Seminar Presentation Skills - Key to your Success:

Public speaking is an art. Addressing people and getting their attention

gives you many advantages in life. It is observed that the biggest fear people have is the fear to address the
group from a dais. But in fact, once you get the grip over this art, speaking from a dais will become a childs
play. Once you get mastery over this skill, you will be a welcomed guest everywhere.

Let me tell you one interesting fact. What do we call the fear to face the audience from the stage? Most of the
people say it is Stage fear. In fact, Stage Fear, there is no such word in English. The right word is Stage
Fright.

In this article we are going to learn elaborately, the nuances of Public Speaking, Project Review
Seminar or Paper Presentation.

In this article you will get very scientific and mind-blowing tips to give a very powerful presentation. It is a
sure shot remedy for all your Public Speaking phobias and myths. It serves the purpose of a panacea.

The topics that we are covering in this article are
Why should we give Seminar?
What is a seminar?
How to overcome the stage fright?
How to get the first impression from the audience?
What audience would like to listen?
The main parts of the speech
Time allocation for each of these parts
Why should we give a seminar?
First of all let us understand why should we give a seminar? Once we understand the purpose, it will be easy
to organize our ideas. Accordingly we can develop the content to present.

It means that we are getting clarity about the purpose of our presentation, then our ideas will get sharper and
we can clear off the clutter.

Most of the times we give a public address,
For better relationships
To inform
To ask
To question
To answer
To understand
To advise
To teach
To train
To Motivate
To Create Action
To Entertain
To propose
To appreciate
To sell
To Inform
To Educate
To guide and
To criticize
Now let us understand the Presentation Skills and Seminar Skills

What is a Seminar?
We can define a seminar as Presenting your ideas & concepts in a way, to convince every individual in a
public gathering. Here though the speaker is playing a pivotal role, it gives the scope to interact with the
audience face to face on the spot.

It is a perfect platform to convince a large gathering and to circulate the concepts in a quick and practical way.

How to overcome the Stage Fright?
Whoever you may be, you need to address the public gathering at one point of the time or the other in your
life time. You cannot avoid it. You just cannot escape it. It is perceived by the majority of the people public
that public speaking is a torturous experience.

I observed many people running away from the podium. I witnessed many eminent people, who are very
successful in their chosen field, getting cold the moment they are asked to address the gathering. They give
some silly reason to evade the occasion. Had they been good communicators on the dais, it would be like
adding one more feather into their cap.

There is a popular joke on stage fright. Once one gentle man, with great stage fright, reached the centre stage,
took the mike, started speaking; before reaching the dais, I know and God knows what I am going to
speak today. Now, after reaching over here, God only knows what I am going to speak

Let me give you few powerful and practical tips to come out of this fear psychosis.Fear and pressure are not
bad signs first of all.

Yes I am talking about positive pressure and being cautious. We just dont go in the wrong side of a road,
why? it is because we want to lead life cautiously.

In the same way, if a student doesnt have the positive pressure he would never study for the examination.

If you develop a positive pressure before a seminar, it will definitely improve your preparation and it will
definitely make yours, an awesome presentation. Otherwise, you may take things lightly and the performance
would be awkward.

However, once the pressure becomes fear or phobia the trouble starts. All our fears, worries, memories are
stored in our mind. Our mind stores the data in the form of visuals. Unfortunately, we supply negative visuals
to our subconscious mind. Of course we do it inadvertently. Our subconscious mind stores the visuals and
supplies to us at the appropriate time. Public Speaking, the moment we hear this word, we get fear. Cold
sweats, butterflies in the stomach.

What could be the reason?
If I utter the word- Flower, what do you get in your mind? a picture of a flower. Am I right? In the same way
if I say the words
Car
Road
Traffic Signal
Marriage Party
A lion
A lady
Sachin Tendulkar etc, your mind is getting the suitable visuals.
In the same way, the feelings like happiness, sorrow, nervousness, hesitation etc, are also stored with suitable
pictures in the sub-conscious mind. Whenever you are getting fear psychosis towards something, it simply
means that, your subconscious mind is supplying negative picture to you, at the very thought.

If you fear, public speaking, it means that you are getting negative visuals from your memory bank. They may
range from, teasing audience, who are shouting loudly, throwing rotten tomatoes, eggs on to you, audience
who are not at all listening to your speech, the pictures where you are dumb folded, mumbling for the words,
stammering and stuttering in front of the whole gathering, irate organizers looking at you.

There is a saying, tit for tat. Your mind is supplying you negative pictures. Fine. Its quite fair on its part. You
need to tackle it, with the same technique.

Technique 1
Relax. At least one week before the actual seminar, you start using this technique. If you have a short notice,
do it whole heartedly one day before also.
What simply you need to do is, just sit peacefully in your room. Or where ever you feel comfortable. You start
imagining as if you are giving a powerful seminar. Try to get as clearer picture as possible. Get every detail of
the picture, imagine as vividly as possible, with all the minutest details. Let there be full of enthusiasm and
happiness in your imagination. You are a winner all the way. Full attention from the audience, accolades from
your friends, congratulations from your HOD in this way every visual, which symbolizes your success be
part of your imagination.

In a word you are the star performer in that visual. Mind you, it is your own picture; you need not share this
with anybody. You are the creator, it is for a noble cause, it is to help you and it is to make you a winner.
More importantly, for S.S.Rajamoulis magnum opus production- Bahubali, or Rajanikanths-Kochadaiyaan,
it may require crores and crores of rupees to be spent. But for this picture in your mind, not even a single paisa
is required to be spent.
Its power is enormous, it changes your life.

Start getting a positive picture, where you are speaking very easily. A great pack of audience is awestruck
with your speech. You are mesmerizing the audience with your presentation which is full of gesticulations.
The audience is clapping every now and then.
In this way, if you start visualizing on a regular basis, for at least one week, your mind will get completely
filled with positive visuals about the Seminar Presentation. Thus, next time whenever you think of Seminar,
your mind will give you enthusiasm and new energy instead of fear. So, minds language is visual language, it
stores that data in the visual form, we have just trained our mind to assist us in a positive way.

Technique 2
Start giving positive affirmations to you on a regular basis. Just feel confident about your knowledge, your
depth of the subject. Give more and more mock presentations among your family members and friends, before
you head for the real seminar.

Technique 3
This is a secret; it is just between you and me. Ok!
Just start visualizing all the audience as nursery students. Yes, I mean it. Do not give unnecessary hype in
your imagination about the knowledge level of the audience. They may be great, they may be highly
knowledgeable, however when it comes to your seminar, they are all sitting there to listen to you. What does it
mean? They are respecting you. They have got good opinion about your ideas. They respect your thoughts
and ideology. They are there to appreciate you Let these kind of positive thoughts be generated towards the
audience.

Time and again, before you start the seminar, just keep imagining that they are all as good as nursery students,
and they want to get entertained by you.

But this third technique should be understood in the right perspective and should be implemented with a
positive motto. This really gives you lot of drive. I promise, most of the world renowned trainers revealed this
fact, that they do follow this technique.


How to get the first impression from the audience?
Pay attention
Dress well
A dress always gives instant first impression. Never be under the impression that you wear dress to
show off your status, but it is a mark of respect that you are giving to the audience. Thus do not
hesitate to wear a neck tie, blazer, or a suit, neatly polished shoes. Audience would definitely love it;
they want to listen to the speech of a decent person. They respect the person who is one up, always.

Stand confidently
It shows that you are relaxed.Your body speaks silently to your mind. If the body is confident, the
mind gets confident.
Use Positive Gestures
Audience will never appreciate rude gesticulations.
Use polite Language
Your ideas should be powerful, thoughts should be clear, the body language and the verbal language
should always be polite and full of respect.
Shiv Khera the world renowned speaker says; Winners use hard arguments but soft words, losers use
soft arguments but hard words. Naturally, the audience would get inspired by a winner.
Give Suitable examples
Do not hesitate to tell the audience suitable stories, anecdotes, jokes. However, they should support
your ideas, they should bear the thread with the main concept of your presentation.
Use Clear and audible Voice
Do not get carried away. Most of the speakers feel that speaking loudly means speaking confidently.
It is absolutely a misconception.
Use clear voice.
Let the voice be audible, to all the audience. If the number of audience is less, you can tone down
your voice; if the audience is more in number you can raise your voice. The guiding principle is that,
let the audience sitting in the last row get your voice clearly, which is enough. The people in the next
lane are not your target audience.

Give Importance to the audience
Do not hurt any individual during your presentation. You should understand the sensibilities of your
audience
Audience would like to hear these statements
I will not waste your time
I know your needs
I am well organized
I am thorough with the subject
A very important information for your need etc
The Speech should have
1. The Head
2. The Body
3. The Tail
The Ratio (Time Allocation), If you have 10 Min., Divide it as mentioned below.
1. The Head ( 2 Min)
2. The Body ( 6 Min)
3. The Tail ( 2 Min)
Each of these parts can cover these aspects
1. The Head (2 Min)
o Opening
o Introduction
o Understanding the audience
o State the purpose.
2. The Body (6 Min)
o All the main points
o Related information
o Important dates and other information relating to the topic
o Interesting examples
o Any scientific data etc
3. The Tail (2 Min)
o Summary
o A quick recap
o Brief Interaction with audience
o Thanking note
In the coming articles let us discuss the following aspects.
10 powerful tips for very successful presentation
10 delivery guidelines
How to handle the questions from the audience?
Till then keep memorizing the aspects which we have discussed in this article.






















Presentation and Public Speaking Skills :


Why an Engineering student should possess the skills to make a
paper presentation or to participate in a seminar or explain the project in review meeting? The
answer is simple, but significant. Its because the students of professional programmes are expected
to lead the teams, organizations and the country in the future.

Simply picking some technical skills and being confined to work cubicle are not the only things they
are expected to do. They should possess leadership qualities, the skills to drive the teams to turn their
organizations into top performing power houses.

If you are good at technical skills, fine, however that is not enough. You should possess and
demonstrate leadership qualities. They are expected to take the lead in the progress of the country.
This is crux of the issue.

Guess, what a leader should possess, more than anything else?
Can you guess any leader? Have you come across any great leader without motivational speaking skills and
presentation abilities? Presentation is an essential quality any leader should aspire for. Being a leader you
need to motivate the team to complete the project in time. You can inspire your teams through your
motivational speeches. Even in interpersonal communication, you need to be a real leader to address the
problems faced by your team mates and motivate them so that they could focus on achieving optimised
results.

As a leader, you can direct and lead the teams the way you want them to be driven.

Presentation of ideas is an art. Be it a team meeting or seminar presentation, you can master this most
important skill effectively it by following the tips that are given in this article.
Always main a positive outlook.
Observe the mood of the audience; so that you can tailor make your presentation/talk.
The skill of a leader lies in presenting even the complicated technical aspects also in a presentable
way.
First get all the data, contents and details of the topic ready and order them in a good sequence. Get
the appropriate visual aids, slides, documents ready with you so that you can emulate the ideas that
you are presenting.
Remember the numerical data meticulously, memorize several times before the actual presentation.
However dont sound as if you are delivering a crammed stuff, develop the skill of presenting as if you are
making natural conversation.

There is a saying, - Audience does not care how much you know, until they know how much you care for
them. Yes this is a fact.

It has a direct bearing on your success as a speaker on any given day. Audience expect- audience centric
approach from the speaker. It is a fundamental rule and a universal truth. So in your speech, YOU is
more important than I & ME.

For example, let us assume you need to address a gathering of people for a paper presentation, college
anniversary or an interuniversity fest;

Give Importance to the audience
Do not hurt any individual during your presentation.
Seminar Presentation is the ultimate test for your communication skills.
It is an unwritten rule, that you do not have the right to hurt the feelings of any body, through your
speech.
Let me give you one example. You can win, this apparently harmless statement gives negative
intonations. In a subtle way, we are hinting that At present you are a failure. You can win in
future. Listeners are mindful enough to get the message. Thats why, if you want to be an
influential speaker, you should be careful in your selecting your words, phrases, ideas, examples
and even the gestures that you make on the dais.
You can be even more successful, try using this phrase, instead of using You can win and see
the difference in the response. Because, here you are giving a strong message that Yes, you are
successful. You are in the right direction, with a little effort, you can be even more successful.
This is what I meant by saying Audience centric approach.
You should understand the sensibilities of your audience.
Among your audience, invariably there may be people from many backgrounds and with different
career goals.
Dont take hard stands that could hurt the feelings of some of your audience.
You are here to give a professional presentation, you should stick to it.
Do not deviate from the subject matter of your presentation.
Let us now, understand how to compartmentalize your contents and how we can deliver them in meaningful
fashion.

Your Speech/Presentation shall always be divided into three parts-

If you have 10 Min., divide it as mentioned below.
1. The Head (2 Min)
2. The Body (6 Min)
3. The Tail (2 Min)
The Head

Greet the audience.
An appropriate greeting like Good morning, Good evening etc, depending on the time. Based on
the audiences sensibilities you can customize the greetings. Be sure the audience will receive it
positively, otherwise it may back fire.

Thank the audience, the organizers and the management.
Never miss to thank the people in the top order of the management, mention their names with
respect and in the order of hierarchy.

Appreciate the audience whole heartedly.
The first few seconds are very crucial in getting the attention of the audience.
Before you start, first take audience in to your friendly zone. Nothing clicks than a smile and a
word of praise. So do it, whole heartedly. Dont sound artificial and rhetoric.
Always try to find something to appreciate the audience.
Add a word of praise depending on the nature of the meeting. If you are addressing the group of
people who are participating as part of Campus Recruitment Drive, you can congratulate them for
being selected into this particular round. You will be taken into the friendly zone by the listeners.
If you are not very sure, you can appreciate them in general. Like, I appreciate your interest level
in attending this seminar, Or, I really need to appreciate you all for the fact that despite heavy
showers, all of you made it a point to attend this seminaretc.
Make them relax with statements like I will take just few minutes of your time.
Before you state the purpose, start with some interesting opening address.
Avoid the temptation to start with a joke until and unless you are sure that all the audience are
positive and they will take it funny and I repeat, E V E R Y O N E in the auditorium.

Take into consideration, the following demographic details-
Age
Sex
Knowledge level
Sensibilities
Political, religious, ethnic, sentiments
Their likes and dislikes
Ask Question basing on their needs:
Your Question should be light in nature, dont ask heavy duty questions, so that, to answer your question,
some marathon research work should be commissioned.
Preferably ask close ended questions, where audience simply needs to give, mono syllable answers like
Yes or No, thats it.
Dont complicate the atmosphere, by asking some controversial questions either.
Just observe the following questions.
Would you like to realize your dreams?
Would you like to be a winner?
Of course, you should have the knack to ask these questions based on your topic and from there on you
should be in a position to kick start and take off your presentation.

Some of the proven ways to open a presentation

Need based/ topic based Questions
Ask some questions that are very much relevant to their seminar topic, branch, goal, objective etc.
Mystery opener:
o What does 2 plus 2 equal to? (Synergy)
o Audience feel, it is very simple and harmless question, naturally with a smile on their face,
they may answer that , it is 4.
o Fine, appreciate the person who gives the answer
o Then gently announce that there are different answers. Then explain the concept of
Synergy
Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary Says:
synergy noun [U] (ALSO synergism) SPECIALIZED
the combined power of a group of things when they are working together which is greater than the total
power achieved by each working separately:
Team work at its best results in a synergy that can be very productive

Then you can link this with your topic, Team Work and continue your speech.
Can you draw a Square with three lines (Lateral Thinking)
o All the audience naturally get excited and they start thinking. Some of them naurally come
forward to make a trial. See, what an effective way to start the presentation?
o You are also guessing right?, the answer is at the end of the this article.
Today in Hyderabad there are no diamonds available why? (A subtle, yet very strong way of
appreciating the audience)
o You are also guessing right?, the answer is at the end of the this article.
The Compliment:
o Before I begin, Id like to thank all of you for reaching the auditorium in time...
o It is indeed a pleasure to address the gathering like you, who have achieved very good
fluency in less amount of time.
Establish the Objective:
Before you move on to next part of the presentation, establish the objective of your presentation
during the opening address itself. This is a crucial beginning.
The Body
Now it is time for you to work on the body of the presentation. This is the most important aspect because
your very purpose is to deliver the chosen stuff.

The whole effort will go waste, if you do not work properly on your material or the content of your
speech.
Be well equipped with the main points. Sort them in an attractive fashion. Keep all the scientific data, with
relevant papers, documents and supportive references.
Almost all the modern speakers choose to narrate interesting stories and anecdotes in a crisp and attractive
style. They relate these stories with the content that they planned to emphasize. So, gather suitable
anecdotes and examples, which you can quote to make your point more cogent and get the attention of the
audience.
You can involve the audience by giving suitable pauses, lowering the pitch of the voice, creating tempo and
asking few suitable questions in between.
The audience will get spell bound with the charm of your contents as well as with the presentation style.
Audience shortly forget what you speak, but they do remember how you delivered it.

In Seminar Presentation, the presentation skills count a lot.
That is the reason why you just cannot afford to miss the mock presentations before you go for the real one.
Do as many mock presentations as possible, in front of your friends, relatives, closed associates and observe
their feelings, feedback. Improvise further, in every mock presentation.
Gather the related information; gather supportive documents, photographs, etc to support your chosen topic.

The point to be remembered for ever:
The content is very important; it is the crux of your presentation, no doubt about it. However, with your
practice, planning and attractive presentation you can make it a memorable experience. Honestly speaking,
do you like to listen to boring seminars and lectures?
Then why do you expect your audience should?

The Tail
A tail is as important as any other aspects of the presentation.
Just let me tell you one thing. Let us imagine that we watched a movie. The total movie is average and not
so well crafted. However, the director has taken special care in designing the climax; he gave a fantastic
twist at the end.
He has captured the attention of the audience and he gave a spellbound treatment to the movie in the final
few minutes of the movie.
All the audience generously forgets the flaws and pit falls in the initial parts of the story narration. They
leave the theatre with a positive bent of mind frame. They even give very good word of mouth publicity
among their friends and relatives.
The vice versa is also true. The whole movie is good, the climax is not impressive. The bad word of mouth
spreads like a wild fire.
You can recollect your own experiences with the movies that you watched.

That is the power of climax.
Thus you need to be very careful, in crafting the tail of the presentation. In this section you have to
give Summary of the whole presentation in a quick recap style.
Again involve the audience by asking some questions like What one single point you liked very
much- kind of questions, what one single decision you took-kind of questions.
Encourage the audience to ask questions
Finally give a thanking note.
Hey, wait
Dont you want the answers for the puzzles?
The Answers:
First Question: Can you draw a square with three lines?Now, simply draw a square as usual with four
lines. Inside the diagram put three lines.


This is a question based on English language. Of course a square cannot be drawn using 3 lines.
Here we are using the word with, with its one of the meanings.
With has got many meanings, one among them is, having or possessing.
Examples:
A house with three rooms.
A woman with white hair.
But the people take the other meaning, Using something.
Examples:
He shot him with a gun.
She wiped off her lipstick with a tissue.
Lateral thinking is a part of science where we train the people to develop the habit of creative thinking, so
that they can come out with innovative thoughts and results.

Second Question:
Today in Hyderabad there are no diamonds available why?
(A subtle, yet very strong way of appreciating the audience)
We can prolong this discussion for some time, naturally the audience gets wondered, how come diamonds
are not available in such a big city?
Then, slowly you can announce, All the diamonds in the city are sitting right in front of me, how anybody
can expect the diamonds to be available anywhere else?
This is a strong yet subtle way to win the attention of the audience.

Presentational Skills and Employability
Your presentation skills would have direct impact over your employability. Of course, you know this. But,
have you ever thought about how your presentation skills could yield dividends from your very first
presentation itself. Think about the following scenario -
Placement officers of the colleges closely watch the seminar presentations and it is needless to say that they
will definitely form an opinion based on your seminar presentation.
They are the ones who do shortlist the students for the upcoming campus drives. So, you could be one those
first guys whom the placement officer would like to select.

So, all the best.