Presentations require planning, a careful structure, and content that has been chosen for a specific audience. In this respect, they have much in common with purely written texts like reports or proposals. However, presentations include oral and, usually, visual components, which means that students need to think beyond only writing when they prepare for a presentation.

Some of the preparations for a presentation overlap with the preparations for writing a report, such as conducting research and structuring information so as to allow the audience to follow ideas or arguments. But some elements are unique to presentations, and this section is intended to help with those.