Advice 1: Remember: the peer review process is voluntary Advice 2:
26. ORAL PRESENTATIONS 1: preparation and planning
differences in relation to other forms of scientific communication: talk is ephemeral, no permanent record
WHEN to give a talk? – when you have something to say No recirculation – possible exceptions exist
published material – consider carefully
General conference talk: 10 min + 5 min discussion not frequent: 10 times/lifetime!
at stake: years of research
time for talk = 1/time for preparation
Clues for clarity – from magicians’ practice (Tufte, E.R. 1997. Visual explanations, pp.
64 – 71)
Magician creates illusion – uses DISINFORMATION design:
- concealing important facts - obscuring issues
- never telling the audience in advance what are they going to do - never performing the same trick twice in one evening
Scientific talks seek to INFORM - do the opposite as magicians do
What does the audience want? details? (NO) information? (YES) assess speaker? (YES) what do YOU want? To present interesting findings AND to impress audience about your qualities as a scientist
Generality of audience >> generality of readership - fewer specialities
- give definitions
- explain difficult concepts (briefly)
Structure:
as scientific paper, except:
little methods detail few references clear conclusion
Make them understand:
- problem
- why is this problem important - attempt to answer it
- results - conclusions
Helps a bit of redundancy helps
“Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you have told them”
Do not assume anything but do not consider the audience stupid
Keep the audience informed about your intentions, where you are in your talk, what is ahead
Give structure on slides: A-b-c-d, a-B-c-d, a-b-C-d, a-b-c-D
To explain complex ideas, use PGP = particular – general – particular
(table: point to a particular number, explain what it is – explain general structure – point to another example, explaining what it means
GIVE HANDOUTS (on paper) packed with material related to your presentation - NOT a printout of your slides!
figures, tables, paper on which talk is based, research methods, references creates credibility
serves as permanent record
STEPS IN DEVELOPING A TALK
1. Decide on the general topic/title
2. Evaluate the probable audience: theme, setting, session 3. Formulate the main message of your talk
4. Write an abstract with only the bare minimum around your central message 5. Develop a logical structure leading to that conclusion, including
a) the problem setting
b) your decided approach ('set the scene' w/illustrations of landscapes, habitats, organisms, methods)
c) your results, point-by-point, supporting with evidence, figures, etc.
d) the considerations supporting your main conclusion 6. Consider & prepare supporting evidence, inc. illustrations 7. Prepare handouts
8. Write/polish talk Medium:
TOOL to present thoughts – should be a secondary consideration Think of the substance – seek out the best medium to present it Technology is NOT a friend - the audience IS
- quality: picture resolution - SLIDE >> overhead >or = computer - flexibility, last-minute preparation: computer-based > overhead > slide
VIRTUAL advantage! (last minute thoughts are immature) - suboptimal /unknown presentation conditions:
overhead > (carefully prepared) slides > computer - foolproofness: overhead > slide > > computer
Be wary of possible glithces related to computer - immature take-up of new programs,
- incompatibility between diff. versions of programs - uncontrollable projection quality,
- coudl be slow if crashes & needs to be restarted PowerPoint style:
Convenience for speaker – costly for audience
PPP sets up a dominance relationship between speaker and audience: audience is forced to passively follow a hierarchical set of fast-moving bullet points, often stereotyped, aggressive, overmanaged
Metaphor of PP – computer corporation in:
programming: deep hierarchical structures, relentless sequentiality, nested, one-short-line-at-a-time
And marketing: advocacy not analysis, more style than substance, misdirection, slogan thinking, fast pace, branding, exaggerated claims, marketplace ethics
Extremely low resolution: too little information per slide
Statistical graphs in PP extremely data-thin: 28 textbooks on PP data presentation contain 12 points/slide
Problems with bullet points:
Typically too generic
Leave critical relationships unspecified: can only specify sequence, priority, or membership in a set
Information transmission compromised:
Talk 100-160 words/min – not high Figures: 5-40MB info yet easy to interpret
Data density & perception not inverse linear, due to context
1460 PP text slides posted on Internet have 40 words/slide (median) 654 slides in PP textbooks: 15 words/slide (median) 3-4 s of reading Causes:
PP design style – uses 30-40% of available space + fills rest with bullets, frames, branding, phluff
+ Slide projection of text – large type required for reading + presenters who have little to say
Audience boredom is content failure, not decoration failure Tufte's analysis of Columbia disaster PP slide
Solution:
PP is competent slide manager and projector of low-resolution material Use PP slides as frame for talk, expand on slides (never read slide!) Prepare and give out handouts (NOT slides!)
Avoid sequential build-up of slides OR: avoid PP!
Perception feature: Visual understanding Ù visual novelty All should aid understanding, not dazzle the audience.
New information, unclear presentation method - blocks understanding.
Style:
the most simple!
design purpose-made slides (not taken from paper or MS) horizontal, not vertical (zoom problem)
only perfect slides - no excuse for bad ones
consider possible presentation conditions: usually suboptimal!
DK - top conditions to prepare slides BUT - presentation conditions?
Photographs:
good aid: habitats, equipment preferably horizontal
show organisms, landscapes, methods, not only 'abstract', ‘scientific’ figures landscapes that are INFORMATIVE (the case of the N.Z. carabidologist)
“People like to see people” => but NOT posing in front of a quadrat slides to make a story 'human' - but not by irrelevant ones (see humour) keep perspective (the case of the N.Z. carabidologist, time)
Graphs:
one graph makes/supports one point
Modest but determined use of colour: use colour to effect, not decoration - harmonic combinations,
- clear shades, - no transition,
- no subtle or complex backgrounds, - no gimmicks
- clean uncluttered font style, suitable size Text & text slides:
readable letter type: serif NOT sans serif (difficult to read) simple, effective background
maximum contrast between background & text
light background, dark letters > dark background, light letters long message – break up or shorten
no need for linguistically complete sentences – slides are aids to follow talk minimum of logo
27. ORAL PRESENTATIONS 2: giving the talk