Please help me write this presentation? Panicking and ill, feeling shit

[StupidScholar]

I have a 20-minute, very important presentation as part of my degree. On track for a 2.1 classification before this week. I got ill last week, assumed it would disappear over a few days but had a temperature over the weekend which is gone now though, ended up sleeping the last few days.

Due to my uni rules, I'm not allowed to ask for an extension now because it's too late. So, how can I set about writing this? 20 minutes seems so long.

I feel totally blank which is so frustrating. I have an idea of what I need to say but I can't seem to write properly I think just from tiredness.

Needs to be handed in at 9am on Thursday morning it's going to wreck my degree

20 mins is nothing. 10 slides at the most. What's it about?

As PP said you want about 2 mins per slide. So write it out then divide what you’ve written into 10 chunks (some might be images you’d talk about or graphs?) Then build slides from those chunks.
I’d get that far tonight then start fresh tomorrow and you can change/refine and make it look good.
Loads of time!

20 minutes is about 7 slides. Map out what you know and spread it across seven slides. Good luck.

Why don’t you try to write a heading for the first five slides, then have a nap. Doesn’t have to be the final heading, just have a go

I agree, 20 minutes is nothing. Have you got tomorrow free to work on it? What’s the topic?

We have to provide 1 slide per minute, so I have to do 20 slides. Currently I have 4 done.

It is about rehabilitating people after life-changing injuries, and community initiatives that can help quality of life.

One step at a time. before you go to bed tonight, bash out the basic points you need to make. Don't worry about structure, grammar, tone or style. Just stream of consciousness. Shouldn't take more than an hour, possibly less.

Then tomorrow, use those notes to create the presentation when your'e fresh. 20 minutes really isn't long. Without knowing what your presentation is about, I can't be too specific but basically, you need an introduction in which you highlight your key points/objectives etc.
Then a couple of slides discussing each of these and inserting the evidence or explanatory points (which you may include in your presentation or may choose to talk through). Then a conclusion.

Honestly, 20 minutes is a slide presentation of no more than 10 slides. Possibly less. And you should have all this information to hand so it's just a case of putting it together.

What's it on?
Create a slide deck to start.
Title page and contents/key things you'll cover. Draft the outline. That's a key step and you'll feel like you've achieved something just by doing that.

Then do a skeleton of contents, brainstorm a few key areas and put each on a slide and go from there.

Set yourself a timer for 20 minutes and focus completely in that time. As soon as it buzzes, go get dinner or have a break, look at something else. Come back and do another 20 minutes.

Work out the body section first, maybe 3 key points, areas.

Is it argument / problem-solution / compare & contrast / cause & effect?

Then prepare the Introduction: background info, focus and Thesis. What are you covering in your presentation and what is your argument?

Then make a slide for the Conclusion: to sum up (key points) and any recommendations, predictions.

Good luck.

Yes just do the slide headings - Intro, Details, Futures, Summary etc and do all the faffy bits that take time but don't require much brain power like the bacground, colors etc then do the content tommorow.

Have you got an existing ppt template to use? I find that helps.

It does sound like most of you feel it is doable though, in the time I have left?

I do have tomorrow to work on it, so that's a plus.

Oh you will
Get that done - I’ve done longer presentations for a group project in a 12 hour session!!! But I’m a mature student with 3DC. Are you using references?

This should be doable. Slides are normally bullet points. Maybe come up with the main themes as headings in a word document. Then two or 3 points to cover under each heading. Add to slides. Add some pictures.

omg I have to do 20 min presentations for work regularly and have done them on the train.on the way there! With a pre-existing template admitedly but still, if you have most of tomorrow to do it, I'd say you definitely have time.

Maybe just lie in bed and map put what you're going to put on each slide on paper then do it and practice it tommorow.

Ok so structure is your friend -

1. Title slide
2. intro and outline

Then you could split it into slides about injury rehabilitation, then initiatives offering physical/practical support, then initiatives offering emotional/psychological support, then a conclusion, then just a slide inviting questions.

1 slide per minute is pretty rapid unless one slide provides an overview/general heading and the following 1-2 go in to a bit more depth. So if slide 1 is the intro/title slide, slide 2 provides overview, slide 3 gives the context and slide 20 is the conclusion, you have 16 slides left to cover a maximum of 6 key ideas or themes.
Rather than start doing the slides one by one, could you use this evening to select the themes and decide on the general content of the 1-2 follow-up slides in each case. Then get some sleep and set to tomorrow.
Good luck!

Physio/OT course?
So just community or inpatient/clinic based as well?
Things like- Why the drive for community based/ research behind this
Different types of the page rehab, group and 1:1 type thing? I've worked with Headway before who support with rehab and input for people who had traumatic brain injuries. Have a look at their stuff?

I see Fenella got there before me! Great advice.

Yes, it needs to be properly referenced.

I did a structure, so know what I have to say. For some reason when I come to write properly about each point, I can hardly construct a sentence

Usually, I can drone on and on about this stuff! I flipping well know my topic but can't dredge it up out of the one remaining brain cell!

İt's definitely doable!
Recently I was asked to step in for a colleague to do a 30 minute presentation for a conference.

Took just over an hour to prepare.

Not my best presentation, but good enough.

You have loads of time and I bet you know more than you think about your subject.

You can do it!

*omg I have to do 20 min presentations for work regularly and have done them on the train.on the way there!

Yep, I did one in under an hour last week. On a topic I know inside out, and totally winged it on what I said. But still. This is totally doable!

Good luck x

Its a topic you know about so you have a big advantage there.

Start with paper and pen or cards if you prefer and plan out the order.

1 - today i will be talking about
2 - what you hope to achieve in the presentation
3 - why you picked this subject to study
4 - the research you did
5 - different approache s to rehabilitation
6 - your findings
7 - how you would use your findings to define a rehabilitation approach
8 - expected outcomes of rehabilitation - benefits to patient

.....

End with a run through of the objective s you set at the beginning and the opportunity to ask questions.

Your presentation would usually be bullet points, images, graphs, references etc. Highlights to prompt that part of your verbal presentation rather than huge swathes of text.

You’re thinking about your slides wrong.

Slides are not where you write complex sentences. They are for brief points, illustrative diagrams, quotes, etc.

So don’t worry about “writing” your presentation.

Get your slides done and then if you don’t get time to write your presentation properly, just write it informally/ bulletpoint it etc- nobody will see that- they’ll only hear what comes out of your mouth- and as long as you know your stuff, in that case, you’ll be fine.

Slide one - intro and what you're going to talk about
Slide two - life changing injuries, what that means, include a quote
Slide 3 - injury you're going to focus on for the presentation (if you focus on one type of injury like spinal cord or amputation it'll be much easier)
Slide 4 - anatomy of the injury (I'm assuming you'll need this but if it's social work you won't particularly)
Slide 5 - impact on every day life graph with productivity, leisure, self care (do you work to a model? You're going to have to fit this into it if you do)
Slides 6-8 productivity (list how it impacts), self care etc, one slide each

See, nearly half way through already. The next ones focus on rehab, physical rehab, mental rehab, benefits of different types. The hardest part with these things is starting but you've got plenty time, don't worry.

I think power point presentations fail when too much information is contained on one slide and lengthy sentences are used. I think it’s preferable to use bullet points and then expand on them rather than expecting the audience to read long paragraphs. I think a practical case study helps sustain interest and statistics look better presented as infographics (which are visually punchy.... there are sites that can generate them for you or you can adapt ) Otherwise pictures can be used to break up text. ( not clip art though eh? ) I often used to provide copies of the presentation slides with room for notes but I was in an industry setting and not academic so not sure if that’s the done thing.... in any case 20 mins is not excessively long. Even if you had to pull an al nighter it’s eminently possible so stop panicking. Good luck