Public Policy Research & Drafting: Presenting Your Research

Once you have compiled research, analyzed your finding, explored alternatives, and settled on your final policy recommendations, you need to present this information in an engaging and accurate way to your client. A client presentation, although educational in nature, is not a lecture. You will need to balance giving background in your topic with addressing the specific problems and questions that arise around your issue. The purpose of presenting your policy paper to your client is to give the highlights of your research, discuss the options you considered, and explain why you are making the recommendations. 

1. Lead with your recommendation. Background information may be necessary to explain why you are recommending what you are, but the audience won't know that until you tell them your conclusions.  
2. Careful preparation will help you to relax. Confirm expectations about date, time, format, and amount of time your client expects you to take up with this presentation. Be considerate of others' time; don't go over unless the client specifically asks you to continue past the allotted time.
3. Confirm what presentation technology will be available: if you will be presenting on a projector, determine if you need to bring the slides on a USB drive or on your own laptop. Confirm your laptop will connect with the available cords or bring your own.
4. Bring a bottle of water!
5. Keep visuals and slideshows simple. Too much information on a slide--either words or graphics--will make it seem like you don't understand your own topic. They are also difficult to read and make it difficult for your audience to pay attention to what you are saying, which should be the focus.
6. Consider making a handout. Executive summaries are a nice touch and reassure your audience that complicated numbers or other statistics will be at hand if they forget them. Let them soak up the big picture with your talk and worry about minutiae later.
7. Silence never lasts as long as you think it does. If you need to take a breath, drink some water, or recover your train of thought--do it! It's always good to pause, ask if there are any questions so far, and let your audience digest what you are telling them. 
8. Only use images or graphs that back up what you are saying; don't put up a slide of statistics and then talk about something unrelated. Always key back to any visuals or slides you use.
9. Focus on what your client wants. You did a great deal of research and preparation to write your policy paper; what your clients wants now is the highlights, with a focus on what they should do going forward. 
10. Think about presentations that bored you. Why were you bored? Did the presenter read their slides? Speak in a monotone? Go off on tangents unrelated to their topic? Not everyone's presentation style is animated and theatric; just be yourself. Your client is interested in what you have to say and you have the tools to give them the information they need to make decisions.
11. Be prepared to answer questioning but also be prepared not to have any questions. Any professor can tell you audiences vary; even engaged students are grumpy before lunch and sleepy after! If you've confirmed the amount of time your are expected to fill, approach the presentation in order of importance. Put the most important info up front and leave the last slides for additional helpful data that can be summarized if necessary. Be ready with a quick 1-2 sentence conclusion to be delivered either when you finish or when you run out of time.