In this challenge, we’re going to look at how to take your presentation to the next level. This involves building a strong argument and using your sources to answer your research question.
In previous units, you read about historical arguments. Remember, a historical argument needs to make a claim or take a position about the past that is supported by evidence. When you answer the question you chose for your presentation, you’re making a historical claim. When you support the reasoning behind your answer with credible and relevant sources, you’re providing evidence to back up your claim.
As you read earlier in this course, it’s important to choose sources that are credible and relevant. It can also be helpful to choose different types of sources (a combination of images, written documents, firsthand accounts, and/or official data). By including different types of sources, you’re using corroboration — building a strong case by proving that the conclusion you’ve drawn is supported by information from different accounts. Your argument and your sources will be the building blocks of your presentation.
Here are some tips to help you build an argument to make your case.
| Tips for Building an Argument | Description |
|---|---|
| Be Selective | You only have so much space and time in a presentation. When you’ve researched your topic thoroughly, you have a lot of information to choose from—so you should be selective about the sources you decide to summarize and quote. Choose a few compelling examples that directly support the main points you’re making. Finally, be sure to include any sources you’ve used to inform your presentation in your source list. |
| Make the Connection | Primary sources provide essential support for historical arguments. You might choose to include a compelling quotation from someone who lived through an event, for example, or a statistic that shows the big picture about how that event affected the population. You’ll probably also want to include historical images in your presentation—they’re primary sources, too. No matter which type of primary source you use, remember to use your own analysis to connect it to your main idea. |
| Practice Your Argument | Before finalizing your presentation, be sure to test it out. Saying your ideas out loud can help you get a sense of how they fit together. Can you summarize your argument in one or two sentences? If you record your presentation and listen to it, can you follow your own argument? Practicing your presentation in front of a mirror or with friends and family is a great way to plan out what you want to say and make sure it flows naturally. |
In this challenge, you will learn how the evolution of technology has changed communication throughout history. Check out this Sophia Story to see how two Atlanta realtors are leveraging today’s technology to communicate their way to success.
[MUSIC PLAYING] We're selling our houses faster, we're selling our houses for more money. And those are huge value adds for a client.
What is the win-win? What is it that you do different from other people that make you successful, that make you be the one that they want to pick as a real estate agent?
The tools that we have and the technology in the digital realm right now are very powerful. We're using it to their fullest potential.
You're listening to Real Estate Radio Atlantic. And I'm here with our expert contributors, top real estate agents Ryan Graham and Justin Seeby. Guys, you are the real estate rock stars.
I got into real estate my sophomore year in college, I took the Real Estate 101 class. And basically, my teacher walked in the first day, wrote across the board a $1 million. He said, if you're interested in having this type of equity in property by the time you're 30, come back to my class on Wednesday, and walked out. That got to me. I really wanted to learn more about real estate.
I was a civil engineer. Along the way, Justin started teaching me the business of real estate. And I realized how happy I was, how excited I was, how energetic. I was. And within a month, I had resigned from the engineering job and I had taken the leap full into real estate. I live by the mantra that, love what you do-- you never work a day in your life.
You're bringing something to the table that a very small percentage of real estate teams is offering.
We're using a lot of high-level technology. And really we have great presentation tools that we use. For example, a lot of folks come to us overwhelmed. I don't know what is next? Do we have closing and contracts? What we have is the home buying process condensed down into one simple page. they're like, wow, no one has ever taken the time to give us this information.
Understanding presentation tools is very important in today's business, because not utilizing these tools, you're probably going to be left behind.
All right, here we go, let's go check it out. Come on in.
We're different in the way that we connect to clients because we really utilize technology in a very significant way.
We use lots of presentation tools in our business. And we send those out to the buyers and sellers prior to meeting with them.
We've spent a lot of time developing what that presentation looks like. So right now I'm working on the new version of the buyer presentation.
We like to use Apple Keynote presentation software. It's their version of PowerPoint. Their templates are very robust and very clean, kind of sexy sometimes. We like to stick with high contrast, very simplified themes.
Titles are very important-- Preparing Yourself for a Successful Sale. So you want to be intriguing, not to wordy, obviously, but very direct on what we're going to be talking about.
Images are very important. Nobody wants to just read a bunch of text. We also like to throw some brand recognition on our main title page.
Branding is very important. When you're in business, you want to constantly get the message out of who you are. And so once you've gone through this process and you've got it all put together, this is what you end up with.
The presentation is 24 slides. And it just goes through who we are, what our reputation is. It has links to online review sources so they can read about us and learn about us.
It's a little mini one-stop shop so that the buyer or seller can understand the value proposition of what this firm has to offer them. In the presentation, we're using digital photography at a very high level. And then we're using video to tell the story.
Every presentation that you deliver should come with a story. It should have feeling, emotion. It should flow. It should go from start to finish.
We're also getting into the virtual reality realm. What we're trying to do in our presentations is let people see what it would actually be like on a day-to-day basis.
So here we are in the master bedroom. We've got windows on three sides of the room, which is not common. You have a large walk in closet and a great master bath over here.
I got into real estate because I didn't want to have a boss. I wanted to be independent, I wanted to work for myself. But then one day I realized I had like 20 bosses and they were all my clients.
And whenever you meet their goals and satisfy their needs, there's no better feeling than to see that you accomplish that for them. It's a great sense of satisfaction and reward.
So that's the great thing about the technology that we have at our disposal these days. You can do it in lots of different ways.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Our presentations really helped ramp everything up for us. It's helped us get the information out there as fast as possible to as many people as possible. Every single step of the way, technology plays a key role in our success.
Technology is here to stay. As it grows, you have to grow with it. And so don't be afraid of it. It really betters your life, it benefits your life, it helps you.
Now it’s time to dive into the history of communication technology and see how inventions from the television to the computer have affected the way the world communicates today.
Source: Strategic Education, Inc. 2020. Learn from the Past, Prepare for the Future.
