How to improve skills of crafting English title and content in presentation?

Presentation skill
New answer on Jun 10, 2020
7 Answers
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Anonymous A asked on Jun 09, 2020

I'd like to seek advice on how to improve the ability to craft an English presentation slide that communicates sharp, concise, and direct to the readers. As a non-native speaker, I often find myself unable to express an idea in a condensed and concise way (compared to native speakers). Sometimes its because I don't have enough vocabularies that could precisely express my meaning, and sometimes it's because of the sentence construction.

Would like to hear some advice on how to improve my English presentation material. Any tips or advice that I could work on? Thanks.

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Robert
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replied on Jun 09, 2020
McKinsey offers w/o final round interviews - 100% risk-free - 10+ years MBB coaching experience - Multiple book author

Hi Anonymous,

Even if it's not directly related, I saw positive effects with studying copywriting. Just to clarify, crafting titles is not really related to writing good copy, but the underlying thinking process is similar (obviously you need more content focus when crafting slides..).

You can find numerous books on that subject on Amazon!

Hope this helps - if so, please be so kind and give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

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Anonymous A on Jun 09, 2020

Thanks! Are there any book's that you would highly recommend?

Robert on Jun 09, 2020

If I'd need to choose one, a "standard" book in that area is Bly, R: The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells

Ian
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replied on Jun 09, 2020
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate

Hi there,

1) Think like a story

If I were telling this persona story, how would I do it? What would be the leading sentences to each paragraph? Does the sentence before and the sentence after make sence?

2) Write leading titles - "We have identified x" or "X value has resulted in y"

3) Be concise - Less is more. Work to keep your words sharp and succinct

4) Come back later - Write it, then come back later to try and re-write it better!

5) Read it outloud - Read the title + content outloud. See if it takes too long, is wordy, doesn't make sense, etc.

6) Print it out - this lets you read it with new eyes. Physcologically, your brain will treat it as new material. This will let you catch when you're written poorly or not directly

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Clara
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replied on Jun 09, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

Same here, I am not a native speaker either and this is one of the things that used to torture me when I got into consulting.

In my personal experience, it gets better with time. Practicing is the best way of improving here, on top of getting plenty of feedback from seniors or people who do it very well.

On top, reading good and well-structured English can help you a lot, I would recommend The Economist.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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Anonymous replied on Jun 09, 2020

Hi there,

Good of you for thinking ahead - being able to be concise and straight to the point is a very important skill for consultants.

This skill takes a bit of time to perfect, you won't be able to crack it by reading about it. So be ready to have your slides Action Titles be demolished in your first couple attempts, it's normal :)

What I recommend is to read a bit about the Pyramid principle and as Antonello said "Say it with charts" is also a very good resource.

Best of luck

Khaled

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Anonymous replied on Jun 10, 2020

Dear A,

Totally agree with Robert!

Copywriting skills will help you to help you both to make nice titles and better formulation of your ideas.

And of course, it's not useless to mention such a book as "The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking" by Barbara Minto. It helps you to make your content more structure and logical, that eventually brings you to the ability to make crafting titles. Because title is a sumum bonum of your content. If the content is chaotic, than your title willn't be catchy and to the point.

Hope it helps,

Best,

André

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Anonymous replied on Jun 09, 2020

Hello,

Are you already working in a consulting firm ? If yet, you can leverage your manager to the maximum to progress and request regular feedback. However, improving communication in slides is a development axis for 99% of the consultants (nobody is perfect on this :)). If you are not yet working in consulting, you can try to read presentations published by the MBB on Linkedin for example. This will give you a good idea of ​​good practices to replicate.

David

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Antonello
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replied on Jun 09, 2020
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi,
I strongly recommend reading "Say it with charts", the Bible in consulting to better structure communication and synthesis in slides

Best,
Antonello

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Robert gave the best answer

Robert

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