Five Tips for Giving Oral Presentations

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1. Use simple, easy to understand visuals.
   Visuals often help make a concept clearer than mere words can. This is especially true of difficult to understand and/or visualize scientific or technical information.

2. Use clear and natural body language.
   Often, if you can "show what you mean" via body language — hand gestures, body stance — it can make a concept more clear. It is very important, however, that the gestures seem natural and not forced. Also, using body language can put you and your audience at ease. When people are more relaxed, they can convey and understand scientific and technical information more easily.

3. Use easy to hear language, make it more conversational.
   Many times words that are perfectly understandable when read, can be misunderstood when heaard. Also, a person who is reading can always go back and read an unclear sentence, however, when someone is talking, they can’t go back and listen to the sentence again. This is even more important when you are trying to convey difficult information.

4. Keep the speech simple — no more than three to five ideas, three being better than five.
   No matter what the topic, people can only understand so much. Much more than three ideas in a speech, and people will either loose interest, track or both.

5. Use vocal variety.
   Vocal variety adds personality, interest, and emphasis to your speech. It keeps people interested, which is very important when discussing technical information.