Foot
Put your best foot forward.
The first couple of minutes of any presentation are crucial; you can lose your audience and possibly the assessor with a poor beginning. Know your introduction inside and out. This is when nerves are likely to be at their worst. A confident start to your presentation will help you to continue in the same way. If you can make your introduction exciting or innovative it will go a long way towards guaranteeing that you will keep your audience's attention. For example, if you start with a statement like "William Shakespeare is the most famous writer of all time", you will hear the snores from the back row immediately. however, if you took a more controversial line such as "Shakespeare was not a great writer, he just stole a lot of great stories and tinkered with them before sticking his name on the front", you will have everybody sitting up and wanting to know how you can be so audacious.
Sometimes a witty use of quotations from famous works of Literature will help you find a way into your topic (regardless of what discipline you are in). Many of the world's great public speakers allude to literary sources.
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