How to make a good oral presentation in 12 steps

We explain step by step how to speak well in public and without suffering a lot of nerves, communicating well.

Speaking in front of a large audience can be an intimidating task and a source of anxiety even days before you do it. and a source of anxiety even days before it is due to take place.

For many people, the very idea of exposing themselves (and their communication skills) to so many people is a terrifying thought, which makes trembling and hesitancy in speaking take over one's own body..

However, everything can be improved by learning, and the same applies to the ability to give a good oral presentation. That is why below you can read a series of keys based on psychological principles that will help you to deliver your speech in the best possible way after using them several times.

Learning to speak in public in the best way

The first thing to be clear about is that Improving our ability to give an oral presentation is a process that takes days and weeks.. 

Being aware of this is important in order not to get frustrated in the early stages. Secondly, keeping this in mind implies a commitment not to avoid the kind of situations in which you must speak in public and to take advantage of them to practice.

1. Have at least a week's advance notice

The ideal way to prepare an oral presentation of between 45 and 10 minutes is to dedicate at least one hour a day to prepare it during the previous week, if not earlier. It is very important to spread the preparation over several days instead of using almost the entire day before to prepare; not only because this way you can find more time to dedicate to it in case of unforeseen events, but also because you know that you have more time to prepare it.It is very important to spread out the preparation over several days instead of using almost the whole of the previous day to prepare, not only because you have more time to devote to it in case of unforeseen events, but also because knowing that you have many days in advance has a psychological effect of relative calm and self-assurance.

This means that during the first few hours we will not feel so anxious if we notice that it is difficult to make progress, and this will make the learning process go more smoothly. will make the learning process smoother.. When we reach the last days, which is the stage in which the nerves emerge more, we will do it knowing that we have already come a long way, and this will allow us to be productive without the stress entailing a loss of motivation, effort and attention in what we do.

2. Document yourself well

Before creating the script of what we want to talk about, we must be sure that we know what we are talking about and that our knowledge has no gaps.

To do this, we can help ourselves with a graphic representation that will allow us to know the degree of depth with which we know the subject well. To do this, we write in the center of a sheet of paper a series of items or keywords that we consider to be the most important topics of the presentation. Then, we draw a series of concentric circles around them, and we write other secondary topics in them, around the previously written.

In this way we will have an overview of the topics to be covered and the importance of each one in the oral presentation. We can start by learning about the essential topics, and then gradually learn about the secondary or accessory ones.

In the last circle we can write down topics that we believe are somewhat related to what we are going to talk about but that we do not need to know about for the presentation. In this way we will be forewarned and, if in the question time someone mentions them, we will be able to have a prepared answer, we will be able to have a prepared answer in which we indicate in which books or sources the person who wants to know more about it can find information.

3. Be clear about the main idea we want to transmit.

Oral presentations are more attractive if there is a main idea that vertebrates all the sub-sections into which we divide the talk. This idea does not have to be something like a moral; for example, if the presentation consists of explaining how we have done our thesis, the main idea will simply be the thesis itself.

The important thing is not to deviate from the topic and to express directly what it consists of during the first 2 or 3 minutes of the oral presentation. of the oral presentation. In this way the backbone of the talk will be clear and the audience will know how to contextualize what we say in the right way and without being confused by possible digressions.

4. Elaborate the introduction first

Before thinking about the structure of the talk, it is better if we first plan the first few minutes of the talk, as detailed as possible. In this way, we will already We will have focused on the topic and it will be very easy to think about the sections of the talk and the order they should follow..

The objective we pursue when creating the introduction is to attract the attention of the audience at the same time that the topic of the oral presentation is raised. That is why you should avoid very technical introductions or dictionary definitions. It is much better to start with a suggestive question or a short story.

5. Devise the structure of the talk

In this step we will write several ordered titles that express as directly as possible what sub-topic will be covered in each section of the talk.. We will write these topics in a detailed script about what we want to say, and at the beginning we will work on each of them separately and in order, from those closest to the beginning to those at the end.

This is a phase of the planning process of the oral presentation that is especially important if what we want to communicate is relatively complex and must be addressed through different sub-sections, so spend as much time as you need, since the difference between a clear message and one that is not depends largely on the structure.

6. Linking sub-sections

This step is very simple, because it simply consists of making the different sections of the oral presentation refer to previous or subsequent ones. In this way the audience will better understand what we are talking about, seeing it as a whole in which the parts are related to each other.as we saw earlier..." "we will see this next...", etc.

In short, to know how to make a good oral presentation is to know how to create a coherent speech that has its own entity, instead of being a sum of parts.

7. Checking for possible gaps and leftover parts

In this step we will compare what we have written with the graphic representation in which we ordered the topics according to their importance, and we will see if the extension of each sub-section and of each line referring to these topics corresponds to this order. In this way we will see if we need to talk longer about certain things and less about others, and we will be able to modify the script accordingly..

This stage allows us to have an overview of the writing and to detect errors that a more detail-oriented point of view would not allow us to detect.

8. Read aloud

This step can be the most boring, because it only consists of reading out loud several times what has been written. It is convenient to read it all in a row, but it is also convenient to think about each of the sub-sections and read only the part corresponding to it.

In this way, we will be able to link each topic to certain phrases and to certain ways of relating the discourse. It is important to know, however, that the goal is not to memorize the text by making an effort to make each word stick in our head; the goal is to get our brain used to learning the order, not the exact content..

Knowing in which order the sub-sections go and the different simple ideas that are included within them helps us to better remember what we are going to read. helps us to remember better what we are going to say and to express it more naturally, without being afraid of not remembering exactly what we are going to say.without being afraid of not remembering exactly how a certain part was written. Each topic to talk about acts as a clue as to what the next one is.

However, and although it may seem silly, it is also very important to read aloud, to hear ourselves speaking. In this way our own voice will also be an element that will make the memory of the script richer and more complete.

9. Rest well the day before

We should arrive the day before the exhibition knowing the script well. In this way, we will only spend some time reviewingand we will be able to rest so that our body can recover and relax a little. In addition, it is very important to go to bed early to get enough sleep. To prepare well for an oral presentation is also to know how to manage the time to regain strength.

10. Following a sequence of steps

At the moment of giving the talk in public, we must concentrate on saying what we are supposed to say at the stage of the talk we are at, and focus all our attention on it. This means we should forget about trying to remember the general script of the oral presentation at all times; this option would only distract us and generate anxiety.This option would only distract us and generate anxiety, since our focus of attention cannot be everywhere at once.

11. Know how to face the audience

It is important to look in the direction of the audience during the oral presentation, which does not mean looking at the audience. Our attention should be focused on our speech and what we are saying at that very moment, and little else. To help make this happen, a good aid is to play at imagining that the people in the audience are dolls, or at any rate, the audience of a very realistic video game. Although it sounds a bit bad, the idea is to depersonalize the audience just as psychopaths objectify other people; in this case, to think that they are not real people but something like components of a simulation..

This will help us so that our nerves are not so intense. Later, when we master the art of public speaking, we can dispense with this step.

12. Learning to live with nerves

The last step is to embrace the idea that a little nervousness is not a problem. When we are nervous we think that our tremors and stammering are very noticeable, but the truth is that this is not the case, the distance of the audience and the clarity of our message make these small signs of nervousness to be overlooked automatically, because the audience's attention is much more focused on the content of what we say (what they want to understand) than on what we say (what they want to understand). (what they want to understand) than on how we say it.