where can I pre-present my paper?

August 15, 2012 2:12 PM

I have to do a 45 minute presentation at a summit next month. I need to give this presentation the practice it deserves. But, everyone is on vacation in England and the school year does not begin until after the summit. I am in England, I have little money, and I really need an audience who know about social enterprise and journalism to tell me what I need to do more clearly for this presentation. can you give me any advice? the conference is in four weeks.
posted by anonymous to Education (4 answers total)

Figure one slide per minute, with 10 minutes for questions at the end adding up to 35 slides.
posted by tel3path at 2:13 PM on August 15, 2012

Maybe you can practice your presentation on Google Hangouts with some colleagues?
posted by absquatulate at 2:28 PM on August 15, 2012

Realistically, it's usually 4-5 minutes per slide. I've listened to and given tons of business presentations and academic conference presentations. If you show up with 35 slides, you will not finish. When less experienced presenters speak they nearly always have too many slides and have to race through the second half of their presentation.

How experienced of a presenter are you? More experienced presenters are able to engage the audience and take questions throughout the presentation. "Hold your questions until the end" leaves the audience bored.

What is the format of your presentation? Lecture hall? Single speaker? Panel discussion?

Is there a professional organization near you that has an August meeting? Maybe you could give 10 minutes of your presentation as meeting topic. Getting some practice will be a huge help.
posted by 26.2 at 5:17 PM on August 15, 2012

Check out Toastmasters - this is the UK/Ireland link. The meetings I've been to have been fun and very helpful. You probably won't get the specific audience you want but you'll get practice and plenty of suggestions.
posted by anadem at 5:35 PM on August 15, 2012