Dear Young Marine Parents,
We hope everyone is doing well this week preparing for Thanksgiving. We wanted to let you know the Young Marines, not recruits, were given a presentation assignment at drill on Saturday. They’ve been asked to choose a topic they can present to the group. The purpose is to fulfill one of the requirements for promotion. Their presentation can be a demonstration where they teach the audience or just share information about the topic. Below is a summary of the PREPO structure Mrs. Dubin, Executive Officer, shared with the group at Saturday’s drill. This is an easy format used to organize their information and thoughts. Please forward this to your Young Marine for help preparing. Also, questions are welcomed at any point during their preparation. Questions can be directed to Mrs. Dubin at xo@glcyoungmarines.org.
Thank you for your help and have a safe holiday!
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PREPO can be used as an outline to organize a presentation or when you need to give an immediate answer to a question. The PREPO outline and summary is as follows:
Purpose/Point: Make your point and state the purpose of your presentation (or response to the question). For the purposes of this assignment, you can tell us why you chose the topic for this group. Basically, what is the point you are making or what you want your audience to get out of it.
Reason: State why the group should be interested. What is the benefit for them from the information you are giving them. It can be the reason you think it is important for them to know.
Explain: This is where you provide EVIDENCE to support your point and reason. This is your main content. Try to limit your key pieces of information to 3 or 4 items. That helps you from losing the attention of your audience. People can only pay attention to a few bits of information at a time. Try to use the most “fascinating” or interesting information that you think will gain their full attention. Think about what you thought was most interesting when researching your topic.
Purpose/Point: Restate your point. Use the information above to summarize the reason it should be important to them. You should try to use different words when you are re-stating your point.
Objective/Action: This is your wrap-up. What do you want them to do with the information you provided. What action can they take as next steps? This will be your closing statement, so try to make this part interesting, passionate, and energetic. Say it in a way that shows your enthusiasm for the topic you chose. Try to get them excited.