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USEFUL PHRASES
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| Functions
| Structural Exponents
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| 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 …
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| 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 …
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| 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 …
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| 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 ….
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| 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 …
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| 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 …
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| Contrasting
| But
On the other hand,…
Although ….
In spite of this, …
However, …
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| Comparing
| Similarly,
In the same way,
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| Contradicting
| In fact,
Actually,
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| Highlighting
| In particular,
Especially,
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| Digressing
| By the way,
In passing
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| Giving examples
| For example,
For instance,
Such as
A good example of this is …
To illustrate this point, …
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| Generalising
| Usually
Generally
As a rule
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| 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 …?
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| Referring to the audience
| As I’m sure you know /we’d all agree …
We have all experienced …
You may remember …
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| Describing and analysing performance
| Describing performance to date
| The …performed well/poorly.
The … has/have shown considerable/slight growth/improvement/decrease…
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| Analysing performance
| The main explanation for this is …
A particular/one/another reason is …
A key problem is …
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| 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
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| 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 …
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| 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…
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| Recommending
| My/our suggestion/proposal/recommendation would be/is to …
We recommend/I’d like to suggest/I propose setting up….
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Checking the questioner is satisfied
| May we go on?
Does that answer your question?
Is that clear?
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