Making Effective Oral Presentations about Science

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Making Effective Oral Presentations about Science

• Bruce Damon, PhD
• Vanderbilt University
• Nashville, TN

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Class Objectives

• Overall Objective
• To learn how to communicate the results of
  scientific studies effectively
• Specific Aims
• Provide the rationale
• Provide general guidance
• Provide guidance for specific situations

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Class Outline

• Rationale
• General Guidance
• Specific Situations

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Rationale

• Current components of VUIISs educational
  curriculum
• 12 courses
• 9 journal clubs
• Retreat
• Seminar
• Research training

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Rationale

• Career Development Issues
• Scientific communications course
• Presentations like this one
• Finding a job in academia/industry
• Gender issues
• Grant and proposal development
• Other suggestions see me

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Rationale

• Why do we Give Talks?
• Part of general scientific process
• Communicate findings
• Receive feedback
• Establish scientific precedence
• Establish yourself
• Specific cases
• Job search process
• Progress in graduate school

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Rationale

• Learning to give an effective oral presentation
  can advance your research and career

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Rationale
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Class Outline

• Rationale
• General Guidance
• Specific Situations

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General Guidance

• Overview of Process

Determine overall organization
Organize each section
Make slides
Practice
Give talk
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General Guidance

• Determine Overall Organization
• Four things to think about

Objectives

• Communicate results?
• Get a job?

Audience

• Scientists or lay people?
• Expert or non-expert?

Rules

• Time?
• Presentation file formats?

The story

• What needs to be communicated to meet your
  objectives?

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General Guidance

• Determine Overall Organization
• Decide on major sections
• Introduction
• Body
• Finishing material

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General Guidance

• Organize Each Section
• Set objectives for each section
• What points must be made?
• Organize points using
• Logical structure
• Contrasts

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Determine how many slides you can make
• One minute per slide
• One three main points per slide

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Start with a rough draft
• Number of slides/section
• Layout of each slide

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Select appropriate fonts
• Use a sans serif font
• And not a font with serifs

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Select appropriate fonts
• Use a sans serif font
• Seven words/line, seven lines/slide
• 32 point for titles
• 24 28 point for main text

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use effective color schemes
• High contrast of text with background

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• This text may look OK on your computer screen,
  but is in fact very hard to read.

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• Same here.

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use effective color schemes
• High contrast of text with background
• Ideal font/background combinations vary with room
  lighting
• Be aware of color blindness issues

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use bullet points
• Forces audiences attention on the speaker
• Also

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• When someone writes text on slides using complete
  sentences, the speaker will often start to read
  the slides verbatim.
• Sometimes, the speaker will look only at the
  computer monitor.
• Other times, the speaker will sometimes look only
  at the presentation screen and even turn his back
  on the audience. This makes for a very boring
  presentation.
• Also, the audience reads the text on the slides
  instead of listening to the speaker. Because the
  audience can read sliently faster than the
  speaker can read aloud, the audience members
  minds will inevitably start to wander. At this
  point, the speaker may as well be giving the
  presentation to the pet fish.
• Also, it is very likely that you will need to
  start using a font that is too small, and that
  will make your slides hard to read.

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Dont get cute with animations avoid
• Things that slide
• Things that dissolve
• Wheeling is sort of annoying too.

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Dont get cute with animations avoid
• Things that spin,
• boomerang, or somehow explode

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use graphics wherever possible
• Li et al, MRM 611310, 2009

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use graphics wherever possible

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Use graphics wherever possible

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Avoid busy slides

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Equations
• Sparingly, if at all
• Cases
• Familiar equations
• Unfamiliar equations
• Complex equation
• Simple equation

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Equations
• If you have to
• Plan to lose 10 of audience with each equation
• Simplify if possible
• Talk about it

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General Guidance

• Making Effective Slides
• Miscellaneous points
• Pay attention to detail
• Use consistent slide design

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General Guidance

• Practice Your Presentation
• Goals for practicing
• Well rehearsed start/finish
• Individual slides know key points
• Slide transitions
• Procedure
• On your own
• For your group

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General Guidance

• Giving the Presentation
• Talk to audience, not the screen
• Laser point ? light saber
• Please do not ever use your laser pointer to
  follow along the text as you read it.
• Avoid distractions
• Pauses (OK, so Um)
• Keys or change
• Excessive motion

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General Guidance

• Giving the Presentation
• Anxiety
• Common, but usually not noticeable
• Reducing/dealing with it
• Give a lot of talks
• Have a slow, well rehearsed introduction and
  conclusion
• Know the room, equipment
• Try to relax and be yourself

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General Guidance

• Giving the Presentation
• Explain graphs

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General Guidance

• Giving the Presentation
• Questions
• General tips
• Anticipate questions and prepare responses
• Practice before a friendly audience
• The three Ds defend, deflect, defer
• Tough or unexpected questions
• Youre the expert

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Class Outline

• Rationale
• General Guidance
• Specific Situations

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Specific Situations

• Conference Presentations
• Goals
• Communicate results of one study
• Receive feedback
• Establish scientific precedence
• Establish yourself

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Specific Situations

• Conference Presentations
• Talk organization

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Specific Situations

• Conference Presentations
• At the meeting
• Arrive early and find the moderator
• Know how to use AV equipment
• Bring extra copies, a laptop, etc

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Specific Situations

• Conference Presentations
• Miscellaneous
• Dont need to reintroduce self or restate title
• No need for tables of contents slides
• Keep to time

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Specific Situations

• Seminars
• Goals
• Communicate results of several studies, get
  feedback, establish yourself
• Develop collaborations
• Defend a proposal

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Specific Situations

• Seminars
• Goals
• Job talks also to
• Show that youre a good scientist
• Show that youre a good teacher
• Tell them what your plans are

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Specific Situations

• Conference presentations
• Talk structure

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Specific Situations

• Full Seminars
• Miscellaneous tips
• Bring a laptop a flash drive
• Make host aware of special needs you might have
• Plan on 45-50 minutes 10-15 for questions
• Know some time checkpoints

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Final Comments

• Thanks for your attention
• Questions