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Preparing to Present
by Denise Hardy
My first year in library school, my son and I decided to give a presentation at a technical library conference. To prepare, I joined Toastmasters, and they let me give a speech every week until my presentation. Their evaluations were beneficial, and I also had a practice run videotaped. Although painful to watch, the video was very revealing; I gained skills that I still use when I present.
Don't Read Your Speech
Toastmasters taught me to write brief words or phrases on a 3x5 card to refer to if I get stuck. I became more and more comfortable with this as I gave speeches in front of my club. However, my son and I were given an opportunity to do a videotaped trial run at his school, and I decided to read my speech word-for-word. Luckily, my son and I watched the video the night before our presentation.
My son looked fine on tape. He was animated, natural, and knowledgeable. I, on the other hand, was pitiful! I looked scared, I didn't smile, and I didn't make eye contact with my audience. In my written speech, there was a place where I was supposed to stop to let my son do a demonstration. Somehow, I skipped over the instructions and kept reading. My son tried a couple times to point to that part in the script, but I didn't understand what he meant, so I kept going. Finally, his advisor called out, "Do you have a demonstration of that?" I still blush when I think about it!
However, as a result of seeing that video, I went back to my 3x5 card. The day of the real presentation, I felt more confident, I made better contact with the audience, and the speech went considerably more smoothly!
What To Do With Your Voice
Toastmasters stresses how to use your voice. People often say that I have a calming effect on them. That isn't complimentary when referring to a presentation - you don't want to lull your audience to sleep!
The two things my fellow Toastmasters have most often commented on are that they have difficulty hearing me and that I need more vocal variety. I am working on speaking to the person who is farthest away from me. If that person can hear me, everyone else in the room will be able to as well. I am also working on trying to be more animated, as my son was naturally in that video. I want to learn how to use different voices, use accents, raise and lower the volume of my voice, and do whatever it takes to hold the attention of my audience. I have even sung in my speeches, and believe me, if my speaking voice doesn't wake you up, my singing voice will!
What To Do With Your Body
One advantage of not reading my speeches is that it leaves me free to move around. I tend to be a little shy and don't want to make a fool of myself, so I stand with my hands at my side. I am learning to become a little freer. When there is a point I want to illustrate, I can use my facial expressions to show feelings, I can use my hands to demonstrate how something is done, and I can walk around the room to draw in my audience. I can also use props. Once, during an interpretive reading of the poem "The Spider and the Fly," I put on black gloves and let my hands be the characters.
Add movement to your presentation. This means you can't sit at a table or lean on a podium. You need to move to keep the interest of your audience.
Other Things To Bear In Mind
In Toastmasters, we have an Ah/grammarian. This person literally counts how many times each speaker uses filler words, such as "um," "uh," or "and." I have been so thoroughly trained not to use filler words that I can now speak extemporaneously without resorting to them. Ask someone to catch you every time you use a filler word, or tape yourself, and catch yourself when you play the tape back. Awareness is the first step toward ending the habit.
Before I gave my first presentation, I also took a class called "Death by PowerPoint." One of their main pieces of advice was not to write everything out on a PowerPoint page and then stand there and read it. This is as bad as reading your speech from a piece of paper - only, with PowerPoint, everyone can read along with you - making your presence unnecessary! In our presentation, my son used screenshots to demonstrate what we were talking about, but that was it. This kept us in contact with our audience.
Speaking of everyone being able to read along... While it may be a good idea to send people home with a handout, don't make these accessible until after your presentation. You want people to focus on what you are saying and to keep contact with your audience. My son put our presentation on a web site and just gave attendees the URL to view later.
"In Conclusion..."
These are the two sweetest words to an audience who has been sitting through several presentations at a conference. If you are given an hour, and you want to have a question-and-answer time after your presentation, leave about 20 minutes at the end. On the other hand, be prepared to add more if no one has questions. In fact, preparation is the key word for your presentation. You'll feel a lot better going into your presentation if you follow these suggestions.
Denise Hardy is a distance MLS student through Emporia State University, who plans to graduate in December of this year. With her son, Jamey Sharp, she gave a presentation on open source software for libraries at a technically- oriented library conference called Online Northwest in February 2004. She joined Toastmasters in December 2003 in order to prepare for that conference, but what she learned in Toastmasters was so helpful that she is still a speech-giving member today.