Business English: Presentations Vocabulary

types of presentations

Melanie Kray is an expert in giving presentations. She gives some examples of different presentations:

• press conference: two chief executives tell journalists why their companies have merged.

• briefing: a senior officer gives information to other officers about a police operation they are about to undertake.

• demonstration: the head of research and development tells non-technical colleagues about a new machine.

• product launch: a car company announces a new model.

• lecture: a university professor communicates information about economics to 300 students.

• talk: a member of a stamp-collecting club tells other members about 19th century British stamps.

• seminar: a financial adviser gives advice about investments to eight people.

• workshop: a yoga expert tells people how to improve their breathing techniques and gets them to practise.

What makes a Good Presentation?
Checklist

Remember your audience (how many people there will be, who they are, why they will be there, and how much they know about the subject)
Establish clear objectives in the introduction
Organize the information
Design an overall structure which is clear
Link the different sections together
Communicate using the allotted time
Use visuals effectively
Handle aids and equipment professionally
Maintain relaxed attitude: remain confident and positive
Use eye contact to engage your audience
Use movement and gestures
Use your voice effectively: volume, rhythm and pause
Adjust complexity / formality of language to the audience
Prepare thoroughly
Write brief notes to assist
Practise before the real thing

DO's and don'ts for a Good Presentation

DO

establish a clear objective.
talk about what your audience expect you to talk about
organize the information.
use notes or key words to assist.
have a strong opening and close.
make it interesting.
use your voice for effect.
keep it simple.
use visuals which improve impact and clarity.
handle equipment professionally.
speak with sufficient volume and intonation.
use summaries to link the parts.
think about the cultural environment.
dress for the occasion.
prepare and practise beforehand.
be confident and relaxed.
balance spontaneity against preparation.
handle questions positively.

DON't

present information which is too complex for the audience. 🧩
talk for too long.
tell irrelevant anecdotes or inappropriate jokes.
speak too quickly.
use too many visuals.
photocopy small text onto an overhead.
read from a scripted text or visuals.
block your audience’s view of a visual.
talk with your back to the audience.
use distracting mannerisms.
forget to summarize at the end.

Classic presentation organization

Greet, introduce self, introduce the presentation, explain the structure of your presentation
Present the main body, conclude, summarise
Take questions

Key language for Introductions

Greeting

Good morning / afternoon / evening!
Let me just start by introducing myself.
My name is …… As some / most of you already know, I am …….
I’m in charge of / responsible for ……
I’m the new ……..

Title / subject

The title / subject / topic of today’s presentation / talk is …..
Today I’d like to speak about …..
What I’d like to talk about is …..
Today’s topic is of particular interest to those of you/us who…
My talk is particularty relevant to those of us who…
By the end of this talk you will be familiar with…

objective

The objective of this presentation is to present ….
This talk will act as a springboard for discussion.
The aim today is to give some background about ….
Our goal is to determine how…./the best way to…
What I want to show you is…
Today I’d like to give you an overview of….
Today I’ll be showing you/reporting on…
I’d like to update you on/inform you about…

main parts / outline

I’ve divided / I split my talk into four main parts / sections.
Firstly, what I want to do is give you some background ….
Secondly / Thirdly, we will look at / move on to …
Then/ Next / After that / Finally, I will speak about I examine….
In my presentation, I’ll focus on three major issues.

visuals

I will be using the whiteboard and flip chart.
I will be using the overhead projector.

timing

The presentation will take I last about …. minutes.
I will speak for about …. minutes.
I plan to be brief. We’ll make it in about … minutes.

questions

If you have any questions, please feel free to interrupt.
Please interrupt me as we go along if you have any questions.
I’d be glad to take any questions at the end of my presentation

audience

I know that you have all travelled a long way.
I’m very grateful that you could come today.
It’s nice to see so many faces.
First of all, let me thank you all for coming here today.
It’s a pleasure to welcome you today.
I’m happy/delighted that so many of you could make it today.
It’s good to see you all here.

link to start

OK. Let’s start with the first point which is …..
We can begin by looking at…..
To begin with, / First of all,/ I’d like to start with

present the main body

Sequencing ideas

Firstly, / Secondly, / Thirdly, / Then, / Next, / Finally ….
The first / second / third / final point is ….

ending a section

Right/ So I Well/ OK ….
That’s all I wanted to say about … .
I think that covers everything on …
I think that deals with ….

intermediate questions

Are there any questions or comments on that?
Would anyone like to ask a question at this point?

opening a new section

Let’s now look at ….
Now I want to turn to ….
This brings me to the third and final point which is ….
This leads directly to my next point.
This brings us to the next question.
Let’s now move on/turn to…
After examining this point, let’s turn to…
Let’s now take a took at …

Exploring a list of points

In relation to ….
Regarding ….
Concerning ….
With respect to ….

Adding ideas

In addition to this …. / Moreover ….
However …. / Despite this ….
So … / Therefore ….
Besides, / Next, /First, second, third ….
What is more,
as well as
Another important …. is…..
In addition to
Furthermore,

Going back

Let me now return to ….
Let me now come back to ….

Focusing

I’d like to emphasize ….
I’d like to stress ….
I should reiterate / repeat … …..
It is critical / essential to understand ..
What we can’t do is …
What I’d like to do is ….
What we have been able to do is ….
What is really important is ….
This is a very, very difficult problem.
We thought for a long, long time about this.
We need to do something, and we need to do it now.
We did achieve many things last year.
It does seem to be the best solution.
We did think very carefully about this.

Simplifying

To be honest. … / Frankly speaking, ….
Basically, … / To put it simply, ….
In other words, ….
It would be better to say….

Dramatic language

A total / absolute / complete disaster…..
A great / outstanding / remarkable success….
Totally unacceptable /Quite brilliant….

compare and Contrast

Actually …. / In fact …. / In reality…
On the contrary / but / however / yet
Although / Nevertheless / nonetheless
in spite of … / despite ….
the one …./ the other
either… or / neither….nor
not only … but also
equally / similarly /in the same way
alternatively / In contrast
In comparison with / Compared with ….,
The same holds true about…
completely / totally different
almost / exactly the same
complete opposites
have a lot / little / much / nothing in common
have one similarity / some similarities
nearly the same / rather similar
virtually identical / basically the same
slightly different
The main (noticeable) difference is….

expressing opinion

I believe,
In my view,
I have mixed views about this issue
Actually,
As a matter of fact,
I’m inclined to believe that…
It is my belief that…
It could be argued that…
One explanation might be that…
This suggests that…

generalising

as a rule
in general
generally
normally
on the whole
as a general rule

reasons and consequences

The main reason why this happens is
There can be several explanations to this.
Given this,
Therefore, thus
On this basis,

Solutions

I would suggest…. (a step-by-step approach)
There can be several approaches suggested.

predicting

I suppose that
More people will probably
Based on past experience, I would predict that
It is likely that
In fact,
Well, on the whole I tend to think that…
it is probable that
probably

summarizing

On the whole,
To sum up,
In conclusion,
To conclude,
It can be concluded / deduced / inferred that…
To summarize, ….

examplification

such as
…one of which is….
For example,
For instance,
To illustrate my point, I would like to tell you about…
One example of
This can be illustrated by….
…. is well illustrated by….
This can be exemplified by….

unsure

could possibly
perhaps
maybe

sure

I am confident that,
certainly/ definitely/ clearly
Undoubtedly
undeniably
there is no doubt that
convincing argument
there is little doubt that
it is certain that
presumably
evidently
obviously
it can be safely assumed that

relation

Concerning
With the help of
In order to
According to
if
Instead of
As regards
In respect of something
With respect to
With regard to/In regard to
By means of
For the sake of
With the purpose of
In accordance with something
In case
In lieu of
In place of somebody/something

taking questions

encouraging questions

Many thanks for your attention. So now I’m very interested in hearing your comments.
And now, if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.
Now we have half an hour for questions and comments.
So, now I’d be happy to hear your comments.
That’s a fair question. / That’s a very good question.
Thank you for your question.
I’m glad you asked that.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on that.
Thank you for raising this point.

Positive response

That’s a good / difficult / complex / an interesting question.
Thank you for asking that question.
I’m glad someone asked that question. It allows me to say ….

Check your answer

Does that answer your question?/ Is that OK?
Is that clear now?
Can we move on?

Clarify

If I understand you correctly, you want to know ….
You’re asking me about …. Is that right?
Could you repeat for me, please?
In other words, you’re asking ….
I see. So, what you’re asking is: …
OK, let me just repeat your question so everybody can hear it.
If I could just rephrase your question …
I’m sorry. Could you repeat your question, please?
I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that.
I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your question.
That’s not what I’m saying…
You mean, …
Are you asking….
Could you be a little more precise ?
I was interested in your comments about … Could you say a little more about that?
Let me check I understand. Are you asking about….

refer back

As I said earlier, in the first section I at the end of the second section ….
Yes, I mentioned in the introduction ….
As I said I pointed out I explained earlier, ….
I think I already made it clear that ….

Accept criticism

I accept that.
That’s a fair point.
I agree with what you’re saying.
Up to a point, I agree.
Right, I can see what you’re getting at.
Mhmmm. You may have a point there.
Yes, there’s something to that.
Uh huh, that makes sense.

Putting off the question

I accept that./ That’s a fair point./ I agree with what you’re saying.
I’d be glad to discuss that with you personally after the presentation.
Perhaps we could deal with this after the presentation/at some other time.
I’m afraid that’s not really what we’re here to discuss today.
I’ll be happy to answer that later when we talk about …..
Can we come back to that issue in a bit when we go through …..
Let’s put off that topic for now. I’d like to deal with that in more detail during / when …..

avoiding the question

I’m afraid I can’t really answer that.
That’s not really my area I field, I’m afraid.
I don’t have the figures with me.
I’m afraid that question goes beyond the subject of today’s presentation.
I’m afraid that’s confidential.
I’m not at liberty to give you that information.
Well, that depends on what you mean by ….
Well, it ‘s a very complicated matter…
Well there are various ways of looking at it.

critical situations

The audience doesn't understand

Let me go over that again.

You forgot

Perhaps I should mention ….

You are lost

Now, where was I?

You don't know how to answer

Now let me think for a second….
Sorry, that’s not my field. But I’m sure …. could answer your question.
I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to your question, but I’ll try to find out for you.
I’m afraid I’m not in a position to answer / to comment on that.
Perhaps, ….. could help.
Great question. It’s a little outside of my job scope, though.
I don’t know that off the top of my head, but I’ll try to find out for you.