How to prepare a presentation

How to prepare?
1. Start with an outline, and include all the thoughts you have.
2. Group them into slides
3. Write for each slide what the key point you want to make, and design the animation and highlights according to the points you want to make
4. Write, in full sentences, the beginning and the end
5. Prepare the linking sentences/phrases between each slides
6. Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse.

Advices from English Language Learning Centers at UofT.

Slide Design

1. Organize the materials around one take-home message.
   
2. Title slide clearly introduces topic and speakers
3. Title of each slide reflects the main point of the slide
4. Have one idea per slide, or per click.
   
5. Agenda (outline) slide is presentation specific
6. No Blue on Back or black on Blue fonts
7. Sans serif fonts of size 20 or bigger
8. Whenever possible, conceptual diagrams are used to clarify key points
9. Figures present relevant data clearly and unambiguously
10. Clear, horizontal labels on all figures
11. Words are kept to a minimum in favour of images/figures/diagrams.
12. Words on slides are presented as grammatically parallel bullets rather than sentences
13. If animation is used, it's used to focus attention not to distract from a slide's main idea
14. Decide where you want to audience to focus attention, and ensure that that's where the focus goes
15. Use signposting slides: outline slide, section summary slide and conclusion slide.
    

Rehearsal

1. Rehearse and time yourself. (Particularly Rehearse the beginning and the end!)
2. Use a conversational style!
   
3. Signposting during your presentation
   
4. If your presentation runs overtime in rehearsal, don't speak faster, CUT Material.
5. Remember that a presentation is not the same as a report. Like a good abstract, a good presentation should make the audience want to read your report.
6. Be ruthless about slide inclusion: every slide must earn its keep. (Recall rule 1, organize your material around one take-home message.)
7. Evaluate the relative length of each part of your presentation, and be sure the most time is spent on the most important section.
8. You won't be able to present everything you've learned in the time given; you must carefully select specific material to highlight.
9. Remember the audience has never seen your slides. They'll need time to absorb the ideas presented.
10. Use hand gestures!
    
11. When referring the materials on the screen, use 3Ts: touch, turn and talk.
    
12. Look at the audience not the screen.
13. Anticipate potential questions
14. rehearse again and time yourself.

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the purpose of group meeting

The purpose of doing group meeting is not only to inform your colleagues what you have done but also to solicit feedbacks from them.

Growth is a stretching experience

Growth is a stretching experience. You need to constantly challenge your limit!

Areas of knowledge

At least four areas of knowledge are essential to an independent life: health-related, financial, spiritual, and professional.

While keeping the focus on the professional development, you should spend some time on other areas as well.

I could be wrong

Humans are fallible. The idea that I could be wrong will keep you from being overly assertive, and make you always be willing to consider alternative opinions. It is a powerful weapon against the enemy of wisdom, your prejudice.

Mastering multitask requires adroit switching among different mindsets

In the first week of August when I immersed myself into research, I got my passport back from Consulate-General of Brazil in Toronto with my visa to Brazil ready. I didn't give a thought about the Argentina visa until about one week later when it was already too late to apply for it. Many reasons account for the miss of the opportunity, and I think the main reason is that I fail to switch my mindset.

The preparation for Visa application includes filling the forms, booking the ticket and mailing the application package. All of these can be done in half a day if everything is well planed. But I didn't do it because I couldn't switch my thinking to visa application and my feeling to the travel mood. I miss the chance.

Firmly and adroitly switching among different mindsets will allow you to cope with your life more efficiently. Successful switching will make you concentrate on the task on hand. When eating, I need a mind that fully enjoys its smell, its look and its taste. When doing research, I need a mind that is analytical, critical and logical. When dealing with people, I need a mind that is cheerful, emphatic, and willing to seek understanding. The multi-facets of life necessitates a multi-task mind.

Everyone can switch mindset; it is just a matter of time. But swiftly switching is not easy, especially when emotion is involved. Even though reason tells me that it is better to put off the current task and deal with another task, the impulse of finishing the current one makes me reluctant to switch. And that's where I need to practice.

And how to improve? The difficult thing is not to get new task into my mind. It is how to get the old out that is difficult. A buffer time (a minute or two) between two successive tasks to clear the old might help.

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