presentation scientific meaning

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.17(12); 2021 Dec

Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

Kristen m. naegle.

Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

Funding Statement

The author received no specific funding for this work.

• - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

• My email alerts
• BMA member login
• Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Search form

• Advanced search
• Search responses
• Search blogs
• How to prepare and...

How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

• Related content
• Peer review
• Lucia Hartigan , registrar 1 ,
• Fionnuala Mone , fellow in maternal fetal medicine 1 ,
• Mary Higgins , consultant obstetrician 2
• 1 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
• 2 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin
• luciahartigan{at}hotmail.com

The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker’s ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes

The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker’s skills in transmitting the information to the audience. 1

Preparation

It is important to be as well prepared as possible. Look at the venue in person, and find out the time allowed for your presentation and for questions, and the size of the audience and their backgrounds, which will allow the presentation to be pitched at the appropriate level.

See what the ambience and temperature are like and check that the format of your presentation is compatible with the available computer. This is particularly important when embedding videos. Before you begin, look at the video on stand-by and make sure the lights are dimmed and the speakers are functioning.

For visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Mac Keynote programmes are usual, although Prezi is increasing in popularity. Save the presentation on a USB stick, with email or cloud storage backup to avoid last minute disasters.

When preparing the presentation, start with an opening slide containing the title of the study, your name, and the date. Begin by addressing and thanking the audience and the organisation that has invited you to speak. Typically, the format includes background, study aims, methodology, results, strengths and weaknesses of the study, and conclusions.

If the study takes a lecturing format, consider including “any questions?” on a slide before you conclude, which will allow the audience to remember the take home messages. Ideally, the audience should remember three of the main points from the presentation. 2

Have a maximum of four short points per slide. If you can display something as a diagram, video, or a graph, use this instead of text and talk around it.

Animation is available in both Microsoft PowerPoint and the Apple Mac Keynote programme, and its use in presentations has been demonstrated to assist in the retention and recall of facts. 3 Do not overuse it, though, as it could make you appear unprofessional. If you show a video or diagram don’t just sit back—use a laser pointer to explain what is happening.

Rehearse your presentation in front of at least one person. Request feedback and amend accordingly. If possible, practise in the venue itself so things will not be unfamiliar on the day. If you appear comfortable, the audience will feel comfortable. Ask colleagues and seniors what questions they would ask and prepare responses to these questions.

It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don’t have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.

Try to present slides at the rate of around one slide a minute. If you talk too much, you will lose your audience’s attention. The slides or videos should be an adjunct to your presentation, so do not hide behind them, and be proud of the work you are presenting. You should avoid reading the wording on the slides, but instead talk around the content on them.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and remember to smile and pause after each comment, giving your nerves time to settle. Speak slowly and concisely, highlighting key points.

Do not assume that the audience is completely familiar with the topic you are passionate about, but don’t patronise them either. Use every presentation as an opportunity to teach, even your seniors. The information you are presenting may be new to them, but it is always important to know your audience’s background. You can then ensure you do not patronise world experts.

To maintain the audience’s attention, vary the tone and inflection of your voice. If appropriate, use humour, though you should run any comments or jokes past others beforehand and make sure they are culturally appropriate. Check every now and again that the audience is following and offer them the opportunity to ask questions.

Finishing up is the most important part, as this is when you send your take home message with the audience. Slow down, even though time is important at this stage. Conclude with the three key points from the study and leave the slide up for a further few seconds. Do not ramble on. Give the audience a chance to digest the presentation. Conclude by acknowledging those who assisted you in the study, and thank the audience and organisation. If you are presenting in North America, it is usual practice to conclude with an image of the team. If you wish to show references, insert a text box on the appropriate slide with the primary author, year, and paper, although this is not always required.

Answering questions can often feel like the most daunting part, but don’t look upon this as negative. Assume that the audience has listened and is interested in your research. Listen carefully, and if you are unsure about what someone is saying, ask for the question to be rephrased. Thank the audience member for asking the question and keep responses brief and concise. If you are unsure of the answer you can say that the questioner has raised an interesting point that you will have to investigate further. Have someone in the audience who will write down the questions for you, and remember that this is effectively free peer review.

Be proud of your achievements and try to do justice to the work that you and the rest of your group have done. You deserve to be up on that stage, so show off what you have achieved.

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: None.

• ↵ Rovira A, Auger C, Naidich TP. How to prepare an oral presentation and a conference. Radiologica 2013 ; 55 (suppl 1): 2 -7S. OpenUrl
• ↵ Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. PLos Comput Biol 2007 ; 3 : e77 . OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Naqvi SH, Mobasher F, Afzal MA, Umair M, Kohli AN, Bukhari MH. Effectiveness of teaching methods in a medical institute: perceptions of medical students to teaching aids. J Pak Med Assoc 2013 ; 63 : 859 -64. OpenUrl

Home Blog Education How to Prepare Your Scientific Presentation

How to Prepare Your Scientific Presentation

Since the dawn of time, humans were eager to find explanations for the world around them. At first, our scientific method was very simplistic and somewhat naive. We observed and reflected. But with the progressive evolution of research methods and thinking paradigms, we arrived into the modern era of enlightenment and science. So what represents the modern scientific method and how can you accurately share and present your research findings to others? These are the two fundamental questions we attempt to answer in this post. 

What is the Scientific Method?

To better understand the concept, let’s start with this scientific method definition from the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography :

The scientific method is a way of conducting research, based on theory construction, the generation of testable hypotheses, their empirical testing, and the revision of theory if the hypothesis is rejected. 

Essentially, a scientific method is a cumulative term, used to describe the process any scientist uses to objectively interpret the world (and specific phenomenon) around them. 

The scientific method is the opposite of beliefs and cognitive biases — mostly irrational, often unconscious, interpretations of different occurrences that we lean on as a mental shortcut. 

The scientific method in research, on the contrary, forces the thinker to holistically assess and test our approaches to interpreting data. So that they could gain consistent and non-arbitrary results. 

The common scientific method examples are:

• Systematic observation 
• Experimentation
• Inductive and deductive reasoning
• Formation and testing of hypotheses and theories

All of the above are used by both scientists and businesses to make better sense of the data and/or phenomenon at hand. 

The Evolution of the Scientific Method 

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle are believed to be the forefathers of the scientific method. They were among the first to try to justify and refine their thought process using the scientific method experiments and deductive reasoning. 

Both developed specific systems for knowledge acquisition and processing. For example, the Platonic way of knowledge emphasized reasoning as the main method for learning but downplayed the importance of observation. The Aristotelian corpus of knowledge, on the contrary, said that we must carefully observe the natural world to discover its fundamental principles. 

In medieval times, thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Andreas Vesalius among many others worked on further clarifying how we can obtain proven knowledge through observation and induction. 

The 16th–18th centuries are believed to have given the greatest advances in terms of scientific method application. We, humans, learned to better interpret the world around us from mechanical, biological, economic, political, and medical perspectives. Thinkers such as Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and their followers also increasingly switched to a tradition of explaining everything through mathematics, geometry, and numbers. 

Up till today, mathematical and mechanical explanations remain the core parts of the scientific method. 

Why is the Scientific Method Important Today? 

Because our ancestors didn’t have as much data as we do. We now live in the era of paramount data accessibility and connectivity, where over 2.5 quintillions of data are produced each day. This has tremendously accelerated knowledge creation.

But, at the same time, such overwhelming exposure to data made us more prone to external influences, biases, and false beliefs. These can jeopardize the objectivity of any research you are conducting. 

Scientific findings need to remain objective, verifiable, accurate, and consistent. Diligent usage of scientific methods in modern business and science helps ensure proper data interpretation, results replication, and undisputable validity. 

6 Steps of the Scientific Method

Over the course of history, the scientific method underwent many interactions. Yet, it still carries some of the integral steps our ancestors used to analyze the world such as observation and inductive reasoning. However, the modern scientific method steps differ a bit. 

1. Make an Observation 

An observation serves as a baseline for your research. There are two important characteristics for a good research observation:

• It must be objective, not subjective. 
• It must be verifiable, meaning others can say it’s true or false with this. 

For example, This apple is red (objective/verifiable observation). This apple is delicious (subjective, harder-to-verify observation).

2. Develop a Hypothesis

Observations tell us about the present or past. But the goal of science is to glean in the future. A scientific hypothesis is based on prior knowledge and produced through reasoning as an attempt to descriptive a future event.

Here are characteristics of a good scientific hypothesis: 

• General and tentative idea
• Agrees with all available observations
• Testable and potentially falsifiable

Remember: If we state our hypothesis to indicate there is no effect, our hypothesis is a cause-and-effect relationship . A hypothesis, which asserts no effect, is called a null hypothesis. 

3. Make a Prediction 

A hypothesis is a mental “launchpad” for predicting the existence of other phenomena or quantitative results of new observations.

Going back to an earlier example here’s how to turn it into a hypothesis and a potential prediction for proving it. For example: If this apple is red, other apples of this type should be red too. 

Your goal is then to decide which variables can help you prove or disprove your hypothesis and prepare to test these. 

4. Perform an Experiment 

Collect all the information around variables that will help you prove or disprove your prediction. According to the scientific method, a hypothesis has to be discarded or modified if its predictions are clearly and repeatedly incompatible with experimental results.

Yes, you may come up with an elegant theory. However, if your hypothetical predictions cannot be backed by experimental results, you cannot use them as a valid explanation of the phenomenon. 

5. Analyze the Results of the Experiment

To come up with proof for your hypothesis, use different statistical analysis methods to interpret the meaning behind your data.

Remember to stay objective and emotionally unattached to your results. If 95 apples turned red, but 5 were yellow, does it disprove your hypothesis? Not entirely. It may mean that you didn’t account for all variables and must adapt the parameters of your experiment. 

Here are some common data analysis techniques, used as a part of a scientific method: 

• Statistical analysis
• Cause and effect analysis (see cause and effect analysis slides )
• Regression analysis
• Factor analysis
• Cluster analysis
• Time series analysis
• Diagnostic analysis
• Root cause analysis (see root cause analysis slides )

6. Draw a Conclusion 

Every experiment has two possible outcomes:

• The results correspond to the prediction
• The results disprove the prediction 

If that’s the latter, as a scientist you must discard the prediction then and most likely also rework the hypothesis based on it. 

How to Give a Scientific Presentation to Showcase Your Methods

Whether you are doing a poster session, conference talk, or follow-up presentation on a recently published journal article, most of your peers need to know how you’ve arrived at the presented conclusions.

In other words, they will probe your scientific method for gaps to ensure that your results are fair and possible to replicate. So that they could incorporate your theories in their research too. Thus your scientific presentation must be sharp, on-point, and focus clearly on your research approaches. 

Below we propose a quick framework for creating a compelling scientific presentation in PowerPoint (+ some helpful templates!). 

1. Open with a Research Question 

Here’s how to start a scientific presentation with ease: share your research question. On the first slide, briefly recap how your thought process went. Briefly state what was the underlying aim of your research: Share your main hypothesis, mention if you could prove or disprove them. 

It might be tempting to pack a lot of ideas into your first slide but don’t. Keep the opening of your presentation short to pique the audience’s initial interest and set the stage for the follow-up narrative.

2. Disclose Your Methods

Whether you are doing a science poster presentation or conference talk, many audience members would be curious to understand how you arrived at your results. Deliver this information at the beginning of your presentation to avoid any ambiguities. 

Here’s how to organize your science methods on a presentation: 

• Do not use bullet points or full sentences. Use diagrams and structured images to list the methods
• Use visuals and iconography to use metaphors where possible.
• Organize your methods by groups e.g. quantifiable and non-quantifiable

Finally, when you work on visuals for your presentation — charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. — think from the perspective of a subject novice. Does the image really convey the key information around the subject? Does it help break down complex ideas?

3. Spotlight the Results 

Obviously, the research results will be your biggest bragging right. However, don’t over-pack your presentation with a long-winded discussion of your findings and how revolutionary these may be for the community. 

Rather than writing a wall of text, do this instead:

• Use graphs with large axis values/numbers to showcase the findings in great detail
• Prioritize formats that are known to everybody (e.g. odds ratios, Kaplan Meier curves, etc.)
• Do not include more than 5 lines of plain text per slide 

Overall, when you feel that the results slide gets too cramped, it’s best to move the data to a new one. 

Also, as you work on organizing data on your scientific presentation PowerPoint template , think if there are obvious limitations and gaps. If yes, make sure you acknowledge them during your speech.

4. Mention Study Limitations 

The scientific method mandates objectivity. That’s why every researcher must clearly state what was excluded from their study. Remember: no piece of scientific research is truly universal and has certain boundaries. However, when you fail to personally state those, others might struggle to draw the line themselves and replicate your results. Then, if they fail to do so, they’d question the viability of your research.

5. Conclude with a Memorable Takeaway Message 

Every experienced speaker will tell you that the audience best retains the information they hear first and last. Most people will attend more than one scientific presentation during the day. 

So if you want the audience to better remember your talk, brainstorm a take-home message for the last slide of your presentation. Think of your last slide texts as an elevator pitch — a short, concluding message, summarizing your research.

To Conclude

Today we have no shortage of research and scientific methods for testing and proving our hypothesis. However, unlike our ancestors, most scientists experience deeper scrutiny when it comes to presenting and explaining their findings to others. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your scientific presentation clearly relays the aim, vector, and thought process behind your research.

Like this article? Please share

Education, Presentation Ideas, Presentation Skills, Presentation Tips Filed under Education

Related Articles

Filed under Presentation Ideas • August 22nd, 2024

How to Write a Presentation Script

The script of a speech is a vital aspect for a presentation’s success. Join us here to learn the process of writing a presentation script.

Filed under Google Slides Tutorials • August 6th, 2024

How to Use Google Slides Strikethrough Text

Customize your presentation slides by using Google Slides strikethrough and add a factor of humor, emphasize, or track changes in a truly visual method.

Filed under Google Slides Tutorials • July 25th, 2024

How to Hide a Slide in Google Slides

Hiding a slide in Google Slides is a task that takes less than a minute. Learn how to quickly implement this tool for your presentations in this article.

Leave a Reply

Reference management. Clean and simple.

5 tips for giving a good scientific presentation

What is a scientific presentation?

What is the objective of a scientific presentation, why is giving scientific presentations necessary, how to give a scientific presentation, tip 1: prepare during the days leading up to your talk, tip 2: deal with presentation nerves by practicing simple exercises, tip 3: deliver your talk with intention, tip 4: be adaptable and willing to adjust your presentation, tip 5: conclude your talk and manage questions confidently, concluding thoughts, other sources to help you give a good scientific presentation, frequently asked questions about giving scientific presentations, related articles.

You have made the slides for your scientific presentation. Now, you need to prepare to deliver your talk. But, giving an oral scientific presentation can be nerve-wracking. How do you ensure that you deliver your talk well, and leave a good impression on the audience?

Mastering the skill of giving a good scientific presentation will stand you in good stead for the rest of your career, as it may lead to new collaborations or even new employment opportunities.

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to give a good oral scientific presentation, including

• Why giving scientific presentations is important for your career;
• How to prepare before giving a scientific presentation;
• How to keep the audience engaged and deliver your talk with confidence.

The following tips are a product of our research into the literature on giving scientific presentations as well as our own experiences as scientists in giving and attending talks. We advise on how to make a scientific presentation in another post.

A scientific presentation is a talk or poster where you describe the findings of your research to others. An oral presentation usually involves presenting slides to an audience. You may give an oral scientific presentation at a conference, give an invited seminar at another institution, or give a talk as part of an interview. A PhD thesis defense is one type of scientific presentation.

➡️ Read about how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

The objective of a scientific presentation is to communicate the science such that the audience:

• Learns something new;
• Leaves with a clear understanding of the key message of your research;
• Has confidence in you and your work;
• Remembers you afterward for the right reasons.

As a scientist, one of your responsibilities is disseminating your scientific knowledge by giving presentations. Communicating your research to others is an altruistic act, as it is an opportunity to teach others about your research findings, and the knowledge you have gained while researching your topic.

Giving scientific presentations confers many career benefits , such as:

• Having the opportunity to share your ideas and to have insightful conversations with other scientists. For example, a thoughtful question may create a new direction for your research.
• Gaining recognition for your work and generating excitement for your research program can help you to forge new collaborations and to obtain more citations of your papers. It's your chance to impress some of the biggest names in your field, build your reputation as a scientist, and get more people interested in your work.
• Improving your future employment prospects by getting presentation experience in high-stakes settings and by having talks listed on your academic CV.

➡️ Learn how to write an academic CV

You might have just 10 minutes for your talk. But those 10 minutes are your golden ticket. To make them shine, you'll need to put in some homework. You need to think about the story you want to tell , create engaging slides , and practice how you're going to deliver it.

Why all this effort? Because the rewards are potentially huge. Imagine speaking to the top names in your field, boosting your visibility, and getting more eyes on your work. It's more than just a talk; it's your chance to showcase who you are and what you do.

Here we share 5 tips for giving effective scientific presentations.

• Prepare adequately for your talk on the days leading up to it
• Deal with presentation nerves
• Deliver your talk with intention
• Be adaptable
• Conclude your talk with confidence

You should prepare for your talk with the seriousness it deserves and recognize the potential it holds for your career advancement. Here are our suggestions:

• Rehearse your talk multiple times to ensure smooth flow. Know the order of your slides and key transitions without memorizing every word. Practice your speech as though you are discussing with friendly and attentive listeners.
• Record your speech and listen back to yourself giving your talk while doing household chores or while going for a walk. This will help you remember the important points of your talk and feel more comfortable with the flow of it on the day.
• Anticipate potential questions that may arise during your talk, write down your responses to those questions, and practice them aloud.
• Back up your presentation in cloud storage and on a USB key. Bring your laptop with you on the day of your talk, if needed.
• Know the time and location of your talk. Familiarize yourself with the room, if you can. Introduce yourself to the moderator before the session begins.
• Giving a talk is a performance, so preparing yourself physically and mentally is essential. Prioritize good sleep and hydration, and eat healthy, nourishing food on the day of your talk. Plan your attire to be both professional and comfortable.

It’s natural to feel nervous before your talk, but you want to harness that energy to present your work with confidence. Here are some ways to manage your stress levels:

• Remember that your audience want to listen to you and learn from you. Believe that your audience will be kind, friendly, and interested, rather than bored and skeptical.
• Breathing slow and deep before your talk calms the mind and nervous system. Psychologist Amy Cuddy recommends practicing open, confident postures while sitting and standing to help you get into a positive frame of mind.
• Fight off impostor syndrome with positive affirmations. You’ve got this! Remember that you know more about your research than anyone else in the room and you are giving your talk to teach others about it.

Giving your talk with confidence is crucial for your credibility as a scientist. Focusing on your delivery helps ensure that your audience remembers and believes what you say. Here are some techniques to try:

• Before beginning, remember your professional goals and the benefits of giving your presentation. Start with a smile and exhale deeply.
• Memorize a simple opening. After the moderator introduces you, pause and take a breath. Welcome the audience, thank them for coming, and introduce yourself. You don’t need to read the title of your talk. But briefly, say something like, “today I’m going to talk to you about why [topic] is important and [what I hope you will learn from this talk]” in 1-2 sentences. Preparing your opening will settle your nerves and prevent you from starting your talk on a tangential topic, ensuring you stay on time.
• Project confidence outwardly, even if you feel nervous. Stand up tall with your shoulders back and make eye contact with individuals in the audience. Move your focus around the room, so everyone in the audience feels included.
• Maintain open body language and face the audience as much as possible, not your slides.
• Project your voice as much as you can so that people at the back of the room can hear you. Enunciate your words, avoid mumbling, and don’t trail off awkwardly.
• Varying your vocal delivery and intonation will make your talk more interesting and help the audience pay attention, particularly when you want to emphasize key points or transitions.
• Pausing for dramatic effect at crucial moments can help you relax and remember your message, as well as being an effective engagement device.
• A laser pointer can be off-putting for the audience if you are prone to having a shaky hand when nervous. Use a laser pointer only to emphasize information on the slide while providing an explanation. If you design your slides thoughtfully , you won’t need to use a laser pointer.

Not all parts of your talk may go according to plan. Here are some ways to adapt to hitches during your talk:

• Handle talk disruptions gracefully. If you make a mistake, or a technical issue occurs during your talk, remember that it’s okay to skip something and move on without apologizing.
• If you forget to mention something but the audience hasn’t noticed, don’t point it out! They don’t need to know.
• As you give your talk, be time-conscious, and watch the moderator for signals that the time is about to expire. If you realize you won’t have time to discuss all your slides, skip the less important ones. Adjust your presentation on the fly to finish on time, prioritizing content as needed.
• If you run out of time completely, just stop. You don’t have to give a conclusion, but you do need to stop on time! Practicing your talk should prevent this situation.

The ending of your talk is important for emphasizing your key message and ensuring the audience leave with a positive impression of you and your work. Here are some pointers.

• Conclude your talk with a memorized closing statement that summarizes the key take-home message of your research. After making your closing statement, end your talk with a simple “Thank you”. Then pause and wait for the applause. You don’t need to ask if the audience has questions because the moderator will call for questions on your behalf.
• When you receive a question, pause, then repeat the question. This ensures the whole audience understands the question and gives you time to calmly consider your answer.
• In a talk on attaining confidence in your scientific presentations, Michael Alley suggests that if you don’t know the answer to the question, then emphasize what you do know. Say something like, “Although I can’t fully answer your question, I can say [this about the topic].”
• Approach the Q&A with interest rather than anxiety by reframing it as an opportunity to further share your knowledge. Being curious, instead of feeling fearful, can help you shine during what might be the most stressful part of your presentation.

Communicating your research effectively is a key skill for early career scientists to learn. Taking ample time to prepare and practice your presentation is an investment in your scientific development.

But here's the good part: all that effort pays off. Think of your talk as not just a presentation, but as a way to show off what you and your research are all about. Giving a compelling scientific presentation will raise your professional profile as a scientist, lead to more citations of your work, and may even help you obtain a future academic job.

But most importantly of all, giving talks contributes to science, and sharing your knowledge is an act of generosity to the scientific community.

➡️ Questions to ask yourself before you make your talk

➡️ How to give a great scientific talk

1) Have a positive mindset. To help with nerves, breathe deeply and keep in mind that you are an authority on your topic. 2) Be prepared. Have a short list of points for each slide and know the key transition points of your talk. Practice your talk to ensure it flows smoothly. 3) Be well-rested before your talk and eat a light meal on the day of your presentation. A talk is a performance. 4) Project your voice and vary your vocal intonation and pitch to retain the interest of the audience. Take pauses at key moments, for emphasis. 5) Anticipate questions that audience members could ask, and prepare answers for them.

The goal of a scientific presentation is that the audience remembers the key outcomes of your research and that they leave with a good impression of you and your science.

Take a moment to exhale deeply and collect your thoughts after the moderator has introduced you. Don’t read your talk's title. Instead, introduce yourself, thank the audience for attending, and provide a warm welcome. Then say something along the lines of, "Today I'm going to talk to you about why [topic] is important and [what I hope you will learn from this presentation].” A rehearsed opening will ensure that you start your talk on a confident note.

Prepare a memorable closing statement that emphasizes the key message of your talk. Then end with a simple “Thank you”.

Preparation is key. Practice many times to familiarize yourself with the content of your presentation. Before giving your talk, breathe slowly and deeply, and remind yourself that you are the expert on your topic. When giving your talk, stand up tall and use open body language. Remember to project your voice, and make eye contact with members of the audience.

• AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS
• PLASTIC & RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY
• PRS GLOBAL OPEN
• ASPS EDUCATION NETWORK
• Subscribe to journal Subscribe
• Get new issue alerts Get alerts
• Become an ASPS Member

Secondary Logo

Journal logo.

Colleague's E-mail is Invalid

Your message has been successfully sent to your colleague.

Save my selection

The Art of a Scientific Presentation: Tips from Steve Jobs

Horiuchi, Sakura B.S.; Nasser, Jacob S. B.S.; Chung, Kevin C. M.D., M.S.

Washington, D.C.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.

From the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences; and Section of Plastic Surgery, University of Michigan Medical School.

Received for publication April 27, 2021; accepted October 13, 2021.

Disclosure: Dr. Chung receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and book royalties from Wolters Kluwer and Elsevier. The remaining authors have no financial interests to declare .

Kevin C. Chung, M.D., M.S., Comprehensive Hand Center, Michigan Medicine, 1500 East Medical Center Drive, 2130 Taubman Center, SPC 5340, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109-5340, [email protected] , Twitter: @kecchung

Presentations are commonly used to share knowledge in all scientific fields, particularly in medicine, where they play an integral role in medical school and graduate medical education as well as in medical society conferences and continuing medical education activities. Though the use of presentations as learning tools has become universal, how often are they truly effective ? Virtually everyone has experienced the jaw-clenching cringe while suffering through a particularly bad presentation, just as everyone has, one hopes, appreciated the vitality, insight, and inspiration that accompany a carefully constructed, well-delivered presentation. Creating effective presentations is a skill, a form of art, and an engineering process that requires time and practice; it is not an intuitive process.

Effective presentations begin by establishing a clear objective and a rapport with the audience. To be a physician is to be a teacher, and one must diagnose the audience’s needs. It is often helpful to acknowledge the inherent authoritarian structure of presenting, in which the speaker serves as commander and the audience as subordinates receiving the instruction. However, the manner in which the speaker approaches this relationship ultimately impacts the course and effectiveness of the presentation. In and of itself, a presentation simply delivers information; however, an effective presentation goes above and beyond to inspire and empower the audience receiving the message. The late tech titan Steve Jobs, cofounder and former chief executive officer of Apple, Inc., was known for delivering dynamic presentations that ultimately reinforced the success of the company and its products. Though many linked the quality of his presentations to his charisma, Jobs consciously incorporated effective presentation skills throughout his lectures, as described in the book Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs , 1 many of which are translatable to medical education and highlighted in this article.

Kosslyn et al. conducted an empirical analysis of the psychological principles that underlie presentation flaws and failures, finding that communication principles were violated to a similar extent across different fields. 2 Furthermore, Garner and Alley, 3 and others, 4 , 5 have found that how a presentation is designed has the power to inhibit or support its effectiveness. Nonetheless, there is no recent research that examines the quality and effectiveness of presentations used in the field of medicine. Existing studies shed light on single presentation components, such as color themes or fonts, 6 , 7 but this research does not provide comprehensive guidance to help medical researchers and health care providers develop quality medical presentations.

A poorly constructed presentation detracts from its value. In this article, our goal is to identify strategies for creating effective scientific presentations for medical school lectures, resident lectures, surgical rounds, and medical conferences. We will provide examples specific to plastic surgery to better guide researchers and medical educators in the specialty in developing presentations. The strategies discussed come from the current literature on effective presentation strategies and the experiences of our research team. We aim to establish a comprehensive list to aid in creating a methodical approach for presenters to evaluate their own presentations to ensure a standard of quality and effectiveness.

PREPARATION

Constructing a story.

Creating an effective presentation is like taking a road trip, thus the first step is to create a clear map to your destination—and identify the landmarks you and your audience will pass along the way. A presenter must give clear instructions to the audience, which can be in the format of an outline or a story. Ultimately, one needs to know why this road trip will be worthwhile; in other words, the purpose and impact of the presentation should be clearly expressed.

Simple stories, whether in the form of a metaphor or case presentation, create an organizational framework that makes it easier for the audience to follow along. Creating a narrative—for surgeons, perhaps a story of a challenging case or difficult situation—will help the audience associate new information with preexisting mental representations. Graesser et al. examined whether text genre (i.e., narrative or expository prose) influenced recall of the information presented. 8 The authors found that information presented in the context of a narrative improves memory, as stories were remembered better than expository passages. A study by Wolfe and Mienko examined the effect of prior knowledge as a function of memory and learning in a narrative or expository text genre. 9 They found that prior knowledge related to greater recall of expository texts but not for narrative genre. Subjects with more prior knowledge had better recall of the expository text information and vice versa. 9 In other words, people with a preexisting level of understanding of a topic will remember a presentation better than someone without. Creating associations between a familiar narrative and a complex concept helps the audience learn, independent of their prior level of knowledge.

Identify the “So, What?”

It is necessary for presenters to build on a persuasive argument. The presenter has a duty to explain why the topic matters and why the learner should care. Adult audiences are more stimulated when the “why” is explicit and pertinent to them. An effective means of accomplishing this is to share a “passion statement.” A moment of being vulnerable and sharing the origin of your passion for a topic builds rapport with the audience while striving to inspire them to care about the topic as well. For example, in a presentation focused on global surgical efforts, the presenter may share some of his or her most rewarding and challenging experiences as well as the impact the operations have had on the children treated. Another way to build a persuasive argument is to frame it in a problem-solution model, in which the problem should relate to the audience for the information to be relevant and the presentation should offer a solution. For example, a medical school presentation on carpal tunnel syndrome may focus on teaching students about the pathophysiology and treatment that their parents or grandparents may experience. On the other hand, a presentation at a medical conference may focus on innovative surgical techniques and strategies to improve postoperative outcomes and averting complications. Identifying why the topic is pertinent to the audience early in the talk is one of the first steps in preparing an effective presentation.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION

Once preparation for a presentation is complete, the next step is to create it. We will focus on identifying strategies for an effective presentation for an audience; however, the skills mentioned can be translated to many other models of information sharing. Table 1 summarizes the various strategies that can be used to create an effective presentation. Microsoft PowerPoint (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.) is the most commonly used software to create presentations.

The presentation should include an outline at the introduction of the presentation. Throughout the presentation, the speaker should reference the outline to remind the audience where they are in the presentation narrative. For example, when presenting on a clinical research study, provide a recurrent slide that presents whether you are discussing the background of the project, methods, results, or conclusions. An outline of the presentation describes the general objectives of the talk while serving as a structure on which to build throughout the presentation.

Each presentation slide should have a headline that describes the topic discussed. A headline decreases the cognitive load placed on the audience by identifying the main point. Alley et al. compared the effects of a short phrase headline to a succinct sentence-structured headline on audience retention of a presentation. 10 The authors found that the average score for students viewing the succinct sentence-structured headline was significantly higher. 10 Specifically, a headline should be in a “subject-verb-object” structure using fewer than 140 characters. When presenting a graph or a table that contains a complex topic, the slide’s headline should summarize the take-home point. For example, when presenting a graph on the economic benefit of plastic and reconstructive global surgical trips, the headline could read “Substantial Economic Benefit for Global Surgery Interventions.” The actual economics may be a complex topic for the average audience if they are not economists themselves, but the main point resides in the simple headline.

Consistency

There should be consistency of formatting throughout the presentation and among the different mediums used to present the same information (e.g., slideshow, poster, oral presentation). One simple font should be used throughout the presentation. In addition, the presenter should keep the font size consistent across all headlines, bullet points, diagrams, and tables. Furthermore, background color and design elements, such as the color of the diagrams, should be the same throughout. 11 Color palettes found online can be used to create a theme in the design of the presentation. Margins to the slides should also be aesthetically consistent, as demonstrated in Figure 1 . If the titles or headlines are of varying sizes, an example of inconsistency, the reader may not recognize that sections are related or exhaust time connecting the key points. Consistency decreases distraction and polishes the delivery of the information.

Visual Appeal

Aspects that influence a presentation’s appeal include font, background color, contrast between color of content and background, symmetry, consistency, and more. Goodhand et al. studied the value of posters at medical meetings and found that audience perception of scientific merit correlates with visual appeal. 12 They found that factors increasing visual appeal included their scientific content, pictures/graphs, and limited use of words. 12 Visual appeal consists of many different aspects, which makes it difficult to discuss specifically each detail. Complex concepts can be simplified by creating visual representations, flow charts, and vector diagrams. Resources to consider may be graphics available in Microsoft Word (Microsoft Corp.), The Noun Project (The Noun Project, Inc., Los Angeles, Calif.), Lucidchart (Lucid Software, Inc., South Jordan, Utah), or FlatIcon (Freepik Company, Malaga, Spain). Figure 2 demonstrates the use of a SmartArt graphic in Microsoft Word to organize information. However, cartoons or videos could distract the audience from the main purpose of the slide and should be weighed carefully. Spending extra time on aesthetic details such as font, background, symmetry, and consistency will improve the slideshow’s visual appeal and professional tone.

Four Main Points

A presenter should limit each major concept to no more than four main ideas. In 2001, Cowan studied the mental storage capacity for short-term memory and found that humans are able to remember approximately four main points. 13 If there are more than four key ideas, the presenter should separate the information, so it is not all included on the same slides. For example, when introducing a research study, the four main points may consist of briefly naming the author(s), methods, findings, and the study’s impact on the current topic. Other noteworthy aspects of the study could be expanded upon in the next slide(s). Keeping within four main points aims to maximize the efficiency and overall effectiveness of each slide for the presenter and audience.

CONSTRUCTION AND DELIVERY

Word choice.

Word choice is the specific vocabulary used by the speaker to convey a message. Text in the presentation should be kept simple, using as few words as possible. Using complicated, lofty words increases lexical density and inflicts a strain on the audience to decipher the meaning of the message while requiring additional work to follow along. Sainsbury examined the effect of lexical density and visual clarity of slides on presentation interpretations. 14 The study found that the presentations with less lexical density, despite worse visual clarity, led to greater audience fluency. 14 Considering word choice and using less dense language is a strategy to improve audience comprehension.

In 2007, Todd Bishop, a reporter for the Seattle Post Intelligencer , compared word choice between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates by running their presentation transcripts through UsingEnglish.com, a language analyzer. 15 The tool examines the average number of words per sentence, lexical density, average number of words with more than three syllables, and the level of education theoretically needed to understand the text. It was found that across all four categories, Jobs scored better than Gates. 15 He spoke more simply, was less abstract, and used fewer words per sentence. For example, where Jobs would say “improved quality,” Gates would say “discoverability of the richness.” If a message is confusing, abstract, or convoluted, the presenter will lose an opportunity to share his or her knowledge. Similar language analyzers are offered online and through Microsoft Word. Specifically, Microsoft Word will provide readability statistics, a feature found within its Spelling and Grammar tool. Based on readability statistics, a presenter can adjust his or her language to ensure it resonates better with the audience.

Relevancy in Numbers

Effective scientific presentations show the topic’s relevance to the audience. In surgical and medical education, numbers are often used to describe the efficacy of a treatment or epidemiology of a condition. In breaking down the meaning of data and placing it into a familiar context, greater meaning is provided to the audience. For example, when conducting an economic analysis of plastic and reconstructive surgical efforts in the developing world, Nasser et al. found that the lose of approximately 1720 disability-adjusted life years was averted. 16 However, they went further to explain that 1720 disability-adjusted life years were equal to a total economic benefit of $9,795,384, the same as $12,957 per patient. 16 As a listener, it may be difficult to comprehend the impact of 1720 disability-adjusted life years without further context, but each audience member can visualize what an extra $13,000 could amount to in their own lives. People are more familiar with the concept of currency than disability-adjusted life years; therefore, placing the numbers in a tangible context enhances understanding and creates a greater impact on the audience.

10-Minute Rule

The 10-Minute Rule states that after 10 minutes, the audience will begin to mentally “check out” or naturally lose focus and interest. Thus, every 10 minutes the presenter should change the pace, welcome questions, or add an energizing moment. This can be in the form of sharing a joke or anecdote (these should be relevant, brief, and appropriate), posing a question to the audience, playing a video (which should always be embedded within the presentation to avoid wasting time and creating distractions), or introducing a demonstration. Tanveer et al. studied how narrative trajectories influence audience perception by analyzing the transcripts of more than 2000 TED talks. 17 They found that variations in the narratives were important to hold the motivation and attention of the audience, and presentations without variations were more likely to receive lower ratings. 17 It is common for a presenter to begin and end a presentation without a break or change in pace, but the 10-minute rule is an objective marker presenters can use to avoid delivering a monologue presentation.

Demonstrations/Props

Using demonstrations and props, such as sharing a video of an operative technique, using an anatomical model to discuss specific physiology, or bringing a tool or technology relevant to the topic, is a way to increase engagement in a presentation. For example, Atherton et al. described the use of the Aurasma application, formerly available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, which connected anyone with the app to three-dimensional medical models via QR code. 18 The presenter could create a demonstration of a surgical technique via Aurasma, and the audience was able to view the demonstration from a presentation on their personal smart devices. 18 Demonstrations and props are strategies to keep in mind for the 10-minute rule. Scientific presentations rely heavily on auditory and visual learning, so props offer an alternative way of learning, kinesthetic learning. Although it may be difficult to incorporate props into every presentation, especially as online-based presentations become more popular, apps such as Aurasma may be a useful tool.

Video Clips

Procedures in surgical education can be described through text and pictures, but utilizing a short video clip to demonstrate a procedure enhances the presentation and further reinforces the prior information. Vara et al. described their experiences using the GoPro HERO systems (GoPro, Inc., San Mateo, Calif.) to record video of hand and upper extremity procedures as a technique to capture, analyze, and share surgical experiences. 19 Video clips incorporate motion into a presentation and may help convey complex visual-spatial topics while offering the presenter a moment to share the spotlight and an opportunity to take a break. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that videos are of reasonable length, as this can influence likability of a video or presentation. 20 Embedding the video into your presentation, rather than switching applications, may save time and make the transition more comfortable for the audience.

Sharing the Spotlight

Sharing the spotlight means incorporating others into a presentation rather than a speaker delivering a monologue. Sharing the spotlight can take the form of simply acknowledging and thanking other team members, or presenters may include guest speakers or specialists in a lecture to share their knowledge. Steve Jobs would often share the spotlight by inviting famous people, such as musician John Mayer, or even a doppelgänger to lead a demonstration. 1 A benefit of online meeting platforms, such as Zoom (Zoom Video Communications, San Jose, Calif.) or Webex (Cisco Systems, Inc., Milpitas, Calif.), is that they make it is easier for special guest speakers to join remotely for a portion of the talk. In addition, testimonials from experts or patients are a way of sharing the spotlight in scientific presentations and offer an engaging opportunity to create a memorable moment.

REFINING THE PRESENTATION

After the presentation has been physically created, rehearsal is critical. As in a theatre rehearsal, there should be a script, costume, and many practices. A script should direct the presenter in how to discuss the information on the slide. Ultimately, with practice, the presenter should not rely on the script during the presentation but should keep a copy in a pocket only to use as a last resort. The comfort of having this security blanket invariably puts the speaker at rest. A presenter should not read every single word on the slide verbatim, but rather explain and verbally bring the information to life. It is essential that the presenter practice the entire presentation, preferably recording the rehearsal to assess body language, verbal fillers, and subconscious nervous habits. Feelings of nervousness and anxiety about public speaking are common.

Hansen et al. provide information on techniques for delivering effective lectures to ensure that surgeons speak as well as they operate. 21 The authors describe the importance of understanding and acknowledging that everyone experiences a level of anxiety when presenting. 21 Physicians are taught to anticipate complications related to a procedure or condition, thus an effective presenter will also learn to anticipate certain traits, such as speaking too fast, anxiety, and nervousness. Acknowledging the humanity in those emotions and practicing using the techniques described will decrease nervousness, boost confidence, and enhance the effectiveness of the presentation.

The presenter should dress to match the expected professional role he or she is representing. Some say dress for success, but perhaps a better takeaway is to never be underdressed. This is not to say that every presenter should wear the most formal attire, but rather to consider the conscious and subconscious effect a speaker’s outfit may have on the audience’s perception of the presenter. As in scientific posters, those who look sharp are taken more seriously. Feeling confident in an outfit may also translate to greater self-assuredness on the stage. Ruetzler et al. performed a conjoint analysis of personal presentation attributes and found that grooming and professional attire were most notable in shaping favorable perceptions. 22 Furthermore, Keegan and Bannister studied the effect of color-coordinated attire with poster presentation popularity. 23 They found a significantly higher number of visitors for posters of presenters with coordinated rather than clashing attire. 23 The two studies suggest that there are benefits to dressing professionally, and that attire does affect how the presentation is received.

CONCLUSIONS

After the hard work of preparing, constructing, and refining a presentation, the final ingredient for delivering an effective presentation is personality: sprinkle in jokes and anecdotes while demonstrating both confidence and humility throughout to make the presentation representative of the presenter. Creating the presentation should be fun; if the presenter does not enjoy the presentation, there is no way the audience will either. Humor and stories should be kept professional relative to the level of the presentation but should still aim to keep the audience engaged with light and relatable moments. The skills highlighted in this article will help presenters create effective scientific presentations. Furthermore, future research identifying the strengths and weaknesses in plastic surgery presentations can help improve the quality of the presentations in the field.

• Cited Here |
• Google Scholar
• + Favorites
• View in Gallery

Readers Of this Article Also Read

Finding meaning in life, dealing with difficult people and why it matters, strategies to foster creativity, the most current algorithms for the treatment and prevention of hypertrophic..., tips and tricks for facial toxin injections with illustrated anatomy.

Get in touch

555-555-5555

[email protected]

Limited time offer: 20% off all templates ➞

Scientific Presentation Guide: How to Create an Engaging Research Talk

Creating an effective scientific presentation requires developing clear talking points and slide designs that highlight your most important research results..

Scientific presentations are detailed talks that showcase a research project or analysis results. This comprehensive guide reviews everything you need to know to give an engaging presentation for scientific conferences, lab meetings, and PhD thesis talks. From creating your presentation outline to designing effective slides, the tips in this article will give you the tools you need to impress your scientific peers and superiors.

Step 1. Create a Presentation Outline

The first step to giving a good scientific talk is to create a presentation outline that engages the audience at the start of the talk, highlights only 3-5 main points of your research, and then ends with a clear take-home message. Creating an outline ensures that the overall talk storyline is clear and will save you time when you start to design your slides.

Engage Your Audience

The first part of your presentation outline should contain slide ideas that will gain your audience's attention. Below are a few recommendations for slides that engage your audience at the start of the talk:

• Create a slide that makes connects your data or presentation information to a shared purpose, such as relevance to solving a medical problem or fundamental question in your field of research
• Create slides that ask and invite questions
• Use humor or entertainment

Identify Clear Main Points

After writing down your engagement ideas, the next step is to list the main points that will become the outline slide for your presentation. A great way to accomplish this is to set a timer for five minutes and write down all of the main points and results or your research that you want to discuss in the talk. When the time is up, review the points and select no more than three to five main points that create your talk outline. Limiting the amount of information you share goes a long way in maintaining audience engagement and understanding. 

Create a Take-Home Message

And finally, you should brainstorm a single take-home message that makes the most important main point stand out. This is the one idea that you want people to remember or to take action on after your talk. This can be your core research discovery or the next steps that will move the project forward.

Step 2. Choose a Professional Slide Theme

After you have a good presentation outline, the next step is to choose your slide colors and create a theme. Good slide themes use between two to four main colors that are accessible to people with color vision deficiencies. Read this article to learn more about choosing the best scientific color palettes .

You can also choose templates that already have an accessible color scheme. However, be aware that many PowerPoint templates that are available online are too cheesy for a scientific audience. Below options to download professional scientific slide templates that are designed specifically for academic conferences, research talks, and graduate thesis defenses.

Step 3. Design Your Slides

Designing good slides is essential to maintaining audience interest during your scientific talk. Follow these four best practices for designing your slides:

• Keep it simple: limit the amount of information you show on each slide
• Use images and illustrations that clearly show the main points with very little text. 
• Read this article to see research slide example designs for inspiration
• When you are using text, try to reduce the scientific jargon that is unnecessary. Text on research talk slides needs to be much more simple than the text used in scientific publications (see example below).
• Use appear/disappear animations to break up the details into smaller digestible bites
• Sign up for the free presentation design course to learn PowerPoint animation tricks

Scientific Presentation Design Summary

All of the examples and tips described in this article will help you create impressive scientific presentations. Below is the summary of how to give an engaging talk that will earn respect from your scientific community. 

Step 1. Draft Presentation Outline. Create a presentation outline that clearly highlights the main point of your research. Make sure to start your talk outline with ideas to engage your audience and end your talk with a clear take-home message.

Step 2. Choose Slide Theme. Use a slide template or theme that looks professional, best represents your data, and matches your audience's expectations. Do not use slides that are too plain or too cheesy.

Step 3. Design Engaging Slides. Effective presentation slide designs use clear data visualizations and limits the amount of information that is added to each slide. 

And a final tip is to practice your presentation so that you can refine your talking points. This way you will also know how long it will take you to cover the most essential information on your slides. Thank you for choosing Simplified Science Publishing as your science communication resource and good luck with your presentations!

Interested in free design templates and training?

Explore scientific illustration templates and courses by creating a Simplified Science Publishing Log In. Whether you are new to data visualization design or have some experience, these resources will improve your ability to use both basic and advanced design tools.

Interested in reading more articles on scientific design? Learn more below:

Data Storytelling Techniques: How to Tell a Great Data Story in 4 Steps

Best Science PowerPoint Templates and Slide Design Examples

Free Research Poster Templates and Tutorials

Content is protected by Copyright license. Website visitors are welcome to share images and articles, however they must include the Simplified Science Publishing URL source link when shared. Thank you!

Online Courses

Stay up-to-date for new simplified science courses, subscribe to our newsletter.

Thank you for signing up!

You have been added to the emailing list and will only recieve updates when there are new courses or templates added to the website.

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience and we do not sell data. By using this website, you are giving your consent for us to set cookies: View Privacy Policy

Simplified Science Publishing, LLC

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

Share this:

• Share on Tumblr

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER GUIDE
• 12 May 2021

Good presentation skills benefit careers — and science

• David Rubenson 0

David Rubenson is the director of the scientific-communications firm No Bad Slides ( nobadslides.com ) in Los Angeles, California.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

You have full access to this article via your institution.

A better presentation culture can save the audience and the larger scientific world valuable time and effort. Credit: Shutterstock

In my experience as a presentation coach for biomedical researchers, I have heard many complaints about talks they attend: too much detail, too many opaque visuals, too many slides, too rushed for questions and so on. Given the time scientists spend attending presentations, both in the pandemic’s virtual world and in the ‘face-to-face’ one, addressing these complaints would seem to be an important challenge.

I’m dispirited that being trained in presentation skills, or at least taking more time to prepare presentations, is often not a high priority for researchers or academic departments. Many scientists feel that time spent improving presentations detracts from research or clocking up the numbers that directly affect career advancement — such as articles published and the amount of grant funding secured. Add in the pressing, and sometimes overwhelming, bureaucratic burdens associated with working at a major biomedical research institute, and scientists can simply be too busy to think about changing the status quo.

Improving presentations can indeed be time-consuming. But there are compelling reasons for researchers to put this near the top of their to-do list.

You’re probably not as good a presenter as you think you are

Many scientists see problems in colleagues’ presentations, but not their own. Having given many lousy presentations, I know that it is all too easy to receive (and accept) plaudits; audiences want to be polite. However, this makes it difficult to get an accurate assessment of how well you have communicated your message.

Why your scientific presentation should not be adapted from a journal article

With few exceptions, biomedical research presentations are less effective than the speaker would believe. And with few exceptions, researchers have little appreciation of what makes for a good presentation. Formal training in presentation techniques (see ‘What do scientists need to learn?’) would help to alleviate these problems.

Improving a presentation can help you think about your own research

A well-designed presentation is not a ‘data dump’ or an exercise in advanced PowerPoint techniques. It is a coherent argument that can be understood by scientists in related fields. Designing a good presentation forces a researcher to step back from laboratory procedures and organize data into themes; it’s an effective way to consider your research in its entirety.

You might get insights from the audience

Overly detailed presentations typically fill a speaker’s time slot, leaving little opportunity for the audience to ask questions. A comprehensible and focused presentation should elicit probing questions and allow audience members to suggest how their tools and methods might apply to the speaker’s research question.

Many have suggested that multidisciplinary collaborations, such as with engineers and physical scientists, are essential for solving complex problems in biomedicine. Such innovative partnerships will emerge only if research is communicated clearly to a broad range of potential collaborators.

It might improve your grant writing

Many grant applications suffer from the same problem as scientific presentations — too much detail and a lack of clearly articulated themes. A well-designed presentation can be a great way to structure a compelling grant application: by working on one, you’re often able to improve the other.

It might help you speak to important, ‘less-expert’ audiences

As their career advances, it is not uncommon for scientists to increasingly have to address audiences outside their speciality. These might include department heads, deans, philanthropic foundations, individual donors, patient groups and the media. Communicating effectively with scientific colleagues is a prerequisite for reaching these audiences.

Collection: Conferences

Better presentations mean better science

An individual might not want to spend 5 hours improving their hour-long presentation, but 50 audience members might collectively waste 50 hours listening to that individual’s mediocre effort. This disparity shows that individual incentives aren’t always aligned with society’s scientific goals. An effective presentation can enhance the research and critical-thinking skills of the audience, in addition to what it does for the speaker.

What do scientists need to learn?

Formal training in scientific presentation techniques should differ significantly from programmes that stress the nuances of public speaking.

The first priority should be to master basic presentation concepts, including:

• How to build a concise scientific narrative.

• Understanding the limitations of slides and presentations.

• Understanding the audience’s time and attention-span limitations .

• Building a complementary, rather than repetitive, relationship between what the speaker says and what their slides show.

The training should then move to proper slide design, including:

• The need for each slide to have an overarching message.

• Using slide titles to help convey that message.

• Labelling graphs legibly.

• Deleting superfluous data and other information.

• Reducing those 100-word text slides to 40 words (or even less) without losing content.

• Using colour to highlight categories of information, rather than for decoration.

• Avoiding formats that have no visual message, such as data tables.

A well-crafted presentation with clearly drawn slides can turn even timid public speakers into effective science communicators.

Scientific leaders have a responsibility to provide formal training and to change incentives so that researchers spend more time improving presentations.

A dynamic presentation culture, in which every presentation is understood, fairly critiqued and useful for its audience, can only be good for science.

Nature 594 , S51-S52 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01281-8

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Related Articles

• Conferences and meetings
• Research management

How to harness AI’s potential in research — responsibly and ethically

Career Feature 23 AUG 24

Partners in drug discovery: how to collaborate with non-governmental organizations

Time to refocus for South Korean science

Nature Index 21 AUG 24

Hybrid conferences should be the norm — optimize them so everyone benefits

Editorial 06 AUG 24

How to spot a predatory conference, and what science needs to do about them: a guide

Career Feature 30 JUL 24

Predatory conferences are on the rise. Here are five ways to tackle them

Editorial 30 JUL 24

South Korean science on the global stage

Call for Global Talents, Recruitment Information of Nankai University

Nankai University welcomes global outstanding talents to join for common development.

Tianjin, China

Nankai University

Director for Signature Research Programme in Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, DukeNUS Medical School &

The successful candidate will demonstrate their ability of growing, leading and mentoring faculty as well as developing and operationalising strategy.

Singapore (SG)

DukeNUS Medical School

Scientist / Postdoc (m/f/d): Analysis of Microscopic BIOMedical Images (AMBIOM)

A new project area in the institute is the development of artificial intelligence (AI)

Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen (DE)

Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften – ISAS – e.V.

PhD Candidate (m/f/d): Analysis of Microscopic BIOMedical Images (AMBIOM)

Senior researcher-experimental leukemia modeling, mullighan lab.

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

This service is more advanced with JavaScript available

How to Deliver Great Scientific Presentations A Guide for Scientists and Engineers

• Jean-Philippe Dionne

Continuing in

How to Deliver Great Scientific Presentations

This is a preview of subscription content

Your browser needs to be JavaScript capable to view this video

Try reloading this page, or reviewing your browser settings

You're watching a preview of subscription content. Log in to check access

• View contents
• Details Details
• Transcript Transcript
• Contents Table of contents

This video provides concise and effective tips spanning all relevant areas to deliver engaging scientific presentations. You will strengthen your skills in preparing, practicing and delivering presentations at both physical and virtual conferences and seminars. Best practices for structuring presentations and elements to include and those to exclude such as detailed sections on the use of videos, animations and tables are included. Common errors often seen in scientific presentations are highlighted along with tips on how to interact with audiences and keep them engaged. This will be a valuable resource for scientists in all areas of chemistry and materials science as well as engineers who wish to elevate their scientific presentations.

Introduction

A straight to the point video providing concise and effective tips spanning all relevant areas to delivering engaging scientific presentations.

About The Author

Jean-Philippe Dionne, Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (McGill University, Canada) has authored a number of scientific publications (conference proceedings, journal or magazine articles) in the field of personal protective equipment during his 20-year career in the industry. He has spent countless hours preparing and delivering presentations for scientific conferences and other events in various forms throughout his career.

About this video

Related content, presentation skills for scientists and engineers the slide master.

• Dr. Jean-Philippe Dionne

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It strikes me every time I attend scientific conferences to realize that most presenters definitely stars in their respective domains of research. There are representations that are either boring, way too complex, or both. It’s great to spend 10 years of one’s life at University to get some prestigious degree, but why isn’t any time spent on learning how to give effective presentations?

Great speakers are entertaining and instill confidence. But despite their speaking skills, their message might not get across properly if they rely on poor visual backup. On the brighter side, even a poor public speaker with a shaky mastery of the language can deliver a great and well-structured talk if backed up by the appropriate visual.

Towards that goal, the following video segments are filled with many tricks and tips provided in a very concise manner. The main sections to be covered are some basics to get us started, animations, images and videos, graphs– they rarely get the attention they deserve– tables, maths in equations– always intimidating– structure of your talk, interactions, practice tricks, planning, and delivery– the few terrifying minutes on the stage.

My name is Jean-Philippe Dionne– PhD in mechanical engineering, working in industry with more than 20 years experience delivering scientific presentation, as well as an acute observer of other people’s presentations. I’m confident that all those following the advice provided here, whether young undergrads or seasoned scientists, are likely to benefit from these videos. Let’s proceed.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• My Bibliography
• Collections
• Citation manager

Save citation to file

Email citation, add to collections.

• Create a new collection
• Add to an existing collection

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search, create a file for external citation management software, your rss feed.

• Search in PubMed
• Search in NLM Catalog
• Add to Search

Developing the art of scientific presentation

Affiliation.

• 1 Section of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5340, USA. [email protected]
• PMID: 23174073
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhsa.2012.09.018

Purpose: Few guidelines exist regarding the most effective approach to scientific oral presentations. Our purpose is to (1) develop a standardized instrument to evaluate scientific presentations based on a comprehensive review of the available literature regarding the components and organization of scientific presentations and (2) describe the optimal characteristics of scientific presentations.

Methods: At the Sixty-sixth (2011) Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, 69 presentations were evaluated by at least 2 independent observers. A rating instrument was developed a priori to examine presentation content (background, methods, results, and conclusions), presentation style (speech, structure, delivery, slide aesthetics), and overall quality. We examined correlations between reviewers' ratings of each component as well as overall perceived quality of the presentation using regression analysis. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated to measure the degree of variation because of reviewer disagreement and identify the aspects of presentations that contribute to overall quality.

Results: Reviewer agreement was high for presentation content, and less than 1% of variation was caused by reviewer disagreement for background, methods, and conclusions. With respect to presentation style, reviewers agreed most frequently regarding speech and slide appearance, and only 9% and 13%, respectively, of the variation was caused by reviewer disagreement. Disagreement was higher for delivery and presentation structure, and 21% of the variation was attributable to reviewer disagreement. Speaker delivery and slide appearance were the most important predictors of presentation quality, followed by the quality of the presentation of conclusions and background information. Presentation of methods and results were not associated with overall presentation quality.

Conclusions: Distinct aspects of presentation content and style correlate with quality, which can be reliably and objectively measured. By focusing on selected concepts with visually simple slides, speakers can enhance their delivery and may potentially improve the audience's comprehension of the study findings.

Copyright © 2012 American Society for Surgery of the Hand. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

• Standardized methodological assessment of research presentations (SHARP): development of a new instrument. Farrokhyar F, Dath D, Amin N, Bhandari M, Kelly S, Kolkin A, Gill Pottruff C, Reid S. Farrokhyar F, et al. Am J Surg. 2014 Jun;207(6):964-73. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2013.08.053. Epub 2014 Jan 4. Am J Surg. 2014. PMID: 24530044
• The quality of podium presentations at the american society of colon and rectal surgeons: does a decade make a difference? Church J, Balliet J. Church J, et al. Dis Colon Rectum. 2005 Aug;48(8):1569-72. doi: 10.1007/s10350-004-0951-y. Dis Colon Rectum. 2005. PMID: 15868232
• Publication rates of manuscript presentations at the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons Annual Scientific Conference between 1999 and 2008. Roukis TS. Roukis TS. J Foot Ankle Surg. 2011 Jul-Aug;50(4):416-9. doi: 10.1053/j.jfas.2011.03.006. Epub 2011 May 5. J Foot Ankle Surg. 2011. PMID: 21549618
• Fifty ways to improve presentations in urology. Monzó Gardiner JI, Secin FP, González Enguita C. Monzó Gardiner JI, et al. Actas Urol Esp (Engl Ed). 2020 Jan-Feb;44(1):14-18. doi: 10.1016/j.acuro.2019.08.001. Epub 2019 Nov 11. Actas Urol Esp (Engl Ed). 2020. PMID: 31718879 Review. English, Spanish.
• Desiderata for High Quality AMIA Presentation Files. Geller J, Ding Y. Geller J, et al. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021 Jan 25;2020:482-491. eCollection 2020. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2021. PMID: 33936421 Free PMC article. Review.
• How do we deliver our findings? Analysis of podium presentations at shoulder meetings. Miquel J, Santana F, Barrera A, Torrens C. Miquel J, et al. J Orthop Surg Res. 2018 Sep 14;13(1):234. doi: 10.1186/s13018-018-0942-7. J Orthop Surg Res. 2018. PMID: 30217212 Free PMC article.
• Accepted standards on how to give a Medical Research Presentation: a systematic review of expert opinion papers. Blome C, Sondermann H, Augustin M. Blome C, et al. GMS J Med Educ. 2017 Feb 15;34(1):Doc11. doi: 10.3205/zma001088. eCollection 2017. GMS J Med Educ. 2017. PMID: 28293678 Free PMC article. Review.

Publication types

• Search in MeSH

Grants and funding

• 2R01 AR047328-06/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States
• K24 AR053120/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States
• R01 AR062066/AR/NIAMS NIH HHS/United States

LinkOut - more resources

Full text sources.

• Elsevier Science
• Citation Manager

NCBI Literature Resources

MeSH PMC Bookshelf Disclaimer

The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited.

• Program Design
• Peer Mentors
• Excelling in Graduate School
• Oral Communication
• Written communication
• About Climb

Designing PowerPoint Slides for a Scientific Presentation

In the video below, we show you the key principles for designing effective PowerPoint slides for a scientific presentation.

Using examples from actual science presentations, we illustrate the following principles:

• Create each slide as a single message unit
• Explicitly state that single message on the slide
• Avoid bullet points-opt for word tables
• Use simple diagrams
• Signal steps in biological processes
• Annotate key biological structures
• Annotate data in tables and graphs

You can also find this video, and others related to scientific communication, at the CLIMB youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/climbprogram

Quick Links

Northwestern bioscience programs.

• Biomedical Engineering (BME)
• Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
• Driskill Graduate Program in the Life Sciences (DGP)
• Interdepartmental Biological Sciences (IBiS)
• Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience (NUIN)

• Campus Emergency Information
• Contact Northwestern University
• Report an Accessibility Issue
• University Policies
• Northwestern Home
• Northwestern Calendar: PlanIt Purple
• Northwestern Search

Chicago: 420 East Superior Street, Rubloff 6-644, Chicago, IL 60611 312-503-8286

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer
• SCIENCE COMMUNICATION LAB
• IBIOLOGY LECTURES
• IBIOLOGY COURSES

Bringing the World's Best Biology to You

Rethinking Scientific Presentations: Slide Design and Delivery

Part 1: rethinking scientific presentations: the assertion-evidence approach.

• Duration: 00:25:56

00:00:08.13 As a research scientist, 00:00:11.03 think about how little time you spend presenting 00:00:16.20 against how much time you spend 00:00:19.11 working in the lab or on your computations. 00:00:24.08 You might give one presentation at a conference 00:00:29.18 for 20 minutes, 00:00:31.22 or you might give a colloquium at your institution 00:00:34.13 for 50 minutes. 00:00:37.28 The question comes: 00:00:40.03 how do you make that time as effective as possible 00:00:44.04 to represent all the work that you've done? 00:00:47.25 This film focuses on that question. 00:00:51.08 And in particular, this film pays a lot of attention 00:00:55.09 to the slides that you create for that presentation. 00:01:00.09 Now, you might ask, why? 00:01:02.02 And one thing that I have found 00:01:05.14 in my 30 years of researching scientific presentations 00:01:10.14 is that slides make more of a difference for the success 00:01:14.20 -- and I would say more often the downfall -- 00:01:18.10 of scientific presentations 00:01:21.11 than people realize. 00:01:23.08 First, when you're creating slides, 00:01:25.26 you make important decisions: 00:01:28.02 what information you're going to include, 00:01:30.23 and equally important, 00:01:33.22 what information you're going to leave out. 00:01:36.07 And of that information that you include, 00:01:38.07 you also make decisions... 00:01:40.16 what am I going to emphasize, 00:01:42.19 perhaps by putting on the slide, 00:01:44.13 and what am I going to de-emphasize 00:01:47.25 by folding into your speech? 00:01:50.20 A second way that slides affect a presentation's success 00:01:56.04 occurs in the delivery. 00:01:58.18 Sadly, many presenters use PowerPoint's defaults 00:02:05.14 and spend so much of their delivery 00:02:09.01 turning, reading or paraphrasing a bullet on the slide, 00:02:13.24 turning back to the audience, 00:02:16.12 then turning, reading or paraphrasing, 00:02:19.06 then turning back. 00:02:21.03 And that rhythm 00:02:24.05 -- what a lot of people call a death by PowerPoint rhythm -- 00:02:26.27 pulls down a presentation. 00:02:28.20 The best presenters, however... 00:02:30.24 they speak from what they know, 00:02:34.03 and their visual aids are in fact aids for the audience 00:02:39.13 rather than notes for them. 00:02:42.15 Yet a third way that slides 00:02:45.05 affect a presentation's success 00:02:47.05 occurs with how much the audience 00:02:50.20 understands from them. 00:02:52.20 Our research has found 00:02:55.28 that challenging PowerPoint's defaults 00:02:58.08 and using a different approach, 00:03:00.14 such as what you're gonna learn in this film, 00:03:04.01 actually increases the amount of comprehension by the audience 00:03:11.05 in a statistically significant way. 00:03:16.05 So, I've had a number of people 00:03:18.20 who have used this approach. 00:03:20.15 The woman in the upper left, Katie Kirsch... 00:03:24.10 while she was getting her PhD, 00:03:28.25 she used this approach in all her conference presentations, 00:03:31.04 and she won best presentation at the conference 00:03:35.01 three times. 00:03:37.22 The gentlemen at the bottom, 00:03:40.01 professor Are Magnus Bruaset from Simula Research Laboratory 00:03:43.26 and University of Oslo in Norway... 00:03:47.04 he uses this approach, and his colleagues use this approach, 00:03:51.12 in all their presentations 00:03:54.14 that they make to industry to present their research. 00:03:57.27 And the woman... scientist in the upper right, 00:04:01.24 Dr. Barbara Bekins from the US Geological Survey... 00:04:06.06 she had to give a lecture 00:04:09.08 to 40 different places across the country, 00:04:11.27 and she decided to use this approach 00:04:16.03 for that lecture 00:04:18.01 because so many people 00:04:21.01 were going to see her work presented in that fashion. 00:04:25.24 We've had research groups 00:04:28.16 use the assertion-evidence approach, 00:04:30.10 and what you see here on the screen 00:04:32.13 is a large gas turbine research group 00:04:35.20 at Penn State. 00:04:37.02 We've had courses adopt the approach, 00:04:40.08 and here you see a law design course 00:04:43.19 at Penn State. 00:04:45.21 And this... and the approach was used by both the professors 00:04:48.11 who taught the class 00:04:50.15 and by the students who reported on their designs. 00:04:53.20 We've even had one national organization, 00:04:57.05 the Engineering Ambassadors Network, 00:04:59.27 adopt the approach for all the presentations 00:05:02.22 that they use in high school 00:05:05.03 to recruit STEM students. 00:05:08.18 Now, one assumption that I'm going to make 00:05:12.10 in this presentation 00:05:15.04 is that the goals for your research presentations 00:05:17.26 are that they are understood, 00:05:21.04 that your presentations are remembered, 00:05:23.10 and that your presentations are believed. 00:05:27.00 I'm also gonna have another assumption 00:05:28.28 that on a personal level 00:05:31.09 you have a goal of wanting to feel 00:05:36.09 and project more confidence. 00:05:38.03 So, where do we start? 00:05:41.12 Where I would like to start is 00:05:44.08 I would like you to think about 00:05:47.00 when you watch scientific presentations 00:05:49.18 and you see the slides, 00:05:51.24 what are the biggest problems that you see with those slides? 00:05:56.05 I've asked this question 00:05:59.00 to hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world, 00:06:03.05 and the number one answer 00:06:05.12 -- and it's not even close -- 00:06:07.15 is too many words. 00:06:09.14 And no doubt, 00:06:11.27 you see many examples of that weekly 00:06:15.27 in presentations that are given at conferences, in seminars, 00:06:20.26 in classrooms that are... 00:06:24.17 that include slides. 00:06:26.01 And you... and that particular problem 00:06:29.11 is not one that actually is so surprising. 00:06:34.20 In the mid-1980s, some research came out, 00:06:39.06 and that research points to why 00:06:43.00 having too many words is a problem. 00:06:47.09 So, let's say you have a speaker and you have an audience. 00:06:49.09 Now, we've known forever 00:06:51.25 that the speaker's spoken words... 00:06:54.19 those are gonna be taken in through the ears. 00:06:57.06 And if the speaker has any written words, 00:07:00.13 those are gonna be taken in through the eyes. 00:07:03.05 But it wasn't until the mid-1980s 00:07:07.16 that a Canadian psychology researcher 00:07:10.02 by the name of Allan Paivio 00:07:12.13 found that those written words and spoken words 00:07:17.26 are processed in the same part of the brain. 00:07:20.26 And another researcher, 00:07:24.12 this one from Australia, John Sweller... 00:07:27.14 he thought about Paivio's research 00:07:30.11 and he asked this question: 00:07:32.02 if written words and spoken words 00:07:34.02 are processed in the same part of the brain, 00:07:36.06 could that part of the brain become overloaded, 00:07:39.27 much as a central processing unit 00:07:43.00 can become overloaded 00:07:45.17 when it tries to do too many tasks? 00:07:47.14 And so Sweller... he did experiments. 00:07:49.11 He had one room where people just read, 00:07:51.23 one room where people just listened, 00:07:53.20 and another room where people read and listened. 00:07:57.29 And when there weren't too many words, 00:08:00.04 in the comprehension tests that he gave after those presentations, 00:08:04.16 the room where they read and listened, 00:08:09.01 they did the best. 00:08:10.28 But what he found is... 00:08:13.00 that when there were too many words projected, 00:08:16.12 that what happened is that room 00:08:20.04 that was both reading and listening 00:08:23.08 went from first to worst. 00:08:25.28 And so, Sweller came up with this theory 00:08:28.26 that if audiences try to process 00:08:31.08 too many words, 00:08:33.12 this cognitive overload occurs, 00:08:37.04 and that is what happens in many presentations. 00:08:41.19 Now, scientists and engineers 00:08:43.16 will also talk about a couple of other problems. 00:08:46.10 I mean, they'll actually talk about a lot of problems, 00:08:48.28 but there are three that stand out. 00:08:51.08 So, too many words is number one. 00:08:53.00 A second one is that the slides are cluttered. 00:08:57.21 And by cluttered, they mean that the... 00:09:01.00 that the audience isn't sure where to look. 00:09:03.22 And so, you have a slide, 00:09:05.28 and maybe what you want to do is you want to look at a graph on the slide 00:09:09.05 because you think the graph contains the most important things... 00:09:12.06 but there's text and arrows 00:09:16.13 and other things that are impinging on that graph, 00:09:19.00 and your eye gets pulled away. 00:09:22.05 A third problem is that many people 00:09:26.07 find that much of the text on slides is not readable. 00:09:29.17 And you can see in this graph 00:09:33.17 that even though maybe you can see the curves, 00:09:36.09 what you cannot read are the axes. 00:09:38.05 And if you can't read the axis of a... 00:09:40.23 axes of a graph, 00:09:43.08 then the value of that graph plummets. 00:09:47.03 A big takeaway is that 00:09:51.08 because so many people -- something like 95% -- 00:09:55.05 use PowerPoint, 00:09:58.19 that then PowerPoint's defaults become important. 00:10:02.00 And what we realize is PowerPoint 00:10:06.20 came out about the same time that Paivio 00:10:09.00 was coming out with his research. 00:10:11.07 And the two gentlemen who created that program, 00:10:15.26 Robert Gaskins, who was an entrepreneur, 00:10:18.00 and Dennis Austin, who was a computer scientist... 00:10:21.22 they were not aware of Paivio's research. 00:10:25.00 Now, they ended up, I think, doing the best they could 00:10:28.24 with the computer architecture of the day. 00:10:31.01 But a problem is that the defaults 00:10:35.09 were not based on any research. 00:10:38.18 Worse yet, and maybe the big tragedy, 00:10:42.08 is that PowerPoint's defaults have not changed significantly. 00:10:46.08 Yeah, in 2003 they changed from Times New Roman to Arial, 00:10:50.03 and in 2007 they changed from Arial typeface to Calibri, 00:10:53.22 and they threw in Microsoft's little artistic insert... 00:11:01.23 but... but nothing actually changed here. 00:11:04.27 So, one thing that I want you to realize 00:11:11.16 is that PowerPoint's defaults run counter to how people learn. 00:11:15.11 That text box in the body 00:11:18.12 that has all those nested bullets... 00:11:20.12 that leads people to create too many written words. 00:11:25.07 As John Sweller says, 00:11:27.02 it is a disaster how many words 00:11:31.04 people will put on slides. 00:11:33.01 That textbox also consumes valuable space 00:11:35.13 that could be used for images, 00:11:38.20 which makes the slides cluttered. 00:11:41.22 And then one last thing, 00:11:43.15 and something that I've been paying a lot of attention to, 00:11:45.15 is that that headline 00:11:50.09 leads scientists and engineers to write phrase headlines. 00:11:54.23 On the surface, that sounds like a good idea, 00:11:57.27 but a problem is that a phrase headline 00:12:00.15 does not filter noise. 00:12:03.06 And as you can remember 00:12:05.09 from when we first talked about why slides are important, 00:12:09.01 it's important for us to have a filter 00:12:13.18 on what to include and what not to include. 00:12:16.01 I'm gonna give you one quotation, 00:12:20.05 because we can do better. 00:12:21.24 I'm gonna give you one quotation... 00:12:23.19 and I could have chosen a lot, 00:12:25.17 but I'm gonna choose this one. 00:12:27.08 "The real mystery to me 00:12:29.29 is why PowerPoint's default style has been adopted so widely. 00:12:34.11 Why do medical researchers use the PowerPoint style 00:12:38.23 at academic conferences? 00:12:40.23 Why do engineers use the PowerPoint style 00:12:42.29 for technical discussions? 00:12:45.24 And the reason I like this quotation 00:12:48.28 as a criticism of PowerPoint 00:12:51.11 is that it was said by none other than Robert Gaskins, 00:12:57.15 the creator of PowerPoint. 00:12:59.18 I mean, if Gaskins himself 00:13:03.14 challenges the defaults, 00:13:05.08 then you should as well. 00:13:07.05 So, the question comes, what should we do? 00:13:09.09 But before we do that, 00:13:11.08 I have yet another assumption I want you to have. 00:13:12.26 And that is, 00:13:14.25 you should not have slides 00:13:18.01 if slides do not support the presentation. 00:13:22.24 In other words, if sl... 00:13:25.03 if slides do not help the audience 00:13:28.14 understand, remember, or believe the content. 00:13:31.28 And someone who was very astute 00:13:34.29 at that particular point, 00:13:36.28 and did not include slides if they weren't needed, 00:13:40.16 was Steve Jobs. 00:13:43.04 Steve Jobs thought about his presentations, 00:13:45.19 in a sense, as a story, 00:13:47.22 and then each slide or blank screen... 00:13:50.05 that was a scene. 00:13:52.09 And so, if you don't need a slide, 00:13:55.02 press the B on the control panel of your... 00:13:59.09 of your computer, 00:14:01.10 or use your advancer to blank the screen, 00:14:04.23 or better yet, insert a black slide 00:14:07.23 so that then the audience knows to focus on you. 00:14:13.23 And while that focus might seem frightening at first, 00:14:18.24 that focus is important 00:14:21.14 because, as Faraday said, 00:14:23.18 for your presentation to be a success, 00:14:25.21 the audience has to believe in you. 00:14:29.08 You have to show ownership of the information. 00:14:32.23 Now, maybe you won't have a blank screen 00:14:35.05 at a conference presentation 00:14:37.20 because those are so compressed. 00:14:39.12 But in a symposium that's 50 minutes, 00:14:41.20 think about having at least one scene 00:14:43.22 where there is no slide 00:14:46.04 and you move to a part of the room 00:14:48.26 where no one typically stands. 00:14:51.27 That will command attention. 00:14:53.15 Okay, now we're ready. 00:14:55.16 So then, what should we do? 00:14:57.26 And my first piece of advice to you is, 00:15:01.04 build your talk on messages, not on topics. 00:15:06.15 Most scientists and engineers in research 00:15:09.11 build their presentations on topics: 00:15:12.22 introduction, methods, results, discussion. 00:15:16.04 You can do better than that. 00:15:19.19 So, what often happens is... 00:15:21.21 let's say you're putting together a presentation, 00:15:23.29 and you're at a particular scene 00:15:26.17 and you decide... mmm... electron acceptors, 00:15:29.07 that's what I'm gonna be talking about here. 00:15:31.07 And so you write "electron acceptors" 00:15:34.00 in your biggest typeface up at the top, 00:15:36.06 and then you write down all the things you want to say... 00:15:40.02 you write those down below. 00:15:42.00 And then, if... and you put those in this bulleted list. 00:15:44.20 And then, if there's any room, 00:15:46.24 then you include an image. 00:15:50.02 What I'm telling you here is 00:15:53.02 go back to step one and stop there. 00:15:56.00 You can do better. 00:15:58.01 Build your talk on messages. 00:16:00.08 And so, Dr. Barbara Bekins, 00:16:02.01 when she was putting together her presentation 00:16:05.08 on the effect of hydrology 00:16:10.04 on the 25-year degradation of a crude oil spill... 00:16:18.01 on this particular scene, 00:16:20.23 she thought deeply about what she wanted the audience 00:16:24.01 to walk out the door with. 00:16:26.04 And then she wrote this sentence: 00:16:28.17 a succession of electron acceptors occurs 00:16:31.17 when an aquifer becomes contaminated with oil. 00:16:36.14 And then, she took that sentence, 00:16:39.28 tightened it as much as she could, 00:16:41.29 and put that at the top of a slide. 00:16:44.11 And once she had that, 00:16:46.19 then she had a filter. 00:16:48.17 And then she created visual evidence 00:16:51.00 to support that. 00:16:53.00 And so, when you've got an oil spill 00:16:56.18 that occurs in an aerobic aquifer, 00:17:01.09 what depletes first is the oxygen. 00:17:07.27 And so, what you see here is that this oxygen... 00:17:12.13 this becomes depleted in this outer band of the plume. 00:17:16.18 And once that is depleted, 00:17:19.08 then you get these bands of other types of depletions. 00:17:25.20 You get a reduction of nitrate and manganese, 00:17:29.10 and then you get a reduction of iron, 00:17:32.14 and then there's a reduction of sulfate. 00:17:36.29 So, what she has done 00:17:40.24 is she has stated her assertion up at the top 00:17:43.08 and then supported that assertion visually. 00:17:47.22 That's principle number one. 00:17:51.14 Principle number two 00:17:54.04 is to support your messages with visual evidence 00:17:57.04 -- not a bullet list. 00:18:00.00 It could be photographs, drawings, 00:18:03.05 diagrams, graphs. 00:18:05.17 It could be an equation. It could be a film. It could be a short table. 00:18:10.07 And then what you are to do is... 00:18:14.18 by creating that, you allow the audience 00:18:19.27 to focus on the visual evidence 00:18:23.14 and then what it is you're saying. 00:18:25.07 You avoid that cognitive overload. 00:18:27.29 So, let's go back to Paivio. 00:18:30.05 And if you remember, 00:18:32.27 Paivio found that written words and spoken words... 00:18:35.16 they're processed in the same part of the brain. 00:18:38.10 But his research also found 00:18:42.09 that images are processed in a different part of the brain. 00:18:46.01 And another researcher, professor Richard Mayer 00:18:49.19 from UC Santa Barbara... 00:18:52.05 what he did is he really ran with the question of, 00:18:55.27 what is the effect of using images in a presentation? 00:19:00.25 What is the effect on the learning 00:19:04.23 that the audience has? 00:19:06.20 And so, he's done a number of experiments, 00:19:08.22 and what his big takeaway 00:19:12.06 is that people learn much more deeply 00:19:14.05 from words and relevant images 00:19:17.10 than from words alone. 00:19:19.28 So, let's take a look at an example, 00:19:22.07 and I'm gonna choose a PhD graduate student, Jacob Snyder, 00:19:25.02 who's presenting a scene from 00:19:29.00 one of his conference presentations and from his PhD defense. 00:19:32.20 And so, in this scene 00:19:36.05 he's talking about the effect of using additive manufacturing, 00:19:40.18 or 3D printing, 00:19:42.25 on some really small channels. 00:19:47.09 And so, he begins the scene 00:19:51.04 by showing a channel that is built in the vertical direction, 00:19:55.10 much as a smokestack is. 00:19:57.09 And what you can see 00:19:59.18 -- and what he points out -- 00:20:01.26 is the variation that occurs in that 3D printed channel. 00:20:05.27 And then, once he has set that up, 00:20:09.14 then what he does is he shows a channel 00:20:12.24 that was built as a pipeline. 00:20:15.10 And what you see is that there's much more variation 00:20:20.12 in that particular channel, 00:20:22.19 that parts of it actually almost cave in. 00:20:26.11 And so, you might think, ohh, well, it's obvious 00:20:30.02 -- we would go with the vertical one. 00:20:32.10 Except that these channels... they are... 00:20:36.09 serve to produce heat transfer of these very hot gases. 00:20:40.22 And so, as it turns out, 00:20:43.03 having that roughness can be an asset. 00:20:47.03 And then he went on to show another channel 00:20:51.12 -- this one at 45 degrees -- 00:20:53.20 and he made the point that manufacturers 00:20:57.10 could choose different angles 00:21:01.24 to balance having the overall shape that they want 00:21:04.18 with increased roughness. 00:21:07.17 Now, we've looked at an assertion-evidence slide here. 00:21:12.01 Let's take it apart. 00:21:14.15 And the slide began with the assertion headline. 00:21:18.11 Now, some of you might say, 00:21:20.23 you know, I... I bet if I had seen Jacob Snyder give that talk, 00:21:25.28 I would understand exactly what was going on 00:21:29.05 and I would not have read that sentence. 00:21:31.15 And what I would say is, fantastic. 00:21:33.28 You were on your game as a listener 00:21:36.06 and then Jacob was on his game as a speaker. 00:21:40.09 But that sentence at a conference or in a symposium... 00:21:44.15 that sentence serves as a safety rope for the audience 00:21:50.04 in case they zone out, they get tired, 00:21:53.21 they receive a text, or whatever... 00:21:56.07 that allows them to stay in the presentation. 00:22:02.06 A couple of other things about the sentence headline: 00:22:05.10 keep it to one or two lines. 00:22:07.26 If it goes more than two lines, 00:22:09.22 our focus groups find that people won't read it... 00:22:12.28 perhaps it's just too much time away from the speaker. 00:22:16.13 Capitalize it the way you would a sentence. 00:22:19.09 It's just easier for people to read a sentence 00:22:22.08 that's capitalized as a sentence. 00:22:24.10 Also, don't center it; left justify it. 00:22:27.12 It's an easier read for the audience. 00:22:32.09 And the period... do you need a period? 00:22:36.14 Because it's a standalone sentence, 00:22:38.21 a period isn't required. 00:22:40.17 However, if you hear the voice of your fifth grade teacher 00:22:43.29 to put a period there and it haunts you at night, 00:22:47.22 put the period. 00:22:49.16 It's not that big of a deal. 00:22:52.16 So, that's the sentence. 00:22:54.12 What about the visual evidence? 00:22:56.11 With the visual evidence, I'd say the big thing is to avoid clutter. 00:22:59.07 In other words, try to have the slide breathe. 00:23:01.19 And I think Jacob Snyder did a really good job here 00:23:04.10 with the positioning of the three contour plots 00:23:08.20 and not allowing them to crowd the headline. 00:23:15.08 Leave some space there -- very nice. 00:23:17.17 And one last thing is, think about how you're gonna tell the story of the scene. 00:23:22.29 So, in this case, Jacob Snyder 00:23:25.28 discussed the one contour plot 00:23:28.13 and then animated in the second one, 00:23:30.23 when he was ready and when the audience was ready, 00:23:33.16 and then animated in the third, 00:23:36.22 again when the audience was ready. 00:23:39.13 So, we've talked about two of the principles 00:23:43.05 of the assertion-evidence approach: 00:23:45.28 build your talk on messages, not on topics, 00:23:48.01 and support those messages with visual evidence 00:23:51.01 not bullet lists. 00:23:53.15 The third principle of the assertion-evidence approach 00:23:56.15 is that when you present that visual evidence 00:24:00.04 fashion sentences on the spot. 00:24:02.18 In other words, show that you own the information. 00:24:06.20 Now, many of you might be 00:24:09.14 afraid of this particular principle. 00:24:11.25 You think, oh, I don't think I can do it. 00:24:14.01 I need those bullet lists for me to know what to say. 00:24:16.20 And what I would say is, you don't. 00:24:19.16 It is your research. 00:24:21.29 If you choose visual evidence 00:24:25.10 that is from your work, 00:24:28.05 you can present it. 00:24:29.29 You don't need those bullet lists. 00:24:32.14 As a research scientist or a research engineer, 00:24:35.04 be an experimentalist. 00:24:37.02 Try this approach. 00:24:39.19 And in trying this approach, 00:24:42.02 rather than starting with PowerPoint's defaults, 00:24:44.06 go to our website -- www.assertion-evidence.com -- 00:24:47.07 and download one of our PowerPoint templates. 00:24:50.00 They're free. It doesn't cost you anything. 00:24:53.02 But it's gonna save you a lot of time. 00:24:55.02 You'll also find some example presentations 00:24:57.13 by people such as Jacob Snyder and Katie Kirsch, 00:25:01.13 whom I had mentioned earlier. 00:25:04.08 So, what we've done here is that 00:25:10.04 I have shown you a different approach 00:25:12.23 to give a scientific research presentation. 00:25:16.05 And I hope that you'll be an experimentalist 00:25:18.23 and try this approach. 00:25:21.13 In a second film that's coming up, 00:25:23.22 we're going to walk through 00:25:27.11 a research presentation 00:25:30.03 -- title slide, mapping slide, the body slides, conclusion slide -- 00:25:33.16 to show some best examples on what it is that you can do. 00:25:38.00 Thank you.

Part 2: Assertion-Evidence Slides for a Research Talk

• Duration: 00:27:42

00:00:08.07 This film is a second part 00:00:11.24 in a three-part series for iBiology 00:00:15.18 on creating effective scientific research presentations. 00:00:22.05 Now, in the first part, 00:00:25.12 I introduced the assertion-evidence approach. 00:00:28.23 And the assertion-evidence approach has three main principles: 00:00:33.06 number one, build your talk on messages not on topics; 00:00:37.27 number two, support those messages with visual evidence not bullet lists; 00:00:42.13 and then number three is, when explaining that visual evidence, 00:00:46.18 fashion sentences on the spot. 00:00:50.14 Whereas you might have just one sentence written on the slide, 00:00:54.26 you will say six, seven, eight, or nine sentences 00:01:00.14 in your talk. 00:01:03.01 This second film does two things. 00:01:06.15 This first is this film 00:01:10.27 presents evidence showing that the assertion-evidence approach 00:01:14.14 is more effective. 00:01:16.21 After all, this approach requires quite a bit more work. 00:01:20.16 You have to think deeply about what those message headlines are. 00:01:23.19 You have to create that visual evidence. 00:01:26.13 And then you have to practice enough 00:01:29.08 that you can fashion sentences on the spot. 00:01:32.15 The second part of the talk 00:01:36.02 is to walk through a research presentation 00:01:38.07 and show you what I consider some of my greatest hits: 00:01:42.09 slides that students have created 00:01:45.14 for various research talks. 00:01:48.20 So, why the assertion-evidence approach? 00:01:52.20 Why should we use it? 00:01:54.27 At Penn State, we've done some tests 00:01:58.09 in which we've found that the assertion-evidence approach 00:02:02.14 is more effective than a typical presentation slide, 00:02:07.13 such as what you see on the screen. 00:02:10.00 So, we created a presentation... 00:02:12.16 this one happens to be on magnetic resonance imaging... 00:02:15.23 and we first created it as a typical traditional talk 00:02:22.29 that follows PowerPoint's defaults. 00:02:25.12 In fact, we looked at a lot of presentations 00:02:29.17 that were on magnetic resonance imaging, 00:02:32.06 and we patterned it after that. 00:02:34.20 Then we created a set of slides 00:02:38.01 for the exact same words that would be spoken, 00:02:42.26 but then followed the assertion-evidence approach. 00:02:45.22 So, we've got 50-60 participants in a room. 00:02:51.10 They see slides that follow the traditional approach. 00:02:56.14 Then we've got 50-60 students in another room. 00:03:00.07 They see slides that follow the assertion-evidence approach. 00:03:05.00 And after the presentation, 00:03:08.00 both sets of participants... 00:03:10.08 they essentially tried to explain, 00:03:13.26 how does magnetic resonance imaging work? 00:03:16.21 And then we had scorers who scored each of those attempts. 00:03:22.09 But the scorers, or the raters, 00:03:25.09 they didn't know from which group that they came. 00:03:29.02 But what the raters found is... 00:03:32.18 they found that the traditional approach... 00:03:35.14 they scored on average about 42% 00:03:38.05 in terms of how much they understood. 00:03:41.23 Whereas the people who viewed the assertion-evidence approach, 00:03:45.28 they found 50... 00:03:48.21 they scored that 59%. 00:03:51.01 And the statistical difference between those two 00:03:53.21 -- at these levels, 50-60 participants -- 00:03:57.16 is about... less than 0.01. 00:04:02.08 And so, what we were left to conclude 00:04:04.26 is the assertion-evidence slides 00:04:07.17 led to better comprehension and recall of information, 00:04:12.19 and that increase in comprehension and recall 00:04:16.29 is statistically significant. 00:04:19.14 One thing that we also found 00:04:23.13 is that the misconceptions that participants had 00:04:27.12 in the traditional approach, 00:04:29.27 with traditional PowerPoint slides, 00:04:32.22 is about 10 times higher 00:04:36.06 than for the assertion-evidence group -- ten times. 00:04:39.18 And what we think is happening there 00:04:42.13 is that the participants... 00:04:45.13 they're reading a bullet or something 00:04:49.23 while the speaker is talking about something else. 00:04:52.24 Those are two reasons 00:04:57.11 for you to think about using these slides 00:05:00.01 to present your research: 00:05:02.18 to increase comprehension and recall, 00:05:04.29 and to reduce number of misconceptions 00:05:08.21 that people have about your work. 00:05:11.08 So, that's a reason for doing the assertion-evidence approach. 00:05:14.14 How do you... how do you apply it 00:05:18.02 in a research presentation? 00:05:20.14 And so, what I'd like to do is walk through some common scenes, 00:05:23.18 sometimes talking about what's typically done, 00:05:27.08 and then show you what's done in the assertion-evidence approach. 00:05:30.17 Okay. So, here we go. 00:05:31.29 The first scene is typically a title slide. 00:05:34.29 And at so many research conferences, 00:05:38.10 or at symposiums and seminars, 00:05:41.00 you'll see people have a slide such as the following. 00:05:44.14 Hello. My name is Stuart Apple. 00:05:46.20 I'm workin' with Kerry Cho and Dale Gray, 00:05:49.03 and we are from the Environmental Science Department 00:05:52.14 at such and such a university. 00:05:54.19 And what we are going to present today is 00:05:58.02 Atmospheric Mercury Depletion Events 00:06:00.18 in Polar Regions During Arctic Spring. 00:06:03.25 And then that slide is gone. 00:06:06.05 And in those few nanoseconds 00:06:09.04 between that slide and the next slide, 00:06:11.27 think about how you're feeling as an audience member. 00:06:15.14 Are you... are you confident 00:06:18.09 that you're gonna learn a lot in this talk? 00:06:20.19 Do you feel as if the train has left the station, 00:06:22.27 and yet you're not really clear on what the talk is about 00:06:28.29 or what the title means? 00:06:33.27 I think that's what many people have... 00:06:35.09 or, the state that they're in in a research talk. 00:06:37.27 We can do better than that. 00:06:40.05 And now, you kind of look at this slide 00:06:42.21 and you wonder... gosh, I see a lot of slides like that. 00:06:45.17 Maybe they've got different decoration. 00:06:47.23 But why? 00:06:49.28 Why do so many slides have this title on the top, 00:06:52.05 and then just the name and the affiliation beneath, 00:06:55.05 and maybe just some decoration? 00:06:57.19 And you know why. 00:07:00.02 I mean, the reason is that people are just following PowerPoint's defaults. 00:07:03.05 PowerPoint tells them to do that. 00:07:05.10 And so, they'll put their title and then they'll put their affiliation. 00:07:08.07 And what we're saying is, 00:07:10.03 you can do better than that. 00:07:12.01 You can do better than that. 00:07:14.10 So, what can we do? 00:07:16.27 So, I'd like to look at... actually, this research 00:07:20.06 was done by a young researcher at the University of Oslo, 00:07:25.02 a chemistry student by the name of Katrine Aspmo. 00:07:27.24 And she was gonna give her first research presentation. 00:07:31.18 And she was a little nervous about that. 00:07:34.18 Moreover, the presentation was gonna occur in Portland, Oregon, 00:07:38.21 and so the people were gonna be speaking in English 00:07:43.14 -- not her native Norwegian. 00:07:45.27 But her English is good. 00:07:48.02 Still, that's just one more thing for her to consider. 00:07:50.25 But before this talk, 00:07:53.20 she went to her advisor and she asked her advisor, 00:07:57.22 how many people will be in the audience? 00:07:59.23 And her advisor said, well, it'll be about 50. 00:08:02.07 She said, whoa. 00:08:04.19 And then she said, how many of them know 00:08:05.20 what an atmospheric mercury depletion event is? 00:08:08.21 And her advisor said, hmm... I'd say five. 00:08:11.15 You're one. I'm another one. 00:08:14.20 Our collaborator, Grethe -- she's a third. 00:08:17.08 And so, that kind of gave her this idea that... 00:08:20.23 whoa... you know... 00:08:23.11 for her to orient that audience, 00:08:25.20 she's gonna have to spend some time on that initial scene. 00:08:29.05 And so, here's what she came up with. 00:08:33.12 Hello, my name is Katrine Aspmo, 00:08:36.00 and I'm working with Torunn Berg 00:08:38.21 at the Norwegian Institute of Air Research, 00:08:40.22 and I'm also working with Professor Grethe Wibetoe 00:08:42.23 from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oslo. 00:08:46.00 And what we're trying to determine 00:08:48.20 is where atmospheric mercury goes 00:08:54.03 when it depletes or falls out of the atmosphere. 00:08:59.03 Now, one thing you may not realize 00:09:02.08 is that in this atmosphere -- in this room right here -- 00:09:03.29 there's a certain amount of mercury. 00:09:06.16 It's not much. It's about 1.5 nanograms per liter. 00:09:09.16 And here, in this room, 00:09:11.16 it remains in the atmosphere. 00:09:13.15 Even when we breathe it in, we breathe it out. 00:09:15.24 It still stays in that gaseous state. 00:09:18.19 But for some reason 00:09:21.09 -- and scientists aren't exactly sure why -- 00:09:24.14 in the polar regions of the world, 00:09:26.24 such as this beautiful Ny-Alesund region, 00:09:29.00 that you see here of Norway, 00:09:32.04 there are these events where that level of mercury 00:09:36.23 will drop to zero. 00:09:39.20 And the question comes... 00:09:41.27 where does that mercury go? 00:09:43.28 So, these events... they've got this fancy name, 00:09:47.10 atmospheric mercury depletion events. 00:09:49.16 But where does that mercury go? 00:09:51.20 Now, while you may not have realized 00:09:53.21 that mercury is in the atmosphere, 00:09:55.14 I think everyone in the room knows 00:09:58.03 that mercury is toxic. 00:09:59.29 And at high enough levels, 00:10:02.07 it can cause paralysis and even death for mammals. 00:10:04.29 And so, for the polar bears in the region, 00:10:08.01 for the arctic foxes, 00:10:10.01 for the stray Norwegians who wander through there, 00:10:14.23 how... where is that mercury? 00:10:17.03 What and... and... and how does... 00:10:20.03 how does it get to that particular spot? 00:10:22.19 That is, a... you know, a research question. 00:10:26.17 And so, what we did is... you may not be able to see, 00:10:29.02 but in this one corner here is a cabin. 00:10:32.27 And we stayed in that cabin for two months. 00:10:37.00 And what we did is 00:10:39.20 we made simultaneous measurements of the amount of mercury 00:10:42.29 that's in the atmosphere 00:10:44.24 with the amount of mercury that's in the surface snow 00:10:47.06 to test our hypothesis. 00:10:49.21 That is in fact where that mercury goes. 00:10:54.15 Wow. I remember seeing this talk at... 00:10:57.19 seeing the beginning of this talk 00:11:00.03 at the University of Oslo in 2004. 00:11:02.03 And I thought to myself, you know, 00:11:04.15 I'm not an environmental scientist, 00:11:06.17 but I am lucky. 00:11:08.18 I am lucky to be here 00:11:10.26 because I'm gonna learn something in this talk. 00:11:12.20 I have already learned something in this talk. 00:11:14.20 And that's something that I would suggest to you: 00:11:17.08 in that first scene, give the audience something. 00:11:21.02 You know at the beginning of a scientific presentation, 00:11:23.28 there are certain things 00:11:26.27 that you want to accomplish before you get to the middle. 00:11:29.05 One thing is you want to show the importance of the research. 00:11:31.15 You want to present background 00:11:33.15 that the audience needs. 00:11:35.11 You also want to present background 00:11:37.20 about yourself to build credibility. 00:11:39.09 And you want to give your research question. 00:11:41.14 Katrine did all of those... 00:11:44.13 all of those on that title slide. 00:11:47.07 Wow -- that's effective. 00:11:49.11 So, we've talked about one scene here. 00:11:54.18 Another scene that often occurs 00:11:58.24 also happens at the beginning, before you get to the middle, 00:12:00.14 and it's something people call an outline slide. 00:12:02.10 I like to call it kind of a mapping slide. 00:12:04.17 Sadly, many people's slide looks like the following. 00:12:08.18 You've got this detailed list 00:12:10.24 of every single thing they're gonna do 00:12:13.00 -- things they've already done, actually, 00:12:14.27 in the talk by the time they give it -- 00:12:16.24 and then things that you already know were gonna come. 00:12:19.06 And then they will dutifully read through that list. 00:12:21.20 You know, they'll get to... you know, 00:12:23.29 almost all the way through, 00:12:25.24 and then they'll realize they misspelled a word like acknowledgments, 00:12:28.06 and they'll apologize for it... 00:12:30.14 and then they will finish, 00:12:32.05 and then they will move on. 00:12:34.00 And when they move on, 00:12:35.25 then the audience is, to themselves, 00:12:38.08 thinking, well, he gave me all these things, 00:12:41.14 or she gave me all these things, 00:12:43.13 and I've forgotten them already. 00:12:45.11 You can do better than that. 00:12:47.20 One thing is, remember, 00:12:51.04 people feel comfortable with lists of two's, three's, and four's. 00:12:54.01 So, a list, here, of eleven is not very good. 00:12:57.19 Another thing is you don't need to give them some things: 00:13:00.01 introduction -- they know the talk has an introduction; 00:13:02.08 background -- you've already given the background 00:13:04.05 before you do this mapping; 00:13:06.04 conclusions; acknowledgments; questions. 00:13:08.02 They know that's happening. 00:13:09.28 It's the stuff in the middle. 00:13:11.24 And you don't have to give the sub-levels. 00:13:13.22 I mean, that's not what's so important. 00:13:15.13 It's the main things that you need to give. 00:13:17.16 So, let's look at what Katrine Aspmo did. 00:13:19.20 I thought she did an excellent job. 00:13:22.00 So, in her talk, she divided it into three parts. 00:13:25.22 One is this theory for mercury cycling. 00:13:28.21 And then she talked ab... 00:13:30.18 mentioned that she was gonna, you know, talk about that. 00:13:33.06 And then she had another part, 00:13:35.16 where she had those measurements from that station... 00:13:37.29 actually, on those two types of mercury measurements: 00:13:41.24 in the atmosphere and then in the surface snow. 00:13:46.03 And then, her third part of the talk 00:13:49.00 was environmental implications, 00:13:51.05 and she showed this particular picture. 00:13:53.00 And the polar bear is not there in a gratuitous fashion. 00:13:55.18 Actually, a lot of the data 00:13:58.05 on the effects of these mercury depletion events 00:14:00.08 occurs through studying polar bear carcasses, 00:14:04.02 and so that is what she went over. 00:14:06.20 But whoa... what a great mapping scene. 00:14:09.20 And I have seen people sometimes take those images 00:14:12.20 and put those as icons in the corners of all the slides 00:14:17.05 that were from that particular section. 00:14:19.05 That's just another thing, here, 00:14:21.05 that you could do that doesn't clutter a slide 00:14:24.04 or take up too much space 00:14:25.29 or too much time for the audience's attention. 00:14:28.15 Yeah. 00:14:30.07 But that's the kind of mapping that you want to do. 00:14:32.19 Let's try... let's think about literature review. 00:14:35.02 So, literature view... oh my gosh. 00:14:36.27 This is often one of the most boring parts. 00:14:38.13 People walk through all the... 00:14:40.08 all the major work that's been done. 00:14:42.15 You'll get a bullet list slide, 00:14:44.06 and they'll talk about everything that they've done. 00:14:46.07 And I'd like you to rethink that. 00:14:48.29 You know, what are you doing in the literature review? 00:14:51.11 You're trying to show that there's a gap in the work, 00:14:56.04 and that... and that your research question... 00:14:58.21 your research hypothesis... 00:15:00.06 your research fills that gap. 00:15:03.12 And so, you're trying to show that gap exists. 00:15:05.14 So, here's one that Jacob Snyder did on his. 00:15:09.23 And so, what he did is... 00:15:12.01 he wanted to make it clear 00:15:14.23 that there are a number of people 00:15:17.09 -- not a lot of people, but a number of people -- 00:15:19.09 who have tried to use additive manufacturing 00:15:22.18 to create these heat transfer devices 00:15:25.24 for these gas turbine engines. 00:15:27.28 And so, he showed a couple of images 00:15:30.21 right at the beginning: 00:15:32.06 one from the work of Kirsch and Thole, 00:15:34.03 another one from the work Collins. 00:15:35.24 Then it talked a little bit about what they had done. 00:15:38.14 Then he brought in the work of Ferster 00:15:40.26 and the work of somebody else. 00:15:42.17 Then he brought in the work of Siemens, 00:15:44.17 that they... and he talked about what they had done. 00:15:46.21 But then he made it clear that there was a gap 00:15:50.24 between what they've done and what still could be done. 00:15:53.04 Wow. 00:15:54.26 That's something that people can follow. 00:15:56.29 Really, really nice. 00:15:58.18 And it's thinking about what details are essential 00:16:00.29 and then what details are secondary. 00:16:06.20 So, we've looked at a literature review. 00:16:08.26 Let's talk a little bit about methods. 00:16:11.00 So, with methods... 00:16:13.07 I'll show you one that's more from an experimental talk. 00:16:17.19 And so, here, rather than having, again, 00:16:21.19 a bullet list with all these details, 00:16:23.09 what Nick Cardwell did in this one is 00:16:26.13 he started with an image of his experiment. 00:16:29.08 So, he's got this recirculating wind tunnel. 00:16:31.19 And then he shows this one particular part 00:16:34.28 of that wind tunnel 00:16:36.19 where they split the flow. 00:16:38.26 And so, the flow there splits. 00:16:42.02 You see some of it goes in the blue part 00:16:44.08 and some of it goes in that white part. 00:16:46.04 And then, in that... in that center part, or that white part, 00:16:48.17 what happens is they heat some of that flow. 00:16:51.00 So, you've got... now, you've got two flows: 00:16:53.14 the secondary flow in the flu... in the blue part, 00:16:58.00 and then the primary flow, but the primary flow is heated. 00:17:01.00 And then they bring that secondary flow 00:17:03.22 back in to try to cool the surfaces after... 00:17:09.20 after the heated flow has occurred. 00:17:11.12 And so, they're simulating what goes on in a jet engine, 00:17:14.08 where they try to cool the parts 00:17:16.28 downstream of the combustor. 00:17:18.23 But... really nice. 00:17:21.01 Now, Nick Cardwell... he knows a lot of the numbers 00:17:24.03 on flow rates and temperatures, 00:17:25.29 and so he was just able to say those. 00:17:27.27 What you could do, if you're... 00:17:30.21 don't have the confidence you could remember those, 00:17:33.23 you could animate them into that white space, 00:17:36.02 but then I would animate them out 00:17:38.08 when they're not needed. 00:17:40.02 Don't let those clutter the slide. 00:17:42.14 But remember, the audience will have your paper. 00:17:45.20 They can go back and refer to what things are. 00:17:49.16 You definitely want to have those details, 00:17:51.19 and you want to know them 00:17:53.12 and be able to respond to questions, 00:17:55.08 but you don't need to put everything on the slide 00:17:58.13 as so many people do. 00:18:02.07 Let's look at a second method slide. 00:18:04.06 And on this one, 00:18:07.08 the speaker didn't have images 00:18:09.19 such as the last one had. 00:18:11.26 So, let's see how he handled it. 00:18:14.19 So, this particular work was done by Jimmy Webber. 00:18:18.06 And in a sense, 00:18:20.03 what he's trying to do in this part of the methods section 00:18:22.27 is just talk about how he is going 00:18:27.14 to characterize this pollution of 53 streams 00:18:30.15 in the Northeast. 00:18:32.08 And so, he introduces these six criteria 00:18:34.21 that he will use to characterize that pollution. 00:18:39.19 And then the second thing that he does 00:18:42.15 is he says, as a reference, 00:18:44.06 he's gonna compare the pollution of those streams 00:18:47.03 versus the pollution 00:18:49.15 -- or those same criteria -- 00:18:51.09 of 12 reference streams. 00:18:54.03 And then he gives a teaser 00:18:58.16 on a couple of results from his work, 00:19:01.19 and I thought that was interesting that he did so. 00:19:03.29 And what he did is he showed 00:19:06.19 that the sulfate levels were beyond that reference point, 00:19:11.10 on average, for the 53 streams. 00:19:14.20 Not to a place where it's dangerous 00:19:16.26 for the plants or wildlife, 00:19:18.26 but certainly beyond the reference. 00:19:21.12 And then he also showed that the chloride levels... 00:19:24.28 those were in fact at the impaired level. 00:19:29.13 I love this scene. 00:19:31.02 I love how he tells this part of his methods 00:19:36.09 as a story. 00:19:38.06 And I love the imagination. 00:19:40.09 Somebody else would have just had a bulleted list, 00:19:42.27 and we would have slept through it. 00:19:44.25 But here, he has essentially told us a story 00:19:49.08 that we can remember. 00:19:52.10 And that is so important. 00:19:54.15 It's not just that people understand our work; 00:19:56.19 we want them to remember our work. 00:19:59.20 So, here... this part of the talk 00:20:01.26 is where you have to... 00:20:03.16 you're making some of your best arguments. 00:20:07.12 And I just want to show an example, here, 00:20:10.23 that comes from some work 00:20:14.11 that's being done in Norway 00:20:17.11 by this... Siri Larsen. 00:20:19.12 And so, what Siri is doing is 00:20:24.26 she's looking at satellite images 00:20:27.00 and kind of looking at them in interesting ways, 00:20:28.26 with different filters, 00:20:30.23 to extract some valuable information. 00:20:32.20 And so, these images 00:20:36.08 happen to come from parts of Norway 00:20:38.10 where there might be avalanches. 00:20:40.18 And that's important because 00:20:42.27 if you have an avalanche... 00:20:44.24 you know... or if... 00:20:46.25 if a place is susceptible to one avalanche, 00:20:49.23 then more could occur, 00:20:51.20 and you want to keep people away 00:20:54.22 from that particular area. 00:20:56.12 But the problem is when you look at the satellite images, 00:20:58.23 sometimes it's hard to distinguish 00:21:01.16 an avalanche from a sparse forest. And so, what she has done is 00:21:08.01 she's applied these filters 00:21:10.11 that kind of helped her make that distinguishing. 00:21:12.23 And so, one of the filters is this aspect direction, 00:21:15.18 and she would talk about how she applied that 00:21:18.24 and what she would find. 00:21:20.08 Another one, then, is of the vertical direction 00:21:22.27 -- how she applied that and what they have found. 00:21:25.19 But I like, again, 00:21:28.08 how she tells that scene, tells it as a story. 00:21:31.12 So, that's an example of results that has images. 00:21:35.24 Another kind of result would be a graph, 00:21:38.06 and so here's... here's a graph that Steve Weaver 00:21:40.26 put together in one of his talks. 00:21:43.24 And so, in this particular graph, 00:21:47.02 what he is doing is he's trying 00:21:51.20 to examine the roughness in this heat transfer channel. 00:21:55.20 And so, one way to determine that 00:21:59.14 is by this particular graph, 00:22:02.20 where you graph friction factor, f, 00:22:06.00 on the y axis 00:22:07.24 versus Reynolds number on the x axis. 00:22:10.08 And so, the first thing that Weaver did 00:22:15.06 is he has that straight line. 00:22:17.06 And so, that would be a perfectly smooth pipe. 00:22:19.23 That would be the theoretical explanation, 00:22:23.12 so... from Blasius in 1894. 00:22:25.10 And then, here... then, the dots... 00:22:29.23 those are his experiments showing that 00:22:34.23 within experimental error he matches the curve of Blasius. 00:22:36.28 But then he's gonna roughen up these surfaces, 00:22:40.07 and so he roughened them up in different ways, 00:22:42.09 and so... different colors... 00:22:44.08 red is not as rough as blue, 00:22:46.05 which is not as rough as green. 00:22:48.05 So, what's the effect of roughening the surface? 00:22:50.27 What effect does it have on the friction factor? 00:22:53.08 And then he animates in what that effect is, 00:22:57.18 and then he shows that it's actually... 00:22:59.12 it increases that friction factor in all of those cases. 00:23:04.03 A couple of things here that I liked... 00:23:06.18 one is I liked that he told things as a story. 00:23:08.24 Another thing I liked is that, here, 00:23:13.04 he was giving his most important result, 00:23:15.24 and he didn't start with the assertion at the beginning 00:23:18.06 because he knew there would be some people 00:23:20.20 who would be skeptical about that result, 00:23:23.12 and he knew there would be others that, 00:23:25.08 if he gave that assertion at the beginning, 00:23:27.07 it would be too much for them 00:23:29.20 -- they would be... they would be overwhelmed. 00:23:31.19 So, he started with a question that they understood. 00:23:34.23 And then, when he was ready, 00:23:36.20 then he brought in his assertion. 00:23:40.01 And so, in a way, I think of this kind of scene 00:23:43.27 as evidence-assertion. 00:23:45.09 Evidence comes first, and then, 00:23:47.08 when the audience is ready, 00:23:49.05 then you bring the assertion. 00:23:51.06 And in real persuasive types of situations, 00:23:53.06 that's a good thing to do. 00:23:55.14 So, let's move on to our last scene. 00:23:59.08 And our last scene is the scene that you show at the end. 00:24:02.09 And interestingly, the most common scene that I see people show 00:24:08.13 as their last slide is something that looks like that. 00:24:11.01 Oh my gosh. 00:24:13.04 Let's think about this. 00:24:14.19 Let's just think about this scene for just a second. 00:24:16.01 What are we trying to do here? 00:24:18.01 What we're trying to do here is... 00:24:19.11 we have presented our work to the world 00:24:21.28 and now we want the world's response. 00:24:24.04 And so, people are seeing our research, here, 00:24:28.19 for the first time. 00:24:30.18 And so that... maybe they're spending a minute and a half 00:24:34.15 or two minutes on a graph, 00:24:36.05 but now they're trying to formulate questions. 00:24:38.09 How does this slide help them formulate questions 00:24:40.19 about research that they've never seen before? 00:24:44.10 And the fact is it doesn't. 00:24:46.08 This is a terrible scene. 00:24:48.04 You can do so much better. 00:24:49.28 Don't do that -- please. 00:24:51.27 I mean think about it. 00:24:53.18 Think about it from the audience's perspective. 00:24:56.01 Your best scene to end with 00:24:58.22 is a scene that shows your conclusion, 00:25:01.28 that shows really what your main takeaways are. 00:25:05.16 And that's what Danielle Lesso 00:25:08.02 did in this particular scene. 00:25:09.22 So, she had three main points 00:25:12.09 that she had made in her talk 00:25:14.26 to show that Miscanthus 00:25:17.14 could be a promising fuel crop 00:25:20.10 for the northeastern part of the United States. 00:25:22.20 And the first one is that Miscanthus 00:25:25.06 is able to have a cold tolerance 00:25:29.00 down to 6 degrees Celsius, 00:25:30.24 which is important in the Northeast. 00:25:32.15 Another thing is that the root depth 00:25:35.10 goes down to 2 meters, 00:25:37.21 which is important because a lot of the Northeast, 00:25:39.25 as she pointed out in her talk, 00:25:41.18 is on hilly surfaces, 00:25:43.15 and so the plant could be washed away 00:25:45.19 if it doesn't have sufficient root depth. 00:25:48.14 And then in the third part, she showed this energy ratio, 00:25:52.02 which the National Academy of Sciences had found, 00:25:55.00 that for every BTU of energy that you put in to 00:26:02.08 planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and transporting Miscanthus, 00:26:07.11 you get 6 BTUs out of energy 00:26:10.00 -- a ratio was 6 to 1. 00:26:13.21 And at this point, she gave her closure to her talk. 00:26:17.04 And then, when she was ready, 00:26:19.28 then she asked for questions. 00:26:22.08 Now, the audience has something 00:26:25.06 in which they can ask. 00:26:28.01 They've got words up here to help them formulate questions. 00:26:33.25 So, what have we done today? 00:26:36.14 We've talked about why the assertion-evidence approach... 00:26:39.01 why it is worth 00:26:42.27 at least an experiment on your part, 00:26:44.27 for you to try the gains 00:26:48.09 that we have in audience comprehension. 00:26:50.23 And then we walked through various scenes 00:26:53.00 to give you ideas 00:26:55.09 on how you might design your title slide, 00:26:57.18 a mapping slide, 00:27:00.02 a slide on your literature review, 00:27:01.12 talk about your methods, your results, 00:27:03.19 and then finally your conclusion. 00:27:07.04 So, this particular talk has focused 00:27:09.26 on how we might design slides for a research talk. 00:27:14.13 The third part of the series talks 00:27:17.28 about how you would deliver those slides 00:27:19.24 and, in particular, 00:27:22.11 how you would deliver those slides with confidence.

Part 3: Attaining Confidence in Your Scientific Presentations

• Duration: 00:20:40

00:00:08.02 This film is the third of a three-part series for iBiology 00:00:14.17 on improving your scientific presentations. 00:00:17.14 The first two films introduced a different approach, 00:00:20.28 the assertion-evidence approach, 00:00:23.04 for presentations, 00:00:25.24 what it is, why to use it, 00:00:28.19 and then how to incorporate it 00:00:31.17 into a research presentation. 00:00:33.17 This third film focuses on an important aspect of presentations, 00:00:39.15 and that is delivery. 00:00:41.07 And in particular, 00:00:43.22 how do you exude confidence in your delivery? 00:00:49.10 Now, I have had the fortune of teaching scientific presentations 00:00:54.13 over the past 30 years 00:00:58.10 on 4 continents, 17 countries, 00:01:02.17 and more than 100 institutions -- 00:01:08.00 laboratories, companies, universities, and agencies. 00:01:12.28 And by far, the number one question 00:01:16.05 that young scientists and engineers asked me is, 00:01:21.09 how do I handle nervousness? 00:01:24.08 Now, they don't ask this question in front of the big crowd. 00:01:27.11 Rather, they catch me in the hallway and they ask. 00:01:31.01 And to that question, I have the same answer. 00:01:35.00 In the days before the presentation, 00:01:38.14 think positively. 00:01:40.13 Just as a professional tennis player 00:01:43.00 will imagine a shot going in a certain spot, 00:01:46.15 you too, in your presentations, 00:01:49.25 should imagine success -- 00:01:53.22 the audience understanding your results, for instance. 00:01:57.19 On that day of the presentation, 00:02:00.27 arrive early. 00:02:04.10 I cannot tell you how many times arriving early 00:02:08.08 has saved me from embarrassment. 00:02:12.03 Learning that my computer 00:02:15.09 doesn't hook up with their particular projector, 00:02:18.19 finding that chairs are not where they should be... 00:02:22.27 arrive early. 00:02:25.11 That way, you can remove one of the biggest sources of nervousness, 00:02:29.23 and that is that your presentation slides will not work. 00:02:36.11 And then, just before you speak, 00:02:40.28 think about some advice that Mark Twain 00:02:43.24 shared with a nervous presenter backstage. 00:02:47.20 Don't worry -- they're not expecting much. 00:02:51.15 So, those are the three things 00:02:54.10 that I generally tell people 00:02:57.01 on how to handle nervousness 00:02:59.12 before a scientific presentation. 00:03:01.09 And I have to say, I've chosen those three 00:03:03.28 because those three things have helped me. 00:03:06.14 But what I would also say is "how do I handle nervousness?" 00:03:11.04 is not your best question. 00:03:13.24 The better question to ask is, 00:03:16.07 how do I attain confidence when I present? 00:03:20.13 And I'm talking about the confidence of the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor 00:03:25.03 or the physicist Brian Cox. 00:03:29.19 So, this question's a little bit different. 00:03:31.23 And if you think about confidence, 00:03:35.19 there are really two types of confidence. 00:03:38.09 There's that confidence that you feel inside, 00:03:41.03 the internal confidence. 00:03:44.17 And then there's that confidence 00:03:47.20 that you project to the audience. 00:03:50.02 Even though inside you might be hurting, 00:03:52.16 to the audience you can still project 00:03:55.18 that you at least seem confident. 00:03:58.28 So, I'd like to talk about those two. 00:04:01.21 And I'll start first with the internal confidence. 00:04:05.15 And I'd like to draw upon my interviews 00:04:08.29 with a number of scientists and engineers 00:04:12.21 who've given excellent presentations 00:04:15.02 to large audiences, 00:04:16.29 such as Jill Bolte Taylor or Brian Cox. 00:04:23.01 And one of the key ingredients for that internal confidence 00:04:29.09 is having strong content. 00:04:32.15 If you have tested or vetted that content of yours 00:04:37.24 before audiences whom you respect, 00:04:41.12 and that content has withstood those audiences, 00:04:45.20 and in fact received positive responses 00:04:49.16 from those audiences, 00:04:51.16 that will help you with your internal confidence. 00:04:57.00 A second ingredient comes from a short interview 00:05:02.01 I had with Jane Goodall. 00:05:04.18 I happened to meet her at an airport, 00:05:06.27 and I didn't have much time to speak with her, 00:05:10.21 but I mentioned that I have this opportunity 00:05:14.08 to talk about presentations 00:05:16.25 to many young scientists and engineers 00:05:20.00 around the world, 00:05:22.05 and what piece of advice would she give them? 00:05:25.22 And her demeanor changed. 00:05:29.22 She kind of took on a harsh demeanor, 00:05:31.26 and she said, 00:05:34.00 well, it certainly wouldn't be the same piece of advice 00:05:37.09 that someone gave me. 00:05:39.26 And I had this sense that 00:05:43.05 I had just ripped the Band-Aid off an old wound. 00:05:45.13 She said that before her first presentation 00:05:49.13 someone had told her to just go up there. 00:05:52.16 You're the expert. 00:05:54.18 And she said that was horrible advice. 00:05:57.17 And then she went on to tell me 00:05:59.29 that she was here touring the United States, 00:06:02.14 and she was giving essentially 00:06:06.12 the same talk at ten different places. 00:06:09.12 And at each of those places, 00:06:13.26 before the talk, 00:06:16.25 she insisted on having 45 minutes by herself 00:06:21.00 so that she could walk through that talk 00:06:24.02 and imagine herself giving it to the crowd. 00:06:28.20 And I thought to myself, my gosh. 00:06:31.24 Someone who is that seasoned... 00:06:34.05 if she still needs that amount of preparation, 00:06:40.01 what about the rest of us? 00:06:43.11 Preparation -- that I would say is the second ingredient. 00:06:47.28 And then the third ingredient came from the world health statistician 00:06:52.29 Hans Rosling. 00:06:55.03 And Hans Rosling told me that, for him, 00:07:01.02 an important part of internal confidence was focus. 00:07:09.20 What Rosling said is before an important talk 00:07:12.07 he didn't want to... 00:07:15.12 in the minutes before, he didn't want to really speak to anybody. 00:07:17.27 He just wanted to be by himself. 00:07:21.11 And his best analogy for it 00:07:24.20 was to be like a downhill slalom skier 00:07:28.17 up at the top, just before you take off. 00:07:33.11 And a downhill slalom speak... 00:07:35.16 skier thinks about going here, going here, 00:07:39.03 going here, or going here. 00:07:42.01 And he said, for him, that was the same thing, 00:07:45.14 that he wanted to think about exactly 00:07:47.27 where he was going to go. 00:07:51.06 This idea of focus was also one 00:07:55.06 that a young presenter communicated to me -- 00:07:59.13 Sheila Patek, before one of her first presentations, 00:08:04.16 which was to more than 800 people. 00:08:08.16 And what she said is... 00:08:12.05 she said, if I had thought about the 800+ people 00:08:16.07 in the room that day, 00:08:18.19 I never could have done it. 00:08:21.05 Instead, I thought about the science 00:08:23.23 and my passion for the ideas, 00:08:25.28 and I let that carry me. 00:08:30.18 Strong content, preparation, focus. 00:08:36.23 If you will work on those three things, 00:08:39.22 you will bolster your internal confidence. 00:08:44.12 Now, I'm not saying that before a talk 00:08:47.23 you're not going to feel nervous. 00:08:50.29 There will be audiences and there will be situations 00:08:55.07 in which you will. 00:08:57.24 But... and I think something to realize 00:09:01.23 is that the internal confidence 00:09:04.12 is not an on/off switch. 00:09:06.29 A better analogy is that it's a bucket. 00:09:10.20 And the more that you work on those three, 00:09:13.18 the more fluid that is in that bucket. 00:09:18.00 And that... the nervousness that you will have 00:09:23.13 is not as much as if you had not done the strong content, 00:09:29.06 the preparation, 00:09:31.03 the focus. 00:09:33.21 So, that was a little bit about internal confidence. 00:09:37.01 How about projected confidence? 00:09:40.26 One thing that has amazed me 00:09:43.28 is that I have had students 00:09:46.19 who have given a presentation 00:09:49.09 -- former students -- 00:09:51.12 and I have watched them, 00:09:53.08 and I have thought, oh my gosh, 00:09:56.06 these students are doing great. 00:09:58.10 And then I think to myself, 00:10:00.24 I must be a really good teacher, 00:10:03.12 that my former students are presenting so well. 00:10:07.07 But then afterwards, I will talk to these students, 00:10:11.11 and they will tell me how nervous they were. 00:10:14.17 And I will think to myself, 00:10:16.21 I must not be a very good teacher, 00:10:19.07 because I couldn't see their nervousness. 00:10:22.22 But one thing that I've realized is that 00:10:27.07 even though inside you are hurting, 00:10:30.16 you can mask that discomfort 00:10:36.28 in certain ways and with certain steps that you can take. 00:10:40.04 And so, I'd like to come back to Twain 00:10:43.20 and talk about another quotation that he has. 00:10:45.23 And for the moment, disregard the religious implications 00:10:48.22 of this quotation. 00:10:50.24 But Twain talked about 00:10:54.04 the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces. 00:10:58.04 And I think as a presenter, 00:11:01.09 there are four aces that you can play in a presentation 00:11:05.02 to project more confidence. 00:11:07.27 The ace of spades: start strong. 00:11:13.06 On the day of the presentation, arrive early. 00:11:17.04 Make sure that all the equipment is working. 00:11:21.20 And not just your computer and projector, 00:11:25.08 but make sure that the clicker is working 00:11:27.27 so that you are ready to go. 00:11:31.03 One thing that is important to realize is that 00:11:36.10 different rooms have different ghosts. 00:11:38.05 And crazy things that will happen in one room 00:11:41.12 will not happen in another. 00:11:43.16 But in that other room, 00:11:46.05 something else crazy could happen. 00:11:48.17 Be prepared -- arrive early. 00:11:50.27 And then, when you've gotten everything ready to go, 00:11:54.28 don't hide out in the bathroom. 00:11:56.25 Rather, meet your audience. 00:12:00.21 Try to find out something from them 00:12:03.07 that you can incorporate into your talk. 00:12:06.29 I see speakers do that. 00:12:09.13 And even though I know exactly what it is that they're doing, 00:12:13.25 I'm always amazed at that particular move 00:12:17.21 that they make. 00:12:20.03 Just meet your audience, 00:12:22.20 try to find out something about them. 00:12:24.14 Even if you don't incorporate it, 00:12:27.01 you have strengthened your hand 00:12:29.18 by meeting that person, 00:12:31.23 becoming in a sense that person's friend 00:12:35.01 or that person becoming your ally. 00:12:38.18 And then, when it's time for you to go up, 00:12:43.18 move up to the stage, stand tall. 00:12:47.09 I like to feel the muscles in the backs of my calves and thighs. 00:12:50.28 I like to feel myself stand as tall as I can 00:12:55.11 in front of the audience. 00:12:57.23 Don't necessarily say anything for a moment. 00:13:00.29 Smile. 00:13:03.04 Smiling is a great thing to do 00:13:06.10 because what happens is the audience will smile back, 00:13:08.29 and that's a good feedback loop for you. 00:13:12.17 And then, when you're ready to speak, 00:13:15.11 make sure that the first syllable that you say 00:13:20.08 is not uh. 00:13:22.12 Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how many times 00:13:26.01 people have undercut such a wonderful moment 00:13:28.19 with an uh or um. 00:13:32.16 Know what you're going to say first. 00:13:35.24 I don't memorize much, 00:13:38.18 but I often have the first sentence committed to memory. 00:13:42.15 And when I say it, 00:13:45.00 I will pause somewhere in the middle at a natural place. 00:13:49.22 And when you pause 00:13:52.06 -- and this might sound odd -- 00:13:54.11 listen for the HVAC sound in the room 00:13:57.21 -- the heating, ventilation, and cooling sound of the room -- 00:14:00.29 and love that sound. 00:14:04.01 00:14:06.05 Embrace that sound. Feel comfortable with that sound 00:14:08.22 so that you don't have this urge 00:14:12.03 to fill that sound with uh or um. 00:14:16.25 And then, when you show that first slide, 00:14:19.28 know that first slide. 00:14:22.09 Don't turn to the slide 00:14:24.20 and read what the title is. 00:14:29.16 And for heaven's sake, 00:14:32.04 don't turn to the slide 00:14:35.24 when you say your name. 00:14:37.25 You ought to know your name. 00:14:39.18 Know that first slide. 00:14:41.22 Now, on that slide, you should have some kind of image 00:14:45.13 or a sequence of images 00:14:47.25 that orient the audience. 00:14:50.03 And turning to that image... 00:14:52.14 that's a natural turn, 00:14:54.19 because you want the audience to turn toward that image. 00:14:59.12 Ace of spades -- start strong. 00:15:03.07 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides. 00:15:08.21 And so, don't follow PowerPoint's defaults 00:15:11.23 and have all these bullets. 00:15:14.09 Rather, use an approach 00:15:16.22 such as the assertion-evidence approach 00:15:19.03 that tries to minimize the text on slides 00:15:21.24 to just the essence of the argument 00:15:24.14 that you are giving. 00:15:26.22 Build your talk on messages, 00:15:28.25 not on topics. 00:15:31.01 Support your messages with visual evidence, 00:15:33.14 not bullet lists. 00:15:35.17 And that visual evidence could be photographs, drawings, 00:15:40.00 diagrams, graphs. 00:15:42.18 It could be a film, could be an equation, 00:15:44.25 could be a short table. 00:15:47.00 But reduce that text on slides 00:15:49.09 so that when you are speaking, 00:15:52.03 the words clearly come from you. 00:15:57.22 You show ownership of your research. 00:16:02.16 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides. 00:16:06.16 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next. 00:16:10.09 Now, for me, when I'm at a conference 00:16:15.17 that I'm the second speaker or third speaker 00:16:18.28 in a session, 00:16:20.26 I really don't have the confidence 00:16:23.18 to listen to the previous speakers 00:16:25.21 and to ask them questions. 00:16:28.03 I'm always amazed at those people who do. 00:16:30.16 But for me, I am sitting here 00:16:34.02 thinking about my own presentation. 00:16:36.11 And one thing that I like to do 00:16:38.22 -- and it's similar to what Rosling said -- 00:16:41.24 is that I like to think about each scene. 00:16:45.11 And so, I'll often take a blank sheet of paper 00:16:48.05 and I will sketch thumbnails of the slides, 00:16:52.14 and then the next slide, and then the next slide, 00:16:56.14 and the slide after that, 00:16:58.21 so that I know what comes next. 00:17:01.08 Because if I know what comes next 00:17:04.03 before I click to that slide, 00:17:07.01 I can make a transition to that scene. 00:17:11.26 And that making of a transition... 00:17:15.11 that projects confidence. 00:17:18.21 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next. 00:17:22.28 Ace of clubs -- finish strong. 00:17:26.04 When you're at the end of your talk, 00:17:29.10 have a strong scene on which to end, 00:17:32.25 one that states your main conclusions 00:17:36.01 and then has images of your main arguments 00:17:41.15 to support that conclusion. 00:17:43.29 And then go through those arguments 00:17:48.00 in an efficient manner. 00:17:50.06 And when you get to the end of those arguments 00:17:53.18 and then you may your closure 00:17:55.27 to end the talk, pause. 00:18:01.08 And before you ask for questions, 00:18:05.29 say the word thank you. 00:18:10.23 Or if you're in Germany, danke schön. 00:18:13.23 Or if you're in China, xièxiè. 00:18:16.02 But give that audience 00:18:19.11 an opportunity to clap. 00:18:22.00 I find that in conference presentations 00:18:25.16 and research symposiums, 00:18:27.16 it's a coin flip. 00:18:29.10 The speaker might give the audience 00:18:31.17 a chance to clap. 00:18:33.25 But a lot of times, the speaker will just rush 00:18:36.08 and ask for questions. 00:18:38.12 And then the audience doesn't know what to do -- 00:18:41.01 do I clap, or do I ask a question? 00:18:43.02 And so, what you end up with is 00:18:46.25 you end up with some tepid applause as well as then 00:18:49.08 some people may be trying to voice a question. 00:18:52.22 Don't go there. 00:18:54.21 You want to receive the applause. 00:18:56.26 And in fact, I think it's important 00:18:59.10 that those people who are 00:19:03.14 perhaps not in your field 00:19:05.18 see the experts in your field... 00:19:07.22 see them applaud. 00:19:09.24 Say thank you. 00:19:11.19 And then, when that applause is dying down, 00:19:15.27 that's when you want to ask for questions. 00:19:19.14 And when you receive questions, 00:19:21.23 know that there are gonna be some questions 00:19:24.27 that you cannot fully answer. 00:19:27.21 And so, a lot of young scientists and engineers... 00:19:31.17 they will rush that answer 00:19:34.08 and say what it is that they know. 00:19:37.13 But then they'll have a big but. 00:19:41.10 And then they'll end that answer 00:19:44.15 with some negative news. 00:19:46.25 A better way to handle it is to pause 00:19:49.18 and start your answer with although. 00:19:53.04 Although I cannot answer everything 00:19:55.28 about the question that you asked, 00:19:57.22 I can say... 00:20:01.00 and then finish strong with what it is you do know. 00:20:05.07 Ace of clubs -- finish strong. 00:20:10.26 If you'll play those four aces in your presentation, 00:20:16.01 you will project confidence. 00:20:21.19 Thank you.

• Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
• Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad

Talk Overview

Michael Alley has been teaching scientists and engineers how to design presentation slides and deliver effective scientific talks for over three decades. In this three-part lecture, you will learn (a) how to design your PowerPoint or Keynote slides, (b) how to organize your talk, and (c) how to confidently deliver your research seminar. This series will help trainees and research scientists alike improve their presentation skills.

Speaker Bio

Michael alley.

Michael Alley holds a master of science in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University and a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Alabama. Alley is a teaching professor of Engineering Communication at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of three popular textbooks: The Craft of Scientific Presentations (2013), The Craft… Continue Reading

Playlist: Tips for Science Trainees

Related Resources

Michael P Alley, 2013, The Craft of Scientific Presentations, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA, pp. 286

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2016, Slide structure can influence the presenter’s understanding of the presentation’s content , International Journal of Engineering Education, 32, (1A), pp. 39-54

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2013, How the design of presentation slides affects audience comprehension: A case for the assertion-evidence approach , International Journal of Engineering Education 26 (6), pp. 1564-1579

PowerPoint templates for Assertion-evidence slides

Reader Interactions

Itizaz says

September 25, 2020 at 12:18 pm

Thank you sir i was really looking for this information…keep it up

Rick Salatino says

May 11, 2021 at 3:39 pm

In the early 2010s, I was a scientific training manager, a molecular biologist and learning professional, for a medium-sized biotechnology company. I tried to influence and train our R&D scientists to use Michael Alley’s Assertion-Evidence approach to improve slide design for better knowledge acquisition and retention. While scientists theoretically accepted the approach, they practically rejected it. Powerpoint defaults were the comfortable default for most scientific research presentations and, I suspect, they still are today.

Craig Hadden says

April 17, 2024 at 5:23 am

Thanks for sharing these videos, which offer a great way to improve the standard of fact-based presentations!

If you’re interested, I’ve summarised this approach in a short post – including a 5-minute video. (The post also discusses “hacking” the assertion-evidence approach, to make your slides more varied.)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Find a Video

• Search Videos
• All Playlists
• All Speakers
• YouTube Channel
• Other Languages
• Biochemistry
• Bioengineering
• Cell Biology
• CRISPR-Cas Technology
• Development & Stem Cells
• Genetics & Gene Regulation
• Human Disease
• Microbiology
• Neuroscience
• Plant Biology
• Science and Society

For Educators

• New! SCL Films for Education
• New! SCL Educator Newsletter
• iBiology Educator Resources
• iBiology Flipped Courses
• iBiology Courses Resources
• Recommended Playlists
• View All Educator Resources

Educators Recommend

• Cells of the Immune System
• Discovering Cell Cycle Regulators
• Genome Engineering with CRISPR-Cas9
• Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
• Next Generation Sequencing
• Semi-Conservative Replication of DNA
• Toll-Like Receptors in Adaptive Immunity
• Learn Microscopy
• Intro to Microscopy
• Bioimage Analysis
• Intro to Flow Cytometry
• View All Techniques

Free Courses

• Free Online Courses
• Launch iBiology Courses
• Cell Biology Flipped Course
• Engineering Life Flipped Course
• Evolution Flipped Course
• Immunology Flipped Course

Career Development

• Career Development Courses
• Career Development Videos
• Career Exploration Videos
• Biomedical Resources
• Biomedical Workforce
• View All Career Development

Our Favorites

• Short Films & Stories
• Feature Documentaries
• Famous Discoveries
• Improving Diversity in Science
• Share Your Research Series

Connect with Us

• iBiology’s Mission
• Contact iBiology
• Video Usage & Licensing
• Sign Up for Our Newsletter
• Subscribe to YouTube Channel
• Go to the Science Communication Lab

Scientific Posters: An Effective Way of Presenting Research

Scientific publications such as manuscripts, abstracts, posters, and oral presentations aid in disseminating clinical data to the scientific world and maintain transparency of the research outcome and interest in a medical brand.

Publication of a manuscript in a scientific journal generates peer-reviewed citable references. Whereas, the presentation of an abstract, poster, and oral presentation at scientific conferences ensure that research data is made available in the public domain prior to the peer-reviewed publication.

Creating Effective Scientific Posters

Amongst different publication types, poster presentation is a unique mode of scientific communication. It is a popular method of presenting research findings succinctly through a combination of text and graphics. A scientific poster is a design hybrid between an oral presentation and a manuscript; it is more detailed and interactive than an oral presentation but less than a manuscript.

Poster development includes two major elements, content and layout development.

• Content development requires expertise in presenting complex data into a concise and simple form. Generally, the content is developed by a medical writer with scientific knowledge on the topic and exceptional writing skills.
• Poster layout is developed by graphic designers; they work closely with medical writers and ensure the scientific story is creatively presented in a visual format as per the conference guidelines.

A good poster conveys the research as a simple, clear story in the form of bulleted text and diagrams/images. The “W’s” (who, what, when, where, why) are an effective way to organize the elements of a poster. 1

The content of the poster should interest the audience and provide them with a clear take-home message that they can grasp in the few minutes they spend near your poster. Create the title, charts, and the text to emphasize the key message. The poster starts with a title, aim, background, methods, results, and concludes with the summary of findings and their implications for research. The best poster is a perfect mix of content, color, figures, fonts, and a defined layout.

In our next article, “ Most Effective Tips When Presenting Your Scientific Poster ,” we will share the prerequisites and tips on how to develop a good presentable poster.

Poster illustration: An effective poster with relevant and focused content under various headings

Jane E Miller. Preparing and Presenting Effective Research Posters. Health Serv Res. 2007 Feb; 42(1 Pt 1): 311–328.

Enago Life Sciences is a medical writing company with specialization in medical communications services. We provide a full poster (print / electronic format) and encore poster development services. We work closely with the authors/client to develop the poster from initiation up to final approval. A full poster is developed within a typical turnaround time of 6 weeks (kickoff – print ready file). Keeping the focus on the target audience, our team of writers and graphic designers convert your research into a simple succinct eye-catching poster. Our highly qualified, experienced team, with an excellent knowledge across therapy and industry standards, develops posters as per the conference guidelines and good publication practices.

Click here to download an effective sample poster.

clear and to the point

very informative

Rate this article Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Enago Academy's Most Popular Articles

• Reporting Research

Choosing the Right Analytical Approach: Thematic analysis vs. content analysis for data interpretation

In research, choosing the right approach to understand data is crucial for deriving meaningful insights.…

Comparing Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: 5 steps for choosing the right approach

The process of choosing the right research design can put ourselves at the crossroads of…

• Career Corner

Unlocking the Power of Networking in Academic Conferences

Embarking on your first academic conference experience? Fear not, we got you covered! Academic conferences…

Research Recommendations – Guiding policy-makers for evidence-based decision making

Research recommendations play a crucial role in guiding scholars and researchers toward fruitful avenues of…

• AI in Academia

Disclosing the Use of Generative AI: Best practices for authors in manuscript preparation

The rapid proliferation of generative and other AI-based tools in research writing has ignited an…

Choosing the Right Analytical Approach: Thematic analysis vs. content analysis for…

Comparing Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: 5 steps for choosing the right…

How to Design Effective Research Questionnaires for Robust Findings

Sign-up to read more

Subscribe for free to get unrestricted access to all our resources on research writing and academic publishing including:

• 2000+ blog articles
• 50+ Webinars
• 10+ Expert podcasts
• 50+ Infographics
• 10+ Checklists
• Research Guides

We hate spam too. We promise to protect your privacy and never spam you.

• Industry News
• Publishing Research
• Promoting Research
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Infographics
• Expert Video Library
• Other Resources
• Enago Learn
• Upcoming & On-Demand Webinars
• Peer Review Week 2024
• Open Access Week 2023
• Conference Videos
• Enago Report
• Journal Finder
• Enago Plagiarism & AI Grammar Check
• Editing Services
• Publication Support Services
• Research Impact
• Translation Services
• Publication solutions
• AI-Based Solutions
• Thought Leadership
• Call for Articles
• Call for Speakers
• Author Training
• Edit Profile

I am looking for Editing/ Proofreading services for my manuscript Tentative date of next journal submission:

In your opinion, what is the most effective way to improve integrity in the peer review process?