Effective Presentations

Presentations can be a nerve racking experience. Some people find it hard to stand up and deliver their presentation in front of a room of people. I recently had this challenge to do. Like others I found it tough first picking a subject to do.

What I found helpful was deciding to do the presentation on a subject I was familiar with. This can help people as the subject can just roll of the tongue and not make you stutter and tighten up. From my lectures we got useful tips, like looking at your audience and not talking too fast. This helped me as it made me connect to my audience. It is important when doing a presentation to speak clear and be fully prepared.

Cue cards can be a good choice for presentations. If using cue cards it would be helpful to have small words on them which act like trigger words to help with the speed of your presentation.

When dealing with a presentation it is important to make it clear of your aims of this presentation. There should an introduction, a main body and a conclusion. If you are like me I would ask to have questions asked after the presentation as I feel this can be an uneccesary distraction and could throw you off course.

Finally I would say is dont panic and get stressed as most others are in the same position as you. Take your time and relax!

1. Effective Note Taking

Having clear and precise notes can go a long way to helping students deal with understanding the subject more. Often while in class I find myself daydreaming if I do not take notes.

The benefits of effective note taking (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic/notes-tips.htm) can include having the lectures topic summarised into smaller words which will help you understand them more when you got to revise for assignments or exams.Another tip I find handy is to have the notes clear and noticeable. This can be done by using a different colour pen as a way of highlighting what is important. When entering a lecture or a tutorial, reading after the last classes notes will help you prepare and understand the topic more.

Another important part of note taking is to be on time and ready to go. If you are late there will already be parts of the lecture you have missed and you will find it hard to understand and catch up on the notes.

There are numerous ways to take down notes. They are

1. Cornell Format
2. Outline Format
3. Sentence Format and
4. Mind Mapping

What I prefer is to listen out for key words and have them as a separate paragraph with bullet points underneath. This helps me remember that this is a new section of the lecture. Finally it is essential to re read your notes. They say after 30 minutes of leaving the lecture 50% of information has been lost, by re-reading it should help keep it fresh in your memory!