How To Give a Good Talk

Last Revised on 2016.9.19.Sue Moon

ProfessorSchool of Computing

Why Is It Important? A Good Talk

Highly effective means of one-to-many communication

Starting Point of Your Reputation Good speaker

More invitations, more talks, better speeches Bad speaker

If you’re a student : no job interviewsIf you have a job: lose popularity, get fewer invitations, disappears into oblivion

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Know Your Audience Who are they? What do they want from your talk?

Their technical background determines:Academic info vs industry overviewTechnical details vs opinions

My preferences/difficulties in decreasing/increasing order: Grad students/researchers in the same field Undergrad students in the same field / researchers

in other fields High-school students General public

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At the Podium Always face the audience Have eye contact with audience

Don’t show the back of your head to audience Have your computer monitor right in front of you

Look relaxed Check your idiosyncratic gestures

Swinging, hands in pockets, on waist, or in the back Use moderate amount of gestures

Keep audience alert Use a laser pointer only when necessary

4

Your Title Slide It should be informative

Talk title Location and Time Your work or someone else’s? Collaborators?

Any title page should be as informative

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Your Slides Be succinct and descriptive

Avoid full sentences Do not list only nouns; use action verbs to be

descriptive Use a small # of colors

Too many colors distract audience from main focus Use big fonts (recommend >=18pt)

Readable without restraining Limit # of lines per slide

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More Details on Slides Do not repeat the same title on multiple

slides Your slide is valuable real estate like a billboard Use descriptive/informative titles

Use upper/lower cases in a consistent manner Slide title works as “S” and the rest as “V” of

a sentence. Use a consistent format for bullets in “V”

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Graphs, Tables, and Equations Use as few tables and equations as possible

Tables are hard to read Equations are hard to follow

Use as many graphs as possible Graphs are easy to read and remember

Make graphs readable Make legends and axis labels big enough

Use animation and figures when possible In RGB colors; pastel colors don’t always work due

to lighting or projector quality

8

Time Your Talk Allocate 1 ~ 3 minutes per slide

Every slide counts and takes up time 15 slides for 20 min talk 30~35 slides for 40 min talk 100+ slides for 1hr-long talk => horrible

Prepare transitional comments between slides Keep audience involved

Plan time for intro & motivation For talks shorter than 30 minutes, make sure you

spend 1/3 of time on intro & motivation9

Prepare Answers to Likely Ques-tions

Ask yourself 3~5 most likely questions Prepare backup slides for those questions

If asked an unexpected question And if you don’t have an answerÞAcknowledge you haven’t thought about it and

thank the person

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Appendix A:Guideline for Your 1st Public

Talk

For First-Time Non-Native Speaker[Dry Run #0]

Practise run by yourself as minimum courtesy to your fellow dry run attendees

[Dry Run #1] Have the complete set of slides ready Expect lots of structural changes Write down a script for the first 5 pages

** Most pointed-out weaknesses ** “You don’t explain why you’re showing me the

slide” “You don’t explain what lesson to take from the

slide” “Why” @beginning and “So What?” @end 12

For First-Time Non-Native Speakers[Dry Run #2]

Incorporate all the comments Record your talk and see it for yourself

Physical peculiarities: body swinging, showing the back of your head to the audience, hands in pockets, hands on your waist, …Others: frequent coughing

[Dry Run #3] See if you can replace tables with animations See if you explain any part better with animations Write down a script for the complete talk

[Dry Run #4] See if you can escape from the typical “monotonous”

speech Final check on all the points above Do you deliver your enthusiasm about your work? 13

You Are Ready to Pack and Go

Only When You Have DoneFour Dry Runs

“You SHALL register only after a decent dry run” – Sue Moon

At the Conference[Dry Run #5]

Upon arrival in the hotel room by yourself[Dry Run #6]

The day before the real talk By yourself or in front of whoever you can entice

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You’re Not the Only One Stefan Savage practiced his 1st SOSP talk 5

times Zhi-Li Zhang did more than 7 dry runs of his

job talk Stefan and Zhi-Li both recorded and watched

their talks Jeff Mogul still practises his talk whenever

possible

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Appendix B:Non-Native Speaker’s

Disadvantage

How Much Harder Do You Have to Work?

IMHO, about 30% In paper writing and presentation

That is, Even if your TOEFL IBT score is 100+; TOEIC 900+ Even if you don’t need a dictionary for every

paragraph when reading papers How to bridge the 30% gap?

So much an advisor can do Start now and invest time for your future

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Appendix C:Bad Talks

Opinions about Bad Talk Too many bad talks in local workshops/confs

Slides full of diagrams and words Graphs w/o proper accreditation No distinction of originality from related work No transition between slides No “why” and “so what” No respect for time limit More of a propaganda than a research talk

More “we should” than “we have done” Don’t turn yours into yet another one of them

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Appendix D:Tips from Fellow Students

장건 박사의 경험담

0) slide 에 알아야 할 내용 다 적고 , 다양한 animation 을 통해 혹시 발음을 못알아 듣더라도 따라갈 수 있도록 .1)  full script 를 준비2) 첫 10 페이지 정도 완벽하게 외우기 ( 실험 결과들 전까지 )- 사실 영어가 잘되면 이야기할 내용들만 정확하게 다 외워도 되겠지만 ,   non-native speaker 입장에서 한번 당황하기 시작하면 겉잡을 수 없으므로 거의 다 외우다시피 하는게 좋은거 같아요 . 결과들은 그래도 설명하기가 쉬운거 같은데 , 그래프 설명하는거는 생각보다 어렵습니다 .--;  그래프도 어떻게 말할찌 꼼꼼하게 준비하고 axis 설명 다 하고 해야 합니다 .3) 파워포인트에 녹음 기능 사용해서 들어보기 ( 들어보면 엄청난 konglish 에 압박이 .) ( 시간도 재줘서 좋습니다 .)4) dry-run 은 위에께 준비된 상태로 3 번정도 ?5) 만약을 대비한 각 페이지별 얘기할 내용들에 대한 cheat sheet6) 강조할 부분 ( 강조해서 말할 부분 ) 미리 찾아서 연습 !7) 예상 질문과 대답

0,5,6,7 은 dry-run 을 하면서 많이 comment 를 받을 수 있으리라고 보입니다 .

그 외에 어려운 단어를 되도록 발음하기 좋은 단어로 바꾸는것도 한가지 방법인거 같습니다 . 22

Appendix E:Comparison of Two Talk

Slidesof the Same Work

Two Talks of the Same Workhttp://an.kaist.ac.kr/~sbmoon/talk/2015/Sample1.pdfhttp://an.kaist.ac.kr/~sbmoon/talk/2015/Sample2.pptx Sample1 went thru multiple revisions Sample2 came 2 months after Sample1 Both had the same target audience, duration,

etc. Sample2 is easier to view, clearer in

explanation, and better worded than Sample1.

Þ Feedback and revisions make a difference.

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