Presentation skill is a must for anyone aspiring to move up the ladders and reach heights of success. Be it professional venues or others, it is clear that how effectively you convey is what is going to make the impact. There are a lot of resources on how to make a great impact through your presentations, with ample good suggestions to make a convincing pitch. The target of this article is to serve as food for thought, covering the other side of the presentation spectrum -What not to do or say.

There are couple of areas under which I would like to categorize this article

1. How not to make a presentation?
2. What phrases not to say in a presentation?

In short, these two areas cover the visual content you convey and the audible content you say.

How not to make a presentation?

This is a good summary article on how not to make a presentation.

Here are my added suggestions on how not to make a presentation and what not to do

• If you don’t understand a picture, don’t put it because its cool and it can probably psyche the audience out.
• Never repeat a sentence unless its in a different context. Don’t keep repeating sentences in an effort to get an acknowledgement and then proceed.
• Never openly deny or try to prove the audience’s views are wrong, unless you have statistics to prove. You can agree to revisit it with statistics, but put the topic off for offline discussion.

What phrases not to say in a presentation?

I found this one to be ‘one of its kind’ article on ‘what phrases not to say‘.

The 5 phrases mentioned in the article are

1. MAKE SOME NOISE!!!
2. Um…
3. Did That Make Sense?
4. What Else Can I Show You?
5. I Guess That’s it.

Here are my added suggestions of phrases to avoid.

1. Its kind of: when trying to start talking about an analogy or reference
2. Something like that: when conveying that the topic is in discussion or the point communicated is similar to what the audience is comparing to.
3. This or that: when conveying choices or alternatives
4. Of course you don’t want to use the words like shacks, geez, shoot etc

All said and done, you need to understand that the audience is there to listen and absorb what you want to say. You can take it for granted (apart from the obnoxious few who manifest now and then), everyone will appreciate if you just stuck to what you want to say and let the audience themselves make the analysis and observations.

In short,

Stick to you story, let the slides be short and simple and deliver looking directly to the audience.