I hate the presentation I did...

It was not a good presentation, I know. There were some points that contributes to myself not presenting good enough:

1. The research topic is not of my interest anymore.
2. I am not keen of presenting it, because I am no more interested in it, therefore, I tend to doing it without much enthusiasm.
3. I did it, because I had to, for my coursework mark. (Even though it does not mean much as it does not contribute to passing my PhD course, but still, I want to do the best that I could.)

However, there were certain things that I noticed:

1. When I'm nervous, I tend to speak very quickly. I think I did this again?!?
2. I was holding a paper. In the first place, I planned to put it down, after finished using it, however due to nervousness and I forget about everything, I kept holding on the paper throughout the presentation.
3. Eye contact were still there, I think and I hope.

Well, above all, I've actually did many presentations in the previous years. However, due to lack of practices, the skills will slowly disappear, you know.

I remembered when I was doing this business presentations, and my manager was always saying to me, that practice will make perfect. Even though not 100% perfect, still, it will becomes better and better each and every time you do it. And I actually did improve a lot from not being able to stand in front of a crowd to being able to talk in front of thousands. But that was a bit different you see... it was in a different language.. it was my mother tongue, malay language...

There are certain things that makes a presentation very good, and these are some that I could think of:

1. Make sure that your eye contact with the audience covers all angle. Meanings, you don't speak with the audiences behind your back. And do not speak to the presentation slide/screen.

2. Make sure that you do not fidget with your hands. Audience will be distracted, and instead of looking at your slides, they will focus at your hands. This also relates to holding pens, papers, and even putting your hands in the pocket. Besides distracting, holding papers can also shows how nervous you are if you shivers.

3. Make sure that you are dressed comfortably. Not wearing something that you are not used to as this will distract your self from presenting well.

4. Slides are also of important value to the audiences. Make sure your slides are suitable, contains not of a lengthy wordings on one page, and are easy to understand.

We did have some discussions on one of our classes about presentation:

These can be seen in the images below (click on them to enlarge it):

About Presentation, what to do and what to avoid:

To summarize this, to be a good presenter, practice does helps a lot. Attending seminars and talks also gives some impacts towards how to prepare a good presentation. However it is, everybody makes mistakes and we have spaces to improve. That's what I personally think.