Sometimes, when you’re speaking to the public, it can enhance their understanding and acceptance of your topic and message if you develop a visual presentation to accompany your live speech. It doesn’t have to include a lot of details, but just a few well-selected images or a brief video that supports your topic and message can help to enhance your presentation.

• It helps your audience retain more of your message.
• It helps you divert some of their attention from you to your presentation.

If you’re someone less comfortable, as well, with speaking in front of others, the visual you develop will draw much of your listener’s attention, taking the focus off of you.

There are examples in the handout below of poor and better choices in developing the visual presentation to accompany your speech.

There are also instructions included for how to embed/attach the media source you will pick to accentuate your presentation.

Feedback from previous student samples:

• Be consistent when using capital letters in your title and headings. (If you use some capital letters in the phrase, be consistent.)
• Missing an End slide will cost you marks.
• Develop a Conclusion Slide before your End slide. (It will match your conclusion paragraph in your speech and round off your presentation, instead of ending abruptly.
• Use the space of each slide. Avoid leaving lots of empty space.
• Your speech focus is on explaining the WHY of your choice. Avoid waiting until the last or second-last slide of your visual presentation to explain the Why of your choice.
• Avoid selecting vague image choices. These can be generic “Equality” or “Difference” images as opposed to images that directly relate to visual or non-visual minorities.
• Avoid pasting your URL link into your slide as text. It should be able to Open when you click on it in the presentation.
• Check your slide template for small things that can accidentally be left in your presentation. A text box you’ve overlooked. Extra lines, etc.
• Make sure each slide has headings or phrases along with your images. These phrases help focus the viewer on what your message focus is in that part of the speech.
• Create an interesting title to your presentation. Avoid using your assignment title as your presentation title.
• Aim to make your text style, size, font choices consistent throughout your presentation.
• Design your slides so that there is some consistency between design features between slides.
• A title slide and an end slide aren’t really attached to your speech. They book-end it. Slides that support your paragraphs in your speech are the middle of your presentation. That means there should be more than 1-3 slides as middle.
• Make sure you select your media sample for your presentation that is specific enough to your focus; some have used very generic media sources.
• Avoid using paragraphs or whole sentences in your slides. Visual presentations are not for sentences.
• If you create a pattern in your presentation, maintain that pattern. (Ex: Explanation slide of visual minority, samples page of visual minority, examples in media; Explanation slide of non-visual minority, samples page of non-vis, examples in media.)
• Spell-check your work in your presentation.

Body Language During Speaking:
Also, if you haven’t stood up in front of a group to give a presentation before or for a while, you may forget some of the elements of that to consider like:

• eye contact with your audience – what nature looks like
• how to hold your body in a relaxed way, vs awkward tight way
• gestures that are natural-looking vs tense
• movement on your feet – not shifting weight back and forth a lot out of nervousness

To help you recognize uncomfortable body language vs comfortable, you’ll watch two speakers deliver their messages. They both talked about very personal topics, so should have both been as nervous as the other, but one displays that discomfort more than the other. You’ll maybe recognize these differences as you watch.