Presentations Vocabulary #2

Presentations phrase list by function

When you are making a presentation, it is useful to have polite and formal phrases to introduce your ideas and manage to communicate clearly and persuasively. Here you have a list of useful expressions:

• Outlining the structure:

I’ve divided my talk up into…

First of all, I’ll … After that, I’ll …

I’ll conclude with…

You can ask any question at the end of the presentation.

Feel free to interrupt if you have any question.

• Signaling where you are:
  • Beginning the presentation:

I’d like to stat by saying…

Well, let’s just begin with…

• Referring forward / backwards / sideways:

I’ll return to … later.

As I said earlier, …

I’ll say more about …  in a moment.

Just to digress for a second, …

• Next section:

OK, moving on …

Turning to…

This brings me to…

This is where…

• Signaling intention:

Perhaps it would be a good idea if I just…

I’d just like to sketch out…

Let me just touch on…

I think that’s covered everything.

• Setting the context:

Where we are at the moment is…

What I can tell you is that…

I’d like to be able to … but unfortunately I can’t…

You’ll appreciate that I still need to…

• Highlighting key points:

So, the first thing is…

And I think you should be aware that…

So that’s one key point right there.

… and I think this is a really important point…

So, the main thing to remember is…

• Ensuring understanding of a specialist subject:

Just to fill you in on some of the background, …

By … I mean …

Now, I don’t know if you are familiar with…

Well, … refers to…

And perhaps here I should explain what I mean by…

That’s when…

So, for example, …

• Responding:
  • To questions and challenges:

I was coming to that.

I have to admit that…

You’re quite right, we need to address this.

That’s a good point.

• To requests for detail:

Let me check … and I’ll get back to you.

I can’t remember exactly, but off the top of my head…

I can double check if you like.

I don’t have the exact figures, but what if I…?

• Ending the presentation:

And this is my key point.

To sum up, …

I’ll be happy to take any questions now.