1. Preparing Effective Oral Presentations When you prepare for an oral presentation, you must first understand the purpose of the presentation. Then, make sure you know your audience so you can determine what organizational pattern, delivery style, and supporting material to use. Analyze your audience members and anticipate their reactions so you can make the appropriate adaptations. Consider the age, gender, education, experience, and size of the audience: These will also affect your style and message content. You are asked to give a presentation at next week's board meeting. What question should you ask yourself as you begin to prepare for your presentation? What do I want to accomplish? O What will be my concluding remark? O What cartoons or colorful visuals should I use? You are going to give a presentation on the health risks of smoking to a room full of tobacco company owners. You are expecting your audience to be hostile toward you and the content of your presentation. What organizational pattern should you use? O Any pattern O Pro/con pattern O A noncontroversial pattern