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How to Give a Killer Presentation

• Chris Anderson

For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

• Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
• Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
• Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
• Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
• Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

Lessons from TED

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

• CA Chris Anderson is the curator of TED.

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Blog Marketing How To Start a Presentation: 15 Ways to Set the Stage

How To Start a Presentation: 15 Ways to Set the Stage

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 25, 2023

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – it’s your opportunity to make a lasting impression and captivate your audience. 

A strong presentation start acts as a beacon, cutting through the noise and instantly capturing the attention of your listeners. With so much content vying for their focus, a captivating opening ensures that your message stands out and resonates with your audience.

Whether you’re a startup business owner pitching a brilliant idea, a seasoned presenter delivering a persuasive talk or an expert sharing your experience, the start of your presentation can make all the difference. But don’t fret — I’ve got you covered with 15 electrifying ways to kickstart your presentation. 

The presentation introduction examples in this article cover everything from self-introduction to how to start a group presentation, building anticipation that leaves the audience eager to delve into the depths of your topic.

Click to jump ahead:

How to start a presentation introduction

15 ways to start a presentation and captivate your audience, common mistakes to avoid in the opening of a presentation, faqs on how to start a presentation, captivate the audience from the get-go.

Presentations can be scary, I know. But even if stage fright hits, you can always fall back on a simple strategy.

Just take a deep breath, introduce yourself and briefly explain the topic of your presentation.

To grab attention at the start, try this opening line: Hello everyone. I am so glad you could join me today. I’m very excited about today’s topic. I’m [Your Name] and I’ll be talking about [Presentation Topic]. Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by [Challenge related to your topic]. Many of us might have faced challenges with [Challenge related to your topic]. Today, we’ll explore some strategies that’ll help us [Solution that you’re presenting].

Regardless of your mode of presentation , crafting an engaging introduction sets the stage for a memorable presentation.

Let’s dive into some key tips for how to start a presentation speech to help you nail the art of starting with a bang:

Understand your audience

The key to an engaging introduction is to know your audience inside out and give your audience what they want. Tailor your opening to resonate with their specific interests, needs and expectations. Consider what will captivate them and how you can make your presentation relevant to their lives or work.

Use a compelling hook

Grab the audience’s attention from the get-go with a compelling hook. Whether it’s a thought-provoking question, a surprising fact or a gripping story, a powerful opening will immediately pique their curiosity and keep them invested in what you have to say.

State your purpose

Be crystal clear about your subject matter and the purpose of your presentation. In just a few sentences, communicate the main objectives and the value your audience will gain from listening to you. Let them know upfront what to expect and they’ll be more likely to stay engaged throughout.

Introduce yourself and your team

Give a self introduction about who you are such as your job title to establish credibility and rapport with the audience.

Some creative ways to introduce yourself in a presentation would be by sharing a brief and engaging personal story that connects to your topic or the theme of your presentation. This approach instantly makes you relatable and captures the audience’s attention.

Now, let’s talk about — how to introduce team members in a presentation. Before introducing each team member, briefly explain their role or contribution to the project or presentation. This gives the audience an understanding of their relevance and expertise.

Group presentations are also a breeze with the help of Venngage. Our in-editor collaboration tools allow you to edit presentations side by side in real-time. That way, you can seamlessly hare your design with the team for input and make sure everyone is on track. 

Maintain enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is contagious! Keep the energy levels up throughout your introduction, conveying a positive and upbeat tone. A vibrant and welcoming atmosphere sets the stage for an exciting presentation and keeps the audience eager to hear more.

Before you think about how to present a topic, think about how to design impactful slides that can leave a lasting impression on the audience. Here are 120+ presentation ideas , design tips, and examples to help you create an awesome slide deck for your next presentation.

Captivating your audience from the get-go is the key to a successful presentation. Whether you’re a seasoned speaker or a novice taking the stage for the first time, the opening of your presentation sets the tone for the entire talk. 

So, let’s get ready to dive into the 15 most creative ways to start a presentation. I promise you these presentation introduction ideas will captivate your audience, leaving them hanging on your every word.

Grab-attention immediately

Ask a thought-provoking question.

Get the audience’s wheels turning by throwing them a thought-provoking question right out of the gate. Make them ponder, wonder and engage their critical thinking muscles from the very start.

Share a surprising statistic or fact

Brace yourself for some wide eyes and dropped jaws! Open your presentation with a jaw-dropping statistic or a mind-blowing fact that’s directly related to your topic. Nothing captures attention like a good ol’ dose of shock and awe.

State a bold statement or challenge

Ready to shake things up? Kick off with a bold and daring statement that sets the stage for your presentation’s epic journey. Boldness has a way of making ears perk up and eyes widen in anticipation!

Engage with a poll or interactive activity

Turn the audience from passive listeners to active participants by kicking off with a fun poll or interactive activity. Get them on their feet, or rather — their fingertips, right from the start!

Venngage’s user-friendly drag-and-drop editor allows you to easily transform your slides into an interactive presentation . Create clickable buttons or navigation elements within your presentation to guide your audience to different sections or external resources. 

Enhance engagement by incorporating videos or audio clips directly into your presentation. Venngage supports video and audio embedding, which can add depth to your content.

Begin with an opening phrase that captures attention

Use opening phrases that can help you create a strong connection with your audience and make them eager to hear more about what you have to say. Remember to be confident, enthusiastic and authentic in your delivery to maximize the impact of your presentation.

Here are some effective presentation starting words and phrases that can help you grab your audience’s attention and set the stage for a captivating presentation:

• “Imagine…”
• “Picture this…”
• “Did you know that…”
• “Have you ever wondered…”
• “In this presentation, we’ll explore…”
• “Let’s dive right in and discover…”
• “I’m excited to share with you…”
• “I have a confession to make…”
• “I want to start by telling you a story…”
• “Before we begin, let’s consider…”
• “Have you ever faced the challenge of…”
• “We all know that…”
• “This is a topic close to my heart because…”
• “Over the next [minutes/hours], we’ll cover…”
• “I invite you to journey with me through…”

Build connection and credibility

Begin with a personal connection .

Share a real-life experience or a special connection to the topic at hand. This simple act of opening up creates an instant bond with the audience, turning them into your biggest cheerleaders.

Having the team share their personal experiences is also a good group presentation introduction approach. Team members can share their own stories that are related to the topic to create an emotional connection with your audience. 

Tell a relevant story

Start your presentation with a riveting story that hooks your audience and relates to your main message. Stories have a magical way of captivating hearts and minds. Organize your slides in a clear and sequential manner and use visuals that complement your narrative and evoke emotions to engage the audience.

With Venngage, you have access to a vast library of high-quality and captivating stock photography, offering thousands of options to enrich your presentations. The best part? It’s entirely free! Elevate your visual storytelling with stunning images that complement your content, captivate your audience and add a professional touch to your presentation. 

Use a powerful quote

Sometimes, all you need is some wise words to work wonders. Begin with a powerful quote from a legendary figure that perfectly fits your presentation’s theme — a dose of inspiration sets the stage for an epic journey.

Build anticipation

Provide a brief outline.

Here’s a good introduction for presentation example if you’re giving a speech at a conference. For longer presentations or conferences with multiple speakers especially, providing an outline helps the audience stay focused on the key takeaways. That way, you can better manage your time and ensure that you cover all the key points without rushing or running out of time.

Pose a problem and offer a solution

A great idea on how to start a business presentation is to start by presenting a problem and offering a well-thought-out solution. By addressing their pain points and showcasing your solution, you’ll capture their interest and set the stage for a compelling and successful presentation.

Back up your solution with data, research, or case studies that demonstrate its effectiveness. This can also be a good reporting introduction example that adds credibility to your proposal.

Preparing a pitch deck can be a daunting task but fret not. This guide on the 30+ best pitch deck tips and examples has everything you need to bring on new business partners and win new client contracts. Alternatively, you can also get started by customizing one of our professional pitch deck templates for free. 

Incite curiosity in the audience

Utilize visuals or props.

Capture your audience’s gaze by whipping out captivating visuals or props that add an exciting touch to your subject. A well-placed prop or a stunning visual can make your presentation pop like a fireworks show!

That said, you maybe wondering — how can I make my presentation more attractive.  A well-designed presentation background instantly captures the audience’s attention and creates a positive first impression. Here are 15 presentation background examples to keep the audience awake to help you get inspired. 

Use humor or wit

Sprinkle some humor and wit to spice things up. Cracking a clever joke or throwing in a witty remark can break the ice and create a positively charged atmosphere. If you’re cracking your head on how to start a group presentation, humor is a great way to start a presentation speech. 

Get your team members involved in the fun to create a collaborative and enjoyable experience for everyone. Laughter is the perfect way to break the ice and set a positive tone for your presentation!

Invoke emotion

Get those heartstrings tugging! Start with a heartfelt story or example that stirs up emotions and connects with your audience on a personal level. Emotion is the secret sauce to a memorable presentation.

Aside from getting creative with your introduction, a well-crafted and creative presentation can boost your confidence as a presenter. Browse our catalog of creative presentation templates and get started right away!

Use a dramatic pause

A great group presentation example is to start with a powerful moment of silence, like a magician about to reveal their greatest trick. After introducing your team, allow a brief moment of silence. Hold the pause for a few seconds, making it feel deliberate and purposeful. This builds anticipation and curiosity among the audience.

Pique their interest

Share a fun fact or anecdote.

Time for a little fun and games! Kick-off with a lighthearted or fascinating fact that’ll make the audience go, “Wow, really? Tell me more!” A sprinkle of amusement sets the stage for an entertaining ride.

While an introduction for a presentation sets the tone for your speech, a good slide complements your spoken words, helping the audience better understand and remember your message. Check out these 12 best presentation software for 2023 that can aid your next presentation. 

The opening moments of a presentation can make or break your entire talk. It’s your chance to grab your audience’s attention, set the tone, and lay the foundation for a successful presentation. However, there are some common pitfalls that speakers often fall into when starting their presentations. 

Starting with Apologies

It might be tempting to start with a preemptive apology, especially if you’re feeling nervous or unsure about your presentation. However, beginning with unnecessary apologies or self-deprecating remarks sets a negative tone right from the start. Instead of exuding confidence and credibility, you’re unintentionally undermining yourself and your message. 

Reading from Slides

One of the most common blunders in the opening of a PowerPoint presentation is reading directly from your slides or script. While it’s crucial to have a well-structured outline, reciting word-for-word can lead to disengagement and boredom among your audience. Maintain eye contact and connect with your listeners as you speak. Your slides should complement your words, not replace them.

Overwhelming with Information

In the excitement to impress, some presenters bombard their audience with too much information right at the beginning.

Instead of overloading the audience with a sea of data, statistics or technical details that can quickly lead to confusion and disinterest, visualize your data with the help of Venngage. Choose an infographic template that best suits the type of data you want to visualize. Venngage offers a variety of pre-designed templates for charts, graphs, infographics and more.

Ignoring the Audience

It’s easy to get caught up in the content and forget about the people in front of you. Don’t overlook the importance of acknowledging the audience and building a connection with them. Greet them warmly, make eye contact and maintain body language to show genuine interest in their presence. Engage the audience early on by asking a show of hands question or encourage audience participation. 

Lack of Clarity

Your audience should know exactly what to expect from your presentation. Starting with a vague or unclear opening leaves them guessing about the purpose and direction of your talk. Clearly communicate the topic and objectives of your presentation right from the beginning. This sets the stage for a focused and coherent message that resonates with your audience.

Simplicity makes it easier for the audience to understand and retain the information presented. Check out our gallery of simple presentation templates to keep your opening concise and relevant. 

Skipping the Hook

The opening of your presentation is the perfect opportunity to hook your audience’s attention and keep them engaged. However, some presenters overlook this crucial aspect and dive straight into the content without any intrigue. Craft an attention-grabbing hook that sparks curiosity, poses a thought-provoking question or shares an interesting fact. A compelling opening is like the key that unlocks your audience’s receptivity to the rest of your presentation.

Now that you’ve got the gist of how to introduce a presentation, further brush up your speech with these tips on how to make a persuasive presentation and how to improve your presentation skills to create an engaging presentation . 

How can I overcome nervousness at the beginning of a presentation?

To overcome nervousness at the beginning of a presentation, take deep breaths, practice beforehand, and focus on connecting with your audience rather than worrying about yourself.

How long should the opening of a presentation be?

The opening of a presentation should typically be brief, lasting around 1 to 3 minutes, to grab the audience’s attention and set the tone for the rest of the talk.

Should I memorize my presentation’s opening lines?

While it’s helpful to know your opening lines, it’s better to understand the key points and flow naturally to maintain authenticity and flexibility during the presentation.

Should I use slides during the opening of my presentation?

Using slides sparingly during the opening can enhance the message, but avoid overwhelming the audience with too much information early on.

How do I transition smoothly from the opening to the main content of my presentation?

Transition smoothly from the opening to the main content by providing a clear and concise outline of what’s to come, signaling the shift and maintaining a logical flow between topics.

Just as a captivating opening draws your audience in, creating a well-crafted presentation closing has the power to leave a lasting impression. Wrap up in style with these 10 ways to end a presentation .

Presenting virtually? Check out these tips on how to ace your next online presentation . 

Captivating your audience from the very beginning is crucial for a successful presentation. The first few moments of your talk can set the tone and determine whether your audience remains engaged throughout or loses interest. 

Start with a compelling opening that grabs their attention. You can use a thought-provoking question, a surprising statistic or a powerful quote to pique their curiosity. Alternatively, storytelling can be a potent tool to draw them into your narrative. It’s essential to establish a personal connection early on, whether by sharing a relatable experience or expressing empathy towards their needs and interests.

Lastly, be mindful of your body language and vocal delivery. A confident and engaging speaker can captivate an audience, so make eye contact, use appropriate gestures and vary your tone to convey passion and sincerity.

In conclusion, captivating your audience from the very beginning requires thoughtful preparation, engaging content and a confident delivery. With Venngage’s customizable templates, you can adapt your presentation to suit the preferences and interests of your specific audience, ensuring maximum engagement. Go on and get started today!

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10 Tips for creating an effective training presentation

Creating a training presentation is not a simple task. Unlike your usual PowerPoints, a training deck should convey work-related information in a way that keeps your team engaged and creates a positive learning experience. Quite a challenge, if you ask me - especially in online environments.

That’s why today I’ve got a little help from the 24Slides presentation designers . They work on thousands of eLearning slides for companies every month, so they pretty much know what it takes to create an impressive training deck.

By the end of this post, you’ll have learned:

• What exactly a training presentation is
• The benefits of corporate training
• 10 training presentation tips you can execute right now

Let’s begin!

What's a Training Presentation?

A training presentation is a corporate learning material that helps build the right skills employees require to perform their jobs. For optimal results, ideal training presentations showcase the specialized knowledge in well-structured, easy-to-read slides, and encourage active participation during the whole learning experience.

To give you an idea, common training presentation topics include company policies, safety and health at work, cybersecurity, industrial processes , and more.

Why Should Businesses Provide Employee Training?

Employee training is a business investment, and as such, it’s normal for higher-ups to question whether some corporate learning and development activities are needed. However, as Henry Ford said, “ The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay! ”

And if that’s not enough reason, here are some long-term benefits you can list to show the value of employee training in your organization:

• Training sessions leverage new employees’ productivity faster
• Employee training reduces the chances of errors and accidents on the job.
• Well-trained employees need less supervision, which translates into more time for managers to dedicate to their own tasks.
• Learning and development activities help increase employee retention and job satisfaction.
• Constant employee training makes it easier to identify the team’s weaknesses and creates improvement opportunities for the whole organization.

Now that we understand why staff training is important, let’s see how to create a good training presentation.

Top Tips for Creating an Effective Training Presentation

What we commonly call “effective presentation” is the right balance of two elements: the content you provide and how you deliver it. The first part is on your expertise and every piece of information you can share. But the second part is where the real magic happens .

How do you convey your knowledge? How can you make the online learning experience one to remember? Well, a lot relies on the way you present that information. In this section, we’re going to cover both sides through 10 training presentation tips:

#1 Showcase the knowledge of your company’s experts

Internal expertise is a top learning resource many companies fail to see. Just think about how much your sales head or finances specialist can say about the best practices and workflows from their respective areas. Or the industry trends and developments they experience in their day-to-day activities. You don’t need to look outside the office when you already have expert sources that can provide you with valuable know-how for your training slides.

And don’t curb to technical topics. If the training is on leadership or negotiation skills, why don’t you invite a project manager or sales rep to talk about their experiences? This is a fantastic way to recognize employees as experts and promote team engagement at the same time.

#2 Use your visuals wisely

Visual content is ideal to catch your audience’s attention in a matter of seconds. Plus, studies confirm that visuals help process information faster and facilitate learning . However, this doesn’t mean we should plaster graphics and illustrations all over our slides. Instead, use your visuals strategically only for what’s relevant.

It’s like highlighting a textbook. A mark signals the main idea from the hundreds of words in every chapter. But what’s the point if you’re going to highlight the entire page? It would lose its whole purpose!

As Benny Prasetyo, Design manager from 24Slides , says:

So keep that in mind. Your images, icons, and other graphics are not merely decorative devices. They tell people where to look and have the power to amplify your key messages.

#3 Appeal to different learning styles

According to the VARK model , there are four main learning styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. And people tend to prefer one or two modalities over others. The good thing is that you can appeal to the four of them within your training PowerPoint presentation. Here’s how:

• For visual learners, maps, flow charts, and process diagrams are the way to go. They respond better to all these devices that explain something graphically instead of words.

• Auditory learners make the most out of synchronous training because they learn by hearing and discussing ideas. However, you can also adapt your PowerPoint materials to them. Think about adding audio files or linking to podcasts that further expand the main topic. Another great way to appeal to aural or auditory learners is using a conversational style in your slides, so they can read your PPT as if you were talking directly to them.
• People who process information through reading and writing will appreciate text-based explanations and assignments. Lists, quotations, and case studies are ideal for this type of learner.

• For the kinesthetic modality, you can showcase personal experiences or feature practical exercises that allow students to apply what they’ve learned. We’ll talk more about this kind of content in the following sections. But bear in mind that kinesthetic learners are “tactile” and prefer to assimilate new information by exploring it in the real world.

To sum this point up, add elements in your presentation that respond to the four learning styles, and you’ll get an immersive and more dynamic training session.

#4 Keep it real

Want to make your corporate training relevant to your team?

Include scenarios from real situations - extra points if these examples come from their actual work. Here’s the thing: People are more perceptive to things that make an impact on their lives. So, if you connect your session to what they go through in their daily tasks, you’re adding emotion and making your training 10x more relatable.

Ideally, your presentation gives solutions to an issue the business has identified. In this case, you need to explore a little: What has changed or happened in the company that employees require training? How’s the day-to-day of the areas involved? What’s the ideal scenario the company expects?

Now, use your findings to integrate realistic situations as examples or exercises that show trainees the value of your session. The key to an engaged and motivated audience is to keep things real.

#5 Make use of storytelling

Effective training is more than informative sessions. The real objective is to spur change. You want to take employees from point A to point B in their development, and one of the most powerful tools to inspire action is storytelling.

In a few words, storytelling is the art of using a story to communicate something. It might not sound like a big deal, but stories speak to the emotional side of humans, and that’s how you can start building a connection that makes every session memorable.

Some ways the 24Slides designers help incorporate storytelling into training presentations is through comics, animated slides, and PowerPoint illustrations.

If you’re keen to challenge the status quo in your team, check out these 7 storytelling techniques to create a compelling training deck.

#6 Take every chance to engage with your audience

Getting active participants during online training is like finding the saint grail nowadays. With muted mics and off-cameras, sometimes you don't even know if someone is listening on the other side. But hang in there.

In this section, I will show you some interactive elements you can use to boost your audience engagement.

Usually, the host would end the presentation with an “Any Questions?” slide, but what about you asking the questions? Inquiry your audience’s minds and create open questions for anyone to share their opinions. This is a good old trick with the potential to spark great-in-class discussions. You can even transform it into a gamified experience with slides like the one you see above.

Online audience engagement tools such as Slido , Mentimeter , or Kahoot make it super easy to create interactive quizzes and polls. The cool thing about them is that they give you a presentation code, which allows your audience to send their answers and see the team's results in real-time.

But if you prefer a more traditional approach, there are PowerPoint slides that can do the trick too. Take this multiple-choice quiz template as an example. It comes with a wide array of designs to hold your participants’ attention while assessing their knowledge. You just need to insert questions and alternatives regarding your topic, and voilá!

Self-assessment activities are a great way to engage with your audience - even when you’re not there to guide them! Here’s a creative quiz template in PowerPoint you can use to add fill-in-the-blank exercises, short-answer questions, and multiple-choice tests to your training deck.

#7 Brand your corporate training deck

Considering that training presentations talk to one of the company’s most important stakeholders (the employees), it should be a no-brainer to keep them on-brand.

But it’s more than giving a professional look to your slides. Adding the company’s brand to training materials shows your team that you care. You’re making the same effort to deliver a polished product to them as the company does to the customers. And that speaks volumes!

Plus, keeping visual consistency across all materials helps your team become familiar with the brand and reinforce that they’re part of the company's activities.

We’ve got a whole article on why branding is essential in presentations , but at this point, it’s clear that spending some time on the aspect of your slides provides more benefits to the business than not. So, remember to inject the brand’s identity into your training decks.

#8 Close with summary slides

How often have you seen participants more worried about taking notes from your slides than actually following your speech? This is a common situation in learning scenarios, and it’s not because your participants don’t care about what you’re saying. Quite the contrary, they want to take it all in.

And you can make their learning experience easier by simply adding summary slides . These final slides contain the key points from your lesson and help viewers retain the essentials.

This way, you ship away your participants’ worry of missing something important, and you get another chance to reinforce your main messages. Everybody wins!

#9 Make your presentation accessible

“Accessibility” is a term that has gained popularity in the last few years, and it refers to the practice of ensuring people with disabilities can access the same information fully and independently as people without disabilities. This is extremely important in eLearning because you want everyone in the organization to benefit from your lessons.

For instance, employees with hearing difficulties might have a hard time watching an instructional video with no captions. Likewise, participants with visibility issues might need an easy-to-read font size in the slides or color contrast in your presentation visuals.

If you want to start now, PowerPoint has an accessibility checker that gives you a detailed report on what you can do to improve your slides. To activate it, follow this route: File tab > Information > Check for issues (next to Inspect Document) > Check Accessibility

You might be surprised by all the details we take for granted, but they make a huge difference to people with different abilities.

#10 Don’t Underestimate The Power of Your Presentation Design

All these good practices confirm that a good design can enhance any corporate learning experience. It helps your employees better comprehend information. It signals the importance of each item in your slides and how they should be read. A good design provides structure and visual flow. And the list can go on, but I prefer you see for yourself.

Damilka Rojas, Design manager at 24Slides , gives us expert input on the right design approach for effective training presentations:

Plus, many training slides are stand-alone materials with the task of conveying information without a live instructor. That’s when you can rely on a good design to deliver a coherent interpretation of your lessons.

Upgrade your training presentations today!

Now, it’s time to put these training presentation tips into practice. Whether you apply one or all of them together, I’m sure you’ll see a marked difference in your new slides. But if you have several presentations to upgrade or designing in PowerPoint is not exactly the most productive way to spend your time, let the 24Slides team handle it for you !

Our expert designers can create stunning slides to draw your audience’s attention while keeping the professional look your training decks deserve. They provide presentation design support to some of the biggest companies worldwide , so rest assured your slides will be in good hands. Ready to take your presentations to the next level?

Create professional presentations online

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How can you make a good presentation even more effective?

This page draws on published advice from expert presenters around the world, which will help to take your presentations from merely ‘good’ to ‘great’.

By bringing together advice from a wide range of people, the aim is to cover a whole range of areas.

Whether you are an experienced presenter, or just starting out, there should be ideas here to help you to improve.

1. Show your Passion and Connect with your Audience

It’s hard to be relaxed and be yourself when you’re nervous.

But time and again, the great presenters say that the most important thing is to connect with your audience, and the best way to do that is to let your passion for the subject shine through.

Be honest with the audience about what is important to you and why it matters.

Be enthusiastic and honest, and the audience will respond.

2. Focus on your Audience’s Needs

Your presentation needs to be built around what your audience is going to get out of the presentation.

As you prepare the presentation, you always need to bear in mind what the audience needs and wants to know, not what you can tell them.

While you’re giving the presentation, you also need to remain focused on your audience’s response, and react to that.

You need to make it easy for your audience to understand and respond.

3. Keep it Simple: Concentrate on your Core Message

When planning your presentation, you should always keep in mind the question:

What is the key message (or three key points) for my audience to take away?

You should be able to communicate that key message very briefly.

Some experts recommend a 30-second ‘elevator summary’, others that you can write it on the back of a business card, or say it in no more than 15 words.

Whichever rule you choose, the important thing is to keep your core message focused and brief.

And if what you are planning to say doesn’t contribute to that core message, don’t say it.

4. Smile and Make Eye Contact with your Audience

This sounds very easy, but a surprisingly large number of presenters fail to do it.

If you smile and make eye contact, you are building rapport , which helps the audience to connect with you and your subject. It also helps you to feel less nervous, because you are talking to individuals, not to a great mass of unknown people.

To help you with this, make sure that you don’t turn down all the lights so that only the slide screen is visible. Your audience needs to see you as well as your slides.

5. Start Strongly

The beginning of your presentation is crucial. You need to grab your audience’s attention and hold it.

They will give you a few minutes’ grace in which to entertain them, before they start to switch off if you’re dull. So don’t waste that on explaining who you are. Start by entertaining them.

Try a story (see tip 7 below), or an attention-grabbing (but useful) image on a slide.

6. Remember the 10-20-30 Rule for Slideshows

This is a tip from Guy Kawasaki of Apple. He suggests that slideshows should:

• Contain no more than 10 slides;
• Last no more than 20 minutes; and
• Use a font size of no less than 30 point.

This last is particularly important as it stops you trying to put too much information on any one slide. This whole approach avoids the dreaded ‘Death by PowerPoint’.

As a general rule, slides should be the sideshow to you, the presenter. A good set of slides should be no use without the presenter, and they should definitely contain less, rather than more, information, expressed simply.

If you need to provide more information, create a bespoke handout and give it out after your presentation.

7. Tell Stories

Human beings are programmed to respond to stories.

Stories help us to pay attention, and also to remember things. If you can use stories in your presentation, your audience is more likely to engage and to remember your points afterwards. It is a good idea to start with a story, but there is a wider point too: you need your presentation to act like a story.

Think about what story you are trying to tell your audience, and create your presentation to tell it.

Finding The Story Behind Your Presentation

To effectively tell a story, focus on using at least one of the two most basic storytelling mechanics in your presentation:

Focusing On Characters – People have stories; things, data, and objects do not. So ask yourself “who” is directly involved in your topic that you can use as the focal point of your story.

For example, instead of talking about cars (your company’s products), you could focus on specific characters like:

• The drivers the car is intended for – people looking for speed and adventure
• The engineers who went out of their way to design the most cost-effective car imaginable

A Changing Dynamic – A story needs something to change along the way. So ask yourself “What is not as it should be?” and answer with what you are going to do about it (or what you did about it).

For example…

• Did hazardous road conditions inspire you to build a rugged, all-terrain jeep that any family could afford?
• Did a complicated and confusing food labelling system lead you to establish a colour-coded nutritional index so that anybody could easily understand it?

To see 15 more actionable storytelling tips, see Nuts & Bolts Speed Training’s post on Storytelling Tips .

8. Use your Voice Effectively

The spoken word is actually a pretty inefficient means of communication, because it uses only one of your audience’s five senses. That’s why presenters tend to use visual aids, too. But you can help to make the spoken word better by using your voice effectively.

Varying the speed at which you talk, and emphasising changes in pitch and tone all help to make your voice more interesting and hold your audience’s attention.

For more about this, see our page on Effective Speaking .

9. Use your Body Too

It has been estimated that more than three quarters of communication is non-verbal.

That means that as well as your tone of voice, your body language is crucial to getting your message across. Make sure that you are giving the right messages: body language to avoid includes crossed arms, hands held behind your back or in your pockets, and pacing the stage.

Make your gestures open and confident, and move naturally around the stage, and among the audience too, if possible.

10. Relax, Breathe and Enjoy

If you find presenting difficult, it can be hard to be calm and relaxed about doing it.

One option is to start by concentrating on your breathing. Slow it down, and make sure that you’re breathing fully. Make sure that you continue to pause for breath occasionally during your presentation too.

For more ideas, see our page on Coping with Presentation Nerves .

If you can bring yourself to relax, you will almost certainly present better. If you can actually start to enjoy yourself, your audience will respond to that, and engage better. Your presentations will improve exponentially, and so will your confidence. It’s well worth a try.

Improve your Presentation Skills

Follow our guide to boost your presentation skills learning about preparation, delivery, questions and all other aspects of giving effective presentations.

Start with: What is a Presentation?

Continue to: How to Give a Speech Self Presentation

See also: Five Ways You Can Do Visual Marketing on a Budget Can Presentation Science Improve Your Presentation? Typography – It’s All About the Message in Your Slides

Improve your practice.

Enhance your soft skills with a range of award-winning courses.

How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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How To Write A Presentation 101 | Step-by-Step Guides with Best Examples | 2024 Reveals

Jane Ng • 05 April, 2024 • 9 min read

Is it difficult to start of presentation? You're standing before a room full of eager listeners, ready to share your knowledge and captivate their attention. But where do you begin? How do you structure your ideas and convey them effectively?

Take a deep breath, and fear not! In this article, we'll provide a road map on how to write a presentation covering everything from crafting a script to creating an engaging introduction.

So, let's dive in!

Table of Contents

What is a presentation , what should be in a powerful presentation.

• How To Write A Presentation Script
• How to Write A Presentation Introduction 

Key Takeaways

Tips for better presentation.

• How to start a presentation
• How to introduce yourself

Start in seconds.

Get free templates for your next interactive presentation. Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

Presentations are all about connecting with your audience. 

Presenting is a fantastic way to share information, ideas, or arguments with your audience. Think of it as a structured approach to effectively convey your message. And you've got options such as slideshows, speeches, demos, videos, and even multimedia presentations!

The purpose of a presentation can vary depending on the situation and what the presenter wants to achieve. 

• In the business world, presentations are commonly used to pitch proposals, share reports, or make sales pitches. 
• In educational settings, presentations are a go-to for teaching or delivering engaging lectures. 
• For conferences, seminars, and public events—presentations are perfect for dishing out information, inspiring folks, or even persuading the audience.

That sounds brilliant. But, how to write a presentation?

• Clear and Engaging Introduction: Start your presentation with a bang! Hook your audience's attention right from the beginning by using a captivating story, a surprising fact, a thought-provoking question, or a powerful quote. Clearly state the purpose of your presentation and establish a connection with your listeners.
• Well-Structured Content: Organize your content logically and coherently. Divide your presentation into sections or main points and provide smooth transitions between them. Each section should flow seamlessly into the next, creating a cohesive narrative. Use clear headings and subheadings to guide your audience through the presentation.
• Compelling Visuals: Incorporate visual aids, such as images, graphs, or videos, to enhance your presentation. Make sure your visuals are visually appealing, relevant, and easy to understand. Use a clean and uncluttered design with legible fonts and appropriate color schemes. 
• Engaging Delivery: Pay attention to your delivery style and body language. You should maintain eye contact with your audience, use gestures to emphasize key points, and vary your tone of voice to keep the presentation dynamic. 
• Clear and Memorable Conclusion: Leave your audience with a lasting impression by providing a strong closing statement, a call to action, or a thought-provoking question. Make sure your conclusion ties back to your introduction and reinforces the core message of your presentation.

How To Write A Presentation Script (With Examples)

To successfully convey your message to your audience, you must carefully craft and organize your presentation script. Here are steps on how to write a presentation script: 

1/ Understand Your Purpose and Audience

• Clarify the purpose of your presentation. Are you informing, persuading, or entertaining?
• Identify your target audience and their knowledge level, interests, and expectations.
• Define what presentation format you want to use

2/ Outline the Structure of Your Presentation

Strong opening.

Start with an engaging opening that grabs the audience's attention and introduces your topic. Some types of openings you can use are: 

• Start with a Thought-Provoking Question: "Have you ever...?"
• Begin with a Surprising Fact or Statistic: "Did you know that....?"
• Use a Powerful Quote: "As Maya Angelou once said,...."
• Tell a Compelling Story : "Picture this: You're standing at...."
• Start with a Bold Statement: "In the fast-paced digital age...."

Main Points

Clearly state your main points or key ideas that you will discuss throughout the presentation.

• Clearly State the Purpose and Main Points: Example: "In this presentation, we will delve into three key areas. First,... Next,... Finally,.... we'll discuss...."
• Provide Background and Context: Example: "Before we dive into the details, let's understand the basics of....."
• Present Supporting Information and Examples: Example: "To illustrate...., let's look at an example. In,....."
• Address Counterarguments or Potential Concerns: Example: "While..., we must also consider... ."
• Recap Key Points and Transition to the Next Section: Example: "To summarize, we've... Now, let's shift our focus to..."

Remember to organize your content logically and coherently, ensuring smooth transitions between sections.

You can conclude with a strong closing statement summarizing your main points and leaving a lasting impression. Example: "As we conclude our presentation, it's clear that... By...., we can...."

3/ Craft Clear and Concise Sentences

Once you've outlined your presentation, you need to edit your sentences. Use clear and straightforward language to ensure your message is easily understood.

Alternatively, you can break down complex ideas into simpler concepts and provide clear explanations or examples to aid comprehension.

4/ Use Visual Aids and Supporting Materials

Use supporting materials such as statistics, research findings, or real-life examples to back up your points and make them more compelling. 

• Example: "As you can see from this graph,... This demonstrates...."

5/ Include Engagement Techniques

Incorporate interactive elements to engage your audience, such as Q&A sessions , conducting live polls, or encouraging participation. You can also spin more funs into group, by randomly dividing people into different groups to get more diverse feedbacks!

6/ Rehearse and Revise

• Practice delivering your presentation script to familiarize yourself with the content and improve your delivery.
• Revise and edit your script as needed, removing any unnecessary information or repetitions.

7/ Seek Feedback

You can share your script or deliver a practice presentation to a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor to gather feedback on your script and make adjustments accordingly.

More on Script Presentation

How to Write A Presentation Introduction with Examples

How to write presentations that are engaging and visually appealing? Looking for introduction ideas for the presentation? As mentioned earlier, once you have completed your script, it's crucial to focus on editing and refining the most critical element—the opening of your presentation - the section that determines whether you can captivate and retain your audience's attention right from the start. 

Here is a guide on how to craft an opening that grabs your audience's attention from the very first minute: 

1/ Start with a Hook

To begin, you can choose from five different openings mentioned in the script based on your desired purpose and content. Alternatively, you can opt for the approach that resonates with you the most, and instills your confidence. Remember, the key is to choose a starting point that aligns with your objectives and allows you to deliver your message effectively.

2/ Establish Relevance and Context

Then you should establish the topic of your presentation and explain why it is important or relevant to your audience. Connect the topic to their interests, challenges, or aspirations to create a sense of relevance.

3/ State the Purpose

Clearly articulate the purpose or goal of your presentation. Let the audience know what they can expect to gain or achieve by listening to your presentation.

4/ Preview Your Main Points

Give a brief overview of the main points or sections you will cover in your presentation. It helps the audience understand the structure and flow of your presentation and creates anticipation.

5/ Establish Credibility

Share your expertise or credentials related to the topic to build trust with the audience, such as a brief personal story, relevant experience, or mentioning your professional background.

6/ Engage Emotionally

Connect emotional levels with your audience by appealing to their aspirations, fears, desires, or values. They help create a deeper connection and engagement from the very beginning.

Make sure your introduction is concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary details or lengthy explanations. Aim for clarity and brevity to maintain the audience's attention.

For example, Topic: Work-life balance

"Good morning, everyone! Can you imagine waking up each day feeling energized and ready to conquer both your personal and professional pursuits? Well, that's exactly what we'll explore today – the wonderful world of work-life balance. In a fast-paced society where work seems to consume every waking hour, it's vital to find that spot where our careers and personal lives harmoniously coexist. Throughout this presentation, we'll dive into practical strategies that help us achieve that coveted balance, boost productivity, and nurture our overall well-being. 

But before we dive in, let me share a bit about my journey. As a working professional and a passionate advocate for work-life balance, I have spent years researching and implementing strategies that have transformed my own life. I am excited to share my knowledge and experiences with all of you today, with the hope of inspiring positive change and creating a more fulfilling work-life balance for everyone in this room. So, let's get started!"

🎉 Check out: How to Start a Presentation?

Whether you're a seasoned speaker or new to the stage, understanding how to write a presentation that conveys your message effectively is a valuable skill. By following the steps in this guide, you can become a captivating presenter and make your mark in every presentation you deliver.

Additionally, AhaSlides can significantly enhance your presentation's impact. With AhaSlides, you can use live polls , quizzes , and word cloud to turn your presentation into an engaging and interactive experience. Let's take a moment to explore our vast template library !

Frequently Asked Questions

How to write a presentation step by step .

You can refer to our step-by-step guide on How To Write A Presentation Script: Understand Your Purpose and Audience Outline the Structure of Your Presentation Craft Clear and Concise Sentences Use Visual Aids and Supporting Material Include Engagement Techniques Rehearse and Revise Seek Feedback

How do you start a presentation? 

You can start with an engaging opening that grabs the audience's attention and introduces your topic. Consider using one of the following approaches: Start with a Thought-Provoking Question: "Have you ever...?" Begin with a Surprising Fact or Statistic: "Did you know that....?" Use a Powerful Quote: "As Maya Angelou once said,...." Tell a Compelling Story : "Picture this: You're standing at...." Start with a Bold Statement: "In the fast-paced digital age...."

What are the five parts of a presentation?

When it comes to presentation writing, a typical presentation consists of the following five parts: Introduction: Capturing the audience's attention, introducing yourself, stating the purpose, and providing an overview. Main Body: Presenting main points, evidence, examples, and arguments. Visual Aids: Using visuals to enhance understanding and engage the audience. Conclusion: Summarizing main points, restating key message, and leaving a memorable takeaway or call to action. Q&A or Discussion: Optional part for addressing questions and encouraging audience participation.

A writer who wants to create practical and valuable content for the audience

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

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Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience. Artificial Intelligence can help us significantly reduce the content arrangement time when you work with tools like our AI Presentation Maker (made for presenters by experts in presentation design). 

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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• Inspiration

23 presentation examples that really work (plus templates!)

• 30 Mar 2023

To help you in your quest for presentation greatness, we’ve gathered 23 of the best business presentation examples out there. These hand-picked ideas range from business PowerPoint presentations, to recruitment presentations, and everything in between.

As a bonus, several of our examples include editable video presentation templates from  Biteable .

Biteable allows anyone to create great video presentations — no previous video-making skills required. The easy-to-use platform has hundreds of brandable templates and video scenes designed with a business audience in mind. A video made with Biteable is just what you need to add that wow factor and make an impact on your audience.

Create videos that drive action

Activate your audience with impactful, on-brand videos. Create them simply and collaboratively with Biteable.

Video presentation examples

Video presentations are our specialty at Biteable. We love them because they’re the most visually appealing and memorable way to communicate.

1. Animated characters

Our first presentation example is a business explainer from Biteable that uses animated characters. The friendly and modern style makes this the perfect presentation for engaging your audience.

Bonus template:  Need a business video presentation that reflects the beautiful diversity of your customers or team? Use  Biteable’s workplace scenes . You can change the skin tone and hair color for any of the animated characters.

2. Conference video

Videos are also ideal solutions for events (e.g. trade shows) where they can be looped to play constantly while you attend to more important things like talking to people and handing out free cheese samples.

For this event presentation sample below, we used bright colours, stock footage, and messaging that reflects the brand and values of the company. All these elements work together to draw the attention of passers-by.

For a huge selection of video presentation templates, take a look at our  template gallery .

Business PowerPoint presentation examples

Striking fear into the hearts of the workplace since 1987, PowerPoint is synonymous with bland, boring presentations that feel more like an endurance test than a learning opportunity. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Check out these anything-but-boring business PowerPoint presentation examples.

3. Design pointers

This PowerPoint presentation takes a tongue-in-cheek look at how the speakers and users of PowerPoint are the problem, not the software itself.

Even at a hefty 61 slides, the vintage theme, appealing colors, and engaging content keep the viewer interested. It delivers useful and actionable tips on creating a better experience for your audience.

Pixar, as you’d expect, redefines the meaning of PowerPoint in their “22 Rules for Phenomenal Storytelling”. The character silhouettes are instantly recognizable and tie firmly to the Pixar brand. The bright colour palettes are carefully chosen to highlight the content of each slide.

This presentation is a good length, delivering one message per slide, making it easy for an audience to take notes and retain the information.

Google slides examples

If you’re in business, chances are you’ll have come across  slide decks . Much like a deck of cards, each slide plays a key part in the overall ‘deck’, creating a well-rounded presentation.

If you need to inform your team, present findings, or outline a new strategy, slides are one of the most effective ways to do this.

Google Slides is one of the best ways to create a slide deck right now. It’s easy to use and has built-in design tools that integrate with Adobe, Lucidchart, and more. The best part — it’s free!

5. Teacher education

Here’s a slide deck that was created to educate teachers on how to use Google Slides effectively in a classroom. At first glance it seems stuffy and businessy, but if you look closer it’s apparent the creator knows his audience well, throwing in some teacher-friendly content that’s bound to get a smile.

The slides give walkthrough screenshots and practical advice on the different ways teachers can use the software to make their lives that little bit easier and educate their students at the same time.

6. Charity awareness raiser

This next Google slide deck is designed to raise awareness for an animal shelter. It has simple, clear messaging, and makes use of the furry friends it rescues to tug on heartstrings and encourage donations and adoptions from its audience.

Pro tip: Creating a presentation is exciting but also a little daunting. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed — especially if the success of your business or nonprofit depends on it.

Prezi presentation examples

If you haven’t come across  Prezi , it’s a great alternative to using static slides. Sitting somewhere between slides and a video presentation, it allows you to import other content and add motion to create a more engaging viewer experience.

7. Red Bull event recap

This Prezi was created to document the Red Bull stratosphere freefall stunt a few years ago. It neatly captures all the things that Prezi is capable of, including video inserts and the zoom effect, which gives an animated, almost 3D effect to what would otherwise be still images.  

Prezi has annual awards for the best examples of presentations over the year. This next example is one of the 2018 winners. It was made to highlight a new Logitech tool.

8. Logitech Spotlight launch

What stands out here are the juicy colors, bold imagery, and the way the designer has used Prezi to its full extent, including rotations, panning, fades, and a full zoom out to finish the presentation.

Sales presentation examples

If you’re stuck for ideas for your sales presentation, step right this way and check out this video template we made for you.

9. Sales enablement video presentation

In today’s fast-paced sales environment, you need a way to make your sales enablement presentations memorable and engaging for busy reps.  Sales enablement videos  are just the ticket. Use this video presentation template the next time you need to present on your metrics.

10. Zuroa sales deck

If you’re after a sales deck, you can’t go past this example from Zuora. What makes it great? It begins by introducing the worldwide shift in the way consumers are shopping. It’s a global phenomenon, and something we can all relate to.

It then weaves a compelling story about how the subscription model is changing the face of daily life for everyone. Metrics and testimonials from well-known CEOs and executives are included for some slamming social proof to boost the sales message.

Pitch presentation examples

Pitch decks are used to give an overview of business plans, and are usually presented during meetings with customers, investors, or potential partners.

11. Uber pitch deck

This is Uber’s original pitch deck, which (apart from looking a teensy bit dated) gives an excellent overview of their business model and clearly shows how they intended to disrupt a traditional industry and provide a better service to people. Right now, you’re probably very grateful that this pitch presentation was a winner.

You can make your own pitch deck with Biteable, or start with one of our  video templates  to make something a little more memorable.

12. Video pitch template

This video pitch presentation clearly speaks to the pains of everyone who needs to commute and find parking. It then provides the solution with its app that makes parking a breeze.

The video also introduces the key team members, their business strategy, and what they’re hoping to raise in funding. It’s a simple, clear pitch that positions the company as a key solution to a growing, worldwide problem. It’s compelling and convincing, as a good presentation should be.

13. Fyre Festival pitch deck

The most epic example of a recent pitch deck is this one for Fyre Festival – the greatest event that never happened. Marvel at its persuasion, gasp at the opportunity of being part of the cultural experience of the decade, cringe as everything goes from bad to worse.

Despite the very public outcome, this is a masterclass in how to create hype and get funding with your pitch deck using beautiful imagery, beautiful people, and beautiful promises of riches and fame.

Business presentation examples

Need to get the right message out to the right people? Business presentations can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Simply press play and let your video do the talking. No fumbling your words and sweating buckets in front of those potential clients, just you being cool as a cucumber while your presentation does the talking.

Check out two of our popular templates that you can use as a starting point for your own presentations. While they’re business-minded, they’re definitely not boring.

14. Business intro template

Modern graphics, animations, and upbeat soundtracks keep your prospects engaged as they learn about your business, your team, your values, and how you can help them.

15. Business explainer template

Research presentation examples.

When you’re giving a more technical presentation such as research findings, you need to strike the perfect balance between informing your audience and making sure they stay awake.

As a rule, slides are more effective for research presentations, as they are used to support the speaker’s knowledge rather can capture every small detail on screen.

With often dry, complex, and technical subject matter, there can be a temptation for presentations to follow suit. Use images instead of walls of text, and keep things as easy to follow as possible.

16. TrackMaven research deck

TrackMaven uses their endearing mascot to lighten up this data-heavy slide deck. The graphs help to bring life to their findings, and they ensure to only have one bite-size takeaway per slide so that viewers can easily take notes.

17. Wearable tech research report

Obviously, research can get very researchy and there’s not a lot to be done about it. This slide deck below lays out a ton of in-depth information but breaks it up well with quotes, diagrams, and interesting facts to keep viewers engaged while it delivers its findings on wearable technology.

Team presentation examples

Motivating your team can be a challenge at the best of times, especially when you need to gather them together for….another presentation!

18. Team update template

We created this presentation template as an example of how to engage your team. In this case, it’s for an internal product launch. Using colorful animation and engaging pacing, this video presentation is much better than a static PowerPoint, right?

19. Officevibe collaboration explainer

This short slide deck is a presentation designed to increase awareness of the problems of a disengaged team. Bright colors and relevant images combine with facts and figures that compel viewers to click through to a download to learn more about helping their teams succeed.

Recruitment presentation examples

Recruiting the right people can be a challenge. Presentations can help display your team and your business by painting a dynamic picture of what it’s like to work with you.

Videos and animated slides let you capture the essence of your brand and workplace so the right employees can find you.

20. Company culture explainer

If you’re a recruitment agency, your challenge is to stand out from the hundreds of other agencies in the marketplace.

21. Kaizen culture

Showcasing your agency using a slide deck can give employers and employees a feel for doing business with you. Kaizen clearly displays its credentials and highlights its brand values and personality here (and also its appreciation of the coffee bean).

Explainer presentation examples

Got some explaining to do? Using an explainer video is the ideal way to showcase products that are technical, digital, or otherwise too difficult to explain with still images and text.

Explainer videos help you present the features and values of your product in an engaging way that speaks to your ideal audience and promotes your brand at the same time.

22. Product explainer template

23. lucidchart explainer.

Lucidchart does a stellar job of using explainer videos for their software. Their series of explainers-within-explainers entertains the viewer with cute imagery and an endearing brand voice. At the same time, the video is educating its audience on how to use the actual product. We (almost) guarantee you’ll have more love for spiders after watching this one.

Make a winning video presentation with Biteable

Creating a winning presentation doesn’t need to be difficult or expensive. Modern slide decks and video software make it easy for you to give compelling presentations that sell, explain, and educate without sending your audience to snooze town.

For the best online video presentation software around, check out Biteable. The intuitive platform does all the heavy lifting for you, so making a video presentation is as easy as making a PowerPoint.

Use Biteable’s brand builder to automatically fetch your company colors and logo from your website and apply them to your entire video with the click of a button. Even add a  clickable call-to-action  button to your video.

Share your business presentation anywhere with a single, trackable URL and watch your message turn into gold.

Make stunning videos with ease.

Take the struggle out of team communication.

Try Biteable now.

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51 Best Presentation Slides for Engaging Presentations (2024)

Written by: Chloe West

When you're creating a presentation for a live audience or embedding it on a webpage for visitors to access on their own time, you want it to be engaging. And unfortunately, too many presentation slides are boring and forgettable.

But with Visme, we've put together 51 of our top presentation slides to help you find the perfect template for your next presentation.

To make navigation easier, we've broken them down into six categories. Browse through each below to find your next presentation slides.

Here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:

51 Best Presentation Slides for Engaging Presentations

Business Presentation Slides

Finance presentation slides.

• Sales & Marketing Presentation Slides

Education Presentation Slides

Pitch deck presentation slides, nonprofit presentation slides, presentation slide faqs.

There are so many reasons you might need to give a presentation in your business or career. And we’ve got just the right templates to get you started.

After all, you’re probably spending enough time creating the content and rehearsing your presentation deck. You don’t need to worry about your presentation slide design at the same time.

Here are a few of the best presentation slide ideas based on topic material, like the ones you’re regularly using. And if you're racing against the clock, tap into Visme's AI presentation maker to create eye-catching presentations in seconds. Just input your prompt, provide more context, select your preferred style and watch the tool generate your slides. Customize every part of your presentation with our intuitive editor.

1. Meeting Agenda Template

Customize this presentation template to make it your own! Edit and Download

Sick of seeing team members nod off or lose focus during your team meetings?

Put together your meeting agenda ahead of time using these presentation slides to help keep your team engaged and informed throughout.

This template comes with 15 premade presentation slides that cover everything from project management to charts showing performance and overall meeting objectives. Whatever you need to share in your meeting, you can find in this theme.

Plus, you can completely customize these business slides to match your company colors directly in Visme!

2. Company Goals Template

It’s important to ensure everyone on your team knows and understands the company’s goals. After all, everyone’s work should be geared towards achieving those goals.

You can use these nice business slides to put together a background of your company and how far it’s come, as well as detail your upcoming goals, launches and more.

3. Company Overview Template

If you’re speaking to a networking group about your company or pitching to investors, you likely need to give an overview of your company, its leadership team and its offerings.

These are the perfect presentation slides to help you put together a minimalistic design that draws focus towards your company and its mission.

Plus, all of these good-looking slides are perfectly set up to highlight your company’s most important assets.

And best of all, they’re completely customizable. Add in your own brand fonts and colors to create the perfect presentation for your business.

Make the goal-setting or design process a collaborative activity with the help of Visme’s collaborative feature . Team members can edit your presentation, leave feedback and draw annotations in real-time or at their own pace.

4. Project Status Report Template

When it comes to project management, you could always just send over a boring email or report update, but a better way would be to put together a presentation updating your team and/or your supervisors on the status of the project and the remaining timeline.

This presentation theme comes with 14 different slides to help you put together a status report that covers all aspects of your project: the various phases and how far along each one is, the timeline for your project, a project health card and more.

You can also gain even more inspiration for your project timeline slides from these timeline infographic ideas .

5. Business Annual Report Template

Want to show your boss how the company is doing? Or share how your team’s efforts have affected the bottom line? Put together a presentation that shows your business’s results over the year.

While this presentation template comes with a fun geometric accent pattern, you’re able to swap out any of these shapes for ones that more accurately represent your business or your message right in Visme’s design dashboard.

Working on this design with your team? Effectively manage the process with Visme’s workflow management tool . You can assign different sections of the slide to your team members to work on set deadlines, manage progress, track corrections and more.

6. Business Plan Template

Are you starting a new business? You might be looking for investors, or perhaps you want to pitch the idea to a potential cofounder. You need to deploy the best presentation slides possible.

You can use this theme to put together a polished business plan presentation that showcases your business idea, the market summary, the industry opportunities and more.

You can also use Visme’s color themes to find the perfect color scheme for your presentation and your upcoming business. After all, your brand colors can say a lot about your business.

7. Product Introduction Template

Put together a presentation that introduces a new product idea to your boss, your board of directors or your investors. Take advantage of the charts and graphs in Visme’s design dashboard to showcase various studies and statistics that prove why your idea will be profitable.

Or you can utilize this presentation theme to introduce a product to the public. If your company is in the process of developing a new product to release, a presentation introduction can be a great and engaging way to share it with your audience.

8. Product Presentation Template

Whether you’re launching a new product or sharing the features of an already existing one, you can show off your product through a presentation with nice slides.

You can share your presentation on social media, on your website or at a large company event to announce it to your audience. Include bright, high-quality photos of your product and a list of its best features to really highlight your new release.

9. Visual Brand Identity Template

There are many different ways to create a brand style guide for your business. One great way is with a presentation.

These presentation example slides allow you to seamlessly input your fonts, colors and other visual guidelines into a single presentation so that you can easily share your brand with the designers, marketers and other members of your team.

10. Special Business Presentation Template

These presentation slides can help you easily put together a business introduction template for a conference or networking event.

Just click above to edit in Visme, switch out your background with one of the thousands of options in our photo library, add in your own key facts, vision and values and download!

If you’re running out of ideas for your presentation , you can use Visme’s Writer AI to produce high-quality drafts, proofread your content or adjust its tone.

11. Industry Trends Template

Put together a presentation to showcase upcoming trends in your industry. You can leave the patterns and colors the way they are in these existing presentation slides, or you can add in your own brand colors or product colors.

Understanding developing trends in your industry each year is important so that you know where your business should focus its efforts.

Sharing a presentation with your team is a great way to stay ahead of the curve.

12. Services Template

Use these slide presentation examples to showcase your services and what you can offer your clients/customers. If you have a visual business, a presentation is an excellent way to highlight your work and show it off to prospective leads.

Swap out each photo in the example slides with photos of your work, update the fonts to match your brand voice (or upload your brand fonts) and add in the services you offer.

13. Slideshow Template

A slideshow presentation is a great way for you to showcase photos of your work alongside your service offerings. This template even includes social media icons on the last page so that viewers know how to find the business online.

Again, you’ll want to swap out all of the photos with your own work, but this presentation theme is a great way to get started.

14. How To Presentation Template

Are you presenting a tutorial or step-by-step guide on how to do something? Using example slides to put together your content is a great idea.

It’s a disservice to your company and your customer to assume that everyone automatically knows how to use your product or service. Showing your audience exactly what to do is essential to your customer service strategy.

Spice up your presentation by adding stunning, high-resolution images and stock photos , videos , icons , widgets and other design elements.

Didn’t find any photos that caught your eye? We’ve got you. Use Visme’s AI image generator to whip up captivating images that match your presentation theme and design.

Even if you have photos that need editing, use Visme's AI Edit tools to touch up, unblur, upscale, erase and replace images with one click.

15. Survey Results Template

Putting together a customer survey is a great idea to understand how your audience feels about your industry or even your company. Grab those results and insert them into these presentation slides to share with your team.

You can also put together a blog post or webpage with survey results and embed this presentation directly into it so your audience can understand the state of the industry as well.

Visme’s design dashboard allows you to add in various charts and graphs that adjust automatically based on the numbers you input. After all, ain’t nobody got time for manually adjusting the sizes of bar graphs and pie charts.

16. Company Overview Presentation Template

Utilize these beautifully designed presentation slides to create a brief overview of your company and its offerings.

Having a readily available presentation overview of your company is a great idea for when you’re pitching investors, journalists for coverage and more. You don’t need to recreate a presentation each time. Instead, put together a visually appealing and informative one-size-fits-all overview.

You can add in your own photos or choose from Visme’s photo library to keep the same beautifully minimalistic appeal.

When sharing financial information, it’s always helpful to put together some kind of visual aid. This can be used to further emphasize your content, whether it’s about going over budget, showing off exciting revenue increases and more.

Check out these finance slide presentation examples to find the perfect template for your goals.

17. Financial Report Template

Use this template to put together a presentation that goes over your company’s expenses, sales, profits and more.

The built-in data visualization options allow you to showcase your point with more than just numbers. Add in a table of contents to keep your report organized and cohesive, letting your team know exactly what information they’ll find inside.

18. Statistical Presentation Template

Need to report some financial statistics and data? These presentation slides are perfect for helping you insert cold, hard facts into your presentation.

Each slide includes a different type of chart or graph for you to choose from to fully represent your data and statistics. You can easily switch your color scheme by inputting your own brand colors or by choosing a preset color theme from Visme’s dashboard.

19. Map Presentation Template

It’s important to know where it makes the most sense to market your product geographically. Showcase sales and overall company growth and profitability by location.

Knowing your revenue based on geographic location is essential for a global company, and this presentation template is perfect for the job.

Create a stunning presentation in less time

• Hundreds of premade slides available
• Add animation and interactivity to your slides
• Choose from various presentation options

Sign up. It’s free.

Sales and Marketing Presentation Slides

When it comes to sales and marketing for your company, there is a lot of data and information that can be represented visually. Creating sales and marketing presentations helps with keeping your team on the right track, but can also be a great way to make a pitch.

Learn more about creating essential sales and marketing presentations with these templates.

20. Visualization for Sales and Marketing Template

When you’re putting together a sales and marketing plan, you have to present it to your boss for approval, then to your team for implementation.

Use these presentation slides to help visualize your sales and marketing plan , including each of the upcoming tactics and strategies and the steps for putting them in place.

Having a presentation to refer back to allows your team to ensure they’re implementing the strategies properly.

21. Simple Marketing Presentation Template

Whether you’re introducing new marketing ideas to your team, pitching a new marketing strategy to your boss or to a new client, a presentation with nice slides is the perfect format.

Grab this presentation template that helps you to define your new ideas and share specific tactics for how they should be implemented for the business. Then get ready to rock your pitch and share your awesome new ideas.

22. Market Analysis Template

Review market trends with your team so you know where to take your company’s marketing messaging. You can send out a customer survey or take a look at a few studies that have been done surrounding your industry to put together your market analysis report.

Input all of your findings into this presentation template so you can easily present it to your team or grab the link and send it in an email. Even if you’re not standing up to give a presentation, these presentation slides are still an engaging way to share necessary information.

23. Marketing Plan Template

Building a new marketing plan for your business? Put together  great presentations for your marketing plan to share with your team.

Presenting your new marketing plan to the company is a great way to get everyone motivated and on board with new strategies and ideas.

You can add in your goals, objectives and even user personas with this ready-made marketing plan template.

24. Sales Report Template

Your sales team should be regularly providing insight on how much revenue the company is generating. And a great way to do that is through a sales report presentation or slideshow.

It’s important to stay informed of sales growth throughout the year. Share graphs of sales quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year to see where the company/sales team needs to improve.

25. Press Release Template

Don’t just write a boring old press release to send out to journalists and media publications. Instead, create an interactive press release showcasing your launch.

A presentation press release will help your business stand out from the dry press releases most publications receive, offering even more incentive for them to highlight your business and its products/services.

Edit this business slide to add in your own brand touches, voice and launch information before grabbing the link and sending it off.

26. Social Media Report Template

Sharing results of any marketing strategy is always essential. This is how you keep your team updated of any strategies that are working, and any strategies that need some adapting.

This presentation theme is a great way to share your current strategy and results. Input your platforms, your strategies and your metrics before presenting it to your team. Customize the presentation slides so that they cater perfectly to your company’s strategy.

27. Social Media Strategy Template

Pitching a social media strategy to your boss can also be done well with a presentation. Showcase why social media is important to invest in, what your plan is and how it will affect the bottom line.

This presentation template already gets you started in perfectly pitching your own strategy. Simply adjust it to your brand colors and fonts and update the information with your own.

Presentations are huge in educational settings.

Whether you’re a teacher looking for an interactive way to share your lesson plan or a student trying to finish up a school project, we’ve got the presentation templates for you.

Take a look at our education presentation slide options to find one that works for you.

28. Training Plan Template

When working one-on-one with a student or mentee, it can be a good idea to put a training or education plan into place. These presentation slides are the perfect start to your lesson and can help to visualize the content and learn in a different way.

Putting together educational content in a presentation helps offer different formats for learning. Students are often not provided with all of the tools they need to learn the material, and an interactive presentation is a great place to start.

29. Book Report Template

Putting together a book report to present for your class? Get started with a presentation theme that you can fully customize for your specific book.

These presentation slides allow you to seamlessly enter in the information about your main characters, the theme of the book, its timeline and any other pertinent information you need to share with the class.

Don’t worry about presentation design in your next project. We’ve already got it all put together for you! Simply click edit, insert your book content and download your presentation.

30. Trivia Template

Help your class remember fast facts before a text with this trivia template. It’s a great way to host a study session in your classroom, and the content is easily interchangeable.

Or if you’re a student, put together a presentation study guide to help you memorize the most important key facts and information from class. A trivia presentation format can make for a fun study sesh before the test.

31. Lesson Plan Template

Don’t waste time putting together a dry Microsoft Word or PowerPoint lesson plan. Instead, create an interactive lesson plan that helps you stay on message during your class, and helps your students to know exactly what’s going to come next.

32. Group Project Template

Group presentations just got a little more exciting. Blow the rest of your class’s projects away by using these presentation slides to compile your overall project objectives and results.

You can easily adjust colors and fonts, add in your team members and insert copy relevant to your class and your group project.

Don’t forget to thank your classmates and your teacher for listening in the end.

A pitch deck is an essential presentation for all businesses and entrepreneurs to have. There are many times you might need to pitch your business, whether it’s to investors for funding, journalists for media coverage and more.

Using a presentation template to put together your pitch deck is a great idea so that you can focus on pitching your business without having to worry about the design.

Browse through the pitch deck presentation slides below to find one that works for your business and its goals.

33. Airbnb Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Give this Airbnb-inspired pitch deck presentation theme a go when putting together a slideshow for your business. In your company slide, include the solution that your business provides its customers, product/service information, and excerpts from press acknowledgements.

34. Front Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Showcase your business with this geometric pitch deck template inspired by Front. Add in the planned acquisition channels for your business, your leadership team and more.

Your pitch deck is meant to showcase your business to people who may want to work with you, so it’s important to share the most imperative information.

35. Buffer Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Showcase the state of the industry and your business’s role in it with this pitch presentation slides idea inspired by Buffer. The information these presentation slides include helps you to share the impact your company has had on your industry.

Since industries are ever-changing, you can easily update the information within your pitch deck in Visme and it will automatically sync to the webpage where you embed this presentation.

36. Comms Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use these presentation slides inspired by Intercom to give your audience an idea of what your product is going to look like and how it will work.

This is the perfect pitch deck template to take advantage of when launching a new SaaS product or app so that you can share what the technology will look like and how it will work.

Showcasing specific features and tutorials is a great way to get people talking about your product.

37. WeWork Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Is your company helping to fuel a movement? Share how your company is changing the industry with this pitch deck template inspired by WeWork.

It’s exciting when your business is doing more for your industry than simply adding another product or service. Focusing on a movement that really switches up the way your industry does things is an incredible feat.

Utilize a pitch deck template like the one above to showcase how your company is involved.

38. Buzzfeed Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Does your business focus on content? Or perhaps you’re creating a new kind of media outlet?

Show off your content and analytics with this Buzzfeed-inspired pitch deck presentation template. Getting advertisers on board and other media outlets to talk about you is important for success.

This is why you need to be putting together a pitch deck that shares that kind of information. No one will want to work with you if you keep your analytics in the dark.

Use dynamic fields to ensure your brand information and other key details stays consistent across slides and other projects. These fields are customizable and change automatically based on input or predefined conditions.

39. Investor Pitch Deck Template

Starting a new venture that you need funding for? Use these presentation slides to put together a pitch for investors in your business.

From showcasing the problem in the industry to your business’s solution, along with your business plan and pricing table is a great way to get potential investors interested in what you’re selling.

40. LinkedIn Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Compare and contrast what processes look like with and without your business with this pitch deck template inspired by LinkedIn.

It’s a great idea to take care of this in your pitch deck so that you make the job of any media outlet or writer covering your business even easier. After all, you’ve done the hard work for them.

They were going to share how your business helps. You’ve already visualized this in your pitch deck. This increases the chances that people will cover your business.

41. Mattermark Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use this pitch deck presentation theme inspired by Mattermark to put together key questions about the industry that showcase why your business is so essential.

Launching a startup is hard work, and that’s why a pitch deck is an essential marketing tool to have. Creating a pitch deck that already answers the why and how questions of your business is a great way to introduce who you are and what you’re doing to investors and reporters.

42. Foursquare Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Put together an overview of how your product works with this pitch deck presentation template inspired by Foursquare.

With presentation slides already in place to showcase a step-by-step tutorial, all you have to do is input your content and publish your presentation.

43. Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Presentation Template

If your company has been doing some awesome stuff lately, you want your potential investors and those looking to work with your business to know about it.

Show off your company achievements with this pitch deck presentation template inspired by the famous Fyre Festival pitch deck.

44. Biogrify Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Use these presentation slides inspired by Biogrify to excite people about how they can use your product. If you have a unique product or service, you just need to drum up a little excitement and attention!

A pitch deck is the perfect way to do that. Add in your company’s logo, mission and unique selling proposition to get people looking forward to becoming customers/users.

45. Launchrock Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Influencer marketing is a huge marketing strategy that can generate some serious results. What better way to pitch influencers about your business than with this pitch deck inspired by Launchrock?

Don’t email off some boring PDF or Google Doc. Create enticing pitches to influencers with this pitch deck theme, and start watching the replies from influencers pour in.

Working with influencers to promote your product is a great way to increase your audience base and word of mouth about your company.

When you’re running a nonprofit, there is a lot of pitching your organization, talking to donors and working on events to increase donations. This is why you need great slide presentations.

Putting together a presentation for your nonprofit is a great way to showcase what your organization does and why people should donate to it.

Here are a few nonprofit presentation slides to choose from, where all you have to do is insert your information, change colors and fonts and present.

46. Nonprofit Report Template

Put together a report that covers what your nonprofit is working against as well as your nonprofit’s achievements each year.

47. Nonprofit Art Template

Use this presentation slides idea to provide an overview of your nonprofit and its main projects. To generate even more support and donations, it’s important to provide clear insight into your key products and objectives.

48. Nonprofit Environmental Template

This presentation theme is perfect for showcasing the key issues your nonprofit fights for and its process for doing so.

Being transparent about what your nonprofit works on is important so that your donors know exactly where their money is going. Being secretive can generate some bad press, so it’s better to be open with your supporters.

49. Nonprofit Animals Template

These presentation slides use earthy colors to convey their nonprofit’s connection to animal rights. Use this to showcase your nonprofit. You can use the current colors or update it to match your nonprofit’s brand/industry.

50. Wildlife Conservation Template

Use these presentation slide examples to cover why your nonprofit matters and why donors should consider contributing.

A nonprofit only exists when people donate, so putting together a compelling pitch deck showcasing why your nonprofit is so important to your main issue is important. These slides are perfect for sharing your goals and mission.

51. Pet Adoption Slideshow Template

If you're looking for stunning presentation slide ideas , we've got more than enough. This pitch deck presentation template is perfect for SPCAs and other animal societies working on finding forever homes for their animals.

However, it can also be adapted to any other nonprofit or business need. The great thing about these presentation slides is how versatile they are. Each one is completely customizable to fit your specific needs. For example, you can turn it into a video presentation .

Q. What is a PowerPoint Slide Deck?

A PowerPoint slide deck is a collection of slides that are created using an online presentation maker. These slides are used to create presentations for various purposes, like sales , marketing , research , case studies , webinars , onboarding and business in general.

PPT presentation slides typically consist of a series of slides that contain text, images, charts, graphs, and other multimedia elements that are used to communicate information to the audience in an engaging and visually appealing manner.

So why is it called a slide deck? In the early days, presenters would create slides by photographing images or text onto transparent film. These slides would then be loaded into a slide projector and displayed on a screen. The collection of slides was referred to as a "deck," and the presenter would advance through them one by one. Today, the term "slide deck" is still used to refer to a collection of slides or presentation materials, even though most presentations are now created and displayed digitally.

Q. What is a good presentation slide?

A good presentation slide is one that engages your audience and effectively communicates your message.

Here are some key characteristics of a good presentation slide:

1. Keep your slides simple and uncluttered: Avoid excessive text and use bullet points or concise phrases to convey your main points. Use clear and legible fonts, and maintain a consistent design throughout the presentation.

2. Visual appeal: Incorporate visually appealing elements such as relevant images, charts, graphs, or diagrams. Use high-quality visuals that enhance understanding and make the content more engaging

3. Make it readable: Use a readable font size. Stick to a maximum of two or three font styles and sizes. Blend bright and dark colors for the text and background to ensure visual contrast and good visibility.

4. Consistent structure: Use consistent formatting, such as font styles, colors, and alignment, throughout the presentation.

5. Make it interactive: Include animation and interactivity to add flair to your presentation. It can make your presentation powerful and memorable.

Q. How do you make a good presentation slide?

There are lots of presentation software available for creating presentations. But Visme offers users a wide range of features to create visually stunning and engaging presentations.

All you need to do is choose a template from our extensive library of over 500 presentation templates and customize it with your text. You can edit content, change image(s), apply custom colors, input your own fonts and logo, and more. You can visualize data using our wide range of customizable charts and widgets.

Spruce up your presentation by adding audio, video, animations and other interactive elements. Download it as a PDF, PPTX, MP4, and HTML5 to share with your recipient , or generate a shareable link for online sharing.

Q. How do you design a presentation?

Here's a step-by-step guide to help you design some of the best business presentations:

1. Define Your Objective: Determine the purpose of your presentation and identify the main message or key points you want to convey

2. Plan Your Content: Outline the structure and flow of your presentation. Divide it into sections or key topics to ensure a logical progression. Read this article to learn more about creating an effective presentation outline.

3. ​​Create a Storyline: Craft a compelling narrative that ties your key points together. Storytelling can help engage your audience and make your presentation more memorable.

4. Choose a Design Theme: Select a visually appealing design theme or template that aligns with your topic and audience. You can use the ones we've shared above as your presentation inspiration.

Visme’s branding kit streamlines on-brand content creation and ensures you stay consistent across all channels. With our AI-powered brand wizard , you can automatically generate branded templates fitted with your brand elements.

5. Use Visual Elements: Incorporate relevant visuals such as images, charts, graphs, icons, or diagrams to enhance understanding and engagement.

6. Maintain Visual Hierarchy: Organize your content with a clear visual hierarchy. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to guide the audience's attention and emphasize key points.

7. Use Transitions and Animations: Apply transitions and animations to enhance the flow and engagement of your presentation.

8. ​​Practice and Test: Review and rehearse your presentation to ensure a smooth delivery. Test your presentation on the actual equipment or platform you'll be using to ensure compatibility and optimal display.

9. Seek Feedback: Before delivering your presentation, consider sharing it with a trusted colleague or friend for feedback. Ask for their input on the content, design, and overall effectiveness. Incorporate their suggestions to improve your presentation.

Q. Which slide is best for presentation?

The best slide for a presentation highly depends on the topic and the target audience. For example, if it's a pitch deck presentation, the financial projections or business model slide would be the best.

However, here are some of the most common slides you should know about:

1. Title Slide: It announces the presentation's topic and introduces the speaker. It grabs the audience's initial attention.

2. Agenda Slide : This gives the audience an idea of what to expect throughout the presentation.

3. Content Slide : These are dense with information. They're best when broken down into bullet points for readability.

4. Visual Slide: Slides with infographics, charts, or other visuals can improve understanding and retention of complex data.

5. Interactive Slide: Encourages audience participation and engagement, especially in virtual presentations.

6. Conclusion/Summary Slide: Reinforces your presentation's key points or takeaways.

7. Question & Answer Slide: Allows interaction and clarification, ensuring the audience fully grasps the presented materials.

8. Contact Information Slide: Provides follow-up information for further questions or networking.

Q. What are the 3 main types of presentation slides?

While there's no one-size-fits-all rule for making presentation slides, you can group them into three main categories:

Introduction and Closing Slides

These slides bookend your presentation. The introduction slide typically includes the title of your presentation, your name and any relevant introductory information. The closing slide summarizes key points, provides a conclusion and often includes contact information or a call to action.

Content Slides

Content slides make up the core of your presentation and contain the primary information you want to convey to your audience. They can include text, images, charts, graphs and other visual or textual elements supporting your presentation's message.

Transition Slides

Transition slides signal a change in topic or create a smooth flow between different sections of your presentation. They often feature a brief title or heading that previews the upcoming content. Transition slides help guide your audience through the presentation and make it easy to follow.

Q. What are the 4 types of presentation?

The four types of presentations are informative, instructional, persuasive and arousing.

1. Informative Presentations: These are used to educate the audience on a particular topic. They present facts, data and information to increase the audience's knowledge and understanding.

2. Instructional Presentations: These presentations provide step-by-step guidance or training on a specific task, process or concept. You can use this type of presentation for teaching or coaching purposes, emphasizing learning and development.

3. Persuasive Presentations: The primary goal of these presentations is to influence the listeners' attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. Use this presentation type when you want your audience to accept certain arguments or propositions.

4. Arousing Presentations: These presentations aim to evoke interest and awaken curiosity about the topic among the audience. They often aim to inspire, motivate or raise awareness about an issue.

Q. How do you make a 5-minute presentation interesting?

Creating an intriguing 5-minute presentation may be challenging due to the time constraint. Yet, you can deliver an impactful and engaging presentation with a focused approach and attention to detail.

Here are some of the ways to do it:

1. Focus on a single core message : Since you have limited time, choose a specific topic and stick to it. Present only the crucial information that will help the audience understand your point.

2. Engage from the start: Start your presentation with a compelling story, anecdote or a surprising fact. This will grab the audience's attention and spark curiosity.

3. Keep slides simple and visual: Avoid cluttered slides with too much text. Use visuals such as images, graphs or infographics to illustrate your points clearly and concisely.

4. Tell a story: A narrative structure engages the audience and helps them follow your message. Consider using metaphors or anecdotes to explain complex ideas.

5. Encourage questions or interaction: Since time is limited, you might opt for a brief Q&A session, ask a rhetorical question or request audience feedback for further discussion later.

6. Finish strong: Conclude with a powerful statement, call-to-action or takeaway summarizing your main point. Leave your audience with a lasting impression of your message.

Q. How many slides should a 20 minute presentation be?

The number of slides you should have for a 20-minute presentation can vary depending on several factors, such as the complexity of the topic and the pace of your speech.

However, the general rule of thumb is to allocate at least 1-2 minutes per slide, which suggests 10-20 slides for a 20-minute presentation.

Q. What Is the 5 5 5 Rule for Presentation?

The 5 5 5 rule is a framework that ensures your presentation is clear and remains engaging. A presentation should have no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide and five slides that apply the first two rules in a row.

Q. How Do You Make a Presentation Slide?

With Visme’s presentation software, creating a presentation slide is a breeze. Follow these steps to create a presentation slide with Visme.

Step 1: Log in to Visme and choose from hundreds of beautifully designed presentation templates . Each template is equipped with various intuitive layouts, typography, color themes, data widgets and graphics. Or Use Visme’s AI presentation maker to swiftly create a presentation based on your specific needs.

Step 2: Customize your presentation with your company’s logo, colors and other brand items. Upload your own creative collateral or use our assets library to add photos, images, graphics, icons and animations to your content.

Step 3: Once you have finished editing and are ready to share, download your presentation as a live webpage, video, PDF, or HTML file, a customizable PPTX, or embed it on your website.

Q. What Is the 10 Rule for Slides?

The 10 rule for slides is part of Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule which emphasizes that no presentation should have more than 10 slides, last longer than 20 minutes, and contain fonts smaller than thirty points.

Ready to Create Engaging Presentation Slides?

Ready to get started with creating your presentation? Choose from any of these 51 slides for presentation, or browse Visme’s complete template library to find the perfect match for creating your own presentation.

Each one of these presentation themes can be adapted to match your business, school, nonprofit and other needs so that you can create something perfect for your goals and objectives. Create your free account to start customizing with our drag-and-drop presentation maker.

And once you’ve finished creating your presentation, check out our video to help you present like a pro and wow your audience.

Create beautiful presentation slides with Visme

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 15 May 2019

Ways to give an effective seminar about your research project

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Ananya Sen is a PhD student in microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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In my first year of graduate school, I was terrified of giving presentations. I would put too much information on my slides, talk too fast and constantly forget or trip over certain words. Unsuprisingly, the reception was lukewarm at best.

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60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks (Giant List)

Here's a PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks guide that takes you through how to make a good PowerPoint presentation.

The best PowerPoint presentations shouldn’t be remembered. Instead, they should fall into the background to support you and the message you’re trying to get across.

Unlike good PowerPoint presentations , bad PowerPoint presentations are a distraction. You may remember them, but not in a good way.

You’ve seen them before. They might have millions of lines of text. Or a disjointed flow to the slides. Even worse, some slides feature ugly photos and poor design that detract from the message you’re trying to get across. That can even hurt your credibility as a professional or speaker.

This article will take you from finding your initial topic to learning how to make a great PowerPoint presentation. Our guide covers everything in between so that you learn how to present a PowerPoint like a pro.

These Microsoft PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines are organized into sections. So cut straight to the advice you need and come back when you’re ready for the next steps.

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Also, download our Free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It’s the deepest resource for learning effective presentation skills for a PPT.

This eBook covers the complete presentation process. It takes the PowerPoint tips and tricks you learn in this article further. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and prepare it to present powerfully. It’s another great source for presentation design tips.

Master PowerPoint (Free Course): 15 Essential Tips

This article is full of helpful tips so you can build a powerful presentation. You can also find more PowerPoint tips in this video lesson:

To learn even more about how to make a PowerPoint look good, review the huge list of tips below.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

Knowing how to use PowerPoint and work within it quickly is helpful. But more important is making a good presentation that hits all your goals. A great PowerPoint presentation is:

• Prepared to Win . Research, plan, and prepare your presentation professionally. It helps you deliver an effective message to your target audience.
• Designed Correctly . Your visual points should stand out without overwhelming your audience. A good PowerPoint visual shouldn’t complicate your message.
• Practiced to Perfection . Rehearse your timing and delivery so that your points land as practiced with a live audience.
• Delivered With Poise . Present with a relaxed inner calm and confident outward projection. Give your audience warmth, excitement, and energy.
• Free From Mistakes . Avoid typos, cheesy clip art, and mistakes like reading directly from your slides.

Consider this your all-inclusive guide to how to make a good presentation. We’ll look at preparing your presentation and explore how to design it in PowerPoint. Plus, we’ll cover how to practice and nail your delivery successfully come presentation time.

We’ll also address what not to do in these tips for PowerPoint presentations—so you can sidestep any big mistakes. Now let’s dig into these tips for effective PowerPoint presentations.

Killer Presentation Preparation Tips to Get Started Right

Before even opening PowerPoint, start by addressing these things. These Microsoft PowerPoint tips and tricks will ensure that you’re prepared for your presentation:

1. Know Your Stuff

Your presentation isn’t about your slides alone. It’s about the message you want to get across. Before filling in stats, facts and figures, think about the narrative that’ll be discussed, why, and in what order.

2. Write It Out

Start in a Word or Google doc, and storyboard or script the entire presentation. This will give you an idea of how the information presented will flow and how viewers will see it in sequence. Learn the complete writing process .

3. Highlight What’s Most Important

A presentation covers the most crucial pieces only. Whatever you’ve been working on that led to this—a paper, a work project, a new product design—doesn’t need to be shared in its entirety. Pick key points and put the rest in an “Appendix” to refer to during the Q&A session at the end.

4. Know Your Audience

How you talk to a room full of medical professionals should be different from the way you address a room full of young entrepreneurs. Everything, in fact, is different: your topic selection, the language you use, the examples you give to illustrate points. The little bits of humor you include should be tailored specifically with your target audience in mind.

Understand your audience’s needs to create a successful PowerPoint presentation. Customize your content to meet their specific requirements.

5. Rehearse! (Yes, Already)

It’s never too early to get used to the rhythm of your presentation and take note of points you want to emphasize. While saying it out loud, you’ll start to develop a “feel” for the material. You’ll notice that some things work well, while others don’t and might need to be worked around.

6. Rewrite After You Rehearse

As you’re rehearsing your presentation, you’re bound to stumble over sections that don’t quite flow naturally. Instead of reworking your delivery, it might be time to consider the content and rewrite the areas that served as stumbling blocks.

“Editing is hard. ‘It’s good enough,’ is a phrase wannabes use. Leaders take editing seriously.” – Anthony Trendl

The most important part of creating a great presentation is the writing stage. The second most important stage is rewriting.

7. Share With a Friend

If the stakes are high for your presentation, it’s never too early to get feedback from those that you trust. Here’s an article that helps you collaborate as a team on a PowerPoint presentation. Get PowerPoint design tips from those that you trust when you collaborate.

Simple Tips to Design Your PowerPoint Presentation Better

Second only to you (the information you bring and how you present it) is your PowerPoint slides. If not designed well, a PowerPoint can be disengaging or distracting (regardless of the content quality). Here are some presentation design tips to make sure this doesn’t happen to you:

8. Keep Your Slides Simple

This is one of the most important PowerPoint presentation tips to follow when designing your slides. Keep in mind that less is more (effective.) A cluttered slide is distracting. It causes confusion for an audience: Which part of the slide should I focus on? Should I read the slide or pay attention to the presenter?

A simple, visually appealing slide will engage your audience, keeping them on track with your main points. Here’s an example of a simple slide that serves its purpose perfectly:

Minimalist slide templates like Nook can help you resist the urge to clutter your slides.

9. Limit Words on Your Slides

Piggybacking on the last point, less is more effective. If possible, avoid bullets altogether. Otherwise cut them to just a few simple words. The audience should be listening, not reading.

10. Use High-Quality Photos and Graphics

One of the most important tips for quality PowerPoint presentations is to use high-quality photos and graphics.

Earlier in this tutorial, you saw Envato Elements, an all-you-can-download service with PPT tips inside of templates. Those pre-built designs are a beginner’s best friend. They’re even better when paired with Elements’ unlimited library of stock photos .

People are more likely to take you seriously if your presentation is visually appealing. Users view attractive design as more usable. Similarly, they’ll view a more attractive PowerPoint as more effective.

11. Use Accurate and Relevant Charts and Graphs

Charts and graphs can also be distracting if they’re not used right. Make sure your information design is simple and clean so that the audience doesn’t spend the entire time trying to decipher what your X axis says. Learn more about PPT data presentation .

12. Use High-Quality, Fresh Templates

Have you seen the old PowerPoint template that looks like worn paper and uses ink splashes? Yeah, so has your audience. Templates can be distracting if they’re too basic or if the design feels dated. You need one with great design options.

Costs are always a concern. But when you use Envato Elements, you’ve got everything you need to create a great PowerPoint presentation . That’s thanks to the incredible all-you-can-download subscription package.

The best PowerPoint tips and tricks can hardly compare to the value of using a template while building your presentation.

On Envato Elements, there are thousands of PowerPoint design templates that are ready to use. Instead of designing a presentation from scratch, start with a template! Just add your specifics to the placeholders.

Templates like Galaxi are impressively designed and waiting for your slide specifics.

The best PowerPoint design tips save you time. And there’s no tip more powerful than this one: use a pre-built template . It helps you master how to present a PowerPoint without spending all your time in the app.

13. Choose Appropriate Fonts

Fonts are an important part of engaging your audience. Fonts and typography choices have a subconscious effect on viewers. They can characterize your company’s presentation and brand either positively or negatively. Make sure that you’re choosing fonts that are professional and modern.

14. Choose Color Well

Like font choice, colors cause specific subconscious reactions from viewers. Choosing an outdated color combination for your presentation will render it ineffective.

Below is an example of the Popsicle PowerPoint template , which has a modern presentation color choice:

The Popsicle PowerPoint template highlights how harmonized color palettes can create beautiful slides.

15. Clean + Simple Formatting Makes All the Difference!

We’ve got a full tutorial on how to make a good presentation slide . Give it a read through and review the accompanying video. Just remember, less is more. The focus is you and your message , not your slides.

16. Make Sure All Objects Are Aligned

A simple way to create a well-designed presentation is to make sure all items on a slide are intentionally aligned. To do this, hold down Shift and select all the objects you want to include. Then choose Arrange in the options bar and apply Alignment Type .

17. Limit Punctuation

This isn’t the place for exclamation points. Emphasize your points (while speaking). Don’t enlist punctuation to do this for you. (Leave these at home!!!)

18. Avoid Over-Formatting Your Points

This PowerPoint presentation tip is simple. There’s no need to have every word of every bullet point capitalized, or to have all your bullet points in title case. If possible, drop bullets altogether. Again, the simpler, the better!

Limit your text formatting, including reducing the use of bullets, underline, and other effects. Compare the before example on the left to the revised version on the right.

19. Combine Information With Graphics in PowerPoint

One of the most powerful presentation skills for PPT is using infographics. With the right type of visuals, slides come to life and reduce the text in favor of graphics.

Infographics help combine information with graphics. It’s easier to explain complex ideas when you use visual formats that are intuitive.

Practice Presentation Tips: Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!

Delivery is probably more important than the actual content. Here’s how to become more aware of your own unique ticks, and how to present like a polished pro:

20. I’ll Say It Again, Rehearse!

Just do it. Again and again. Experiment with pauses, gestures, and body language. Practice around one hour for every minute of your speech.

21. Practice With a Timer

Consistency is key to an effective PowerPoint presentation. The timing should be similar (ideally the same) each time you rehearse. This one will especially pay off when it’s time to present in front of your audience.

22. Slow It Down

Many of the best speakers today intentionally speak slowly. You’ll have the chance to emphasize, appear more thoughtful, and make your information easier to digest.

23. Pause More Often

Like the prior tip, pausing more often allows your main points to be emphasized and gives time for information to sink in. You need to let key points breathe a little before rushing into the next section.

24. Record Yourself

Use your phone’s voice recorder. Assess and critique yourself. Consider:

• Are your pauses too short or too long?
• Are you speaking slowly enough? Too slow?
• When you’re nervous, does your voice get high like the mice in Cinderella?

It’s always weird to hear your own voice recorded; don’t stress it. Use this as a time to adjust.

25. Choose Three Focal Points in the Room

If you stare at the same spot (or even creepier, the same person) the entire time, your presentation will be ineffective (and awkward.) People will be distracted by you, wondering what you’re staring at.

Try this: pick three points in the room (typically: left, center, right). Take time to direct your delivery toward each physical focal point in the room. Also, focus on the center when making your primary points.

26. Vary Your Sentence Length

This makes you sound more interesting, and it’s easier for your audience to follow. Think short and punchy. Or go long and complex for dramatic effect.

27. Modulate!

Don’t speak in monotone for your whole presentation. Be conscious of raising and lowering your voice tone. Otherwise, people will tune you out, and you’ll come across like the teacher in Charlie Brown.

28. Practice in Front of a Mirror

What you look like is as important as how you sound. Pretend you’re having a normal conversation, and allow your hands to move with your speech to emphasize your points. Just don’t get carried away! (I’m thinking Brene Brown or President Obama , not your Aunt Jamie after a few gin and tonics.)

29. Use “Present Mode” When Rehearsing

When you finally are ready to hit the Present button in PowerPoint, make sure you use the Present Mode option. This allows you (and only you) to view extra notes about each slide—just in case you forget something!

30. Practice With New Audiences

If possible, try doing a few real live test runs as a webinar or even at a local Toastmasters organization to get some feedback from a live audience.

31. Engage the Audience by Asking Questions

There’s no reason that a presentation should be one-sided. Why not invert the format and ask your audience a question?

To learn how to create a slide that kicks off a Q&A, use this article . These PowerPoint design tips help you create an engaging and exciting discussion.

Helpful Tips to Step Up and Deliver Come Presentation Time

When the actual day arrives, there are only a few last PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to keep in mind:

32. Take a Deep Breath

Deep breathing is proven to relieve stress. It’s simple, and it’ll help you remain calm and in the moment, even up to the last minute before starting.

33. Lighten Up Your Mood

Tell yourself a joke or watch a funny video clip. Do this before the presentation, of course. Research concludes that happy people are more productive. More productive is more focused and able to perform better.

34. Remind Yourself to Take It Slow

When we’re stressed or nervous (or both), we tend to speak faster. Consciously, take yet another deep breath and remind yourself to take it slow!

35. Read the Room

Every presentation room has a temperature. It’s your job as a speaker to gauge it and tailor your presentation to it.

Here’s a great example. Layoffs are coming at a company, and you’re asked to speak to an audience. Even if the audience isn’t personally affected by the actions, you’ve got to consider the morale of the workforce.

Skilled speakers have a knack for reading the energy of the room and adjusting their presentation on the fly.

The last thing that group will want to hear is how strong the economy is and why the company is the best place to work. That doesn’t mean that you’ve got to align to their uncertainty, but don’t go too far against the grain while presenting.

Robert Kennedy III is a master of bringing energy and aligning a speech to the audience. Here’s his advice for adjusting:

“It can be hard to wake up a “dead” crowd but go for it. Most of all, don’t take their energy personally. Focus on serving them with every bit of your fiber then leave empty.”

36. Fake It ‘Til You Make It!

Go forward with confidence. If you act confident, you’ll start to feel more confident. Move slowly with grace, speak clearly, smile, wear something nice. You’ll appear confident to all attendees (no matter how you feel internally).

PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Tricks to Help Avoid Mistakes (What Not to Do)

Most importantly, focus on what you can do to make your presentation better. There are a few important things not to do that we’ve got to address. Here are a handful of PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks to help you avoid missteps.

37. Stop With the Sound Effects

Sound effects are distracting and outdated. In most cases, avoid them. Add audio or music to your presentation to inject interest or highlight an important point, but it’s something to take extra care with. If you insert audio, then make sure your use really connects with your audience and has a fresh approach. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it out.

38. Don’t Use Flashy Slide Transitions

Again, this is distracting and outdated. Use transitions and subtle animations in your PowerPoint presentation. But you need to take care and do it right .

39. Beware of Clip Art

This PowerPoint presentation tip shouldn’t even have to be said. But please, please don’t use clip art. Use professional graphics instead.

40. Don’t Be Afraid to Be Afraid

The fear of public speaking is a real one. Many beginners think that if they’re feeling nervous that a presentation won’t go well or succeed. That might lead them to cancel the presentation.

Here’s a tip from expert Sandra Zimmer, who leads The Self-Expression Center on conquering your fears before you take the stage:

“Get out of your head and into your body. I do this through a grounding exercise that really works to calm nerves and bring you present in the moment.”

If you think that public speaking fears aren’t normal, you might never give your award-winning presentation. So don’t be afraid to be afraid, and acknowledge it’s part of the process!

41. Don’t Read Directly During Your PowerPoint Presentation

If you spend your entire presentation looking at the screen or your note cards, you’re sure to lose your audience’s attention. They’ll disengage from what you’re saying, and your presentation will fall flat.

Reading from your paper or screen also makes it look like you’re not prepared. Many people do it, but no one should. As a general rule, only present something you know well and have, at least mostly, memorized the main points of.

42. Don’t Miss Out on PowerPoint Customizations

Many new PowerPoint users often make significant mistakes when using Envato Elements designs.

The best way to see how to make a good presentation PPT is to start with designs from others. That means using a template, but that doesn’t mean you can’t customize them!

Don’t forget that PowerPoint templates are infinitely customizable. Think of them as guides with built-in presentation design tips.

To see more presentation tips that show you what not to do, make sure to check out our guide .

Work in PowerPoint More Effectively (Tips & Tricks to Level Up Your PPT Skills)

These PowerPoint tips will help you get the most out of the application to level up your next presentation. Let’s dive in.

43. Use the Visual Guides

When you’re designing your next PowerPoint presentation, it helps to create a sense of visual rhythm. Slides that have objects aligned and centered are more likely to resonate with an audience.

44. Use a Few Animations (Tastefully)

Animations in effective PowerPoint presentations are a slippery slope. We’ve all sat through presentations where there were so many objects in motion that it was easy to lose focus on the key ideas in the presentation.

But that’s why animations get an unfairly bad reputation. Use animations to create motion and hold an audience’s attention. Use them sparingly and on key elements on your slide, and you’ll capture that attention properly.

45. Stage Key Content With Animations

You just learned that animations should avoid being distracting. But there’s an important principle to using animations properly. It’s called staging content.

Staging content means that the content appears step by step. There’s nothing worse than overwhelming an audience with all your content at once. But when you stage content, bring it on step by step.

Take it from presentation pro Suzannah Baum :

“If you’re sharing a slide with lots of different points on it, using the animation to reveal those points one at a time is a way to keep the presenter’s content flowing smoothly.”

For more animation presentation tips and tricks, follow our guide .

46. Add a Video to Your PowerPoint

When you’re sharing a big idea in your presentation, it helps to share your perspective from a few different angles. Adding a video to supplement your content can do just that. Luckily, it’s easy to add and embed a YouTube video in your next PowerPoint presentation.

47. Add Charts & Graphs

Charts and graphs can help you tell stories with data. It’s easy for an audience to zone out when you throw a big data table or set of statistics at them.

instead, convert those to charts and graphs. Try out our tutorial to learn how to edit those graphs.

48. Build Your Own Infographics With SmartArt

Earlier in this tutorial, we gave you one of my favorite PowerPoint design tips: use infographic templates.

Here’s another. One of my favorite PowerPoint features is SmartArt, which allows you to build infographics right inside the app.

You don’t have to use another graphic design app like Photoshop or Illustrator to add visuals. Instead, try out SmartArt to help you build graphics that are easy to update.

49. Use Presenter View

Remember that when you use the PowerPoint, you’ re the presentation. The slides are just there to reinforce what you’ve got to say and support your speaking points.

That’s why I always recommend using Presenter view. More often than not, you’re going to have several displays. Presenter view shows your content on your screen, while your presentation is displayed on another screen.

50. Track Your PowerPoint Changes

One of my favorite PowerPoint design tips is to collaborate. Those who know you best will suggest compelling changes that are sure to help you succeed.

As you start collaborating on your presentation, it helps to keep track of proposed and included PowerPoint changes. Use this article to track changes made by others.

10 More Advanced PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

Really need to wow an audience with a good PowerPoint presentation? Give these tips a try to make an unforgettable impression:

51. Engage With an Interactive Quiz

A good PowerPoint presentation gets your audience involved. One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to do that with a quiz. By engaging audiences, a quiz makes your slides memorable.

By adding trivia, you’ll see how to present a PowerPoint in a way that people will love. Channel your inner game-show host today. MIDTEST is a  good PowerPoint presentation  with quiz slides.

52. Illustrate With Custom Image Masks

One of the top PowerPoint tips is to illustrate your slides. But you can go beyond simple, rectangular images on each slide.

The Burte template is full of  PowerPoint tricks , including custom image masks. Image masks shape photos into unique works of art. And thanks to premium templates, you can style photos just like this. Masks overlay your photos onto geometric shapes, instantly elevating your style.

53. Print Handouts With Extra Notes

Wonder how to give a good presentation PPT that audiences will remember? Give them a piece of it to take home.

PowerPoint makes it easy to print handouts with room for notes on the page. This way, audiences can keep copies of your slides, along with their own notes. This is the perfect way to ensure everyone engages with and retains your content.

54. Make Bulk Edits With Master Slides

When you think about how to present a PowerPoint, consider your branding. That means keeping your logo front and center in the eyes of an audience. But if you’re working with a lengthy slide deck, this could seem daunting.

That’s where master slides come in. They’re common in premium layouts, and they’re a leading example of presentation skills for PPT. Master slides let you make bulk edits fast.

55. Shrink File Sizes for Sharing

Many of the top presentation tips involve making your slides more accessible. Often, that involves sharing them with audiences online.

You’ll often find that email clients and cloud services limit the size of files that you share. This can be a problem with large PPT slide decks. But there are a few quick steps you can take to reduce PPT file size. Cut graphics, scale down photos, and more.

56. Map Processes With Flowcharts

As you consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation, think of ease of understanding. After all, you’re trying to explain something to your audience.

The  Flowcharts in Infographics  template seamlessly illustrates ideas and processes. A flowchart maps out a process in a visual way. Instead of resorting to endless narration, try a quick illustration like this. It saves you time and effort, and your audience is sure to thank you.

57. Use Brand-Specific Colors

Using presentation skills for PPT helps form an association between your message and branding. There’s no better way to do that than with your brand colors.

PowerPoint makes it easy to change color themes, adding your brand colors and logo to each slide. This is one of the top PowerPoint tricks for marketing presentations.

58. Build Social Media Posts in PPT

A good PowerPoint presentation doesn’t have to be shared through a projector. Use the app and templates to build amazing illustrations to use anywhere.

A template like Soffee helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint easily with a pre-built design.

Try using PowerPoint to create social media posts. It helps you engage with your audience, with no need to design custom layouts from scratch.

59. Be Industry-Specific

One of the top presentation tips in 2024 is to be industry-specific. That means avoiding generic layouts and choosing something more customized.

This offers two key advantages. First, you save time by having layouts built for you. Second, you gain design inspiration for your specific topic. Themed templates are truly the best of both worlds.

The Medical and Health template is a good PowerPoint presentation with a set theme.

60. Design for Online (Virtual) Sharing

Last but not least in our list of PowerPoint tips comes virtual presenting. More and more often, slides will be shared with online audiences around the globe.

Why not design your slides for that very purpose? And then learn how to share flawlessly with a global team? It’s one of the top presentation tips for 2024. Embrace it today.

More Great PowerPoint Tutorial Resources

We’ve built a resource for Microsoft PowerPoint that you’re sure to want to try. It includes countless PowerPoint tips and tricks. It’s called How to Use PowerPoint (Ultimate Tutorial Guide) and has all the PowerPoint design tips you need.

Discover More Top PowerPoint Template Designs From Envato Elements for 2024

You’ve just seen our favorite powerful PowerPoint presentation tips and guidelines to help you improve your speaking. We’ve also mentioned Envato Elements, an incredible all-you-can-download source for top PowerPoint designs .

Here are five of the best PowerPoint templates that you can use to create your best presentation yet:

1. Galaxi PowerPoint Template

Blast off to success with the help of this PowerPoint template! Think of the pre-built slide designs as pro PowerPoint design tips. They’re built by professional graphic designers. All the popular and modern slide styles that are perfect for your next presentation. Use Galaxi’s five styles and 30 designs to create a great presentation.

2. Masmax PowerPoint Template

We selected templates for this article that match the PowerPoint tips and tricks provided. Masmax fits the bill perfectly across its 234 unique slide designs. These slide designs are sure to align with the latest in design expectations.

3. STYLE Multipurpose PowerPoint Template V50

Style is subjective, but we can all agree that this template is stunning! The light and airy slide designs are built with fashion-focused designs in mind. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not perfect for most presentations. When learning to present a PowerPoint, remember that templates can be customized to suit your purpose.

4. Peachme Creative PowerPoint Template

Peachme has image-focused slides with splashy designs. The slides are colorful and perfect for a modern presentation. Don’t worry about remembering all the PowerPoint design tips because they’re included in the pre-built slides. Use Peachme’s designs for your presentation today.

5. Buizi Office Building Rent PowerPoint Template

Buizi markets itself as a real estate focused template. It’s ideal for that purpose because of the minimal, image-focused slide designs. But that also makes it a perfect choice for presentations in many fields.

We’ve just scratched the surface of PowerPoint design tips with these five options. Here are many more, bundled inside of the best roundups on Envato Tuts+:

How to Build a Good PowerPoint Presentation Quickly (In 2024)

You’ve already seen effective presentation skills PPT techniques. But you may be wondering exactly how to do a good PowerPoint presentation. It only takes a few clicks. Let’s learn how in just five steps.

For this mini-tutorial, we’ll use the Enjoy PowerPoint Template from Envato Elements. You’ll see that it’s a beautiful template that helps you learn how to present a PowerPoint by giving you every object and layout you need.

Let’s get started:

1. Choose Your Slides

As you can see, a template like Enjoy has dozens of unique slides inside. The key to how to give a good presentation PPT is to choose only the slides that you need.

One of the best PowerPoint tricks is to start by selecting slides you wish to use from your template.

In PowerPoint, scroll through the sidebar on the left to view different slide layouts. Right-click and choose Delete to remove unwanted designs. Plus, you can click and drag slide thumbnails to reorder them in the deck.

2. Add Text

Consider how to do a good PowerPoint presentation without investing a ton of time. That’s where premium templates come in.

One of our top presentation tips when working with a PPT is to lean on the pre-built text boxes for your content.

To add custom text, simply click and select the contents of any text box on your slide. Then, type in your own words. Repeat as needed throughout your slide deck.

3. Customize Fonts

With text selected, it’s easy to customize fonts on each slide. Find the Font section on PowerPoint’s Home tab. From there, you’ve got a variety of dropdown options.

Another of our top tips for presentation tricks is to use a custom font setting in your template.

Click to change the font, font size, and more. You can also use the buttons on the left to add bolds, italics, and more.

Need more custom font styles? As an Envato Elements subscriber, you’ve got instant access to thousands of custom fonts . Use them in your presentation with ease.

4. Insert Images

Slides like this one contain an image placeholder. That’s another advantage found only with premium templates. These make adding images a breeze.

Add images to your PPTX template for more visually interesting slides.

To get started, find an image file stored on your computer. Then, drag and drop it over the placeholder. PowerPoint will import it, sized and scaled for a perfect fit.

5. Change Colors

One of the top effective presentation skills is changing shape colors. This helps you control the look and feel of each slide.

With a shape selected, find the Shape Format tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Then, click on the Shape Fill dropdown. You’ll see a color chooser menu appear. Click on any thumbnail to apply it to the shape or browse through the Gradient and Texture options.

Start Putting These PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks Into Use Today!

Learning to write, design, and present a PowerPoint presentation is an invaluable skill, no matter where you use it. If you’re a good communicator of important messages, you’ll never go hungry.

Luckily, improving PowerPoint presentations isn’t as hard as it seems. Follow these tips for PowerPoint presentations to design and deliver with greater confidence.

Remember: Less is more (effective) . Use PowerPoint presentation templates for better design and more effective visual impact. And you can customize a PPT template quickly , with the right workflow.

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Preparing And Presenting a Seminar - A Guide.

Related Papers

Udeme Usanga

The primary objective of seminar presentation is to enhance presentation skills when persuading, educating, or informing an audience. Specifically, it provides a focus on the fundamental aspects of a quality academic, professional and business communications including structure, preparation and strategy for delivery, using visual aids, and handling question and answer sessions. The presenter/student practices by preparing and delivering an ideal real-life academic/business presentation. Strict adherence to the instructions outlined allows the presenter to evaluate his/her progress and alter any distracting behaviours before and during presentation. It also enables the participant to learn by doing. The aim of this paper is to introduce students to simple principles on how to plan, writs and present their findings as technical conference papers, then act as the mini-conference programme committee members in reviewing each other's submissions. Finally, in addition to the model itself, description of some variations in instantiation and an assessment of the benefits of this general approach and recommendation for adoption by faculties and educators are proffered. Introduction Rarely are the three pillars of academia-research, teaching and service-addressed together, within one intellectually cohesive context in the graduate curriculum. Such a context is important for exposing students to the interrelationships among these facets. Oftentimes, people are confused what a seminar, workshop or conference means. They are sometimes considered to mean the same thing. However, workshop is a brief intensive educational programme for a relatively small group of people that focuses on techniques and skills in a particular field. Seminar on the other hand is a meeting of a group of advanced students studying under a professor/officer with each doing original research and all exchanging results of their findings through reports and discussions. A conference is a meeting of two or more persons/bodies organized for the benefit of discussing matters of common concern, which usually involves formal interchange of views.

Mariela Arredondo

Graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst redesigned their departmental seminar series to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other institutions could do the same.

A Handbook for Clinical Teachers

David Newble

Sarbjeet Khurana

DESCRIPTION A description of a seminar for writing up thesis at HCMC Open university

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education

Marwa A MED

Lennart Hellspong

Dr.Suraksha Bansal

The term workshop has been borrowed from engineering. There are usually workshops in the engineering. In these workshops persons have to do some task with their hand to produce something, Question Bank Workshops are organized in education to prepare questions on the subject. The designers are given knowledge and training for preparing questions in the workshop. Teaching is a continuum from conditioning to indoctrination and training. The new innovations and practices of education are introduced by organizing workshop in which teachers are trained to use new practices in their teaching learning process. The workshops are organized to develop the cognitive and psychomotor aspects of the learner regarding practices of new innovations in area of education. Participants have to do some practical work to produce instructional teaching and testing material. OBJECTIVE OF WORKSHOP General objective:  To enhance the capabilities of teachers in planning and implementing instruction in teacher...

Helen Abadzi

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How to Write a Seminar Paper

Last Updated: October 17, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 16 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 626,864 times.

A seminar paper is a work of original research that presents a specific thesis and is presented to a group of interested peers, usually in an academic setting. For example, it might serve as your cumulative assignment in a university course. Although seminar papers have specific purposes and guidelines in some places, such as law school, the general process and format is the same. The steps below will guide you through the research and writing process of how to write a seminar paper and provide tips for developing a well-received paper.

Getting Started

• an argument that makes an original contribution to the existing scholarship on your subject
• extensive research that supports your argument
• extensive footnotes or endnotes (depending on the documentation style you are using)

• Make sure that you understand how to cite your sources for the paper and how to use the documentation style your professor prefers, such as APA , MLA , or Chicago Style .
• Don’t feel bad if you have questions. It is better to ask and make sure that you understand than to do the assignment wrong and get a bad grade.

• Since it's best to break down a seminar paper into individual steps, creating a schedule is a good idea. You can adjust your schedule as needed.
• Do not attempt to research and write a seminar in just a few days. This type of paper requires extensive research, so you will need to plan ahead. Get started as early as possible. [3] X Research source

• Listing List all of the ideas that you have for your essay (good or bad) and then look over the list you have made and group similar ideas together. Expand those lists by adding more ideas or by using another prewriting activity. [5] X Research source
• Freewriting Write nonstop for about 10 minutes. Write whatever comes to mind and don’t edit yourself. When you are done, review what you have written and highlight or underline the most useful information. Repeat the freewriting exercise using the passages you underlined as a starting point. You can repeat this exercise multiple times to continue to refine and develop your ideas. [6] X Research source
• Clustering Write a brief explanation (phrase or short sentence) of the subject of your seminar paper on the center of a piece of paper and circle it. Then draw three or more lines extending from the circle. Write a corresponding idea at the end of each of these lines. Continue developing your cluster until you have explored as many connections as you can. [7] X Research source
• Questioning On a piece of paper, write out “Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?” Space the questions about two or three lines apart on the paper so that you can write your answers on these lines. Respond to each question in as much detail as you can. [8] X Research source

• For example, if you wanted to know more about the uses of religious relics in medieval England, you might start with something like “How were relics used in medieval England?” The information that you gather on this subject might lead you to develop a thesis about the role or importance of relics in medieval England.
• Keep your research question simple and focused. Use your research question to narrow your research. Once you start to gather information, it's okay to revise or tweak your research question to match the information you find. Similarly, you can always narrow your question a bit if you are turning up too much information.

Conducting Research

• Use your library’s databases, such as EBSCO or JSTOR, rather than a general internet search. University libraries subscribe to many databases. These databases provide you with free access to articles and other resources that you cannot usually gain access to by using a search engine. If you don't have access to these databases, you can try Google Scholar.

• Publication's credentials Consider the type of source, such as a peer-reviewed journal or book. Look for sources that are academically based and accepted by the research community. Additionally, your sources should be unbiased.
• Author's credentials Choose sources that include an author’s name and that provide credentials for that author. The credentials should indicate something about why this person is qualified to speak as an authority on the subject. For example, an article about a medical condition will be more trustworthy if the author is a medical doctor. If you find a source where no author is listed or the author does not have any credentials, then this source may not be trustworthy. [12] X Research source
• Citations Think about whether or not this author has adequately researched the topic. Check the author’s bibliography or works cited page. If the author has provided few or no sources, then this source may not be trustworthy. [13] X Research source
• Bias Think about whether or not this author has presented an objective, well-reasoned account of the topic. How often does the tone indicate a strong preference for one side of the argument? How often does the argument dismiss or disregard the opposition’s concerns or valid arguments? If these are regular occurrences in the source, then it may not be a good choice. [14] X Research source
• Publication date Think about whether or not this source presents the most up to date information on the subject. Noting the publication date is especially important for scientific subjects, since new technologies and techniques have made some earlier findings irrelevant. [15] X Research source
• Information provided in the source If you are still questioning the trustworthiness of this source, cross check some of the information provided against a trustworthy source. If the information that this author presents contradicts one of your trustworthy sources, then it might not be a good source to use in your paper.

• Give yourself plenty of time to read your sources and work to understand what they are saying. Ask your professor for clarification if something is unclear to you.
• Consider if it's easier for you to read and annotate your sources digitally or if you'd prefer to print them out and annotate by hand.

• Be careful to properly cite your sources when taking notes. Even accidental plagiarism may result in a failing grade on a paper.

Drafting Your Paper

• Make sure that your thesis presents an original point of view. Since seminar papers are advanced writing projects, be certain that your thesis presents a perspective that is advanced and original. [18] X Research source
• For example, if you conducted your research on the uses of relics in medieval England, your thesis might be, “Medieval English religious relics were often used in ways that are more pagan than Christian.”

• Organize your outline by essay part and then break those parts into subsections. For example, part 1 might be your introduction, which could then be broken into three sub-parts: a)opening sentence, b)context/background information c)thesis statement.

• For example, in a paper about medieval relics, you might open with a surprising example of how relics were used or a vivid description of an unusual relic.
• Keep in mind that your introduction should identify the main idea of your seminar paper and act as a preview to the rest of your paper.

• For example, in a paper about relics in medieval England, you might want to offer your readers examples of the types of relics and how they were used. What purpose did they serve? Where were they kept? Who was allowed to have relics? Why did people value relics?
• Keep in mind that your background information should be used to help your readers understand your point of view.

• Remember to use topic sentences to structure your paragraphs. Provide a claim at the beginning of each paragraph. Then, support your claim with at least one example from one of your sources. Remember to discuss each piece of evidence in detail so that your readers will understand the point that you are trying to make.

• For example, in a paper on medieval relics, you might include a heading titled “Uses of Relics” and subheadings titled “Religious Uses”, “Domestic Uses”, “Medical Uses”, etc.

• Synthesize what you have discussed . Put everything together for your readers and explain what other lessons might be gained from your argument. How might this discussion change the way others view your subject?
• Explain why your topic matters . Help your readers to see why this topic deserve their attention. How does this topic affect your readers? What are the broader implications of this topic? Why does your topic matter?
• Return to your opening discussion. If you offered an anecdote or a quote early in your paper, it might be helpful to revisit that opening discussion and explore how the information you have gathered implicates that discussion.

• Ask your professor what documentation style he or she prefers that you use if you are not sure.
• Visit your school’s writing center for additional help with your works cited page and in-text citations.

Revising Your Paper

• What is your main point? How might you clarify your main point?
• Who is your audience? Have you considered their needs and expectations?
• What is your purpose? Have you accomplished your purpose with this paper?
• How effective is your evidence? How might your strengthen your evidence?
• Does every part of your paper relate back to your thesis? How might you improve these connections?
• Is anything confusing about your language or organization? How might your clarify your language or organization?
• Have you made any errors with grammar, punctuation, or spelling? How can you correct these errors?
• What might someone who disagrees with you say about your paper? How can you address these opposing arguments in your paper? [26] X Research source

Features of Seminar Papers and Sample Thesis Statements

Community Q&A

• Keep in mind that seminar papers differ by discipline. Although most seminar papers share certain features, your discipline may have some requirements or features that are unique. For example, a seminar paper written for a Chemistry course may require you to include original data from your experiments, whereas a seminar paper for an English course may require you to include a literature review. Check with your student handbook or check with your advisor to find out about special features for seminar papers in your program. Make sure that you ask your professor about his/her expectations before you get started as well. [27] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• When coming up with a specific thesis, begin by arguing something broad and then gradually grow more specific in the points you want to argue. Thanks Helpful 23 Not Helpful 11
• Choose a topic that interests you, rather than something that seems like it will interest others. It is much easier and more enjoyable to write about something you care about. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 1

• Do not be afraid to admit any shortcomings or difficulties with your argument. Your thesis will be made stronger if you openly identify unresolved or problematic areas rather than glossing over them. Thanks Helpful 13 Not Helpful 6
• Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world. If you plagiarize your paper you may fail the assignment and even the course altogether. Make sure that you fully understand what is and is not considered plagiarism before you write your paper. Ask your teacher if you have any concerns or questions about your school’s plagiarism policy. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 2

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• ↑ https://umweltoekonomie.uni-hohenheim.de/fileadmin/einrichtungen/umweltoekonomie/1-Studium_Lehre/Materialien_und_Informationen/Guidelines_Seminar_Paper_NEW_14.10.15.pdf
• ↑ https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/how-to-ask-professor-feedback/
• ↑ http://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/research/guides/seminar_papers.cfm
• ↑ https://www.stcloudstate.edu/writeplace/_files/documents/writing%20process/choosing-and-narrowing-an-essay-topic.pdf
• ↑ http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies
• ↑ http://www.kuwi.europa-uni.de/en/lehrstuhl/vs/politik3/Hinweise_Seminararbeiten/haenglish.html
• ↑ https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/faq/reliable
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/673/1/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/
• ↑ https://www.irsc.edu/students/academicsupportcenter/researchpaper/researchpaper.aspx?id=4294967433
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/2/58/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/beginning-academic-essay
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/561/05/
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/ReverseOutlines.html

About This Article

To write a seminar paper, start by writing a clear and specific thesis that expresses your original point of view. Then, work on your introduction, which should give your readers relevant context about your topic and present your argument in a logical way. As you write, break up the body of your paper with headings and sub-headings that categorize each section of your paper. This will help readers follow your argument. Conclude your paper by synthesizing your argument and explaining why this topic matters. Be sure to cite all the sources you used in a bibliography. For advice on getting started on your seminar paper, keep reading. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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More From Forbes

The 5 best ways to put together and deliver a lousy presentation.

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Plan ahead to avoid these mistakes.

By Dianna Booher

Mediocre business presentations rarely melt hearts, mend behavior, or motivate listeners to action. After three decades of coaching clients who need to deliver a critical business presentation, I’ve created a list of habits that put audiences to sleep in under 20 seconds.

Lousy Way #1: Start by Creating Your Slides

When I question coaching clients about their typical method of creating a presentation, the most common answer is this: “Well, I start with my slides. Either I create new ones or select some from other presentations I’ve delivered for other purposes.”

Such an approach will almost surely result in failure.

This approach would be like starting to build a house by contacting various suppliers and asking them to deliver to your vacant lot lumber, electrical wiring, plumbing fixtures, sheetrock, paint, concrete, sand, and roofing tiles—in amounts and styles based on your guess of what you might need. Who does that? Nobody.

Instead, your first stop is the architect’s office to design house blueprints. And the first few questions the architect will ask you: “How many bedrooms do you need?” How many baths?” “Tell me a little about your lifestyle. What are you looking for in your dream house?” “Do you do a lot of entertaining?” “Do you do gourmet cooking?” “Do you have in mind a 2-car, 3-car, or 4-car garage?”

‘The Acolyte’ Rotten Tomatoes Score Keeps Falling, And Maybe It Should If We Ever Hope To Find Balance In The Force

Wwe raw results, winners and grades after great wyatt sicks follow-up, china delivers another economic blow to russia.

Ditto for designing a business presentation: Design the message before you start creating slides. Ask yourself these questions:

––“What’s the primary message of interest to my listeners?” ––“What do they already know about the topic?”

––“What do I want them to consider, buy, decide, or do based on my presentation?”

––“Will they be biased for or against what I’m saying or asking?”

––“If so, how can I minimize that negative reaction?”

With these answers, then—and only then—are you on the right track to structure your presentation.

Lousy Way #2: Include a Data Dump to Reinforce Your Message

Sure, data increases credibility for your point or proposal. But that assumes you deliver the data properly. Overwhelming your audience with stats can paralyze them, bury them in rumination, and styme decision making.

Select only the most salient stats, and round them off so the audience can remember them (“Roughly half of our projects” is easier to remember than “47.9% of our projects.”) If you need to add more detailed data, provide that in hardcopy for later reference.

By all means, avoid dumping it all orally during the presentation. As with many things, fewer stats is more.

Lousy Way #3: Give Them Background So They Understand Your Point

Don’t tell people what they already know. I often get push-back on this advice: “But don’t I have to go back and fill the group in on the problem? Tell them what’s been done in the past and why it didn’t work? Don’t they need that background before I can propose something new?”

No. No, you don’t. People will never understand your background until they know your point. Tell them where you’re headed right up front. For example: “We are experiencing delays of 14- 18 days in completing our client projects as guaranteed. To resolve these delays, I’m proposing that we hire two new analysts, extend the ‘promised date’ to clients, and buy XYZ software.”

Once your audience knows where you’re going and what decision you expect them to make, then circle back and fill in the supporting details.

Lousy Way #4: Do a Mental Run-Through

Ask the typical presenter if they rehearse presentations, and most will insist that they do. But that “typical rehearsal” looks like this: The presenter flips through each slide, mentally recalling what details he or she will add. They also may print out an outline with the numbered slide headlines. Done. That’s it.

But a polished presentation warrants a real rehearsal: A walk-through rehearsal, meaning you’re standing in front of the room (or at your virtual presentation platform), talking through the presentation. In doing so, you’ll become aware of several things to fix: Weak openings. Missing transitions from point to point. Awkward phrasing. Slides that are unclear or out of best sequence. A wandering, rather than crisp, wrap-up.

Lousy Way #5: Temper Your Tone

I’m not saying you have an attitude. I’m saying you need one. Weak presenters fear being too animated, too passionate, too opinionated, too loud, too soft, too direct.

The problem? Your audience takes their cue from you. If you don’t show passion and interest in your ideas/information, they won’t either. Your interest interests them! They must sense that you believe in what you’re saying—its validity, its importance, its urgency.

Packaged, this advice about tone means your body language and voice must support your message with energy.

So unless your goal is creating and delivering a lousy presentation, sidestep all these common pitfalls. Instead, design your message of interest to the audience. Create any necessary slides to support that message. Add just enough data to prove your point. Forget the “background,” working in only necessary details as you move along in your presentation. Rehearse. Then deliver your message like you believe what you’re saying!

Dianna Booher is the bestselling author of 50 books, including Communicate Like a Leader. She helps organizations and individuals communicate clearly. Follow at BooherResearch.com and @DiannaBooher.

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Broncos quarterbacks continuing work leading up to training camp, share this article.

Denver Broncos players wrapped up organized team activities on June 12 and they were then granted a month-plus break leading up to training camp.

Broncos coaches trust the players to be smart during that break. It’s okay to get away from football for a spell and refresh, but players have to be locked in when training camp begins in late July.

Denver’s quarterbacks — Jarrett Stidham, Bo Nix and Zach Wilson — will continue working in the weeks leading up to camp. They plan to get together with receivers in Dallas next month.

“I think these guys will all lift and run,” coach Sean Payton said on June 12. “They have their computers, they go to Teamworks and the weight program is there for them. I know that a group of them will gather. All three of the quarterbacks and a lot of the receivers are going to have a week after the 4th of July where they will go somewhere and workout and train. Courtland [Sutton] mentioned that yesterday .

“Then having the playbook and having the film, all of them — at that position, you shouldn’t have to worry about what those next five weeks are going to be. Quite honestly, I said to every one of these guys, ‘At some point, we discussed every one of you guys in depth and it’s not always the discussion for when you are here. It’s also how we feel like you are going to work when you are not here.’ I think they understand that. Although it is a young team, I think they are pretty smart.”

Players are on summer break, but the work never stops in the NFL. The QBs and their teammates will be ready to go when camp begins in July.

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Calvin Johnson: 'Work Comes Right Now' for Jameson Williams

John maakaron | 2 hours ago.

• Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions have the potential to have one of the top wide receivers unit in the National Football League.

Speaking after the Rocket Mortgage Classic's Area 313 golf scramble, former Lions wideout Calvin Johnson shared with All Lions his thoughts on the talented unit, what Jameson Williams needs to accomplish this offseason to continue his development and what it is like to hear the Lions being in the conversation as Super Bowl contenders.

“You’ve got Amon-Ra (St. Brown), you’ve got Jamo, you’ve got (Kalif) Raymond. We’ve got (Donovan) Peoples-Jones. We’ve got guys who have made plays in this league. We’ve got guys who have played with Jared (Goff) for a while, that have been here in Detroit, that know what’s expected," Johnson said. "So that’s a good thing. We have chemistry, that’s the big thing about it. We have a receiving core that knows their roles and they play to them. As long as guys stay healthy, that’s always the thing. We have that core group. If three or four of those guys stay healthy all year, Jared’s gonna have somebody to get the ball to, and they’re gonna move the ball up and down the field.” 

Williams is expected to compete to become the No. 2 wide receiver in Ben Johnson's offense. Head coach Dan Campbell applauded the speedy wideout for his growth all throughout the spring.

After facing limitations in his first two NFL seasons, the young receiver appears primed for a breakout in his third NFL season.

“You’ve got to put the work in in the offseason. You've got to build your body up to sustain a 16 to 17-week season. The work comes in the offseason, work comes right now," said Johnson. "The time he has off right now, you’ve got to put in the work. And then you’ve got to focus on details, the little details. You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror, the things you’re good and bad at and work at those things."

Having played with Dan Campbell , the Pro Football Hall of Famer expressed happiness seeing his former teammate lead the Lions to postseason success. In 2024, the Lions are among a handful of teams that are legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

“It’s good. I played with Dan so I’m happy for Dan. He was a great teammate," Johnson said. "Seeing him leading the team like he is now, leading the charge, it’s pretty cool.”

Wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El indicated the competition for spots lower on the depth chart has raised his eyebrows at times. With Josh Reynolds off to Denver, the Lions will have opportunities available for the taking in the passing game.

“The excitement comes in that the door is wide open for those spots. The excitement, it’s there because there’s some competition that’s really, truly going on for that spot," said Randle El. "So you’ve seen some guys really make some plays that kinda raise your eyebrows like, ‘Let’s try to move them up.’ Daurice Fountain made some plays, Kaden (Davis) came in and made some plays. I was like, ‘Okay.’ So, you see guys making different plays and splashes. The biggest thing was, we know what we lost in Josh (Reynolds). He had some big play ability, but he was consistent.

"He was a consistent guy that we could depend on. So that’s what I need our guys to be. Not just the third, fourth, fifth guy, whoever it is. Even Saint and Jamo from that standpoint, we always want to be consistent in what we do and have an opportunity to make those plays. But that third guy, whoever it’s gonna be, and again a fourth and fifth guy, those guys have gotta be consistent."

A factor the coaching staff will keep reminding the wideouts is the importance of blocking. Randle El expressed that will remain a point of emphasis when training camp begins.

"They’ve gotta be ready to make the plays, over and over again. That’s the biggest thing, alignment, assignment, make the play when it comes your way and being able to finish," Randle El explained. "We block downfield, whether it’s the running back that has the ball, the ball is thrown, the receivers catch it, the tight ends catch it, we’ve gotta go get blocks. That’s a big emphasis for me continuing to move forward as we get ready for training camp here in the weeks to come.”

JOHN MAAKARON

John Maakaron has covered Detroit Sports since 2013. Brings a vast array of experience covering the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions, Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans, Detroit Mercy Titans, and Oakland University Golden Grizzlies. John brings a wealth of sports broadcast experience. In 2013, John had the vision to establish the Detroit Sports Podcast Network. Has recorded over 3000 podcasts analyzing Detroit Sports. In 2019, Sports Illustrated Media Group, a historical sports media outlet, partnered with Detroit Sports Podcast to provide daily Lions content for their growing and expanding digital media outlet. Our Lions content can also be read in the newspaper at The Oakland  Passionate about Detroit Sports and it is reflected in his coverage of the local teams!

13 A GROUP PRESENTATION INSTRUCTIONBBA242GroupAssignmentMarch2024 sPLIT 2