CSCE
488

 Preparation phase
 Audience Analysis
 Objectives and main points
 Effective use of slides
 Format, Fonts & Figures
 Handouts
 Effective verbal presentation
 Matching verbal and visual parts
 Keeping the audience interested (awake)
 Handling Questions
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 Choose your Medium (slides, Powerpoint, etc.)
 What is necessary?
 What is sufficient?
 What is easiest to execute?
 Rehearsal
 Rehearse for a human critic (teammate)
 Videotape can be very enlightening
 Rehearsal can be a major mitigator of stage fright
 Get your timing down pat!
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 Who are they (demographically)?
 Age, gender, culture, educational level?
 What are they?
 Students, colleagues, engineers, executives?
 Customers?
 What is their knowledge level?
 What are they looking for?
 What do they expect to learn?
 How badly do they want to learn it?
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 Three universal objectives

Get the “facts” across
 Convince the audience of their validity
 Keep them awake long enough to do the above
 Individual objectives influence the emphasis

Should you emphasize “just the facts”?
 Will you need to do a lot of convincing?
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 Assumption: a listener can only handle 5 main points
 Realize that at any time, 20% of audience is thinking of something else
 Repeat the main points 3 times
 First, them what is coming (Intro/summary)
 Then, tell it to them (main body of talk)
 Finally, tell them what you just told them (conclusions)
 Distinguish between main points and details
 Hierarchical levels of bullets on slides
 Vocal volume, inflection and pauses
 Summary slides at beginning and end
 Use pictures whenever you can
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 Title Page
 title
 authors
 affiliation (or course number)
 Contact data (at least e-mail)
 Date of presentation
 Outline or Overview
 Main Body of the Slides
 Conclusions or Summary
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 Keep It Simple, Stupid!
 Visual clutter is distracting
 Too many special effects are distracting
 Use animation for illustration, not cosmetics
 Want them to remember the substance , not the form

Use short, concise “bullets”
 Employ hierarchical bullets
 Do not use paragraphs or long sentences
 Do not cram too much onto one slide
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 Font Styles
 Keep fonts clean and simple
 e.g. Arial or LaTeX \sf for most text
 e.g. Times New Roman or LaTeX \rm for titles

Don’t use too many fonts
 Limit the use of emphasis (e.g. underlining)
 Font Sizes
 Use at least 20 pt. for default text (LaTeX \LARGE)
 At least 24 pt for televised talks
 If the audience has to work at it, they just will give up
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 A good picture (example) is worth a thousand words
 And a bad picture is worth a thousand snores
 Take time to talk the audience through each figure
 Make sure the image is clearly visible
 Line size is thick enough
 High enough contrast in colors
 Make sure fonts on the picture are readable
 Exception: if you had to borrow a pre-made image
 Then you really have to talk them through it
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 The instance space X n consists of all configurations of n points on R
 A concept is a set of all configs. from X n within unit distance under the Hausdorff metric of some “ideal” configuration of k points, where HD between configs. P and Q is
H ( P , Q )
 max{ max p

P
{ min q

Q
{ d ( p , q )}} , max q

Q
{ min p

P
{ d ( p , q )}}} and d(p,q) is distance from p to q


If P is any configuration of points on R , then concept corresponding to P is C
P

{ X

X n
: H ( P , X )

1 }
X is a positive example of C
P example otherwise if it’s in
C
P and is a negative
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 Each concept c is a set of fixed-width intervals on R
 Each example X is a set of points on R
 Example is positive iff each point in an interval & no interval empty
X
1
X
2
X
3
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 Slides must be uniquely numbered (increasing order)
 Handout copies of all slides before beginning
 Include all slides
 In the same order and with the same numbering scheme
 Stapled or bound
 Two slides per handout page is eminently readable
 Four to six slides per page may be too many
 Harder to take notes
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 Time-per-slide
 Rule-of-thumb: 2-3 minutes per slide

 Figures generally take longer
 Rehearse with your actual slides
Do not verbally “wander away” from your bullets
 No one will remember a word you said
 anything worth remembering must have a bullet
 Point to the slides to change context
 Do not present complex details verbally
 formulas, equations, statistics, etc. must be visual
 But beware of information overload!
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
Pick a few people and “talk to them”
 Make eye contact (keeps them awake)
 Change victims periodically (keeps them guessing)
 Cover the whole room
 There is lots of feedback available
 Facial expressions & body language
 Furrowed brows vs. nodding heads
 Fidgeting, browsing ahead in the handout, eyes closed
 Adjust your talk to these cues
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


Stand up, don’t sit
 Get away from the workstation
 They can hear you better,
 Puts you in a physically dominant position
Don’t just stand there, Move !
 A little motion keeps people awake
 Use hand gestures

BUT: don’t overdo it.
 A moving target commands attention
 Too much motion is a distraction
 Face the audience
Point to the screen, not the slide!
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 Speak loud enough to be heard without effort
 Speak with confidence (watch out for arrogance)
 Improves your credibility
 Try to use the lower registers of your voice
 Vary the pitch, volume, inflection

Develop a rhythm (don’t stumble over each word)
 If you have an accent or impediment
 Slow down!

Don’t let your volume drop
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
Talk, don’t read!
 Take cues from your slides, but do not read them

It’s OK to check your notes (occasionally)

Having notes on the “backup” papers helps
 Write on the slides
 It gives the audience something to do
 It strongly reinforces memory
 It draws their attention to the details
 Especially good if the details are important
 Give them time to get caught up
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 Acknowledge that listening is hard work
 Entertaining implies keeping them:
 interested, focused, awake
 Using Humor
 Need the right amount, of the right type
 Should be relevant to the topic
 A little goes a long way
 short relevant stories
 a little irreverent comment

Don’t push your luck
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
Repeat the question: “The question is …”
 So, everyone else gets a chance to hear it,
 To make sure you understand it
 To stall while you formulate the answer
 Deferring the question is OK:
 If you are discussing it later in the talk
 If it is too complex & peripheral - offer to discuss later

If you really don’t know - say you will find out for them
 Always follow up on a deferred question
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 Should be a single cohesive presentation
 visual style
 page numbering
 handout binding
 One person should handle intro. & conclusions
 Introduce other team members
 Overview what topics they will cover
 Hand-off the presentation to others by name
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 A presentation can make or break a project
 Know your audience ahead of time
 Identify the main points you want to get across
 Use clear, effective slides
 Use a loud, clear, non-monotonous voice
 Match the verbal to the visual presentation
 Pay attention to the audience
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