Tips for Doing Presentations

Make sure you know how to operate things: overheads, powerpoints, whiteboard markers.

Make sure you know how to pronounce words. For example: nuances is not nuisances.

If you don't know how to pronounce something, ask.
If you do ask, for godsake, listen to the answer and pronounce the word correctly from then on.

Reading straight from a piece of paper, not terribly inspiring. Reading from notecards is just stupid. The point of them is so you don't have to read word for word.

If you are going to read a passage from a book, make sure you know which page, which passage, which book.
Even better, just include the passage, yes word for word, on your speech or notecards. Then you don't have to go searching while the audience stares off into space for so long that by the time you finally find it, they have no idea what relevence the passage has to whatever the hell you were going on about three hours before when the search began.

At least pretend to be interested in what you're saying. If you're not, why the hell should we be?