Handout 10.1
Research Presentations
Bad presentations by academics are depressingly common. Often the root causes of
a poor presentation have more to do with lack of clarity about what should be in a
presentation (and lack of training) than with a person being bad at ‘performing’ in
front of an audience. The ideas on this handout should help you to think about how
to be an effective communicator.
Even if you do follow all this advice, things can still go wrong. If so, briefly explain
what has happened to your audience. This will keep them on your side. Everyone
has to face such a situation at some time and most of your audience will be
sympathetic.
Points to remember
1
Acknowledge any introduction you have had and acknowledge your
audience
Do not just wade in. This routine activity also helps you to settle down.
2
Introduce your talk and establish what you are going to say
Visual aids help to provide structuring ‘signposts’ for your audience – it is
common to have a slide to indicate the structure of your talk and then to use
further slides to highlight headings, ending up with key conclusions. This is
not a particularly exciting use of visual aids, but it works well and gives the
audience something to look at other than you, which can help take the
pressure off you as a presenter.
Providing an initial context for your work helps the audience to settle down to
your talk. Also, if you are seeking particular feedback, like advice on
preliminary work, this needs to be stated at the outset.
3
Say what your visuals represent and make sure they are:
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visible
comprehensible
precise
uncluttered
in the right order
The dvd contained plenty of examples of what can go wrong. Be careful about
simply copying diagrams, tables and charts from your written paper – they are
usually far too small and detailed. Cut it down to a few main headings. Break
down a complex chart into stages and build it up for your audience.
Make sure you know in advance how to use your visual aids. Avoidable
mistakes concerning equipment happen a lot, and they can be very
distracting. IT equipment need to be set up properly. The whole style of a
presentation can be ruined if the highly amusing, but somewhat risqué,
screensaver you have on your portable computer suddenly cuts in as you are
speaking to a slide!
Handouts are a useful alternative to visual aids, particularly for small
audiences.
4
Use only relevant slides
This is true even if other slides might look impressive or are a fascinating part
of another talk. Do not use too many graphics – flashing through slides ‘to
give an impression’ is simply annoying. Nobody can take in a series of charts
flashed up at five-second intervals!
5
Organise yourself and your presentation
Clearly, you need to have sorted out a structure and a story line for your
audience to follow. Whether you speak without notes, have a series of
headings or use a script is a matter of experience, or your own style. For
some people, the headings on slides are enough for them to use as prompts;
others need notes on cards or paper. You could simply print off your slides
and write your notes on them. Actually scripting a talk can be useful if timing is
strict or you feel unsure.
In some subject areas, reading a paper is the accepted form of presentation.
But remember, in writing a script or a paper that is to be read, you need to
make it work verbally. For example, long and complex sentences, which may
work when written down, become incomprehensible when spoken.
PowerPoint has facilities to make notes to help you rearrange and structure
your presentation.
6
Address the audience and not the screen
You will, at times, have to look at the slides to which you are referring. Try to
stand where you can see the main screen by glimpsing at it rather than
turning your back to the audience. Where you stand, however, is often
dictated by room layout and the need to keep clear the line of sight between
the screen clear and your audience.
7
Speak clearly and at a measured pace
Make sure you can be heard and avoid extremes of pace – either a slow
monotone or going so fast that people cannot follow. By sorting out points of
emphasis and ways to vary pace you should be able to keep people awake
and possibly even attentive. Talk to an experienced presenter about this.
8
Orchestrate and rehearse your performance
The presentation has got to tell a story and keep the listeners’ attention.
Structure is thus very important – the starting point must be clear, together
with all the subsequent steps through to your conclusions. Guide your
audience on a trip through your work.
Talks often overrun, which is rarely tolerated these days. Just going faster or
making ad hoc cuts is a disaster! (Note that, in his ‘bad’ presentation, Mike
had to skip over a series of slides that actually contained the most important
part of his findings!) One purpose of practising a talk is to make sure it runs to
time (as well as to check whether anything is unclear). The shorter the talk,
the more preparation is needed! One comment I have received on this subject
was ‘Think of what you want to say, then halve it’! It’s also worth thinking in
advance about what you can leave it and even bracketing it in your notes.
Take opportunities to practise – for example, in an informal postgraduate
seminar or a workshop.
8
Think of your audience
Does your audience include people without a specialist knowledge of your
topic (and its technical terms)? What knowledge can you assume they already
have and what will need explaining? Be prepared to check with them. If you
were in the audience, what would you be wanting to get from a talk? Is there
an ‘angle’ you need to adopt to address the needs of your audience?
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11
Dress appropriately
Dress in clothes that are appropriate for your audience and that make you feel
comfortable and confident. Your clothing should not be a distraction from what
you are presenting. Linked to this, body language can be either distracting or
helpful. One lecturer was well known for jingling his keys in a distracting
manner (note that, in his ‘bad’ lecture, Mike was prone to scratch himself in
several places); remember, eye-contact with your audience can be
reassuring.
Do not overstretch yourself
If you are inexperienced at giving presentations, keep everything as simple as
possible at first. You need to be confident in the basics of presenting your
work before attempting new things like flashy graphics or any sort of unusual
presentation method. As was noted above, presentation methods such as
interactive CD or ‘Powerpoint’ require careful preparation and rehearsal.
Handout 10.2
Guidelines for giving a truly terrible talk
(from Oxford Polytechnic Teaching News)
Strict adherence to the following time-tested guidelines will ensure that both
you and your work remain obscure and will guarantee an audience of
minimum size at your next talk.
Presentation
1. Don’t organise your talk in advance. It is usually best not to even think about it
until your name has been called by the session chair. Above all, don’t write the
talk out, for it may fall into enemy hands.
2. Never, ever rehearse, even briefly. Talks are best when they arise
spontaneously and in random order. Leave it as an exercise for the listener to
assemble your thoughts properly and make some sense of what you say.
3. Discuss each slide in complete detail, especially those parts irrelevant to the
main points of your talk. If you suspect that there is anyone in the audience who
is not asleep, return to a previous slide and discuss it again.
4. Face the projection screen, mumble, and talk as fast as possible, especially while
making important points. An alternative strategy is to speak very slowly, leave
every other sentence uncompleted, and punctuate each thought with ‘ahh’,
‘uhhh’, or something equally informative.
5. Use up all of the allocated time and at least half, if not all, of the next speaker’s.
This avoids foolish and annoying questions and forces the chair to ride hard on
the following speakers. Remember the rest of the speakers don’t have anything
important to say anyway.
Visual Aids
1. Use lots of slides. A rule of thumb is one slide for each 10 seconds of time
allocated for your talk.
2. Put as much information on each slide as possible. Graphs with a dozen or so
crossing lines, tables with at least 100 entries, and maps with 20 or 30 units are
especially effective; but equations, particularly if they contain at least 15 terms
and 20 variables, are almost as good. A high density of detailed and marginally
relevant data usually pre-empts questions from the audience.
3. Use small print. Anyone who has not had the foresight to either sit in the front or
bring a set of binoculars is probably not smart enough to understand your talk
anyway.
4. Use figures and tables directly from publications. They will help you accomplish
goals 2 and 3 above and minimise the preparation for the talk.
Handout 10.3
Dealing with questions
You may find this is the most intimidating part of doing a presentation.
However, building up experience in dealing with questions about your research will
be invaluable when your viva arrives. The approach to answering questions should
be the same in any presentation, be it a student seminar or in your viva. Thus the
key points here are similar to dealing with questions in a viva, which include the
following.
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Give straight answers to straight questions – resist the temptation to wander
off the point (especially if you know you have a tendency to do so).
If you feel a question indicates that your talk was unclear, briefly restate the
relevant points and check that the problem is resolved.
If you feel a question is unclear (people in seminars and conferences often
ask vague questions), always ask for clarification. Be alert to questions whose
main aim is to score points, and try not to rise to the bait.
Quite often what appears to be a single question actually contains two or
more interdependent questions. Watch out for this. Break the question down
and deal with it in a stated order. If necessary, ask to be reminded of the
second or third part of a question.
If you think a question is based on a doubtful premise, challenge it (for
example, if you think the questioner has missed the point).
When answering a complicated question, if possible state your answer simply
and then elaborate further to support this answer.
If you do not know how to answer a question, or if you need more time to
consider an answer, simply say so. Do not evasively ‘waffle’ around a
question, but own up.
These points are also covered in chapter 11 of DPGR on the viva, but you will hit this
situation first in presenting your research in other