Academic Presentations 2 : Talking About Slides or Visual Aids

1. Introducing the slide

We _____ see _____ this slide ____ there has been a lot of change.

___ we can see from the __ slide

If you ______ a ________ at this graph you’ll ___

2. Looking at detail

____ look at the statistics ___ _____ slide _______ closely .

I___ also like to ______ your attention to

___ we look in detail at the ______ for 1989

3. Commenting on the content of the visual

It is interesting to _____ that .

This figure here is ______ remembering

4 . Changing from one slide to another

__ the ______ slide you’ll see

_____ is the next slide. This ______ describes

Let’s look ___ these figures altogether on the _________ slide.

Exercise 1. Complete the expressions, using the words from the box.
would worth take let’s next from as draw more look final
on the that can figures if following on slide here at see note

Exercise 2. Now, stand up and read the phrases aloud to your friend.
 Academic Presentations 2 : Talking About Slides or Visual Aids

Advanced Academic Presentations : Making Theories from Facts

Firstly, introduce the slide – that is, say what the slide shows. Secondly, highlight the

most important information. Thirdly, explain the significance/reason/ interpretation

of what the information means.

“Okay, let’s have a look at sales figures for 1979 on a

graph . Now, the most important month that year was,
obviously, August. The message here is that sales
increase in hot months.”

Exercise 3. Now, stand up and read the example above aloud to your friend.

Exercise 4. Below are the commentaries for three slides. Write IS if the sentence

introduces the slide. Write HS if the sentence highlights important information. Write

ES if the sentence explains the theory behind the slide.

a ) You should see straight away that India is now the biggest market [ HS ]
b) In particular we identify from the graph that over half of the people in our
university library are not students. [ ]
c) What this shows us is that the two age groups who were least able to understand
Nevada’s directives for water use were children and teens. [ ]
d) We’ll see the stats for India, South Korea, Thailand, China and Russia. [ ]
e) So, New Delhi is where we should be marketing our goods, too. [ ]
f) Okay, let’s look at the figures. Who uses the campus library each day? [ ]
g) The significance of this is that it demonstrates how the library is now successfully
part of the wider community. [ ]
h) In other words, most young people are not likely to save water. [ ]
i) Now, we’ll look at the relationship between attitudes and age groups. [ ]

Exercise 5. Re-order the sentences into three separate commentaries. Stand up and

read all three – with the sentences in the right order – to your friend.
 Academic Presentations 2 : Talking About Slides or Visual Aids

Exercise 6. Imagine that you think a wet and windy winter is worse than a pretty, dry
and calm white winter with snow. Using an IS an HS and an ES, comment on the slide
below (the middle bar of each set of three represents snow).
_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Figure 2 : Countries with the most uncomfortable winter

500

400
Number of 300 rain
hours of
snow
weather 200
wind
hours 100

0
US UK Can Aus

Country
Exercise 7. Stand up and read your commentary to your friend.

Exercise 8. Write some notes (not sentences ) on the paper below the next slide. (In
the graph, Germany is on the left, Malta in the middle, and Portugal is on the right.)
Figure 9: Car Sales in Europe

25

20

% of car 15 Germany
sales
Malta
10
Portugal
5

0
1981 1991 2001 decade/year

Student’s notes. IS ______________________________

HS ______________________________
EX _____________________________

Exercise 9. Stand up and comment on the figures, using your notes only.