how to write a presentation script

4 Tips to Write an Effective Presentation Script

• By Judhajit Sen
• May 31, 2024

Writing a presentation script might seem difficult, but it’s not impossible. Start by making a plan. Learn how to write the main points you want to make and decide the order in which you will discuss them. Then, do some research on your topic so you know what you’re talking about.

Use simple language and avoid jargon. Use facts and numbers to back up your points. Practice your presentation many times so you feel confident when you speak. With some prep and practice, you can nail your script.

Writing a script of a speech is not easy. It takes time to learn and prowess that needs to be honed. Just like making templates, there are rules to follow. You must ensure your words meet your needs and don’t sound automated.

Crafting a great presentation isn’t just about the content. You also need a script. Learning to write one takes time. Like making templates, there are rules to stick to. This means you need to write a good story and breaks in your presentation speech. Make sure your words match your slides and sound natural.

Key Takeaways

• Plan Ahead: Crafting a compelling script requires careful planning and organization. Start by outlining your main points and backing them up with research to ensure clarity and coherence.
• Sync with Slides: Align your script closely with your presentation slides as an audience engagement strategy to facilitate understanding. Avoid discrepancies between your spoken words and visual content that leaves the audience puzzled.
• Include Pauses: Incorporate breaks strategically in your script to allow your audience time to process information and absorb visual content. Breaks also help control the pace of your speech and maintain the audience’s attention throughout.
• Practice Diligently: Rehearse your script multiple times, integrating your final templates to refine your delivery and boost confidence. Adjust your delivery to sound natural and engaging, ensuring a good presentation .
• Storyboarding Matters: Start by creating a storyboard to map out the flow and structure of your presentation. This essential step helps ensure a well-structured and engaging delivery, guiding your audience smoothly from start to finish.
• Focus on Delivery: Remember, presentations are not just about the content on your templates; they’re about how you deliver your message. Your script is your roadmap to guide your presentation and make a lasting impression.

Defining a Presentation

A presentation is when someone talks to a group to share information. They do this to explain ideas, teach, or convince others to do something. Presentations can happen face-to-face, on video calls, or online. They’re common in business meetings or school classes.

Presentations can tell, teach, or amuse, depending on what they’re for. They can be slideshows, videos, or things you can interact with. But no matter how they’re done, a smooth presentation needs planning, preparation, and public speaking skills that needs practice.

Components Of A Successful Presentation

Every presentation can be divided into three parts: the beginning, the main part, and the end. About 10-15% of your time talking is usually spent on the beginning, approximately 75% on the main part, and the remaining 10% on finishing up.

The main part of the Google slide or PowerPoint presentation should include facts and evidence supporting the key points, presented logically and easily understood. Use presentation design elements like pictures, graphs, and charts to help explain the points.

Finally, end a presentation by summarizing the main points and with an  effective call to action . With these parts done well, your strong presentation will surely grab the audience’s attention and leave them feeling positive throughout the presentation.

Presentation Script

A presentation script is like a roadmap for a presentation. It’s a written plan that helps the presenter know what to say when to show visual aids like templates, and how to keep things organized.

In a script, you’ll find the main things the speaker needs to talk about, details about the stuff they’re presenting, and tips on how to talk about it. This helps the company get its message across and connect with the audience from start to finish.

Presenters write their scripts using tools like Google Slides or PowerPoint. These different types of presentation tools let them jot down notes only they can see and even add voice recordings. For instance, in a financial presentation for shareholders, the script might include extra info to explain tricky money stuff and when to switch templates or use visuals.

Following are four tips on how to write a killer script.

Freeze the Storyboard

Planning is crucial when writing a script. To make the content flow naturally, a presenter needs enough time to prepare and practice before the event. The key to an excellent presentation content is clear and concise storyboarding.

Start with storyboarding before writing the business communication script. This is especially important if you’re also designing the presentation. It’s tempting to write the content first and then fit the design elements to match. However, this approach often leads to frustration and stress.

Using a storyboard helps you effectively plan the presentation’s length and content word for word. It serves as a guide, allowing you to lead your audience smoothly from start to finish. By prioritizing storyboarding, you’ll ensure a well-structured and impactful presentation.

Follow the Slide Content

When crafting an engaging presentation script, make sure it matches the content of your slides. This will keep your audience engaged and help them follow along without getting lost.

Start by using your templates as the foundation for your script. If your presentation doesn’t match the content of your script, it can confuse your audience. If the script doesn’t match much of the information in the presentation, people will have trouble keeping up and lose interest.

Always keep your presentation materials nearby when writing your script to prevent this. Break your script into sections or bullet points that match the order of your slides. This way, your script and templates will complement each other perfectly, making your presentation conversational and easy to follow.

Add Pauses to Your Script

When crafting a presentation script, remember that your audience has two main tasks: listening to your words and understanding the visual content. To help them do this effectively, you need to add pauses to your script’s content.

Putting yourself in the audience’s shoes can make a big difference. Breaks give them time to process what you’ve said and absorb the information from your templates or visuals, helping them absorb more of the content you are presenting and not forget something.

Including breaks in your speech with script also helps you as a speaker. Breaks allow you to improvise the rhythm of your speech and maintain the attention of the audience from start to finish. Planning these breaks can create a more engaging and effective presentation.

Rehearse the Script

Once your script is ready, set aside plenty of time to say the words, practice and memorize. Remember, the script is just one part of your presentation, so always practice with your final slides. This helps you see how everything fits together.

Practicing with your templates allows you to make last-minute changes to the script and practice your delivery. Persuasive speech is a skill so pay attention to how you stand, make eye contact , and use body language .

Scripts for presentations are often written more formally than how we naturally speak. If you don’t adjust this, your delivery might sound awkward and unnatural, and the audience will notice.

Practice your script several times to become comfortable with the material. This will help your smooth delivery, boost your confidence, and reduce fear of public speaking on the day of the presentation. Doing this helps make a persuasive presentation , ensuring you effectively convey your message and captivate your audience throughout your presentation.

Mastering Presentation Scripts: Your Path to Successful Presentations

Creating a good script isn’t rocket science but requires some savvy moves. Start by crafting a plan, laying out your main points, and backing them up with solid research. Explain complex jargon in simple language and practice until you feel like a pro.

Presentations aren’t just about what’s on your templates but about how you want to present. Whether you’re pitching an idea or teaching a concept, your script is your roadmap.

Remember the basics: a solid beginning to grab attention, a meaty central part supported by evidence, and a memorable ending to leave a lasting impression.

But how to write a presentation script that hits all the marks? Here are four game-changing tips:

First off, freeze that storyboard. Planning is critical, and storyboarding ensures your content flows seamlessly.

Next, sync your script with your slides. Ensure your words match what’s on the screen to keep your audience in the loop.

Remember to add breaks. Let your audience digest what you’re saying and absorb those visuals.

Lastly, rehearse like your presentation depends on it (because it does). Practice with your templates, tweak your delivery and own that stage.

With these tips in your arsenal, you’ll be armed and ready to write killer scripts that mesmerize your audience and drive your message home.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is a presentation script, and why is it important? A script is a written plan that guides the speaker on what to say during a presentation. It helps maintain organization and clarity and effectively communicates the message to the audience. Without a script, presenters might struggle to deliver coherent presentations, risking confusion among the audience.

2. How can I start writing a script for a presentation? Begin by crafting a storyboard to outline the flow of your presentation. This step is essential in ensuring your content is well-structured and engaging. Storyboarding allows you to plan the length and content effectively, providing a roadmap for your presentation.

3. Why is it essential for a script for a presentation to match the slide content? Matching the script with slide content is vital to keep the audience engaged and facilitate understanding. When the script aligns with the visuals, it helps the audience follow along smoothly without getting lost or confused.

4. Why should I add pauses to my presentation script? Adding pauses allows the audience time to digest the information presented and absorb visual content. It helps maintain audience engagement and ensures they can process the message effectively. Breaks also benefit the speaker by allowing them to control the rhythm of their speech and sustain the audience’s attention.

5. How important is rehearsal when preparing a presentation script? Rehearsal is crucial in delivering a polished and confident presentation. It allows the speaker to familiarize themselves with the script, practice delivery, and make necessary adjustments. Practicing with final templates helps ensure everything flows smoothly and enhances the overall impact of the presentation.

6. What are the critical elements of a killer presentation script? A killer script incorporates clear storytelling, matches slide content, includes strategic breaks, and undergoes thorough rehearsal. These elements ensure the script is engaging, easy to follow, and effectively delivers the intended message to the audience.

Master the Art of Persuasion: How Prezentium Can Elevate Your Presentation Scripts

Crafting a stellar presentation script is essential to delivering your message with impact. But fear not, because Prezentium is here to revolutionize your approach to presentations.

With our AI-powered services, including Overnight Presentations, Presentation Specialist expertise, and Zenith Learning workshops, Prezentium is your ultimate partner in creating stunning scripts that leave a lasting impression.

Forget the struggle of planning, scripting, and designing your presentations alone. Our specialist team will tirelessly transform your ideas into polished scripts that resonate with your audience. Whether you need a last-minute presentation or a comprehensive overhaul of your content, Prezentium has you covered.

Harness the power of structured problem-solving and visual storytelling with our Zenith Learning workshops, designed to elevate your presentation skills to new heights. From crafting compelling narratives to mastering the art of delivery, Prezentium provides the tools and expertise you need to succeed.

So why wait? Elevate your presentations with Prezentium today and unlock the potential of persuasive communication. Let’s work together to create scripts that captivate, educate, and inspire. Your audience awaits – are you ready to dazzle them?

Why wait? Avail a complimentary 1-on-1 session with our presentation expert. See how other enterprise leaders are creating impactful presentations with us.

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Presentation Script | Ultimate Guide To Engage Your Audience in 2024

Jane Ng • 05 April, 2024 • 8 min read

How can you organize a PowerPoint presentation so it engages the audience? this is a hot topic! Are you looking for a script presentation example? Every memorable presentation starts with a single blank page and a writer's determination to create something extraordinary. If you've ever found yourself staring at that intimidating blank canvas, unsure how to transform your ideas into a captivating script, fear not. 

In this blog post, we'll guide you on how to write an impeccable presentation script that will mesmerize your audience. Moreover, we'll provide you with practical tips and real-life examples that help you kickstart your journey toward crafting a compelling presentation script.

Learn how to write a presentation script with AhaSlides, today!

Table of Contents

Why a well-written presentation script matters, how to write a presentation script, expert tips for writing an engaging presentation script.

• Presentation Script Example 
• Key Takeaways

Overview - Presentation Script

• Presentation description
• Title ideas

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A well-written presentation script is the backbone of your delivery, ensuring structure, engaging your audience, boosting your confidence, and providing adaptability.

• An excellent presentation script brings structure and clarity to your message.
• It keeps your audience engaged and helps them understand your ideas. 
• It also ensures consistency and repeatability, especially when presenting multiple times. 
• A good script for presentation provides adaptability and preparedness, enabling you to adjust and handle unexpected situations. 

In addition, for many presenters, nerves and Glossophobia can be significant hurdles to overcome. A well-written script provides a sense of security and confidence. Like a safety net, it ensures that you have your key points and supporting details at your fingertips. This boosts your confidence and reduces anxiety, allowing you to deliver a more polished presentation.

So, how to make a script for a presentation?

Before writing a presentation script, you need to know your audience's background, interests, and knowledge level. Then clearly define the purpose of your presentation. Having a clear objective will help you stay focused while writing your script.

1/ Outline The Structure

Start with an attention-grabbing introduction, followed by the main points you want to convey, and conclude with a strong summary or call to action.

For example:

• Introduction - The introduction script for presentations should be a welcome and personal connection to the topic. 
• Main Points - Benefits of "topic"
• Transitions - Use phrases like "Now let's move on to," or "Next, we'll discuss." 
• Conclusion - Recap key points and call to action.

You can consider using bullet points or headings to organize your ideas within each section.

2/ Craft A Powerful Opening

Crafting a strong opening statement is crucial to capturing your audience's attention and setting the tone for your entire presentation. Here are some key elements to consider when creating an impactful opening statement:

• Hook the Audience: Start with a captivating hook that immediately grabs the audience's attention
• Establish Relevance: Communicate the relevance and importance of your topic to the audience. Highlight how it relates to their lives, challenges, or aspirations.
• Create an Emotional Connection: Appeal to your audience's emotions and create a sense of resonance or empathy. Connect with their desires, challenges, or aspirations to make a personal connection.

3/ Develop Key Points

When developing the key points in your presentation script, it's essential to provide supporting information, examples, or evidence that reinforces your message. Here's how you can expand on each main point:

Supporting Information:

• Present facts, data, or expert opinions that support your main point.
• Use credible sources to strengthen your arguments and provide context.
• Use evidence to back up your claims and increase credibility.

Logical Order or Narrative Flow

• Organize your main points in a logical order to facilitate understanding.
• Consider using a narrative flow to create a compelling storyline that connects your main points.

4/ Incorporate Visual Aids

Incorporating visual aids strategically into your presentation can significantly enhance understanding, engagement, and retention of information.

• Example: If you're discussing the features of a new product, display images or a short video demonstrating its functionality as you describe each feature.

5/ Include Transitions and Signposts

Including transitions and signposts helps guide your audience through your ideas and ensures they can easily follow your train of thought.

You can use concise and engaging language to introduce the upcoming subject matter.

• Example: "Next, we'll explore the latest..."

Or you can use questions to transition between sections or engage the audience's attention.

• Example: "But how can we tackle this challenge? The answer lies in..."

6/ Summarize and Conclude

• Recap your main points to reinforce key messages concisely.
• End with a memorable conclusion that leaves a lasting impact or a call to action for your audience.

7/ Seek Feedback and Revise

• Share your script with a trusted colleague, friend, or mentor for constructive feedback.
• Once you have made revisions based on feedback, practice delivering your revised script.
• Refine and fine-tune your script as needed through practice sessions and additional feedback.

Involve The Audience

Boost audience participation and engagement by leveraging interactive features such as Q&A session , live polls, quizzes and small activities through AhaSlides . By utilizing these interactive elements, you can transform your presentation into a dynamic and engaging experience for your audience.

You also can ask your audience for feedback by rating scale or Likert scale !

Use Conversational Language

Write your script in a conversational tone to make it more approachable and relatable. Avoid jargon and complex terminology that might alienate your audience.

Know Your Key Takeaways

• Identify the main messages or key takeaways you want your audience to remember.
• Craft your script around these key points to ensure they are emphasized throughout the presentation.

Address Potential Questions or Concerns

By proactively addressing potential questions or concerns within your presentation script, you demonstrate thoroughness, credibility, and a genuine commitment to addressing your audience's needs. 

This approach helps foster trust and ensures that your presentation provides clear and comprehensive information, leaving your audience feeling satisfied and informed.

Presentation Script Example

Here's an example of a presentation script about "The Power of Effective Communication": 

Key Takeaways 

In conclusion, crafting a well-written presentation script is essential for delivering a successful and impactful presentation. By following the steps and tips outlined in this guide, you can create a script that engages your audience, communicates your message effectively, and leaves a lasting impression.

Remember, incorporating interactive elements can significantly enhance audience engagement and make your presentation more memorable. AhaSlides, with our wide range of templates and interactive features like questions, polls , and activities, provides a powerful platform to involve your audience actively and create an interactive and dynamic presentation experience.

How do you write a script for a presentation?

Here are steps on how to write an effective presentation script: Outline the structure, including an attention-grabbing introduction, main points, and a strong conclusion.  Craft a powerful opening that hooks the audience, establishes relevance, and creates an emotional connection.  Develop key points with supporting information and logical order.  Incorporate visual aids strategically to enhance understanding.  Use transitions and signposts to guide your audience.  Summarize and conclude with impact .  Seek feedback, revise, and practice for a polished presentation.

How do you start a presentation script example?

Here's an example of how you can start a presentation script: - "Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for being here today. My name is_____, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak with you about_______. Over the next _______, we will explore [briefly mention key points or objectives of the presentation]." The opening lines should aim to grab the audience's attention, establish your credibility, and introduce the topic you will be discussing. 

Is it okay to read a script for a presentation?

While it's generally recommended to avoid reading directly from a script, there are situations where it can be beneficial. For formal or complex presentations like academic or technical talks, a well-crafted script ensures accuracy and keeps you on track.  However, in most cases, a conversational style with notes or prompts is preferred. This allows flexibility, spontaneity, and better audience engagement. 

A writer who wants to create practical and valuable content for the audience

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

More from AhaSlides

How to write an effective presentation script

If putting together presentation content wasn’t tough enough, a script also has to be written for, or by, the speaker. Learning how to write a presentation script can take some time to master, and just like a presentation design , there are some important rules to remember.

From putting together a storyboard and ensuring the words complement the slides, to inserting pause breaks and not sounding too scripted, delivering a presentation speech is a skill that needs to be honed. In this article, we will help you with all of that and more, so you can learn how to write a presentation script your audience will easily connect with.

1. Finalise the storyboarding

Planning is everything when it comes to  writing a script for a presentation . In order to make the content flow naturally, a speaker needs to be well-prepared with enough time ahead of the event for them to practise.

In order to achieve great presentation content , clear and concise storyboarding needs to be the first step. This is especially true in situations where the same person is writing the script and also putting together the design. It can be tempting to write the content first before attempting to retrofit the design elements so it matches the script.

However, following this method rarely ever works, and it only serves to increase frustration and stress levels. By using a storyboard it becomes much easier to plan the length of the presentation along with its content. It also creates a guideline that will enable the speaker to direct the audience from start to finish.

2. Stick to the slide content

A key point to remember is that the content of your slides must provide the foundation of your script. When you sit down to begin writing it can be easy to follow the flow of ideas to create a script that reads wonderfully on its own. What you can’t forget is this must tie directly into the presentation content you have already storyboarded.

Writing a script for a presentation that doesn’t match the content will leave the audience feeling confused. As the script starts wandering off into tangents that do not relate to the slides, the crowd will quickly lose their place and their concentration will soon follow.

An easy way around this is to write the script with the presentation content close to hand. Break down the words into sections that reflect the order of the slides so the two are always complementing each other perfectly.

3. Remember to add in some pause breaks

When an audience attends a presentation they have two tasks to juggle: firstly, to digest the words being delivered by the speaker, and secondly, to understand the information provided by the presentation content.

It’s important to place yourself in the shoes of the audience to remember this when writing a script for a presentation. You want as much of the information you are providing to be taken in by the audience, which means you need to factor in some time that will enable them to process your words and the visual data.

Writing pause breaks into the script plays a key role in achieving this. When the speaker pauses it gives the audience a moment to reflect on what has just been said. It also allows the speaker to create a  rhythm of speech  and have more control over the attention of the audience from start to finish.

4. Write, practice, iterate and repeat

Once you have your script ready to go, you will need to set aside a good amount of time to practice it. Don’t forget, the script is one half of the content you will be delivering to the audience, so you should always practice the material alongside the finalised slides, as this gives you a better feel for how it all comes together.

This also allows you to make final tweaks and changes to the script, as well as physically practicing how you will deliver it on the day. You can then rehearse the way you stand, your eye contact and the management of your overall body language in front of an audience.

It is also worth remembering that when you write a script for a presentation, it will be written more formally compared to the way you naturally speak. If the script isn’t changed to reflect this, it will sound unnatural and awkward and the audience will pick up on it very quickly.

5. Remember, You don’t always need to write a script

Please note that this final point isn’t intended to undermine everything we have talked about above! As we mentioned in the previous point, sometimes writing every word you are going to say can sound overly scripted, which can lack empathy and struggle to connect with the audience.

If you are experienced and confident enough, or if it fits the type of audience you will be speaking to, you can work around key points you have written down, or simply use the slide content as your start point.

This usually suits a more informal setting and you always have to be careful not to wander off on long tangents that will lose the audience in the process. Always remember the structure of your presentation and have a time limit so you will still deliver the information concisely and effectively.

Script writing is no easy task!

Just like creating content for your presentation, writing a script requires practice. With each one you write you will gain more confidence and improve the way they are structured and delivered. Use the guidelines above as a foundation for your scripts and you’ll soon be able to find a voice and style that will add real value to your presentations.

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How to write an engaging and effective presentation script?

Explore expert tips and techniques to elevate your script, ensuring it resonates with your audience and enhances your message.

Bharti Jain

Delivering presentations

In today's world, presentations are a crucial part of professional communication, whether for pitching a new idea, educating an audience, or persuading potential clients. However, the backbone of any successful presentation is its script. A well-crafted presentation script can captivate your audience and deliver your message effectively. In this blog, we’ll explore the intricacies of crafting such a presentation that not only delivers information but also engages your audience, drawing insights from the tools and strategies provided by Prezent.

What is a presentation script?

It is much more than a mere set of words to be read or spoken; it is a strategic narrative designed to communicate ideas effectively. It’s the roadmap of your presentation content, detailing every turn of your story, every fact you want to highlight, and every emotion you wish to evoke. A well-written script aligns with your visuals and delivery, creating a harmonious and impactful presentation.

Here’s an example of presentation script containing key points only:

What are the key elements of a compelling presentation script?

When we talk about crafting a presentation script that captivates and engages, it's essential to focus on the following elements.

1. Write a script with a clear objective

It's a common misconception that the sole purpose is just to relay whatever is on your mind. Every presentation has a specific goal, and it's crucial to identify this goal right from the start. Are you looking to inform, persuade, inspire, or motivate your audience?

For example, if your goal is to persuade your audience, you need an approach as if you're a lawyer making a closing argument. This means your script should be filled with strong, convincing evidence and delivered in a tone that's persuasive and compelling. On the other hand, if your aim is to inform, it should resemble a teacher's lesson plan: well-organized, clear, and educational. Here, the focus is on clarity and thoroughness.

2. Audience-centric approach

Tailoring your content to resonate with your audience's interests and level of understanding is crucial. It’s similar to a chef knowing his diners' preferences before crafting a menu.

For example, If your audience comprises young entrepreneurs, using startup success stories and Silicon Valley anecdotes can make your content more relatable and engaging.

Ignoring the audience’s background and interests is like serving a steak to a vegetarian – it just won’t connect. So you need to ensure that you get your audience to listen.

3. Need to write a strong narrative

A strong narrative structure in your script is essential – consider it the spine of your presentation. It should have a compelling introduction (like the opening scene of a gripping movie), an informative body (similar to the plot development of a novel), and a memorable conclusion (the final scene that leaves the audience thinking).

For instance, Steve Jobs’ iconic iPhone launch presentation in 2007 masterfully followed this structure in his presentation speech, captivating the audience from start to finish.

4. Emotional engagement

Creating an emotional connection with the audience can be achieved through storytelling , anecdotes, or humor.

Take, for instance, the iconic "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. His powerful storytelling and emotional appeal transformed statistical data about racial injustice into a palpable narrative that moved an entire nation.

Similarly, humor can play a significant role in keeping the audience engaged. Ellen DeGeneres' commencement speech at Tulane University in 2009 is a prime example. She skillfully blended humor with her personal life story, especially her struggles and achievements.

5. Simplicity and clarity

Conveying your ideas in a straightforward and understandable manner is vital. Think of it as the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Your presentation should be like clear, concise instructions, not a complex, hard-to-decipher manual. Avoid jargon and technical terms unless absolutely necessary.

Remember, Albert Einstein once said,

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Your script should reflect clarity of thought and simplicity of expression.

How to write a presentation script that is effective?

Crafting an engaging presentation script is a multifaceted process that requires attention to detail, a deep understanding of your subject, and a keen sense of audience engagement. Here are some crucial strategies that you should know:

1. In-depth research

To lay a solid foundation for your presentation, start with comprehensive research. Dive deep into your topic to ensure every aspect of your script is well-informed and accurate. This doesn't mean just skimming through the top Google search results. Explore various sources, from scholarly articles to industry reports, to gather a rich array of information.

This depth of understanding not only boosts the credibility of your presentation but also prepares you to confidently handle any questions that might arise during or after your presentation.

2. Conversational tone

A key aspect of a good script is its tone. Aim for a conversational style – as if you're talking to a friend over coffee rather than memorising & lecturing in a formal setting. This approach makes your presentation more relatable and engaging. Avoid complex jargon and technical terms unless necessary, and instead, opt for simple language that flows smoothly. Think of it like storytelling with data.

Check this example to understand better:

Without conversational tone

“In today's discourse, we shall examine the multifaceted and intricate ramifications of digital transformation on global business paradigms."

With conversational tone

"Let's talk about how digital transformation is changing the way we do business around the world. It's pretty fascinating stuff!"

In the first sentence, the formal tone and complex language create a barrier, making the content feel distant and academic. The second sentence, conversational in nature, uses simple language and a friendly approach, inviting the audience into an engaging discussion.

3. Proper visual integration

Visuals are not just decorations; they are integral to reinforcing your message. While scripting, think about how each segment of your speech can be accompanied by relevant visual aids, whether it's a slide, an infographic, or a short video clip. For instance, when discussing a complex process, a diagram can make it easier for your audience to grasp. The key is to ensure that your visuals complement your words, adding clarity and keeping the audience visually engaged.

4. Interactive elements

Engaging your audience is crucial, and interactive elements can significantly boost this engagement. Incorporate rhetorical questions to provoke thought or invite audience participation at certain junctures. You might include a quick poll, a show of hands, or even a brief Q&A session. These elements transform your presentation from a monologue into a dialogue, making it a two-way interaction that keeps your audience actively involved.

5. Rehearse and practice your presentation

The final and perhaps most critical step for the presenter is to refine and rehearse the script several times . This is where you fine-tune your pacing, adjust your tone, and smooth out any rough edges. Rehearsing out loud, ideally in front of a mirror or a test audience, helps identify parts of the script that may need reworking. Pay attention to timing, pauses, and emphasis on key points. Remember, practice doesn’t just make perfect; it builds confidence, ensuring that when it's showtime, you deliver with poise and impact.

How to enhance the effectiveness of a powerpoint presentation through engaging designs?

The integration of engaging presentation designs in your presentation can significantly boost it's effectiveness. Thoughtfully chosen visuals and layout strategies not only grab attention but also make your message more impactful. Let’s delve into how to achieve this synergy:

1. Slide with complementary visuals

Utilize design elements like relevant images, charts, and infographics that reinforce your script’s message. For example, if you're discussing market growth, a well-designed graph can visually represent the data you're talking about, making complex information more accessible and engaging. The key is to choose visuals that directly support and enhance what you're saying.

2. Consistent theme

Maintaining a consistent design theme throughout your presentation helps in creating a visually cohesive experience and makes your brand image stronger. This includes consistent use of color schemes, fonts, and graphic styles that align with the tone and content of your presentation. A uniform theme not only looks professional but also helps in keeping the audience’s attention focused on your message.

3. Focus on readability

Ensure that any text on your visuals is clear and easy to comprehend. Overloading slides with text can overwhelm your audience. Instead, opt for key phrases or bullet points that complement your spoken words. The text should be large enough to be easily readable from a distance, and the color contrast should make it stand out against the background.

4. Balanced layout

Achieving a balance between visual elements and white space is crucial for a clean and effective slide design. A cluttered slide can distract and confuse your audience, while too much white space may lead to a lack of visual interest. Aim for a layout that emphasizes key elements, using white space to highlight important information without making the slide feel overcrowded.

Expert tips for great presentation speech

Delivering a strong presentation is more than just writing; it involves a nuanced blend of delivery techniques, audience interaction, and adaptability. Here are some expert tips presentation style:

1. Dynamic pacing

Varying the pace of your delivery keeps your audience engaged. For example, slow down during complex topics for better understanding, and speed up during familiar or lighter segments to maintain energy. This dynamic pacing ensures that important points are emphasized and the audience remains attentive throughout.

2. Feedback loop

Gathering feedback on your script and presentation style can offer invaluable insights. It’s like holding a mirror to your performance. Present it  to a small group or a trusted colleague and solicit a honest feedback from your audience. Pay attention to their responses and suggestions - they can help you identify areas for improvement that you might not have noticed on your own.

3. Body language and voice modulation

Being conscious of your non-verbal cues and voice modulation can dramatically enhance the effectiveness of your delivery. Your body language should complement the tone of your message.

For instance, use open gestures for welcoming or inclusive points, and firmer gestures for strong, decisive statements. Similarly, modulate your voice to match the content - a softer tone for sensitive topics, or a stronger, more assertive tone for key arguments. This congruence between your words and your delivery makes your presentation more convincing and engaging.

4. Stay adaptable

Adaptability is crucial in presentations. Sometimes, despite all the planning, the audience's reaction may not be what you expected, or technical issues may arise. Be prepared to improvise your approach on the fly.

For instance, if a particular part of your presentation isn't resonating as expected, be ready to shift gears, perhaps by moving to an interactive Q&A earlier than planned.

Staying adaptable ensures that you maintain control of the presentation, no matter the circumstances.

What are the benefits of a good presentation script?

It enhances your ability to connect with the audience. It serves as a guide, ensuring that you deliver your message in a clear, engaging, and relatable way. When you have a well-crafted script, it's easier to explain complex topics in a way that's easy for everyone to understand. This not only keeps your audience attentive but also makes your presentation more memorable.

Additionally, as the presenter, you get confidence boost. Knowing that you have a solid foundation for your presentation helps reduce anxiety and allows you to focus on delivery. As a result, your message doesn't just get heard; it resonates with the audience, leaving them informed, inspired, and often impressed by the clarity and effectiveness of your communication.

How can Prezent help with great presentation scripts?

Prezent, the communication productivity platform for enterprise teams, can significantly enhance the process of writing and delivering presentation scripts in various ways:

1. Efficiency in slide creation: Prezent's AI capabilities streamline slide creation. With a library of over 35,000 slides , presenters can quickly find and customize them, allowing more time to focus on writing a script with great content and delivery.

2. Consistency and brand alignment: Prezent ensures that all slides adhere to brand guidelines , maintaining a professional and cohesive look throughout the presentation. This consistency is crucial for the visual elements.

3. Enhanced storytelling through visuals: The AI-driven slide creation tools in Prezent suggest visual storytelling elements relevant to the script. This enhances audience engagement and understanding, particularly when complex points need to be conveyed.

4. Best practice examples and learning: Prezent offers a feature of best practice examples – a curated collection of exemplary presentations. These examples showcase industry norms and creative approaches, providing valuable insights into effective presentation styles and structures.

5. Personalized insights with fingerprints: The ' Fingerprints ' feature in helps understand your and your audience's strengths, preferences, and areas for growth. This leads to personalized insights, enhancing communication skills and ensuring that the presentation resonates with the audience. Create your Fingerprint today !.

6. Adaptability to content: Prezent adapts slide design based on the script's content, suggesting appropriate charts for analytical sections or illustrative visuals for narrative parts, ensuring the slides are in perfect harmony.

7. Feedback and improvement suggestions: With its advanced AI capabilities, Prezent can offer feedback and improvement suggestions on both the content and design of the presentation, based on communication and design best practices.

Overall, Prezent acts as a comprehensive tool for enhancing presentation scripts, ensuring that the visual components effectively support and elevate the spoken content, while also offering insights and suggestions for continuous improvement. To see Prezent in action you can sign up for our free trial or book a demo today!

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Crafting an engaging presentation script

Crafting a presentation goes beyond simply putting together content. It also involves mastering the art of scripting by the speaker. Learning how to write a script for a presentation can take some time and effort to master, and similar to designing Google slides or PowerPoint presentations, there are several important rules to follow.

From developing a compelling storyboard and adding strategic pauses to making sure the words match the slides and maintaining a natural flow, delivering an effective presentation speech is a skill that needs to be honed.

In this article, we aim to provide comprehensive guidance on all these aspects and more, making it easier for you to create a presentation script that effortlessly resonates with your audience.

Top 10 tips on how to write a script for PowerPoint presentation

1. finalize the storyboard.

When it comes to crafting presentation scripts, planning is vital. A speaker must be well-prepared and have ample time before the event to practice and make sure the content flows naturally. Therefore, clear storyboarding must come first if you want to produce excellent presentation content. This is particularly true when the script and design are being done by the same person.

2. Follow the KISS rule

‘KISS,’ or Keep It Short and Simple, is the number one rule for crafting a fantastic script for presentation. Short and concise sentences can help you get the message across much faster, especially if your presentation’s emphasis is placed more on the visuals than the aural aspect.

3. Make sure your script for presentation introduction is engaging

A strong introduction is critical to captivate the audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say. This can be done through a compelling narrative, a thought-provoking question, or a startling fact. Remember, your introduction for presentation script should be designed to hook the audience and make them want to keep listening.

4. Aim for well-structured content

The presentation script’s content needs to be well-organized and structured. It has to have natural transitions from one idea to another, as well as distinct breaks between sections. And to make each argument more convincing and relatable to the audience, you should back it up with examples or evidence.

5. Stick to the slide content

It’s important to keep in mind that the information on your slides must serve as the basis for your script. It should be closely related to the presentation material you have already storyboarded and be simple to follow.

In case your script for PowerPoint presentation doesn’t match the content on the slides, the audience will likely feel confused and lose their place. That’s why it is recommended that you always have the presentation’s material nearby. Divide the text into chunks corresponding to the slides’ arrangement so that the two complement one another perfectly.

6. Add pause breaks

When attending a presentation, an audience member has two tasks: first, taking in the speaker’s words, and second, understanding the information offered by the presentation content. Therefore, when writing a script for a presentation, it’s essential that you always put yourself in the audience’s shoes and include pauses in the script.

Remember, when the speaker pauses, the audience has a chance to digest what has just been said and absorb as much information as possible from the visual aids. Additionally, it gives you, as a speaker, more control over the audience’s attention during the entire speech.

7. Use engaging language

Whether it’s an introduction for presentation script or a closing part, your entire content should be written in clear and engaging language. Refrain from using technical or jargon terminology that the audience might not understand. Instead, speak in plain English and incorporate jokes, rhetorical questions, or storytelling to keep the audience interested throughout your presentation.

8. Don’t forget about calls to action

Strong presentation scripts always end with a clear call to action. This could be requesting that the audience takes a specific action, such as subscribing to a newsletter, making a purchase, or putting the concepts discussed into practice in their own lives or places of employment. Your call to action must be captivating and inspire the audience to do the desired action.

9. Practice and rehearse

Practice and rehearsal are essential components of a good script. That’s why it is crucial to rehearse your script several times, ensuring a smooth delivery. Additionally, practice helps boost self-assurance and ease presentation-day nervousness. By including these components in your PowerPoint presentation script, you can create a persuasive and memorable presentation that effectively conveys your message and interests your audience.

10. Enlisting key points is also an option

Writing down every word you intend to say might sometimes result in overly scripted content, which can lack empathy and prevent you from connecting with the audience. Therefore, sometimes it is enough to simply focus on the key points or even use slide content as a starting point, keeping in mind the presentation’s structure and your time limit. Now that you know how to write a presentation script, let’s look at some examples to see the above tips in practice.

Presentation script example

Detailed presentation script:

https://www.slideshare.net/aland/script-for-perfect-presentation

Presentation script containing only key points:

All in all, having a presentation script is essential for delivering a great audience experience. It gives you flow, structure, and two times more confidence than when you are simply improvising or reading off your slides.

Use the above guidelines to ensure you are starting with a strong script, and remember that our presentation design company is here to help 24/7! SlidePeak’s dedicated team can not only help you improve your old presentation but can also design a professional pitch deck with unique infographics to wow potential investors, clients, and employers.

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• Presenting techniques
• 50 tips on how to improve PowerPoint presentations in 2022-2023 [Updated]
• Present financial information visually in PowerPoint to drive results
• Keynote VS PowerPoint
• Types of presentations

• Design Tips

Informal vs formal presentation (plus tips on creating and delivering both)

• Business Slides

Give a project plan presentation (expert senior-level tips)

Writing an outline: creating a presentation blueprint

• High-impact business writing
• Effective email writing
• Bid, tender and sales-proposal writing
• Technical writing
• Writing for customer service

• Customer-service writing
• Effective report writing

Business writing essentials

How to write a presentation (and deliver it, even via Zoom)

Jack elliott.

31 minute read

You’ve been asked to give a presentation. Chances are, your response will be roughly one of the following:

1. It’s a subject you’re passionate about and you’re a confident speaker. You’re pleased to have the opportunity.

2. You secretly worry that your style is flat and unengaging. You’re not looking forward to it.

3. At best, the prospect makes you nervous; at worst, terrified. You’d rather have root canal surgery.

If you belong in one of the last two categories, you probably know you’re not alone. You may have heard the statistic that public speaking is more widely feared even than death .

However you feel about the prospect of presenting, this comprehensive guide will take you step by step through the process of planning, writing and delivering a presentation you can be proud of (even via Zoom).

Use the contents links below to jump to the section you need most, make your way through methodically from start to finish, or bookmark this page for next time you need it.

What is a presentation?

Essentially, it’s a story. And its origins go back thousands of years – to when our ancestors gathered around the campfire to listen to the wise elders of the tribe. Without PowerPoint!

These days, presentations encompass the glitz and scale of the Oscars or the new iPhone launch through to business briefings to smaller audiences, in person or – increasingly – online. We’re focusing on the business side.

Whatever the occasion, there’s always an element of drama involved. A presentation is not a report you can read at your leisure, it’s an event – speakers are putting themselves on the spot to explain, persuade or inspire you. Good presentations use this dynamic to support their story.

Always remember: everyone wants you to do well

If you are nervous, always remember: no one sets out to write a poor presentation and no one wants to go to one either. There may be private agendas in the room, but for the most part audiences approach presentations positively. They want to be engaged and to learn. They want you to do well.

First things first: the date’s in the diary and you need to prepare. Let’s break it down.

1. Preparing your presentation

Imagine you’re a designer in the automotive industry and your boss has asked you to give a presentation. The subject: the future of the car and how it will fit with all the other modes of transport.

Where to start? How to approach it? First you need an angle, a key idea.

We talk about ‘giving’ a presentation – and of course it’s the audience who will be receiving it. So, instead of beginning with cars (in this case), let’s think about people. That way we can root the talk in the everyday experience we all share.

Maybe you remember a time you were stuck in traffic on a motorway. Morning rush hour. No one moving. Up ahead children were crossing a footbridge on their way to school, laughing at the cars going nowhere. And you thought, ‘Enjoy it while you can! This will be you one day.’ But maybe not. Surely we can do better for future generations!

There’s your opening – the whole issue captured in a single image, and you’ve immediately engaged your audience with a simple story.

The who, the why and the what

Always begin with the people you’ll be addressing in mind. Before you start writing, answer three fundamental questions: who is your audience, why are you talking to them and what do you want to say?

The answers will provide the strong foundations you need and start the ideas flowing. Ignore them and you risk being vague and unfocused. Clear writing is the result of clear thinking and thinking takes time, but it’s time well spent.

Got a presentation to write? Before you do anything else, answer three fundamental questions: who is your audience, why are you talking to them and what do you want to say? @EmphasisWriting Share on X

Start with the audience

Are you a senior car designer talking to your team? If the answer’s yes, you can assume high-level, shared knowledge.

But if you’re talking to the sales or marketing departments, you can’t make the same assumptions – there are issues you might have to explain and justify. And if it’s a press briefing, it’s about getting the message out to the general public – a different story again.

Knowing your audience will also dictate your tone. Your presentation to the board is likely to be quite formal, whereas a talk for your team can be more relaxed.

And what’s the audience’s mood? On another occasion you might have bad news to deliver – perhaps the national economy and the company’s finances are threatening people’s jobs. Then you must empathise – put yourself in their position and adapt your tone accordingly.

I want to …

You also need a clear objective (the why ). For our car designer, the overriding objective should be to plant a key idea in the audience’s mind. Starting with that image of the schoolchildren, it’s to convince the audience that the company has a radical and distinctive design future.

That’s the takeaway. How should they do that? Should they explain, persuade or inspire – the three key strategies for any presentation? You may need to use several of them to achieve your goal.

Objectives should always complete the statement ‘I want to …’. What do you want to do ?

It’s about …

The what is the substance of your presentation – the building blocks, all the facts and figures that tell the audience ‘It’s about …’.

Back to our designer. The move away from petrol and diesel will allow a complete rethink of car design. The electric power unit and battery can lie under the car’s floor, freeing up all the space taken up by the conventional engine. And then there are all the issues around emission-free, autonomous vehicles in the ‘smart’ cities of the future.

When you’re planning, it can be helpful to get all the information out of your head and onto the page, using a mind map , like the example below (for a talk on UK transport policy).

This is an effective way of unlocking everything you know (or still need to do more research on). Start with your main topic, then keep asking yourself questions (like who, what, when, where, how and why) to dig into all the aspects.

Mind map with the topic of ‘UK transport policy at the centre. Arrows point out to six bubbles with the labels ‘Who’, ‘When’, ‘Why’, ‘How’, ‘What’ and ‘Where’. More arrows point out from each of these bubbles to explore related points in each area, and still more arrows from some of those points to expand further. The information reads:

• Special interests / NGOs
• Need for clear government direction
• What industry will do
• R&D spend
• What industry is doing
• Congestion [this leads to the sub-point ‘Wasted time and money’]
• More pollution
• More congestion
• More wasted time and money
• Climate change
• Road pricing
• Legislation
• Working together
• New technology
• Exports/revenue
• Social policy
• Rest of world
• Emerging economies

Once you’ve got it all out on the page, you can identify which parts actually belong in your presentation. Don’t try to include every last detail: audiences don’t want to process piles of information. They are more interested in your ideas and conclusions.

Now let’s put all this research and planning into a structure.

2. How to structure your presentation

On 28 August 1963, Dr Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and delivered one of the most powerful speeches in history: ‘I have a dream’.

He was the leader of the civil rights movement in the US and his audience that day numbered in the hundreds of thousands. His goal was to inspire them to continue the struggle.

Presentations usually aim to either explain, persuade or inspire – sometimes with elements of all three. Your aim will determine your structure. This will be the backbone of your presentation, giving it strength and direction.

Explain in a logical sequence

When you explain, you add to people’s knowledge to build the key idea. But ask yourself, what does this audience already know?

If you’re an astrophysicist talking to an audience of your peers, you can use terms and concepts you know they’ll be familiar with. If you’re explaining black holes to Joe Public, you can’t do that. Typically, you’ll have to use simple analogies to keep the audience with you (‘Imagine you’re in a huge dark room …’).

Whether it’s black holes or new software, good explanations start with what we know and then build on that understanding, step by step, layer by layer. The audience will stay with you if they can follow your logic and you can help this with linking comments – ‘Building on that … ‘, ‘This means …’, ‘To illustrate that, I’ve always found …’.

Presentations usually aim to either explain, persuade or inspire – sometimes with elements of all three. Your aim will determine your presentation's structure. @EmphasisWriting Share on X

We need to change

If you’re writing a persuasive presentation, you also need to follow a particular sequence.

Whether you’re writing a pitch for a prospective customer or making research-based recommendations to a client, you follow the same structure. That structure is the Four Ps . It’s a powerful way of leading your audience’s thinking.

Start with the current situation – where you are now ( position ). Explain why you can’t stay there, so the audience agrees things have to change ( problem ). Suggest up to three credible ways you can address the issue ( possibilities ). Then decide which one is the optimum solution ( proposal ).

Three is a magic number for writers – not too many, not too few. But there may be one standout possibility, in which case you go straight to it ( position, problem, proposal ).

Think about how the pandemic has profoundly changed our working lives. Towns and cities are full of offices that people used to commute to. But to maintain social distancing, we’ve been encouraged to work from home where possible and to stay away from public transport.

At some point, decision-makers within organisations will have to make a call – or share a recommendation – about what to do long term. Should we go back to the office, stay at home or combine the two?

If we had to present on this choice using the Four Ps structure, we could outline the pros and cons of each possibility and then make a push for the one we recommend above the others. Or we could join the likes of Google and Twitter and simply propose purely remote working well into the future.

I have a dream

A presentation that inspires is about the future – about what could be. Scientists inspire children to follow careers in astronomy or physics with their passion and stunning visuals. Designers re-energise companies with their radical, exciting visions. Business leaders convince their staff that they really can turn things around.

An audience watching an inspirational presentation is not going to take away lots of facts and figures. What’s important is their emotional and intellectual engagement with the speaker, their shared sense of purpose. One way to build that engagement is with your structure.

From dark to light

The most inspiring presentations are so often born of shared struggle. On 13 May 1940, Winston Churchill addressed the British parliament – and the British people listening on their radios – in the darkest days of the Second World War.

He was brutally realistic in his assessment of the current position: ‘We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.’ He then set out his policy: ‘To wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might … against a monstrous tyranny’, and the prize: ‘Victory, however long and hard the road may be.’

In difficult situations, audiences immediately see through false hope and empty rhetoric. They want honest acknowledgement, and the determination and clear strategy to lead them to the future.

We can imagine how the same structure could show up in a more business-related context:

‘I’m not going to sugar-coat the figures. We have to change to save jobs and secure our future. There will be dark days and sacrifices along the way, but what’s the hardest part of any turnaround? It’s getting started. To do that, we all need to keep asking two fundamental questions: where can we improve, how can we improve? And if we push hard enough and if we’re utterly relentless, change will come and our momentum will build.’

Are you going to appeal to your audience’s

• habits of thought (current beliefs)?

If your recommendations run counter to their current beliefs, try appealing to their emotions.

3. Writing your presentation script

You don’t have to write a script. Some people put a few PowerPoint slides together and wing it; others make do with bullets on a smartphone, laptop or cue cards. It depends on the event and the presenter.

Writing a full script takes time, but if it’s a very important presentation and you might use it again – perhaps to appeal for investment – it will be worth it.

Some people will write a full script because the company or organisation that’s commissioned a presentation will want to see a copy well ahead of the event (often for legal reasons). Others will write the script, edit it down to the required time and then edit it down again to bullets or notes.

If the presentation is to a small audience, your notes or bullets will suit a more conversational approach. There are no rules here – see what works best for you. But what you must do is know your subject inside out.

To write clearly, you must think clearly and a full script will expose the areas that aren’t clear – where an explanation needs strengthening, for example, or where you should work on a transition.

Timing is everything

A full script also helps with working out timing, and timing is crucial. TED talks, for example, have a strict 18-minute limit, whether in front of an audience or online. That’s short enough to hold attention, but long enough to communicate a key idea. (The ‘I have a dream’ speech lasted 17 minutes 40 seconds and it changed the world.)

It takes a very skilled presenter to go much over 30 minutes. If you are taking questions during or after your presentation , however, it’s fine to build in extra time.

Imagine you’re writing your presentation in full and your slot is 20 minutes. On an A4 page with a 14-point Calibri font and 1.5 line spacing, that will equate to about 10 pages.

You can also divide the page in two, with slides on the left and text on the right (or vice versa). Then you can plan your words and visuals in parallel – and that will be roughly 20 pages.

Script page with a slide on the left-hand side and text on the right. The slide has the heading ‘What is your purpose?’ and has a photo of a smiling person at a whiteboard mid-presentation. The text on the slide reads:

Do you want to:

• do a combination of all three?

The notes next to the slide read:

How should they do that? Should they explain, persuade or inspire – the three key strategies for any presentation? You may need to use several of them to achieve your goal.

The most powerful key on your keyboard – Delete

Use these numbers as your goal, but your first draft will probably be longer. That’s when you start deleting.

Be ruthless. Anything not adding to the story must go, including those anecdotes you’ve been telling for years ( especially those anecdotes). It’s not about what you want to tell the audience, it’s about what they need to hear.

Don’t feel you have to include every single issue either. Dealing with two or three examples in some detail is far better than saying a little bit about many more.

And interpret visual material you’re displaying rather than describing it, just as you wouldn’t repeat the text that’s on the screen. The audience can see it already.

It’s a conversation

Be yourself – don’t write a script that’s not in your style. We want the real you, not a supercharged version.

Some people are naturals when it comes to presenting – which can mean they’ve learned how to draw on their authentic strengths.

Sir David Attenborough is a great example. He has a wide-ranging knowledge of the natural world. He has an infectious passion and enthusiasm for his subject. And most importantly, he doesn’t lecture the camera: he talks naturally to his audience (and he’s now using Instagram to inspire new generations).

You can take a cue from Sir David and make your presentation style your own. Knowing your own strengths and really understanding your why will help you speak with purpose and passion.

And aim to speak naturally. Use conversational, inclusive language. That means lots of personal pronouns ( I believe, we can) and contractions ( Don’t you wonder …, you’re probably thinking …).

Sir David Attenborough introduces his new series, Our Planet at its premiere. He builds up our awareness by layering information alongside arresting statistics. These are framed simply, in relatable terms (‘96% of mass on the planet is us …’), so we easily grasp their shocking significance. He also uses ‘we’ and ‘us’ a lot to underline how this environmental emergency affects us all on ‘the planet we all call home’.

Finding the right words

Imagine you’re talking to someone as you write. And try saying the words out loud – it’s a good way to catch those complex, overlong sentences or particular words that will be difficult to say.

Presentations are not reports that can be reread – the audience has to understand what you are saying in the moment . Don’t leave them wondering what on earth you’re talking about, as they will only fall behind.

So avoid using long or complex words, or words you wouldn’t hear in everyday conversation (if your everyday conversation includes ‘quarks’ and ‘vectors’, that’s fine). And beware of jargon – it can exclude the audience and it quickly becomes clichéd and outdated.

Here are some more hints and tips on how to write effectively for speaking:

Syntax (word order): Disentangle your thoughts and arrange the words in your sentences to be simple and logical. Often, complex syntax shows up when the main point is getting lost inside excess information (or that the speaker is unsure what their main point is).

Pace, rhythm and tone: Varying the pace, rhythm and tone of sentences makes both the speaking and listening experience far more enjoyable.

Make sure the stress falls on the most important words. For example, ‘To be or not to be ‘ (where the stress rises and falls on alternate words) or ‘I have a dream ‘ (where the stress falls on the final word).

Vary the length of sentences and experiment with using very short sentences to emphasise a point.

Play with rhythm by arranging words in pairs and trios. Saying things in threes gives a sense of movement, progression and resolution: Going, going … gone . Saying words in pairs gives a more balanced tone (‘courage and commitment’, ‘energy and effort’) or a sense of tension between the words (‘war and peace’, ‘imports and exports’).

Analogies: Good analogies can work well in presentations because they paint vivid pictures for the audience. The best way to do it is to use either a simile (‘It wasn’t so much a dinner party, more like feeding time at the zoo’) or a metaphor (‘He was the fox and the company was the henhouse’).

Alliteration: This means using two or more words that start with the same sound, like ‘big and bold’, ‘sleek and shiny’ or ‘key components’. On the page alliteration may look contrived, but it can effectively highlight important phrases in a presentation.

Words to avoid: Be careful about using clichés like ‘pushing the envelope’, ‘playing hardball’ and ‘thinking outside the box’. And think carefully about using any word that ends with -ism, -ise, -based, -gate, -focused and -driven.

Be careful with humour too: don’t write jokes unless you can naturally tell them well. Keep the tone light if it fits the occasion, but a badly told joke can be excruciating.

4. How to start your presentation

People tend to remember beginnings and endings the most, so make sure your opening and conclusion are both strong.

You have about a minute to engage an audience. You want them to be intrigued, to want to know more, to come slightly forward in their seats. If you only learn one part of your presentation by heart, make it that minute.

A quick ‘thank you’ is fine if someone has introduced you. A quick ‘good morning’ to the audience is fine too. But don’t start thanking them for coming and hoping they’ll enjoy what you have to say – you’re not accepting an Oscar, and they can tell you what they thought when it’s over. Get straight down to business.

There are four basic types of introduction which will draw your audience in:

• News – ‘Positive Covid-19 tests worldwide have now reached …’
• Anecdotal – ‘About ten years ago, I was walking to work and I saw …’
• Surprise – ‘Every five minutes, an American will die because of the food they eat.’
• Historical – ‘In 1800, the world’s population was one billion. It’s now 7.8 billion.’

You can interpret these beginnings in any number of ways. If you were to say, ‘I have an admission to make …’, we will expect a personal anecdote relating to your main theme. And because you’re alone in front of us, it’s playing on your vulnerability. We’re intrigued straight away, and you’ve established a good platform for the rest of the presentation.

You can also combine these techniques. The historical beginning creates a sense of movement – that was then and this is now – as well as a surprising fact. It may prompt a thought like, ‘Wow, where’s this going?’ And you can trade on this with your own rhetorical question: ‘What does this mean for everyone in this room? It’s not what you think …’.

As well as setting up your story, you need to quickly reassure the audience they’re in safe hands. One way to do that is to give them a map – to tell them where you’re going to take them and what they’re going to see along the way.

Then you’re starting the journey together.

5. How to end your presentation

Your ending is what you want the audience to take away: your call to action, your vision of the future and how they can contribute.

If your presentation is online or to a small group in a small room, your ending is not going to be a battle cry, a call to man the barricades – that would be totally inappropriate. But equally don’t waste it with something flat and uninspiring.

Here are four effective ways to end your talk (like the intros, you can combine them or come up with your own):

• Predict the future – ‘So what can we expect in the next ten years? …’
• Quotation – ‘As our chief exec said at the meeting yesterday, …’
• Repeat a major issue – ‘We can’t carry on with the same old same old.’
• Summarise – ‘Continuous improvement isn’t our goal. It’s our culture.’

Predicting the future fits well with a historical beginning – it completes the arc of your presentation.

If you end with a quotation, make sure it’s relevant and credible – it has to be an authoritative stamp.

Repeating a major issue means pulling out and highlighting a major strand of your presentation, while summarising is about encapsulating your argument in a couple of sentences.

Your ending can also be a change of tone, perhaps signalled by the single word ‘Finally …’. It’s the audience’s cue to come slightly forward again and pay close attention.

As with your opening, it will have more impact if you’ve learned your ending – put down your notes, take a couple of steps towards the audience and address them directly, before a simple ‘Thank you.’

6. Creating your PowerPoint slides

We’ve all been there – watching a seemingly endless, poorly designed slide deck that’s simply restating what the presenter is saying. So common is this tortuous experience that there’s a name for it: Death by PowerPoint. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Do you need slides at all?

As with your script, the first thing you should ask is ‘Do I actually need this?’ In 2019, Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave the Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC. He spoke for about 40 minutes with no autocue (he’d memorised his script) – and no speaker support.

This is a uniquely powerful form of presentation because the audience’s attention is totally focused on that one person. The call to action at the end of a presentation and delivering bad news are also best done without visuals.

Visual support

But if they’re well-judged and relevant, slides or other visuals can add enormously to a presentation – whether it’s photography, video or the ubiquitous PowerPoint. There are, however, two things everyone should know about PowerPoint in particular:

• It’s incredibly versatile and convenient.
• In the wrong hands, it can be unbearably tedious.

Your PowerPoint slides should not essentially be your cue cards projected onto a screen. They shouldn’t be packed margin to margin with text or full of complex diagrams.

If the presentation is live, the audience has come to watch you, not your slide deck. Online, the deck may have to work harder to sustain visual interest.

As with the script, keep your finger poised over that Delete key when you’re putting the deck together.

How many slides?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how many slides you should use, but think in terms of no more than one or two a minute on average. And don’t use more than a couple of short video inserts in a 20-minute presentation.

You might have a section where you show a few slides in a sequence or hold a single slide for a couple of minutes, which is fine. Varying the pacing helps to keep a presentation moving.

Optimise for psychology

As self-professed presentation aficionado David JP Phillips notes in his TEDx talk , people – and that includes your audience – have terrible working memories. If you don’t account for this fact in your slides, your talk will not have a lasting impact. In fact, most of it will be forgotten within around 30 seconds.

To counter this effect, David identifies five key strategies to use when designing your PowerPoint:

• Only have one message per slide: more than that and you’re splitting your audience’s attention.
• Don’t use full sentences on slides, and certainly don’t imagine you can talk over them if you do. People trying to read and listen at the same time will fail at both and absorb nothing. Move your running text into the documentation section instead, and keep the slide content short and sweet.
• People’s focus will be drawn to the biggest thing on the slide. If your headline is less important than the content below it, make the headline text the smaller of the two.
• You can also direct people’s attention using contrast. This can be as simple as guiding their point of focus by using white text (on a dark background) for the words you want to highlight, while the surrounding text is greyed out.
• Including too many objects per slide will sap your audience’s cognitive resources. (Your headline, every bullet, any references, even a page number each count as an object.) Include a maximum of six objects per slide and viewers will give a mental sigh of relief. This will probably mean creating more slides overall – and that’s fine.

More Powerpoint and visual aid tips

Here are a few more guidelines for creating your visual aids:

• Never dive into PowerPoint as job one in creating your presentation. Work out your talk’s structure (at least) before designing your slide deck. Making a genuinely effective PowerPoint requires that you know your subject inside out.
• List any visuals you’ll need as you prepare your script. That terrific photo you saw recently could be difficult to track down, and you might need permission and to pay to use it.
• It bears repeating: keep each slide to one key idea.
• Use the build effect of adding one bullet at a time (or use the contrast trick above) and try not to use more than three bullets per frame (or six objects overall).
• Strip each bullet to the bare minimum – no articles (‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’), no prepositions (‘in’, ‘at’, ‘to’ etc) and cut right back on punctuation.
• Every word that’s not there for a reason has to go. Delete, delete, delete.

‘Extra’ slides

• Use a ‘walk-in’ slide. Rather than have the audience arrive to a blank screen, this tells them who you are and your presentation’s title.
• Use occasional holding slides in between those with more content – perhaps an image but no text. They give the audience a visual rest and put the focus back on you.
• A plain white background might look fine on a computer monitor, but it will be glaring on a big screen. Invert the norm with a dark background, or use shading or ‘ghosted’ images to break up backgrounds and add visual interest.
• Some colours work better than others on-screen. Blues and greys are soft and easy on the eye. Red is a no-no, whether for backgrounds or text. And if you stick with a light background, favour a more subtle dark grey over black for the text.
• Use sans serif fonts (like Arial, Helvetica or Calibri) and think about point size – make sure it’s easily legible.
• Only use upper case where absolutely necessary.

Images and data

• Photos work well full screen, but they also really stand out well on a black background.
• Make sure your charts and graphics aren’t too complex. The dense information that’s fine on the page will not work on-screen – it’s too much to take in. Graphs behind a TV newsreader are often reduced to a single line going dramatically up or down.
• Don’t present data or graphs and expect them to speak for themselves. You need to find the story and significance in the data and present that .

And finally

• Proofread, proofread, proofread – or risk standing in front of an embarrassing spelling mistake.

Technical check

• Check what laptop they’re using at your venue. If you’ve written your deck on a PC, run it on a PC (and, of course, the same rule applies if you’ve used a Mac).
• If you’ve emailed your presentation to the venue, take a USB copy along as back-up.
• If you’re presenting online, check which platform you’ll be using and get comfortable with it. If someone else will be hosting the event, make sure you arrange a time for a rehearsal, especially if there will be a producer.

7. Delivering your presentation

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into preparing your presentation and now you’ve come to the sharp end – it’s time to stand and deliver.

Run it through

You don’t have to rehearse, but most presenters do and for good reason – it catches weak points and awkward transitions. And, crucially, it bolsters confidence.

Read your script or go through your bullets aloud – it will help to settle your nerves. If you use colleagues as a dummy audience, you can do a sense check too: ‘Does that bit work?’ ‘Have I explained it clearly?’ ‘Do you get the big picture?’ And rehearsing out loud will catch those words and sentences you thought you could say but can’t.

The more you rehearse, the more familiar and natural the presentation will become. Rehearse the technical side too – where the video is going to come in, how you’re going to vary your pace and tone to maintain interest.

Try speaking slightly more slowly than you would normally so the audience catches every word, and don’t be afraid to pause now and again. It gives a breathing space for you and the audience.

Connect with your audience

When you deliver your presentation for real, establish eye contact with the audience, just as you would in a conversation. In a small room with a small audience, talk to individuals. In a larger space, don’t talk to the first couple of rows and ignore the rest – include everyone.

And if you stumble over your words here or there, carry on and don’t dwell on it – you’ll lose your concentration. Audiences are generally forgiving and they might not even notice.

Each audience is unique: they react differently in different places. And although tomorrow might be the tenth time you’ve done the same presentation, it will be the first time this audience sees it. Your duty is to keep it fresh for them.

A final point

This is your presentation – you’re in control and the audience needs to feel they’re in safe hands.

It’s perfectly natural to feel nervous , but it’s the thought of doing it that’s the worst bit. Once you get going – and especially when you sense the audience is with you – the nerves will start to disappear. Try to enjoy it. If you enjoy it, it’s far more likely the audience will too.

And remember: everyone wants you to do well.

8. How to present online

Taking to Zoom or another online platform to present was once the exception. These days, online presenting is as essential a skill as presenting in person.

The switch to online can be nerve-wracking and cause even usually skilled presenters to falter. But there’s no need for that to happen.

Indeed, all of the advice we’ve talked about on preparing, structuring and writing for in-person presenting is equally relevant for your online delivery. You just need to be ready for the unique challenges that remote presentations pose.

An obvious one is that while you still have an audience, it will probably be muted and possibly even unseen (if webcams are switched off). This makes it far more difficult to gauge audience reaction, and if the event is pre-recorded, there might not be any at all – at least not immediately. Clapping and laughing emojis are not quite like the real thing.

Keep eye contact

But although your audience may be many miles away, there are still ways you can – and should – create a sense of connection with them. Your presentation will have much more impact if you do.

Whether the event is live or recorded, at least start with your webcam on (unless you really can only use slides). If it’s an option and feels appropriate, consider keeping your camera on throughout – remember, you are the presentation as much as any visuals.

If you will be on display, make sure you know where your webcam’s lens is and at key moments of your talk look directly into it – and out at your audience – to punctuate those points.

And don’t look at a second screen to cue up your PowerPoint – viewers will think your attention is wandering.

Engage your online audience

Being an engaging speaker is always important, but remember that the online world is already a place we associate with distraction. It’s also easier for a viewer behind their laptop to disguise their wandering attention than it would be for one in an auditorium or boardroom.

This isn’t to say your audience don’t want to give you their attention. But it is more important than ever to keep your presentation sharp and concise. Revisit your structure, your script or cue cards and your slides. Take a really critical eye to it and (as always) delete, delete, delete anything that’s not directly relevant.

If it works for your format, you can look at making your presentation interactive. You can then break the content into short segments, interspersed with comment, polls, questions and discussion. The variety will be a welcome change for your viewers.

Your visuals are part of what will keep people with you – along with the interplay you create between you and them. This means following the best-practice guidance we covered earlier is even more important.

Using Zoom for your presentation? Master the art of online delivery through this simple mix of set-up, delivery and technical tricks @EmphasisWriting Share on X

Modulate your voice

Your tone of voice is extremely important here because presenting online is like radio with pictures. When people say ‘You have a great voice for radio’ what they mean is that it’s easy to listen to, often because you’re using quite a low-pitched, warm and relaxed register.

Listen to voices on the radio and voiceovers and identify the ones you particularly enjoy. What do you like about them? Why do you enjoy some voices and not others?

A flat, unmodulated voice, for instance, is difficult to listen to for long periods (and isn’t likely to inspire anyone).

Experiment with intentionally adding energy to your voice, as internet audio can have a dulling effect. As our trainer Gary Woodward puts it: ‘Turn up the enthusiasm dial even higher than you think, to make sure it comes through.’ And always vary your pace and tone as you would in a normal conversation.

And if it suits the tone of your talk, smile now and again. Smiling is contagious, and people will hear it in your voice even if they can’t see you.

Perfect your transitions

One of the other key challenges of remote presentations is that you have another layer of technology to wrestle with: sharing your PowerPoint online.

This means that many presentations begin with the popular catchphrase ‘Can you see my screen?’

This can also cause many presenters to stumble through their transitions, making the links between their slides clunky. And while remote audiences may be forgiving, for a slick presentation it’s best to prevent these sort of fumbles.

Naturally, practice plays a part here. But you can also give yourself the advantage with your set-up.

Dave Paradi from Think Outside the Slide explains one great way of setting up Zoom so you can smoothly cue up and run your slide deck – and be certain what’s being displayed.

You’ll even be able to see the rest of your screen (but the audience won’t). As you’ll be able to see what’s coming up, your transitions can also be seamless.

The trick is to use one of Zoom’s advanced settings after you hit ‘Share screen’, to share only a portion of your screen:

Advanced screensharing options pop-up box in Zoom, with the options ‘Portion of Screen’, ‘Music or Computer Sound Only’ and ‘Content from 2nd Camera’. The ‘Portion of Screen’ option is highlighted in blue.

This will give you a frame you can move to the part of the screen you want the audience to see.

Put your PowerPoint slides into ‘presenter view’ before launching the screenshare. Then you’ll be able to see the upcoming slides and your notes throughout, and your animations (like build slides) will work as normal.

Zoom’s ‘portion of screen’ setting in action

Presenter view in PowerPoint, with the current displayed slide on the left and the upcoming slide displaying smaller on the right, with notes below it. There is a notification saying ‘You are screen sharing’ at the top and a sharing frame positioned around the current slide.

The other part of the trick? Set it up in advance shortly before you’re due to speak. Once you’re happy with the set up, you can stop sharing until it’s time to kick off your talk. When you return to ‘Share screen’ again, it will reopen the frame in the same place.

Dave shows you the process in this video:

Five practical tips for a truly professional online presentation

You’re happy with the content of your talk, you’ve ruthlessly streamlined your slides and mastered your radio voice. Now just make sure you cover these crucial practicalities for a polished presentation:

1. Create a good space Make sure you have your environment well set up:

• Keep the background on display as tidy and minimalist as possible – a plain wall or backdrop is great, if you can.
• Manage and minimise background noise (shut the window, ensure your phone’s on silent, put the cat out, make sure someone’s watching the kids in another room – whatever it takes).
• Check your lighting: have your light source in front of you, not behind you (or you’ll be in shadow).
• Set up your computer or device at eye level so that you are well-framed and facing it straight on – avoid looming above it while providing a lovely view into your nostrils.

2. Think about your appearance Dress in the same way you would if the presentation were in person, and judge your choice of attire based on the formality of the event and your audience.

3. Practise! Run through the presentation and rehearse the technical side. Practise your transitions, including the initial cueing up of your slides (perhaps using the Zoom tip above), so that you can be confident in doing it all smoothly.

4. Be primed and ready Log in early on the day of your talk. Check all your tech is working, get your headset on and ensure everything is set up well ahead of time. This will save any last-minute issues (and stress) and means you can hit the ground running.

5. Stand and deliver Even online, consider giving your presentation standing up, if you can do so comfortably (adjusting your device or webcam accordingly). This may put you more into a presenting frame of mind and will differentiate you from most remote presenters.

Are you still there?

Live audiences have a group dynamic – as soon as a few people start laughing it becomes infectious and the others join in. It’s naturally different online. But that doesn’t have to throw you.

You might not get that immediate feedback, but don’t overcompensate and feel you have to win them back.

Yes, it’s often more difficult to gauge an audience’s reaction online – especially if their audio is muted and their webcams off. Yes, this can be daunting. But they are still out there listening. You may or may not hear (or see) laughter, but they could still be smiling and very interested in what you have to say. Have faith in your own content. Whatever form your delivery will take, keep coming back to your purpose and message for giving this talk – and keep considering the people you’ll be talking to. Whether the address will be online or in person, it is keeping this focus which is the key to every powerful presentation.

Ready to learn even more? Work one-to-one on your presentation-writing skills with one of our expert trainers or join our scheduled presentation-writing courses . If your team are looking to upskill, we also offer tailored in-house training . And if fear of presenting is holding your team back, check out our in-house course The reluctant presenter .

Image credit: lightpoet / Shutterstock

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These days he's one of Emphasis' top business-writing trainers, but in previous career lives Jack has written for many public and private sector organisations. He has an in-depth knowledge of the engineering and manufacturing sectors, particularly the UK automotive industry. As the lead scriptwriter for chairmen and CEOs, he has been responsible for proposals, pitches and reports as well as high-profile speeches and global product launches.

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How we write presentation scripts that captivate audiences.

Having written thousands, this is our advice on how to write a presentation script and how to use scripts in your presentations.

What’s the most important factor in any presentation?

It’s got to be the design, right? Making your slides so beautiful, so chic, and so damn on-brand that your audience will weep at their magnificence?

That’s important, but no – we’re talking about something more fundamental than that.

Ok, then. How about the  animation ? Slick, professional and seamless. That premium, professional sheen that shows your quality through and through.

Again, really love your thinking here, but before that too.

Before you even open PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides. Before you get stuck into Photoshop, XD, or whatever design software you prefer.

In many cases, before you even fire your trusty PC or Mac up.

Which brings up back to answering that original question. The first – and most important – part of any presentation is the story. It’s the structure on which those other visual elements can hang, and with a great narrative, your design and animation can take it to another level of excellence.

But the story needs to be delivered. And in most cases, that’s down to you, the presenter. So you need a way to make sure you talk through the story in the right order. Hitting the right highs and lows. Without missing anything out. And without rambling on and going over your time limit.

What you need, my friend, is a presentation script.

The benefits of a great presentation script

OK, before we go any further, I can already see some of you grimacing at the thought of a presentation script.

I don’t need a script , you might be thinking – and you may well be right.

Scripts make presenters sound all robotic and boring , you could be muttering – and again, good point.

I want my  salespeople  to be able to think on their feet and adapt to any situation , you might be screaming into your screen. OK, chill out – you’re not wrong.

But let’s not be so black and white about things, eh?

Like presenters, presentations and audiences, each script should be different.

Your presentation script will likely be based on your experience as a presenter, your knowledge of the presentation subject, the level of detail you want to go into, the type of audience you’re presenting to, your time allowance, and many other variables.

So, it’s a good idea to start with the maximum amount you need, and then chip away as necessary. Think of it like Michelangelo’s David. To create his masterpiece, the Italian sculptor took a huge block of Tuscan marble, whittling it down for over two years to reveal the final result.

Can you imagine if he just took a small torso-shaped piece, and then glued a few bits and bobs on as he went along?

It’s the same for your presentation script: write it out in full, and see how it feels when you speak it out loud. What’s that? You probably wouldn’t speak it out loud? Well, you should – some phrases sound all wrong spoken aloud, even when they look fine on the page.

Speaking aloud also gives you a much better estimate of the time it will take to present it in full; reading it in your head, or even muttering it softly to yourself just won’t give you the same timings.

Each time you speak it aloud, it will get a bit tighter, a bit stronger and a bit more personalised to the way you speak.

And, after a few drafts, you’ll have something approaching your final presentation script. Just be careful to leave it when it’s ready – it can be tempting to tweak and tweak ad infinitum, and it’s sometimes difficult to know when to leave it alone.

Now it’s decision time. What will you do with this script? There are basically three choices here:

• Read the full script.
• Cut it down to bullet points.
• Memorise it.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each in turn.

1. Read the full script

This is the safest method.

You separate your script out throughout your slides in the speaker notes section. This means you see them on your laptop, but your audience doesn’t on the big screen (or their Zoom screen).

Most people new to presenting, nervous of public speaking, not experts in the subject matter, or just a bit cautious, might initially choose this option, but it’s not without risks.

Yes, you won’t forget anything and yes, it gives you something to focus on other than the audience, but that can become an issue.

If you stand in front of your audience with your eyes glued to PowerPoint’s speaker notes, then it’s often not the best experience for them. People like to connect with one another, and eye contact – even over video calls – is an important part of this. So, if you don’t even glance up from time to time, you and your presentation can come across as cold, at a time when you should be sharing emotion.

And another issue is it can be hard to portray that emotion when you’re reading out loud, rather than speaking from the top of your head. It can be a bit like listening to kids reading out loud in primary school: sure, they are saying all the words right, but the speed, the cadence, the emphasis and passion can all be lost.

So how can you get around this conundrum: you’re not confident enough to go without a presentation script, but you don’t want to sound like an emotionless reading drone. The answer, whether you like it or not, is to practice.

Most people don’t practice, so most presentations aren’t very good. Don’t be that guy.

The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel delivering your presentation script. You’ll find that certain sentences and phrases slip off the tongue a bit easier, so you are able to make eye contact from time to time. Keep practicing and there may be whole slides or sections that you can talk around – maybe not word-for-word – but close enough.

And this is where you’re getting closer to that audience connection – in fact it’s arguably better to falter every now again – it proves you’re just human like the rest of us.

It also gets you closer to option 2.

2. Cut it down to bullet points

For most of our clients , who are pretty experienced presenters, this is the best option. It gives you the flexibility to talk around the main points, but with a safety net of all the key points written down as memory aids.

These bullets, tucked away in the speaker notes, can be a presenter’s secret weapon. With just a discreet glance towards their screen every now and again, they can make sure the whole story is delivered in full, in order, and with a healthy amount of audience connection thrown in too.

Don’t forget that speaker notes – whether a full presentation script or bullet points – are really easy to edit. So, if you tend to use a presentation multiple times, you can go in each time afterwards to tighten up a word or two here, or perhaps a couple more pointers there.

Or maybe edit them beforehand to personalise the script a bit to your specific audience – it’s a good way to mitigate on blanking the company or individual names you’re meeting.

It’s still important to practice with just speaker noters though, and you’ll find those glances become fewer and the eye contact increases as you do so. And the more you practice speaker notes, the better you’ll get, perhaps ultimately getting to option 3.

3. Memorise it

Let’s face it, the best presenters don’t need any kind of script. When was the last time you saw someone delivering a TED talk with a fistful of cue cards? Or referring back to their laptop every couple of minutes?

It’s all just there, in their heads, effortlessly transitioning through and out of their mouths. Or so it appears… again, don’t kill the messenger but these people practice over and over and over.

But memorising it doesn’t always mean literally reciting every exact word. That can be useful when you have a very strict time to work within, but the best presenters can flow in and out of their memorised script at will. It’s really something to behold.

This means they can slip in relevant stories or recent events seamlessly. Or can refer back to other talks that day, personalise their story to the audience and generally make it much more of a flexible experience.

But of course, there’s a flip side. Less experienced speakers might lose their place, miss a whole chunk out, or go off on a rambling tangent that has no relevance, like that time I went to do a talk and it was really early in the morning and usually I set my alarm for 6.45 except for Thursdays when I get a lie in but actually the Thursday before I had a meeting so I turned that alarm off, but left on the 8.30 alarm and this talk happened to start at 8.15 and I didn’t realise but the alarm was still on but the talk didn’t actually start on time because there was an issue with the pastry delivery because we usually use this one company but they couldn’t deliver them so we had to use another company which was actually run by the husband of a client we used to work with who used to be a designer but then realised that he preferred to actually bake and……… you get the point there I hope.

Your presentation script. Your way.

All in all, presentation scripts are essential in creating and presenting a great audience experience. They give you structure, flow, and confidence that simply reading off your slides, or ad-libbing it can’t.

Start with a strong presentation script, and remember that it’s entirely up to you to decide how to use it to make the most out of your own style.

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How to Write a Professional PowerPoint Presentation (Discover the Writing Process)

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Are you writing a PowerPoint presentation? Learning how to create a PowerPoint takes practice. The writing process helps you organize the steps to produce a presentation.

You know your topic and audience. You know that your slides must grab attention, follow a logical order, and flow smoothly. This takes some work. But the first step in figuring out how to make a business presentation for PPT is to sit down and begin to write.

Before jumping in, look through our professional templates on Envato Elements.  We'll explain how to plan and how to write a PowerPoint presentation. This introduction to PowerPoint writing has everything you need. 

How to Write a Professional PowerPoint Presentation (Quickstart Video)

Do you want a head start on learning how to writing a presentation? If so, you'll want to review this short video that explains the basics of writing a PowerPoint presentation:

You've just learned how to create a PowerPoint. But there's more.

Download your free eBook on making presentations below. And don't forget to read the written tutorial for even more tips about writing a PowerPoint presentation.

• Research for Your Presentation
• Sit Down to Write
• Get Your Presentation Design Right

Best PowerPoint Templates on Envato Elements

Envato elements: design without limits, learn more about professional ppt presentation design (in 2023), find more powerpoint presentation templates (for inspiring designs in 2023), download our free ebook on making great presentations, write a professional powerpoint presentation today, guide to making great presentations (free ebook download).

Take what you'll learn in this tutorial further. Download our free eBook:  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . 

Learn the complete presentation process in this comprehensive guide. That way, you can go beyond writing your presentation. You can learn to design all your slides like a pro, deliver to your audience with impact, and more. 

In our tutorial, we make it simple. We go over how to write a PowerPoint presentation—quickly and painlessly. We’ll start with how to write a compelling introduction with a fail-proof “hook.” Then, we'll look at how to create an outline, and how to finish strong. Finally, we’ll wrap it up with some helpful design tips. These help the written and visual components of your presentation come together.

We've got the steps you need as an introduction to PowerPoint writing. Now let's get into the writing process that leads to a professional PowerPoint presentation!

1. Research for Your Presentation

Before you can write your presentation, you need to do some research. Here are the steps to take:

Step 1. Develop Your PowerPoint Presentation’s ‘Thesis’

Right now, before you get any further in the process, write out what your topic is in one sentence. Think of it as a mini thesis for your presentation.

To be effective, your single sentence “thesis” must be specific, relevant, and debatable. It's an argument that you'll spend the rest of your presentation proving.

For example, you may start by saying,

“It’s good for photographers to be aware of their surroundings.”

Think how this would read if you were a bit more specific.

“As a street photographer it’s important to be clear about your circumstances.”

Both phrases essentially say the same thing, but the second is more focused.

And finally, getting as specific and clear as possible might look like this mini-thesis  from one of our photography tutorials:

Few things are more important as a street photographer than being clear on the context, or circumstances, in which you are photographing. 

Step 2. Identify the Most Relevant Points

Now that you’ve written out your topic's mini thesis, it’s time to get to the main points.

The simplest way to do this? Make a list. Jot down everything that comes to mind on your topic. Once you’ve done this, go back through the list. Highlight (or circle or underline) the points that are most important.

Step 3. Write an Outline for a PowerPoint Presentation

An outline for a PowerPoint presentation helps you organize your thoughts. And it helps you decide exactly what to include. 

A PowerPoint presentation outline is a roadmap for your written presentation. Use one whenever you think about how to create a PowerPoint. These list the essential points you’ll explore. These you’ve already identified in the step above. Now, you'll organize the points in a logical way, starting with your introduction. 

• The introduction is where you tell your audience what you'll cover in your talk.
• Next, you write a topic sentence for each of the main points you've decided you want to cover.
• For each topic sentence or main point, you'll now write two to three supporting ideas or arguments. 
• Your PowerPoint presentation outline needs a conclusion. The most effective conclusions end on as strong a note as the presentation began. Conclusions generally restate the key points you’ve made in your presentation. Then, they conclude with a call to action, compelling story, or memorable quote. 

Now you know how to write a PowerPoint presentation outline. Next, let’s look at how to write a script for a presentation.

2. Sit Down to Write

Once you've done your research and you understand your topic, you're ready to start writing:

Step 1. Start Strong

Remember that mini thesis we worked on? You’re about to be glad you did it.

Your introduction should consist of two things: your thesis and a summary of your outline. It's important to find the right balance with how you approach this. You want to neatly skim over each of the main points you'll cover, but without giving too much away too early.

Your introduction shouldn’t just be informative, it needs to be engaging, too. It's your opportunity to convince your listeners that what you've got to say is interesting and worth their attention. It should grab their attention.

Step 2. End Strong

Your conclusion will look and sound a lot like your introduction. But there's one key difference. Your introduction is to intrigue, and your conclusion is to call your listeners to action. 

Avoid watered down phrases as you wrap up your points. Learning how to write a presentation means sharpening your focus. Don't give hints or suggestions. Instead, use direct language and make impactful summary points. 

Focus on that key last impression. Imagine what you want your listeners to leave your presentation with.

Step 3. Create a Compelling Hook and Angle

Your goal with the first statement of your introduction is to hook your listeners. You want to say something that makes them want to keep listening.

Ways to hook audience:

• Use a provocative statement.
• Tell a brief story or anecdote.
• Ask a rhetorical question.
• Say something that shocks or surprises your audience.
• Bring up a problem and share the solution.

This tutorial on how to make a good persuasive presentation has many helpful tips on crafting a compelling hook: 

Step 4. Turn Your Main Points Into Mini Hooks

Think of each main point as a mini hook. A point is an opportunity to draw your audience in. Take advantage of this. Every main point you make should be a memorable one-liner.

When it comes to the delivery of each point, remember to speak clearly, state slowly, and pause where appropriate for effect.

3. Get Your Presentation Design Right

The writing process for PowerPoint doesn't work in isolation. It's one of many contributing factors that fuel a winning slide deck. Design is equally important. 

Nothing will distract your audience more than a poorly designed PowerPoint presentation. It's essential to have a clear design strategy that pulls your presentation together. If you're lacking one, you won't inspire your audience. Here are a few critical design steps to take:

Step 1. Choose an Engaging PPT Template Design

Your slides need to be up-to-date and relevant. Have you ever seen a presentation that used a template that looks like it’s outdated or overused?

So, has your audience. Instead, download one of the many fresh modern PowerPoint templates from our Envato Elements . There are many professional options to choose from like the Golazo PowerPoint Presentation  below. 

The PowerPoint presentation format also needs to be on target with your goals. Learning how to make PowerPoint slides means knowing that every design isn't perfect for every occasion.

Learning how to create a PowerPoint is easier with great designs. For some more template ideas, check out these great articles on some of the best templates on the market today:

Step 2. Work With Relevant Presentation Graphics

Photos and graphics are a great way to make a presentation more engaging. If they’re chosen well. But they can also be distracting. Written presentations need  just enough  graphic assets to shine.

Graphs are more likely to cause your audience to focus on the screen instead of on what you’re saying. If you decide to use a graph or infographic to illustrate a point, choose one that's simple to read.

Because photos and illustrations can be distracting, use them when it adds to the understanding of your point. When you use graphic assets, make sure they're relevant, in a current style, and are high-quality.

Learn how to work with images effectively. It's a key part of how to make PowerPoint slides. Find out which templates have the best graphic slide options in these collections:

Step 3. Keep It Consistent

One big problem with PowerPoint presentations occurs when you add content. If you're not careful, you may get a PowerPoint that's more like a patchwork quilt than a well-built slide deck. This is especially true if you add slides from other presentations into the one you're working on.   

Mixed colors, messy text, and varying fonts are some of the issues that can afflict your slides. That's especially true when they're being built collaboratively. 

Notice how the slide above is a departure from the colors and fonts used in the rest of the presentation. It looks and feels out of place, and doesn't fit the PowerPoint file type.

It's important that you use the Master Slide effectively to keep formatting consistent. Keep an eye on the overall feel and look of your presentation. This lets you create a presentation that's consistent and feels like a cohesive whole.

These articles help you cut out some of the inconsistencies that can crop up. They teach you how to write a presentation with consistent, focused messaging. With them, you'll learn how to create a PowerPoint more effectively.

Step 4. Format Your Slide Text for Readability

Your text formatting should be purposeful and visually consistent.

Your main points should act as headlines to a slide and should be a different size (or even font) then your body text. The fonts and sizes for each should remain the same throughout all your slides. 

The beauty of PowerPoint though is that it offers you all the tools you need to format your slide easily and consistently :

A presentation is about you and what you've got to say. Your slides are merely the back-up dancers. For example, look at the slide below from the Clammos PowerPoint template. See how it maintains readability with larger font sizes and proper text formatting:

Step 5. Keep It Simple

We often have so much we want to share in a presentation, that the temptation is to keep adding text. But one of the most important things to remember when designing your slides is to keep things simple. 

The is a case where less is more effective. A cluttered slide is distracting and hard for audiences to digest. They spend more time trying to figure out what to focus on: reading the slide or paying attention to the presenter?  

Conversely, simple, visually appealing slides engage your audience while keeping them on each of your main points. Here are more guides that teach you how to make PowerPoint slides with effective design:

To save time while designing a professional PowerPoint presentation, a premade template comes in handy. Here are some of the best-selling PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements.

1. Colington - Creative PowerPoint Template

The Colington template has got a fresh and creative design that'll help you present your company as well as your portfolio. The template is easy to customise and includes a total of 30 modern slides. It's designed in widescreen PowerPoint format. It comes with five color schemes that you can use as a starting point for your presentation.

2. Agio - Modern PowerPoint Template

Try the Agio template if you prefer a minimal and clean design. Use this template for any type of presentation thanks to its simple and versatile slides. The template comes with 70 unique slides based on master slides and nine color schemes. It's designed in widescreen format and includes drag and drop image placeholders for easy editing.

3. 44 Clean Presentation - Simple PowerPoint Template

This template is another great choice if you’re looking for a simple and clean design. Use the template for business presentations as well as for portfolio or webinar presentations. It includes 44 slides, image placeholders, and subtle animations.

4. Model - Modern PowerPoint Template

The Model is a modern PowerPoint template suitable for business presentations. The template has got easy to edit image placeholders as well as vector shapes and various infographic elements. You’ll get a total of 30 slides and five premade color schemes. The template was designed in standard and widescreen format.

Envato Elements  has a single compelling offer. For a flat rate, you can download as many PowerPoint presentation templates  as you want.

What’s more, you can download millions of other creative design assets too! These include stock photos, business card templates, web templates, icons, fonts, and more. PowerPoint file types are just one of the many assets you can leverage.

Explore Envato Elements

That’s right! For a single monthly subscription, you can download any type of design asset you might need. It's easier to learn how to write a presentation when you can simply use pre-built design assets.

These help you successfully brand and market your business. Sign up  for Envato Elements today and start downloading PowerPoint and other templates. 

You've learned how to write a professional PowerPoint presentation! For even more helpful guidance, turn to our guide to 60 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips & Tricks . This will teach you how to make a good PowerPoint presentation - fast.

These tips help you power up your knowledge of how to write a presentation. And here are a few resources that'll help you hone your skills as quickly as possible:

PowerPoint templates are time savers. As you learn how to create a PowerPoint, you can leverage designs. They give you great results for your written presentation.

Want to learn how to make PowerPoint slides? Keep using templates. To see more PowerPoint templates, check out these roundups:

Before you go, grab  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations  now for FREE with a subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter. Use this comprehensive PDF guide, to get your ideas formed into a powerful presentation that'll move your audience!

The process of writing a PPT presentation is a straightforward, linear one.  Write your thesis and main points. Then, create a solid introduction and conclusion. Find ways to hook your audience, and bring it all together by creating a visually appealing set of slides. 

Anyone can learn how to make PowerPoint slides. It's a trainable skill that's easier as you follow those structured steps.

The best way is to use great PowerPoint templates that you can find on Envato Elements now! And if you're looking for more design inspiration, check out this terrific article:

Now, you know how to create a presentation! Get started today and bring your creative vision to life. 

Editorial Note: This post was originally published in 2016. It's been comprehensively revised to make it current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special help from Brenda Barron and Andrew Childress . A video has been added by Andrew Childress.

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How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

AUTOMATE AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS

From Start To Finish: How To Write A Presentation Script

• Posted On - October 24, 2023
• By - contributor

Presentation scripts have the potential to capture the attention of listeners and viewers. It can establish yourself as a credible speaker in the industry. No matter your aim to do marketing, branding, or just captivating the audience, a presentation can help you achieve all your goals. But writing presentations is an art; everyone can’t do it professionally. Let us tell you a step-by-step guide on how to write a presentation script. So read on to be a good writer.

Importance Of A Presentation Script

In any presentation, a well-written script plays a crucial role. It helps capture the audience’s attention and deliver a memorable message. A strong script enables you to articulate your ideas clearly, structure your content effectively, and engage your audience from start to finish. A presentation script also boosts your confidence as a speaker. It allows you to deliver your message with conviction and impact.

Benefits Of A Compelling Script

A script for a presentation offers benefits that can enhance your delivery and impact. Let’s explore some of the key advantages of having a well-crafted and engaging script:

Captures audience attention

One of the primary benefits of a script is its ability to maintain your audience’s attention. A well-written script helps you structure your content in a way that hooks your listeners from the beginning and keeps them engaged throughout the presentation.

Incorporate engaging storytelling or thought-provoking questions. You can also use powerful statements to captivate your audience and keep them focused on your message.

Enhances Message Clarity

A script allows you to present your ideas and information in a clear and organized manner. By carefully structuring your content, you can convey your message effectively. Your audience will easily understand it. A presentation script enables you to articulate your thoughts and concepts with clarity. It helps you avoid confusion or ambiguity.

Provides A Logical Flow Of Information

A well-structured script helps you organize your presentation in a logical sequence. By outlining key points, supporting details, and transitions between topics, you create a smooth flow of information that guides your audience through the content. This logical flow makes it easier for listeners to follow your thoughts. This way, they comprehend the overall message you are conveying.

Supports Effective Time Management

Having a script allows you to manage your time during the presentation effectively. By pre-determining the length of each section and allocating time accordingly, you can ensure that you cover all the essential points within the given time frame. This helps you maintain a good pace, avoid rushing, and prevent exceeding the allotted time.

Boosts Speaker Confidence

When you have a well-prepared script, you gain confidence as a speaker. Knowing that you have a solid structure and carefully chosen words to guide you through the presentation gives you a sense of preparedness and control. This confidence translates into a more engaging and impactful delivery. You can focus on connecting with your audience rather than worrying about what to say next.

Enables Customization For Different Audiences

You can customize any script to suit different audience demographics, needs, and preferences. By understanding your target audience, you can adapt your script to resonate with their interests, knowledge level, and expectations. This customization helps you establish a stronger connection with your listeners. It also makes your presentation more relevant and relatable.

Increases Audience Retention And Comprehension

A script that is well-crafted with compelling content increases audience retention and comprehension. By using techniques such as storytelling, visual aids, and repetition of key messages, you reinforce important concepts and make them more memorable. This results in a higher likelihood of your audience retaining the information. It helps them understand the core message of your presentation.

Step 1: Understanding The Purpose And Audience

Knowing the objective and audience of your presentation is crucial. It helps you write an effective script. Let’s delve into the importance of understanding these aspects and how they influence your scriptwriting process:

Clarify The Purpose

Before you begin writing your script, understand the purpose behind your presentation. Ask yourself what you aim to achieve through your talk. Are you seeking to inform, persuade, entertain, or inspire your audience? You can tailor your script to align with your goals by identifying the primary purpose.

Consider the desired outcome you want from your presentation. Do you want your audience to take specific actions, change their perspective, or gain knowledge?

Identify The Target Audience

The next crucial step is identifying and understanding your target audience . Who will be attending your presentation? What are their characteristics, interests, and knowledge levels? Analyzing your audience helps you tailor your script to resonate with their needs.

Consider demographic factors such as age, gender, profession, educational background, and cultural diversity. These insights will guide your tone, language choice, and content selection.

For example, if you’re presenting to a group of industry professionals, use technical terminology and delve deeper into specific details. On the other hand, if your audience consists of a general public with limited knowledge of the topic, you would need to explain concepts in a more accessible manner.

Adapting The Language And Tone

Once you understand your purpose and audience, adapt the language of your script. Use a style that resonates with your audience, whether formal, informal, or a blend of both. Consider the tone you want to convey—authoritative, enthusiastic, empathetic, or conversational. Incorporate it consistently throughout your script.

You create a sense of connection and engagement by aligning your language and tone with your audience’s expectations. Avoid jargon or complex terms if your audience is unfamiliar with them. Instead, focus on clarity and simplicity to ensure your message is easily understood.

Incorporating Relevant Content

Understanding your audience enables you to include content that is meaningful to them. Research and gather information addressing their needs, challenges, or interests. Incorporate examples, anecdotes, or case studies that resonate with your audience. It can make your presentation more relatable and impactful.

Consider the knowledge level of your audience. Strike the right balance between providing enough background information and advanced concepts. Use visuals, statistics, or examples to support your points and enhance audience understanding.

Aligning With The Expectations

Every audience has certain expectations when attending a presentation. Understanding these expectations allows you to meet them and exceed them where possible. For instance, if your audience expects a lively and interactive session, consider incorporating interactive elements such as audience participation, Q&A sessions, or group exercises into your script.

Step 2: Preparing For Script Writing

Scriptwriting is a crucial step. It sets the foundation for creating a compelling and well-structured presentation. Let’s explore the key aspects to consider during the preparation phase:

Researching The Topic

Before you start writing your script, conduct thorough research on your topic. Gather reliable information from sources like books, articles, research, or credible websites. Take notes and organize your research materials. Ensure that you have a solid understanding of the subject matter.

Defining The Key Message

Your presentation should have a clear and concise central message. Spend time defining and refining your key message, as it will serve as the backbone of your script. The key message should align with the purpose of your presentation. It must encapsulate the main idea or argument you want to convey to your audience.

Outlining The Structure

An effective presentation script follows a well-defined structure. Create an outline that outlines the main points, subtopics, and supporting details you want to cover. Consider the logical flow of information and how each section connects to the next. The structure will help you maintain focus, stay organized, and ensure a smooth delivery.

Step 3: Crafting Engaging Content

Content creation is an essential step. It captivates your audience and keeps them interested throughout your presentation. Here are some effective strategies to create compelling and impactful content:

Start With A Hook

Begin your presentation with a strong opening that grabs the audience’s attention. This can be a thought-provoking question , an interesting fact, a story, or a powerful quote. The hook sets the tone for the rest of your script and establishes a connection with your listeners.

Clearly Outline Your Main Points

Organize your content in a logical and structured manner. Outline the main points you want to convey and arrange them coherently. Each point should be clear and concise, focusing on the most critical information. Consider using headings and subheadings to guide your audience and facilitate understanding.

Tell Stories And Use Examples

Storytelling is a powerful tool to engage your audience. Incorporate relevant narratives, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate your main ideas. Stories create an emotional connection. It makes the information more relatable and helps your audience retain the information. Additionally, examples and real-life scenarios can enhance comprehension. It can make your content more tangible.

Use Visual Aids

Visual aids such as slides, charts, images, and videos enhance presentation engagement. They provide visual support, help illustrate complex concepts, and add variety to your content. Ensure that your visual aids are clear. They must be appealing and aligned with your message. Use them sparingly and strategically to avoid overwhelming your audience. 

Use video script template s to save time. Incorporate all these elements in a script and see how it captivates your audience with an organized structure.

Incorporate Interactive Elements

Engage your audience by incorporating interactive elements in your script. This can include asking questions or encouraging participation. You can also conduct polls or surveys or incorporate hands-on activities. Interactive elements make your presentation more dynamic and involve your audience actively.

Inject Humor

Humor is a powerful tool to grab attention and create an enjoyable atmosphere. Incorporate appropriate humor throughout your script to lighten the mood. It will make your presentation memorable and build rapport with your audience. However, be mindful of cultural sensitivities. Ensure that your humor aligns with the context and tone of your presentation.

Use Emotionally Compelling Language

Use language that appeals to their emotions to evoke a strong response from your audience. Use vivid and descriptive words that paint a picture in their minds. Emphasize the benefits, the impact, and the relevance of your message. Connect with your audience on an emotional level. Express empathy and understand their needs and concerns.

Step 4: Writing For Oral Delivery

Writing for verbal communication requires a specific approach to ensure your presentation script is effective when spoken aloud. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when writing for oral delivery:

Using Conversational Language

When writing a presentation script, aim for a conversational tone. Use simple, clear, concise language your audience can easily understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms unless necessary. Create a friendly and relatable atmosphere through your writing.

Incorporating Rhetorical Devices

Rhetorical devices such as repetition, rhetorical questions , metaphors, and parallelism can add flair to your presentation script. Strategic use of these devices can create rhythm. It can help you emphasize key points, evoke emotions, and make your script more engaging.

Balancing Script And Improvisation

While it’s important to have a well-written script, it’s also crucial to allow room for improvisation and flexibility during the presentation. Be prepared to adapt to the audience’s reactions. Address questions and engage in spontaneous interactions. Strive for a balance between following the script and connecting with the audience.

Step 5: Refining And Practicing The Script

Once you have written your presentation script, refining and practicing it is essential to ensure a smooth and engaging delivery. Here are some steps to refine and practice your script:

Review And Edit

Read through your script multiple times to identify any areas that can be improved. Look for opportunities to make your message clearer. Eliminate unnecessary details and enhance the flow of your script. Pay attention to the overall structure. Ensure that your main points are well-organized and easy to follow.

Seek Feedback

Share your script with colleagues, friends, or mentors and ask for their feedback. Their fresh perspective can help you identify any areas that may need improvement. Consider their suggestions. Make revisions accordingly to enhance the overall quality of your script.

Practice Out Loud

Once you are satisfied with the refined version of your script, it’s time to practice delivering it out loud . Stand in front of a mirror. Record yourself to observe your body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Pay attention to your pacing, pauses, and emphasis on key points. Practice until you feel confident and comfortable with the delivery.

Time Yourself

Timing is crucial when delivering a presentation. Ensure your script fits within the allotted time frame by synchronizing yourself during practice sessions. If necessary, make adjustments to the script by shortening or expanding certain parts. It will help you maintain a balanced and well-paced presentation.

Rehearse With Visual Aids

If you plan to use visual aids such as slides or props during your presentation, incorporate them into your rehearsal. Practice syncing your delivery with the visual elements to ensure a seamless presentation. Familiarize yourself with the order and content of the visual aids to enhance the overall impact of your message.

Seek Opportunities For Practice

Take advantage of opportunities to practice your script in front of a live audience. Consider participating in mock presentations, workshops, or public speaking events where you can receive feedback and gain experience in delivering your script to a real audience. This will help build your confidence and fine-tune your delivery.

Power Of A Well-Crafted Script

Following these 5 steps of how to write a presentation script, you can create a perfect speech to engage your audience throughout your speech. Remember, writing a script is an art you can master only with time and constant practice. Use our guide as a starting point and begin writing a compelling script.

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• Mar 3, 2023

How to write a Presentation Script [Tips from expert agency]

Lights flicker on as the room quiets down. You take a deep breath and step up to the podium, feeling the eyes of the audience on you. This is your moment to shine, to convey your message in a way that will captivate and inspire. But where do you start? How do you create a winning narrative that will leave a lasting impact?

As Jeff Weiner said,

“The best presentations are conversations”   —  Jeff Weiner

In this article, we’ll learn how to create a presentation script that will capture hearts and minds alike. We’ll show you how to structure your ideas, use storytelling techniques to make your message come alive, and deliver a memorable closing that will leave your audience wanting more.

But first, let’s cover the basics…

What’s a presentation script?

A presentation script is basically a plan for what you’re going to say during your presentation. It’s like a roadmap that helps you stay on track, hit all the important points, and keep your audience engaged.

Now, you might be thinking, “But I’m good at winging it! I don’t need a script!” And hey, some people can pull that off. But for most of us mere mortals, having a script is crucial if we want to deliver a presentation that’s clear, concise, and effective.

With a presentation script, you can practice your delivery and fine-tune your message before you even step on stage. You can also make sure you’re not forgetting any important points or getting sidetracked. Plus, if you tend to get nervous during presentations (which is totally normal!), having a script can help you feel more prepared and confident.

Why do you need a presentation script?

Here are some pretty good reasons why having a script is a smart move.

Keeps you on track: With a presentation script, you know exactly what you need to cover and in what order. This can help you stay focused and ensure that you don’t forget any important points.

Helps you practice: By having a script, you can practice your delivery and fine-tune your message before you even step on stage. This can help you feel more confident and prepared when it’s showtime.

Improves your message: With a script, you can make sure your message is clear, concise, and impactful. You can also edit out any fluff or tangents that might detract from your main point.

Saves time: If you’re giving a presentation to multiple groups or on multiple occasions, having a script can save you time in the long run. You can reuse the same script and just make minor tweaks as needed.

Reduces nerves: Let’s face it, presenting in front of a group can be nerve-wracking. But having a script can help you feel more prepared and confident. When you know exactly what you’re going to say, you’re less likely to get flustered or forget your lines.

How to create a winning presentation script?

1. start with the end goal.

When you’re working on your presentation script, don’t forget to keep your end goal in mind! Are you trying to inspire your audience to take action, educate them on a topic, or show off your mad skills in a certain area? Knowing your objective will make the rest of the process way easier.

Think about it: if you don’t know why you’re giving this presentation, you’re going to be all over the place, trying to cover too much ground, and your audience will be left scratching their heads. So, take a sec to think about what you want to achieve with your presentation before you start writing your script.

Once you’ve got your objective locked in, it’s time to brainstorm the key points you want to cover. Don’t hold back, let your creativity fly! Then, flesh out each point with examples, data, and other juicy details. Lastly, craft a killer opening and closing that will leave your audience feeling wowed.

2. Create a structure for your narrative

Alrighty, now it’s time to give your presentation some structure! First up, think about how you want to break down your narrative into three main parts: the beginning, the middle, and the end. This will help you keep your audience engaged and make sure you cover all the important stuff.

Next, you’ll want to think about where you want to focus the most attention. Do you want to grab your audience’s attention right off the bat with a killer opening, or leave them with a lasting impression by closing strong? This will vary depending on the type of presentation you’re giving.

For example, in a pitch deck, building a solid case for the problem statement might be the most crucial part, while in others, the call-to-action (CTA) at the end might be the most important.

So, take a minute to think about the key points you want to cover and where you want to place the most emphasis. This will help you structure your presentation in a way that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish. You got this!

3. Write what you want to say

It’s time to get those ideas out of your head and onto paper! You’re gonna want to use a text file to document your script. Start by writing down your narrative from beginning to end, just like you want to present it.

Remember that structure we talked about earlier? Now’s the time to use it to guide your writing and keep yourself on track. And hey, don’t stress if it’s not perfect on the first go-around. You can always go back and make tweaks later.

4. Use stories & anecdotes for engagement.

While you write your presentation script, don’t forget to spice up your script with a few anecdotes, attention-grabbing facts, and good old-fashioned business storytelling! These elements can help engage your audience and keep them hooked throughout your presentation.

Now, remember! Just because you’re incorporating storytelling into your presentation doesn’t mean you should lose sight of the business context. You might have heard of the term “storytelling” being thrown around by branding agencies, but there’s a difference between “storytelling” and “business storytelling.”

The latter focuses on conveying key business messages and ideas in a compelling and memorable way. So, make sure your anecdotes and storytelling tie back to your overall message and objectives. This way, you’ll not only entertain your audience but also leave them with a clear understanding of your business goals.

5. Co-ordinate with your slide design

Don’t forget to coordinate your speech with your slide design! Remember, less is more when it comes to visuals. The graphics in your presentation should complement your words, not the other way around. After all, you’re the star of the show here!

That being said, visuals can still play an important role in guiding your presentation script. You can use them as cues to remind you of key points or to help you transition between topics. Just make sure they’re not distracting or overwhelming, and that they serve a clear purpose in enhancing your message.

So, when designing your presentation, keep your script in mind and aim for a cohesive and effective combination of visuals and speech. That way, you’ll be sure to capture your audience’s attention and leave them with a clear and memorable message.

6. Create & design your cue cards

When you start putting together your presentation script, you might be surprised at just how much content you come up with for a 10-minute talk. It can be a lot to keep track of! That’s where cue cards come in handy.

Once you’ve written your full script, you can start working on your cue cards. They should be around 3x5 inches and have brief notes or bullet points to prompt you during your presentation. You’ll want to create your cue cards after you’ve rehearsed from the full script a few times, so you know which parts of your presentation you need reminders for.

And hey, while you’re at it, why not make your cue cards look sharp and in line with your brand? Even though it might not seem like a big deal, branding is all about the details. So, put some effort into designing your cue cards and make them an extension of your presentation. Trust us, it’ll be worth it!

Work with us.

Feeling overwhelmed and stressed out about an upcoming presentation? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back! Our team is here to help you create a solid narrative structure and design eye-catching slides that’ll make your presentation shine.

So why not save yourself some time and stress by reaching out to us? Let’s work together to make your presentation a success!

Are you r eady to wow your audience with a killer presentation design?

Check out our Business Presentation Design Services .

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How to Write a Presentation, Speech, or Script

It may seem difficult at first—perhaps you're getting caught up in what vocabulary to use, or maybe you're having trouble organizing your thoughts.

Writing a presentation, speech or script can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. The key to successful writing is to start with a clear plan.

Begin by outlining your main points and the order in which you would like to present them. Once you have a plan, you can start to fill in the details. Research your topic and make sure you have a good understanding of the material you are presenting.

When writing the speech or script, use simple language and avoid jargon. Make sure to include relevant facts and statistics to support your points. Finally, practice your presentation or speech several times to ensure that you are comfortable with the material and can deliver it in a confident and engaging manner. With a bit of preparation and practice, you can write an effective presentation, speech or script.

In this article, we will provide tips on how to write a presentation, speech, or script that will help you present, persuade and succeed using the best writing assistant software , ParagraphAI.

What is a Presentation?

A presentation is a form of communication in which a speaker presents information to an audience. They help share ideas, explain concepts, or to persuade the audience to take action. Presentations take place in person, through video conferencing, or through other digital media. Oftentimes, presentations are used in business settings, such as meetings or conferences, but are also present in educational settings, such as lectures or seminars.

Presentations inform, educate, or entertain an audience, depending on the purpose of the presentation. Formats include slideshows, videos, and even interactive experiences. Regardless of the format, a successful presentation requires careful planning and preparation, as well as strong communication skills.

What Should a Presentation Speech Include?

Every presentation can be divided into three segments: the opening, the main content, and the closing. Approximately 10-15% of your speaking time is typically spent on the introduction, around 75% on the body, and the remaining 10% on the conclusion.

The body of the presentation should contain facts and evidence to support the main points, and should be presented in a logical and easy-to-follow manner. The presentation should also include visuals, such as images, graphs, and charts, to help illustrate the points being made.

Finally, the presentation should end with a strong conclusion that summarizes the main points and leaves the audience with a lasting impression. With these elements in place, a winning presentation will be sure to capture the attention of the audience and leave them with a positive impression.

How to Write a Presentation

• Keep slide text concise.
• Focus on a single idea per slide.
• Use straightforward language.
• Incorporate impactful visuals.
• Tailor your writing to your audience.
• Avoid using slides as your personal notes.

Writing a presentation script can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. Start by gathering the information you want to present. This could include facts, figures, quotes, and stories. Once you have your information, create an outline of your presentation. This should include the main points you want to make and the order in which you want to make them. Then, write the actual script. Make sure to include an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Your introduction should capture the audience's attention and set the tone for the presentation. The body should include the main points you outlined, and the conclusion should summarize the main points and provide a call to action. Finally, practice your presentation until you are comfortable with the material. Following these steps will help you create a successful presentation script.

How to Write a Presentation, Speech, or Script with ParagraphAI in One Easy Step

ParagraphAI is a free AI writing tool that crafts perfectly curated content for all your writing needs, from social media posts and blog articles to presentations and professional works. In one easy step, enter your topic and watch as ParagraphAI takes care of the rest. It will generate high-quality, well-researched, and plagiarism-free content tailored to your specific audience. ParagraphAI is available as an app and a browser extension.

Example 1: Write a speech about AI writers impact on sales presentations

If someone is writing a speech about AI writers impact on sales presentations they should start with an Outline. From there generate content for each individual point.

ParagraphAI can generate a presentation outline and script about any topic that the writer can use as a starting point for their blog post.

Using the app, you could even just put in some ideas to save the text for later if you don't have the time to write a whole product description yet.

Example 1 Continued: Write a speech about AI writers impact on sales presentations

If you are writing a speech and are unsure where to start, you can instantly generate it with our AI writer.

In this example we did not create an outline, ParagraphAI has written the following speech with the prompt "Write a speech about AI writers impact on sales presentations"...

"Good morning everyone. I am here today to talk to you about the impact of AI writers on sales presentations. AI writers are a powerful tool that can help sales teams create more effective and persuasive presentations. AI writers are able to analyze data, identify trends, and generate persuasive arguments. This means that sales teams can create presentations that are tailored to their audience and that are more likely to be successful. AI writers can also help to save time, as they can quickly generate content that is tailored to a specific audience. They are becoming increasingly popular, and their impact on sales presentations is undeniable. AI writers can help sales teams create more effective presentations that are tailored to their audience and that are more likely to be successful. Thank you."

Example 2: Write a treatment for the next Terminator movie

Imagine you want to write a movie treatment, simply describe your plot, characters and details or use similar movies to instantly generate new inspiration and let ParagraphAI's free AI writing assistant write it for you.

Here is the result for the prompt: "write a treatment for the next terminator movie":

"The Terminator franchise is one of the most iconic and beloved science fiction franchises of all time. After the success of the first two films, fans have been eagerly awaiting the next installment. With the release of Terminator: Dark Fate, the story of Sarah Connor, John Connor, and the Terminators has been given a new lease of life.

The next installment in the Terminator franchise should focus on the next generation of Terminators. The story should follow a group of young Terminators who have been sent back in time to protect the future from a new, more powerful enemy. These Terminators should be equipped with advanced technology and weaponry, and their mission should be to find and eliminate the enemy. Along the way, they should be forced to confront their own morality and the consequences of their actions.

The movie should also feature a new cast of characters, including a young Sarah Connor and John Connor. These characters should be more complex and nuanced than their predecessors, and their interactions with the Terminators should be a source of tension and drama. The story should also explore the implications of the technology used by the Terminators, and the ethical dilemmas posed by their mission. Ultimately, the movie should be an exciting and thought-provoking exploration of the Terminator universe."

Example 4: Write the script for the first scene of the above movie

Say you want to write a script and dont know where to start, here is the result for the prompt "Write the script for the first scene of the following movie: [enter movie treatment from above]":

"Script for the First Scene:

The scene opens on a dark, post-apocalyptic landscape. We see a group of Terminators, their faces illuminated by the light of the moon. They are walking in a single line, their weapons drawn and ready for battle. Suddenly, they stop and turn to face the camera.

The leader of the Terminators steps forward and speaks in a robotic voice. "We have been sent back in time to protect the future from a powerful enemy. Our mission is to find and eliminate this enemy, no matter the cost."

The Terminators turn and continue their march, their determination evident in their faces."

And you can adjust the tone sliders and improve your final work to meet your needs - who knows, AI may be used to write the script for the next AI based Terminator movie!

As you can see, ParagraphAI is a versatile assistant when it comes to generating text, regardless of if you are writing for a professional or casual setting.

Best of all, ParagraphAI is a free AI writer tool . Give it a try the next time you're figuring out how to write a presentation, speech, or script. It's amazing how easy and fun it is!

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The Perfect Presentation Script that inspires audience

Perfect presentation script – a key to presentation success.

Is delivering presentations on the spot a skill you must master? Absolutely not! It’s good to possess this skill, but utilizing it during crucial presentations is unadvisable. What you say during a presentation is just as important as what is on the screen which is why you need the ‘ Perfect Presentation Script ’. If you’re going to deliver a dynamic design presentation but lacks perfect presentation script , it just won’t work in your favor.

A perfect presentation script should be as dynamic and effective as your visual data, preventing you from reading off your notes or just rambling in front of your audience. Be it a Sales Presentation or Investor Pitch Meeting, crafting a perfect presentation script helps in the consistent structure and designs of the presentation slides. Many presentation software’s are available online including Visme , Canva , Prezi and much more that helps creating professional designs.

6 useful tips to improve your presentation script

A PowerPoint presentation conveys information and ideas visually in a professional setting. Well-designed ppt presentations effectively communicate complex concepts and data. PowerPoint examples inspire and reference presentation creation, ranging from simple to elaborate designs, showcasing versatility and creativity. PowerPoint samples offer a starting point for creating professional presentations. While perfecting presentation script, it’s vital to focus on design too. Viewing PowerPoint examples, seeking design inspirations, and customizing design scheme should accompany script creation.

Now, We shall see the 6 useful tips to improve your presentation script.

• Crafting a compelling presentation script requires meticulous planning and attention to detail.
• A crucial first step is to finalize the storyboarding process, which lays the foundation for your script.
• When drafting your script, be sure to adhere closely to the content of your slides and incorporate appropriate pause breaks to allow your audience time to absorb and process information.
• It’s essential to devote ample time to writing, practicing, and refining your script through iteration.
• However, keep in mind that not every presentation requires a fully written script.
• A professional and effective presentation script strikes a delicate balance between preparation and flexibility to ensure that you engage and captivate your audience.

Key elements in the perfect presentation script

1. clear and concise introduction.

The ideal presentation script begins with a clear, concise intro that grabs attention and sets the tone. It should state the presentation’s purpose and what the audience will learn/gain from it.

2. Engaging Opening

A strong opening captivates the audience with a story, question, or statistic. It hooks them to continue listening.

3. Well-Structured Content

The presentation script should be well-structured and organized, flowing logically between points with clear transitions. Each point should be supported by evidence or examples to convince and relate to the audience.

4. Visual Aids

Visual aids like slides, charts, and graphs enhance presentations and engage the audience. Use them strategically to support key points and improve information understanding. Ensure they are clear, visually appealing, and easy to read.

5. Engaging Language

In presentation script, use engaging language that’s easy to understand. Avoid jargon and technical terms. Keep it simple and concise for all. Add storytelling, humor, or questions for engagement.

6. Call to Action

A presentation script needs a clear call to action at the end. This prompts the audience to act, like signing up for a newsletter or implementing presented ideas. The call should be compelling, encouraging action.

7. Practice and Rehearsal

One key element in a perfect presentation script is practice. It’s crucial to rehearse the script multiple times for a smooth delivery and to become familiar with the content. Practice builds confidence and reduces nervousness during the presentation. With these elements, you can create an impactful presentation that effectively communicates your message to the audience.

Writing a perfect presentation script for consulting presentations

A well-chosen PPT topic captures attention and makes the presentation engaging. The best layout complements content and enhances the message. Format should be considered to ensure clear and organized information presentation. Use headings, bullet points, and visuals to convey the message effectively.

Writing a great consulting presentation script involves understanding the audience and purpose. It should be concise, engaging, and convey key messages clearly. Structure it logically with an intro, main body, and conclusion. The script should have visual aids and interactive elements to engage the audience and improve the presentation’s impact. It should be well-researched, include relevant data and examples to support key messages.

Drafting a perfect presentation script for C-Level presentations

PPT slides: popular for visually appealing presentations. Engage audience with suitable design. Neatly formatted slides are easy to understand. Minimalistic designs key for C-Level presentations. Precise, not lengthy content. When presenting to C-level execs, a perfect script is essential. It must be concise, clear, and impactful.

Start with a strong opening to grab attention, followed by a clear outline of main points. The script should meet audience needs, avoiding jargon. End with a conclusion summarizing key points and encouraging discussion. Writing a perfect presentation script for C-level presentations impacts success and company goals.

Structuring your perfect presentation script

Once you start structuring your presentation script, you may be thinking of how to effectively design your content.

Are you looking for a design agency that can support you in your design projects? Then look no further than VS Team.

Our team of experts specializes in creating captivating PowerPoint presentation template designs that can be customized to suit your specific needs. Let us help you elevate your presentation with our exceptional presentation design services, and leave a lasting impression on your audience. You can make use of these customized templates and just transfer your contents to come up with many presentations in due course.

PowerPoint slides enhance key messages in presentations. Design keeps audience engaged. Well-crafted slides organize content effectively. Businesses create branded templates. PPT template provides consistent layout for slides. Helps presenters focus on content. Crucial for impactful presentations. Enhances design and message conveyance. Clean design, readable fonts, appealing colors are key. Offers varied layout options for content.

Be it a software presentation or educational presentation, the right PowerPoint template for presentation will have design layouts matching the industry and aligned to branding. You can read further… Professional PowerPoint Slide Designs – Visual Sculptors

Leaving design to experts, focus on perfect presentation script. Key steps in structuring your script below. Use as inspiration and tailor to industry needs.

Crafting the plot of your script before you write it is essential. From your introduction to your conclusion, outline key subjects that you want to focus on. Write your perfect presentation script based on this information. This is the easiest way to write a script for any company presentation ppt.

Perfect Presentation Script – Structuring Content

2. Introduction

Audience-focused speeches are no longer effective! Instead of meeting expectations, seize control and guide your audience to your desired destination. Craft a compelling intro and offer an exhilarating experience.

3. Crucial Information

Audience get info in pieces, they won’t bother connecting dots or retaining it. Keep info in one place. Craft sentences creatively to capture attention and deliver data effectively.

4. Presentation Notes

PowerPoint lets you write notes at the bottom of each slide. Take the substance of your presentation and bring it down to core keywords. These words should be capable of summing up the entire concept. Relying on these words instead of notes can help you easily communicate with your audience. The presentation notes helps you to keep a note of the key points of your perfect presentation script that aids in delivering an impressive presentation.

5. Stimulating Narrative

The last thing your audience wants to do is witness another presenter deliver a dreary presentation. Your ppt presentation design needs to be dynamic and so does your speech. The presentation should be able to complement your compelling and persuasive narrative. Your script must be intriguing, gripping, and thoughtful to be considered as a perfect presentation script.

6. Limit your bullets

Keep audience comprehension in mind. Don’t overload with too many points at once. Simplify content into bullets for easy recall.

7. Conversations

Every presentation needs a script. Write a perfect presentation script in a conversational tone. It may seem strange, but greatly influences communication and audience interaction. Builds confidence and calms nerves during presentations.

8. Record your speech

Record your presentation to identify mistakes and improve. Note hiccups, strengths, and mistakes. Consider audience reaction and enhance accordingly. This can help you ace the delivery of any corporate presentation ppt.

Firstly, avoid being boring in presentations. Engage with your audience, interact with them, and take breaks. Use the time wisely to connect with them. Share a relevant story that aligns with your presentation’s goal.

For more on exceptional story presentations, read: https://visualsculptors.com/storytelling-approach-presentations/

Once the presentation script is finalized, the focus shifts to designing the presentation. Here are key aspects of creating an effective PowerPoint design. PowerPoint design includes images, colors, and typography to enhance the presentation’s appearance. The goal is to boost readability and visual appeal. Balancing creativity with professionalism is crucial in slide design.

The best PPT presentations effectively convey the message and engage the audience. They include visually appealing templates, relevant images, concise text, and effective graphics. Presenter slides in PowerPoint aid in delivering a professional presentation, leaving a lasting impression. Crafting the best PowerPoint design takes time and effort.

Many software’s create online presentations using AI algorithms for images and design assets. Top PowerPoint presentations using AI save time. Expert designers use these technologies for contemporary designs. Creative design and presentation delivery convey key messages effectively in PowerPoint presentations.

Don’t let your presentation end like any other. Once your discussion is done, ask specific questions. Ask if they have any queries or if there’s anything they didn’t quite understand. Find out which concepts appealed and which ones didn’t.

The best PowerPoint presentation design services UK always suggest enquiring about your presentation delivery- what your audience liked and what they didn’t. Take feedback positively. Improve yourself by structuring and perfecting your presentation script. This enhances your presentation skills and audience impact.

• What is a presentation script?

A well-crafted presentation script can provide you with the structure, flow, and confidence you need to deliver a successful presentation. It’s important to start with a strong script that aligns with your personal style and goals. By using your script effectively, you can engage your audience and make the most out of your presentation. Remember, the script is a tool to enhance your delivery, not a crutch to rely on.

2. How do you write a good presentation to an audience?

Some tips for writing a great presentation include starting with a clear and concise message, using visuals to enhance your points, practicing your delivery, and engaging your audience with interactive elements. It’s also important to consider your audience’s needs and interests when crafting your presentation.

3. What are the ways to impress the audience in a presentation?

Some ways to impress your audience in a presentation include starting with a strong opening, using visuals and multimedia, telling stories, engaging the audience with questions, and being confident and enthusiastic. Other tips include practicing your delivery, keeping your message clear and concise, and ending with a memorable conclusion.

4. How do you start a perfect presentation?

There are many ways to start a perfect presentation, but some tips and tricks include starting with a powerful quote, telling a story, asking a thought-provoking question, or using a startling statistic. It’s important to grab your audience’s attention from the beginning and set the tone for the rest of your presentation.

5. How can I make my presentation more creative and attractive?

Some tips for making your presentation more creative and attractive include using visuals, incorporating storytelling, using humor, keeping it simple, and engaging with your audience. You can also try using interactive elements, incorporating music or sound effects, and using a unique and visually appealing design.

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How to Write the Perfect Webinar Script (Templates Included)

If you're gearing up for a fresh webinar series or you think it might be time to reassess why your content is not as engaging as it could be, a script can be the key!

Many creators see webinar scripts as a cornerstone of any presentation because they can guide the flow of information and interaction with your audience. In other words, it's not just about what you say but how you say it—the structure, pacing, and clarity of your script can make all the difference in captivating your viewers and achieving your webinar goals.

So, let's see how you can review and refine your webinar script to ensure it communicates your message.

What is a Webinar Script, and Why Do You Need One?

A webinar script is a detailed plan or written guide that outlines the content and structure of a webinar presentation. It includes all the key points, transitions, interactive parts, and other important information that the presenter will cover during the webinar.

Having a webinar script is quite important. For example:

• Organization : A script helps keep your webinar content organized so you can cover everything you need to in a logical way.
• Clarity : By laying out what will be said and how it will be said, a script helps you communicate clearly and reduce confusion.
• Consistency : Using a script can aid you in delivering a consistent message in each session, maintaining your brand's identity and professionalism.
• Engagement : A well-written script can help keep your audience engaged (especially if you’re using interactive elements, storytelling techniques, and good visuals).
• Time management : With a script, you can effectively manage your time so you cover all the important points.

In short, a webinar script is a guide to help you navigate through your presentation and deliver a polished and impactful webinar that meets the needs of their audience.

Does Every Webinar (Or Every Presenter) Need a Script?

While not every webinar absolutely requires a script, having one can be great for conversions and audience engagement.

As we have covered above, a script helps maintain clarity and gives your content structure. Plus, it can help you deliver a consistent message across multiple webinar sessions and manage your time effectively.

However, something not many people talk about is how having a script can boost your confidence as a presenter. Knowing that you have a roadmap to guide you through the webinar is a great way to boost your content.

When you prepare a script ahead of time, you get the chance to go through your content carefully and practice it. This helps you feel more confident because you become familiar with the material and can think about what questions the audience might ask.

How to Write a Webinar Script

A good script can help you leave a lasting impression. From defining your objectives to understanding your audience, outlining your content, and incorporating interactive elements, let's cover all the essential steps to inspire your audience.

Step 1: Set Your Goal

Setting your goal is like setting a destination before starting a journey—it gives your webinar direction and purpose!

Think about why you're hosting the webinar. Is it to educate your audience about a specific topic? Promote a new product or service? Share valuable insights from your industry? For example, if you're a fitness trainer, your goal might be to educate others about the benefits of HIIT and promote your upcoming workout program.

Once you've identified your purpose, clarify the main objective you want to achieve with your webinar. This objective should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Following our example, your main objective could be to increase sign-ups for your HIIT workout program by 20% within the next month.

Lastly, think about who your audience is and what they hope to gain from attending your webinar and ensure that your webinar goal aligns with your broader business objectives.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Understanding who your audience is will help you tailor your content to their preferences and interests. So, start by gathering information about your audience demographics, such as age, gender, location, and occupation. You can use tools like surveys, social media analytics, or website analytics to collect this data.

If you're doing a webinar about money for young adults, like millennials, you should find out what they care about with money, like saving up for later, making a budget, or dealing with student loans. Once you know the basics, you can look closer to see what exactly they need help with and what they're interested in learning more about.

Pay attention to feedback from previous webinars, surveys, or social media interactions. What topics resonate most with your audience? What questions do they frequently ask? Use this feedback to inform your content strategy and ensure that your webinar addresses their current interests and concerns.

Step 3: Outline Your Content

Begin by identifying the main topics or themes you want to cover in your webinar. These are the key points that you want your audience to understand or take away from the presentation. For instance, if you're hosting a webinar on digital marketing strategies, your main points might include social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).

Once you've identified your main points, break each one down into smaller subtopics or sections. This helps you organize your content in a logical and easy-to-follow manner. Arrange your main points and subtopics in a logical sequence that flows naturally from one topic to the next, and think about the journey you want your audience to take throughout the webinar. Start with more general or introductory topics before diving into more complex or specific ones.

Step 4: Craft Compelling Content and Prepare Visual Aids

Use simple and straightforward language that your audience can easily understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms unless necessary, and aim to convey your message in the clearest way possible. For example, instead of saying " utilize ," you can simply say " use, " and instead of " ameliorate ," you can say " improve ."

It can also be a good idea to incorporate real-life stories and/or anecdotes to illustrate your points and make them more relatable to your audience. Stories are memorable and can help people connect with the content on a deeper level.

Try to avoid monotony by varying the pace, tone, and format of your content. You can alternate between presenting information verbally, showing visual aids on screen, and engaging the audience with polls or Q&A sessions. Slides, diagrams, or infographics can help reinforce your message and make complex ideas easier to understand. Plus, they provide an opportunity to reinforce your branding. So, try to use consistent colors, fonts, and imagery that align with your brand to create a professional and polished look.

Step 5: Incorporate Interaction

A great way to complement your verbal content is to use visuals such as slides, diagrams, or infographics. Visuals can help break up the monotony of text and reinforce key concepts. For example, if you're explaining a complex process, you could use a flowchart or diagram to visually represent the steps involved. Or, if you're sharing statistics or data, you could use graphs or charts to make the information easier to digest.

Polls are a great way to gauge your audience's opinions, preferences, or knowledge on a particular topic, while Q&A sessions allow participants to ask questions and engage directly with the presenter. These interactive elements will give you an opportunity for clarification and building rapport with your audience.

Lastly, interactive quizzes or activities can also add an element of fun. Quizzes are a fun way to check what people know, remind them of important stuff, or take a quick break during the webinar.

Step 6: Review and Revise

Review your script to ensure that your message is clear and easy to understand. Look for any confusing or ambiguous language that could be clarified. Make sure your points are expressed in a straightforward manner that resonates with your audience.

You should also check that your script flows logically from one point to the next and avoid jumping from one idea to another without proper transition. For example, if you're discussing the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, make sure that each subtopic (such as nutrition, exercise, and sleep) builds upon the previous one and contributes to the overall message of the webinar.

Your script should remain relevant to your audience's needs and interests. So, remove any unnecessary information or tangents that detract from the main message of the webinar.

Step 7: Finalize Your Script

Finalizing your script is like putting the finishing touches on a painting—it's the last step before presenting your masterpiece to the world.

First, review your script one final time and incorporate any last-minute changes or updates. This could include adding new information, refining your language, or adjusting the flow of your content based on feedback. Then, double-check that your script maintains consistency in tone, style, and formatting throughout. Ensure that all sections flow smoothly and transition seamlessly from one point to the next.

Step 8: Practice and Deliver with Confidence

Practice your webinar script several times to get comfortable with it. Speak naturally and confidently, focusing on your tone, speed, and important points. You can practice every day before the webinar by speaking in front of a mirror, recording yourself, or rehearsing with a friend for feedback.

If you'll be using slides or visual aids during the webinar, take the time to familiarize yourself with them. Practice transitioning between slides smoothly and ensuring that your visuals complement your spoken content.

Feeling nervous before a presentation is normal, but practicing can help ease anxiety. Before each practice, take time to do deep breathing or imagine giving a successful webinar presentation. This can make you feel less nervous and more confident.

On the day of the webinar, approach the presentation with confidence and enthusiasm. Remember that you've prepared thoroughly and are well-equipped to share your best self!

Using a Webinar Script Template

Because a webinar template can give you a structured framework to follow, it can simplify the process of creating your offline or live webinar content .

A webinar script template helps you organize your content in a logical sequence, as it typically has sections for the introduction, main content, and closing remarks. Some templates use bullet points to ensure things run smoothly and have guidelines for each of these sections. For example, they may suggest starting with a hook to grab your target audience's attention, followed by an overview of what will be covered, and then diving into the main topics.

Templates are designed to be user-friendly, too, making it easy for anyone to create a webinar script (yes, even if you are not experienced in public speaking or content creation!).

Let us show you a webinar script template you can use as a base.

Webinar Script Template

Feel free to customize this template to fit your specific webinar topic, audience, and presentation style. You can add or remove sections, adjust them for guest speakers, change the language to suit your tone, and incorporate any additional elements that will enhance the effectiveness of your webinar.

Introduction:

• Greet participants warmly and thank them for joining.
• Introduce yourself and briefly explain your expertise or background.
• Provide an overview of what participants can expect to learn or gain from the webinar.
• Outline the agenda and key topics that will be covered.

Main Content:

• Start with a compelling story, statistic, or question to grab participants' attention and engage them from the start.
• Present the first main topic or point.
• Provide relevant information, examples, and insights.
• Encourage audience interaction through polls, questions, or discussions.
• Introduce the second main topic or point.
• Share additional information, examples, and tips.
• Invite audience participation and feedback.
• Discuss the third main topic or point.
• Offer practical advice, strategies, or solutions.
• Encourage participants to share their experiences or ask questions.
• Recap the key points covered during the webinar.
• Highlight any important takeaways or action items for participants.
• Open the floor for questions from participants.
• Address any inquiries or concerns raised by the audience.
• Thank participants for their attendance and engagement.
• Invite them to connect further or access additional resources.
• Provide any relevant announcements or upcoming events.

Conclusion:

• Offer final words of encouragement or inspiration.
• Reinforce the value of the webinar and its impact on participants.
• Encourage participants to take action based on what they've learned.
• Provide a clear call to action, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a resource, or attending future webinars.

Webinar Housekeeping Script Template

A webinar housekeeping script is a set of guidelines or instructions that a webinar host follows at the beginning of a webinar to ensure that everything runs smoothly and participants know what to expect. Here’s ours:

Welcome and Introduction:

• "Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone, and welcome to [Webinar Title]."
• "My name is [Host Name], and I'll be your host for today's webinar."

Technical Details:

• "Before we begin, please make sure that your audio and video are working properly. You can adjust your settings using the controls at the bottom of your screen."
• "We recommend a stable internet connection for the best webinar experience. If you experience any connectivity issues, try refreshing your browser or switching to a different network."
• "Throughout the webinar, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature or chat with other participants in the chat box on the right-hand side of your screen."

Webinar Logistics:

• "Today's webinar will last approximately [duration], including time for Q&A at the end."
• "This webinar will be recorded and made available to all registered participants after the event. If you don't wish to be recorded, please refrain from using your webcam or microphone."

Participant Engagement:

• "We encourage active participation throughout the webinar. Feel free to ask questions, share your thoughts in the chat, and participate in any polls or interactive activities."
• "Please be respectful of other participants and avoid any disruptive behavior. If you have a question, please wait for an appropriate time to ask, or use the Q&A feature."
• "Before we dive into the main content, are there any questions about the technical setup or logistics? If not, let's get started!"

Crafting the perfect webinar script is a combination of thoughtful planning, engaging content creation, and effective delivery. We hope this guide has helped you come up with yours. Now, it’s time to hit record!

And what better way to produce your webinar than using StreamYard? StreamYard is a professional live streaming and recording studio that works directly from your browser. You can go live, record sessions with guests, and multistream to various platforms all at once. What’s more, StreamYard includes features to brand your content with your own intro and outro, logo, colors, and overlays. And with StreamYard On Air , you can even embed your webinar on your website!

Join the more than 60,000,000 streams and recordings made with StreamYard. You can actually get started for free .

Start creating with StreamYard today

Sample Presentation Script

This section provides a sample script for delivering a half-day to full-day presentation covering all of the topics listed in the outline. Tailor the script to your chosen program length, content and audience.

Presentation Outline

Introduction

• Success stories
• Legal issues
• Definitions and statistics

General Library Access

• Building and physical environment

Adaptive Technology

• Hearing and speech impairments
• Specific learning disabilities
• Mobility impairments
• Health impairments
• Beginning the process of planning for adaptive technology
• Getting started: a list of adaptive technology devices

Electronic Resources

• Universal design principles
• General page design
• Graphical features
• Special features
• Web pages test

Distribute handouts .

• Making Library Resources Accessible to People with Disabilities
• Working Together: People with Disabilities and Computer Technology
• Meet the Speakers in the Videotape: Working Together: People with Disabilities and Computer Technology
• World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design
• Meet the Speakers in the Videotape: World Wide Access

Put up overhead transparency.

Universal Access: Electronic Information in Libraries

I'm here today to share with you information and issues related to people with disabilities, electronic resources, and libraries.

Put up overhead transparency .

Recent advances in adaptive computer technology, greater reliance on computers, and increased availability and networking of electronic information resources have resulted in life-changing opportunities for many people with disabilities. In combination, these technologies provide many people with disabilities better access to education, careers, and other life experiences.

Libraries play an important role in ensuring equitable access to information for all members of our society. In addition, federal legislation mandates that public institutions, including libraries, provide accommodations for people with disabilities so that they can utilize the same services and resources as other people.

What are some of the electronic resources currently in your library?

Presenter Note: Solicit audience input to list items such as CD-ROM encyclopedias and indexes, online catalogs, WWW pages, and full-text databases.

The information covered in this presentation will provide you with tools and insights that will help ensure that these electronic resources are accessible to the broadest audience. As an extra benefit, you will find that being sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities can often make access easier for everyone.

Program Outline

• Legal issues statistics
• General library access
• Adaptive technology
• Electronic resources

Our program today will cover these five topics. To begin I will share some success stories or examples of the impact that adaptive technology for computers and electronic resources has had for people with disabilities. Then we will consider the most important legislative directives on the issue and look at some statistics about people with disabilities. We will then consider the bigger picture of access to libraries and library services for people with disabilities. With that background, a videotape presentation and discussion of adaptive technology for computers will bring our focus to electronic resources in libraries. The last segment of the program will include the second videotape presentation and a discussion of universal design of electronic resources applied to the development of World Wide Web pages.

Today's presentation will help you understand the impact of these technologies for people with disabilities while giving you the tools to begin implementing them in your library. Your packet of handouts is one of the tools that will help you apply the ideas presented. Let's walk through it.

The following handouts are in your packet.

Much of the information presented today is provided in these handouts. I will let you know which handout covers the information we are focusing on as we go through the presentation. Keep the handouts handy to save from taking duplicative notes.

Success Stories

I'm going to start out today by sharing with you a few stories of people with disabilities who are able to access information resources thanks to the availability of adaptive technology and accessible electronic resources. You'll meet them in the videotape we'll view shortly.

• Ben cannot use his hands, but muscular dystrophy doesn't interfere with his use of the Internet; he uses a voice input program that allows him to talk his way through the Net - six hours a day!
• Sarah uses her library's online catalog and the Internet to research and write papers for school. Her learning disability makes it difficult for her to read so she uses a speech output system to read the screen.
• Anna is blind. She uses a screen reader and speech output system to access her library's full-text databases and CD-ROMs. Her system works well until she runs into programs not designed according to universal design principles.
• Shane surfs the Net with a small tube in his mouth. The computer obeys his every command as he inputs Morse code - sip for a dot, puff for a dash. His cerebral palsy is only a minor inconvenience as he researches information on his special interest, naval communication.
• Sherri is legally blind, but has enough sight to use enlarged screen images as she uses governmental resources on the World Wide Web in pursuing her master's degree in public administration.
• Katie is hearing impaired. She often uses a sign language interpreter. On the Internet, however, Katie communicates with the reference librarian quickly and easily through electronic mail.

These stories provide examples of people with disabilities who are successfully pursuing avocations, education, and careers thanks to adaptive technology and electronic resources. During our presentation today, we will be learning how to ensure that there will be many more success stories like these for people with disabilities.

Legal Issues

According to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (504) and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), "no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall, solely by reason of his/her disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity of a public entity." Footnote 1

The ADA and the regulations promulgated to implement it have stressed that people with disabilities should be provided the same services as others, unless this would be less effective. The Department of Justice has stated that "Integration is fundamental to the purpose of the American with Disabilities Act." If accommodation, or an adjustment is needed to make a resource, program or facility accessible to a person with a disability, the individual's preference of accommodation must be given primary consideration. Footnote 2

In short, libraries must assure that people with disabilities can participate in library programs and utilize library resources as independently as possible. And this includes electronic information resources. As legal questions about the implications of the ADA for access to electronic information resources are tested, libraries are being required to provide access to these services.

According to decisions in recent cases on access to electronic resources, libraries in academic institutions must proactively and deliberately plan for accessibility. A recent letter from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights noted:

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires a public college to take appropriate steps to ensure that communications with persons with disabilities "are as effective as communications with others" [28 C.F.R. ss 35.160(a)]. OCR has repeatedly held that the term "communication" in this context means the transfer of information, including (but not limited to) the verbal presentation of a lecture, the printed text of a book, and the resources of the Internet.

The letter continues:

"Title II further states that, in determining what type of auxiliary aid and service is necessary, a public college shall give primary consideration to requests of the individual with a disability" [28 C.F.R. ss 35.106(b)(2)]. Footnote 3

In providing guidance on expectations for libraries in providing access to electronic resources, the letter states:

Modern adaptive technology has radically affected the degree to which it is economically feasible to make printed materials and computer based information systems accessible to blind patrons. The larger and more financially endowed the library, the higher the expectation that a greater volume of information will be made available within a shorter amount of time, particularly when reasonably priced adaptive technology is available to replace tasks that previously required personnel. An important indicator regarding the extent to which a public library is obligated to utilize adaptive technology is the degree to which it is relying on technology to serve its non-disabled patrons. The more technology that has been purchased by a public library to serve non-disabled patrons, the more reasonable the expectation that it will employ technology such as scanners to serve its patrons with disabilities. Footnote 4

As libraries increasingly provide electronic resources, they are legally obligated to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities.

Definitions and Statistics

So, what exactly does "person with a disability" mean?

"Person with a disability" means "any person who has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities including walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working; has a record of such an impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment."

Examples of qualifying disabilities covered by legislation may include, but are not limited to, spinal cord injuries, loss of limbs, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, visual impairments, speech impairments, specific learning disabilities, head injuries, psychiatric disorders, diabetes, cancer, and AIDS.

The examples listed here are conditions which limit people's abilities to perform specific tasks. Some of these conditions are readily apparent; some are invisible. Some require that we provide special accommodations in the library; some do not. Additionally, some people who have conditions with the same label may have very different abilities when it comes to performing specific tasks. For example, one student who has cerebral palsy may have difficulty walking. For another student, cerebral palsy may result in no functional use of her/his hands or voice.

Now that we discussed the definition of disability according to the ADA, let's consider some statistics to gain a better understanding of this service population.

According to surveys conducted in 1991-1992, 9.6% or 1 in 10 Americans has a severe disability that substantially limits at least one major life activity. 19.4 % or 1 in 5 Americans has a disability. Footnote 5

In addition, we can expect the number of library patrons with disabilities to increase. Some reasons for this increase include:

Advances in medical technology and techniques result in greater numbers of people who survive traumatic accidents and problematic births.

Improvements in technology make it possible for more people with disabilities to live independently and have productive lives for which they will want and need library resources.

Increased awareness of people with disabilities' rights to accommodations and equal opportunities in education and employment, guaranteed by 504 and the ADA, has, and will continue to encourage more people to pursue these activities and request accommodations.

The creation of federal and state mandated K-12 and higher education academic support programs helps more students with disabilities complete high school and enter college and careers. The number of students with disabilities enrolled in universities and colleges has already increased. In 1994, 9.2% of all full-time, first-time entering freshman reported a disability, up from 2.6% in 1978.6 This trend will create a greater demand for accessible information resources in academic libraries.

The aging of the baby boomer generation will cause a significant demographic shift in our society, increasing the number of people with low vision, hearing impairments, and other disabilities related to the aging process.

Among people aged 18-44, 5% have a severe disability; among people aged 65-74, 25% have a severe disability; and among people aged 75-84, 42% have a severe disability. Footnote 7

All of these factors are leading to increased numbers of people with disabilities who are and will be requesting services at libraries.

The purpose of this introduction is to help you understand why libraries need to be prepared to serve people with disabilities. The legal imperatives of the ADA and other laws and the expected increase of people with disabilities in our constituencies and argue strongly for immediate action. Libraries will be best prepared to serve patrons with disabilities if they strive to include them in regularly provided services. This is best achieved by using universal design principles when designing facilities, equipment, services and resources; by providing a base level of adaptive technology; and by developing a policy and procedures for handling requests for accommodation. By taking these steps the library will be better able to respond quickly to more specialized requests for accommodation.

The rest of today's presentation will help you develop an understanding of adaptive technology and of universal design principles so that you can help develop accessible services and resources for your library.

Ready to get started?

Video script writing 101: how-to steps + templates and examples.

It’s no secret: v ideo gets more engagement  and drives more growth than any other type of media.

But you’ll only reap the benefits if your marketing videos are at least decently produced.

That doesn’t mean every video needs a Hollywood budget, but you  do  need to put time into planning your video and writing a video script (or asking AI to write one for you).

The good news? Learning how to write a good video script is easier than it looks. This guide covers the basics of writing a script and gives you examples to help you write your own.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• How to script a video with AI .
• How to plan your script.
• Best practices for writing a script.
• Tips for choosing the “right” kind of script.
• Example video scripts to jog your creativity.

Stay tuned until the end and we’ll also walk you through our favorite ready-to-edit presentation, promo, and explainer video script templates available from  Biteable .

Create videos that drive action

Activate your audience with impactful, on-brand videos. Create them simply and collaboratively with Biteable.

Video scripts made easy: Start with a Biteable template

You don’t have to write your own video script from scratch. Video script templates are the busy video maker’s secret weapon.

Biteable’s online video-making software offers hundreds of  video templates  to jump-start your script-writing creativity.

• Fully customizable.
• One-click editing.
• Ready-made content. (24+ million clips, images, animations, music tracks).
• Free 7-day trial

How to script a video with AI

The easiest way to script and create videos is with a little help from your newest assistant: AI. Biteable’s AI-powered Automated Video Assistant (AVA) scripts and creates your video with the click of a button.

Read your complete guide to scripting and creating videos with AI for the step-by-step details.

How to write a video script

Before we go anywhere with video, let’s be clear about this: keep it simple. As you plan your video and write your script, it’s all too easy to start throwing all sorts of cool ideas out. After all, you can do anything in a video, right?

With an unlimited budget, sure. But we’re willing to bet your budget is limited. So keep your videos as simple as possible. You’d be surprised how much work it takes to produce very minimal on-screen effects.

Planning your video script

With all that in mind, start planning your script. Some writers call this “ prewriting ”.

1. Identify your audience.

This is a staple in any sort of marketing or copywriting. You need to address a very specific customer with your content, otherwise it won’t resonate. It can be tempting to make it as broad as possible in order to address every potential customer. Avoid this temptation. Something that’s for everybody appeals to nobody.

If you need help identifying who you want to reach, go through the exercises on this  worksheet  from digitalmarketer.com.

2. Choose a goal

Next you need to know what the point of the video is. This will depend on where your audience will see the video, what stage of the marketing funnel the video will be used at, and what you want viewers to do after they watch the video, and the  key performance indicators  you use to track your success.

But if you want viewers to do something specific after seeing the video, you’ll need a call to action. Just make sure your call to action aligns with the purpose of the video. Have a look at this video for FreshBooks. The purpose of the video is quite clear, even if it’s not explicitly stated.

3. Decide on a central character

If your video features too many people, it will be difficult to follow and the focus will stray from the main point. Identifying the primary character does two things:

• It simplifies and focuses your video.
• It pushes you toward creating a story (if your video needs it).

Some videos, like a product overview, have very little story in them. However, it’s still best if a single person does most of the talking. If you’re producing a video with a narrative arc, it’s best to focus on the main character.

In either case, you need to know who’s going to be on screen most of the time. If you need two or more people in the video, choose one person to show for a majority of the screen time.

Bonus tip: If you can, use the same person as the spokesperson in all your videos. This creates continuity and familiarity in your video content. That’s why brands often create characters that almost function as mascots, like Flo from Progressive.

4. Identify the main point of the video

This boils down to a very simple exercise: tell someone why they should watch this video in one sentence.

When you start writing your script, put the answer to this question as close to the beginning as possible. Let viewers know what they’re going to get right up front, and you’ll retain more viewers.

As a bonus, identifying the point of the video will also tell you what sort of video you need.

Writing your video script

If your planning is good, the writing will be fairly easy. You’ve already created your map. Just follow it.

5. Write out visual and audio elements.

This is super important if you’re doing any sort of voiceover with visuals that cut to different shots. But even if your video is a single shot of someone talking, write the visual and audio aspects into your script.

The script is a set of directions for whoever is shooting the video, and you want the video team to know, without a doubt, what’s supposed to be happening with both the visual and audio elements.

A simple table with two columns is an easy way to format your script. It’s easy to read and see how the video will look and sound. This is a brief two-column video script example:

Add as many boxes as you need to cover all the shots in your video.

6. Write your script, then trim to fit

Depending on the sort of video you’re making, you may need to cram everything into 15 or 30 seconds, or you could have a full three minutes or more to work with.

Either way, plan for 125 to 150 words of dialogue per minute.

But when you start writing, focus on saying everything you want to say. Once you’ve got all the dialogue written, check your word count, then start axing and rewording until it fits your time limit.

This method makes your script clear and concise. It forces you to keep only the dialogue you  need .

Here are a few brief tips for writing dialogue:

Speak directly to the audience.  Use “you” and talk to your viewers. It’s more personable, and people prefer being spoken to rather than being spoken at.

Write it the way you would say it.  Your audience isn’t going to read your script. So write what you would actually say, not what looks best on paper.

• Read your script out loud.  This is the only way to find out if your dialogue sounds natural. If you make changes, read it out loud again.

Once the dialogue is clean, you’ll know roughly how much footage you need to shoot and what shots you need. If you’re using a voiceover, be sure to shoot some extra footage to account for pauses in the dialogue and visuals that don’t make the cut.

Bonus tip: Use AI to get the first draft of your script. Use a chatbot like ChatGPT , or skip to the finished video with AVA — Biteable’s AI-powered Automated Video Assistant.

7. Stick to the video script (mostly)

This is technically not part of writing the script. But it’s related to writing your script. It boils down to one question: why bother writing the script if you’re not going to follow it? That’s like paying an architect to draw a floor plan, then just building your house all willy-nilly.

Once you start filming, follow your script as much as possible. Some minor changes are fine, and professional actors or voice actors can contribute some flair. Or, if you find you don’t have the resources to do what you planned, you may need to make changes or go back and rewrite the script.

But avoid making major changes to the script on the fly just because you think of something cool. Ad hoc changes and ad-libbing rarely turn out for the best. Explosions are cool, but don’t blow everything up just to have some fun.

How to write the right kind of video script

Marketing videos accomplish two things:

• They educate viewers.
• They persuade viewers.

Some videos only do one of the two and some do both, but we’re going to split the various types into one of these two categories to keep things simple.

Educational videos: Presentation and explainer video scripts (+ templates)

Presentation and explainer videos fall into the educational category.

These videos are usually for:

• Demonstrating how to do something.
• Explaining how your product or service works.
• Introducing what your brand does.

The keys to success with educational videos are brevity and visuals.

Concise information is easier to remember. That’s why phone numbers are seven digits long. So keep your video short and break it up into manageable blocks of information to help viewers retain what you’ve shown them.

Also, include relevant visuals to show and tell the viewer what you’re explaining, which will increase retention even more. Here’s an excellent explainer video from Mint:

It’s short (1:32), the visuals are relevant, and the dialogue is broken up into separate statements.

This explainer video from Dollar Shave Club is legendary:

Watch this one more than once, because it’s hilarious. But once you stop spitting coffee, notice how the dialogue is broken up into 10-15 second chunks, which are separated by funny visuals. Distinct, memorable blocks of information.

And just for giggles, here’s a bonus videos to get your inspired.

To help you create your own explainer or presentation video, Biteable offers  video templates  you can edit yourself. Here are a few presentation and explainer video script templates to get you started:

Persuasive videos: Promotional and commercial video scripts (+ templates)

Promotional and commercial videos are for getting people to do things. The action you’re after isn’t always an immediate purchase. You could use a persuasive video to get people to consume additional promotional content.

But, most often, promotional and commercial videos are for:

• Showing the benefits and features of your product or service.
• Demonstrating what separates your brand from competitors.
• Showcasing how your product or service will  improve your customer’s life .

Customers will often view these videos on social media or in a sidebar on a website. Getting to the point and keeping it short are non-negotiable. A call to action is mandatory as well.

These videos usually get watched with the sound off, so write your script and plan your visuals to work without sound. Including subtitles is also a good idea.

You might be thinking “great! I’ll save myself time and create a video with no dialogue!” That’s a perfectly good idea, but even if your video has no dialogue, don’t skip the script. Write a script for the visuals so you have a plan to work from.

Here are some examples of commercial videos that work well on multiple platforms:

Notice how short these are. Also note that all of them are consumable without sound. But the main takeaway from these videos is that you need to get attention, deliver your message, and get out before your viewer swipes you off their screen.

Video templates starter pack

We know that can be challenging, so we created a starter pack of video template collections you can use and edit yourself:

• Social media video templates .
• Video ad templates .
• Promotional video templates .
• Explainer video script templates .

Make your first video with Biteable

So you’ve got the knowledge. You’ve got the templates. You’ve got the video editor ( Biteable, of course ) and you’ve got the power. Now go forth and make some awesome videos.

Make stunning videos with ease.

Take the struggle out of team communication.

Try Biteable now.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > Six tips for recording a presentation

Six tips for recording a presentation

Your latest presentation is filled with crucial information and key concepts your colleagues need to remember. Record and archive it for easy reference and absorption.

How to record your presentation

Whether you’re recording a presentation for work, a webinar or school, both you and your colleagues will greatly appreciate having it available to reference. You can absorb information at your pace, ensuring that you retain pertinent information, without having to rely solely on your notes. While the method of recording depends on the virtual meeting platform or whether its in person, here are some guidelines on how to record you presentation:

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

1. Choose the right equipment

High-quality recording equipment is essential for producing professional-looking and sounding presentations. Laptops are equipped with microphone and a high-resolution webcam, but it’s always a good idea to consider investing in higher quality recording equipment.

2. Test Your equipment

Before starting your presentation, it’s crucial to test your recording equipment to ensure everything is working properly. Check the audio levels, video quality, and any additional accessories you may be using, such as lighting or a green screen. Conducting a test run will help identify any technical issues that need to be addressed. Review the virtual meeting platform you are using to ensure that the recording feature is enabled, so you won’t have to search for it when the presentation time rolls around.

3. Optimize your environment

Choose a quiet, well-lit environment for recording your presentation. Minimize background noise and distractions to ensure clear audio and video quality. Consider using a neutral background or a virtual background to maintain a professional appearance. Natural lighting is ideal, but if that’s not possible, invest in good quality lighting equipment to ensure your face is well-lit and visible.

4. Organize your presentation contents

Organize your presentation materials in a logical order to facilitate smooth delivery. Create an outline or script to guide your presentation, making sure to include key points, transitions, and visual aids. Practice your presentation multiple times to become familiar with the contents and ensure a confident delivery. If you have multiple presenters, solidify the speaking order and designate one person to facilitate the presentation.

5. Engage with Your Audience

Even though you’re recording your presentation, it’s essential to engage with your audience as if they were present in the room with you. Encourage interaction by asking questions, prompting viewers to think critically, and inviting them to share their thoughts or experiences in the comments section. Respond to comments and questions promptly to foster a sense of community and connection with your audience.

6. Monitor Your Time

Keep track of time during your presentation to ensure that you stay within the allotted timeframe. Plan your presentation carefully, allocating sufficient time to cover each topic or section. If you find yourself running out of time, prioritize the most critical points and consider saving less crucial information for a follow-up or supplementary material.

For more ways to improve presentation skills, like calming presentation anxiety and connecting with a virtual audience , learn more presentation tips .

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Quarto will use Pandoc to automatically generate citations and a bibliography in a number of styles. To use this capability, you will need:

A quarto document formatted with citations (see Citation Markdown ).

A bibliographic data source, for example a BibLaTeX ( .bib ) or BibTeX ( .bibtex ) file.

Optionally, a CSL file which specifies the formatting to use when generating the citations and bibliography (when not using natbib or biblatex to generate the bibliography).

Bibliography Files

Quarto supports bibliography files in a wide variety of formats including BibLaTeX and CSL. Add a bibliography to your document using the bibliography YAML metadata field. For example:

You can provide more than one bibliography file if you would like by setting the bibliography field’s value to a YAML array.

See the Pandoc Citations documentation for additional information on bibliography formats.

Citation Syntax

Quarto uses the standard Pandoc markdown representation for citations (e.g.  [@citation] ) — citations go inside square brackets and are separated by semicolons. Each citation must have a key, composed of ‘@’ + the citation identifier from the database, and may optionally have a prefix, a locator, and a suffix. The citation key must begin with a letter, digit, or _ , and may contain alphanumerics, _ , and internal punctuation characters ( :.#$%&-+?<>~/ ). Here are some examples:

You can also write in-text citations, as follows:

See the Pandoc Citations documentation for additional information on citation syntax.

Citation Style

Quarto uses Pandoc to format citations and bibliographies. By default, Pandoc will use the Chicago Manual of Style author-date format, but you can specify a custom formatting using CSL ( Citation Style Language ). To provide a custom citation stylesheet, provide a path to a CSL file using the csl metadata field in your document, for example:

You can find CSL files or learn more about using styles at the CSL Project . You can browse the list of more than 8,500 Creative Commons CSL definitions in the CSL Project’s central repository or Zotero’s style repository .

CSL styling is only available when the cite-method is citeproc (which it is by default). If you are using another cite-method , you can control the formatting of the references using the mechanism provided by that method.

Bibliography Generation

By default, Pandoc will automatically generate a list of works cited and place it in the document if the style calls for it. It will be placed in a div with the id refs if one exists:

If no such div is found, the works cited list will be placed at the end of the document.

If your bibliography is being generated using BibLaTeX or natbib ( Section 7 ), the bibliography will always appear at the end of the document and the #refs div will be ignored.

You can suppress generation of a bibliography by including suppress-bibliography: true option in your document metadata

Here’s an example of a generated bibliography:

Including Uncited Items

If you want to include items in the bibliography without actually citing them in the body text, you can define a dummy nocite metadata field and put the citations there:

In this example, the document will contain a citation for item3 only, but the bibliography will contain entries for item1 , item2 , and item3 .

It is possible to create a bibliography with all the citations, whether or not they appear in the document, by using a wildcard:

Using BibLaTeX or natbib

When creating PDFs, you can choose to use either the default Pandoc citation handling based on citeproc, or alternatively use natbib or BibLaTeX . This can be controlled using the cite-method option. For example:

The default is to use citeproc (Pandoc’s built in citation processor).

See the main article on using Citations with Quarto for additional details on citation syntax, available bibliography formats, etc.

When using natbib or biblatex you can specify the following additional options to affect how bibliographies are rendered:

• Scriptwriting

How to Write a Screenplay — Step-by-Step Process

W riting a screenplay can be hard. The blank white page dotted with a blinking cursor can be daunting. There’s no one way to turn that blank page into a hundred and twenty riveting ones, but there are a few time-tested steps you can take to make the process a little bit easier. Let’s look at how to write a screenplay.

Anatomy of a Screenplay — Ultimate Guide

Where to start

How to write a screenplay.

Screenwriting is a particular form of writing quite different from prose. And while screenplay formatting is somewhat specific, the storytelling fundamentals are exactly the same. We're going to use StudioBinder’s screenwriting software to break down the steps of writing a screenplay to better visualize these universal processes.

To get started, here's what a finished screenplay looks like.

Screenplay example

Now, we'll go back to the beginning to cover the steps of taking that idea in your head and turning it into a full screenplay. Let's go!

1. Brainstorm ideas

For many writers, the first step can be the hardest. Finding an idea that is right for a feature film requires a lot of critical thinking. You could have a story that you think is interesting, but it may be too thin to be stretched out over two hours. Or, conversely, the idea might be too big, and better suited for writing a TV pilot .

StudioBinder's Notes feature is a great place to get the juices flowing. You can quickly jot down ideas, make lists, and even add images and videos. It’s a great spot to keep all of your inspirations and leads so you’re not searching around for a variety of docs you’ve created (we’ve all been there).

StudioBinder’s Screenwriting notes

Related posts.

• How to get a film financed →
• How to become a paid screenwriter →
• What does it mean to option a script? →

Get to know your characters

2. develop the characters.

Great stories have great characters. Before you go too deep into your plot , you should have a comprehensive understanding of your characters.

This starts with your protagonist . Write out a couple pages describing this person. What’s their background? What are their interests? What are their insecurities? Their strengths? Their weaknesses? What is their character arc ?

For more on building out a character, check out our video on characterization:

Characterization explained  •   Subscribe on YouTube

With your lead character set, move onto your other primary characters and do the same thing. Start thinking about how all these players are connected and what their relationships and mutual histories look like. Then, try to sum up each character in one line. 

Again, you can keep your writing and ideations on each character in the StudioBinder Notes app. Include images of people you think each character might look like. You can also create a template that you can use for each part.

Character descriptions in StudioBinder

Write out your story, 3. outline the plot.

Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of the story. Outline your story, scene-by-scene. You may want to mark act breaks if you’re using a three act structure , and you can also take note of significant story beats as well.

Here's our breakdown of the three act structure and what makes it so popular with writers and effective with audiences.

Three act structure explained

Outlining your plot will give you a good sense of the pace of your story. Check to make sure that areas aren’t moving too slowly or quickly, and confirm that each scene you write out has a purpose, whether it be informing a character arc or pushing the plot forward.

Some writers say that this step takes the longest out of the entire screenwriting process. There’s a reason for that. You’re not going to nail your scenes the first time through. You’ll likely spend days, weeks, or even months tinkering with the story structure , what comes when and how.

In StudioBinder Notes, you can create a note for each scene, and create a group of notes for each Act. Once you have everything organized, you’ll be able to see the overview of the entire story.

Outline the plot

• How to master a story arc →
• Pacing in writing, explained →
• How to write a compelling character arc →

How to write a movie script’s treatment

4. generate a logline and treatment.

Your logline will likely be the most important sentence you write. When you’re talking about your script, pitching it, previewing it for financiers– this is what you’ll start with. So how do you write a logline ?

A logline is a one sentence description of your film. As such, it should include all the most important elements of the story: the  hero , their core obstacle, and the hook of the story. Check out our logline formula here:

Logline formula  •  How to write a screenplay

If your logline doesn’t spark interest, or doesn’t feel unique, you may want to go back to the drawing board. Trying to sell a script with a weak logline is an uphill battle.

Next, it’s time to start shaping your story some more with a treatment . A treatment is a high-level overview of your narrative . It typically includes character descriptions, a description of the genre , and a couple page summary of the story. 

You can also create a treatment in the StudioBinder Notes feature. You can add images to make it all the more arresting, and when you’re done, you can export it as a PDF to distribute.

Creating a treatment in StudioBinder

A treatment will help you hone your story further. Like a logline, this document will usually become a tool to sell your film, something you send to interested parties that piques their interest.

HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY DRAFT

5. write a draft.

Hopefully, with all the prep work you’ve done, the blank page in front of you feels less daunting. You know your characters, you know your genre, you know your scenes, you know your arc.

Ideally, your  script’s page count will be around 90-120 pages. Fluctuations may depend on the nature of your story and whether it's light or heavy on dialogue.

If you are using a three act structure, your first act should be roughly 25% of your total page count, your second act 50%, and your third act 25%.

StudioBinder includes all the screenplay elements and formatting conventions you need, so all you have to worry about is writing a good story. 

StudioBinder screenwriting feature

Showing off your screenplay, 6. share with others.

Now it’s time to share your script with the world.

But don’t start sending manila folders to big shot producers just yet. Send your script to friends and colleagues whose opinion you respect. They’ll have notes and ideas you could never have thought of in a million years. If multiple people give you the same note, then you should probably take it, or at least think about why they are giving the note.

StudioBinder makes it easy to share and collaborate with others. You can send “view-only” links to anyone, regardless of whether or not they have a StudioBinder account.

You can also invite collaborators and give them one of three access levels: viewer, commenter, or editor.

Invite Collaborators to your screenplay project

With collaborators involved, you can get feedback directly on your script. This eliminates the need for lengthy email "back-and-forths," clunky PDF mark-ups, or any other communication that might get lost in the shuffle.

Comment Feature in StudioBinder

Getting others’ thoughts on your script is vital. Just like with any other aspect of filmmaking, collaboration is king.

• How to edit your dialogue →
• How to use script revision colors →
• What is a script doctor, and how to become one →

Rewriting a screenplay

Like with your outline, you are not going to write a perfect script on the first pass. In fact, you shouldn’t be discouraged if you don’t think the script is very good at all. That’s why it’s called a first draft – you’re only just beginning.

But before you start rewriting, it can be a good idea to spend some time away from the draft. Clear your head, attend to the chores you’ve been ignoring while holed away at the typewriter, hang out with friends. This will allow you to come back to the script with a fresh perspective.

In StudioBinder, new versions can be created while old versions are accessible at any time. In your revision history, you can access previous drafts for reference or restore those versions as needed. None of your work is lost, including that amazing idea you had in the first draft. 

Revisiton History of your screenplay at a glance

StudioBinder also uses WGA-standard color codes for subsequent drafts that you can use when multiple versions have been created and distributed. For more on script revisions, check out our video:

Rewriting your script

This is what rewriting is all about. Kill your darlings to make room for new and better darlings. Move entire scenes. Add entire scenes. Rewrite your ending. Rewrite your beginning.

So it only takes a few steps to create a great script. Now that you know them, you know how to write a screenplay, and you have no excuse not to get started on your own today. After all, how hard could it be?

Write your script now

You’re ready to start writing your script — all you need is a software to write on. You’re in luck! StudioBinder has a script writing software which works seamlessly with other pre-production tools like shot listing and storyboarding.

Up Next: Start writing! →

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