audience would look away and become disengaged. That happened a little during the first half of my presentation.
During the second half, I used anecdotes and examples of music to make points in my presentation, so I referred to my notes a lot less. At one point, all fifty people were watching me. Without realizing it, they had engaged with what I was saying. I love that feeling.
It’s kind of amazing when a good presentation happens, and over the years I have realized a few things that distinguish good presentations from bad ones.
1) Make it interesting: If you aren’t interested, then the audience won’t be. I struggled with my topic on music, because it wasn’t one of my desired choices. Struggling though forced me to choose what information I found super interesting, and when you are enthusiastic, your audience is more likely to be enthusiastic too. Or at least get a kick out of watching you.
2) Organization: The old speech tip: Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. It’s a famous tip for a reason. I only used a sentence to preview and review, but even that short addition was enough to give the audience structure and a sense of place in the transference of ideas. People like having a sense of where they are, especially when it comes to conversation.
3) Short and sweet: Don’t overload your presentation with too much information. An educated selection of information is absolutely key. The simplest sentence is the best one—both on the SAT and in daily living. I had to cut out about half my material. But don’t blindly butcher the information. Make sure that what you cut makes sense and that you reorganize it afterward.
4) LOOK: This one refers to the primal quality of presenting, and thus makes it all the more important. So many students looked down at their paper the whole time (interestingly, a majority of them were the girls), and this prevents you from engaging with the audience. The audience will look where you are looking—if you look at the ground, so will they. Take the time to phase out the need for notes, which leads to the last tip…
5) Practice! I practiced giving my presentation about six times (through mental review), mainly because I’m a perfectionist and was nervous. Visualizing yourself presenting a good case totally works though. After I gave my presentation, I got several compliments on how organized/engaging/interesting/informative/fill-in-the-blank compliment my presentation was. So much so that people are still complimenting me six days afterward. And all it took was a little brain elbow grease.
