Principles of Research Presentation#

To convey information and request feedback, you need to give presentations. Duration can vary from 1 minute (elevator pitch) to two hours (a lecture). Here are some principles that you should keep in mind and practice.

Be aware of your purpose#

Why are you going to give a presentation?

  1. 1-minute introduction about what you did.
  2. 1-minute introduction about what you are doing now.
  3. 5-minute update of your current progress (w/ or w/o slides).
  4. 15-minute conference talk (w/ slides).
  5. 45-minute invited talk (w/ slides).
  6. 45-minute job talk (w/ slides).
  7. 90-minute lecture (w/ slides).

Be aware of your audience#

Who are you going to give the presentation to?

  1. Your supervisor.
  2. People who join your group meeting.
  3. People who have a similar background.
  4. People outside of your committee.

Prepare your presentation#

  1. Write down the speech text.
  2. Make slides.
  3. Practice.
  4. Dry run, answer questions, and take feedback.
  5. Perform.

Make slides#

  1. Susan McConnell (Stanford): Designing effective scientific presentations
    • We are good listeners and let's transfer the knowledge to make slides
  2. One slide, one topic sentence, 4-5 sentences, 1 minute
  3. Consider the attention curve
    • https://ethos3.com/hacking-the-audience-attention-curve/
    • Split the talk into parts and summary the key message for each part
    • Write down the key messages first and fill up the rest of space
    • Highlight the key messages with both text and the soundtrack
  4. A simple style
    • One font (Calibri)
    • Large font size (24, 28, 36, 52) and less text
    • Sentence in one line
    • Built-in list
    • Box for the key summary
    • Backup slides
  5. Animation
    • Too much text and show them one by one

Practice#

  • Slide by slide: starting from the last sentence for the last slide
  • All slides: control speed and try to remember as much as possible

Dry-run, prepare and answer questions, and take feedback#

  1. Have eye contact, be confident
  2. That's good/interesting question. Give a high level overview of your answer in the beginning and then give the remaining details of your answer.