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Handouts and other Printed Materials

Introduction

Effective oral presentation skills are imperative in ensuring that the target audience understands the messages intended to be passed on.

Care should be taken to ensure that they do not distort the meaning of the respective messages.

Handouts and other forms of printing materials enable the audience to understand the messages accordingly.

However, they should be given to the audience at the right time to ensure that they do not distract attention during oral presentations.

As much as their design should be visually appealing, this should not undermine the ability to pass on information with ease.

Handouts

Basically, handouts contain an in depth analysis of the information contained in oral presentations.

They help the audience to understand the subject under review.

Further, they make the respective presentation both strong and memorable. Gatto (1990) indicates that handouts can be distracting during oral presentations.

For this reason, they should be distributed at the end of the presentation.

With regards to structure and design, handouts should be clean and neat.

If possible, the developers of these should refrain from using fancy fonts and these can be distracting.

In addition, too much information should not be included on a single page; rather information contained on each page should be simple and easy to understand.

To ensure optimal results, information contained therein should correspond to the oral presentation.

This also makes it easier for the audience to follow the presentation.

To attain this, page numbers can be used. Furthermore, developers of handouts should leave some space for note taking (Cox, 2006).

Flyers

Flyers are handouts that provide more information about a product being evaluated in oral presentations.

Pictures can be included in the flyer to make it more attractive.

Nonetheless, the design of the respective flyer should be logical, coherent and meaningful. Pictures included should match the text and the product under review (Cox, 2006).

The flyer should be simple to avoid distracting the audience.

Colors should be chosen carefully and be reflective of the theme of the product or the text.

Then, meaningful simple headings should be used.

Graphics should not be used in the headings.

Most importantly, the entire flyer should have information and no place should be left empty.

Summary Sheet

These comprise neatly folded pieces of paper with a summary of the speaker’s presentation.

Summaries are different and may include relevant facts, bulleted points underscoring the main quotes or time line of important events.

Gurak and Dragga (1999) indicate that summary sheets should be limited to one page.

Additional referencing material and contact information should be included in the summary sheet.

Stickers

These are not effective for presentations that are information based.

Nonetheless, they are vital for politically based oral presentations or persuasive presentations.

They make the speech memorable and audiences can always refer to them.

In most cases, they contain the name of the speaker and the slogan that defines the speaker’s speech.

For a smaller audience, file folder stickers with a handwritten slogan are more cost effective.

Poster

This handout plays an instrumental role in enhancing understanding of the presentation.

Usually, it explains where the speaker got the information.

It can act as a conversation starter and trigger a debate of vital issues under review.

Posters also advertise various works or products that the presenter talks about.

Most importantly, Cox (2006) indicates that posters summarize the work or information that is presented orally.

Banners

These contain various forms of visual appeals and enable the audience to remember well what they see.

In most cases, they are employed outdoors.

As such, the material used needs to be resistant to harsh weather.

In addition, the materials should be durable especially in cases where the banner needs to stay out for a long period of time after the presentation.

According to Gatto (1990), lively colors need to be employed to attract and maintain the attention of the audience.

This can be attained if colors are chosen well.

Better results can further be attained if they are blended well with the background color. Background in this regard included the color of the environments.

The color of the banner should sharply contrast with that of the environment to have optimal results.

The size of the respective banner should also be large enough.

This would allow or effective printing of the letters relaying vital information.

Conclusion

Handouts are effective in providing additional information than that contained in oral presentations.

As identified, they need to be distributed after the presentation to avoid distracting the audience. Generally, information contained in banners should be relevant and consistent with that contained in presentations.

Handouts should be neat and designed in a manner that does not compromise understanding by the audience.

Handouts and printed materials and wide and varied and range from flyers, banners and posters to summary sheets and stickers.

If used in an effective manner, these can be imperative in enhancing understanding and ensuring that the audience remember the messages contained therein.

References

Cox, M. (2006).What every student should know about preparing effective oral presentations. Boston, Allyn & Bacon

Gatto, R. (1990).A practical guide to effective presentation: Its not just what you say, its how you say it that gets results. USA: GTA Press

Gurak, L. & Dragga, S. (1999). Oral presentations for technical communication. USA: Longman