Practice is the best way to improve any presentation. But what does practice really mean? Is it just running through the whole thing a few times? Is it running through sections of it? And for each practice session, how do you make sure you’re improving? One of the tricky things about practicing a presentation is that it is such a big task. You know, it’s a 30 minute presentation. So, you start at the beginning, and you run through the whole thing. And, you feel like you did an okay job. Then you do it again. Maybe you felt like you did a better job the second time. Then you do it again. And maybe you felt like you did a worse job.
After 5 or 10 iterations, it’s really hard to know, well, what have I really improved? What have I actually gotten better at? And I think that’s one of the things that’s challenging for students. They think that the fastest way to get good at a presentation is to just practice it over and over and over again. And I think that’s a really good way to just burn out and get bored, because it’s a huge task. I would encourage students to think of a presentation as consisting of a lot of smaller tasks that need to be worked on. Things like clarity, pacing, slide management, transitioning, emphasis.
All of those things that contribute to a good presentation. And they all need to be worked on. And they probably all need to be worked on at different rates. But when you’re practicing the presentation as a whole, it’s really hard to see, well, what’s getting better, what’s getting worse, and what do I need to work on? So, I think the key is to break it down into smaller tasks. And then practice those tasks. So, let’s say you want to practice the beginning. So, you just want to practice the opening 30 seconds of your presentation. Well, just practice that. Just practice it.
Don’t practice the rest of it. Just practice the opening 30 seconds. Maybe practice the opening 30 seconds five times. Maybe practice it 10 times. But really focus on just that. Are you saying it clearly? Are you saying it confidently? Are you making the right emphasis? Are you using the right words? Just focus on that. Don’t worry about the rest of the presentation. And I think the same thing with transitions. So, maybe you struggle with transitions. Well, just practice your transitions. Just practice going from this idea to the next.
Or going from this slide to the next. And really think about what you need to do to make that transition smooth. Do you need to use a transition word? Do you need to pause for a second? Do you need to make a big gesture? Whatever it is, just practice that. Because I think one of the big problems with presentations is, students try to do too much at once. And so they’ll have these good ideas, but then they’ll falter when they’re trying to get from one idea to the next. And they’re losing the audience’s attention in those moments of transition. So, practicing transitions is huge. Slides are another big one. I think a lot of times, students make slides that look really good, but aren’t actually doing the work that they need to do.