TCOM 2010 – Technical Writing

Group Oral Presentation 1:

Formal Proposal PPT

The purpose of this assignment is to give you practice in presenting a formal proposal to a group of decision-makers, just as you would in the workplace.


Scenario

You and your group members have created a formal proposal. In order for the proposal to be accepted and your group to get hired, though, you need to speak to the decision-makers and convince them of three things:

You should prepare as if you were giving a formal presentation in the workplace, so your presentation needs to be professional, polished, and concise.

Note: Your audience for this presentation is NOT your classmates or "SPSU students in general." It is the actual decision-making audience. Pretend you are standing in front of them, not in front of your classmates.


Deliverable (1)

Your group will prepare a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation based upon your Formal Proposal Assignment.

Your presentation should include the following elements:

Note: Following your talk, your classmates will ask you questions about your presentation.


Specific Requirements

You will be graded on your attendance, whether you are presenting or not. Since this is a group assignment, all class members must be in attendance and ready to present. Students absent for any day of oral presentations will receive a zero for the assignment. This includes days you are not presenting.


Suggestions


...for the presenters

You will use PowerPoint slides, but be careful not to make them the focus of your presentation. You want your audience to pay attention to you and not the design of your slides. Your slides should serve to complement your discussion rather than take away from the main ideas you present during your talk.

You only have 10 minutes, so get to the point. With limited time, you have to make careful decisions about how you will present your information to your audience. Determine how much information you can communicate in your allotted time.

Rehearse your presentation several times, so that you are thoroughly familiar with material. You don't want to try to memorize the talk, but you should have the main points clear in your mind.

As you are speaking, pay attention to your time and your audience. Also, speak clearly, maintain eye contact, signal your audience to a new point by providing transitions, and choose language that is vivid and memorable.

Each member of the group must conduct an approximately equal part of the presentation. Transitions between speakers will also be counted as part of the grade.

...for the audience:

As members of the audience, you have just as important a role as the speaker. You should maintain respect for the speaker at all times:

As with the Individual Project Proposal Exercise, anyone who text-messages during another student's presentation, wanders to Facebook, etc., will receive a zero on their own presentation.

Take notes while the speaker is talking, and note any areas where you are confused or need clarification. This could be a useful question for the Q&A session.