Here’s an in-depth, step-by-step look at How to Open and Close Presentations. We explore various attention grabbers for presentations (or “attention getters”) and all of the other component parts that make a presentation opening or introduction work well. Additionally, we look at how the conclusion and closing should connect back to the attention grabber for maximum impact.
The Introduction or How to Open a Presentation:
The introduction should move from general to specific and begin with a quality attention grabber or “attention getter.” People refer to these presentation openings in different ways.
1. Attention Grabber. Here you have to open a presentation and grab an audience’s attention. Your options here are techniques such as how to grab an audience’s attention with Questions, Quotations, Visual illustrations, statistics or facts, and stories.
2. Audience relevance and/or benefit. Explain in just 2-3 sentences how the listening audiences’ interests connect to the topic. What benefits will listeners get by paying attention to the message?
3. Establish your personal credibility as the speaker. What are your experiences and research that make you a good person to speak on this topic? Say it in just 2-3 sentences. Sometimes, you will be introduced before you speak. If that is the case, the person introducing you can do this step for you.
4. Thesis statement. This is also called your main idea or central idea. It is the whole presentation boiled down to one concise statement. It should be worded…
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