Category Archives: Evidence

Evidence is everything

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The reality principle states that you should always present evidence that is concrete rather than conceptual. Showing real things, real people and specific details makes your presentation more interesting, memorable and persuasive.

Andrew Abela (Abela 2013, p 37) suggests the following when thinking about your evidence:

  • Provide lots of relevant detail – it increases credibility.
  • Verify your facts – where did your evidence come from.
  • Understand the constraints that inhibit your audience from taking action.
  • Demonstrate that you understand these constraints.
  • Make it personal and reflect that you understand the realities in your audience’s lives.

It doesn’t matter what type of personality your audience has, concrete and particular evidence is important for everyone.

Abela, AV 2013, Advanced presentations by design : creating communication that drives action, 2ndedn., Pfeiffer, San Francisco.

Pitch: Step 5 Anecdotes

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We have completed audience analysis, objective setting, defined the biggest problem and overall solution, and collected all our eveidence.  Now we are going add some stories or anecdotes.

Abela (2008) describes anecdotes this way:

“The idea here is not to replace the evidence you have gathered, but to emphasize it. A story is not proof; it is just illustration. A story doesn’t prove anything, but it does get your audience’s attention and can sometimes drive a point home much more than reams of data.”

Why do stories work? In the following diagram from David Yang, imagine your life running along the horizontal axis, with a couple of blips.  That’s what its like for most of us.  Now look at the Cinderella story which is the green line  – very dynamic and engaging and most importantly memorable.

kurt v

 

So the more interesting and engaing our anecdotes the more likely they are to be remembered.  The good part is they dont even have to be true – they can be hypothetical. Which is only ok if you tell your audience.

Yang, D 2019, Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories | Visual.ly, visually, viewed 22 Jan, <https://visual.ly/community/infographic/other/kurt-vonnegut-shapes-stories>.

Abela, AV 2008, Advanced presentations by design creating communication that drives action, San Franiso, Calif. : Pfeiffer, San Francisco, Calif.

Pitch: Step 4 Evidence

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In previous posts we have covered

  1. who we are pitching to,
  2. what attitudes and behaviours we want to change and
  3. what the biggest problem the audience has and our overall solution.

Step 4 is collecting all the evidence that we have available to support our solution.  We need to draw as braodly as possible and access as many different types of evidence as possible to ensure we meet the needs of our audience. Andrew Abela (2008) describes 3 types of evidence that you can use to support your recommendation:

  1. Use real and specific (rather than abstract and general) data wherever possible.

  2. Include a variety of different types of evidence and arguments—including evidence against your proposals.

  3. Pay particular attention to what is new and different in your information. Try to avoid repeating the same, tired old “facts” that everyone else quotes.

The next post is how to incorporate anecdotes into your pitch.

Abela, AV 2008, Advanced presentations by design creating communication that drives action, San Franiso, Calif. : Pfeiffer, San Francisco, Calif.