There's no better way to improve your oral communication skills than by practice.  In addition, this is a way for you to develop and test your skill at answering questions about your own research in a friendly and supportive environment, experience which will prove useful when you present it at scientific meetings.  Bottom line: these are really important skills you'll use throughout your career, whether it is in an academic setting or the real world. Is this hard work? Yes! Is this rewarding? Definitely.

1. Start with the larger goal of the work.  Why is it important?  Societal relevance?  Fundamental paleoclimate science question?  Other?  What are the implications of discovering the answer?
2. Give a brief, but clear and concise statement of the specific research question you'll address.  Sometimes this is best expressed in question form.
3. Emphasize the essential points of your proposal.  What are the most important logical steps?
4. Take some time to really dissect the figures you show us -- they are usually central to a scientific argument. Use them to clarify the logistic steps in your argument.  Explain your figures to the class as if you are explaining things to a non-expert. What are the axes and units? What is plotted? What points are made by presenting the figure?  Guide us through your interpretation of the figure.
5. Take some time to discuss the major assumptions or uncertainties in the approach you have described.  You might anticipate, and answer, expected questions about your approach.
   
6. Finish with a slide describing the expected outcomes.  What do you expect to see result from the work you have proposed to do? How will the results be applied to resolving the scientific question which motivated the work in the first place?
7. Put enough text and description on your slides to remind yourself to hit the major points and to note important details, but not so much that you are tempted to read from your transparencies.
   
8. Practice your presentation to yourself or to a friend.  Just running through it once out loud will help you work out timing and bugs, and to fill in logical gaps.  Even in a short presentation, organization will help you make even a subtle argument clear in a short amount of time.