The Blurb On The Back:

Terrified at the thought of giving presentations?

Give Great Presentations gives you the tips and tools you need to feel confident and ace your presentations.

• Master your brief and prepare great presentations
• Hone your body language and use your nerves to your advantage
• Make the most of it and learn from each presentation 

Succeed at university with Super Quick Skills.

Giving you the tools and advice you need to progress your skills and excel in your studies and life. 

You can buy GIVE GREAT PRESENTATIONS by Lucinda Becker from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

Lucinda Becker is Professor of Pedagogy at Reading University who has produced this solid how-to-guide aimed at university students but with tips that anyone who has to give a presentation can use.  The book combines practical tips on how to put a presentation together with techniques for overcoming nerves and is worth a look if you’ve been asked to do one for the first time.

This is a very short and methodical book, using a number of bullet points and checklists to get its lessons across and offering some free resources for putting presentations together at the end.  It tracks through every stage of the presentation process from coming up with presentation titles and working through the assessment process to what to do after your presentation is over when it comes to assessing how you did and learning lessons to take forward.

Although the book is aimed at university students (so there’s a focus on getting marks and working out how your presentation will be assessed) there are still plenty of good points here that can be used by anyone who has to do a presentation.  I found the section on how to use breathing techniques and positioning to help manage nerves very useful and I thought Becker also gives good tips on connecting with the audience and avoiding people who might derail your presentation.

If I had a quibble, it’s that I didn’t think the illustrations really added anything other than padding – some of them looked like stock photos and the image quality wasn’t great.  I also wasn’t sure that the suggestion of doing 6 rehearsals would always be feasible or practical, but I can see how it would help people completely new to this – especially students.

That aside, however, I did find this useful and as a starting point it’s definitely worth a look if you’re doing a presentation for the first time and don’t know where to start.   

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.