Tutorial 2: 8 Ways to Captivate and Mesmerize Your Audience During a Presentation

“Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.”

-Dale Carnegie

Losing the attention of your audience is something that can completely undermine and destroy the focus and intent of a presentation. Any information you want or need the audience to process and decipher could potentially be lost due to lack of attention

As portrayed above we see that the foundation of a successful presentation is in capturing the audience’s attention, captivating them and mesmerizing them. In order to grab your audience it has been proven that you must do this within the first 30 to 60 seconds. If you don’t capture your audience’s attention in the first 30 to 60 seconds you could have potentially lost their attention for the entirety of the presentation.

I will now give you a few quick and easy tips on how to take control of your audience, captivate them, mesmerize them, as well as getting them actively engaged in the presentation. I will guarantee you that they will leave your presentation well cognizant of the information you put out and thirsting for more.

8 WAYS TO CAPTIVATE AND MESMERIZE YOUR AUDIENCE DURING A PRESENTATION.

v  Ask a question

By asking a question you are directly engaging your audience. It can also keep the audience actively engaged by keeping them on their toes. The audience could potentially pay more attention because of the possible chance of being asked a question.

v  Tell a story

When you tell a story in order to captivate the audience you want to be able to make the story relevant to the audience and the presentation. This will trigger the audience’s interest in the topic and presentation. Proverbs or aphorisms are great historical and time proven tales that could work out for your purpose.

v  Crack a joke

Be wary of this one, if you can pull it off this is a great way to break the ice and grab the audience’s immediate attention. By preforming this and pulling it off it will also put the audience in a good mood. Just be sure to take into consideration that with this tip you either pull it off and it’s great, or you encounter an epic fail and all is lost.

v  Use a quote

Quotes are a great way to capture the audience. Be sure when you use a quote to state who said the quote out of respect. Also you want to make sure the quote relates to your presentation.

v  Unveil a dramatic statistic

This is an awesome and powerful way of capturing your audience. You want to make sure the statistics you use are verifiable and solid, and can relate to your presentations information. The more staggering of a statistic you make the more captivating your presentation becomes.

v   Use media, audio, video

Utilizing media, audio, and video is a great way to capture your audience. It’s something loud and different from the typical boring standard presentation. You want to make sure your media relates to your topic and is appropriate for the type of audience taking everything into consideration.

v  Build credibility

This can be a great tool within a presentation. When you start building your credibility be sure not to overdo it or get out of hand. I’m sure we’ve all had those professors that talk about themselves for ¾ of the class and we all can’t stand it. So when you do this be sure to talk about your personal experiences relating to your topic in order to build credibility and don’t overdo it.

v  Introduce an analogy or metaphor

Analogies and metaphors are great to gain the audience’s attention and get those creative juices flowing, it really gets them thinking. These tools are especially helpful when presenting tough or challenging information.

Below is a great example of a piece of public speaking by Craig Valentine that reaches out and grabs you in the first 30 to 60 seconds.

Video is from YouTube.com and is not mine. Video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/makelovecool#p/a/u/0/h3_g876l4EA

All of these tips are great tips for really adding that opening bang to your presentation, speech or what have you. However there are many more tips and tricks out there listed below are a few websites that have some great information regarding tips and tricks for spicing up your presentation.

1.      http://www.speak-first.com/news/presenting-with-a-bang.aspx

2.      http://www.tero.com/engaging.html

3.      http://top7business.com/?Top-7-Tips-for-a-Successful-Presentation&id=88



Hopefully these tips will aid you in the pursuit of an engaging, captivating, and mesmerizing presentation. Best of Luck in all future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Cedric K Jones

Excel Project

The Excel Project was a great learning experience. We received a file containing raw data pertaining to an exercise study. We were directed to reformat the data so it would be more aesthetically pleasing, comprehendible, and show a comprehensive analysis of the data. Due to the reformatting the data will be able to be printed out in an effective and comprehendible manner.              

I utilized many different skills during the reformatting and analysis of the Excel Project. During the reformatting portion of the project I learned, used and practiced naming and renaming sheets, formatting fonts, centering, adjusting adding and removing rows and columns, applying freeze panes, applying and using the formula tab while creating different formulas, adding and subtracting decimal points (formatting numbers), and preparing the document to print.

In the second portion of the Excel Project I worked with pivot tables. I was directed to create to different pivot table analysis charts. One chart was on the “Target Heart Rate Being Achieved” and the other chart was on “The Average Heart Rate Increase” both had variations of male and female. During the creation of these pivot tables I learned how to select and insert the proper column and row headings within the table, as well as insert the proper data within the table. I also learned how to add and subtract decimal places within the pivot table (number formatting), as well as group different categories within the pivot table.

My Average Percent Increase pivot table

All in all this project was a great learning experience with a bit of real world work force application which was very helpful.

Tutorial 1 : A Quick and Easy Way to Avoid Plagiarism

A national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet; 74% of students admitted that at least once during the past school year they had engaged in "serious" cheating; and 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating. “Facts about plagiarism” Plagiarism.org. Accessed January 29, 2011 http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_facts.html

As viewed above plagiarism is a fairly large problem within our education system. Sometimes we might unknowingly plagiarize and sometimes we might deliberately plagiarize. Either way plagiarism results in a direct violation of academic integrity. Academic integrity violations are something that we as citizens of the academic world do not want on our record or on our conscious.

Academic integrity violations such as plagiarism can result in punishment. These punishments have varied depending upon situation. I’ve read about students being given an “F” on the assignment all the way to the student being expelled from the Academic institution. In the working world plagiarism can be combatted with punishments such as fines, potential misdemeanor or felony charges and up to 1 year in jail, all dependent upon the state and severity of the offense.

With this being said there are ways to protect ourselves and make sure that we don’t violate our integrity and don’t run into these problems. There are a few great sites that help us not only learn about plagiarism, but help us combat it amongst our own compilation of work. A few great website’s that have tons of information and facts / tips regarding plagiarism are http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html , http://www.turnitin.com/static/index.php , http://www.ithenticate.com/ , http://www.writecheck.com/static/home.html, and one that all of us as undergraduates should be interested in http://www.turnitinadmissions.com/index.html , which articulates and helps pinpoint plagiarism in application essays for graduate and undergraduate programs.

I will now teach how to access and effectively use the website http://www.duplichecker.com/ a quick free plagiarism checker that can be utilized in a matter of minutes.

A few things you will need.

1.      A computer with internet capability

2.      An electronic copy of your document, preferably in word document format.

3.      The ability to copy and paste.

v  Step #1: Open you computers web browser.

v  Step #2: In the address bar enter the web address http://www.duplichecker.com/

v  Step #3: Hit the “Enter” key

v  Step #4: After hitting the enter key you should have been directed to the http://www.duplichecker.com/ home page.

v  Step #5: After being directed to the Dupli Checker homepage scroll down to the “Please Enter Your Text Below and Search” Text Box

v  Step #6: using the copy function on your keyboard or mouse copy your document and paste it in the text box, OR you can use the browse button to locate your document on your computer and upload it into the text box that way.

v  Step#7: After the text is uploaded OR pasted in the text box hit the search button at the bottom of the page directly under the Yahoo add. After hitting this button the Dupli Checker will return your document to you with any potential plagiarism threats. From there you can decide to alter your document however you wish to.

That is the easiest, cheapest, quickest and one of the most effective ways to make sure your not committing an act of plagiarism. I hope this information will help anyone and everyone in there quest for education and knowledge.

Above: Dupli Checker homepage