Chapter 7 Designing Oral Presentations Summary

Chapter 7 Designing Oral Presentation Summary
Gina Taylor


As speakers we all know the importance of properly preparing our material far enough in advance so we may have sufficient time to rehearse and fine-tune our speeches. Unfortunately, this is not enough to assure that your speech or presentation is well received. Your speech preparation must also include gathering information about your audience and their needs. A well prepared speech given to the wrong audience can have the same effect as a poorly prepared speech given to the correct audience. They both can fail terribly.
It is critical that preparation efforts include some amount of audience analysis. The more you know and understand about your audience and their needs, the better you can prepare your speech to assure that you meet their needs. The introduction sets the tone of the entire speech. The introduction should be brief and to-the-point. As in any social situation, your audience makes strong assumptions about you during the first eight or ten seconds of your speech. For this reason, you need to start solidly and launch the topic clearly. Focus your efforts on