Test your Knowledge: Oral and Outline Presentations

1. Oral presentations give you the opportunity to practice and demonstrate skills such as thinking on your feet, grasping complex business issues, and handling challenging situations. It displays your research, planning, writing, visual design, and interpersonal and nonverbal communication abilities. Executives watch for all of these qualities when considering employee promotions.

2. The three goals you should accomplish in the introduction of your oral presentation are arouse your audience interest, establish your credibility, and preview your message so that the listener understands what's coming.

3. To get an audience's attention during the introduction, you can tell a story, ask a question, pass out a sample, unite the audience with a common goal, use humor, or announce a surprising statistic.

4. In the close of the presentation, you should make sure to restate your main points, describe the next step of who is responsible for doing what, and end on a strong, positive note.

5. To ensure success during an online presentation, you should keep your presentation as simple as possible, ask for feedback, consider sending preview materials ahead of time, view the experience from an audience's point of view, and allow time for the audience to get connected and familiar with their viewing screen.