90 Strategies for Delivery (7.2.1)

Once your content is organized and your slides are ready, it’s time to focus on how you will deliver your presentation. Delivery strategies can significantly affect how your message is received and remembered. This page outlines several key strategies to help you present with clarity, confidence, and impact.

Tone

Your tone is more than just the sound of your voice. It includes your word choices, body language, clothing, energy, rhythm, and use of space. Tone sets the mood and signals how your message should be interpreted. A confident, respectful, professional tone helps build trust and keeps your audience engaged.

Emphasis

Effective presenters highlight key ideas clearly. Use emphasis to guide your audience’s attention to the most important parts of your message. You can do this through transitions, repetition, strategic pauses, rephrasing, or visual cues. Be intentional: emphasize only what adds value to your purpose, and avoid overwhelming your audience with too many focal points.

Engagement

Engagement is about building a relationship with your audience. You can do this by:

• Making eye contact
• Varying your tone and pace
• Moving naturally within your space
• Inviting participation
• Using relatable examples and visuals

Even your word choices can create a connection. Consider what your audience cares about and tailor your message to resonate with them.

Clarity

“Clarity strategies help the receiver (audience) to decode the message, to understand it quickly and completely, and when necessary, to react without ambivalence” (Kostelnick & Roberts, 1998).

Choose your words and visuals carefully to avoid confusion. Use plain language when possible. Figure 10.4.1 shows how dense, cluttered slides can be difficult to read in a large room or online format.

Conciseness

Being concise means saying what you need to say—no more, no less. Respect your time limit and avoid long-winded explanations or unnecessary details. If you only have five to seven minutes, plan how to prioritize your key points. Being concise helps your audience stay focused and makes your message easier to remember.

Arrangement

Arrange your points logically and clearly. Use headings, spacing, and layout to communicate how ideas are connected visually. A good arrangement supports audience understanding by helping them follow your structure and see the information hierarchy.

“Arrangement means order, the organization of visual (and verbal) elements” (Kostelnick & Roberts, 1998).

Credibility

Your audience needs to believe in you as much as your content. Build credibility by demonstrating professionalism, showing confidence in your material, and referencing reliable sources. Trust is key—so be honest, well-prepared, and respectful of your audience’s time and attention.

Expectations

Audiences often have unspoken expectations. They expect a clear, focused presentation, delivered in a way that respects their time and interests. Be mindful of what your audience might anticipate based on your presentation’s context and purpose, and try to meet or exceed those expectations.

Reference

Use references appropriately to support your claims and show you’re informed. You’re not expected to have done all the research, but you are expected to credit your sources. Whether you include references on your slides, mention them aloud, or list them at the end, ensure they’re accurate and relevant.

Attribution

This section contains material from Chapter 10.4 “Nine Aspects to Consider When Developing Presentations” in Introduction to Professional Communication and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

References

References are at the end of this chapter.