What are some tips for giving a good presentation?

Answer 1

The existing answers make several excellent points: know your audience, organize the message clearly, avoid overcrowded slides, practice aloud, and focus on connection rather than perfection. I agree with all of those.

I have presented professionally to audiences ranging from approximately 20 to 5,000 people. I also performed professional improvisational comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Chicago City Limits in New York. Those experiences may appear very different, but they taught me the same lesson: a strong presentation is not simply the delivery of prepared information. It is a human interaction with an audience.

Here are eight practices I recommend:

1. Be yourself and connect personally with the material. Far too many speakers try to become someone else when they step in front of an audience. They adopt a different voice, hide behind formal language, or imitate a speaker they admire. Instead, find the part of the subject that genuinely matters to you. The entertainers and speakers we remember are usually the ones who allowed us to connect with them as people. AI can help you explore different ways to explain an idea, but it cannot create your personal connection to the material or determine what you truly believe.
2. Know what you want the audience to think, feel, or do. Before creating slides, finish this sentence: “When this presentation ends, I want the audience to…” Brian correctly emphasizes understanding the purpose of the meeting and whether a decision is required. AI can review your objective and outline and identify material that does not support the intended outcome. You still have to decide what outcome matters.
3. Understand the audience’s starting point. A presentation for classmates, customers, technical specialists, or senior executives should not sound the same. Determine what the audience already knows, what it cares about, what it may question, and how much time it has. AI can help generate likely questions or objections based on the audience, but it cannot replace speaking with someone who understands the room.
4. Build everything around one central message. The first answer correctly recommends identifying the one or two ideas the audience should remember. I would go further and establish one governing message that every section supports. Ask AI to summarize your presentation in one sentence. If it cannot do that clearly—or if its summary is not what you intended—the presentation probably needs more focus.
5. Create a clear path for the audience. A useful structure is: here is the situation, here is why it matters, here is the evidence, and here is what should happen next. Stories, examples, and analogies can make that structure easier to understand, as another tutor appropriately noted. AI can test the order of your ideas and flag missing transitions, but it should never manufacture personal stories or supporting evidence.
6. Use slides to support you, not compete with you. The advice about avoiding overloaded slides is exactly right. If the audience is reading paragraphs, it is no longer listening to the speaker. Use slides for essential facts, images, comparisons, and information that is genuinely easier to understand visually. AI can help shorten slide text, suggest clearer labels, or identify content that belongs in an appendix. You remain responsible for verifying every fact and deciding what the audience needs to see.
7. Practice repeatedly, record yourself, and watch the recording. Do not practice only in your head. Deliver the complete presentation aloud and record both your voice and your body. Then watch it honestly. Were you interested? Were you moved? Did you believe yourself? Notice your posture, facial expressions, eye contact, movement, pace, pauses, nervous habits, and energy. If you are not engaged while watching yourself, do not assume the audience will be. A transcript can be given to AI to flag jargon, repetition, vague claims, and sections that run too long, but only watching the video will show whether your physical presence supports your message.
8. Prepare thoroughly, but remain present, flexible, and human. Ask AI to act as a skeptical executive, customer, professor, or audience member and challenge your conclusions one question at a time. Practice answering directly, including saying, “I don’t know, but I will find out,” when that is the honest answer. Confidence does not mean pretending to know everything. That can quickly become cockiness. Appropriate vulnerability keeps confidence human and allows the audience to see someone they can relate to and trust.

That may be the most valuable lesson improv taught me. Your vulnerabilities do not automatically weaken you in front of an audience. Used honestly, they can become strengths because everyone listening has experienced uncertainty, made mistakes, or felt exposed. A speaker who acknowledges that reality creates a human connection that a perfectly memorized performance rarely achieves.

Nervousness is normal. The goal is not to eliminate it or deliver every planned word flawlessly. The goal is to know your audience, believe in your message, prepare seriously, and remain open enough to connect with the people actually in front of you.

A successful presentation is not measured by perfection. It is measured by whether the audience understood the message, connected with the person delivering it, and was moved toward the intended outcome.

Answer 2

A strong presentation starts with a clear and simple message. Before speaking, it helps to identify the one or two key ideas you want your audience to remember. Organizing your presentation with a clear beginning, middle, and conclusion makes it much easier for listeners to follow along and stay engaged.

Preparation also makes a big difference in confidence. Practicing out loud a few times helps you become more comfortable with your material. Simple things can help calm nerves as well, like taking a deep breath, smiling, and remembering that the audience wants you to succeed. A genuine smile and relaxed posture can immediately make both you and your audience feel more comfortable.

Finally, focus on connection rather than perfection. When speakers approach a presentation with a helpful and positive attitude, it becomes much easier to communicate naturally. People respond well to authenticity, warmth, and clear ideas more than a perfectly memorized speech.

Answer 3

I have given many presentations in the corporate setting, and found this approach to be successful. This also works in school and other situations like conferences.

The most important step is to organize the presentation around what your key audience wants hear. In a school environment, the professor will sometimes provide this. In a corporate setting, if you’re not sure, ask your boss; they may know better what makes the VP tick. This is sound advice for any presentation, by the way. Know your audience, and tailor the message to what they want to hear and how they best can hear it. We do this when we talk to children or explain something to our moms. Why not for key audiences at work?

What do senior leaders want? Put yourself in their shoes. They are called into many meetings and are expected to address many issues and problems, one after another. Imagine doing that for eight hours a day. Make sure you are organized, clear on your message, clear on what you’re doing, rehearsed. Depending on the context, their thought process could be something like this.

First question: what is the purpose of this meeting? Why are you here? Is there a decision needed, is this an update, an advertisement?

Second: Who are you? Have you presented to me on this before, so this is an update, or is this new to me? If it’s an update, summarize what you told me before. Don’t assume I remembered.

Third: In one sentence, what’s the problem and your solution or conclusion. If you’re looking for a decision, lay that out and give me your suggestion. Tell me why this is an important topic.

Fourth: Ask me if I want more background, to elaborate on something, and then stop talking so I can think and respond. Leave some open air in the room!

This isn’t a formula, but perhaps a starting framework when you’re called in to present to the VP. Depending on the context there may be a different order of questions that they have.

Answer 4

1. Space out your preparation time 
2. Most people benefit from having their preparation time spaced out over even amounts of time, with it being slightly heavier as you near the date of your speech. 
3. Try not to wait until the day of or a few days before to do all of your preparation at once. A good night sleep between preparing chunks of your speech can help you to tackle your speech with a fresh perspective.
4. An ounce of passion sheds pounds of nervousness
5. Speak on a topic you are passionate about. Or if your topic has been assigned to you, find a portion of the speech that you can be passionate and excited about.
6. For school speeches, review the rubric your teacher gave you throughout your preparation.
7. Most teachers have very specific things they are looking for in each student’s speech. They will go through a checklist of if you include these things. By reviewing the rubric your teacher gave you while preparing your speech, you can make sure you don’t skip over key points that your teacher will be grading you on.
8. Be interesting
9. It doesn’t take much to make your speech interesting. Any topic can be interesting if presented the right way. How you say it, is as important as what you say. Including a personal antidote, being willing to make bold statements, using visual aids, being animated, being passionate, and more, can all help your speech be interesting. 
10. You won’t get a horrible grade for being boring. In the corporate world you probably won’t get let go for being boring, but it could cost you a promotion. You’ll never stand out from the crowd if you’re boring and you won’t be memorable.
11. Be willing to use analogies and examples from outside your direct field and class topic. Just because you have to give a speech in your science class, doesn’t mean you can’t use exciting illustrations from history, movies, pop culture, or other topics that your audience can relate to.
12. Don’t overload Powerpoints
13. Powerpoints and Google slides have become a standard aid in many speeches. You don’t want your slides to feel crowded. There should be enough information on them to remind you of your key points. Graphs and other visual aids can be used to communicate a lot of information quickly. However, there should not be so much information on them that your audience can ignore you and just read your slides.
14. Consider the order of your points
15. Most speeches have a natural flow in which the main points should be presented. First comes A, then B, then C, etcetera. If this order gets mixed up it can be more difficult for your audience to follow you, as well as causing a myriad of other problems. Make sure the points in your speech are being presented in the optimal order. Be willing to adjust the order in which you present your points to make a greater impact.
16. Last but not least → Practice, practice, practice
17. Practicing will get you comfortable giving your speech. Today one can record themselves and review their own speech. Try to listen to your speech during your free time. Some people will replay their speech in their headphones while getting ready in the morning, at the gym, or during other everyday activities. This helps you to get a good idea of how you sound. Often new ideas spark in your mind on adjustments you can make to continue improving your speech.

These are a few tips on how to make your speech sizzle, on how to give a good speech. You can give a good speech. You can be confident when it’s time to present. With a little coaching, we will get you putting your best foot forward.