Criteria Presentation

Characteristics of a Strong Presentation

• Use visuals - lots of pictures, videos, demos
• Interactive - get the audience to participate in the presentation
• Focused - Present the core essence of the topic that you are addressing and do not deviate too much from the main focus. This helps people from getting confused.
• Get peoples attention - Start out with something shocking (not too shocking) or funny to grab everyones attention.
• Keep things simple - Summarize the content in a simple way so it is easy to understand
• Motivation - Present a motivation for the presentation. Answer the question "why should people care about this topic?" early in the presentation and then give applications at the end.
• Show how to get more info - List links to websites, people to contact or files that people could use to further research your topic.
• Be prepared - practice in front of someone familiar that will give you honest feed back. This is important because you feel more prepared and will therefore come across as more confident.
• Information is Organized - Information flows and is structured in a way that is easy for people to follow and digest. This makes the presentation reusable as a reference in the future.
  • Introduction - Overview of the essence of what is being presented, the scope of the presentation (length, depth of content), and any information that people need to know before your get started (when to ask questions, definition of terms/concepts)
  • Body - Main content of the presentation.
  • Conclusion - Conclude the presentation by summarizing the main points and putting the content into perspective. Answer the question "how does this fit into the big picture?"