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100 Public-Speaking Jokes to Add Humor to Your Next Speech

So, if you are looking to add humor to your presentation, one of the best ways is to insert self-deprecating humor in the form of funny stories. A good story from your own personal experience will be easier to insert into your speech. The story will also create more of a shared experience with your audience. For details about how to use stories to add humor to your speech , click here.

With that being said, though, sometimes, you just need to get a quick laugh out of your audience. And good jokes can be a great way to lighten the mood. We’ve organized the post into four categories of public-speaking jokes.

100 Public Speaking Jokes to Add Humor to Your Next Speech.

• Public-Speaking Jokes .
• One-Liners about Public Speaking and Presenting .
• Funny Public Speaking Quotes .
• Dad Jokes that You Can Use as Presentation Icebreakers .

Public-Speaking Jokes for Your Next Presentation to Add a Little Fun.

Between you and I, telling jokes in front of an audience is pretty risky. But sometimes, just getting the audience to laugh right from the start can lighten the mood. Here are a few jokes about public speaking that you can use when you are public speaking.

Jokes about Being Nervous and the Fear of Public Speaking

• Why did the public speaker hire a pitching coach? Because he needed to improve his delivery!
• I used to think I was afraid of public speaking, but just now, I realized I was actually afraid of audiences.
• A public speaker asked the audience, “How many of you are afraid of public speaking?” About half the audience raised their hands. The speaker replied, “Don’t worry, I used to be too. In fact, there was a 50/50 chance that I’d canceled today’s talk!”
• My wife was nervous about public speaking. So, I told her she should embrace her mistake to add a little humor to her delivery. She gave me a hug. Then she laughed.
• Public speaking tip: Imagine the audience naked. But not if you’re giving a eulogy.

Funny Jokes about Presentation Challenges.

Okay, funny may be a little overexaggerated, but corny can work too. Here are a few jokes about challenges that can come up in a presentation.

• Why did the PowerPoint presentation go to therapy? It had too many issues with transitions.
• I was going to tell a time-traveling joke during my speech, but you didn’t like it.
• I asked the librarian if there were any books on how to overcome the fear of public speaking. She whispered, “They’re in the self-help section, but you might have to speak up to find them.”
• I used to be a baker before I became a public speaker. I kneaded the dough, and now I need the audience!
• Why did the public speaker become a gardener? Because he knew how to plant ideas and watch them grow!

These Jokes Are about Audience Interaction.

• I asked the audience if anyone had experience with public speaking. A cricket in the corner started chirping.
• The best way to become a confident public speaker is to imagine the audience in their underwear. Unless you’re speaking at a nudist colony.
• I told my wife I was going to give a speech on procrastination. She said, “Maybe next time.”
• How do you make a tissue dance during a speech? You put a little boogie in it!
• Why did the extroverted computer become a public speaker? Because it had great social networking skills!

Public Speaking Jokes about Presentation Themes.

These funny (or corny) jokes are about the process of public speaking. You can easily use one of these if you start with… “Before I actually start my presentation…” then add the joke.

• I asked my friend if he had any advice for public speaking. He said, “Yes, just imagine the audience is full of cats. They don’t care what you’re saying, but they’ll pay attention if you have treats.”
• How do you organize a fantastic space-themed presentation? You planet!
• Why did the public speaker bring a ladder to the presentation? To reach new heights in communication!
• My friend tried to give a speech on patience, but the audience left before he finished. It seems they didn’t have the patience for it.
• Why did the microphone apply for a job in public speaking? Because it wanted to be heard at work!

A Few Random Public Speaking Jokes (Use with Caution.)

These last few public speaking jokes are a little more tricky. You’d want to save these only for the right type of crowd.

• I used to be afraid of public speaking, but then I realized it’s just talking in front of people. Now I’m terrified of public listening.
• What’s a public speaker’s favorite kind of fish? The articulate!
• I told my friend I was giving a speech about a famous chicken. He asked, “Is it poultry in motion?”
• I was going to make a joke about public speaking, but I figured it would be better in front of a live audience.
• Why did the scarecrow become a great public speaker? He was outstanding in his field!

Remember, just adding a joke or two to a speech won’t win over every audience. For help becoming a confident and effective presenter, we invite you to attend one of our 2-Day Fearless Presentations ® Classes . Click here for details.

Here Are a Few Public Speaking One-Liners to Get Your Audience Laughing.

You’ll have a much easier time just adding a funny one-liner every now and then. When you tell a joke, you typically have to get your audience to respond. And, in some cases, the audience will finish your joke.

So a well-placed one-liner will often get you a quick chuckle without as much risk. Here are a few that we organized into five different categories.

These One-Liners Are Related to Audience Interaction (Or Audience Reactions.)

• “I’m not saying I’m a great public speaker, but I did once get a standing ovation… because I tripped over the microphone cord.”
• “I asked my audience if they had any questions after my speech. One person raised their hand and asked, ‘When does the torture end?'”
• “Public speaking is easy. It’s like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, you’re on fire, everything is on fire, and you’re in hell.”
• “I used to be afraid of public speaking until I realized every audience is just a bunch of people hoping you don’t notice them.”
• “I gave a speech on procrastination. The audience is still waiting for the punchline.”

Here Are a Few about Speech Techniques and Styles.

• “I asked the audience if they knew the definition of a will. Apparently, ‘a dead giveaway’ wasn’t the right answer.”
• “I don’t have a fear of public speaking; I have a fear of public not listening.”
• “Why don’t public speakers ever get lost? Because they always find their way to the lectern.”
• “I used to be a mime, but I couldn’t stay silent about it. Now I’m a public speaker.”
• “I told the audience I’d be speaking off the cuff. Turns out, my cuff was more interesting than my speech.”

That’s Ironic! One Liners about Humor and Irony in Speech

• “I used to be a public speaker at a mime convention. Needless to say, my speeches were a big hit.”
• “I asked the audience if they could define irony. They said, ‘Sure, it’s like goldy and bronzy, but made of iron.'”
• “Public speaking is a lot like a roller coaster. It’s terrifying, and I always feel like I’m going to lose my lunch.”
• “I used to be a motivational speaker, but then I lost my train of thought. Now I’m just a ‘meh’-tivational speaker.”
• “Why did the public speaker bring a ladder to the speech? To reach the high points, of course!”

These One-Liners Are about Speech Topics and Delivery.

• “I told the audience I’m going to talk about time travel. They’re still waiting for my future self to arrive.”
• “I tried to give a speech on humility, but everyone said I was the best at it.”
• “Why did the public speaker get an award? Because he was outstanding in his field of expertise – corn farming.”
• “I asked the crowd if they liked my tie. They said, ‘It’s not the tie, it’s what you’re saying that’s knot working.'”
• “I tried to make a speech about sleep, but I dozed off during my own presentation.”

Funny One-Liners Related to the Challenges of Public Speaking.

• “I asked the audience for silence during my speech. Apparently, their laughter didn’t get the memo.”
• (If your audience won’t give you feedback.) “Dialogue is like a parachute – it only works when it’s open.”
• (If you happen to break wind because of nervousness.) “I’m not a nervous public speaker. I just have a very expressive colon.”
• “I told my wife I’m writing a book on public speaking. She told me to speak louder.”
• “Why did the PowerPoint file go to therapy? It had too many issues with transitions.”

Funny Motivational Quotes Related to Public Speaking.

A really good way to add humor to any speech is to insert a funny quote from a famous person. These funny motivational quotes are very easy to insert. In fact, you can add them to your speech introduction right at the start. That will lighten the tension in the room and get your audience laughing.

Here are a few that always hit home!

Funny Quotes About Preparation and Delivery of Speech.

• “The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.” – George Jessel
• “It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” – Mark Twain
• “Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
• “A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” – Winston Churchill
• “The best way to sound like you know what you’re talking about is to know what you’re talking about.” – Author Unknown

Quotes Related to Adding Humor to Your Speech.

If you are looking for a famous quote specifically about adding humor to a speech, try one of these.

• “The first time I spoke in the West, the agents and organizers looked at me and said, ‘Oh, my God, she’s funny.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve been funny all my life, but I never knew it.'” – Maya Angelou
• “If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.” – Bill Gates
• “I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.” – George Carlin
• “The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven’t thought of yet.” – Ann Landers
• “I used to be a good communicator, but then I realized I was talking to myself.” – Author Unknown

Here Are a Few Quotes About Creativity and Writing.

• “I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” – Steven Wright
• “I used to play piano by ear, but now I use my hands.” – Steven Wright
• “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams
• “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.” – Duke Ellington
• “I can’t understand why I flunked American history. When I was a kid, my father took me to all the historic spots. Every time I refused to get out of the car.” – W.C. Fields

The Funny Quotes Can Help You Make Your Point Better.

Like the last group, these funny quotes aren’t about public speaking. But you will likely be able to use them if you are delivering an informative speech.

• “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” – Oscar Wilde
• “I have never been in a situation where having a sense of humor and a giving spirit didn’t lead to a better result.” – Ed Catmull
• “The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.” – Josh Billings
• “I like to talk about my obsession with food. I love to eat. I’m not a ‘foodie,’ but I do love to eat.” – Miranda Kerr
• “I failed public speaking in college the first time and made a ‘D’ in the second class. It was horrible.” – John Grisham

These Last Funny Quotes Didn’t Fit the Other Categories. (LOL!)

These last quotes didn’t really fit in any of the other categories. But they are pretty funny. If you can find a way to insert them into your speech, you’re sure to get a laugh or two.

• “It’s hard to be serious when you’re surrounded by balloons.” – Jerry Seinfeld
• “I have six locks on my door, all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.” – Elayne Boosler
• “The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” – Willie Nelson
• “I used to be a heavy gambler. But now I just make mental bets. That’s how I lost my mind.” – Steve Allen

Dad Jokes that You Can Use as Presentation Icebreakers.

Years ago, I taught a leadership class for his team. And at the start of every session, he stood up in front of the group and told a corny Dad joke. The jokes were cringy. But whether the audience laughed or turned up their nose, they all smiled. Over the next few years, I noticed that Ron’s employee turnover was almost zero. It was unheard of in his industry.

It turns out that his team absolutely loved him. He made a tough job much more fun to come to. So, I changed my tune about Dad jokes. Here are a few that you can use to start your next speech or meeting.

Food Public Speaking Jokes

• What do you call fake spaghetti? An impasta.
• Did you hear about the cheese factory explosion? There was nothing left but de-brie.
• What do you call a fish wearing a crown? A kingfish.
• Why did the chicken go to the seance? To talk to the other side.
• What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing, it just let out a little wine.

Science and Technology Jokes.

• Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything.
• I told my computer I needed a break, and now it won’t stop sending me vacation ads.
• Did you hear about the guy who invented Lifesavers? He made a mint.
• How does a penguin build its house? Igloos it together!
• What did one wall say to the other wall? I’ll meet you at the corner!

Academic Jokes for a Presentation.

• Why did the math book look sad? Because it had too many problems.
• Did you hear about the mathematician who’s afraid of negative numbers? He’ll stop at nothing to avoid them.
• What do you call a factory that makes good products? A satisfactory.
• I only know 25 letters of the alphabet. I don’t know y.
• I used to have a job at a calendar factory, but I got fired because I took a couple of days off.

Spooky Jokes

• Why did the skeleton go to the seance? To talk to the other side.
• Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts.
• What did the big flower say to the little flower? “Hi, bud!”
• I went to buy some camouflage pants, but I couldn’t find any.
• What did one hat say to the other hat? Stay here, I’m going on ahead.

Miscellaneous Jokes

• I only know how to make holy water. I boil the hell out of it.
• Why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one.
• Why did the bicycle fall over? It was two-tired.
• What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the closet? Supplies!
• What did the snowman with a six-pack say? An abdominal snowman!

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Funny Presentation Ideas: 33 Ways to Engage Your Audience with Humor and Creativity

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on October 11, 2023

Categories Creativity , Business , Entertainment

Presentations don’t have to be boring; in fact, incorporating humor can make a significant difference in engaging your audience and creating a memorable experience. Funny presentation ideas are a perfect way to add personality and lightheartedness, keeping your viewers entertained while still conveying your message effectively.

By choosing the right topic and presentation style, you can bring out the best in both your content and presentation skills.

Public speaking anxiety is a widespread concern, but injecting humor into your presentations can help alleviate some of the pressure. With a well-crafted and hilarious presentation, you can capture your audience’s attention, forge a connection beyond the presentation slides, and ensure that your main points are retained by your listeners.

Just remember, not all humor will resonate with every audience, so always be mindful of how your jokes and presentation content align with your target demographic.

Key Takeaways

• Humor in presentations helps engage the audience and creates a memorable experience.
• Well-crafted funny presentations can alleviate public speaking anxiety and forge better connections.
• Be mindful of aligning jokes and content with the specific audience for maximum impact.

33 Fun and Creative Presentation Ideas

Here are 33 ideas to make your next presentation more engaging and memorable:

• Use humor and jokes strategically throughout the presentation to lighten the mood. Just don’t overdo it.
• Incorporate funny images, memes, gifs or video clips when relevant.
• Use self-deprecating humor to appear more relatable. Poke fun at yourself.
• Tell a humorous personal anecdote or story that relates to your topic.
• Do a mock award ceremony or give out silly awards to teammates or yourself.
• Role play with someone or use costumes/props to act out scenarios.
• Incorporate playful or quirky fonts, graphics, animations or transitions.
• Challenge your audience with trivia or a game related to your content. Offer prizes.
• Ask unexpected interview questions in a talk show format. Have someone play the role of host.
• Use puppets or mascots as co-presenters to demonstrate concepts.
• Pretend to be an eccentric celebrity and stay in character.
• Trick your audience periodically with fake information to keep them engaged.
• Recreate a funny scene from a movie or TV show with coworkers.
• Make up silly acronyms or mnemonic devices for key points.
• Do wacky product demonstrations or infomercial parodies.
• Show funny workplace videos like training gone wrong.
• Use parody music videos or songs related to your content.
• Develop a humorous slideshow with ridiculous stock photos.
• Incorporate play on words, rhymes or alliteration into titles and text.
• Start with an embarrassing childhood photo of yourself for introductions.
• Compose a funny poem, limerick or song as part of the presentation.
• Play a mock game show like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune or Family Feud.
• Give away weird prizes or treats when people answer questions correctly.
• Use funny props like oversized glasses, nerf toys, magic wands, etc.
• Wear a crazy wig or outfit that relates to your theme.
• Build in physical audience participation exercises.
• Share funny testimonials from satisfied “customers”.
• Develop a hilarious sales pitch skit for your product/service.
• Create caricatures of important figures related to your topic.
• Make funny certificates, awards or prizes for audience members.
• Incorporate memes, gifs and emojis into your visuals.
• Develop a humorous slide deck using an online meme generator.
• Close with a funny blooper reel showing preparation fails.

Understanding the Power of Humor

The Science Behind Laughter

Laughter is a powerful tool that can help you connect with your audience on an emotional level. Scientific research has shown that laughter releases endorphins, which are natural mood enhancers, and also stimulates brain activity.

By incorporating humor into your presentation, you can create a more enjoyable and memorable experience for your audience. It’s important, however, to use humor that is suitable for the occasion and the audience.

Inappropriate or overly complex jokes can backfire and detract from your presentation’s effectiveness.

Engagement Through Entertainment

One of the key components of a successful presentation is engagement. By entertaining your audience, you can capture their attention and make them more receptive to your message.

Humor is one way to achieve this, as laughter can break the ice and create a relaxed atmosphere. To effectively use humor in a presentation, consider the following tips:

• Build rapport by sharing a funny personal story or using self-deprecating humor. This can help your audience relate to you and humanize your message.
• Use visual aids effectively. Adding funny images or memes to your slides can enhance your humor and keep your audience entertained.
• Be mindful of your audience’s background and preferences. What may be funny to one person could be offensive to another. Make sure your jokes are appropriate for your audience and avoid using potentially divisive humor.

By incorporating humor into your presentations, you can create a more engaging and entertaining experience for your audience. In turn, this can help you deliver your message more effectively and leave a lasting impression on your listeners.

Choosing a Presentation Tool

When it comes to creating a funny and engaging presentation, selecting the right tool can make a significant difference. The three main contenders are Microsoft PowerPoint , Google Slides , and Apple Keynote . Let’s dive into their features and understand when to choose each of them.

Microsoft PowerPoint

As part of the Microsoft Office Suite, PowerPoint is the classic choice for creating presentations. Its extensive features allow you to animate slides, add transition effects, and embed multimedia to make your presentation entertaining.

If you have a Microsoft Office subscription, you’ll have access to an extensive library of templates and themes to choose from, making it easier to design a hilarious presentation. PowerPoint is compatible with both Windows and Mac, but it works best on Windows devices.

• Extensive features and animations
• Access to a large library of templates and themes
• Compatible with Windows and Mac (works best on Windows)

Google Slides

Google Slides is a free, web-based tool that comes with your Google account. You can collaborate with others in real-time, making it ideal for those who need to brainstorm or work together on a funny presentation.

While Google Slides might not have as many features as PowerPoint, it offers the necessary tools to create an engaging presentation with a touch of humor. One advantage of using Google Slides is the ability to access and edit your presentation from any device with internet connectivity.

• Free and web-based
• Real-time collaboration
• Accessible from any device with internet connection

Apple Keynote

If you’re an Apple user, Keynote might be your go-to choice for creating presentations. With a wide range of templates and themes, you can craft a visually appealing and funny presentation. Keynote is known for its smooth animations and transitions that can add a touch of humor to your slides.

Keep in mind that Keynote is exclusively available for macOS and iOS devices, so you might face compatibility issues when sharing your presentation with others who use different platforms.

• Smooth animations and transitions
• Exclusively available for macOS and iOS devices
• Compatibility issues when sharing presentations across different platforms

When choosing a presentation tool for your funny presentation, consider your device compatibility, familiarity with the software, and the features you need to create an engaging and entertaining experience for your audience.

The Art of Creating Engaging Slides

Fusing Data and Aesthetics

In order to create engaging slides, it’s crucial to find a balance between data and aesthetics. By using eye-catching PowerPoint templates and well-designed infographics, you can present your information in a visually appealing way.

Infographics are especially helpful for displaying complex data or large sets of information.

To make your presentation stand out, try experimenting with different charts to represent your data. Bar graphs, line charts, and pie charts can all be useful, depending on the type of information you’re presenting. Integrating these visual elements into your presentation theme will ensure that your slides are both informative and attractive to your audience.

Embracing the Unconventional

Sometimes, the key to engaging your audience is by thinking outside the box. Don’t be afraid to embrace unconventional approaches in your presentation. For instance, you can incorporate interactive elements, such as quizzes or polls, to keep your audience interested and involved. These activities can break up the monotony and add a fun twist to your presentation.

When customizing your PowerPoint templates, consider using unique color combinations or interesting visual elements to catch your audience’s attention. Bold typography and creative iconography can also add an extra touch of personality to your slides.

Remember to keep a consistent theme throughout your presentation. This will help your audience follow your content more easily and stay engaged with your message. By combining data, aesthetics, and unconventional elements, you can create a truly memorable and engaging presentation for your audience.

Breathing Life Into Your Presentation

To create an engaging and memorable presentation, it’s essential to incorporate elements that captivate your audience. Two effective ways to achieve this are by adding video elements and setting the mood with background music.

Adding Video Elements

Utilizing videos in your presentation can be a game-changer. You can incorporate filmed sketches and animations that are relevant to your topic. This helps break the monotony while also providing valuable context and entertainment for your audience. Ensure the video clips are short, appropriate, and blend seamlessly into your presentation.

Setting the Mood with Background Music

Incorporating background music into your presentation can help create a comfortable atmosphere and set the tone. Choose tracks that reflect the theme or subject of your talk and evoke the intended emotions. Ensure the volume is kept low to avoid distracting your audience.

Remember, the music should complement, not overpower, your content.

By using these techniques, you’ll engage your audience in a dynamic and enjoyable learning experience.

Harnessing the Power of Popular Trends

Memes in Presentations

Incorporating popular memes into your presentations can be an effective way to engage your audience and showcase your sense of humor. By using well-known, relevant, and humorous images or gifs, you can successfully capture your audience’s attention and create a memorable experience.

To make the most of memes, keep the following tips in mind:

• Choose memes that are widely recognized and easily understood
• Ensure the meme’s content aligns with the message you want to convey
• Be mindful of the timing and placement of memes to maximize their impact

TikTok-Inspired Themes

Another way to infuse some fun into your presentations is by harnessing the power of trends from popular social media platforms like TikTok. TikTok-style themes can add a fresh and exciting touch to your slides, helping you captivate your audience and keep their attention throughout the presentation.

Here are a few ways you can incorporate TikTok-inspired themes:

• Use TikTok’s signature short video format to illustrate key points or share humorous content
• Embrace trendy visual elements like neon colors, bold typography, and dynamic animations
• Consider incorporating popular TikTok challenges or trending hashtags to drive audience participation and engagement

By thoughtfully using popular trends like memes and TikTok-inspired themes, you can create a more entertaining and engaging presentation experience for your audience.

Remember to keep the tone and content appropriate for your specific setting and always ensure that humor supports — rather than distracts from — the core message of your presentation.

Innovative Presentation Ideas

Fun Quiz Nights

Inject some creativity into your presentations by organizing a fun quiz night. You can use tools like Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, or AhaSlides to create engaging and interactive quizzes for your audience. These types of quizzes can provide an enjoyable break from the traditional lecture-style presentations, while still sharing valuable information.

Choose topics that are relevant to your audience and ensure you have a good mix of questions that cater to different knowledge levels. By doing so, your audience will stay engaged, and they might even learn something new.

Themed PowerPoint Nights

Bring some excitement to your presentations with themed PowerPoint nights. This creative idea allows you to design a night around a specific theme or topic and encourages audience participation. For example, you could ask your guests to create their own slideshows around a specific pop culture theme, such as movies, television shows, or books.

This approach not only brings out the creativity in you and your guests but also gives everyone the chance to share their unique perspectives on common interests. Furthermore, it breaks the monotony of standard presentations and invites discussion and debate among the audience members.

Making the Most of Trivia Games

Trivia games offer another opportunity to elevate your innovative presentation ideas. By incorporating trivia into your PowerPoint nights or presentation events, you can create an atmosphere of friendly competition that encourages attendees to pay closer attention to the information being shared.

Moreover, these games can be crafted to test their knowledge in certain areas, making them educational as well as entertaining. To enhance the experience, consider utilizing various multimedia formats such as images, videos, and audio clips.

Additionally, you can use platforms like Kahoot! or Quizizz to create interactive online trivia games that can be easily integrated into your presentation.

Using these creative ideas for your presentation nights will not only make them more enjoyable for everyone involved but will also facilitate better learning and engagement. So, the next time you are tasked with creating a presentation, think beyond the norm and dare to be different with your approach.

Specific Presentation Topics

Reality TV Show Analysis

Are you a fan of reality TV shows and want to dive deeper into the genre?

Analyzing various reality shows can make for an entertaining and informative presentation. Start by picking your favorite series and discuss the key elements that make it appealing to audiences. You can also explore the behind-the-scenes aspects of these shows, such as production, casting, and manipulation.

Throughout your presentation, use visuals like video clips, images, or graphs to help convey your points to your audience.

Discussion on Disney Characters

Delve into the magical world of Disney by examining its iconic characters. This catchy presentation topic allows you to showcase your knowledge of Disney’s vast universe. Choose a handful of memorable characters such as Mickey Mouse, Ariel, or Elsa, and provide a comprehensive analysis of their traits and story arcs.

Highlight their cultural impact, effects on young viewers, or the creative process behind their inception. Enhance the visual appeal of your presentation with eye-catching animations, artwork, or even fun trivia.

Exploring Historical Events

We all know about significant historical events like World War II and the Civil Rights Movement, but have you ever considered putting a humorous spin on history to make it more engaging? Choose lesser-known, quirky events, like the Salem Witch Trials , and present them in a light-hearted manner.

Provide your audience with interesting facts, unique perspectives, and anecdotes. Use multimedia and interactive elements to make your presentation compelling and informative. Please remember though to still treat historical events with respect while adding your humor to the mix.

Keep these presentation topics in mind when you want to craft an engaging and fun experience for your audience. By focusing on your chosen subject and infusing an element of humor, you’ll have a presentation that is enjoyable for everyone involved.

Catering to Different Audiences

Presentations in the Workplace

When preparing a funny presentation for the workplace, it’s essential to strike a balance between humor and professionalism. Use relatable anecdotes, industry-specific jokes, or playful visuals to keep your colleagues entertained while remaining focused on the topic at hand.

Remember to tailor your content to be inclusive and respectful of all attendees.

For example, you could use memes or comic strips in your slides to illustrate a point or emphasize a message. Incorporating these elements can keep your audience engaged and your presentation light-hearted.

Educational Presentations

In the context of educational presentations, humor can be a powerful tool to capture students’ attention and create a memorable learning experience. Start by identifying the age group and level of understanding of your audience, as this will guide your choice of jokes, stories, and visual materials.

For example, you might use puns and wordplay for older students or silly illustrations for younger audiences. Keep in mind the goal of making complex concepts easier to grasp through the use of humor, without sacrificing the accuracy of the information.

Remember, catering to different audiences doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Recognizing the needs, preferences, and expectations of your target audience can help you inject humor into your presentations – be it in the workplace or the classroom.

Closing Thoughts

When it’s time to wrap up your presentation, you want to leave your audience with a memorable impression. A strong closing can help reinforce your key points, engage your audience, and make you appear more confident in your public speaking abilities. Here are a few strategies to consider for closing your presentation with a bang.

One option is to use a snowstorm activity , which encourages audience interaction. Have your participants write down their thoughts or takeaways on a piece of paper, crumple it up, and toss it in the air like a snowball. After people swap and collect the snowballs, ask them to share their findings with the group.

You can also try the High-Five Hustle to energize your listeners. Instruct your audience to stand up and high-five a nearby person, creating a sense of camaraderie and connection in the room.

Another approach is the Summary Close. Summarize the main points you covered in your presentation, which reinforces the information for the attendees. A clear and concise summary will leave a lasting impact.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of strong eye contact during your closing remarks. As you wrap up your talk, make sure to engage the audience with direct eye contact, giving them a sense of your confidence and knowledge on the topic.

Remember, as a presenter, your goal is to captivate your audience. Experiment with these techniques to discover which works best for you, and watch your public speaking skills flourish.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some entertaining topics for a PowerPoint night?

There are numerous entertaining topics you can choose for a PowerPoint night, such as comparing your friends to alcoholic beverages, predicting each friend’s band name, or roasting their zodiac signs. The key is to select subjects that make the audience laugh and spark conversations among your friends.

How can I make my presentation humorous and engaging?

To create a humorous and engaging presentation, use funny images or memes, wordplay, and anecdotes that relate to your topic. Keep the pace lively by switching between different formats like slides, videos, and short quizzes which keeps the audience’s attention and prevents monotony.

What creative ideas can I use for a friends’ presentation night?

For a friends’ presentation night, consider organizing a themed PowerPoint night, creating a guessing game about personal anecdotes, or crafting a presentation about your friend’s former lifetimes. Another option is to play a spin-the-wheel game to determine each person’s topic, which adds an element of surprise and excitement.

How can I incorporate fun elements into a PowerPoint for students?

To make a PowerPoint engaging for students, incorporate interactive elements such as quizzes, puzzles, or ClassPoint extensions. You can also use pop culture references, infographics, and animations to keep the content entertaining. By making your PowerPoint interactive and relatable, you will make learning more enjoyable for your students.

What are some popular PowerPoint night ideas from TikTok?

TikTok has become a treasure trove for PowerPoint night ideas, with users sharing their creative and funny presentations, such as creating tier lists for arbitrary categories, commentary on embarrassing childhood photos, or bizarre hypothetical situations. Browsing the hashtags #PowerPointNight and #PowerPointParty on TikTok can provide you with inspiration and entertainment.

How do I choose a lighthearted subject for a presentation?

When selecting a lighthearted subject for a presentation, think about topics that can make your audience laugh, evoke nostalgia, or spark conversations. Choose something that relates to your audience’s interests, experiences, or preferences. Also, consider funny speech topics that play on current events or popular culture, as this can often generate laughter and enthusiastic discussions.

Humor in Presentations: How to Engage Your Audience

Most presentations are about sharing information and facts with an audience. Needless to say, that can get dull, dry and boring pretty quickly. Humor is a great way to spice up your presentation and keep your audience entertained and engaged.

With the right amount of humor at the right times, you’ll not only keep your audience happy, but increase their interest in your topic, too . In this article, we’ll tell you how to use humor in your presentation.

What exactly is humor and what can it bring to presentations?

In short, humor (lat. umor= liquid; fluid; in ancient times one of the four fluids of the body that were thought to determine a person’s temperament and features) is the ability to evoke laughter. People who make others laugh are often described as humorous.

No matter how dry a topic may be, your audience wants a certain amount of entertainment. When used the right way, so-called infotainment (a mix of entertainment and expertise) can earn you extra points with your audience.

Humorous presentations aren’t about acting the clown  

Humor and gravitas don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Using humor doesn’t mean that you’ll come across as less credible. However, it’s important to be authentic. A humorous presentation isn’t about being as funny as possible or pretending to be funny, but about presenting your personal sense of humor appropriately.

Especially during the longest part of a presentation – the main part – humor can really help. There’s no need for an audience to be roaring with laughter; a simple smile will show they’re enjoying themselves.

Know your audience to best use humor in your presentations

Knowing your audience is key to using humor effectively in presentations. After all different factors, such as social status and occupation, influence a person’s sense of humor.

Sometimes understanding certain jokes requires a specific vocabulary or knowledge, which not all audiences can be expected to have. To make sure your audience understands your humor, it can help to ask yourself who your audience is before you present.

Avoid putting your foot in your mouth with inappropriate jokes by think about what style of humor works best for the industry you’re presenting in. Also, consider the right moments to add a humorous remark or anecdote in your presentation.

How to add humor to presentations

The most important quality which will help you with humor in presentations is authenticity. So, what does that mean? Simply put, authenticity means staying true to your own personality, values and spirit, regardless of the situation you’re in. Being authentic will go a long way to finding the right humor for your presentations.

Analogies, such as comparisons and metaphors, are ideal for simplifying and explaining complex relationships. You can use them to illustrate content in a fun way and at the same time, show your audience that you know your stuff.

Using language as your means to an end can also be effective . Double-entendres are a great way to pepper your presentation with some humor. A double-entendre is like a pun and comes from French, meaning double understanding . “Being in debt attracts a lot of interest from bankers” and “Effective publicity in the bicycle industry depends on having a good spokesperson” are two examples of double-entendres. Although pretty corny, they can illicit more than as few chuckles from an audience.

Tell stories and use rhymes to reach your audience

Telling stories of your own experiences can help you engage your audience on an emotional level. When you add a little humor to bring a story to life, your audience will relate to it more than they would to dry information.

A rhyme also has a better chance of being remembered by your audience. Not only are rhymes easy to remember but with the right touch of humor, they also become amusing. A rhyme makes it easier to remember and internalize important information.

You audience shouldn’t be able to see a pun or a joke coming from a mile away. Make sure there is an element of surprise to your humor. Catching your audience a little bit off guard is a great way to get them laughing and smiling.

Avoid these mistakes when using humor in presentations

Although many jokes and quips are funny, it’s imperative that your humor doesn’t attack or offend anyone during presentations. No matter what your intention, avoid any comments or jokes that may come off as sexist, racist, political or discriminatory in any other way.

Keep in mind that not everyone in the audience will share your views, so avoid any comment that may appear to discriminate against certain groups.

Incorporate a good dose of humor into your presentations

Humor can make any presentation more interesting and animated. The key is not to turn your presentation into a comedy show, but to inject an appropriate amount of humor into the right places.

You can find more tips for humor in presentations here .

If you have any questions about our blog or general questions about PowerPoint and presentations, feel free to contact us at [email protected] . We’d be happy to help.

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7 Tips For Adding Humor to a Presentation

• August 15, 2023
• Kevin Lerner

If you’re looking to capture the heart and soul of your audience and make your presentation stand out from the others, a little humor can add a lot of emotion and dimension to your content and delivery. Here are 7 Tips for adding humor to a presentation…

Adding humor to a presentation is generally easy.  Simply find a section of your presentation that’s dry and monotonous and use a “delivery device” (from earlier) that with strengthen your presentation.  Try a brief and relevant comment or story. 

You don’t need to be a comedian to make your audience laugh…and they don’t even need to laugh for your humor to be effective.  Just take your talk lightly for a moment, and just be you.  Even if you’re making fun of yourself with a self-deprecating joke, you’ll bring a level of authenticity to your presentation that will help unite and connect.

Here are some overall tips for using humor in a presentation:

Use humor to inspire, unite, and motivate.

Humor isn’t just making your audience laugh.  It can serve to inspire, unite, and motivate.  You’re not just there to talk, but to share your perspective – amplified by humor – about your subject and to help them understand and act on it.  For example, if you’re talking about getting audience members trained on new software and they feel some concern and need motivation, try a short one-liner like, “Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss’s job.” Don’t just look at yourself as a Subject Matter Expert….but as a motivational leader.

Leave people with a positive feeling

Business presentations can sometimes be critical and divisive.  Humor has the ability to deflect criticism and diffuse a negative tone by uniting people with lightness.  Humor in business presentations can help bridge gaps of uncertainty and negativity.  Humor has a time and a place in business presentations.  Try not to deflect the seriousness of a heavy topic with a silly joke or trivial response.  But if you feel it’s appropriate, aim to lift the spirits of your audience with a little laughter.  Humor in presentations – at the right time and place – can help people feel a little more positive with an underlying message of, “things might be seriously sour, but we’re going to get through together with a smile.”

Transition from one topic to another with Humor

Humor can serve as a terrific transition from one section / topic to another and set the foundation for the next portion of your presentation.  Nobody wants to hear a speaker talk continuously about a boring topic.  A light funny story or comment helps buttress the key sections and topics in your presentation, and just like a revitalizing breath – gives your audience a mental break. 

Use humor to reduce nervousness

If you’re nervous about delivering your presentation, humor can help.  Laughter calms nerves and releases hormones that can help you to relax while building a bond between you and your audience.  View your audience as friends rather than critical colleagues.  Look them in the eyes, relax, smile, and share your message with humor. 

Deliver humor with humility and avoid arrogance

A presentation with humor should build a bond between you and your audience.  Aim to deliver any presentation with a sense of humility.  You’re not sharing a joke to raise your ego, but to connect with your audience through a shared human experience.  Avoid arrogance and ego-fueled humor.  Comments and jokes that are critical of others or make people laugh at the expense of someone else can be divisive and affect the impact of your overall presentation.

Smile and laugh with your audience

Laughter is contagious.  Don’t just share your joke and wait for your audience to laugh.  In-person or virtually, get into the act and smile and laugh with them.  Your unspoken cues of smiles and laughter will drive a two-way connection to deliver laughter and an added dimension of connection to your presentation.

Memorize and practice your funny stuff

Presenting humor and laughing matter to an audience is a delicate art of quality content and careful delivery.  Although you can extemporaneously deliver the core of your presentation, it’s better to memorize your humorous content and practice its delivery.  Great material often sounds impromptu, but it is rarely so.  By rehearsing your funny-stuff, you can refine the content, feel more comfortable with it, and determine whether it’s appropriate for your audience.  Practice makes perfect.

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7 Ways to Use Humor in Your Presentation

The recent surge in video conferencing brought on by the COVID pandemic has provided a wealth of comedic material for social media – from bosses transforming themselves into potatoes to Saturday Night Live’s take on the ubiquitous Zoom call , and many fails and awkward moments in between.

my boss turned herself into a potato on our Microsoft teams meeting and can’t figure out how to turn the setting off, so she was just stuck like this the entire meeting pic.twitter.com/uHLgJUOsXk — Rachele with 1 L & 2 E’s but pronounced Rachel (@PettyClegg) March 30, 2020

And the memes and tweets keep coming as the video conferencing fatigue deepens. We now even have a new emoji sticker about making video calls in your underwear.

Humor, of course, is a great elixir to take the edge off during times of trouble or uncertainty. But it can be a high-risk, high-reward tool that needs to be deployed with care.

Here are seven ways to wield it.

1. Remember: You Are Not Doing Stand-up

Funny dinner guests and the co-worker who keeps fellow office mates laughing do not earn their humorous reputations by firing off dozens of one-liners or riffing on a particular subject the way top stand-up comics do. Rather, they spot the humor that exists in everyday situations and convey that through funny conversational observations.

It’s a formula that works well for most presentations – think humor, not jokes. Your audience is not expecting an open-mic night, but certainly will appreciate a speaker who can successfully deliver funny asides, amusing stories, wry comments, irresistible ironies, and memorable quips.

However, being funny simply for the sake of being funny doesn’t help you. As a presenter, the humor you use should serve your message – providing context and depth to your main points. It also is an effective tool to incorporate into your opening or close . You just don’t want your audience remembering your jokes at the expense of your key message.

Overall, the humor you use in your presentation should serve to enhance and illustrate the points you are trying to make. When used well, humor also can help you to poke fun at human foibles without sounding critical, encourage your audience to question long-standing assumptions without threatening their beliefs, and offer fresh insights into old ideas.

In his TED talk, The Happy Secret to Better Work , psychologist and bestselling author Shawn Achor successfully employed humor throughout his talk, including his opening. He enlisted a funny anecdote (it runs from about 0:10 to 3:05) to capture his audience’s attention and bring them to the very heart of his talk. During his opening, he employs a story that many of us can relate to. He offers funny asides. And, his humorous story effectively illustrates the main theme of his speech. Here it is:

2. Don’t knock your credibility

Self-effacing humor is one thing. In fact, in one study , business leaders who poked fun at themselves were seen as more trustworthy and caring by their employees. But it’s a fine line between laughing at your own expense and putting a ding in your expertise. Stay away from humor that questions your credibility or downplays the topic of your talk. You also don’t want to bring attention to your weaknesses ( “I’ve never done a virtual presentation before, so good luck to us all!” ).

3. Keep it appropriate

In real life, the jokes cast by fictitious Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott, played by Steve Carrell in the television show “The Office,” would have been a nightmare for any real-life human resources specialist. Don’t be Michael Scott. Overall, it’s best to steer clear of edgy, off-color, political, or profane humor.

If you are not a full-time comic, you might be stressed about finding inspiration for your humorous asides and anecdotes. Don’t worry, there is appropriate material all around you. The best material comes from everyday, real-life experiences you and the audience can relate to. Perhaps you had a funny exchange with a client, or your kid offered up a funny or ironic observation without realizing it. Maybe you want to recall an innocent blunder on your first day on the job, which wasn’t funny then but is hilarious now. Or, you saw a sign with a funny or contradictory saying. Think about material that doesn’t make you cringe.

If you need inspiration, comedian Brian Regan has built a nearly 25-year career on funny, wry observations about life that don’t require a parental advisory.

4. Avoid sarcasm

Sarcastic people can indeed be funny, but it’s all in the context . Inherently, sarcasm can be difficult to interpret, given you are saying one thing but actually meaning the opposite. It’s like an inside joke. It might go over well if everyone is in on it. If not, it could lead to conflict or hurt feelings.

5. Be confident

You won’t have to worry about hecklers, but your audience will sense if you are hesitant about delivering your punch line. If you are funny, play to your strengths. Deliver your funny anecdote with a confidence and ease that suggests you are having as much fun telling it as you hope your audience is having by hearing it.

If you are hesitant about sharing your own personal stories or are struggling to come up with material, you can always borrow material and pass it along – whether that’s a funny story you heard, a witty cartoon, or a famous humorous line. That fact that you know it is funny makes you humorous even if you are not the creator.

In his TED Talk Do schools kill creativity? which has been seen by more than 66 million people, Ken Robinson , an educator and bestselling author, offers a great example of how to borrow and deliver a great story. It starts around the 3:20 mark:

6. Not all humor has to be said

Unless you are talking about a super-serious subject, you can probably slip a funny slide into your deck. Perhaps you plant a quote from an unlikely source. Or, you show a prediction that has since been proven to be wildly off. The idea is to offer something unexpected. That’s what jogs your audience out of its doldrums.

7. Embrace the Silence

The success of any funny comment during an in-person presentation is gauged by the laughter you get from your audience. I’d hazard a guess that even the canniest and most confident comic might be thrown by telling a joke to a crowd on mute. If you plan on being humorous during an online presentation, and your audience can’t be seen or heard, make sure that you won’t be thrown by this lack of laughter. Deliver the punch line and move on. It keeps it from getting awkward.

In other words, deliver the humor as if you are not expecting a laugh. If there is a laugh, treat it as a delightful surprise. If there’s not, it doesn’t matter because the line you delivered carried a message that made it through anyway. It’s only when you pause, as if you’re expecting a laugh, and you don’t get one that it becomes problematic. That said, if you are doing an in-person talk (or you can hear your online audience), and you get those laughs, let them breathe. If you rumble into your next points, the audience may not hear you. Or, they may feel as if they should abruptly stop their laughter which defeats the purpose of using humor!

Ready for Success

Perhaps you are naturally funny but a little rehearsal couldn’t hurt. Test out your funny comments on a few friends or trusted colleagues. You’ll be happy to find out before you tell it if it lands as you intended. Even Jerry Seinfeld tests out his material. 

And if you are offering a virtual presentation, make sure you have a firm grip on the technology and know how to use it . You don’t want to be the potato.

• Brian Regan
• Jerry Seinfeld
• Ken Robinson
• presentation skills training
• Shawn Achor
• using humor in your presentation
• virtual presentations

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Ace the Presentation

A 9 Step Guide to Using Humor in Speeches

During a presentation, small touches of humor, added to the main subject, can attract and captivate your audience, helping, including forming ideas of people who are participating.

Compelling speakers don’t tell jokes to get laughs. Instead, they use humor to illustrate their message; in this article, we will give you some tips to help you include and understand the importance of humor in your speeches.

Highly Recommended Articles:

5 Top Qualities of Effective and Memorable Speakers

Entertaining Speeches: How to Give one and Examples of Topics

1. Don’t bet it all at first

Under the justification of “breaking the ice,” there are those who sketch some classic joke in the first seconds of the presentation. Unfortunately, if you are adept at this practice, red light, this strategy can lead to a scenario of perverse self-sabotage.

At the beginning of the presentation, the adrenaline levels tend to be higher, and the insecurity is latent. Because of this, if the audience’s reaction to playing is frustrating right away, all of their strategies to captivate it may be compromised.

“If the joke isn’t funny, you’ll be destabilized. Prefer to leave the more classic jokes to the middle of the presentation, when your security is already consolidated.” 

Reinaldo Polito in How to Conquer and Influence People

But if you are perceived as a humorous person and feel able to use humor, take your chances. If you make that decision, don’t forget that there are key moments to use humor, usually during the introduction or completion of your speech.

2. Observe and write down

Start by paying attention to the things that make you laugh; observe the world around you in search of funny moments, and in this way, you will find countless ways to use humor.

Every time you think or notice something fun that might be useful, write it down somewhere, whether on your phone or a piece of paper, so you don’t forget it later.

3. Be natural

One of the most important things when using good humor is to use it naturally. If you have a more severe and formal speech, making a very stripped-down speech might not go over well.

In such cases, prefer to play subtle games that can be processed quickly to go ahead with the core issue; if your speech is more informal and relaxed, let your speech flow and wait for the right moment.

4. Use Pauses and tone of voice

Pause and tone of voice during a speech make all the difference; a suitable delay helps to create curiosity in the audience. And then, when you’re finishing a sentence, use the voice intonation to make a significant impact.

Rhythm, intonation, and pauses are critical elements that can make the mood take off or sink, and mastering them in a specific story requires trial and error. So don’t risk using humor in an entire audience before being sure that you will present it well, based on numerous essays. 

This combination creates emphasis on speech and greater public involvement. So you can also give people time to laugh and enjoy the moment.

5. Juggle with the negative

If you’re in a difficult situation, with something on your shirt or somehow getting the audience’s attention for something other than your story, learn how to use it to your advantage.

Reverse this situation and take advantage of your own mistakes to make people laugh. Self-mocking adverse events can help you, but you need sensitivity to do it at the right time.

Charlie Chaplin once said:

“to make people laugh, you need to know how to take your pain and play with it.”

6. Consider your qualities

Humor should be naturally used in oratory, so if that’s not your speaking style, trying to force it can make the moment awkward. That’s because humor and play need to be aligned with your tone of voice, posture, and body language.

If you want to develop this skill, start by training in front of the mirror, with family and friends, until it becomes natural.

Even if humor is not a natural skill for you, you can develop it through training and practice; so if you want to have a more cheerful and relaxed speech, start working on it.

7. Take into account the culture of the public.

To make a presentation without analyzing, in detail, the characteristics of the audience; before making a presentation, you need to look very carefully at your audience. Imagine arriving and finding all the local people with their arms crossed and their faces closed.

The joke you were preparing may be funny to your friends, but it will not always have the same reaction to your company’s speech delivery; for example, geographical and cultural differences also weigh as a mood thermometer.

The more you know about your audience, the more refined your mood can be. So, find out everything you can about demographic composition, interests, political leanings, favorite teams – absolutely everything you can get.

 Each group or organization has its history, which can be studied, procedures, rituals, and specific individuals can be fertile soil for humor.

8. Be clear with gestures or facial expressions.

After finishing a funny comment, it is unnecessary to justify yourself with the classic phrase: “It was a joke” or the variant “prank.” Instead, according to Reinaldo Polito, the way to sharpen the content of your body expressions should make it clear that this is a joke.

The audience needs to make sure you’re not serious; according to the expert, the idea is to intensify this the lower the level of instruction of the audience.

9. Don’t run away from the context of your presentation

As we mentioned in earlier paragraphs, humor only has the desired effect if people understand the irony and comical tenor of what is being said. Even if the public does not know that this is a comic excerpt, it may draw literal conclusions about what is being said, harming the communicator’s image.

For humor to be, in fact, understandable, avoid running away from the topic. It is useless to interrupt your speech and tell a random joke. Instead of retaining the public’s attention, you, the communicator, will be interrupting a thought and sabotaging your speech.

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HOW CAN I HAVE A SUCCESSFUL SPEECH USING HUMOR?

A successful speech using humor depends on your ability to handle comic material in the best possible way; how often have you heard a person tell a long, complicated joke to swallow the ending and ruin the story? The same thing can happen with a short joke or even with a tirade.

Is there an ideal audience for a humorous oratory?

A technical presentation may not be a subject for jokes, but the audience may need a few laughs precisely because of the barren nature of the issue. With practice and experience, one can learn to properly evaluate each area, and as a result, his/her speaker stature will grow.

3 Basic Principles to keep in mind when using Humor in Speeches:

• First , making sure the joke is appropriate to the situation and actually funny. If the speaker does not think something is funny, then it can’t be expected that the public will find it interesting;
• Second , before employing humor in a speech, test, or rehearse with friends or a small group of people. Even if the experiment doesn’t work right away, don’t give up too quickly; It may take some time for you to feel comfortable with a story. It would be best if you used humor in a speech only after you get it done calmly and after testing it several times;
• Third , make sure the humor is related to the content of your presentation; humor should not be an end in itself; Making your audience laugh is a good thing, but it is not the reason why you stand before it; if you don’t tie humor to the main subject, the audience might laugh, but they’ll be wondering what you mean.

When we have been invited to inform and instruct an audience, we may likely need/want to entertain them because in doing so, you will have more success in our main task, which is to deliver a speech.

However, we forget that humor is not the end in itself; it has to reinforce why we are in front of the audience, and our presentation has to show that we understand that.

Reference and Further Reading

Frantically Speaking. A Guide to Using Humor in your Speech.

Write it out loud. How to use humor in speeches.

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Before starting his presentation on the topic ‘Witty and Wise’, Ranbir tells his audience a story about the famous Thomas Edison–

Thomas Edison was a great scientist and inventor. He was always looking for smart, open-minded young scientists to work for him on his many inventions. Whenever he met someone he thought might make a good candidate, he would take them to dinner. Yes! You heard me right! Dinner interview. The result was not decided until the food arrived. Edison would watch what the inventor did when the food arrived. If the applicant tasted his food and then salted it, he was seen as a good fit for his team. If he salted his food before tasting it, the young man was not hired.  Edison knew that people who did things automatically and made presumptions without knowledge would not be able to look at problems and find innovative solutions. Delectably witty.. isn’t it?

After the presentation, he mentioned that the audience enjoyed the story and it put him also at great ease when he saw their eyes glitter up with smiles and chuckles.

Whether you are making a presentation or delivering a speech, humour serves as a powerful tool for engaging the audience. It helps in inviting their attention, facilitate better learning, and invite appreciation. It ensures that the audience remembers you and the message delivered by you for a longer time. After all, who does not enjoy lighter moments!?

What to include and exclude?

Including humour in presentations and speeches can be a tricky situation

Following pointers can help you understand what to pick and what not to go for.

Use Anecdotes: Research suggests that humorous anecdotes  and stories tend to have a more meaningful impact than jokes. They provide scope for smoother delivery in comparison to jokes because not every professional is a comedian.

Play safe: Include humour from your own area of work and expertise. In case the audience is not from your field of expertise, then try to be careful while including humour. Don’t include something too technically related to their field as it might not be well received. This also applies to presentations where humor might not be much of application. So, don’t try to fit it in when it isn’t relevant and required.

Laugh at yourself: Including humorous life incidents helps in setting a good rapport with the audience. It helps the audience to know you and also provides an impression of an openness in your personality as you are initiating with a humour about yourself. The tricky part about this kind of humour is to choose what your audience would relate to as this helps them build an empathetic connection with you and makes them more receptive to what you speak.

“I say here that I am a man who is used to stress.  My wife…  She has a credit card (pause and look away, then look back) ….In MY name.”

Be professional: Remember that you are not a comedian but a professional including humour to engage his audience! Try to include humour that has a standard suited to your audience. Use words, phrases, jargon, appropriately. Make sure it does not become shallow or vulgar in any way. Avoid double meanings, as they might come across as indelicate.

Learn about the technicalities:  Try to learn about different styles of injecting humour. These could be exaggerations, puns, playing with words, laughing about yourself, etc. Use them wisely to reap their benefits.

How to position humour in your presentation

Another tricky question you might face when you think of including humour is – whether to start the presentation with humour or include it in the flow, or end it with humour?

Research suggests that humour can be a good tool to start off with as it helps build a connection with the audience, and also gives them that feeling of, “This is going to be nice!” , “He is witty!” , “what an amazing start!”.

“ At the very start, let me say that we both have something in common. You don’t know what I’m going to say… and neither do I. ”  -Robert Orben,  Speaker’s Handbook of Humour If you are given a terrible introduction:   “ Sometimes I wish I was one of those men (women) who need no introduction. ” -Roger Langley

It can also be used at points during the presentation with relation to particular aspects being discussed. Here it helps break the monotony, invites attention and can be a good way of facilitating better learning of concepts too.

A speaker talking about eliminating those people who won’t subscribe to the team spirit said … “ We used to say on the farm that you can’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time – and it irritates the hell out of the pig.”  -Gene Perret, How to Hold your Audience with Humour

You can also certainly end on a humorous note. If placing humour towards the end, do ensure that it has a clear point and take away message for the audience and leaves your mark on their minds.

“ Ladies and gentlemen you’ve no idea how it feels to come to the end of another brilliantly written and impeccably delivered speech. Actually… neither do I. ”

Some useful Tips:

• Make sure you practise well.
• Provide references when you have borrowed from a resource. Stay ethical!
• Extras are always welcome. Keep some backup.
• Deliver humour as per the responses from the audience.
• Be authentic: it should not appear that you are doing something that does not go with your genuine pe rsona.

NOTE: Don’t try too hard. Don’t be under the pressure to include humour. Do what naturally comes to you. Be more authentic.

So, utilise humour wisely and it shall work wonders for you. 

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Should You Use Humor in Your Presentations?

Funny Presentations: They’re the Ones You Remember

One of the most powerful communication tools you can use to deliver your message is humor. It’s what makes you real. And when it’s used appropriately, it can be one of the most effective ways to make your presentation memorable.

Why do I say “when used appropriately?” Because there is such thing as too much of a good thing. Your presentation can’t be one joke after another–you’re not there to put on a stand-up comedy routine. No, when I say you have to use presentation humor appropriately, I mean you should use it to break up tension or offer a brief release from the intensity of your presentation. The average human adult can focus their attention for about five minutes, so it’s a good rule of thumb to add a humorous element to your speech at least that often. This breaks up your presentation into manageable chunks of time (in terms of your listener’s attention span) to keep your audience interested so that you have their focus for another five minutes.

Use Humor in a Business Presentation

Unless your business is selling clown costumes (and really, even if it is) business presentations are heavy. They’re laden with numbers and facts and all sorts of jargon. It’s easy for all of that serious business talk to cause a person’s attention span to bottom out. That’s why using humor in a business presentation is just as important as adding it to an informative or instructional presentation.

The best time to deliver a serious point—one you really want to drive home with your listeners—is right after they laugh. Why? Because laughing is a tension reliever. When your audience is relaxed and attentive, you can hit them with something you really want them to remember.

How to Use Humor in Presentations

For presentation humor to be effective, you need to plan for it . Sure, there are times when you can ad lib (like when something unexpectedly goes wrong—humor can be a great way to recover from a presentation mishap), but it really should be an element that you plan and execute deliberately.

Part of the planning process is knowing the audience will “get” your humor. Jokes that reference pop culture won’t get the same response from a group of seniors as they will from a room full of teenagers. A quip about ledgers and income statements will be lost on people who don’t know the first thing about accounting. Take the demographics and general interests of your audience into consideration. Everyone loves a good laugh—so the more information you have on your listeners, the easier it will be to tickle their funny bones. Needs a few ideas on how exactly you can add some humor to your next presentation? Try these:

Personal anecdotes: The easiest (and usually best) person to poke fun at is yourself. Share a personal story that will lend itself to the point you’re trying to make. Personal stories are always full of funny details, and when you talk about something that’s happened to you, people can relate sometimes that’s the whole reason the story is funny.

The best part of using a story from the pages of your own life is you already know how to tell it because you’ve probably been sharing it for years (unless it’s something that happened on the way to the presentation). If sharing a story based on your personal experience is going to help make a point in your presentation, use it!

Funny quotes:  Did you know that the Beatles songs “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Eight Days a Week” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” came from Ringo Starr mixing up his words? People say the darnedest things and it can be pure gold—just ask the Fab Four.

Find a funny quote that lends itself to your topic, and use it at the appropriate time. Jump on Google and search for “funny quotes,” but remember to do your homework and verify that a) the quote is accurate; and b) it’s attributed to the correct person.

Funny analogies:  Winston Churchill once said “a good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” This is a double whammy—not only is that a funny quote, but it’s a great analogy, too.

An analogy draws a comparison between two different objects or concepts in order to highlight some sort of similarity. They’re not always easy to come up with yourself, so listen to what the people around you are saying. When you hear a funny analogy, make note of it. Even if it’s not perfect for your presentation, you can always swap out a few words or facts that will make it work.

Cartoons: If you’re going to use Powerpoint for your presentation, the least you could do is add a funny cartoon or two to your slides. How many times have you been talking to someone and the conversation reminds of you of a funny cartoon or meme you saw on Facebook? Why can’t that be the same for a presentation?  Whatever your topic, there’s a good chance there’s a funny cartoon floating around about it. Visual aids are great for public speaking—and if they’re funny, even better.

Funny Signs:  I recently saw a sign outside of a local greenhouse read, “Spring is here! We’re so excited, we wet our plants.” It’s a great play on words, but it’s also a funny sign—and a memorable one at that. There are probably five nurseries within about a 10-block area, but the one I remember the most—and its exact location—is the one with that sign out front.

Funny signs are everywhere. Once I saw a “Dead End” sign posted next to a cemetery. (OK, maybe that one was more ironic than it was funny.) The point is, if you keep your eyes open, great material is out there, and it’s all up for grabs for your next presentation.

Use Presentation Humor Sparingly

Humor is a great way to break the ice with your audience, to keep your listeners interested, and to ensure your presentation is memorable, but don’t feel like you have to be a comedian. A few well-placed jokes to show your human side is all you really need.

If you’re not sure who will be in the audience, stick to humor that won’t isolate or target a segment of the audience, and pick “clean” jokes that don’t rely on profanity to make a point. And no matter what, your humor should never be at the expense of others.

Do you use humor in your presentations? Is it effective? Tell us about it in the comment section. And don’t forget we are always posting useful public speaking tips on our social media channels, so be sure to follow us on Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn or Google+.

10 Comments

Some great tips here. Thanks Mike…I recently attended one you workshops and it was nothing like I expected. It was entertaining and that’s what made it memorable. I’ve been slowly trying to add some humor into my presentations and it seems to draw the audience in. Thanks again

I have never been one to use humor though I wish I knew how. I tried a few times and it just ended awkwardly. Someone else I work with, a man names Stuart Williams… He does this effortlessly. He said you have to work with what you have worked with, in other words… Make fun of your own experiences.

Great advice on using humor in a presentation. Thanks!

This is absolutely true. There are way too many dry, boring presentations. The ones I remember are the ones I have truly enjoyed, and without exception, they’ve all be presentations where the speaker was funny and personable. That alone kept me engaged.

Agreed, a little levity goes a long way toward keeping the interest of your peeps

I think humor, in almost any situation, makes life a bit better. So I definitely agree that it’s appropriate in a business presentation. But yes — plan it ahead and be careful not to do it at anyone’s expense. Don’t go into Michael Scott territory:P

Great blog!

I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to add a little humor, as long as it’s appropriate and in good taste.

I find humor is a tough skill to master if you don’t know who’s in the audience. People can be really sensitive!

Presentations that don’t have any humor are so hard to pay attention. I easily find myself drifting off and not tracking with the speaker. Bad Presentations!

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7 ways to successfully add humor to a presentation

You don’t have to be a comedian to pull laughs from your audience. Show your funny side effectively and tastefully by heeding this advice.

Many experts recommend opening a presentation with a funny story, joke, quote or prop.

Why not? Humor can engage an audience, add lightness to a heavy subject and increase listeners’ recall.

Yep, humor can be a great opener—when it works.

Few things will suck the confidence out of you faster than beginning with a joke or story that bombs, annoys or confuses your audience.

Using humor in a presentation isn’t without risk, so be smart about exposing your funny side by following these tips:

1. Make your jokes relevant.

I once heard a speaker tell a story about his dog’s obsession with his daughter’s goldfish. The tale was funny, cute and heartwarming. Unfortunately, however, the audience’s smiles turned to stony glares after he clapped his hands together and said, “OK, so let me tell you a little bit about our company.”

Humor for humor’s sake is rarely welcome in business. If you don’t connect your joke to your presentation’s topic or audience, you’ll annoy your listeners and waste their time.

2. Limit sarcasm.

Some people love sarcasm, but others find it negative and grating. Use sarcasm sparingly, appropriately and only if you have a good read on your audience. (See tip No. 7.)

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to use humor and wit in a presentation

How to use humor and wit in a presentation

There are few things that people can relate to more than humor. It’s the basis for a personal connection and it can be both unexpected and memorable, while making an impact to your subject. Consider adding humor to presentations but avoid cliched pratfalls that can backfire on you with these tips for reaching your audience.

How to find your sense of humor in your subject

Mark Twain once said, “Explaining humor is a lot like dissecting a frog: you learn a lot in the process, but in the end, you kill it.”

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

The legendary humorist would have known a thing or two himself about what makes people laugh. His point, perhaps, is that humor is subjective: you have your own sense about what makes you laugh, and compared to your friends and loved ones, it may differ by levels of raunchiness, dry wit, irony, or sarcasm.

That said, you will need to tailor any humor you insert into your presentation to your audience. Bawdy jokes won’t make sense in front of an academic setting, of course. And inside jokes won’t make sense to anyone who don’t share it.

Don’t overdo it

You’re not doing a standup comedy routine, so you shouldn’t inundate every slide with jokes. Use humor like an exotic spice: Sprinkle it in every once in a while, and it’ll be more appreciated.

How to use humor in a presentation

Here are some ideas on how to use humor in various types of presentations:

• In a more formal presentation, tongue-in-cheek humor can be effective in breaking the mold of a staid topic.
• In a highly scientific presentation, highly specific jokes can reach your audience. If you’re giving a chemistry presentation and no one laughs at your jokes, keep telling them until you get a reaction. (Hey, they can’t all be winners.)
• Like in all forms of comedy, delivery is everything. Whether you’re going for a deadpan sense of humor or acting over-the-top, this is a time to consider your audience when you’re presenting.
• Wordplay is a double-edged sword: it can be clever, or it can be groan-worthy. A bad pun can always be used as a form of ironic humor, especially if it matches your own personality.

Use visual aids

Funny images and GIFs can go a long way to injecting humor as a welcome break for your audience—especially if they’re relevant to your presentation. You can differentiate topics and structures in your presentation through an image or meme (that you can easily create on Teams ), and it’s easy to insert multimedia in PowerPoint .

Don’t talk down or tease anyone

Humor is a way to relieve tension, especially if delivering less than pleasant news (such as business earnings). But punctuating negative topics with a joke can backfire. Ill-advised humor can make people feel bad, especially if you single one person out—you’re not here to roast anyone, and an ill-conceived joke can raise the attention of those around you.

When you choose to inject humor into your presentation, you are on a stage, of sorts, and you have a captive audience. This is a lot of power that can define your personality in front of peers and higher-ups.

Because humor is so subjective and you cannot please everyone with your personal tastes, it helps to play it safe. That’s why humor takes an additional level of planning on top of structuring your presentation, alleviating public speaking anxiety , and telling an argumentative or persuasive narrative. It can be done, and when done right, it can create a truly memorable experience for your audience that will reinforce your presentation. For more tips on how to drive your point home to your audience, check out Microsoft 365’s presentation tips and tricks .

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A Study on Instructional Humor: How Much Humor Is Used in Presentations?

Vera paola shoda.

1 Center for Computational Social Science (CCSS), Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, 2-1 Rokkodai, Nada, Kobe 657-8501, Japan

2 Degree Programs in Systems and Information Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Technology, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, Japan

Toshimasa Yamanaka

3 Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8577, Japan; pj.ca.abukust.ustujieg@mayt

Associated Data

The data presented in this study are openly available on Kaggle at https://kaggle.com/vpshoda/instructional-humor-research (accessed on 23 November 2021).

Humor is applied in pedagogy to create a positive learning environment. Recent research focuses on the theories, effects, individual differences, and qualitative aspects of humor for instruction. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on quantitative features. Therefore, this research explored the quantitative characteristics of instructional humor in a naturalistic setting and applied techniques from natural language processing (NLP). This paper describes the results of two studies. The first study focused on instructional humor frequency and the placement of humor, while the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor were compared in the second study. Two corpora were used in this research: TED Talks and user-submitted jokes from “stupidstuff.org” The results found that educators used humor 12.92 times for popular talks, while less popular talks only had 3.92 times. Humor is also more commonly placed during the first parts of the talk and lessens toward the end. There were also significant differences between the linguistic features of instructional and non-instructional humor in terms of readability scores and sentiment. These results provide a substantial update on quantitative instructional humor research and help educators understand how to use humor in the classroom in terms of quantitative and linguistic features.

1. Introduction

Educators face the challenge of creating a learning environment that is advantageous to student learning. Especially with the rapid changes and advances in society, new methodologies and tools for education are highly valuable. Humor is an essential tool used by educators to improve the learning environment of their students. The use of humor is a prevalent communication behavior in pedagogical settings. In 1983, Robinson argued that “What is learned with laughter is learned well.” [ 1 ] (p. 121). Likewise, much research provides evidence that humor positively affects student learning [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Therefore, research in instructional humor is significant to educators.

1.1. Definition and Theories of Humor

Researchers define humor in a variety of ways. According to Scheel [ 15 ], superiority, incongruity, and arousal relief are the most popular theories in humor research. Superiority theory, which has been prevalent since the time of Plato and Aristotle, explains that laughter is an effect of a feeling of superiority due to the depreciation of other people [ 16 ]. Incongruity theory argues that something is perceived as humorous when there is a contradiction or unexpected outcome [ 17 ]. In the arousal theory, Berlyne [ 18 ] said that “Humorous situations always contain factors that can be expected to raise arousal and other factors that can be expected to lower arousal or else keep it within moderate bounds.” [ 18 ] (p. 861). Another interesting theory in humor research is the anxiety theory, which states that laughter results from tension release [ 19 ].

1.2. Humor and Laughter

Laughter is more ancient than humor or speech [ 20 ] and is considered a social stimulus [ 21 ]. Similarly, laughter is also defined as a component of a universal language of basic emotions, which all people have in common and recognize [ 22 , 23 ]. According to Willman, “Laughter occurs when a total situation causes surprise, shock, or alarm, and at the same time induces an antagonistic attitude of playfulness or indifference.” [ 24 ] (p. 70). Several works in humor recognition have used laughter to indicate an instance of humor [ 25 , 26 ]. However, literature is divided on the relationship between humor and laughter. Some researchers argue that laughter is a physical manifestation of humor, while others believe the opposite. Laughter is a phonetic activity, while humor is treated as a cognitive concept [ 27 ]. On the contrary, humor is a psychological state characterized by the likelihood to laugh wherein contradictory ideas are held simultaneously [ 11 , 28 ]. Other research supporting the humor and laughter relationship has proved that laughter occurs in all the theories of humor, whether they be the superiority theory, incongruity theory, or the relief theory [ 29 ]. While we recognize that not all instances of laughter are effects of humor and not all humor can elicit laughter, in this paper, which follows research supporting the relationship between humor and laughter, we consider laughter as an indication for humor usage in the learning environment.

1.3. Theories of Instructional Humor

Since humor has several functions aside from being a tool used in education [ 30 ], in this paper, we will refer to humor used in an educational context as instructional humor. In the academic context, the usage of humor in the classroom has proved to have positive effects such as generating attention and arousing curiosity [ 31 ]. Prominent theories in instructional humor include the instructional humor processing theory (IHPT), which explains that the students need to perceive and solve the paradox in humor to ease their learning [ 32 ]. Another related research links the cognitive load theory [ 33 ] to humor application in STEM education [ 34 ]. According to Hu et al. [ 34 ], humor in STEM education should be integrated into the intrinsic cognitive load to be effective. The studies in instructional humor can be divided further into quantitative, qualitative, or individual differences; effects; and theories [ 30 ]. IHPT also states that, for instructional humor to have positive results, students must be motivated and comprehend the lesson content [ 13 , 32 , 35 ]. Application of the IHPT at different levels of education and learning environments has similar effects and conditions. For instance, at the higher-education level, students’ cognitive learning is predicted by the instructor’s related humor [ 36 ]. In online social networks, instructors’ humorous posts improved student engagement and instructor credibility [ 37 , 38 ]. Application of IHPT was also observed in a study in fifth- to tenth-grade students wherein teacher humor had to be related to the course to affect the learning experience positively [ 39 ]. Likewise, for adult learning environments in which students come from different nationalities and cultures, it is said that humor also increases the cultural competence and metalinguistic awareness of the students [ 40 ]. Regarding gender research, past research findings show that humor used by male instructors was more effective than that of female instructors [ 41 ].

1.4. Quantitative Instructional Humor

While research in instructional humor is abundant, there is a significant lack of works focusing on the quantitative aspects of humor [ 30 ]. Examples of research in quantitative instructional humor focus on instructional humor frequencies. For instance, Bryant et al. [ 42 ] found that professors utilized humor once every 15 min during a 50 min class session. In contrast, in similar research, Javidi and Long [ 43 ] found an average of 4.05 humorous messages. Likewise, Downs et al. [ 44 ] found that acclaimed professors used an average of 7.44 instances of humor per class. Other research includes that by Gorham and Christophel [ 13 ], who found only 1.37 humor attempts per class.

On the other hand, more recent research on instructional humor frequency focuses on self-reported measures. Moreover, frequency counts were obtained via survey forms or ratings rather than through actual counts of humor instances [ 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. However, using self-reported measures yields lower rates of instructional humor [ 30 ]. There is a great need for studies that update our understanding of the field. While those studies provide extensive results, the learning environment and educational settings have changed drastically, mainly with the applications of technology such as e-learning [ 30 ]. Therefore, we conducted experiments on the instructional humor frequency in modern educational settings using a naturalistic approach. In addition, we also compared the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor to provide educators with insights on how instructional humor differs from humor used for non-educational purposes.

1.5. Education Technology (EdTech) and E-Learning

Education technology (EdTech) is a growing field wherein information communication technology (ICT) supports learning and instruction [ 49 ]. Some examples of EdTech are e-learning [ 50 ], mobile learning [ 51 ], gamification [ 52 ], virtual reality and augmented reality platforms [ 53 ], and virtual meeting platforms [ 54 ]. One of the most discussed educational technology applications is e-learning, which uses the Internet to access educational materials outside traditional classrooms [ 52 ]. Some of the popular instructional content providers in e-learning include online course providers (Udacity [ 55 ], Course Hero [ 56 ], and Coursera [ 57 ]), language-learning website and mobile apps (Duolingo [ 58 ] and Rosetta Stone [ 59 ]), game-based learning platforms (Kahoot! [ 60 ] and Quizlet [ 61 ]), and online conference lecture streaming sites (TED Talks [ 62 ] and Talks at Google [ 63 ]). These providers heavily innovate the education field. Past literature revealed that these EdTech platforms impacted the learning environment with positive effects such as increased student performance [ 64 ], the lessened workload of teachers [ 65 ], and heightened student and teacher engagement [ 66 ]. E-learning gained popularity among educators and students for several reasons, such as functionality and affordability [ 67 ], social interaction [ 67 ], and collaborative learning [ 68 ].

1.6. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

The literature describes natural language processing (NLP) as using computational techniques to analyze texts at single or multiple levels of linguistic analysis, which aims to output human-like language processing in various tasks [ 69 ]. NLP is built on mathematical and linguistic foundations. NLP heavily draws from elementary probability theory and essential information theory in mathematics and parts of speech, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics in the linguistics field [ 70 ]. NLP techniques are applied in humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences research. NLP can help researchers in text data analysis by performing tasks such as assessing subjectivity, linguistic features, and classification. Examples of NLP techniques include sentiment analysis, which can classify text as negative, neutral, or positive [ 71 ]. Other methods include named-entity recognition (NER), wherein important nouns and pronouns are identified in a text [ 72 ], and sentence segmentation, which splits a large chunk of text into sentences [ 73 ].

1.7. Corpora: TED Talks and User-Submitted Jokes

Previous studies in quantitative instructional humor used corpora from lectures conducted in offline traditional classroom settings [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]. However, since we are interested in assessing instructional humor frequency in non-traditional classroom settings, this paper presents and discusses research findings from two studies using two corpora—TED Talks [ 62 ] and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org ( https://stupidstuff.org (accessed on 1 March 2021)) [ 74 ].

TED Talks are recordings of presentations done at TED conferences and related TED events. Talks vary in length, with most being about 20 min in length. Presenters in these talks come from various fields, and discussions range from science, design, technology, entertainment, and business, to global issues. The TED Talks corpus has been used in previous research on several topics such as resources for best practices in teaching [ 75 ], commenting behavior [ 76 ], academic listening exercises [ 77 , 78 ], and speech recognition [ 79 ]. In humor research, TED Talks are more used for building automatic humor recognition algorithms [ 25 , 26 ]. Although research on TED Talks is abundant, few have used it to describe the quantitative features of instructional humor. We chose the TED Talks corpus since the presentations follow a naturalistic setting wherein there were no restrictions on the humor usage of presenters, which is recommended by previous works [ 30 ].

Next, we also used user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org to represent non-instructional humor. We define non-instructional humor as sentences containing humor that was not initially intended for use in the classroom. Users can submit and publish their jokes on the website, and other users can also view and rate these jokes. The data on studpidstuff.org consist of jokes and their respective user ratings [ 74 ]. Research on humor using user-submitted jokes is also commonly used in building humor recognition systems and humor generation algorithms [ 80 , 81 ]. Thus, it is acceptable to use user-submitted jokes to represent non-instructional humor.

This paper presents and discusses research findings from two studies using these two corpora. In the first study, we observe the instructional humor frequency and the placement of humor using audience laughter in the TED Talks transcripts as a marker for humor instance. The second study compared the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques were applied in both studies, and all data analyses were conducted in the Python programming language.

Previous research has focused on self-reported methods [ 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ] and offline settings [ 13 , 42 , 43 , 44 ] for calculating instructional humor frequency. This research is unique as we use corpora from online media (TED Talks and user-submitted jokes) and conducted the analysis using NLP techniques to better understand the context in a digital age. Past works have also only looked at traditional classroom settings. However, in this paper, we discuss findings in non-traditional classroom settings to account for the changing learning environment brought about by technological advances. These findings are relevant as they provide new insights into humor usage in online settings and update the literature on instructional humor frequency research. Our results also benefit teachers in incorporating humor in their lectures and engineers involved in NLP projects for humor recognition.

2. Materials and Methods

We conducted two studies in this research using computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP) techniques. The field of computational linguistics is interdisciplinary and focuses on understanding both written and spoken language from a computational perspective [ 82 ]. Similarly, NLP is used to do text analysis using computerized approaches [ 83 ]. The research in this study was conducted using the programming language Python. For the first study, we focused on instructional humor frequency as found in presentations, while the second study compares the linguistic features of instructional and non-instructional humor. For this study, we set the alpha level for all statistical tests conducted in this research to 0.05.

2.1. Study 1: Instructional Humor Frequency in TED Talks

We used TED Talks as our corpus to examine the instructional humor frequency. Our study limited the talks to those conducted in the English language. We scraped to get the fifty most popular talks and the fifty least popular talks. To ensure that the least popular talks were not affected by the upload count date, we only considered talks that had been published at least one year earlier on the TED website. Likewise, only talks with a duration of 15 to 20 min were included in the dataset to make comparisons possible. We divided our corpus into the most popular and least popular talk datasets since previous works found significant differences in the instructional humor frequency usage based on the educator’s teaching experience and popularity among their students and peers [ 84 ]. Afterward, we extracted the transcript of the talks and created a command-separated values (CSV) file. We used the Pandas library [ 85 ] in Python to conduct the analysis.

While previous works had different methods to measure humor rates and locate humorous messages [ 13 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ], in our study, we decided to locate the humor instances using the special markup "Laughter" found in the TED Talks transcripts. This markup occurs whenever the audience laughs during the presentations. We then examined these laughter occurrences using statistical tests. Furthermore, the placement of humor in the presentation timeline was analyzed. The results are explained in Section 3 .

2.2. Study 2: Comparison of the Linguistic Features of Instructional and Non-Instructional Humor

In this experiment, we used two corpora: TED Talks and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org. For the TED Talks, we extracted the transcripts of 2000 talks. After scraping the website, we created two CSV files for each corpus. We split the talks into sentences using the Stanza module (formerly the Stanford Core NLP) [ 86 ], then labeled sentences containing or immediately followed by the special markup "Laughter" in Python to get the sentences containing humor from the TED Talks transcripts. After data cleaning and processing, we were able to get 8906 humorous sentences from the TED Talks dataset. For stupidstuff.org, the dataset contained transcripts of 3200 user-submitted jokes. Finally, using NLP techniques and descriptive and inferential statistics, we looked at several linguistic features to compare the humorous sentences from the two corpora.

2.2.1. Word Frequency, Bigrams, and Trigrams

Previous works identified that humor has a variety of functions, both positive and negative [ 87 ]. Therefore, it is vital to see whether there is a difference between the choice of words in instructional and non-instructional humor. To get the word frequency or the most frequent words appearing in our corpora and the most popular bigrams and trigrams of humorous sentences, we utilized Python’s open-source NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) library [ 88 ].

2.2.2. POS (Part of Speech)

Works in computational humor research found that humorous messages use personal nouns and proper nouns, such as when referring to human-related scenarios [ 89 , 90 , 91 ]. To see whether the humorous sentences in the instructional and non-instructional humor dataset follow this theory, we used an open-source library, TextBlob [ 92 ], in Python for POS tagging.

2.2.3. Readability Score

We need to look at the readability score of the humorous sentences since the instructional humor processing theory (IHPT) emphasized that humor needs to be understandable and should not distract from the instructional message [ 32 ]. Likewise, the cognitive load theory (CLT) that focused on humor integrated into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education states that, if humor is not integrated into the lesson content, it will increase the students’ cognitive load and lower learning [ 33 , 34 ].

We used the Flesch reading ease and the Gunning Fog Index to calculate the readability of the humorous sentences. The Flesch reading ease scores range from 0 to 100, with 0 being extremely difficult and 100 being very easy to read [ 93 ]. On the other hand, the Gunning Fog Index rates text from 6 to 17, and each of these scores has an equivalent educational level that determines the text’s difficulty [ 94 ]. For example, a text with a Gunning Fog Index of 6 can be read by sixth-grade students, while a score of 17 can be read by college graduates [ 94 ]. We used the open-source library TextStat [ 95 ] and descriptive and inferential statistics in Python to conduct a readability score analysis.

2.2.4. Sentiment Analysis

Research on the types of humor explains that the sentiment of the humorous messages can negatively or positively affect the listener [ 20 , 96 ]. For instance, humorous sentences having a negative feeling can lower students’ learning performance [ 20 , 96 ]. Thus, it is essential to conduct sentiment analysis on the instructional and non-instructional humorous sentences. We used the open-source library TextBlob [ 92 ] in Python to compute the polarity or sentiment of our dataset’s humorous sentences.

3.1. Study 1: Instructional Humor Frequency

In this study, we first looked at how humor was placed throughout the presentation timeline. Then, we looked at the speakers’ frequency of humor usage and compared the results for popular and unpopular talks using the TED Talks dataset.

3.1.1. Placement of Humor in the Presentation Timeline

The placement of humor in the presentation timeline was calculated using the sentence position when audience laughter occurred and its frequency (see Figure 1 ). We observed a maximum of six occurrences and four occurrences for the same sentence position in the presentation timeline for the most popular and least popular talks, respectively. Although popular talks had more observed laughter instances than less popular talks, the placement of humor in the presentation timeline seemed similar for both datasets. As shown in Figure 1 , humor was more commonly observed during the first part of the talk and gradually lessened toward the end.

The frequency of audience laughter in the top 50 least popular ( left ) and top 50 most popular ( right ) TED Talks. The x -axis shows the presentation timeline or the n th position of the sentence when audience laughter occurred during the presentation. Frequency counts for each sentence’s n th position are shown in the y -axis.

3.1.2. Humor Frequency in Popular and Unpopular TED Talks

Popular talks incorporated humor an average of 12.92 times per 15 to 20 min, while unpopular talks only used humor for an average of 3.92 times. A Welch’s t-test on the humor frequency usage of popular and unpopular talks revealed that the difference was statistically significant between the two datasets ( p < 0.001).

Instructional humor frequency usage in popular talks tended to vary more (M = 12.62, SD = 12.65) than in unpopular talks (M = 3.92, SD = 5.23). For instance, we found that the highest humor frequency for popular talks was 69 times while the lowest was 0 times. Out of 50 talks, 2 had zero humor usage for popular talks. On the other hand, 13 talks showed no humor usage for unpopular talks. Table 1 describes the statistics for the humor frequency in popular and unpopular talks.

Summary of statistics for the humor frequency of TED Talks.

3.2. Study 2: Linguistic Features of Instructional and Non-Instructional Humor

The results from NLP techniques such as calculation of word frequencies, n -grams, POS tagging, readability scores, and sentiment analysis applied to TED Talks and stupidstuff.org corpora are described in this section.

3.2.1. Word Frequencies, Bigrams, and Trigrams

The top 10 most frequently used words for the TED Talks and stupidstuff.org datasets are described in Figure 2 . The most common word for humorous sentences in TED Talks was “like”, and it was “said” for studpidstuff.org. The two datasets share some similarities in word frequencies. For example, the words “one”, “said”, “say”, and “get” both appeared in the top 10 most frequently occurring words for both datasets.

The 10 most frequently occurring words for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ).

Next, we looked at the most frequently used bigrams or two-word combinations. In Figure 3 , we see that “I’m, going” and “one, day” were the most common bigrams for TED Talks and Stupidstuff.org datasets, respectively. Notably, the bigram “don’t, know” appeared in both datasets.

The 10 most frequently occurring bigrams for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ).

Finally, the research looked at the most common trigrams (see Figure 4 ). “New, York, City” was the most frequently used trigram in the TED Talks dataset, and it was “take, change, light” for the stupidstuff.org dataset. We found no similarities between the two datasets regarding the most frequently used trigrams.

The 10 most frequently occurring trigrams for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ).

3.2.2. Part of Speech (POS)

We observed a high usage of possessive ending (POS) and proper nouns in singular form (NNP) for both datasets. This result supports previous works that state that humorous messages tend to use possessive forms and proper nouns [ 88 , 89 , 90 ]. Figure 5 below contains information on the two datasets’ top 10 most frequently used POS. Strikingly, the top 10 commonly used POS were similar for the two datasets. For example, the POS verbs in gerund or present participle form and verbs in the past tense form were frequently observed.

The 10 most frequently occurring POS for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ). Legend on POS tag definitions: POS (possessive ending), NNP (proper noun, singular), VBG (verb, gerund/present participle), VBD (verb, past tense), NN (noun, singular), IN (preposition/subordinating conjunction), RB (adverb), CD (cardinal digit), JJ (adjective), NNS (proper noun, plural).

3.2.3. Readability Score

Using the Flesch reading ease score, results showed that humorous sentences for both datasets tended to have scores from 60 to 100, with the peak at 80 and an average of 72–74. The results mean that the humorous sentences range from reasonably difficult to very easy to read. Humorous sentences from the TED Talks dataset (M = 73.89, SD = 17.32) were slightly easier to read and had minor variance compared to those of user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org (M = 72.45, SD = 18.88). Table 2 summarizes the results of the analysis. Welch’s t-test on the readability scores using the Flesch reading ease shows that they were statistically significant ( p < 0.001).

Summary of statistics for the readability scores using the Flesch reading ease score.

The number of samples used in this analysis removed outliers or talks that had readability scores out of the range of the scores determined by the Flesch reading ease score (see Figure 6 ). This result is favorable since it is recommended that instructional humor should be easy to understand and not increase the students’ cognitive load [ 32 , 33 , 34 ].

Histogram of readability scores for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ) using the Flesch reading ease method.

We also looked at the Gunning Fog Index for both datasets to further assess the readability of the humorous sentences. We removed outliers or talks that had readability scores out of range of the scores determined by the Gunning Fog Index in this analysis. Table 3 describes the results of the statistical tests. A Welch’s t-test on the readability scores using the Gunning Fog Index revealed that the difference was statistically significant ( p < 0.001).

Summary of statistics for readability scores using the Gunning Fog Index.

Figure 7 describes the detailed results of the Gunning Fog Index assessment. The stupidstuff.org dataset (M = 10.19, SD = 2.82) tended to have slightly more variation in scores than the TED Talks dataset (M = 10.55, SD = 2.65). Nevertheless, both datasets returned scores with an average of 10, meaning lower grade levels can comprehend the sentences containing humor.

Histogram of readability scores for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ) using the Gunning Fog Index method. The score ranges from 6 (can be understood by sixth-grade students) to 17 (comprehensible to college graduate students).

3.2.4. Sentiment Analysis

Figure 8 shows the histogram of the polarity of humorous sentences for the two datasets. We observed that humorous sentences for both datasets returned a neutral sentiment with an average of 0.07 and 0.06 polarity for TED Talks and stupidstuff.org, respectively. Negative scores imply a negative emotion, while positive scores indicate positive feelings, and near-zero scores usually express a neutral sentiment.

Histogram of sentiment for humorous sentences in TED Talks ( left ) and jokes from stupidstuff.org ( right ).

A Welch’s t -test on the sentiment scores of the two datasets revealed that the difference was statistically significant ( p = 0.01). Table 4 summarizes the results of the statistical tests on the sentiment scores. The observations from the sentiment analysis of sentences containing humor in TED Talks (M = 0.07, SD = 0.27) and user-submitted jokes from stupidstuff.org (M = 0.06, SD = 0.21) showed that the two were very similar.

Summary of statistics for sentiment analysis.

4. Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the quantitative and linguistic features of instructional humor in the EdTech learning environment and provide an update to quantitative instructional humor research by using techniques in NLP and statistical tests on presentations from TED Talks and user-submitted jokes on stupidstuff.org.

The results from our investigation on the frequency of instructional humor in TED Talks showed that educators’ incorporation of humor in their lectures had increased significantly (M = 12.62) as compared to the results from previous research dating back to three decades ago [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. While earlier research findings in traditional classroom settings found humor usage once every 15 min [ 42 ], our research findings revealed humor usage once every 1.58 min. These findings show that humor usage by educators is significantly more frequent in non-traditional classroom settings. Learning environments in TED Talks incorporate more humor than traditional classroom settings do. The popularity of TED Talks among online viewers also follows past research that higher frequencies of humor applications receive higher satisfaction and popularity ratings from students [ 84 ]. Therefore, whether in traditional or non-traditional classroom settings, high frequencies of humor are associated with high popularity among audiences. Although, in this study, we were not able to identify what might cause the high humor frequency, this increase in humor usage in EdTech learning environments can be another point of interest for researchers to study.

On another note, we observed that the humor usage of more popular educators (M = 12.62) was significantly higher than that of less popular educators (M = 3.92). This observation is in line with previous research, wherein there is a correlation between the amount of usage of humor and the popularity, credibility, and experience of teachers [ 83 ]. Likewise, our results show that the humor used in TED Talks followed humor’s positive effects as stated in the instructional humor processing theory (IHPT) [ 32 ] since audiences express their positive experience through frequent laughter. This study confirms that despite changes in the learning environment such as those brought about by technology, the theory that more experienced, popular, and credible teachers tend to use humor more in their lectures [ 30 ] still holds.

Another important factor is that we looked at the placement of humor in the presentation timeline. This study is novel as far as we know, as previous studies only focused on the frequency of humor usage and not where humor was placed during the lectures. The results showed that humor is more commonly set during the start or first parts of the presentation rather than in the middle or end. These findings support the findings of previous works in which humor was used to seek attention [ 31 ]. Likewise, these results can also be linked to prior theories in instructional humor, wherein placing humor at the start of the lectures is more beneficial to student learning. To give a specific example, as suggested by Sweller in the cognitive load theory (CLT), humor should not add additional cognitive load for it to have positive effects [ 33 ]. Since the start of the lectures has the lowest cognitive load, it is understandable that the educators prefer early placement of humor in their classes. Similarly, as stated in the IHPT, since students’ cognitive load is lesser, students can quickly solve the contradiction of the humor, hence, increasing the positive effects of humor in their academic performance [ 32 ].

On the other hand, our comparison between the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor provided several intriguing results. First, in terms of word frequencies, there seemed to be no difference between the word usage of humor used for education and that used for other purposes. Our findings support past studies wherein some words were more commonly used in humorous contexts, such as when referencing human-related scenarios [ 89 ]. In our results, words corresponding to human-centered scenarios such as “I’m”, “people”, and “man” are common in non-instructional and instructional humor cases. Similarly, previous studies suggest humorous sentences use more possessive pronouns and nouns [ 88 , 89 , 90 ]. The results from POS tagging are also in line with past literature since POS (possessive ending) and NNP (proper noun, singular) were the most frequently occurring POS for instructional and non-instructional humorous sentences. Our research further supports describing humorous sentences as human-centric and focusing on personal opinions, as observed in previous studies [ 88 , 89 , 90 ]. These results are also beneficial to the field of using NLP for building systems for humor recognition for machines since we can devise algorithms that take the linguistic components of sentences as features to recognize the humor in sentences automatically. Furthermore, the methodology of past works using words and pronouns as features for automatic humor recognition in machines [ 25 , 26 , 80 , 81 ] is also supported and validated through our research results.

When we looked at the readability scores of instructional and non-instructional humor sentences, we observed a slight difference in scores when using different methods for calculating the readability. Using the Flesch–Kincaid reading ease method [ 93 ], instructional humor had a higher mean, making it easier to understand. However, when using the Gunning Fog Index [ 94 ], non-instructional humor was much easier to comprehend. In this research, we only used two methods for calculating the readability score. Therefore, other researchers might apply other readability scoring methods to obtain comparable results.

Lastly, we expected to see more negative sentiment for non-instructional humor and more positive emotion for instructional humor in terms of sentiment analysis. However, both returned scores leaned more toward a neutral view. We expected a more positive sentiment for instructional humor since previous research suggests that humor used for education should contain positivity rather than negative feelings to create a positive learning environment [ 30 ]. Likewise, we expected to see more negative sentiment in non-instructional humor since past humor research studies showed that humor uses negative words, adult slang, and swear words [ 89 ]. Perhaps, the methodology we used for calculating the sentiment of the humorous sentences might not have been accurate enough, leading to neutrality. Since humor contains incongruity and ambiguity [ 17 , 32 ], the algorithm we used might not have detected the sentiment correctly. In future research, better algorithms and methods for sentiment analysis are recommended for getting more accurate results.

4.1. Implications of the Current Study

The current study provides teachers with insight into incorporating humor in their lectures in terms of quantitative features. The results also give a positive light to engineers in humor recognition research as even humor for different purposes tends to have the same linguistic features. The findings also update instructional humor frequency research, where the prominent studies date from 30 years ago with insights on the case of instructional humor frequency in non-traditional classroom settings.

4.2. Limitations and Future Research

The current study has several limitations. First, although we were able to find the results to be statistically significant, the number of samples we used to compute the instructional humor frequency and placement of humor in the presentation timeline was limited to a small sample size for both popular (N = 50) and unpopular talks (N = 50). Second, the method for calculating humor rates was highly dependent on the transcriptions of the presentations using the special markup “Laughter” since we did not conduct any test to validate whether “Laughter” instances accounted for humor usage. For instance, the audience’s laughter might have been caused by other factors and not by the actual humor usage of the presenter, but in this study, we assumed that the presenter incorporated humor when the audience in the talk laughed. Third, the presentation timeline in this study was expressed with the sentence position rather than the actual time. The reason for this was that the presentations had varying lengths (15 to 20 min), and we thought that occurrences would be better described by sentence position rather than time to help teachers plan their lectures using the sentence position or word count rather than time. In our future research, we will take time as the x -axis for the presentation timeline and study longer presentations (more than 20 min) and see whether there are any changes in the results. Fourth, the algorithms in this study for studying the linguistic features such as word frequencies, POS tagging, readability scores, and sentiment analysis of instructional and non-instructional humor were limited to those we used. In future research, we can try incorporating different algorithms for each analysis and see if there is a difference in the results. Fifth, we were only able to assess the effects of humor frequency regarding the popularity of the TED Talks and not determine the audience’s comprehension. In future studies, it would be interesting to see if high frequencies of humor in TED Talks positively or negatively affect the audiences’ learning performance. Sixth, we used non-traditional classroom settings in this study to observe instructional humor frequencies since we wanted to see how humor is used in the digital context. However, further research using offline lectures can also be of potential interest for more direct comparisons on how humor frequencies changed in traditional classroom settings. Lastly, we only used Welch’s t-test for statistical tests to confirm whether our dataset’s difference was significant. We can use more statistical tests to improve our findings in future research.

5. Conclusions

Overall, this study updates instructional humor frequency research by assessing humor usage in non-traditional classroom settings. We observed that educators’ use of humor increased significantly compared to research results 30 years ago. Humor usage in non-traditional classroom settings such as TED Talks is more frequent. On the other hand, this research finding supports previous theories stating that the more experienced, credible, and popular educators are, the higher their usage of humor. Whether in learning environments supported by technology or not, humor positively affects the presentations’ popularity. In addition, results showed that humor is more commonly placed at the start of presentations. This study also showed comparisons on the linguistic features between humor used for educational purposes and those used for other purposes. Whether for instructional or non-instructional purposes, humorous sentences follow similar linguistic features. Our findings are beneficial to teachers in incorporating humor in their lectures and to engineers involved in NLP projects for humor recognition.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, V.P.S. and T.Y.; methodology, V.P.S.; software, V.P.S.; validation, V.P.S.; formal analysis, V.P.S.; investigation, V.P.S.; resources, V.P.S.; data curation, V.P.S.; writing—original draft preparation, V.P.S.; writing—review and editing, V.P.S.; visualization, V.P.S.; supervision, T.Y.; project administration, V.P.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Humor in your Professional Presentations

Bring humor in professional presentations – better audience interaction.

If there’s one thing you can do to absolutely entrance and effectively communicate with your audience, it is humor. If you’re looking all over the internet for the one thing your business presentation needs, it is humor. A powerful tool to break the ice, humor can help your audience relate better to your ideas and arguments. Humor in your Professional Presentations , make the audience feel comfortable with your presentation meeting all through the slides. Having a sense of humor reflected in Professional Presentations also facilitate easy interactions during the meeting.

A PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool that allows individuals and organizations to effectively communicate their ideas and information in a visually appealing manner. With a well-designed presentation PPT, presenters can captivate their audience and deliver their message with clarity and impact.

Presentations template provides structure and design for creating professional-looking slides. PowerPoint slides are the backbone of a presentation, providing the content and visuals that support the presenter’s message. With the use of PowerPoint presentation slides, presenters can engage their audience and deliver memorable presentations that leave a lasting impression.

7 Ways to Use Humor in Your Presentation

• Start with a joke
• Use funny visuals
• Tell a funny story
• Use self-deprecating humor
• Use humor to lighten the mood
• Use humor to make a point
• End with a joke

1. Start with a joke

Starting your presentation with a joke can help break the ice and set a positive tone for the rest of your talk. Just make sure the joke is appropriate for your audience and relevant to your topic.

2. Use funny visuals

Visual aids can be a great way to inject humor into your presentation. Use funny memes, cartoons, or images to illustrate your points and keep your audience engaged.

3. Tell a funny story

Sharing a personal or relatable story that has a humorous twist can help you connect with your audience and make your presentation more memorable.

4. Use self-deprecating humor

Making fun of yourself can be a great way to show your audience that you’re relatable and down-to-earth. Just make sure you don’t go overboard and undermine your credibility.

5. Use humor to lighten the mood

If you’re presenting on a serious or sensitive topic, using humor can help ease tension and make your audience feel more comfortable. Just make sure you’re not making light of the subject matter.

6. Use humor to make a point

Humor can be a powerful tool for making a point or driving home a message. Use clever wordplay, puns, or satire to make your audience think and engage with your ideas.

7. End with a joke

Ending your presentation with a funny anecdote or one-liner can leave a lasting impression on your audience and help them remember your key takeaways. Just make sure the joke is appropriate and relevant to your topic.

Professional Business Presentations and relatable humor

With a variety of options available, such as charts, graphs, images, and videos, slides for PPT offer a dynamic and organized way to convey information. PowerPoint examples of presentations can be found in various industries, showcasing the versatility and effectiveness of this tool.

For those looking to create a compelling and visually appealing presentation, there are many PowerPoint samples for presentation available online. Additionally, choosing the right presentation slide backgrounds can elevate the overall design and make the content stand out. With a user-friendly interface and a wide range of PowerPoint design options, PowerPoint is a top choice for professionals looking to create impactful presentations.

Turning a business presentation into a funny presentation seems unlikely. There are statistics and information that you must focus on delivering, but there is no harm in adding a dash of humor to your otherwise sleep-inducing presentation. Perfectly timing humor in your PowerPoint slide design  or in your monologue can help your audience relax and easily relate to your presentation.

Making Professional Presentations more engaging with relatable humor

Adding relatable humor to professional presentations can help break the monotony of the presentation and make it more engaging for your audience. Humor can also help lighten the mood, make complex topics easier to digest and increase retention levels. To use humor in a presentation, focus on creating stories that people can relate to and avoid jokes that have the potential to be offensive or inappropriate.

The easiest way to break the ice at professional meetings is to use relatable humor in your presentations. Bring up a common occurrence at your workplace or make a reference to a popular event everybody knows about. Relate to incidents everybody knows about and your audience will easily warm up to your presence. Once they’ve caught on to your words, it’s so much easier for you to convey your argument and ensure your audience remembers it for a long while.

Before adding humor into your presentation, it is advisable to look for presentation ideas or PowerPoint ideas on how to incorporate professional humor. A professional PowerPoint slides template can give a consistent design layouts to your slides deck. Following a branding presentation design can elevate your branding image. Ultimately adding professional humor with a right mix of content and fun can keep the audience engaged and be lively all through the presentation meeting.

Enhancing the Humor in Professional Presentations

Presentation software has revolutionized the way we create and deliver powerful presentations. Professional PowerPoint template is widely used that saves time and also helps in adding content to future set of presentations. A set of slides built using a professional presentation PowerPoint template will look more professional than to a slide deck with varied design formats. A well-laid template offers a professional PowerPoint layout that can be applied consistently across the slide deck.

A well-designed and visually appealing business presentation PowerPoint template is crucial for delivering a successful presentation. The use of relevant presentation images can enhance the overall impact and engagement of the audience.

You can explore PPT tips for presentation with professional humor and get ideas for adding images, content and how to present and break the ice with a fun or joke. Many blogs available online offers PowerPoint tips for presentations that can be turned into a funny story but yet without loosing the professionalism. Additionally, tips for PowerPoint presentations, such as practicing the delivery and using multimedia elements, can further enhance the effectiveness of the presentation.

Brining the funny slides into a professional presentation should be done with caution such that it should not distract the audience and derail them from the core business idea.

• Incorporate a Joke in the Opening
• Introduce an Anecdote
• Embrace Self-Deprecating Humor
• Personalize the Humor to Suit the Audience
• Integrate a Witty Quotation or Visual Element
• Employ Sound Effects
• Employ Analogies and Comparisons

Timing is Key

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and ponder about what you would like better- a monotonous business presentation or a funny and relatable one? If it is humor you’re opting for, remember your audience would love to see a refreshing presentation that they find entertaining. Now, if you don’t want your presentation to just be a source of entertainment you must know how to time your humor.

Humor in your speech and humor in professional presentations will both be widely appreciated, but you must never go overboard. Joke after joke will just turn your entire presentation into a joke. Timing is always key. If you know how to place your humor, you can easily nail your presentation. If you ever run out of ideas, a presentation design expert can always help you out.

Funny Story

Professional Presentations – Humor Storytelling

Humans easily relate to or find comfort in stories. Conveying stories makes a presentation interesting, but if a story is funny your presentation becomes likable and relatable. Use this story to relate to your presentation and it helps your audience remember your points through the story. Story telling filled with humor can transform your professional presentations as more interesting.

Tackle Difficult Concepts

Professional Presentations – Explain Difficult Concepts Easily

Drawing comparisons between two concepts with a tinge of humor can make an impactful difference to your presentation. If a concept is difficult for your audience to grasp, you can use funny references that will help your audience understand it better. These type of references conveyed with humor can positively change the way the audience perceive your professional presentations. Presentation software like Think-Cell charts help in visualizing complex data as meaningful charts with easy to understand approach.

Presentation slides are an essential tool in delivering a successful business presentation. PowerPoint slide design can enhance the overall impact of the presentation topics being covered. Using a professional and sleek PPT slide design that aligns with the content can further enhance your content delivery. This can help relate and comprehend the difficult concepts easily.

Should You Use Memes in Professional Presentations?

While memes can be a fun and engaging way to add humor and personality to a presentation, it’s important to consider your audience and the context of the presentation. Memes may not be appropriate for all professional settings and can potentially come across as unprofessional or distracting. It’s important to use them sparingly and strategically, and to make sure they align with the overall tone and message of the presentation.

What better humor to incorporate in your presentation than memes? In today’s times, using memes in a presentation will ensure your audience loves your presentation and the entire experience. Memes are funny, relatable, relaxing, and witty. The most fun way to captivate your audience’s attention, it is the easiest and funniest way to convey your points.

The Power of Humor in Professional Presentations

Incorporating humor into your professional presentations can have a number of benefits. It can help to engage your audience, make your content more memorable, and even help to build rapport with your listeners. However, it’s important to use humor appropriately and in a way that is relevant to your topic and audience.

From boundless business presentation ideas , humor is the most pleasing and witty approach. From relatable quotes to funny images, there’s so much you can do to stir laughter in a presentation room. Your audience will always appreciate your effort in making them laugh.

They will welcome your attempt at lightening the mood and finding an alternative for the otherwise dull presentation experience while remembering all that you speak. Your presentation stays with your audience for longer, your argument is portrayed in a good light and your approach seems accurate.

Creating a fun and engaging PowerPoint design slides presentation is essential for capturing the attention of your audience. Along with fun PPT ideas, it is important to pay attention to the design of your slides. Begin with a set of introduction slides giving a brief overview of what your presentation will cover.

With these tips, you can create a dynamic and entertaining slide design for your PowerPoint presentation. Add the fun element and break the ice to keep the audience on track back to your slides content.

By doing so, you can keep them engaged all through the presentation meeting and you can reinforce your business ideas in the audience mind, without being overwhelmed by the content delivery.

Try techniques discussed in this blog, and share your comments on how adding a fun element to your professional presentation helped keeping your audience engaged all along.

• How can I make my presentation fun?

Begin by using humor and telling stories to connect with your audience. Incorporate interactive activities, such as quizzes or games, to break up the monotony of the presentation. Use visuals and graphics to make your points more visually appealing and engaging. Additionally, try to keep your presentation concise and avoid using too much industry-specific jargon.

2. How do you modify your presentation for different audiences?

To modify a presentation for different audiences, speakers need to adjust the language, examples, and tone of the presentation. For instance, using technical jargon will not resonate with a general audience. Similarly, using too many statistics in front of people who are not from a technical background may not be effective.

A speaker must also consider the age and cultural backgrounds of the audience while modifying the presentation. By understanding the audience, speakers can ensure that the presentation is memorable and impactful.

3. How can I spice up my presentation?

Here are the top 10 tips to spice up your presentation – start with a compelling introduction, use visuals to support your message, incorporate humor, use storytelling to convey your message, engage your audience with interactive activities, keep your presentation concise, use quotes and statistics to support your message, use different presentation formats, rehearse your presentation, and finally, end with a strong conclusion.

4. How can I make my presentation look nicer?

If you want to make your presentation look more professional and visually appealing, there are several tips you can follow.

• Choose a clear and easy-to-read font that is consistent throughout your slides
• Use high-quality images and graphics
• Use a consistent color scheme
• Use bullet points and short sentences to make your content easy to digest
• Consider using slide transitions and animations sparingly

5. How do you deliver an attractive presentation?

• Clear understanding of the topic and the audience
• Presentation should be structured logically with a clear beginning, middle, and end
• Visual aids such as images, graphs, and charts help to make the presentation more engaging and memorable
• Maintain a consistent flow of information
• Delivery is a crucial aspect of the presentation.

Maintaining eye contact, speaking clearly and confidently, and using body language to convey the message can make a significant difference in capturing the audience’s attention and interest.

Related posts

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Humor in a Presentation

Don't force it..

People love to laugh! But you don’t need to be funny to be effective. If being funny isn’t your thing, don’t force it. Forced humor is painful for everyone involved!

If you’re considering using humor in a presentation, ask yourself a few questions first:

• Are you funny?
• Will your audience think you’re funny?
• Are you comfortable being funny?
• Is the humorous content you’re considering relevant to your overall topic and appropriate to the setting?

If your answer to one or more of these questions is no, then you may want to reconsider your approach.

Humor is often most effective when it finds its way spontaneously into a presentation and shows the speaker’s personality. The more connection listeners feel to a speaker, the more they will care about what he or she is saying.

The best gift you can give your listeners is to engage them and make really good use of their time. Sometimes that will be funny. Sometimes it won’t.

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20 Tips For Humor In Speeches And Presentations

Humor in speeches and presentations

Do you want the attention of your audience? Humorously move your audience before the seat hurts. Humor relaxes. It resolves tense, stressful situations. Humor has some positive effects. Appropriate humor can be used effectively in many situations. Find out what is worth paying attention to.

20 Tips for humor in speeches and presentations

Just ask me personally, related articles.

In speeches and presentations, it is often a matter of passing on information to the participants in an understandable way, convincing them, and asking them to act. The objectives of speeches can be quite different, but the goal of boring the audience is unlikely to be deliberately pursued. However, this often happens. With appropriate humor, it is possible to keep the audience happy, emotionalize them, and increase their attention. This way, you and your presentation will remain in good memory.

Make sure you don’t insult anybody. Humor is mostly based on ambiguities, and these can annoy the audience if they are interpreted unfavorably. It’s not so much what you mean as to how the recipients interpret your words.

I don’t need to mention that jokes are not made at the expense of individuals or disadvantaged groups, do I?

2. At the beginning of your speech

Not every audience is ready for your message. Sometimes it still has to digest the impression of the previous speakers. Maybe the participants would rather be somewhere else now. Here is your chance to surprise the audience positively. Season your contribution with a pinch of humor. It is not to be underestimated – humor reduces stress. Humor awakens the desire for more.

Sometimes humor simply helps. Speeches and presentations can start well with humor. It relaxes the audience and speakers, reduces fear, and attracts attention. After an intense laugh, the brain’s reward center releases dopamine. Dopamine relaxes and gives us intense moments of happiness. It provides anticipation, i.e. the desire for more. After the laughter, the audience listens more intensively.

3. Orient on the audience

Not only does the taste changes with the audience, but also their perception, thinking, and communication style. Adapt your language to the audience. Some jokes require special education or specific vocabulary. And some audiences reject laughter as immoral in this world.

A few helpful questions:

• What are the characteristics of the audience?
• What language does it speak?
• What can the target group smile or even laugh about?
• Which humor is appropriate for the target group and which is not?
• How can one’s appearance and appearance be supported by humor in this case?
• How can these people react humorously to objections or resistance?
• Which examples, metaphors, and analogies are suitable for the audience to present the message humorously?
• What do they have in common?
• What is talked about before and after, are there humorous points of reference?

Humor is influenced by many factors, such as educational level, social status, country, origin, region, and occupational group. Use humor only if you are sure that your audience reacts positively and that it fits the message thematically.

4. Good joke tellers are rare

A very common recommendation is to start a speech with a joke. It is claimed that then you and your audience are well relaxed and ready. Seriously and no kidding: don’t start your presentation with a joke.

With the overlap of self-perception and external perception, this is such a thing. The fact is that very few people are so good at telling jokes. What looks so relaxed with the professionals of Stand-up Comedy is the result of a strict selection process, some bruises, and a lot of – very much – practice.

So once again, very clearly stated: Humor is a good way to enter into a relationship with the audience. However, not everyone is a good joke-teller. Stand-up is more challenging than it seems. If your joke fails or you make the wrong one, you’ve made a fool of yourself with part of your audience from now on. Especially since the wisdom formulated by Paul Watzlawick also applies here; the recipient decides on the message. And since jokes by definition are ambiguous (context or meaning reframing), the choice of meaning need not be in your interest.

If a horse comes into a bar.

Ask the bartender: “Why such a long face?”

5. Stand behind your messages

For an authentic performance, you must stand behind what you say. So choose only humorous elements that suit you and feel right.

6. Analogies

Analogies can help to clarify complex relationships. This can also be done very humorously if it is accompanied by a surprise.

Analogies must be recognizable by your audience so that the listener understands the parallel between the story and the actual topic. By doing this, you make your competence clear and the content accessible to your audience without taking yourself unnecessarily seriously.

7. Word games

Use the magic of language. Play skillfully with the language. Surprising definitions or double meanings of terms and acronyms are ideal for this.

Rhyme you or I eat you. What rhymes are more likely to settle in our brain convolutions and have the potential to sound like humor.

Irony can sometimes be used with a wink of the eye. However, this is not entirely harmless.

9. Telling a great story

Stories connect you with your audience. By bringing a scene to life through a story, listeners experience what they otherwise only intellectually understand. If you weave inappropriate humor, you can encourage even the most difficult challenges.

What rhymes is easier for us to get into our brains and has the potential to sound like humor.

11. Don’t announce humor

Surprising elements have a better effect on the audience. “It’s getting funny now”, not only seems strange, but the laughter is also more likely to get stuck in the throat. Instead, weave humor into unusual moments.

12. Short irritations awaken the audience

When the audience has been sitting passively on their chairs for hours, which they feel are flickering 1,000 PowerPoint presentations over the beamer with the neon light, then the human brain switches to draught. These are not good prerequisites for you to convince with your message. Change that!

Have courage. If you cleverly irritate your audience for a moment, they will be all the more receptive afterward. To be on the safe side, I mention that the irritation is, of course, resolved again.

13. Witty humor is more effective than admonitions

Use subtlety instead of raised index fingers. Humor is more welcome than admonitions. And with a smile, you can say a lot. Laughter is contagious. Laughter creates positive feelings.

14. Do a test run before the world premiere

Test humorous elements several times and thoroughly. And above all, ask people who have a similar sense of humor like your target audience.

15. Humor is a holistic work of art

You compete as a speaker with the offerings of the entire Internet. Those who do not carry a smartphone with them in the audience will check their fingernails at some point. Today, people get bored quickly. Not every speech can easily make such exciting offers as Netflix & Co. And yet some speeches can be fascinating and moving. Humor contributes. Also, your performance is live and therefore something special, isn’t it?

For this to succeed, I remind you about an important aspect: Humor is usually a total work of art, in which content, language, timing, and also body language, as well as voice have essential parts. Present yourself!

16. Situational comedy

Spontaneous humor has a very special effect because it requires intelligence and sovereignty on the part of the performer. Opportunities to practice such forms of humor are offered by workshops, such as Professional Quick-Wittedness: Training for the quick professional response .

17. Quality

Does a horse come into a bar and ask the bartender: “Why such a long face?

Humor is a difficult subject in itself. Finding a joke that is not only funny but also has an intellectual quality is quite a challenge.

18. Analysis: Learn from the experiences

Learn from your practical experience. Systematically evaluate your experience with humor. For several years I had provided a series of workshops with very special humor and was able to observe the effects of small changes over several dozen performances. That was very interesting and educational. The evaluation also provided me with valuable ideas for other speeches. Even if you only have one performance, evaluate it afterward. Ask for constructive feedback. And decide what you want to pay attention to in the future.

19. Undesirable side effects

Jokes or intense humor can very easily distract and then bind attention. The audience stays with the entertainment element while you are about to say something relevant. Important parts of your message are then lost. A good humorous element supports the bot.

20. Develop your style

Humor has many forms. And yes, there are good reasons to use humor as support. For example, you can start with an anecdote or a short story. An in many cases an excellent idea! By the way, you learn this in the Presentation Skills Training II and Presentation Skills Training III as group training or in individual training with me.

Preparation of important speeches and presentations

Those who do not speak are not heard, and even those who speak up are not always successful. There are a few more steps that need to be mastered.

Do you want to convince with your message and also as a personality? Then I will help you to prepare your speeches and presentations. You determine the scope. At least, I recommend a test run with professional feedback for you and your message. Then you will know how you and your content are perceived, what you should do, and what you should leave out, where there is potential. Why do you want to get such helpful feedback so late after your real performance? Then it is too late for adjustments. Benefit from the advantage. My definition of luck: Preparation meets opportunity.

You can best estimate for yourself where the effort is worthwhile concerning the expected benefit. Here you will find the fees for my support (communication, psychology, language, structure, voice, body language, storytelling, rhetorical means, media such as PowerPoint and Co., etc.)

You are not in Berlin right now? Then choose meetings with me via telephone or video support . Whereby, there are quite good reasons for a trip to Berlin .

By the way, many people suffer from such intense stage fright in front of an audience, and therefore their performance lags behind their possibilities. Too bad, because with my help performance in a good condition is possible. Just in case...

Please post any questions that may be of interest to other readers in the comments. Looking for professional help?

If you are interested in coaching, training or consulting, if you have organizational questions, or if you want to make an appointment, you can reach me best via this contact form (you can choose if you want to enter your personal data) or via e-mail ( [email protected] ). You can also reach me by phone at +49(0)30 864 213 68 or by cell phone at +49(0)1577 704 53 56 from Monday to Thursday from 9:00 to 18:00. Most of the time I am in sessions, so please leave a message with your phone number in Germany. Please remember to be very specific about the reason for your call. I will get back to you as soon as possible. The  privacy policy can be found here.

Transparency is important. That is why you will find answers to frequently asked questions already here , for example about me ( profile ), the services , the fees and getting to know me . If you like what you see, I look forward to working with you.

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A good start: Professional feedback with suggestions for improvement​

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Are you interested? If so, here is how to get helpful feedback with recommendations for improving your speeches and presentations.

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This article is a short excerpt from the more comprehensive course materials my clients receive in a group or individual training or coaching .

Published: June 27, 2019 Author: Karsten Noack Revision: August 20th, 2023 Translation: ./. German version: K: H: T: RR #124

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / How to Cite Sources / How to Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in APA, MLA or Chicago

How to Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in APA, MLA or Chicago

Let’s be honest: Sometimes the best information for a paper comes straight from a professor’s PowerPoint presentation. But did you know that source needs to be cited?

Whether you’re making use of your instructor’s lecture materials or pulling information from a Powerpoint found online, you need to make sure to cite your sources if you use information from it in a project or paper.

Here’s a run -t hrough of everything this page includes:  

• Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in MLA format
• Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in APA format
• Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in Chicago Style

By now, you’re probably familiar with how to cite websites, books or journal articles, but not as knowledgeable about how to cite a Powerpoint presentation. In actuality, citing PowerPoint presentations aren’t all that different from citing written materials, so don’t let yourself be phased! It’s not too hard and compiling an MLA works cited or APA reference page doesn’t take too long—each one should take just a few minutes to create.

To help you with the process, we’ve put together a handy guide demonstrating how to cite a PowerPoint presentation in three commonly used citation styles: MLA, APA and Chicago.

Let’s start by looking for basic information you’ll need for the citation.

Information you may need to cite a PowerPoint Presentation:

• Author or authors of the presentation
• Presentation title
• Date of publication/presentation
• Place of publication/where the presentation was given
• URL (if used to locate the presentation)

Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in MLA format:

MLA format citation structure:

Author Last Name, First Name. Presentation Title. Month Year, URL. PowerPoint Presentation.

Example citation :

Park, Lisa. Effective Working Teams . Jan. 2011, https://www.company.meetings/teams. PowerPoint Presentation.

In-text citation structure:

(Last Name)

Example in-text citation:

Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in APA format:  

APA reference structure:

Author or Presenter Last Name, Middle Initial. First Initial. (Date of publication). Title of presentation [PowerPoint presentation]. Conference Name, Location. URL

Example reference:

Park, L. (2011, March 24-28). Effective working teams [PowerPoint presentation]. Regional Dairy Workers National Conference, New York, NY, United States. https://www.company.meetings/teams

Cite a PowerPoint Presentation in Chicago Style:

Chicago citation structure:

Author Last Name, First Name. “Presentation Title.” Lecture, Location of Lecture, Month Day, Year.

Example citation:

Park, Lisa. “Effective Working Teams.” Lecture, The Plaza Hotel, New York, NY, January 11, 2011.

Troubleshooting

Solution #1: how to cite a powerpoint that has multiple authors..

For a presentation with multiple authors, list the authors alphabetically by last name for the full reference citation. The citation will list each author by Last Name, First Initial.

If the PowerPoint has just two authors, separate them with a comma and an ampersand (&). If the PowerPoint has more than two authors, list the authors separated by commas.

Reference examples:

Felner, D., & Nguy, A. (2021 April 10-12). The history of Claymation [Slideshow]. Animation Now, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

Felner, D., Nguy, A., Becham, G. (2021 April 10-12). The history of Claymation [Slideshow]. Animation Now, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

For an in-text citation for two authors, give both surnames separated by an ampersand (&) followed by a comma and the year of publication or presentation.

For an in-text citation for three or more authors, list the first author’s surname followed by “et al.” followed by a comma and the year of publication or presentation.

In-text citation examples:

(Felner & Nguy, 2021)

(Felner et al., 2021)

For a PowerPoint with two presenters or authors, include both names in the full works-cited citation. The names need to be written as follows: First presenter’s Last Name, First Name, and then the second presenter’s First Name and Last Name.

For an in-text citation, simply list the surnames of both presenters.

In-text citation example:

(Nguy and Felner)

Work-cited entry example:

Nguy, Anna and Dominic Felner. The History of Claymation. Apr. 2021. PowerPoint Presentation.

For a PowerPoint with three or more presenters, only list one presenter’s name followed by a comma and “et al.”

For an in-text citation for three or more authors or presenters , list the surname given in the full works-cited citation followed by “et al.”

(Nguy et al.)

Nguy, Anna et al. The History of Claymation. Apr. 2021. PowerPoint Presentation.

Solution #2 How to cite a slideshow that wasn’t made with PowerPoint

If making a full works-cited citation for a slideshow that was made with another program other than PowerPoint, include the medium in brackets instead of PowerPoint.

If the presentation is not in PowerPoint, and you can’t determine what software was used, include the word “slideshow” in brackets in place of PowerPoint.

Nguy, A. (2021 April 10-12). The history of Claymation [Prezi presentation]. Animation Now, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

Nguy, A. (2021 April 10-12). The history of Claymation [Slideshow]. Animation Now, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

The in-text citation will be formatted like any other APA in-text citation (author last name, year).

(Nguy, 2021)

At the end of your full works-cited citation, include the program the slideshow was made with, formatted as:  ______ Presentation.

If you are uncertain of the program used, end your citation with “slideshow” followed by a period. Nguy, Anna. The history of Claymation. Apr. 2021. Prezi Presentation. Nguy, Anna. The history of Claymation . Apr. 2021. Slideshow.

The in-text citation will be formatted like any other MLA in-text citation (author last name).

Hello all paper writers! Take a moment to try our spell checker , or refresh your knowledge on English basics with our EasyBib grammar guides ! Discover a determiner definition , learn what is an adverb , review an interjection list , and more.   

Updated April 26, 2021.

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To cite PowerPoint presentation slides, include the author name, year/date of presentation, the title, the source description, the website and/or university name, and the URL where the source can be found.

If the PowerPoint presentation is not accessible to the reader, cite the slides as personal communication.

If you want to cite a PowerPoint in MLA or APA style, you need to have basic information including the name of the author(s), title of the presentation, date and place of publication, and URL. For in-text citations, you need to include only the author name(s) in MLA style and author name(s) and year in APA style.  

APA in-text citations

(Author Surname, publication year)

(Dhanalakshmi, 2004)

MLA in-text citations

(Author Surname)

(Dhanalakshmi)

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