Welcome everyone to the (Make it mech) new series. There is a need of strong communication skills especially for Engineers to become a professional for the industry. This is the most common problem that I have seen in many people.
The biggest gap between the technical education and soft skills. How to give an effective presentation, How to prepare yourself before the interview, How to communicate effectively and most importantly how to present your idea effectively.
There are many sub factors in this and there are lots of things to consider. The communication skills, self-motivation, Decision-making skills, Leadership qualities, Teamwork and problem-solving skills, Brain storming, Creativity, Critical thinking and Time management. We will focus each and everything with some techniques. With the Engineering perspective, we must have some strong communication skills that are the need of industry.
“There are millions of competitors out there, How would you differentiate yourself from others”
What Unique Qualities do you have? So start Exploring yourself with unique qualities. Explain your strengths and create a strong exposure. Here is the list of Contents:
Contents
- How to Introduce Yourself
- Speech/Presentation Opening techniques
- Presentation/Speech main body
- How to Conclude/End the Speech/Presentation
01: How to introduce yourself in speech or presentation
Well, we don’t need to Introduce especially when we are in college or graduate level and giving an academic presentation. I’m not talking about the commercial or about business presentation. For students, there is no need to give an introduction to who you are and why you are here. In many cases, I have seen that the students introducing their selves in a most usual way that my name is XYZ and my topic is this…Don’t ever do this. For effective presentation we don’t need to be in a straight forward way.
There are some techniques. I’m not saying don’t ever call your name in some cases we need this but for academic we don’t have enough time for presentations nor we have that credibility level to introduce so start with a technique and Engage your audience.
“The Starting 5-10 minutes are the most most important and Crucial time for your presentation”
Prepare in a way that you can make a strong impact in these precious minutes. Your whole presentation depends on these starting minutes. Once you grab the attention then the flow will give you a way to an amazing end.
Now let’s see what are the Opening techniques. Start your speech/Presentation with these techniques to engage people and make a flow for the rest of the presentation.
02: Speech/Presentation Opening Techniques
There are some techniques for present opening. Don’t start presenting in a boring way. If your start will not be interesting you can not make a good impact through out your presentation. So always start with an interesting thing to Engage people at the first.
Here are some opening techniques. Use any of to start your presentation.
- Start with a Story Line
- Use Rhetorical Devices
- Quotes or Famous words
- Questioning
- Audience Review
- Personal Experience
- Facts or Figures
These are some techniques that I remembered now we will see more in coming posts. Let’s discuss how can we use these to make an effective presentation.
01: Start with a Story Line
Start with a story is a good way to relate your topic to an interesting story. Remember this important point when you are using this technique. Your story will not be long. It should be smaller just an overview what you are relating to. Just a story line doesn’t start telling a long and boring story.
The story line should be related to your topic and after that, you can easily relate your topic with what you were telling. The story could be anything, Your personal life experience, any historical event or anything.
02: Use Rhetorical Devices
This is the most effective way that I have found. I also use this technique in my presentations. Now, what are Rhetorical Devices? The Rhetorical Words/Sentences have some types.
For Example:
- Rhetorical Sentences
- Similar sound words
- Repetition of words/Adjectives
- Rhetorical Questions
There are other types also You can find through a search engine. I’m not discussing in a business communication language or Academic perspective. These techniques have some names.
Rhetorical sentences
The Rhetorical sentences are those effective sentences that use the same sentence three or more times. The best example is the famous speech of Martin Luther King: He uses
“I have a Dream ” In Before every sentence He uses these words I have a dream that….I have a dream that ….I have a dream that…..three or more times to give a professional and effective exposure.
We can use any of words we can make our own effective sentences like It is our responsibility to make presentations effective. It is our responsibility to create a quality content and It is our responsibility to create a good impact on society. Well, this is just the example that I have created now. You can search some example or create your own effective sentences according to your topic.
Similar Sound words
The similar sound words are the second thing in rhetorical devices. Use similar sound words at the start to make a good flow. Like This is the best explanation of my feelings now rate it shake it or break it. There are other good examples out there and it’s easy to make during making the presentation so this is a just example you can use it in a better way.
Repetition of Words/Adjectives
Use adjectives in a speech. They have almost same meanings but creates a good impact. like good great and best. Whatever it could be. Find some good examples on that.
Rhetorical Questions
Rhetorical Questions are those questions that have been asked but don’t need an answer. The understood questions. These questions are used just for creating an effect to the presentation. Like
Do I need to kill myself? The answer is surely not for me I think …may be yes… but these are the questions that require just attention not answer.
03: Quotes or Famous Words
This is the common way of starting the presentation. This is the easiest way of opening a speech. Use any famous Quote related to your topic. Use I a way that completely relates your feeling and with your topic.
04: Questioning
This is another great way of starting a presentation. Ask a question to the audience, the audience will engage if the question is interesting. Ask about anything like Did you that …?? or Do we have any technology expert present here. anything like this.
05: Audience Review
Ask for Audience review Like do you agree with this….or Do you believe that the world is going to an end?? anything like this but interesting.
06: Personal Experience
Share your personal life experience about the topic in an effective way. Tell in a way that people will listen to you and feel that you actually faced that scenario.
07: Facts and Figures
Start with the real facts and figures Like every single second there are 100 Suicide attempts made or anything interesting about your topic. This was not the real fact I just give an example.
Now, these were some techniques that can be used to make a presentation an effective and engaging start.
The Next thing is the main Body of the speech
03: Main Body
The main body of the speech has the Complete quality Content. Structure your presentation in a way that gives a short overview of the sub-topics or contents then start Explaining each and everything. Explain in a precise way. Don’t make things boring. We will discuss the structure of the presentation in coming posts.
04: How to Conclude/End a Presentation
The End of the presentation should not be sudden. Recall all the main points or give an overview what you have discussed.
“The Ending words are the most important words mostly the people Remember only the last words”
You can also use any quote or story as well to end up the speech. Or use any final saying words and people feel that your presentation is going to an end. We will discuss this in detail in another article. This article is going to be a little longer so we will see the rest of the things in coming posts.
Well, these are some tips for Effective presentation. I have skipped many other sub factors. We will discuss these later. Hope you liked it. Stay Connected for more interesting ideas and tips. Stay Happy and Stay Motivated.