How to Give an Oral Presentation

CURO Symposium Workshop

Outline

Basic Rules of 15-Minute PresentationPurpose and AudienceContent and OrganizationVisual PresentationOral PresentationPRACTICE

Basic Rules of 15-Minute Presentation15 minutes per speaker

2 minutes for convener/faculty to introduce 10 minutes for presentation 3 minutes for questions

Average 1 slide per minute, for a total of about 10 slides

Purpose and Audience

SURP/CURO Purpose: Multidisciplinary forum to share research

YOUR Purpose: To share your research in this forum

To achieve YOUR purpose, you must convey your research to the multidisciplinary forum (general audience)

Content and Organization

Hypothesis

Methodology - Picture, Diagram, Schematic

Results - Graph, Picture, Chart, Table

Conclusions and Future Directions

Introduction and Background

Introduction and Background

Introduction State of the field OR context of topic Terminology and vocabulary Questions addressed by research

Background All relevant information needed to understand

questions Purpose and significance of research

Hypothesis or Thesis

Central point around which your presentation pivots

Clear and concise statement “If…then” statements Question Topic/comment

Methodology

Present as few experiments at a time as possible

Clear description of the methods used to obtain results

Methodology

All pertinent information to experimental procedure is given Purpose Controls Independent/dependent variables Unimportant conditions or variables are excluded

Diagrams/flow charts/graphics are better than text

Protocol: Pathogen and normal flora cultures

were grown in appropriate media. 9.0-9.9 ml of cell suspension was mixed

with 0.1-1ml amounts of stock psoralen to give final psoralen concentrations of 1,3,5,7, and 10 mg/L.

Mixtures were allowed to sit for 10min and placed under UVA lamp.

Number of surviving cells were determined at 20s intervals by removing 0.1ml with a Gibson pipette and preparing serial dilutions in MRD.

After last extraction, survival of the cells was calculated using n/no x 100. n=number recovered at time t no=initial number

Bad Method Slide Example

The Efficacy of Psoralen Assay

Good Method Slide Example

Results

Concise description of results/discussionGraphical/visual representation with

appropriate labelsEnd with the summary of results

Conclusions and Future Directions

Answer questions asked in introductionRelate results/conclusions with hypothesisIdentify new questions created by your

research

…In a nutshell

Tell them what you’re going to tell themTell themTell them what you told them

Visual Representation

No more than 6 lines of text per slide Bullet points, not sentences

Font no smaller than 20

Use as many figures, diagrams, and illustrations as possible

Keep slides simple and clearREMEMBER TO CITE when appropriate

Oral Presentation

Project voicePaceEnunciateBody control, placement, and languageEye contactLaser pointer usage

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Check equipmentBackups of presentationCheck slides for errors and formattingPractice with live audience

Get feedback Answer questions

Practice in room of presentation if possible

Things to remember…

You are the expert on your research.

It’s okay to say “I don’t know.”

It’s okay to postulate as long as you make it clear you are doing so.

Special thanks to: Patrick Curtis Anita DeRouen Emily DeCrescenzo Henriksen Ivy Holliman Cynthia McMeekin Marie Milward