Speeches versus Presentations

It seems that we re always in the middle of an election. And elections mean speeches stump speeches, impromptu speeches, TV speeches, speeches after dinner, speeches in schools, and speeches in malls. With the prevalence of standup public speaking in the political arena, it would be easy for the new engineer to become confused and assume that the same mode is commonplace in business communication. The truth is that it is the rare businessperson today who gives a stand-up speech, at least for everyday business matters. With the advent of overhead projectors and transparencies, businesspeople stopped giving speeches and started making presentations talks supported by projected visual material. The advent of laptop computers, LCD (liquid-crystal display) projectors, and powerful presentation software has advanced this trend. 

In this chapter, we ll examine the reasons why you should join this mass movement and learn to prepare and deliver effective presentations. Specifically, we ll examine the reasons why you should present—not speechify—and we ll consider the elements and the process of presentation preparation. We ll also consider methods for preparing effective transparencies or PowerPoint presentation files and ways to sharpen your delivery skills. 

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