Technical, scientific, and business presentations: strategies for success

Throughout your time in college, you are likely to be asked to develop presentations, either on your own or with project team members.1 While many students find giving presentations stressful, the more practice you can get the better, because you are likely to have to give one or more presentations in your professional life. For example, if you end up working as a scientific or technical writer, you might have to give a presentation to the project manager about the status of a documentation project you are working on (perhaps some of your colleagues are not submitting their drafts on time, or perhaps you have identified some inconsistencies in writing style that need to be addressed). Or, if you end up working as a training needs analyst in a large technology corporation, you might have to give a presentation to management about employees’ training needs, while also outlining some solutions that will help meet those training needs.