🎤 Presentation Skills: Finding Your Theme
This is a self-paced lesson — work through it at your own speed, there's no timer. You'll cover delivery technique, slide design, and a structure framework, then choose a presentation theme that fits your own background, and finish by submitting a PowerPoint file.
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🗣 Delivery & Body Language
How you say it matters as much as what you say. Keep these in mind when you practise:
- 🗣 Vary your pace and volume — slow down for key points, speed up through less important detail.
- ⏸ Use a deliberate pause instead of filler words ("um", "like"). Silence sounds confident, not awkward.
- 👀 Make eye contact across the room — or look at the camera, if you're presenting online — instead of reading your slides.
- 🙌 Use open, purposeful gestures. Keep your hands visible and avoid crossing your arms.
- ❓ Open with a rhetorical question, a quick statistic, or a short story to pull the audience in.
- 🧭 Signpost clearly: tell the audience what's coming next before you move on to it.
- 😌 Rehearse your opening line until it's automatic — the first 30 seconds set the tone for everything after.
🎨 Slide Design Principles
Slides support you — they shouldn't replace you. Apply these rules:
- 📐 One idea per slide. If the slide title needs "and" in it, split it into two slides.
- 🔢 Follow the 6×6 rule: roughly 6 bullet points per slide, 6 words per bullet, maximum.
- 🔠 Body text no smaller than 24pt; titles big enough to read from the back of the room.
- 🎨 Pick one consistent template — same fonts, colours and layout from first slide to last.
- 📊 Replace blocks of text with a chart, diagram, or image wherever you can.
- ⚖️ Use high contrast — dark text on a light background (or vice versa). Never light grey on white.
- 🧱 Overall shape: title slide → agenda → 2–3 content sections → summary → thank you / questions.
🧭 Presentation Framework
You've been asked to give a 5–7 minute presentation to colleagues or stakeholders, introducing a topic from your own professional field. Structure it like this:
Opening (30–60s): a hook (a question, statistic, or short story) + a one-line agenda.
Body (3–5 min): 2–3 clearly signposted sections, each backed by one strong visual.
Closing (30–60s): a one-sentence summary, a clear call to action, and an invitation for questions.
📚 Useful signposting language
"Today I'm going to talk about…" · "By the end of this presentation, you'll understand…"
"Let's move on to…" · "That brings me to…" · "Building on that point…"
"To sum up…" · "The key takeaway is…" · "I'd be happy to take any questions."
💡 Find Your Theme
Your presentation should be on a theme connected to your own background. Some starting points by field:
📤 Build & Submit Your Presentation
Prepare a PowerPoint presentation (5–7 minutes) on the theme you chose, applying the delivery and design principles from this lesson.
- ✅ Title slide + agenda
- ✅ 2–3 signposted sections, with one visual-led slide per section
- ✅ Summary, call to action, and a questions slide
- ✅ Slides follow the 6×6 rule and use one consistent template
.pptx to the Teams / OneDrive folder for this unit using the button below.
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