Module 7
How to present your paper
What’s inside
• Preparing a Professional Scientific
Presentation
• How to present a paper (The WHPI
approach)
The Whole Ideas
A scientific paper consists of:
Stage 1 - Thinking About It
Stage 2 - Preparing the Proposal
Stage 3- Conducting the Research
Stage 4- Writing the Research Paper*
Stage 5- Sharing the Research Outcomes with Others
Stage 6- Revising the Research Paper
PREPARING THE PROPOSAL
PRESENTATION
Do each of these statements describe you? If they do,
you're ready to prepare your research proposal
presentation
1. I am familiar with other research that has been conducted in areas
related to my research project.
(___Yes, it's me)
( ___No, not me)
2. I have a clear understanding of the steps that I will use in
conducting my research.
(___Yes, it's me)
( ___No, not me)
PREPARING THE PROPOSAL
PRESENTATION
3. I feel that I have the ability to get through each of the
steps necessary to complete my research project.
(___Yes, it's me)
( ___No, not me)
4. I know that I am motivated and have the drive to get
through all of the steps in the research project.
(___Yes, it's me)
( ___No, not me)
Why?, How, Prove it!
There are several advantages to the Why? How? Prove It!
method:
• Your talk starts and ends with a key message, leaving
your audience in no doubt as to what you said - you've
grabbed their attention
• Writing your talk is easy as you only have to provide a
few details and then add some examples to prove your
point
• Remembering your talk is easy as it is constructed
logically -plus if you forget where you are just reflect on
what you have said and work out which is the next phase
in the sequence.
• Your talk follows the apparent logic of the audience
making it much more influential and persuasive
Why?, How, Prove it!
1.Key message
Your presentation MUST have a key message. Leave
your audience in absolutely no doubt what you came to
tell them. Don't lead them up to your messages - they
won't stay the course. Hit them between the eyes with
your message right up front. You should provide your key
message within the first 15 seconds of starting your
talk. Research shows that if you don't do this you risk
losing the attention of your audience.
Why?, How, Prove it!
Poorly prepared key messages are frequently the problem
that lies behind badly written talks and speeches.
Your key message should contain:
• The main action or change in behavior you want your
audience to take as a result of listening to you
• Reference to the audience
• Reference to an example that you'll elaborate on
Why?, How, Prove it!
This message should say:
• WHO it is for • WHAT they will do • WHY they will do it –
• WHEN they will do it This message should be concise, which means you can say it in just
few seconds. Indeed, if no-one wishes to listen to you after those
opening 20 seconds they will still have understood what you have come
to tell them. The remainder of your talk would just be the detail - but
your message will have hit home without it.
Having said that, a good key message with a 'call to action' means
that your audience will be hungry for more, so they will carry on
listening.
Why?
Why?
•
•
•
•
Having provided your audience with your key message they will
inevitably be asking themselves:
'Why should I do that?' or 'Why should I think that?' or 'Why
should that be the case?'
In any event, all the questions that follow from an action-oriented
key message are of the 'why?' kind. That means if the next stage of
your presentation sets about answering these questions your talk is
following what the audience perceives as its route through the
material. The result is that you have them on your side
immediately.
If your talk follows the audience logic by immediately answering the
'why' style questions you will be providing just what the listeners
want, mentally. As a result, you will make your material MUCH
MORE LIKELY to be accepted and acted upon.
Having constructed your key message you simply have to think of all
the reasons why your audience should accept what you are saying
or act upon your material. These reasons and the detail behind them
will form the first main section of your presentation
How?
How?
So, your audience now knows what you expect them to do and why
they should do it. Now you need to answer their next inevitable
question - how are they going to achieve what you suggest?
In this section of your talk you need to provide some explanation of
how your audience can take the action you suggest or how they
might go about changing their minds on a situation.
However, this is the least important part of your presentation.
You are merely giving ideas at this stage. Once people have bought
into your idea by understanding why your key message is important,
the 'how?' they might do what you suggest is nice to know, but not
need to know material. Hence, the 'how?' may only be a couple of
sentences of suggestions, nothing very detailed.
How?
Having said that, 'how' is an important part of the
presentation as it necessarily follows the
logical set of questions being asked
subconsciously by the audience. Hence to
leave it out disturbs the natural logic in the
audience's mind and you lose support, reducing
your influence.
But don't waste too much breath on it. Your
audience simply needs to check that 'how? has
been answered. Quite how they achieve tour
desires will be up to them after your presentation
- you are just providing some guidance.
Prove It!
Prove It!
So, you've told your audience what you expect them to do, why they
should do it and how they can get on with things. But even though
you may have got your message across, you haven't really
underlined it as yet. You need to provide evidence for your
assertions - prove what you have said is beyond dispute. The
'prove it' section of your talk is the most important part you need to
write, after the key message. So spend lots of time in planning this.
You can prove your key message in several ways, but the
main evidence will come from:
Personal examples
Case studies
Statistics
Prove It!
• Individual, personal examples are immensely
powerful - especially if you tell them as stories.
• Case studies are in depth examples and can be
useful, but they are more difficult to tell as
stories.
• Statistics are useful to help prove a point, but
they do not carry as much weight as examples
and case histories. That's because people know
that you can massage the statistics in your
favour, so they put less trust in them.