You should know what you want to do before you do it. This seems like perhaps the most basic piece of wisdom you’ve ever heard — and yet — people skip the outline all the time. While it may seem like just another task to crunch, a survey by Grammarly shows that creating an outline helps 65% of professionals complete their writing tasks faster. Another survey by Write Life shows that a whopping 90% of writers find an outline helps them organize their thoughts and ideas more effectively. Those seem like pretty convincing reasons not to skip this step!
Much like your college essays of yore, you can benefit greatly from creating an outline of a presentation before jumping into writing and design with both feet. Making presentation outlines can help you save time and build more organized, cohesive presentations.
What is a presentation outline?
A presentation outline is basically the skeleton of your presentation. It contains the basic structure of a presentation and logical flow of information. This allows you to go in and easily add the “muscle” while maintaining a coherent, easy-to-follow presentation.
Harking back to that college essay outline — you’ll be pleased to hear that a presentation outline, whether it’s a slideshow outline or just an oral presentation, follows the same basic structure as an essay outline. You’ll want your presentation overview to include:
- A title
- An introduction, with your hook and “thesis statement”
- An agenda of what your presentation will cover
- The main points of your presentation, which should support your thesis
- Key visuals, or placeholders for visuals if you don’t have them handy
- A conclusion with a succinct summary
- A Q&A section for the audience to ask questions
- An appendix with sources for any information you cited in your presentation
We’ll discuss more tips to make your presentation flow even better in just a moment.
Why you should make an outline of a presentation
We touched briefly on the benefits of making a presentation outline in the intro — let’s talk more in depth about how making an informative presentation outline can make your presentation a smashing success your team will reference at every happy hour and holiday party for years to come (for better or worse).
- It saves you time. While at first glance, creating an outline for a presentation feels like an extra step, having an outline can speed up your preparation by giving you a structure to follow.
- It gives you structure. Creating an overview of the presentation can help you prioritize information, organize your content, and give your presentation a clear flow.
- It keeps you focused. Having an overview of your presentation can keep you on task as you write by breaking up your work into manageable sections.
- It enhances teamwork. It’s easier to delegate or jam together on certain topics with a single source of truth.
- It boosts confidence. Starting from an outline can familiarize you with your presentation content, as well as give you a concise rehearsal script.
- It facilitates flexibility. If you have to make last-minute changes to your presentation, an outline can help you more easily reorganize and slot in content.
- It prevents tangents. Having your outline on you when you present can help keep you on topic and prevent those, uh, conceptual detours (fun as they may be).
- It enhances engagement. With a clear, organized, and polished flow, your audience will be able to follow and interact with your presentation more easily.
- It makes you look like a true professional with your s**t entirely together. This one is self explanatory.
How to make an outline for a presentation: tips and examples
Your presentation outline format is mostly up to you and your team’s tastes. Whether you decide to keep it in a word document, a Mural, or one of those string bulletin boards investigators use to solve murders, the key components of a presentation outline should contain the same basic elements.
This research paper outline template is a great place to start — though you probably aren’t writing a research paper per se, it can certainly help you organize your thoughts and recruit your key supporting points.
Here are some tips for how to make an outline for a presentation:
1. Define the goal of your presentation
This one should be easy — what is your presentation for? What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation? This may or may not be the same as your thesis statement. Make sure your goal is clear before you proceed.
2. Map out your audience’s needs
Do you know who your audience will be? What are the characteristics of that audience? Are there any special considerations you should be aware of? For example, if you’re presenting to a group of designers, you may want to index more on visual aids to make your points. Marketing professionals, on the other hand, may respond more to metrics or statistics.
3. Draft the structure of a presentation
Your basic presentation outline format should include an introduction, a thesis statement, an agenda, key supporting points, a conclusion, a Q&A, and an appendix for reference. Indicate where you’ll insert your visual aids, and what those are. If you’re creating a slideshow presentation, plan out how many slides you’ll need to address all your key points. Generally, more slides with less text is easier to follow than fewer slides with more text.
You can find more tips on how to craft a powerful presentation template here.
4. Break down the key points you want to discuss
Your key points should support your thesis statement or goal. If they don’t, they probably aren’t necessary. Include subpoints, supporting statistics, competitive analysis, or any other references within your key points sections.
5. Add ice breakers and transitions
Transitions between sections or key points are a great place to check in with your audience and create opportunities for engagement. You may want to pose a conceptual question, include a short quiz, or ask your audience to share examples or personal experiences relevant to your key points.
6. Summarize the key takeaways
Include a summary of important takeaways after each key supporting point. You should also include a high-level summary to leave your audience with at the end of your presentation, reiterating your thesis. This should be the most important thing you want them to take away.
7. Time each section
You most likely have a set amount of time for your presentation, and it’s never enough! When you rehearse your presentation, start a timer to see how long each section takes. Plan for delays, questions, or interruptions — it’s inevitable.
8. Review and refine your presentation flow
Even if you think you totally nailed it, there might be something you missed, or something you included that doesn’t need to be there. Continuously improve your presentation outline for as long as you can, and ask others for feedback.
9. Get inspired by examples of outlines for presentations
There are plenty of samples of outlines for presentations online for you to get inspired. Our favorite presentation outline example is this collaborative presentation template. It’s a great place for you and your team to start outlining a stellar presentation! Ready to start building a beautiful presentation? We recommend starting with one of Mural’s presentation templates, like the simple sales presentation template. You got this!
Related: Mastering the art of project presentations
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