Coherence, clarity, and conciseness are three pillars of any good presentation. Wondering how? Let’s explore!
Let’s say your presentation shares details regarding the candy store you run. Will it be a successful presentation if?
- The information is unstructured and complex to understand, as it includes some disconnected details on the candy industry in general (lack of coherence).
- There are many industry-specific words, like Taste The Rainbow and Candy Deal, that everyone doesn’t know (lack of clarity).
- It contains information overload or unnecessary sentences that will not directly impact the message (lack of conciseness).
If you seek a successful presentation, you need to check these three aspects. Focusing on any two and not the third can again result in a below-par presentation.
This article discusses these three important C’s and what they entail.
Breaking Down the Three C’s
Clarity, conciseness, and coherence are crucial to effectively communicating any information. They aid in smooth comprehension and retention of a message.
- Clarity in communication will ensure your message is understood clearly without misinterpretation or confusion.
- Conciseness will ensure that all the unnecessary information doesn’t find space in your content.
- Coherence will ensure a smooth and logical flow, giving your message connectivity and sense.
Tips to Achieving the Three C’s
In your career, you are required to deliver presentations at some point in time. Contrary to popular belief, excelling in presentations isn’t that difficult. Follow these fundamental principles to become a pro presenter.
1. Clarity
Articulate your goals and messages well to the audience. Be clear about the purpose of your presentation because if you aren’t, your audience won’t be either. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. You might be an expert on your topic, but your audience isn’t.
Thoroughly research your audience to avoid presumptions regarding their knowledge level. Explain your points well, keeping the language simple. Your audience shouldn’t have to read between the lines and assume meanings.
Don’t try to sound smart, intelligent, or knowledgeable by including words and information that are complex for people to comprehend, such as industry jargon and acronyms.
Visuals, such as data-driven charts, infographics, icons, maps, etc. should be clear and relevant to the message you wish to share.
Emphasize and highlight your key points to help people understand, and use active voice to make your speech more engaging. Focus on creating a presentation with absolute clarity so that you can explain it to an amateur and someone knowledgeable with the same ease.
Clear communication will help build trust and credibility, set the stage for audience engagement, and make you and your presentation look more professional.
2. Conciseness
Shorter sentences mean better clarity and easy comprehension. For example, a sales review could be something like –
“In the next quarter, we aim for growth by 20% by incorporating measures like … that will result in strong sales, improved bottom line, better returns for the investors, and so on.”
You could also shorten it and make it more digestible by writing something like: “Target – 20%. Measures are – … It will result in better growth opportunities for all.”
Save your presentation from information overload by focusing on the most critical information.
Use bullet points and headings to deliver key information concisely and smoothly. Rules like five words per bullet point and five bullet points per slide can help.
Include only keywords and not sentences to describe something. That way, people will look towards you to understand a concept and not read from the slides.
Keeping your presentation concise will help you use the negative space efficiently, improving the aesthetics of your slides.
Also, focus on sharing one idea per slide, and your presentation should have no more than three key points.
Conciseness in presentations will also ensure that you avoid the risk of extending the time limit. Nothing bores people more than long presentations (death by PowerPoint). It will let you curate the content well within the time frame and prepare the delivery accordingly.
3. Coherence
An unstructured slide can confuse people from following your message and make them lose interest.
Your ideas should follow a logical sequence with coherent and explicit connections between points. Transitions should make sense as well.
A logical structure will ensure smooth flow and receptivity of the presentation and help people understand the message without feeling overwhelmed.
Strive for a strong beginning that hooks people. It could be a captivating anecdote, statistic, question, etc., immediately drawing everyone’s attention. Keep your presentation’s body organized and impactful with precise sequence, supporting evidence, and subsections. Your conclusion should have a quick summary, a powerful CTA, and a memorable closing statement.
You can construct your presentation around a story to improve engagement and give it a clearly defined, easy-to-follow overall structure.
Consistency in style and tone will also ensure a coherent and recognizable brand image.
4. A Few Pro Tips
- Try the TOWER Approach—Think, Organize, Write, Edit, and Rewrite to increase the impact of your presentation.
Think – Document your thoughts, such as the audience’s expectations, likings, knowledge level, etc., and what they need to know. Make these questions your blueprint for crafting a relevant presentation.
Organize – Arrange your content based on what your audience needs first and after that. Create an outline of key points.
Write – Start with a summary. Explain your key points without any ambiguity.
Edit – Be ready to read your content out loud and edit ruthlessly. Reorder and trim paragraphs and sentences. Answer questions like – is the structure proper? Does each line answer and support the key point?
Rewrite – Make adjustments as necessary until your presentation is clear, complete, concise, and relevant.
- Practice paraphrasing and active listening for better communication and understanding.
- Have people proofread your presentation to remove unnecessary information. It will help you hone and tweak your slides to include only the essential and crucial information.
What if you Ignore the 3 C’s?
- Confused communication means lost opportunities.
- Time wastage for the audience and the speaker.
- Misinterpretations lead to bad relationships with the audience. It will eventually translate to inaction and inconsistent decisions.
In a Nutshell
The three C’s – coherence, clarity, and conciseness – are vital to communicating a message efficiently. Incorporating these elements in your presentation will help you become an influential speaker who fully engages the audience.
Apply the tips and principles mentioned above to polish your communication skills and improve the receptivity and retention of your presentation.
