Know Your Audience and Be Concise

Effective Classroom Presentation

Effective classroom presentations require several key things to happen. I will write of two herein. First, know your audience. Second, be concise.

Know Your Audience

Creating and presenting “for a specific audience mean[s] that you have to identify that audience and understand their needs.” (Smallwood) You must know your primary audience and should consider the importance of including material for secondary audiences. To market, reach out, and communicate to your audience information that will be interesting, valuable, and applicable for them, it is essential to know your audience.

A study done by Yates and Orlikowski of MIT on PowerPoint presentations pointed out that the purpose, content, and form of an effective presentation are determined in part by knowing your audience. (Yates, Orlikowski)

Be Concise

Conciseness has a strong place in popular opinion. “It is still seen by many as the cardinal virtue of composition. Although essential, conciseness is not the end-all principle to follow. To include the other 4 of the 5 Cs, conciseness must be balanced wisely between wordiness on the one end, and anorexia on the other. Nevin Laib, of Franklin and Marshall College, wrote, “To be complete, our presentation of style must be more balanced. We need to encourage profuseness as well as concision, to teach not just brevity but also loquacity…” (Laib pp. 443-459)

Presentations ought to be brief enough to be comprehensible. When creating a presentation, remove any unnecessary repetitive information. Do not include long quotes on a single slide. But include any material that your audience needs in order to understand your message.

Summary

Different audiences require different information. Different audiences require different approaches to conciseness. Know your audience and do not bore them with wordiness. Your presentation will be understood and relevant.

                                                            References

Laib, Nevin. "College Composition and Communication." College Composition and          Communication. 41.4 (1990): pp. 443-459. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.        <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/357934>.

Smallwood, Carol. Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook. Web.             <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lb_sw-hapuAC&oi=fnd&pg=

            PA3&dq=know your audience&ots=J16VscAqcb&sig=aK_vDQfYu2d71h
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Yates, Orlikowski, JoAnn, Wanda. n. page.   <http://seeit.mit.edu/publications/yatesorlikowski-pp.pdf>.