hello my Socratic uh friends we're here to help you be a great student and an important part of being a great student is sharing what you've learned and that means public speaking did you know that public speaking is the number one phobia people are more afraid of speaking
in front of an audience than dying I know it's completely irrational seriously what's the worst that could happen you get booed off the stage they throw Rotten Tomatoes at you rationally death is far more serious than making a speech that's just it phobias aren't rational it literally feels
like your life is at stake if you're afraid of public speaking you can take some comfort in knowing you're not alone today let's fight this fearsome foe we will defeat the discussion demons pummel PowerPoint presentations into a pulp the cracker friends assemble your weapons of dissertation quick reminder
if you enjoyed this type of practical advice from Socratic aply z' help us continue become our patron on patreon every bit of support helps if every viewer donated a dollar a month I might be able to buy a new sweatshirt first consider what kind of presentation you're going
to give the most common types of presentations are roundtable discussions panel discussions and solo presentations usually with slides each one of these will mean a different kind of work you need to do both to prepare and when you are actually giving your presentation have you been asked to
lead a roundtable that means there will be give and take with all the participants you won't be the only one in the hot seat that should take a lot of the pressure off table discussions are one type of presentation you'll be asked to give once you start to
specialize in school studying in smaller groups roundtable presentations are also very common once you enter the workforce for instance you may be asked to present your team's progress on a certain project many science labs have journal clubs where the members take turns presenting research papers for round table
presentations you should have a list of talking points prepared in advance but remember you shouldn't be the only one talking open the meeting with a quick overview of what you plan to cover and remind your audience that this is a group activity if you're leading this presentation part
of your job is to facilitate discussion make it easier for people to participate by showing them you're listening to what they say your body language helps a lot here turn a little towards the speaker give them your attention if people are still reluctant to speak up tell them
explicitly what kind of interaction you're looking for for example you can say I'd like to hear what's the first thing that jumps to mind when you see the numbers in figure four or who has a different interpretation of the results of the study keeping your audience involved will
make the time fly by not just for you but for everyone participating are you going to appear on a panel this is a common activity in a lot of jobs attending conferences and participating in panel discussions in front of an audience is a way to share your expertise
again the nice thing about taking part in a group discussion is that some of the pressure is taken off because you won't be expected to speak the entire time keep that in mind if you're nervous you're all in this together a few minutes chatting together before the official
panel begins can go a long way towards fostering this sense of camaraderie most panel presentations will feature a moderator who will decide which topics to cover and call on participants to speak if possible the panelists should try to connect with the moderator ahead of time so they have
a chance to prepare some remarks about the major talking points I'm not saying you should go up there and read from a bunch of note cards just do a little background work so you don't show up completely unprepared you should also devote a little extra time to think
about what other topics could come up during discussion and points you might like to make panel presentations are a team effort so be a good team player don't rely on the other panelists that carry you do your part to keep the discussion going answer the moderators questions succinctly
and leave time for your fellow panelists to speak as well make sure to stay engaged don't zone out when it's someone else's turn to talk give them the courtesy of actively listening to their points what they say may influence your thoughts going forward panel discussions sometimes out of
hand with one person dominating the conversation if the moderator is experienced they will ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard but if you see someone completely hogging the limelight it doesn't hurt to jump in and say something like I'd love to hear Jessica's thoughts on the
subject because she led this related project last year and finally the biggest challenge of them all a solo talk all by yourself we're going to assume you're using a presentation program like PowerPoint or Google slides people complain a lot about PowerPoint but we remember back in the day
when you had to actually make slides camera slides it was a whole production you had to take pictures with a camera and then go to a shop to have them developed so you how do I have all your slides finish like a week in advance not like now
when you can keep tinkering with your slides right up to the time to do your presentation oh and once you got your slides back you had to load them into a carousel in the right orientation for the projector and you had to be really careful not to jostle
it or your slides would fall out and then they would be all out of order and upside down I might have a few scars from the experience we've really come a long way with technology presentation software or like PowerPoint has proven to be both essential and easy to
use badly let's talk about how to use these tools well to build a great talk it all starts with an outline once you know the topic for your presentation jot down the major ideas you'd like to share next start putting them in order how does one point logically
follow from a previous point what questions are raised and then how do you answer them think of it like a conversation where you supply both the questions and the answers in a way that someone listening can easily follow along how many major points do you think you can
make in a talk we recommend aiming from 10 to 20 now we have seen talks with 50 slides a hundred slides I'm sorry that's just ridiculous you may as well be watching an action film with a cut every three seconds but how did we arrive at this 10
to 20 number consider how much time you have for your talk and then subtract five to ten minutes or so to leave time for questions at the end so if you have a 30 minute time slot for your presentation you have 20 minutes to present how many slides
is that 10 to 20 because you need generally one to two minutes at a minimum to do a slide or a topic justice what goes on the slide here right here is where most presentations go off the rails slides are a visual aid they are not a transcript
of your talk keep the text to a minimum and pick a visual that captures your point this can be literal a graph a table of data or metaphorical with a photograph or illustration that lets the audience feel your point the font needs to be very large aimed for
30 point font as a minimum don't bother with bulleted lists it's one of those default PowerPoint things that really are unnecessary right the one thing you want your audience to remember it doesn't have to be a full sentence when it comes time to present you have a simple
job for every slide explain what it means be careful and deliberate this is especially important when presenting graphs we've seen so many people slap up a graph and expect the audience to immediately know what it means walk your audience through this information start with reading the axis labels
here we have the concentration on the y axis and time on the x axis next describe the trend in the data notice the initial high rate of reaction falling precipitously and then the long tail as the reaction gradually slows down finally state where you conclude from this graph
we conclude that this is a second order process should you memorize your speech no please don't do this if you really know your stuff you should be able to deliver the information naturally by all means write down the facts you must get exactly right but then save them
in your own words that's why writing the key fact on the slide is so helpful you don't want to write a full sentence on the slide but if you have something like 75% of clients aged 55 and over on a slide you can say that any number of
ways remember teachers know this there's a very real limit to how much information your audience can take in at one sitting don't feel like you have to tell them everything leave them wanting more if by some miracle after you have carefully presented your ten to twenty slides and
you have more than ten minutes left for questions you can prepare one extra slide as food for thought something that is peripheral and that you find interesting and would like to investigate in the future but if you're out of time stop don't go over time into the next
speakers time slot that's just bad form socratic of friends has this dispelled some of your fears we know that is curious thinking people you're going to have valuable information to share with the world we hope these tools help you find your voice next time you have to give
a presentation put these methods to the test and let us know how it goes sharing knowledge is an important part of being a great student [Music] you
