Conference Presentations

Doctoral Training Workshops

Mark Gaved, Trevor Collins and Ann Jones

Lunch today

Slides and notes will be on website on programme webpage

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Overview• Presentations – why bother• Characteristics of worst and best presentations• Discuss an example presentation [DVD]• How to answer questions well (and badly) [DVD]• Next time: More on techniques, tips and tricks

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Presentations • Why are

presentations important?

• What sort of presentations are involved during a research project?

• What are your feelings about giving a presentation?

4Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=847

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Best presentation I’ve seen…• What made it so good?

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‘Model’ Lecture DVD• A ‘Bad’ lecture and discussion• DVD also includes an ‘OK’ lecture

• There is also an alternative half-hour video on the Research Degrees Skills site covering similar points:–Research Training Videos

• http://rdskills.open.ac.uk/static_page.php?page=52

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Answering Questions• ‘Good’ and ‘Poorer’ answers• Easy and hard questions

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Answering Questions• Difficult/confused questions (DVD Marian Petre)

–Have a dialogue with the questioner to clarify the question/break it down

–Person asking the question may have got the wrong end of the stick – try to clarify this through dialogue

–Offer to check things out and admit mistakes–Planting questions? (probably not a good idea)–Questions may be about limitations / why not

approached differently – will need to justify

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Next time• Second workshop on conference presentations

–Making introductions–Breaking the fear barrier–Content design guidelines–Slide design guidelines

• Tuesday, 11th May 2014 (same time, same place)