Presentations 101: Get Your Point Across

Dr. Cressida J. Heyes

I. The academic presentation

Purpose

• To convey your contribution to research and knowledge.

• To a relatively expert audience with at least some shared interests.

• In the time allotted.• Emphasizing your own work and ideas, not

only the “literature” or “what we did.”

Form

• Typically 20 minutes• Speaking from Powerpoint slides or other

presentation software, or• Reading from a script (with or without slides

as backup)• Need to balance giving a rehearsed

presentation with engaging your audience

What is your project?

Content

Describe your research

General advice

• Talk to a mentor about what to include, how to structure, what your punchline is. If possible rehearse before a fake audience that includes your mentor and some peers.

• Rehearse again• Think carefully about HOW MUCH you can say

in the time allotted. Less is more.• Foreground your own contribution.

Write down a one paragraph description of your research project

Style

General advice

• Voice• Body language• Pace• Engage your audience

Deliver your paragraph to a partner

II: Pitfalls

Pacing

• Too much material• Belabouring things everyone in the audience

already knows• Skipping over important material to get to the

best part• Running out of time before saying the best

part• Too many slides; too much on each slide

Style

• Talking too fast• Talking too quietly• Apologizing or making excuses or being

excessively self-deprecating• Dealing with nerves

III: Answering questions

Positive advice

• Take a deep breath• Take a moment to think• Answer step-wise• Separate and stress your most important

point(s)

Negative advice• Say you don’t know and you’ll have to think about it more• Say you haven’t read a text or author the questioner is

referring to• Ask for clarification or elaboration if you don’t understand

the question• Clear up a misunderstanding if you think the questioner has

missed some part of your paper• Explain that you’re using a paradigm or approach that might

be unfamiliar to the questioner• Offer to give a fuller response later in a private conversation

Modelling Q&A

IV: Using presentation software

Graphic presentation

Mainly black and whiteHigh contrast

Lots of white spaceLittle or no animation or sounds

Graphic presentation

Large fontsNot much textKey points only

Lots and lots of irrelevant text that you can’t read anyway because the background is horrible

STUFF! HAPPENING!• A point I’m telling you• Another way of saying the

point I’m telling you• A paragraph randomly lifted

from my paper and put on the screen so you are trying to read as I say it.

• A reference to an article I’m not currently talking about

• This font colour actually makes me feel ill

A picture! Unrelated!

Cognitive purpose

Stressing key pointsAn image, graph, or chart that supports

your caseShowing a structure for the presentation

Questions?

Presentations 101: Get Your Point Across

Dr. Cressida J. Heyes