The structure of a presentation includes which three of the following elements?
After studying hundreds of speeches, I’ve found that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up a conflict that needs to be resolved. Show
That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently — to move from what is to what could be. And by following Aristotle’s three-part story structure (beginning, middle, end), they create a message that’s easy to digest, remember, and retell. Here’s how it looks when you chart it out: And here’s how to do it in your own presentations.Craft the Beginning After you set that baseline of what is, introduce your vision of what could be. The gap between the two will throw the audience a bit off balance, and that’s a good thing — it jars them out of complacency. For instance: What is: We fell short of our Q3 financial goals partly because we’re understaffed and everyone’s spread too thin. What could be: But what if we could solve the worst of our problems by bringing in a couple of powerhouse clients? Well, we can. Once you establish that gap, use the rest of the presentation to bridge it Develop the Middle Let’s go back to that Q3 update. Revenues are down, but you want to motivate employees to make up for it. Here’s one way you could structure the middle of your presentation: What is: We missed our Q3 forecast by 15%. What could be: Q4 numbers must be strong for us to pay out bonuses. What is: We have six new clients on our roster. What could be: Two of them have the potential to bring in more revenue than our best clients do now. What is: The new clients will require extensive retooling in manufacturing. What could be: We’ll be bringing in experts from Germany to help. As you move back and forth between what is and what could be, the audience will find the latter more and more alluring. Make the Ending Powerful So if you’re wrapping up that Q3 update from above, you might approach it this way: Call to action: It will take extra work from all departments to make Q4 numbers, but we can deliver products to our important new clients on time and with no errors. New bliss: I know everyone’s running on fumes — but hang in there. This is our chance to pull together like a championship team, and things will get easier if we make this work. The reward if we meet our Q4 targets? Bonuses, plus days off at the end of the year. By defining future rewards, you show people that getting on board will be worth their effort. It’ll meet their needs, not just yours. This is the fourth post in Nancy Duarte’s blog series on creating and delivering presentations, based on tips from her new book, the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Think of a movie that has breathtaking special effects but no storyline. Does it have any chances of becoming a blockbuster? Of course not. The same is true with a PowerPoint presentation. No matter how beautiful the visuals of your slide deck are, it will never be a success if it doesn’t follow a logically sound structure. In this post, we’ll cover the standard structure of a PowerPoint presentation – what sections it should include – and provide some practical tips on how to arrange the slides and implement these ideas technically. Use these practical guidelines to organize your slides in a clear and simple way and save time on their development. But first, let’s see why your PPT deck needs to be guided by a structure. Why Is Structuring a Presentation Important?A sound deck structure is crucial for audience understanding. When the information is presented logically, it’s much easier for a viewer to get the message. The research supports this idea – it shows that people are 40% more likely to retain structured information than unstructured information. If you’re going to accompany your slideshow with an oral presentation, a good structure is also important for you as a speaker. It will help you feel confident, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences, so you’re more likely to win your audience over. What Is the Typical Presentation Structure?A good presentation always has a story to tell and, like any narration, it consists of three basic parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Let’s look at each part in greater detail with some examples. IntroductionThe introduction sets the tone for the entire presentation and explains what the audience will come away with after viewing it. Here are the slides you may need to add in the intro:
The bodyThis is the main part of your presentation, which should keep the promises you made in the introduction. This is where you explain your topic and present all your information. Depending on the nature of your presentation, divide it into segments/points. Arrange your points in a logical order and then provide information to support each of them. There are many different ways to organize your key points, for example:
ConclusionA good conclusion summarizes the key points you made or highlights what the audience should have learned. It clarifies the general purpose of your presentation and reinforces the reason for viewing it. Here are the slides you may want to include:
Tips for Structuring a Presentation in PPTNow that you know which parts a typical presentation should consist of, let’s see how to structure it in PowerPoint. Watch this video tutorial or continue reading the article. 1. Combine slides into sectionsWhen working with a large PowerPoint presentation (PPT), you can create sections that can be collapsed and expanded. This will help you keep slides organized and facilitate navigation in editing mode. To do that, follow these steps:
As well, you can access these settings by choosing Slide Sorter under the VIEW tab. This kind of segmentation is a great way to overview the logical flow of your slides all at once and see if there are any changes required. For example, you may decide to break one slide into two or three, or the other way around. 2. Use the Outline ViewOne other way to structure a PowerPoint presentation in the editing mode is to use Outline View. You can choose it from the VIEW tab. This view doesn’t display sections, but it shows the title and main text of each slide, which can give you a quick overview of the presentation contents. Here you can go through the entire text and edit it instantly. You can also work with text (on the left) and slides (on the right) simultaneously, as the latter is shown on the right side of your screen. Note that, to be displayed in an outline, text needs to be typed in a text placeholder, not a text box. A text placeholder is a box with the words “Click to add text” or “Click to add title”, and it appears when you choose a standard layout. You can also use Outline View to promote bullet text to titles and the other way around. To do that, right-click on a relevant title or text and select the Promote or Demote options. Be attentive about demoting a title, as this will delete the original slide and move its title and text to the adjacent slide. PowerPoint only allows users to promote and demote text, not entire slides. Therefore, there’s no possibility to change the hierarchical order of slides. 3. Create a table of contentsAll the aforementioned tips help you organize a presentation when formatting it. However, it’s crucial that your viewers can easily navigate through the presentation too. One sure way to provide them with this opportunity is to create an interactive and structured table of contents. Though there’s no native automatic outline in PowerPoint, it can be created manually:
You’ll need to repeat this procedure to link all the chapters to corresponding slides. For more information, read this step-by-step guide on how to add a hyperlink in PowerPoint. Now all the chapters can be accessed from a single table of contents, which is very convenient. However, you will also need to link them back to that unifying page. You can do this by inserting an Action Button on every slide of your presentation in Slide Master mode:
Now there is a single page from which all the other pages can be easily accessed. As well, it’s possible to go back to the table of contents at any time with the intuitive Home button. Depending on the size of your presentation, the time it takes to create an interactive outline may vary, as you will need to add hyperlinks to every chapter manually. Be aware that if you rename a slide or simply delete it, these changes will not be automatically registered in the table of contents. For example, if you delete a slide, its title will still be displayed in the table of contents, but clicking on it won’t lead the viewer to another point in the presentation. This is what our sample presentation looks like: A Better Way to Structure a PresentationCreating a table of contents manually might be fine for a small presentation, but if you have 122 slides, it would require too much time and energy to do so. That’s why, instead of manually creating a table of contents, we took advantage of iSpring Suite and simply enabled the automatic outline. iSpring SuiteFully-stocked eLearning authoring toolkit for PowerPoint. No training required to start! Download for Free Learn more→ Note: iSpring Suite turns slides into HTML5 format, so your audience can view them online, right in their browsers. As you can see, the new presentation has a pop-up outline and a navigation panel, which make it possible to move to any slide at any time without leaving the slide show mode. How to set up navigationTo create navigation in your presentation, follow these simple steps:
How to configure an outlineWhereas PowerPoint requires the outline to be designed manually, iSpring Suite has already prepared it for you. At the same time, you don’t have to stick with the standard outline template, as you can easily customize the player’s final look and feel:
While a standard PowerPoint slideshow is straightforward and limited, iSpring Suite saves viewers from having to follow a strict slide order. An interactive and searchable outline allows non-linear navigation, where any information can be accessed at any time at a glance. Also read: → How to Convert PowerPoint to MP4 Video Also read: → How To Record Presentations With Audio Another perkiSpring Suite comes with Content Library, which provides a great collection of presentation templates and allows you to create professional-looking presentations in a matter of minutes. Each template includes basic course elements: a title slide, a table of contents, chapters, a timeline, and info slides. Organize them in the order you prefer, populate them with your texts and images, and your presentation is ready to go. ConclusionWe hope this article will help you develop an ideal structure for your PowerPoint presentation and do this quickly and easily. Do you have any other insights on how to simplify PowerPoint slide design? Please share them in the comment section. We’d like to hear from you. What are 3 elements of a good presentation?If you want to master effectiveness, there are three elements every presentation must contain.. Engaging Opener. ... . Inspiring Stories. ... . Clear Call to Action.. What are the structures of presentation?Just like other forms of academic writing, a presentation can be divided into three parts: an introduction detailing the purpose and structure of the talk; a body covering the main points; and a conclusion summarising and highlighting the significance of your talk.
What are the 4 parts of a presentation?What is the typical presentation structure?. Greet the audience and introduce yourself. Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. ... . Introduction. ... . The main body of your talk. ... . Conclusion. ... . Thank the audience and invite questions.. What is a presentation elements of presentation designing a presentation?There are three key elements of good presentations: Content, Organization, Delivery. Your audience needs interesting and appropriate content in order to pay attention, especially at the start of a presentation.
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