Presentation Example: Leading Class Discussion

Students Andrea Li and Beliz Utebay give a presentation in Dr. Hoffman’s Spring 2020 English 1102 class.

Presentations as a Class Assignment

You may be called upon to give a similar presentation in any number of settings, for any number of purposes. A presentation is just what its name suggests: you are presenting information to your audience in a specific context for a specific reason. You might be familiar with a variety of styles of presentations, including TED Talks, political speeches, lectures by a visiting scholar, fellow students tabling on Tech Green, or many other examples. There is a good chance you will be asked to give a presentation at least once in your English 1101 or English 1102 classes, and probably more than once. Understanding how Nonverbal communication plays a role in your presentation is crucial to the success of your work.

Analyzing Presentations

Contributed by Brittain Fellow Dr. Courtney Hoffman.

Rhetorical Situation and Choices

Purpose

In the image above, two students are presenting information about John Keats’s letters to Fanny Brawne as a way to introduce discussion questions to their classmates. Dr. Hoffman asked her students to lead their classmates in a conversation about daily readings. They were allowed to address the class informally, but had to utilize the presentation format, incorporating a slide show with visual aids. In this way, students could practice addressing their peers verbally, as well as practice organizing their thoughts into a coherent narrative that caught their audience’s attention. An in-class presentation is a genre that challenges students in Nonverbal communication in a variety of ways.

Audience

The reason your professors assign you presentations so often is because presentations are a common way for people to convey information to a large audience, particularly at academic and industry conferences. Small audiences are also common, such as when you may be called upon to update your stakeholders about the project you’re creating for them: perhaps a new software program or an innovation in interplanetary propulsion design to your immediate supervisors at NASA or SpaceX. In Figure 12.5, these two students are presenting information based on assigned readings to their classmates in an informal setting. You should keep in mind who your audience will be when planning your presentation. You’ll want to know how large your audience will be, as well as why you are presenting to them. You’ll also need to think about what your audience’s base of knowledge will be and how you will communicate your message to them based on what you expect them to know as well as what you know. You should dress for your setting, which might be casual or it may be very formal, requiring a suit. By connecting with your audience based on Nonverbal cues such as tone and style in your dress as well as in your materials, you will more accurately be able to persuade them of the validity of your message.

Rhetorical Appeals

The students use a variety of appeals in their presentation: there is pathos (humor) in their slide as well as ethos (citing the source of the meme they include). Both display posture and gestures that indicate they are paying attention and there is importance in their information. The logos of their analysis is apparent in the way they guide their audience to a specific conclusion in their bullet list on the slide. Though you can’t hear their presentation, the way the students use vocal affect and organize their thoughts as they speak also demonstrates logos, and can indicate pathos as well. Tone and volume of voice, as well as facial expression can emphasize rhetorical appeals, depending on how they are used. All of these cues together allow these students to demonstrate why their audience should understand and appreciate their message.

Modes & Media

When you give a presentation, you will probably utilize a digital presentation platform of some kind. Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides are very popular, and are free and easy to use. As you can see in Figure 12.5, you can incorporate various types of media into your slides, as well as into your presentation as a whole. You can show videos, play music, or incorporate images, in addition to a range of other examples of media that can enhance your presentation. When choosing what to include, you’ll want to consider how those examples of media will supplement your argument or message, and what effect they will have on your audience. If you can embed your media into your slides, you should — this will allow for a smoother transition between your media and your own information.

Elements of the Genre

Slides: Utilizing a presentation program to supplement your verbal interactions with your audience is a smart choice to make. Combining images with written text is also a good choice, and allows your slides to support you. Make sure you’re not just reading off of your slides — they should act as cues for the information you want to convey, not a script. You can ask the program to time the slides to progress at a specific moment (this is a specific element of the Pecha Kucha presentation, where a person presents with 20 slides that are shown for 20 seconds each). If you want to control the rate of progression through your slides, you can use a clicker designed for that purpose.

Speech: You will do a lot of talking when giving a presentation. If you are alone, you’ll talk for the entire 10, 20, 40, or however many minutes of your allotted time. If you are presenting in a group, you can split that time between yourself and your partners. Just be sure to practice, so you all know who is supposed to speak when, and what you’re meant to say at what point in the presentation.

Question and Answer Period: Often, depending on the context of your presentation, you’ll have a period where the audience can pose questions based on your presentation. You’ll need to listen carefully, and be respectful of the audience member who is posing the query. Indicate that you’re giving them your attention by focusing on them, and jot down notes about what they’ve asked if you need to. A nod and “umm hmm” while they are speaking goes a long way to showing that you care about involving yourself in a conversation about your work. Even if the question is one that you believe you answered in your presentation, do your audience the courtesy of being polite and collegial when you formulate your response.

Style

You might have the option to be formal or informal in your presentation. A more formal presentation might not be able to rely on humor as an appeal with pathos as much when persuading your audience of the validity of your claims. An overly serious informal presentation might not hit the mark, either. Knowing who your audience is, and the context of your presentation will help you know what kind of style is appropriate as you plan. The students in the image above are giving an informal presentation in class; a formal presentation might include the same slides, but the students would be dressed in different styles of clothing and the setting might be an auditorium.

Design

Be aware of visual design principles when you create your slides. Writing is helpful, but don’t have too much writing on a slide — your audience won’t be able to read it. Use color so that your slides are aesthetically pleasing, but know that some audience members might not be able to see certain colors, and you should avoid using them (red and green, for example). The size of your font and the placement of your images on a slide will help your audience engage with what they see as well as what you are saying.

Sources

As in any artifact you create, if you are conveying information or media that you did not create, you must cite your sources. In the picture above, you can see that these students have included the URL of the website that hosted the meme they showed. If it’s not practical to include citations on every slide, then a list on the final slide of the presentation might do as well, or perhaps you might include a handout for your audience.

Text for this page came from Chapter 12, WOVENText 2021 edition.