Greetings everyone! It is quite common to have a presentation as one of the assessments. Sometimes, designing the slides to make it look visually appealing and pleasant may take some time. Not just that, it is important to have simple yet informative points in your slides too. Be it individual or group presentation, having a good presentation is essentially important as a law student because it brushes up our communication skills. Presenting to people may be a nightmare and quite challenging if you do not have adequate preparation. Today, I will be sharing on how to step up your presentation game!
1. RESEARCH AND PLAN YOUR PRESENTATION
In most presentation assessments, lecturers tend to do it in groups. Hence, it is important to discuss and delegate equal job scopes for everyone in the group. To ensure everyone understands the whole topic clearly, we shall first research and discuss with each other. Discussion with the teammates will give everyone a better clarity of the topic apart from reading secondary cases. Remember to take note of cases' important portions, keywords, and arguments.
2. PREPARING THE PRESENTATION
When you are clear on the sub-topics that you are going to present, you can start laying down the gist of your presentation. If possible, put your points as minimal as you can and keep it simple. Lengthy points will cause the audience to take some time to read the slides on their own and consequently, they would not be able to focus on your speech. Do remember that the slides are used to reinforce your presentation speech so both of your visual aids and speech shall be related to each other.
As for the presentation speech, this is the crucial part. Since the information you might want to say during the presentation could be a lot, the best way to make sure your audience received the information is by using short sentences. With that being said, avoid using unfamiliar words and replace them with words that are easier to understand. Other than that, plan your speech within the allocated time for your speech. It allows you to speak at a reasonable pace and ensures a clear delivery. Plus, if you plan well for your duration of the speech, each member of the group will get to present their points in their allocated time too!
Do not read from the slides. I know presenting in front of the class could be nerve-wrecking therefore, it is not a crime to have your own notes of your speech! Jot down or highlight important parts of your speech so it is easier to present while maintaining your eye contact on the audience.
3. PREPARING THE PRESENTATION SLIDES
The template of the slides depends on your topic. Generally, I would suggest :-
In professional presentations, avoid using colourful and informal slides templates. Instead, choose or design simple and well organised templates.
Avoid using fancy fonts and save it for other occasions. For presentation purposes, use simple fonts like Alata, Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana consistently.
When highlighting important points, use contrasting colours like red or green, bold the points or do both!
Designing your slides should not be a big problem now as we have a long list of websites that offer you free presentation templates. My favourite website is Canva as it lets you pick and add your own desired graphics. Not just that, Canva has Team features where you can design together with your team. Although most designs require you to have a premium account, fret not, I’ll share with you how to get the account for free!
Canva: https://www.canva.com/
How to get Canva Premium for free?
Log in to your UiTM Student email.
Click on ‘Sign up now’
Sign up using your own UiTM Student email.
Verify the verification email and done!
Other than Canva, I would also recommend SlidesGo and Slides Mania. These websites are my go-to websites as most slides are complete with their own points so you just have to change the points according to your topic.
Slides Mania: https://slidesmania.com/
SlidesGo: https://slidesgo.com/
Last but not least, practising presentation skills may not be important now but the skill is worth pursuing. Good luck with your presentation!
Thanks for sharing. I suggest adding https://www.rxslides.com/ as a platform for developing medical PowerPoint templates for medical professionals