Scientific Presentations

Basic Points on a Talk

1. You will have 10 minutes for your talk, then 2 minutes to take questions – thus you must be concise in how you put your talk togetherYou will need to present some background information – you need to select the key points to emphasize

2. Be selective – delete extraneous details3. Focus your talk on your results

Basic Points cont’d4. Draw conclusions as you present each component

of the study –this is rather different from a written paper but it helps keeps information organized for a listener

5. You must give a visual presentation of your main points - Rule of thumb – one slide per minute of talk

6. Summarize the major findings of your research at the end of the talk

7. Be prepared to answer questions about your methods, specifics of your results, and your interpretations of the results

Giving the Talk

1. Know what you are going to say and how you are going to say it – practice the talk before hand

2. Don’t rush – speak clearly and slowly – frequently refer to your visual aids

3. Make the visual aids work for you – point out specific parts of graphs and tables to illustrate your points – clearly point to the data you are referring to

4. Write unfamiliar terms on Powerpoint – spell out abbreviations at least once to familiarize the audience with what you did

Giving the Talk Cont’d5. Don’t mumble. Make eye contact with the

audience6. Sound interested in what you are saying – if you

aren’t interested why should the audience be interested?

7. Don’t end abruptly – let the audience know you are approaching the end of talk – perhaps “In conclusion” or “I would like to make a final point”

8. End gracefully – perhaps with a “Thank you” or “I would be happy to take questions now”

9. Do not exceed the time limit!

Giving the Talk Cont’d

10. Do not feel compelled to answer questions you do not understand – ask for a clarification

11. It is best to paraphrase the question before you answer it – helps indicate you understand the question, lets the entire audience hear it

12. Do not be afraid to admit you don’t know the answer to a question – much better than waffling

13. If you use PowerPoint – keep the presentation simple – minimize use of colors, patterned backgrounds, animation etc. All that can be distracting.

Examples of What To DoAnd What Not To Do

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Discipline

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Discipline

If you put too much text on a slide, it tends to overwhelm your audience. They’re trying to listen to you and read what’s on the screen at the same time. The large amount of text makes these two tasks difficult to do at the same time.

Don’t create text slides which include everything you intend to say and then just read them to your audience. After all, your audience can read, so they don’t need you reading to them. It gets pretty annoying to have someone turn their back on the audience and read things directly off the screen.

Suggested use of text:

• Summarize each point

• Consider bullets

• Text should enhance organization

This is pretty hard to read. But this is even harder. Your audience is going to have work really hard to read what you wrote. You are going to tire them out and annoy them.

Isn’t this better?

Times Helvetica 88Times Helvetica 48

Times Helvetica 36Times Helvetica 24

Times Helvetica 14

Times Helvetica 10

This is extremely difficult for some people to read!

Isn’t this better?

Avoid unsaturated colors

Use Saturated colors

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Change in Body Mass (g) Over Time For FishGiven Food A or B

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