Delivery Notes - Articles - Andrew Schwartz

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Delivery Notes
by Andrew E. Schwartz

Would you try to cook a gourmet meal for the first time without a recipe? A recipe tells you how much of what to do when, much the same way notes add spice and flavor to any presentation. Yet the same presentation can be overdone or bland with notes prepared hastily or improperly. Presentation notes, if carefully planned, can improve a delivery many times over.

Generally speaking, the fewer notes, the better your delivery. The function of notes is merely to help the speaker in remembering to include activities and ideas already stored in the memory, and to organize and direct the procedure of the presentation. In reality, what you need more than notes is a script to function as your “stage director” to cue you your preplanned activities. The main idea is to be brief and direct. There are times when nervousness or similar factors will force you to use extensive notes; but you will never be a good presenter until you overcome this weakness. Surmount it by preparing and practicing often and forcing yourself into presentation situations in which you must rely upon your ability to think, instead of to read.

Deliveries: Before planning a presentation, any speaker needs to be familiar with the various types of deliveries:

Impromptu: No particular preparation has been made for the occasion. Usually called on unexpectedly, the presenter relies solely upon skills and knowledge available on the spur of the moment.
Memorized: Material is repeated or recited word for word.
Manuscript: Material read to the audience word for word as printed.
Extemporaneous: Everything is pre-thought and planned in detail except that the exact wording and phrasing of the main body are not committed to memory. The presentation is delivered from a written or memorized outline.

An extemporaneous presentation is the most effective method of delivery. A complete draft of the text might be written out to fix the thoughts firmly in mind, but it should never be carried to the podium. There is almost nothing more boring than being read to from a manuscript. The only time that a manuscript is permissible is when the presentation is a highly significant formal statement or matter of record.

Preparing podium notes is often a matter of personal preference. Good technique is whatever works for you in delivering your message and maintaining contact with your audience. There are, however, some basic guidelines which should give you a flexible foundation upon which to build your own system.

Contents: Delivery notes should contain the entire sequence of what you will do and say at the podium. This includes:

The subject matter of the presentation in abbreviated form.
Directions for movements, gestures, readings, passing out handouts, use of the blackboard, and similar stage activities.
Cues for the use of visual aids such as charts or slides.
Any information to be written on a blackboard, easel chart, or similar medium during the presentation, and cues for when it should be written.
Podium samples of each individual aid.

Podium notes should not contain handout material, material to be read to the audience or anything that is to be held up or demonstrated.

Number such supplementary material and keep it in a separate pile in the exact sequence in which it is to be used. When your presentation includes this kind of support, work with two sets of material. Combining the two sets into one results in having a bulky demonstration that is confusing and awkward. It is far better to keep the presentation outline itself as a single sequence of events and provide the supporting material as enrichment.

Make the Notes Inconspicuous: Never mention your notes to an audience. “According to my notes...,” “I lost my place in the notes,” and similar comments are made only by amateurs. The presentor should actually make an attempt to play down and screen from their audience the fact that they are using notes. This does not mean that they should go to disconcerting extremes to hide them. The audience knows and probably expects that the presentor has notes. Yet, the less the presentor relies on or calls attention to the notes, the better the audience contact.

A card slightly larger that a standard business calling card is the ideal size to keep notes on. These maybe cut from larger cards. Used properly, they can hold everything that larger, bulkier sheets can hold. A fair-sized stack can be held inconspicuously in the hand or pocket, and they are easy to slip out of the way during the presentation.

Use Miniature Aid Reminders: Miniature aid reminders in your podium notes will increase the overall smoothness of your delivery. A miniature aid reminder might consist of a scaled down copy of the picture, graph, chart, used in your presentation as an aid. It makes for better synchronization of what you are saying with what you are projecting or displaying, especially if equipment breaks down. In any case, it frees you from looking anywhere but in your notes to find out where you and your aids ought to be in the delivery sequence. The miniature aid thus serves the same function as a key word reminder.

Standardize Your Method: The symbols and other “memory joggers” you use in your notes are personal but standardizing your system will help you. Color codes, for example are attention-getting and accommodate the direction of the presentation. If you know that a red arrow is always your reminder to write on the chalkboard, you’ll be able to look ahead in your notes and always stay on the track. Similarly, if you always start a major point on a new card, you’ll have better transition. A blue circle might be a slide projector button and so forth.

A Flow Chart Outline: This is an excellent way of handling your delivery notes because of its graphic visibility. Devise your own system of symbols for cues, aid reminders, main points, and the like. Sometimes, if you’re using “flip charts,” you can write your flow chart outline very lightly right on the chart and appear as if you’re not using any notes at all.

Why not memorize?: Although memorizing sections of a presentation are occasionally helpful, the memorization of entire deliveries has several drawbacks. Memorizing creates a constant source of tension—forgetting one line can destroy the whole presentation. This worrying makes any good audience contact nearly impossible to attain. In addition, memorizing eats up time which is better spent in more creative ways. In essence, a presentor, when memorizing a manuscript, limits the creativity apparent in extemporaneous deliveries which are more animated and which allow for spontaneity and adaptation to audience reactions. Clearly, an extemporaneous presentation, although it demands more creative energy, is much more effective than a memorized presentation.

The above can also be applied to the use of a manuscript. An additional key drawback to the use of a manuscript is that it casts suspicion on your ability and knowledge. Audiences don’t like to be read to — they know how to read. Audiences want to know what you personally have to offer. Inevitably, you will use a manuscript as a crutch.

There are many other advantages to extemporaneous delivery. Its naturalness and intimacy makes your presentation more believable and convincing. Its non-confining structure enables you to have flexibility in adapting your actual words to the occasion and temper of the audience. This enhanced intimacy also forces you to become involved and to think, instead of merely reading to your audience. In contrast to a manuscript, an audience has more confidence in a speaker who has the self-assurance to speak spontaneously.

There are times, however when a manuscript delivery is desirable; e.g., when you want the record of your presentation to be exact. The physical appearance of your manuscript is important so that it is easy to read and does not become disruptive to the presentation. Proper spacing, typing, indenting, underscoring, capitalizing, number, lettering, color coding, and so forth, all are used as effective devices for smooth delivery.

In preparing a manuscript, follow these rules:

Use cards or stiff paper for durability and ease of handling.
All manuscripts should be typewritten, double- or triple- spaced.
Allow at least 1 ¼ in. margins all around to make reading easier.
Number all pages.
Include visual or other aid cues right in the manuscript in the order in which they are to appear.
Do not staple or put the sheets in a binder.
Use only one side of the card or sheet.
End points or thoughts at the ends of pages, instead of placing only a few lines of an idea at the bottom of one page. If a new thought begins near the bottom, start a new page—especially at transitions between main points.
Do not end a page in the middle of a sentence.
Practice reading it many times so that it flows naturally and you need to glance down at it as rarely as possible.

There is no point in needlessly complicating speaking-note procedures, but there is great value in proceeding systematically. Most presentors who do not do so could improve their deliveries several times over when their procedure is well-planned. It is important, however, for the procedure not to dominate the presentation. Preparation and procedure are only a fraction of the overall presentation.

Andrew E. Schwartz, CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates of Boston, MA a comprehensive management training and professional development organization offering over 40 skills specific programs and practical solutions to today's business challenges.

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