Criteria for a Good Presentation

In one of my classes, we were taught on the side on how to give good and effective presentations. We were then asked to prepare a ten-minute long presentation on just about any topic that we like and present it to the class to show whether we have understood the lecture or not.

Today was my turn to present, along with eleven other classmates of mine. The topics varied from food to health to the environment and it was a good experience to hear what my classmates thought about my presentation.

So, what makes for a good presentation? Overall, it should be well prepared and you as presenter must have the confidence and knowledge about your topic, otherwise you will just stand there reading what you wrote on your slides.

Here are some of the criteria that is worth mentioning and one must take into consideration when making a presentation:

1. BODY LANGUAGE: Maintain eye contact. Are you open bearing and friendly?

2. TONE OF VOICE: Must be able to accentuate important words; not inflected or monotonous. Must be loud and clear.

3. WAKE-UPS / ATTRACT ATTENTION: Be able to address the audience personally, address personal experiences about the topic, ask rhetorical or real questions, report examples and include some humor.

4. STRUCTURE: Is the basic message clear? Is structure of presentation transparent? Is ear opener presented? Is final sentence convincing? Is the time kept?

5. MEDIA: What is the media used? Is the minimum text size requirement of 20pt used? Were there no more than 7 items per slide? Be able to use only catchwords or keywords and not full sentences. Is the rule of thumb: one slide per two minutes followed? No abbreviations and Powerpoint animations are allowed. Data presented using a graphic is always better than a table. Headings might contain the main message of the graphic shown.

I think I did a good job today as I received positive feedback from my classmates. With only a limited time to present on such a broad topic, I think I managed to squeeze the important data in. And I am glad it is now done and over with.

I hope the criteria will prove to be helpful to you too!

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