and vowels (and consonants too) tend to be pronounced differently in different languages. If you use acronyms in your presentation it is best to have them written on your slides too.

3.5Practice the pronunciation of key words that have no synonyms

Imagine you want to say the following sentence, but that you regularly mispronounce the three words underlined: Then I’ll take a brief look at the related literature on methane and the methods we used. Also, imagine that you cannot find synonyms for those three words.

The solution is to break down the word and identify which part is causing you problems. Let’s imagine you are having difficulty with the last part of literature, and you are pronouncing -ture as tour ray. Think of other words ending in “-ture” that you know how to pronounce that end in those letters: picture, nature, culture, feature. If you know how to pronounce those words then you can also pronounce the -ture in literature.

Obviously you also need to be able to pronounce the first part of the word too. In this case it is useful to listen to Adobe reader or to use an online dictionary that pronounces the word for you. Notice that literature really only has three syllables. Try to transcribe the sound in a way that is meaningful for you: li tri cher. Alternatively, if you are familiar with phonetics, then you can use the phonetic transcription: lItret e(r)

Now let’s look at methane and method. The problem with these words is typically in the first syllable. In this case find out the correct pronunciation (again using Adobe or a dictionary) and create a series of familiar words that will lead you to the correct pronunciation: get > met > metal > method; see > me > meet > methane. You can then practice the difficult words by reading them in association with the familiar words.

Note: the same combination of letters may have different stress or pronunciation, e.g., method, methodology, methodological; photograph, photographer, photographic.

3.6 Be careful of -ed endings

When you add -ed to form the past forms of a verb, you do not add an extra syllable. For example the verbs focused, followed, informed are NOT pronounced focus sed/follow wed/inform med. The number of syllables of a verb in its infinitive form (fo cus) and in its past form (fo cust) is the same. The only exceptions are verbs whose infinitive form ends in -d or -t , for example added, painted, which are pronounced add did and paint tid.

Give your audience a chance to tune into your key words at the very beginning of your presentation This will help them to understand you in the rest of the presentation.

So you could put up the slide and say,

So here’s what I will be talking about. [Pause for two seconds so that audience can absorb the content of the slide] I first became interested in modifying polymeric materials because

.... Then one day we decided to try coupling the bioreceptors with the activated surfaces. So those are the two things that I will be looking at today, along with some approaches to characterizing functionalized surfaces.

The benefits are the audience will

•see and hear you say the key words and thus be able to connect your pronunciation with the words on your slide

•familiarize themselves with your voice without missing any vital information (you have simply told them why you are interested in this topic).

If you are still worried that people will not understand your pronunciation, you can point to the key words on the slide as you say them.

3.11 Don’t speak too fast or too much

If you speak too fast, particularly when you are nervous, it makes it difficult for the audience to absorb what you are saying. And the impression may be that if you are presenting information very fast then it is not particularly important.

Make sure you pause frequently – do not talk continuously. Stop talking for between one and three seconds not only between slides, but also when giving explanations. The audience needs to have time to absorb what you are telling them, and they need a rest from hearing your voice.

3.12Mark up your script and then practice reading it aloud

When you have created a final version of your script, you can mark it up as shown below. You probably won’t have time to do a full markup for your whole presentation. But it is important that you do it for your introduction, which is the time when the audience is tuning in to your voice and making their first impressions. You should also do it for your conclusions. Also, it is a good idea to mark all those words that (a) you intend to give EMPHASIS to (b) those words that you find difficult to pronounce.

First of all / thank you very much / for coming here today. My name’s Esther Kritz / and I am currently doing research into psycholinguistics [sy/my] / at Manchester University. / / I’d like to show you / what I think / are some INCREDIBLE results / that I got while ...

Key

slash (/)—indicates where you want to pause. You only need to do this for the first 30-60 seconds of your presentation. A typical problem of the first few seconds of your presentation is that you are nervous and this makes you speak very fast. If you speak too fast the audience may have difficulty understanding. If you insert pauses this should encourage you to slow down and also to breathe. By breathing more you become more relaxed.

double slash (//)—indicates a longer pause. If you pause between key phrases it will focus the audience’s attention on what you are saying and also give them time to digest it. Long pauses can have a positive dramatic effect.

bold—words that you want to stress in each phrase. This does not mean giving them a lot of stress but just a little more than the words immediately before and after. This stops you from speaking in a monotone (i.e., with equal stress on each word) which is boring for the audience. Words that tend to be stressed are key nouns, numbers, adjectives, some adverbs (e.g., significantly, unexpectedly), and verbs. Words that are not generally stressed are pronouns (unless to distinguish between two entities, e.g., I gave it to her not to you), non-key nouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and most adverbs.

CAPITALS—these are words that you want to give particular emphasis to. You may want to say them louder or more slowly or in a particular tone of voice. You do this to draw the audience’s attention to what you are saying. Words that tend to be given extra emphasis are numbers and adjectives.

underline—indicates the stress within a particular word

[ ]—insert in brackets the sounds of words or syllables. For example, if you write psy = my>sy, this will remind you that you don’t pronounce the initial “p” and that “sy” rhymes with “my” (as in “my book”). Alternatively you can try to find words or sounds in your own language that sound similar.

ADVANCED TIPS

3.13Use synonyms for words on your slides that you cannot pronounce

You can have words on your slides that you are unable to pronounce. When you comment on your slides, you can use synonyms (i.e., words with the same meanings). For example, you may be listing the advantages and disadvantages of a particular procedure. On your slide you write

Advantages: a, b, c Disadvantages: x, y, z