Chapter 2. The Key to Success Is Preparation

Effective preparation for a presentation involves more than practice, but it’s all relatively easy if you take it step-by-step.

In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle gathered his students around him near the city of Athens and passed along a small bit of wisdom: Things will go better during a speech if you’re properly prepared. In a collection of his lectures, passed by oral tradition for many years and later written down as his Rhetoric, Aristotle explains that three considerations are particularly important for every speaker: audience, purpose, and occasion.

Audience clearly comes first. A presentation is all about them. It doesn’t matter what you want. It doesn’t matter how interesting, ...

Get The Truth About Confident Presenting now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.