Tips for giving a talk

Soon we will be scheduling your mini talks. These are some tips to get you thinking. Use some of these ideas on Monday when you present your research on 'women in politics.'

Engage with your Audience

Introduce yourself
Smile and sound interested
Develop eye contact
Tell audience the structure of your talk
Use the right language for your audience
Maintain right pace
Use your voice and pauses to move between points
Use notes to move you from one point to next

Dealing with Nerves

Be well prepared – that will make you feel more confident about your material
Use prompt cards if you can.

Breathe deeply before you start, this slows your heart rate down and you should feel less nervous
Look at your audience – despite what you may think, this does calm you.
Smile and look relaxed, it should create a more relaxed atmosphere for you (and your audience).

Beginnings and endings
It is worth dwelling for a moment on the importance of the beginning and ending of your talk. Some public speakers say that you should structure your talk by:

1. ‘saying what you are going to say’,
2. then ‘saying it’,
3. then ‘saying what you said’.

Inviting and responding to questions
Prepare beforehand for the moment when you have finished and you want to invite questions. How will you actually conclude your talk, and how will you then ask the audience if they have any questions? A common ‘awkward’ moment in talks is when the speaker has finished, and people do not know whether they can then ask something. How will you avoid this?

Likewise, if you receive no questions from your audience, what will you do? You could ask one or two yourself. For example, were you clear about…? and so on. Or, if you are brave, you could ask the audience specific questions with a view to determining how much they have taken in – in other words, assess the effectiveness of your presentation. Think ahead about how you will handle this.