Identifying the purpose
The first thing you need to do is to identify the purpose of your presentation. This involves consideration of two questions:
who is my audience? and
what do I want to achieve?
In order to determine what you want to achieve, you will first need to clarify your goals and understand your role in the presentation.
If, for example, you are asked to make an oral presentation, in a small group session, to other students, the purpose (in terms of what you want to achieve) might be to share your perspective on the topic. Your role in this case will be that of a teacher and will involve imparting information, explaining concepts or ideas and stimulating the group’s understanding. If, however, your presentation requires you to participate in a debate, your role will be that of an advocate and you will concentrate on developing a compelling argument and persuading the audience to share your point of view. In each case you will want the audience:
to understand what you are saying; and
be interested in what you say.
Additionally, in some situations at least, you will want to
convince your audience by the quality of your arguments.
You will, however, only achieve these goals if you take into account the expectations and needs of your audience.
People will listen to what you have to say when the subject matter is intrinsically interesting to them, or where you make it interesting to them by arousing their curiosity.
Audiences will also listen to material that is likely to be useful to them. If you have a free choice of topic you might choose one that you think will interest the audience. If the topic is specified, you can still take a particular stance on the topic to engage the audience’s attention. If your presentation requires expert knowledge of a subject, and the majority of your audience lack that expertise, pitch your presentation at a level that most people will understand. Keeping an eye on the audience’s body language will often help you to keep track of whether they are following you, or whether you need to explain the technical aspects of the topic more clearly. Always bear in mind the simple fact that if you forget the needs of your audience, they will also forget you.Sometimes your audience will be a mixed group in terms of ability and topic interest. When this happens, it is important to decide which groups in the audience are most valuable to you. Imagine, for example, that you are a student approaching graduation, who is appearing in the final of a prestigious mooting competition, and that the case concerns an issue of shipping law (which is an area of law in which you ultimately wish to specialise). The first, and most important, person to consider is the moot judge, even if you know that the audience also contains some first year students (who know nothing about shipping law), as well as a number of shipping law practitioners, who are your potential employers. Not surprisingly, most people, faced with such an audience, would focus on the judge, in the hope that this will deliver the double reward of winning the competition while also impressing the practitioners. (The topic of mooting is discussed in more detail at pp. 235–241.)
At a more mundane level, where a course is assessed by oral presentation, it is worth emphasising that a vital part of the purpose of your presentation will be to comply with the marking criteria and presentation rubric produced by your college or university. It is important to discover how your presentation will be evaluated, particularly in terms of the weighting between subject knowledge, analysis of the topic, and oral presentation skills.
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