Lesson Two
Formal Verbal Communication in Business II


Part I Objectives
Four Main Parts of a Presentation 商业演示的四个部分
Delivery Skills 表达技巧
Save you out of embarrassment, at a Presentation 摆脱商业演示中的尴尬场面
Language References 语言参考


Part II The How-Tos
Four parts of a presentation
Formal presentations are usually divided into four main parts.
The introduction
The overview
The body
The ending

The introduction
At the very least, the introduction should introduce the subject of your presentation.

“Today I’m going to tell you about the recent improvements that have been made to the XL series of engines.”

Depending on the situation, it will also do one or more of the following:

Give the audience a reason to listen
“These improvements give greater fuel efficiency and also lower production costs.”

Provide background information.
“As you probably know, our market share has been falling in recent years.”

Narrow the topic.
“In particular, I will show you how these improvements make our engines better than our competitors.”

The overview
The overview provides a preview of your presentation for the audience. It is easily done by explaining the structure of your presentation.

“First, I’m going to describe the new features of the engine.”
“Second, I’ll show you some performance data of the engine’s fuel efficiency.”
“After that, I’ll explain how the new features will allow us to reduce production costs.”
“Finally, I’ll show a comparison with our competitors’ models.”

The overview is very important. It helps the audience to organize the way they listen. It is similar to the contents page of a book.

As long as the presentation is well-organized, the overview is the easiest part of the presentation to prepare.

The body
This is the main content of the presentation. How it is organized will depend on the type of presentation. It should be organized logically to match the overall purpose of the presentation.

The ending
The ending usually does two things.

It reviews the information and ideas that were presented in the body of the presentation. This is called the summary.

“As you can see, these improvements increase fuel efficiency and allow us to lower our production costs.”