As the year rounds up and you’re reporting back to various people, are you already thinking about the next presentation you have to give? Wondering if you should dump a few things into PowerPoint or Keynote?

Step away from those applications right now!

Presentations are speeches, first and foremost. And the place to start is by writing that speech – and I don’t mean directly onto the slides for your long-suffering captive audience to read along with you.

This time, try starting with a piece of paper or a word processing application. Figure out what you want to say. Ask what the audience needs to know when the presentation is over. What do you want them to remember?

Now, write that. Start strong, and finish strong. Write out what you’re going to say in-between.

Next, think about whether there’s anything you’re going to say that would be better illustrated with a graphic of some sort – a picture, cartoon, graph, table, chart or infographic. Something that will sum up words and be instantly comprehensible to those you’re presenting those. Pop those into your slide deck in the right order, and mark in your script where you need to change slide.

Finally, add a couple of section headers if you need them, and if you prefer having your script in the notes section of the preso software, cut and paste it into there. Now present. Talk to the people in the room – don’t read to them. You want the attention on you, not the screen. And if you really want people to read what you’re going to say, you can might as well save everyone the time and trouble, send them the information in a PDF, and cancel the presentation altogether.