Appendix

USEFUL PHRASES

Functions

Structural Exponents

Introducing a presentation

Greeting and introducing oneself

Good morning/afternoon. My name ‘s …/I am …

Let me introduce myself.

Let me start by saying a few words about …

Presenting the title/subject

The subject of my presentation is …

The focus of my paper (academic) is …Today I’d like to talk about…

I’m going to tell you something about …

Specifying the purpose/objective

We are here today to decide/ agree/learn about …

The purpose of the talk/ presentation is …

The talk /presentation is designed to …

Signposting the presentation

My presentation will be in … parts. First/ Firstly/ First of all, I’ll give you …. Second/secondly/ Next/ Then, … Lastly/finally last of all….

I’ve divided my presentation into … parts /sections. They are … .

I’ll be developing … main points. The first point will …. Second, … . Lastly … .

Sequencing and linking ideas

Sequencing/ ordering

Firstly … , secondly … , thirdly … .

Then … next… finally/lastly …

Let’s start with …

Let’s move /go onto …

Now we come to …

That brings us to …

Let’s leave that …

That covers …

Let’s go back to …

Let me turn now to …

Giving reasons/causes

Therefore

So,

As a result,

Consequently.

That’s why …

This is because of …

This is largely due to …

It could lead to…

It may result in …

Contrasting

But

On the other hand,…

Although ….

In spite of this, …

However, …

Comparing

Similarly,

In the same way,

Contradicting

In fact,

Actually,

Highlighting

In particular,

Especially,

Digressing

By the way,

In passing

Giving examples

For example,

For instance,

Such as

A good example of this is …

To illustrate this point, …

Generalising

Usually

Generally

As a rule

Involving the audience

Asking rhetorical questions

What ‘s the explanation for this?

How can we explain this?

How can we do about it?

How will this affect …?

What are the implications for …?

Referring to the audience

As I’m sure you know /we’d all agree …

We have all experienced …

You may remember …

Describing and analysing performance

Describing performance to date

The …performed well/poorly.

The … has/have shown considerable/slight growth/improvement/decrease…

Analysing performance

The main explanation for this is …

A particular/one/another reason is …

A key problem is …

Describing trends, charts and graphs

There is/has been a slight/dramatic /considerable/significant/moderate decrease/fall/ drop/collapse/rise/increase in …

…. remain(s)/has remained constant/stable …

… has/have decreased/increased/fallen/risen dramatically/considerably/slightly/moderately

Using visual aids

Preparing the audience for a visual

Now, let’s look at the position of …

Now, I’ll show you the …

For … the situation is very different.

Let’s move on now and look at …

The next slide shows …

If we now turn to the …

This chart compares …and …

The (upper) part of the slide gives information about …

You can see here the …

I’d like to draw your attention to …

Focusing the audience’s attention

You can see the …

As you can see …

What is interesting/important is …

I’d like to draw your attention to …

Notice/Observe the …

It is important/interesting to notice that…

Ending a presentation

Summarising

To sum up…

In brief …

In short ….

I’d like to sum up now ……

I’ll briefly summarise the main issues.

Let me summarise briefly what I’ve said.

If I can just sum up the main points.

At this stage I’d /like to run through /to go over…

Let’s recap, shall we?

Concluding

In conclusion, …

To conclude, …

As you can see, there are some very good reasons …

I’d like to leave you with the following thought/idea.

Recommending

My/our suggestion/proposal/recommendation would be/is to …

We recommend/I’d like to suggest/I propose setting up….

Closing formalities

I’d be happy to answer any questions.

If you have any questions, I’d be pleased to answer them.

I would welcome any comments/suggestions.

Thank you for your attention.

Handling questions

Clarifying questions

So, what you are asking is …

If I understand the question correctly, you would like to know …

When you say … do you mean…?

I’m sorry, I didn’t hear. Which slide was it?

Sorry, could you repeat that?

I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

Avoiding giving an answer

Perhaps we could deal with that later.

Can we talk about that another time?

I’m afraid that’s not my field.

I don’t have the figures with me.

I’m sure Mr X could answer that question.

That’s interesting, but I’d prefer not to answer that today.

I’m afraid I’m not the right person to answer that.

Could we leave that till later?

I’m not sure this is the right place/time to discuss this particular question.

Checking the questioner is satisfied

May we go on?

Does that answer your question?

Is that clear?