[Music] hello everyone and welcome to this first session on this two part workshop on presenting effectively presentations are something that follow us through our academic lives through our professional lives and arguably even our personal lives you might be an undergraduate student looking to make an impressive presentation for your next assignment or you might be a researcher who's looking to present their findings in the most compelling manner possible or you might be a business analyst presenting your recommendations to a client or you might just be the best man or a bridesmaid at your friend's reception looking to make a funny and memorable presentation regardless of what situation you are at presentations form an important part of your lives and which is why it is important for us to learn how to present effectively in this session we will deal with uh how to script the content for your presentation and in the next two sessions we will deal with the more practical aspects of presenting effectively which is designing good slides or visual accompaniments and learning how to do the actual presenting which is learning how to deliver the presentation let me begin by inviting you to think about what a good presentation entails what do you think are the three important elements that you need to pay attention to when you're beginning crafting a presentation well first of course is the bottom line of your presentation the message that you want to convey through your presentation or the main argument of the topic that you're about to present on right and the second element are the slides or the visuals now slides or visual accompaniments are not necessary for a presentation to go well but if this aspect of your presentation is done well it can greatly enhance the experience of presenting both for you and for your audience so slides and visuals are also an important element of a good presentation finally of course while the scripting and the slide designing forms one part of the whole preparation process the actual doing of the presentation is quite daunting and delivery is very important aspect good delivery good body language good articulation all of these come under delivery as an aspect now here's a caveat we will deal with the typical presentations that are made uh within a closed route to a fairly small audience a small audience that is specialized and typically presentations are no longer than 10 to 15 minutes we are not particularly talking about public speaking which is slightly less specialized the time that is given is slightly longer and the audience is a little bit more general so that will form the content of a different session public speaking is slightly different in terms of the format it takes but for this session we will be talking about 10 to 15 minute class conference of business presentations right great so let's get right into it how does one begin crafting a script or at least outlining a script for their presentation well preparation and planning is undoubtedly key to this a lack of preparation will immediately show in your presentation it's just a very easy giveaway so it is imperative that prior research and preparation is done regardless of the topic of the presentation what are the things that you need to remember when we are starting off on the preparation process the first step of course is to research research and research to research widely and deeply and to research using reliable sources such as journal articles newspaper articles books and so on not necessarily blogs or wikipedia pages which can be edited by anyone without a rigorous review process the second step of course is to put down one's thoughts on a piece of paper which we call brainstorming and then make connections among all these ideas and all the information that you've gathered so far in the form of a mind map this is a very useful strategy um that can help organize in some sense uh the different thoughts that are going around in your head now with a fair idea of the topic that you're working with you may try to arrive at your core message ask it is here that we ask ourselves what is it that you want your audience to take away from this presentation if you had to summarize the content of your presentation in one sentence what would that be so once you know exactly what it is that you want to convey through this presentation weaving a narrative around it or crafting a script around it becomes so much easier and the point of your presentation will come across in a much in a much better manner so once that is done once you know your core message you may organize everything you've done so far in the form of an outline now a traditional way of structuring your content traditional way of outlining would be to think about the opening of your presentation follow it with the body and finish it off with a conclusion this is a typical traditional and foolproof opening body conclusion format once you have outlined you can move on to the drafting stage getting started is very very important so once the rough draft is done you can go on to the editing stage now editing is also equally important depending on how important an idea or sentence or paragraph is to your overall presentation you may choose to have it in or leave it out and now there's a very simple way of sort of realizing which part of the presentation needs to be left in and which part of the presentation needs to be cut out depending on the time limit that you have and a sort of um acrostic that you can use when you are trying to um edit the draft of your presentation a script is the ced across that so find out what is absolutely critical to your presentation leave that in find out what is maybe not critical but essential leave that in maybe there is a sentence or a paragraph in your presentation that is desirable but not necessarily contributing to the overall message that you want to convey then maybe regardless of how beautiful that sentence or paragraph is it would be more sensible to leave it out so edit editing sensibly editing in a systematic manner is more important than trying to get it all right in the first go so the rough draft can be as long as you want it to be it can just be a stream of consciousness sort of thought drop but the editing part should be done in a more systematic manner where you put out the juiciest parts in and leave the rest out because keeping it short is very very important minimalism is absolutely important in presentations you generally do not get more than 50 minutes to present your for reference 1200 to 1800 words is what a script uh could be confined to for a 10 to 15 minute presentation now let's talk about some strategies that can be used to make this scripting or outlining process a little easier now this is not an exhaustive list and some aspects of these strategies these methods of scripting might overlap but it is good to know a little bit about them so that one can structure one's presentation outlines better so here are four strategies the first strategy is the prep method which stands for position reason example position it is quite self-explanatory however the idea is that you state your claim which should sound a lot like your core message what is it that you want your audience to take away and then give your reasons uh for taking the position why have you taken the position follow that up with a compelling example and close it by restating your original claim so for instance uh and here's another way of representing the same method which is say it explain it show it conclude it okay so when you start off by taking a position some of the expressions that you can use i think but i believe when you're stating the reasons you can start off your sentences with because the primary reason is or firstly and followed by reason one secondly followed by reason two and then when you're backing up your reasons with concrete evidence or examples you can use phrases such as for instance as seen in this incident so you can use phrases like that when you're restating your position at the end of your presentation or your script you can start off using phrases just so as i said all in all or clearly let's look and look at an example let's look at an example of the prep method so that we can understand this in a more detailed manner so the topic is germline genome editing via crispr should not be allowed by any government until the technology is fully developed that is the topic now this is a debatable topic and as we've already discussed you've already seen the prep method is ideal for when there is a debatable topic when there's a point that you strongly uh believe in and that you want to make strongly right so here i am taking a position i think that germline genome editing via crispr should not be allowed by any government until the technology is fully developed and i give my reason for it which is at this nasa stage of development of the crispr tool there are all two real risks of off-target effects that may destabilize generations to come i back it up with an example for instance chinese scientist hey john kiwi's experimental editing of the germline genes of two babies a couple of years ago was highly controversial within the scientific community because of how risky it was we do not yet know how this incomplete procedure will affect the children who have been operated on in the years to come now that i have given the example i go on to restate my original claim which is clearly germline gene editing is an extremely risky process because of which future human generations may face unintended consequences and it should not be encouraged until we know what we are working with right so the position backed up by reason and evidence followed by a restatement of the original claim now this can be a scripting strategy that you can use depending on the topic uh that you are a given to present if it is a topic that has two argumentative sides to it then you can choose one side find out what uh makes that side or that argumentative side a pretty strong argument and make your presentation based on that stance the second method is the past present future method now this method is ideal when you have to narrate events in a chronological order when you're trying to be informative or predictive about certain events that have happened in the past where they have come to now and how they're going to pan out in the future in such cases the past present future method can be very very useful so for instance if you're trying to make the case for jumping into a new market with an untested new product that you've developed you might begin by telling your corporate history uh of marketing successes working your way up to the present and closing with how you think that this product uh might see new highs new successes in the future so that would be a good way of narrating the story of your product and predicting where the product will go in the future this is if you've designed a product that has to be marketed now so let's look at an example of how the past present future method can be used and here an employee at an organization is giving an update regarding one of the initiatives that they had taken last year and looking at how this initiative will pan out in the future so let's begin last year we initiated the fast track plan we sped up the company's development efforts and rapidly increased market lines by introducing one product into the market per month we have been able to meet this monthly goal over the past 11 months consistently the quality of products too i am happy to notice better than before and we are receiving good feedback from customers now this is the uh present aspect where the plan has reached now what its effects have been and uh how it has positively affected the company right now there's a little bit of a negative aspect as well the only area that needs improvement is recruitment and employee training as we are unable to train employees fast enough to draw in to to join the fast track plan department right so the first point was about how the fast fast track plan was conceived how the company sped up its development efforts and how they put this plan into motion into execution the second point is about where the plan has taken them now what what its effects have been and what its may be negative effects have been as well the final point is a future oriented point i'm happy to announce that we will continue with the fast track plan for the next financial year we will also ensure that recruitment is done faster and more efficiently through more thoughtful outsourcing okay so the past present future method has been used very very effectively here the third method the third scripting strategy is the problem cause solution method now this structure works well for business presentations or policy presentations where you're making a recommendation to a government or an organization regarding how a particular task should be carried out so you state the problem you recognize the problem you state the problem you figure out the causes of that particular problem and then state those causes and then finally end your presentation by developing a solution and presenting the solution right so let's look at an example of the problem cause solution method as well suppose uh and the topic here is that there's the streaming service called flatnix which has been unable to break into the indian market and has not seen sufficient success in the indian market despite its worldwide popularity now the area manager within the flex company is trying to break down what the reason behind this uh problem is and what solutions we can think about we can develop and uh implement so as to solve this problem right so imagine this is the presentation that the area manager is making area manager of flatnix is nikki fletnick's despite its worldwide popularity and meteoric success has failed to make a significant impact on the indian market we need to address this immediately especially because india can become our biggest customer base right so here the problem has been stated and why we need to solve this problem has also been stated because india is a very big market for flatnix and flatnix needs to ensure that it can make the most of it then moving on to the courses the primary cause for the lack of adoption according to the survey we conducted was that there isn't enough local content to appeal to local customers to a local audience secondly the cost of the streaming service per month is too high and is not affordable for the average indian consumer who can choose among many other cheaper streaming services right so two causes have been given two important causes that are restricting or keeping indian consumers from adopting flight mix have been given moving on to the third part of the presentation or the script would be the solution which is firstly we could explore alternate pricing models such as a much cheaper mobile plan that can later be converted to a plan that works across all devices once trust is established between the company and the consumer secondly local content can be commissioned in collaboration with popular regional content creators on instagram and youtube across the country so those are the two solutions that the area manager is suggesting to solve the main problem of lack of adoption so problem cost solution method is again a very easy very quite foolproof method of uh being able to structure your script for your presentation well now this format has the advantage of following the natural thought process of the business world or the academic world which is about critical thinking and problem solving right so we recognize we have a problem we figure out the causes then we develop a solutions the way our brain works on a day-to-day basis and that's why this method also works really well so coming to the final scripting strategy that one can use which is not as much used in writing as it is in advertisements and pitches and product launch product launch presentations right uh aida method which stands for it's again necrostic which stands for attention interest desire action this works best when you're trying to persuade someone or something when you're trying to get them to say by your product or think the way you think or believe in a position that you believe in so it is a persuasive strategy right you grab the first you grab the attention of your audience with a statistic or an anecdote or a claim that is sufficiently surprising to you know take them into the presentation and then you raise your audience's interest by stating the benefits of the position that you're advocating then slowly you generate desire among the audience for the product that you're trying to market in a way that makes them want to adopt the same position or buy the product that you're marketing then finally conclude with uh a call to action so that the audience that you are presenting to can actually act on the desire that you've generated in them so it is predominantly an advertising strategy it is a marketing strategy uh which is seen in a lot of advertisements for instance right so for instance let's look at this very famous ad that we all um see whenever we are on youtube right and this is the ad for grammarly which is a spell checker and a grammar corrector on the internet right so the first line of the grammarly ad which is um quite famous starts like this writing's not that easy but grammarly can help so that's that's a very catchy short first sentence that draws the audience in that that gets their attention at least and pitches what grammarly is about right and then the second part of the advertisement is and the ad goes like this this sentence is grammatically correct but it's worthy and hard to read it undermines the writer's message and the word choice is bland right so here it is uh building interest among the obtains slowly the third part of the advertisement is grammarly's cutting edge technology helps you craft compelling understandable writing that makes an impact on your reader much better right so the desire aspect of it comes through in this sentence because it it gives the audience an image of what they could be doing in their daily lives much better if they had this uh grammarly spell checker right and then finally that at the advertisement ends with a call to action right are you ready to give it a try installation is simple and free visit grammarly.com today so there's a call to action interested consumers interested audience can go to the website and immediately download it right so that's the example of the aid we don't generally use it in simple presentations that do not require a lot of informative presentations or narrative presentations where persuasion is not the main objective but in cases where persuasion is the main objective the aida method works really well so the aida method works really well so that's it about the scripting strategies and how one can craft a good uh script so that the message the underlying message of your presentation can come across really well in the next session we will talk about how one can design good slides where to look for good templates and how one can deliver one's presentations well thank you so much and see you in the next session