Unit 4 Touchstone: Oral Presentation

ASSIGNMENT: Imagine that you have been asked to give a five-minute oral presentation at the next staff meeting. The purpose is to teach your colleagues some strategy or technique for better communication. Example topics could be:

• Humor at work: what's appropriate and what's not
• How to soothe an angry customer on the phone
• How to give constructive criticism in person
• Advice for professional emails

A. DIRECTIONS

1. As you begin, remember to follow the seven guidelines of professional communication.

• Know your objective (to teach a communication skill.)
• Understand your audience (these are your colleagues; you have a professional relationship but also know each other well. Your colleagues want the presentation to be helpful and engaging, even entertaining).
• Be relevant. Make sure the presentation stays focused on a communication skill everybody can use.
• Be clear, concise, complete, and consistent. Because the presentation is short, pay special attention to being concise. Make sure that you can finish it in under five minutes. Your colleagues don't want to go late into their lunch hour! Be consistent in your use of language and avoid using jargon.

2. Select a topic and draft your presentation on paper as an informal outline.

(need assistance on drafting a presentation outline based on the above information)