Student's guide to writing college papers, Fourth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2010

Preparing an oral report
Writing your final introduction and conclusion
Writing your paper

You may be asked to present the final results of your research. If so, review our advice for a preliminary presentation in section 8.6. Most of that advice still applies:

✵ Prepare notes, not a script.

✵ Prepare and rehearse an introduction and conclusion. Don't just read them from your final paper: rewrite them to sound like something you would say, not something you would only write.

✵ Organize your notes around your main reasons, which you should put in big, bold type.

There are two relevant differences between a preliminary and a final oral report: Before you were guessing what your argument might be; now you know. That should make your report more confident, but not different in structure. Also, you now know how your evidence supports each reason. Accordingly, you should give more attention to evidence in a final report than in a preliminary one. Do not try to walk readers through every scrap of evidence. Do that and you'll be sure to run out of time (which might not matter since everyone will be asleep). Instead, present one best bit of evidence for each reason. This will assure your audience that you have good backup without forcing them to listen to all of it.

If your evidence is suitable for it, prepare a handout: create a list of quotations, reproduce graphics or tables, create illustrations, and so on. (You can do this in PowerPoint rather than a handout, if you have the skills.)