Conclusions

one minute—in fact, you should only need three or four sentences. If you are not brief you will lose the audience’s interest and they won’t be able to remember what you have said.

It is vital to prepare your closing and know exactly what you are going to say (every word) and do. Ending suddenly by saying “that’s it” or “thank you” does not create a good impression.

First, stand confidently and look directly at your audience. Signal that you are coming to an end. This is important as it will wake them up and get them to concentrate on the final points that you want them to remember.

Like the beginning, it is worth trying to memorize your last 60 seconds so that you do not have to look at your slides, laptop, or notes—but just at the audience. This will give the audience the sensation that you are confident and professional.

State your conclusions clearly and a little bit more slowly than in the previous part of the presentation—try not to be in a rush to finish!

15.2 Make sure your final slides give useful information

Look at the slide below. If the presenter deleted it, would the audience still be able to follow what he/she says? Very probably, yes.

FUTURE WORK

We want to perform experiments using the prototype gizmo

We will enhance the prototype so that we can produce an industrial version

We will trial the industrial version in hospitals

When you use a slide to summarize your main points, you really want the attention of the audience, so don’t write full sentences. By using short phrases you force the audience to think about what they might mean, and this should lead the audience to being more attentive. So the above slide could be rewritten as

FUTURE WORK

Experiment using gizmo

Enhance prototype to industry

Trial in hospitals

Such a slide should help you to remember the three points and make the audience more alert to hear the full meaning behind the three words.

However, as mentioned in Section 7.7, using full sentences may be appropriate if you have an audience with poor English listening skills.

Alternatively, you could avoid having a conclusions slide. Instead, you move to the whiteboard and write your three key words—experiment, enhance, trial. Simply by getting the audience to move the focus of their eyes will catch their attention and then they are more likely to listen to what you say.

15.3 Show your enthusiasm

As I hope I have highlighted throughout this book, presentations are most effective when the speaker uses simple language, talks to the audience as if they were a group of friends, and sounds convinced (and if possible enthusiastic). Compare these two versions of conclusions to a presentation on the conversion of organic waste into energy.

Note how the original version

•takes 30 words before reaching the phrase the production .., which is the first time that the audience hear key information. The revised version only takes eight words to reach this point

•repeats words unnecessarily (e.g., presentation). The revised version repeats words (e.g., energy in the second line) for dramatic effect

•uses a preponderance of nouns (production, utilization, generation). The revised version uses more verbs (produce, using, generate)

•uses no emotive adjectives (e.g., in the revised version the presenter uses disgusting)

•doesn’t allow the presenter to sound enthusiastic