This book is for university students, with at least a mid-intermediate level of English. It can be used as part of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course, either alone or with the companion volume Writing an Academic Paper in English. The chapters are independent so that EAP teachers and students can choose those sections that best fit their needs. This means that a course could range from a minimum of 20 hours, up to 60 hours or more. There is an introductory chapter that includes what role academics play in today’s world, where success is not just measured in terms of paper output and presentations at conferences, but also in involvement interdisciplinary projects and supporting society at large. Each chapter covers either a particular skill (e.g. preparing a script, pronunciation, visuals, how to begin and end a presentation) or the particular purpose of a specific moment in a presentation. For example, the final slide is designed not just to conclude and thank the audience, but is an opportunity to reach out for collaborations and assistance. The aims of each part of a presentation are also highlighted by comparisons with non-academic situations where similar skills are required. The course is highly practical with screenshots from real presentations given by PhD students. It is also designed to be fun to use.
Author(s): Adrian Wallwork
Series: English For Academic Research
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 238
Tags: Linguistics; Language Education; Theoretical Linguistics: Grammar
Introduction
Contents
Chapter 1: The key aims of a presentation
1.1 What skills do I need to be an academic? How do these relate to presentation skills?
1.2 How important are presentation skills?
1.3 What do you dislike about other people’s presentations?
1.4 What makes a good presentation?
1.5 What are your fears of giving presentations (in English)?
1.6 How important are first impressions?
1.7 What makes a presentation memorable?
1.8 How different from a scientific/technical presentation is a presentation given by a humanities/arts student?
Chapter 2: Resources: Presentations on TED and YouTube
2.1 What can I learn from watching others give presentations?
2.2 Should I use transcripts and subtitles?
2.3 What presentations should I watch?
2.4 What criteria should I use to assess the presentations that I watch?
2.5 Why do I need to speak slowly and clearly?
2.6 Where can I find tips on how to give a good presentation?
2.7 Analysis of two excellent PhD presentations available on YouTube
Chapter 3: Preparing a script before you create the slides
3.1 Why have a script?
3.2 Do I really need to have a script of the entire presentation?
3.3 What are the consequences of not having a script?
3.4 How can I use TED to help me write a script?
3.5 How can I make sure my script is perfect from an English point of view?
3.6 How can I use my script to help me with my pronunciation, intonation and tone?
3.7 How should I format/print my script?
3.8 Using Google Translate to translate your script
Chapter 4: Pronunciation, intonation, and speed of voice
4.1 Why do I need to improve my pronunciation?
4.2 How many words will I have to learn how to pronounce correctly?
4.3 Will my accent interfere with the audience’s understanding of my English? What other factors might prevent the audience from understanding me?
4.4 How can I check my pronunciation without the help of a teacher?
4.5 Subtitling. How can I check how well a native audience will understand my pronunciation?
4.6 When speaking, what kinds of words do I need to pay special attention to?
4.7 I am very worried that my audience will not understand my English pronunciation. Which sounds do I not need to worry about?
Chapter 5: Titles
5.1 What is the purpose of the title slide of a presentation?
5.2 How important are key words in my title?
5.3 I like very simple title slides with no images – to me they seem more professional. Is this a good approach?
5.4 I am a researcher in the Humanities / Arts. How can I make my title more specific?
5.5 Does my title have to be the first slide? Can I put my title in the second or third slide?
5.6 What is essential to include in my title slide? And what can I leave out to create a cleaner slide?
Chapter 6: Starting your presentation: giving the big picture
6.1 What is the most important thing I need to know about how to start my presentation?
6.2 How do researchers typically start their presentation? Is this the best way?
6.3 What are some good ways to start a presentation?
6.4 What kinds of questions can I ask my audience at the beginning of my presentation?
6.5 How should I talk about statistics as a way to introduce my research?
6.6 How can I begin by relating my research to my country?
6.7 My research area is very complex. How can I begin in a way that is not too academic and formal?
6.8 My presentation is not for a conference. How should I introduce myself?
6.9 What doesn’t the audience need / want to hear in my first 30 seconds?
6.10 How important is my English at the beginning of my presentation?
Chapter 7: Agenda
7.1 Do I need an agenda?
7.2 What should I call my agenda? What heading should I use?
7.3 How should I present and explain my agenda?
7.4 When explaining my agenda, should I also mention what I will NOT be covering?
7.5 Is it a good idea to start by giving the audience the ‘big picture’?
7.6 When explaining my agenda, how can I encourage the audience to listen carefully and possibly to collaborate with me in the future?
7.7 What tenses in English do I need when outlining my agenda to the audience?
Chapter 8: Explaining technical slides
8.1 Why do I need to keep my slides simple?
8.2 I need my audience to see a lot of detail. What can I do?
8.3 Graphs. How should I explain them?
8.4 Bullet points: How do I show them?
8.5 Bullet points to show statistics. How can I use them effectively?
8.6 Statistics. What kind of statistics do audiences like?
8.7 Statistics. How should I present them on my slides?
8.8 Statistics. Can I put different sets of statistics on the same slide?
8.9 Misleading or unclear statistics. What do I need to be aware of?
Chapter 9: The visual aspect of slides
9.1 Slide sorter. How can I get an overall view of my presentation?
9.2 Text. How can I limit the amount the number of words in a slide?
9.3 Headers/Slide titles. How big should they be?
9.4 Design Ideas: Are they useful?
9.5 Building a sequence of slides. I want to repeat an element from one slide in the next slide. How should I do this?
9.6 What kind of slides are overused and thus have little effect? Cartoons?
9.7 Should I use fun images?
9.8 Restrictions on the number of slides that can be used. What to do?
Chapter 10: The conclusions and final slide
10.1 How should I present my conclusions?
10.2 How can I connect my Conclusions slide with my Final slide?
10.3 What is the real purpose of the final/last slide of my presentation?
10.4 Why should I want the audience to contact me? How do I do so?
10.5 How can I use the limitations of my research to possibly set up a collaboration?
10.6 How can I improve my final slide?
10.7 How important is the final/last slide of a presentation?
Chapter 11: Q&A Session
11.1 I am nervous about the Q&A session. How can I prepare for it?
11.2 How should I answer questions at an online conference?
11.3 How should I answer questions at traditional offline conferences?
11.4 What non-technical questions might the audience ask?
11.5 What if I don’t understand a question?
Chapter 12: Doing presentations online
12.1 What are the pros and cons of doing presentations online?
12.2 How important is my appearance?
12.3 What about my voice? And body language?
12.4 How can I gain and keep audience attention online?
12.5 How can I have minimal text / diagrams in my slides, but also enable my audience to access a very detailed version of my presentation?
12.6 Should my slides be different just because I am online?
12.7 Where can I find tips for using Zoom to help me improve my online presentations?
12.8 What if I have problems connecting and my audience can only hear me but not see my presentation?
12.9 What are the typical mistakes of online presentations?
Chapter 13: Practising, improving, and getting feedback
13.1 How should I revise my slides?
13.2 What should I focus on while practising / rehearsing my presentation?
13.3 What should I focus on in the days before an online presentation?
13.4 How can I improve my presentation skills?
13.5 How easy is it to judge one’s own performance?
13.6 How should I ask for feedback while preparing my presentation?
13.7 What will I learn if I make a video of me doing my presentation?
13.8 How can I get feedback automatically when rehearsing?
Aims of this book
Other books in this series
Icons
FOR EAP TEACHERS: RATIONALE BEHIND THE BOOK AND HOW TO USE IT
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Index
