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 Printer EmailHow to present a seminar paper. (Wallace, 1980, pp. 209-210)
It can be very boring to listen to something read aloud. Therefore what you must do is follow the following points:
- Decide on a time limit for your talk. Tell your audience what it is. Stick to your time limit. This is very important.
- Write out your spoken presentation in the way that you intend to say it. This means that you must do some of the work of writing the paper again, in a sense. Written language is different from spoken language (See Features of academic spoken English). Your seminar presentation will probably take less time than the written paper it is based on and you cannot summarise on your feet.
- Concentrate only on the main points. Ignore details. Hammer home the essence of your argument. If necessary find ways of making your basic points so that your audience will be clear about what they are.
- Try to make your presentation lively and interesting. This does not mean telling jokes and anecdotes. But if you can think of interesting or amusing examples to illustrate your argument, use them.
- Write out everything you have to say, including examples etc. Rehearse what you are going to say until you are happy with it.
- When you know exactly what you are going to say, reduce it to outline notes . Rehearse your talk again, this time form the outline notes. Make sure you can find your way easily from the outline notes to the full notes, in case you forget something.
- In the seminar, speak from the outline notes. But bring both sets of notes and your original paper to the meeting.
- Look at your audience when you are speaking. Use this technique: First read the appropriate part of your notes silently. Then look up at your audience and say what you have to say. Never speak while you are still reading. While you look at your audience, try to judge what they are thinking. Are they following you? You will never make contact with your audience if your eyes are fixed on the paper in front of you.
- Make a strong ending. One way of doing this is to repeat your main points briefly and invite questions or points of view.
Remember that listening is very different from reading. Something that is going to be listened to has therefore to be prepared in a very different way from something that is intended to be read.
Useful language
Presentation
-
Introduction
- State what you will do
What I'd like to do is to discuss .
What I intend to do is to explain .
In my talk today, .
My topic today is .
Today, I'm going to talk about .
I'm going to talk to you about .
My colleagues and I are going to give a short presentation on .
Today I want to consider .
In this talk, I would like to concentrate on .
The subject of this talk is .
The purpose of this talk is to .
This talk is designed to .
- State how you will do it
I'm going to deal with three aspects of the subject .
I'm going to divide my presentation into three sections.
I've divided my presentation into three sections.
I thought it would be useful to divide my talk into three sections.
This subject can be looked at under the following headings: .
I'll take about ... minutes.
The talk should last about ... minutes.
I'll be happy to answer questions at the end
If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them afterwards.
If you have any questions, please feel free to interrupt.
-
Main body
- Ordering points
Firstly
To start with,
First of all,
Secondly
Next
Then
Thirdly
Lastly
Finally
- Giving examples
For example, .
For instance, .
And as proof of that, .
Remember .
You only have to think of .
- Emphasising
Furthermore .
What's more, .
This supports my argument that .
It follows, therefore, that .
- Referring back to what you have said
As I said at the beginning, .
In the first part of my talk, I said .
As I mentioned earlier, .
I told you a few minutes ago that .
- Putting it in other words
In other words, .
That is to say, .
To put it another way, .
The point I'm making is .
What I'm suggesting is .,
Let me put it another way.
- Using visuals
On this graph, .
Take a look at this.
Let's have a look at this.
I'd like you to look at this.
I'd like to draw your attention to .
Here we can see .
The . represents .
The graph illustrates .
As you can see, .
If you look closely, you'll see .
- Moving on
I'd like now to move on to .
Turning now to.
Moving on now to.
Having looked at ., I'd now like to consider .
Now, let's turn to ...
I now want to turn to
The next point is .
Another interesting point is .
The next aspect I'd like to consider is .
I'd now like to turn to .
-
Conclusion
- Concluding
So .
We've seen that .
First we looked at . and we saw that .
Then we considered . and I argued .
In short .
In brief, we have looked at ...
To sum up .
In conclusion, I'd like to emphasise that .
I think that covers most of the point.
That completes my presentation.
Thank you for your attention.
- Invite questions
That covers the main points. If you have any comments or questions, I'll be happy to hear them.
So that explains my main point. Does anyone have any comments or questions?
I'd be glad to try and answer any questions.
Discussion/Questions
-
Discussion/Questions
- Encouraging participation
Does anyone have any comments or questions?
So is this the same as your experience?
Do you agree with what X has just said?
So, Y, what is your opinion of this?
- Interrupting
If I could just come in here.
Sorry to interrupt, but .
I'd just like to say that .
- Getting clarification
I didn't understand what you said about .
I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said about .
I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said about .
What does . mean?
I'm not sure what you mean.
I don't see what you mean.
Could we come back to that?
Sorry, but I'm not quite clear on .
I'd like to ask you about .
What did you mean when you said .?
Could you be more specific about .?
Could you expand a little bit on what you said about .?
Could you give an example of .?
Could you explain in more detail.?
So you're telling me that I can't .?
So what you're saying is that .?
So you mean that .?
Are you saying that .?
Am I correct in assuming that .?
Let me just make sure - your point is that .
If I have understood you correctly, your point is that .
- Following up a question
That's not really what I was asking. My question is about .
Perhaps I didn't make my question clear. I fact what I asked was .
I think you've answered a slightly different question. What I would like to know is .
I understand that but what I actually had in mind was .
Sorry, I'm still not clear about .
- Dealing with difficult questions
. is important but it's too complex for us to deal with here.
I think the aim of this talk is to focus on . rather than .
It's too early for us to say whether .
We don't have enough evidence to show that .
That's not something I've had time to deal with, but .
I'd prefer to deal with that point later.
- Agreeing
I couldn't agree more.
On the whole, I think the speaker's arguments are fair.
I (quite) agree.
I think you're absolutely right.
That's a very good point.
You've got a very good point there.
I fully support what you say.
I totally agree.
Exactly!
- Doubt and reservation
Well . maybe . possibly .
I'm not so sure about that.
You may be right.
I don't think I'd say that.
Yes, but don't you think .?
I can see your point, but .
I think that's debatable.
Perhaps, but don't you think that .
I see what you mean but .
I agree to some extent, but ...
It seems to me ...
I tend to think ...
- Disagreeing
But don't you think that .?
I see what you mean, but .
But isn't it really a question of .
But what about .?
But surely .?
I take your point, but ,.
But all the evidence suggests that .
I'm afraid I can't agree with . on this matter.
I wouldn't say that.
I don't agree at all.
I can't accept that.
Group Discussion
- Ordering points
Firstly
To start with,
Secondly
Next
Then
Thirdly
Lastly
Finally
- Giving examples
For example, .
For instance, .
And as proof of that, .
Remember .
You only have to think of .
- Emphasising
Furthermore .
What's more, .
This supports my argument that .
It follows, therefore, that .
- Putting it in other words
In other words, .
That is to say, .
To put it another way, .
The point I'm making is .
What I'm suggesting is .,
Let me put it another way.
- Interrupting
If I could just come in here.
Sorry to interrupt, but .
I'd just like to say that.
- Getting clarification
I didn't understand what you said about .
I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said about .
I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said about .
What does . mean?
I'm not sure what you mean.
I don't see what you mean.
Could we come back to that?
Sorry, but I'm not quite clear on .
I'd like to ask you about .
What did you mean when you said .?
Could you be more specific about .?
Could you expand a little bit on what you said about .?
Could you give an example of .?
Could you explain in more detail.?
So you're telling me that I can't .?
So what you're saying is that .?
So you mean that .?
Are you saying that .?
Am I correct in assuming that .?
Let me just make sure - your point is that .
If I have understood you correctly, your point is that .
- Following up a question
That's not really what I was asking. My question is about .
Perhaps I didn't make my question clear. I fact what I asked was .
I think you've answered a slightly different question. What I would like to know is .
I understand that but what I actually had in mind was .
Sorry, I'm still not clear about .
- Dealing with difficult questions
. is important but it's too complex for us to deal with here.
I think the aim of this talk is to focus on . rather than .
It's too early for us to say whether .
We don't have enough evidence to show that .
That's not something I've had time to deal with, but .
I'd prefer to deal with that point later.
- Giving opinions
I definitely think that....
I'm sure that....
I'm convinced that....
I really do think that....
I'm of the opinion that ...
As I see it, ....
I think ....
I consider ....
I feel ....
Personally, I believe ...
In my opinion/view, ....
It seems to me ....
I'm inclined to think that ...
I tend to think that ....
- Agreeing
I couldn't agree more.
On the whole, I think the speaker's arguments are fair.
I (quite) agree.
I think you're absolutely right.
That's a very good point.
You've got a very good point there.
I fully support what you say.
I totally agree.
Exactly!
- Doubt and reservation
Well . maybe . possibly .
I'm not so sure about that.
You may be right.
I don't think I'd say that.
Yes, but don't you think .?
I can see your point, but .
I think that's debatable.
Perhaps, but don't you think that .
I see what you mean but .
I agree to some extent, but ...
It seems to me ...
I tend to think ...
- Disagreeing
But don't you think that .?
I see what you mean, but .
But isn't it really a question of .
But what about .?
But surely .?
I take your point, but ,.
But all the evidence suggests that .
I'm afraid I can't agree with . on this matter.
I wouldn't say that.
I don't agree at all.
I can't accept that.
- Asking for opinions
What do you think about ...?.
What are you views ...?
What do you feel about ...?
What's your opinion of ...?
What are you feelings about ...?
Have you got any comments on ...?
Could I have your reaction to ...?
Do you have any particular views on ...?
Don't you agree, ...?
I think X knows more about this than I do?
I expect X will agree with me when I say ....
-
Reporting to class
- Summarising and reporting
It was generally felt that .
Generally speaking, we felt .
On the whole .
We couldn't agree on .
Opinion was divided on .
We had some difficulty in deciding .
We decided that the best way was to .
After some discussion we reached a compromise on .
- Concluding
So .
We've seen that .
First we looked at . and we saw that .
Then we considered . and we argued .
In short .
To sum up .
In conclusion, We'd like to emphasise that .
That completes our presentation.
- Invite questions
That covers the main points. If you have any comments or questions, we'll be happy to hear them.
So that explains our main point. Does anyone have any comments or questions?
We'd be glad to try and answer any questions.
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