English Academic writing and presentations - Presentations

Presentations

Introduction

In light of the fact that you’ve already received a fair amount of training in English presentation skills, the purpose of this section is to provide you with a number of additional exercises to help you prepare for your presentation in November. Before giving your presentation, you might also want to review the materials you received in Advanced Skills I and II.

Grammar topics

• sking questions, question tags
• Handling difficult questions

Questions for discussion / reflection

• What makes a presentation “good”? What makes a presentation great?
• How often do you have to give presentations in English? Do you think you’ll need to do so more often in the future?

Assignment
Prepare a five-minute presentation (with visual aids) on a topic of your choice (e.g., a specific problem facing your company/industry and a possible solution to that problem.

You will be required to deliver you presentation at our face-to-face session in November. Each presentation will be followed by a brief question-and-answer (Q&A) session.

If you have any doubts as to whether your presentation topic is appropriate or viable, feel free to send me a message.

Presentation exercises

Read the following excerpt from an article on giving effective presentations.

Getting the audience to listen
It’s frustrating to be talking to someone when you can tell the person is not listening. Short of saying, “Please listen to me!” here are some ways to ensure that you will be listened to:
Start with the point you want to make and then give your support for it. If the person can’t figure out quickly why you are having the conversation, listening may be difficult. Examples might be, “I want to talk to you about the budget for our proposal,” or “We can make our goal if we just get a few more people to participate.”
Make eye contact, especially when you are stressing the key reason for the conversation. Eye contact is a visual handshake; it is the way you connect nonverbally with the other person. Don’t stare at the person, but regularly connect with your eyes. When you look at the person you are saying, “Pay attention to me.”
Point to an object or piece of paper you are holding (with a reason, of course) and the person will look at the object or paper as you discuss it. This will return attention to you if the person has been wandering away mentally, for the natural thing to do next is to look back at you. Use words which stress the importance of what you are going to say next. Such expressions include, “Probably most important of all is..,” “I can’t stress this enough..,” “Please keep the following in mind.. ,” “ I didn’t realize this was so important until ...”
Use the people in the audience’s names occasionally as you speak. Our names always attract our attention. We had a neighbor who always held my attention because he would use my name frequently in any conversation.
Refer to specific people, places, statistics, and situations as you talk. The more specific you are with your remarks, the more likely it is that the person will listen to you—especially if the person can identify with your specific references. For example, instead of “We need to get this information to all of our clients in the Midwest,” you might say “We need to get this information to our clients in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, and Minneapolis.” Certainly listening to the other person first is most important, but you want to be heard as well. Use these suggestions and your listener will be encouraged to pay close attention. Source: presentationmagazine.com

Questions for reflection / discussion

• Do you agree or disagree with the points the author makes?
• Does it (or should it) work the same way in Austria?
• Are there other factors that the author fails to mention?

Earlier in the same article, the author recommends the following:
A major way to remain unforgettable to an audience is a “hook” : something unique about you or an uncommon approach to a common subject.

Task
Have you seen people use this device effectively in a presentation? Where, when and how? Think of examples of “hooks” which might make your presentation more memorable.

Transformation exercise
Read the abstract below and rewrite it as a spoken mini-presentation, or as the introduction to a longer presentation. For extra credit, you can also record yourself giving the presentation (sound / video) and submit it via the Moodle platform.

Many companies offer websites that enable customers to design their own individual products, which the manufacturer can then produce to order. To date, the economic value of products self-designed using mass customization (MC) toolkits has been attributed to the two factors: preference fit achieved (which should be as high as possible) and design effort (which should be as low as possible). On the basis of literature on behavioral decision making, we suggest a third factor, namely the awareness of being the creator of the product design. In the course of five different studies, we provide experimental evidence that this “I designed it myself“ effect creates economic value for the customer. Regardless of the two other factors, self-designed products generate a significantly higher willingness to pay. This effect is mediated by feelings of accomplishment and moderated by the outcome of the process as well as the individual’s perceived contribution to the self-design process. These findings have important implications for MC companies: It is not enough merely to design MC toolkits in such a way that preference fit is maximized and design effort is minimized. To capture the full value of MC, toolkits should also elicit “I designed it myself” feelings .

Tips

• You do not have to include all of the information from the abstract.
• Imagine you are presenting the results to non-experts; can you give them a general idea of what the paper is about?

Key language and grammar exercises

Asking questions

General questions: Fill in the blanks

1.                               I ask you a question?
2. Would you expand a little                               this point?
3. May I p                               a few w                               at this point?
4. What                               did you mean by that?
5. If I understood you c                               , you said that ...
6. I w                               if you could tell us ...
7. If you don’t mind, I’d like to                               a question.

Questions: Word order exercise
Put the words in order to form grammatically correct questions

1. exactly mean what by did that you?
2. precise for do year figures have the you last?
3. how at did that arrive figure you?
4. would repeating sorry you that mind?
5. did that decision when make we?
6. involved last who project in was the year?
7. any a chance by replacement we there is find could June 15th?
8. can evidence that provide you for?
9. failed many have their meet how they times to targets?
10. are comparison the proposal what of to the benefits your in status quo?

Rhetorical questions
Examples

• So, what are the pros and cons of this plan?
• But how can we ensure higher quality of service at the same time?
• Now, can we identify any room for improvement?
• Why would we want to do that?

Rhetorical questions: Transformation exercise
Rewrite the following phrases/headings as rhetorical questions

1. Measures planned for 2011
2. Problems we can expect during the migration stage
3. Main advantages of the new system
4. Best solution to our problem
5. Key factors influencing our decision
6. Best time to integrate new features
7. Things that could possibly go wrong

Question tags (or how to say “…, oder?” in English)
A “tag question” is basically a statement followed by a question, often in the same sentence. In other words, the question is “tagged on” to the statement. The question tag always takes the opposite form of the statement (negative then positive / positive then negative).

Examples
Positive then negative

1. It’s one of the main problems facing our industry today, isn’t it?
2. We’ve had a great year, haven’t we?
3. He had to take the test again, didn’t he?
4. You know the answer, don’t you?
5. They can make it to the meeting, can’t they?
6. I am right, aren’t I?
7. You will come to the conference, won’t you?

Negative then positive

8. He didn’t work for them long, did he?
9. I’m not late, am I?
10. We shouldn’t do that, should we?
11. He wouldn‘t try such a thing, would he?

Note: If the statement contains one or more auxiliary verbs and a main verb, then the first auxiliary is used in the question tag (see Nos. 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11 above).

A few special cases

You have to be there, don’t you?	(you [do] have to be there, ...)
I have been listening, haven’t I?	(use the first auxiliary verb)
Nothing showed up on your screen, did it? You can never really know for sure, can you?	(sentences using nothing, nobody, never, etc. are considered negative)
Let’s go, shall we?	“let’s” is short for “let us”
We’d better get moving, hadn’t we?	(we had better get moving)

Depending on your intonation, a tag question may not sound like a real question, but actually more like a statement:

• Rising intonation - real question
• Falling intonation - more like a statement

Example 2 would be a good candidate for falling intonation, especially if you’re completely sure it’s been a great year.

Answering tag questions
You generally answer these questions affirmatively or negatively based on the truth of the situation.

Examples

• It’s one of the main problems facing our industry today, isn’t it? Yes, it is.
• I’m not late, am I? No, you’re not / Yes, (in fact) you are.
• He didn’t work for them long, did he? No, he didn’t. / Yes, he did.
• We shouldn’t do that, should we? Yes, we should. / No, we shouldn’t.

Exercise: Question tags
Add a question tag to the following sentences

1. I’m not bothering you,                               ?
2. They will show up later,                             ?
3. He didn’t say anything,                               ?
4. That came as a surprise,                               ?
5. We would already be there now,                               ?
6. They couldn’t help themselves,                           ?
7. He hasn’t been out sick in years,                             ?
8. You haven’t finished yet,                               ?

Handling difficult questions

Handling difficult questions
Sometimes you might need to avoid answering questions, or you might just want to “buy some time” in order to consider your response. The expressions below will help you in this context.

Useful phrases for fielding questions / “Buying time”

• I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.
• I don’t know off the top of my head.
• I think I may have answered that earlier.
• Interesting. What do you think?
• Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?
• I think we’re actually talking about several questions here.
• To be honest, I’m afraid that raises a different issue.
• I’m afraid I don’t have the information with me.
• Good point.
• Can I get back to you on that?
• Well, as I mentioned before, ...
• I can’t comment on that, I’m afraid.
• I wish I knew.
• I’m glad you asked me that.
• This goes back to what I said earlier.

Optional task: Record yourself reading the expressions aloud and send me your recording (sound only) via the Moodle platform.

Fielding difficult questions: Fill in the blanks
Fill in the blanks with the words from the box below:

up - as - assuming - at - by - good - in - afraid - on - rather - think - sorry - thing - understood - asked - in

1. I’d                               not comment                               that qquad                               detail right now.
2. I’m ,                           I can’t really say                              the moment.
3. It depends on what you mean                               ...
4. It’s not                               simple as that.
5. That’s a                               question. In fact, I’ve often                               myself the same .
6. I’d be interested                               knowing what the rest of you 
7. Let me see if I                               your question ...
8. I’m                               I don’t understand what you mean.
9. Am I right in                               that that’s what you meant?
10. Could you please speak                               (louder) so that everyone can hear?

Additional exercises

Collocations and idioms
Complete the following extracts from a presentation using the appropriate forms of make, do, give and take.

First of all, I’d like to 1)                               this opportunity to welcome you all to our new plant here in Vienna. In a few moments, you’ll be 2)                             tour of the main laboratories, which will 3)                          you a general overview of the research we’re currently 4)                               . You’ll also be able to see some of the many improvements we’ve 5)                                to the IT unit. In each department you visit this morning, there will be people on hand to answer any questions you may have and to help you 6)                               the most of your day with us.
Perhaps I could just 7)                     a few minutes to 8)                               you the background to the work we’re 9)                             in the search for a vaccine, because this is an area where we’re finally starting to 10)                                  real progress. As you know, it 11)                             time to get a drug through pre-clinical trials, and it’s far too early to say whether we’ve 12)                             the major breakthrough we’ve all been hoping for. But what we have done is 13)                                 an important step towards finding a preventive solution to the epidemic.

Spot the errors
Can you find the errors in the sentences below?

1. Getting rich today is just as difficult like it was 100 years ago.
2. Are you always taking your vacation in June?
3. Our problem is that we know too less people.
4. Stop to smoke – it’s bad for your health.
5. If I wouldn’t have seen that car, I’d have been killed.
6. He is working with this company since five years.
7. That is just another trick of them.

Irregular verbs
Fill in the missing forms of the following verbs

German	Infinitive	Past tense	Past participle
(fallen)
	feel
		dealt
			broken

Prepositions

1. I’ll be out of town                               business next week.
2. I’m quite capable                               translating this presentation without your help.
3. How did she react                               the news?
4. There’s no point                               trying to persuade him.
5. I don’t think people are aware                               all the implications.
6. This product is very popular                               retired people.
7. We specialize                               developing bespoke software for the telecommunications industry.
8. Despite a sharp decrease                                the price of our products, our sales volume has not risen.
   

Pronunciation check
Can you pronounce the following words correctly?

• preferable
• to present (v)
• to produce
• to recall (v)
• prefer
• present (n)
• produce (n)
• recall (n)