Ways to Present School Reports

Reports allow you to do research on a topic and present information on that subject in an ordered manner. Sometimes students need to collect data and present their results in reports. The topic of the report depends largely upon your intended audience, the class or subject for which you are writing the paper and the perimeters of the report. Many teachers require students to present the findings of their reports in class after writing the papers. The method that students use to present their reports often depends upon their own and their teachers’ preferences.

Some teachers require you to read a portion or all your report in class, or you may choose to read some of your report to your classmates to show the main points or findings of your paper. If you choose to read parts of your report, you will want to find portions that will be interesting to your audience, such as a section that discusses unexpected findings. When reading or talking to the class, you should tailor your tone to your audience. Although you likely will not want to talk in a monotone voice because you will bore your audience, you will want to use a conversational tone of voice if you are addressing an audience of elementary, middle or high school students and a more scholarly tone when talking to college students. Before reading your paper before an audience, you should practice it at home.

A PowerPoint presentation gives you a visual method for presenting the main points in your report. When using a PowerPoint presentation, you can organize your ideas into different pages and subcategories, using your report to help you develop an organizational scheme for your presentation. You likely will want to include an introduction, conclusion and a body in your presentation, just as you did in your actual report. If your report involved research, you could use visual representations, such as data tables or graphs, in your presentation. When putting information into your PowerPoint presentation, you should use short sentences and phrases, similar to what you would use in an outline. You will want to create a presentation that supports what you are going to talk about but does not draw attention away from your speech with long sentences or colorful graphics.

A video presentation or a performance, such as a skit or puppet show, can help you present important points from your report in a way that captures your audience’s attention. If you create a newscast, film, podcast, skit or another type of performance or video presentation, you will not want to just talk on camera or just state your facts. You should include props, costumes or visual aids that help to make your presentation entertaining. For example, you could create a simulated newscast or movie on a social issue on which you reported. You may want to create a film, podcast, puppet show or another type of performance or video presentation with an age-appropriate plot and find ways to bring main ideas from your report out through your dialogue. You could also talk about important points from your paper as you or someone else in your video demonstrates something, such as how something is done.

There are a variety of interactive ways that you can present findings to your audience, including asking them questions, giving them handouts, putting out ideas for discussion or playing a game. Interacting with your audience and presenting information in such a way that piques their interest about the topic of your report can help you to have a more captivated audience, as long as you do not spend too much time playing a game or asking your audience questions. You will want to tailor your game or questions to your audience’s age and education level so that they will not feel confused by your topic or will not become bored quickly. You likely will want to start or end your presentation with interactive elements because you will want time to talk to your audience about the major ideas or findings from your report.