This week I thought I would write about presentations. If you are someone like me, who has a borderline\u00a0pathological fear of public speaking, the prospect of delivering a presentation can be daunting. Presentations are definitely my Achilles heel. Essay writing comes much\u00a0more naturally to me, and although\u00a0this comes with its own difficulties, such as writing intelligently and coherently, these difficulties are more profound when in front of an audience.\u00a0Before I start sounding too alarmist, I should also say that yesterday I had my first presentation of the year and contrary to my own expectations, it actually went rather well. In this blog post, I will share with you some of the changes I made and offer some advice on how to master the presentation.<\/p>\n
1) Know your Topic<\/strong><\/p>\n This one may seem self evident, but it is easy to fall into the trap of over preparation and end up with a mountain of notes without any of it registering in your head. Notes are important, but they are just props. The most important information should be\u00a0stored in your brain\u00a0when you walk into the presentation room. This will give your audience the impression that you really know your stuff. There are a number of things you can do to help with this. In philosophy you will be examining arguments.\u00a0It is therefore\u00a0imperative when reading a text that you can follow where the argument is going and locate the main moves. If you have understood the main arguments for and against an issue, then you should be able to debate it. I would advise you\u00a0to do just\u00a0that. The likelihood is that you’ll have a flatmate or coursemate who will be interested in this stuff too. If you can speak clearly about these issues in an informal way with friends, then it is only a small\u00a0step to being able to do it in a formal setting.<\/p>\n 2) Abstraction<\/strong><\/p>\n Being prospective philosophy students some of you may have heard this term used before. When philosophers talk about abstraction, they are referring to the method by which concepts and ideas\u00a0are stripped\u00a0of irrelevant information, leaving only the\u00a0aspects that function\u00a0as a necessary part of\u00a0the argument.\u00a0This is important as you don’t want to be bogged down by irrelevant details and so you should focus only on what matters as part of the bigger picture. Philosophers like to use fantastical and sometimes outright bizarre thought experiments to test our intuitions on certain concepts. It is important not to get distracted by this. Some philosophers present arguments with so many twists and turns that it is often difficult to remember where you began. The thing to do is to take each part of the argument at a time, frequently taking a step back to identify the underlying theme, and then write it down. If you do this, by the end of your preparation you should have all the relevant information at hand, with which you can start to construct your presentation in a clear and\u00a0concise way.<\/p>\n 3) Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse<\/strong><\/p>\n This one is\u00a0especially important for people like me who find public speaking difficult. It is important for two reasons. First, it allows you to perfect you delivery and tone. I was advised by my lecturer to record myself and play it back, as this\u00a0will give some indication of what\u00a0your audience will hear. Listening to\u00a0your own voice is a painful and cringe worthy experience, but it is also a useful educational tool, which will allow you to correct and alter the way you\u00a0deliver your presentation. Second, rehearsing also helps with timekeeping, which is why you should time yourself. Presentations usually have set time limits, and you don’t want to be left with the additional worry\u00a0of not keeping to time. If you have practiced your presentation and you know you are keeping to time, you will be more confident when it comes to the real thing.<\/p>\n Hopefully these suggestions will help. But, of course, different people have different ways of learning, and if you have your own way of doing things that works for you, then maybe you should stick to it. Next week I will be writing about Lancaster’s nightlife.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week I thought I would write about presentations. If you are someone like me, who has a borderline\u00a0pathological fear of public speaking, the prospect of delivering a presentation can be daunting. Presentations are definitely my Achilles heel. Essay writing comes much\u00a0more naturally to me, and although\u00a0this comes with its own difficulties, such as writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":586,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DvUs-7D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}