How to Prepare Your Presentation

Know Your Audience

• What will the demographics of your audience be? Consider age, gender, religion, class, ethnicity, educational background, and any other relevant factors.
• What values, beliefs, or attitudes do you think your audience will have? Do you think they’ll agree or disagree with the points you want to make?
• What’s an appropriate language level? Do you need to avoid certain words or phrases? Can you use topic-specific terminology?
• What does the audience want or need? Information? Reassurance? Entertainment? If you know what your listeners need, you can talk about your subject matter in a way that meets their needs.
• Will your particular audience consider you an authority on your subject? If not, you may have to focus more attention on your qualifications or highlight your use of authoritative sources.
• What’s the occasion? Is it light or serious? Academic, public, or professional? What will your audience’s standards and expectations be, given the occasion? How will you meet those standards?
• What’s the time of day? Are you speaking before, during, or after a meal? Will the audience be tired, distracted, or hungry? These factors may affect how well you can motivate them to listen.

Decide on a Specific Type of Presentation

• Informative: Used to teach or provide new information. When appropriate, offer your own opinion about the information you’re presenting.
• Persuasive: The most difficult type of speech. Used to convince, motivate, or influence your audience to agree and/or to act.
• Entertaining or evocative: Used to grab the audience’s attention, to amuse, or to bring people together.

Know Your Time Limitations

Plan Your Setup

• Layout: Investigate the room. Plan where you’ll stand relative to the audience and where you’ll place visual aids.
• Audio/visual equipment: Make sure you have the right equipment and that it works correctly. Also be sure you know whom to contact in case you have a problem with the equipment during your presentation.
• Electrical outlets: Check to make sure there are enough electrical outlets available.
• Volume: Check the volume of your equipment and ask a friend to stand in the back of the room to check the volume of your voice.
• Lights: Set the lights to a level of brightness at which you can see any projected visuals without having to turn the lights on or off.
• Tables and chairs: Move tables and chairs to where you want your audience to sit. Don’t let them crowd you or have their backs to you.
• Podium or lectern: If there’s a podium or lectern, get rid of it—they only encourage speakers to hide from their audiences. If you can’t remove the podium, plan to step to the side as you make key points.