preparation of research report ppt

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation of Your Research Paper

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A research paper presentation is often used at conferences and in other settings where you have an opportunity to share your research, and get feedback from your colleagues. Although it may seem as simple as summarizing your research and sharing your knowledge, successful research paper PowerPoint presentation examples show us that there’s a little bit more than that involved.

In this article, we’ll highlight how to make a PowerPoint presentation from a research paper, and what to include (as well as what NOT to include). We’ll also touch on how to present a research paper at a conference.

Purpose of a Research Paper Presentation

The purpose of presenting your paper at a conference or forum is different from the purpose of conducting your research and writing up your paper. In this setting, you want to highlight your work instead of including every detail of your research. Likewise, a presentation is an excellent opportunity to get direct feedback from your colleagues in the field. But, perhaps the main reason for presenting your research is to spark interest in your work, and entice the audience to read your research paper.

So, yes, your presentation should summarize your work, but it needs to do so in a way that encourages your audience to seek out your work, and share their interest in your work with others. It’s not enough just to present your research dryly, to get information out there. More important is to encourage engagement with you, your research, and your work.

Tips for Creating Your Research Paper Presentation

In addition to basic PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, think about the following when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Know your audience : First and foremost, who are you presenting to? Students? Experts in your field? Potential funders? Non-experts? The truth is that your audience will probably have a bit of a mix of all of the above. So, make sure you keep that in mind as you prepare your presentation.

Know more about: Discover the Target Audience .

• Your audience is human : In other words, they may be tired, they might be wondering why they’re there, and they will, at some point, be tuning out. So, take steps to help them stay interested in your presentation. You can do that by utilizing effective visuals, summarize your conclusions early, and keep your research easy to understand.
• Running outline : It’s not IF your audience will drift off, or get lost…it’s WHEN. Keep a running outline, either within the presentation or via a handout. Use visual and verbal clues to highlight where you are in the presentation.
• Where does your research fit in? You should know of work related to your research, but you don’t have to cite every example. In addition, keep references in your presentation to the end, or in the handout. Your audience is there to hear about your work.
• Plan B : Anticipate possible questions for your presentation, and prepare slides that answer those specific questions in more detail, but have them at the END of your presentation. You can then jump to them, IF needed.

What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

You’ve probably attended a presentation where the presenter reads off of their PowerPoint outline, word for word. Or where the presentation is busy, disorganized, or includes too much information. Here are some simple tips for creating an effective PowerPoint Presentation.

• Less is more: You want to give enough information to make your audience want to read your paper. So include details, but not too many, and avoid too many formulas and technical jargon.
• Clean and professional : Avoid excessive colors, distracting backgrounds, font changes, animations, and too many words. Instead of whole paragraphs, bullet points with just a few words to summarize and highlight are best.
• Know your real-estate : Each slide has a limited amount of space. Use it wisely. Typically one, no more than two points per slide. Balance each slide visually. Utilize illustrations when needed; not extraneously.
• Keep things visual : Remember, a PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool to present things visually. Use visual graphs over tables and scientific illustrations over long text. Keep your visuals clean and professional, just like any text you include in your presentation.

Know more about our Scientific Illustrations Services .

Another key to an effective presentation is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you’re done with your PowerPoint, go through it with friends and colleagues to see if you need to add (or delete excessive) information. Double and triple check for typos and errors. Know the presentation inside and out, so when you’re in front of your audience, you’ll feel confident and comfortable.

How to Present a Research Paper

If your PowerPoint presentation is solid, and you’ve practiced your presentation, that’s half the battle. Follow the basic advice to keep your audience engaged and interested by making eye contact, encouraging questions, and presenting your information with enthusiasm.

We encourage you to read our articles on how to present a scientific journal article and tips on giving good scientific presentations .

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How to present a research paper in PPT: best practices

A research paper presentation is frequently used at conferences and other events where you have a chance to share the results of your research and receive feedback from colleagues. Although it may appear as simple as summarizing the findings, successful examples of research paper presentations show that there is a little bit more to it.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basic outline and steps to create a good research paper presentation. We’ll also explain what to include and what not to include in your presentation of research paper and share some of the most effective tips you can use to take your slides to the next level.

Research paper PowerPoint presentation outline

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves organizing and summarizing your key findings, methodology, and conclusions in a way that encourages your audience to interact with your work and share their interest in it with others. Here’s a basic research paper outline PowerPoint you can follow:

1. Title (1 slide)

Typically, your title slide should contain the following information:

• Title of the research paper
• Affiliation or institution
• Date of presentation

2. Introduction (1-3 slides)

On this slide of your presentation, briefly introduce the research topic and its significance and state the research question or objective.

3. Research questions or hypothesis (1 slide)

This slide should emphasize the objectives of your research or present the hypothesis.

4. Literature review (1 slide)

Your literature review has to provide context for your research by summarizing relevant literature. Additionally, it should highlight gaps or areas where your research contributes.

5. Methodology and data collection (1-2 slides)

This slide of your research paper PowerPoint has to explain the research design, methods, and procedures. It must also Include details about participants, materials, and data collection and emphasize special equipment you have used in your work.

6. Results (3-5 slides)

On this slide, you must present the results of your data analysis and discuss any trends, patterns, or significant findings. Moreover, you should use charts, graphs, and tables to illustrate data and highlight something novel in your results (if applicable).

7. Conclusion (1 slide)

Your conclusion slide has to summarize the main findings and their implications, as well as discuss the broader impact of your research. Usually, a single statement is enough.

8. Recommendations (1 slide)

If applicable, provide recommendations for future research or actions on this slide.

9. References (1-2 slides)

The references slide is where you list all the sources cited in your research paper.

10. Acknowledgments (1 slide)

On this presentation slide, acknowledge any individuals, organizations, or funding sources that contributed to your research.

11. Appendix (1 slide)

If applicable, include any supplementary materials, such as additional data or detailed charts, in your appendix slide.

The above outline is just a general guideline, so make sure to adjust it based on your specific research paper and the time allotted for the presentation.

Steps to creating a memorable research paper presentation

Creating a PowerPoint presentation for a research paper involves several critical steps needed to convey your findings and engage your audience effectively, and these steps are as follows:

Step 1. Understand your audience:

• Identify the audience for your presentation.
• Tailor your content and level of detail to match the audience’s background and knowledge.

Step 2. Define your key messages:

• Clearly articulate the main messages or findings of your research.
• Identify the key points you want your audience to remember.

Step 3. Design your research paper PPT presentation:

• Use a clean and professional design that complements your research topic.
• Choose readable fonts, consistent formatting, and a limited color palette.
• Opt for PowerPoint presentation services if slide design is not your strong side.

Step 4. Put content on slides:

• Follow the outline above to structure your presentation effectively; include key sections and topics.
• Organize your content logically, following the flow of your research paper.

Step 5. Final check:

• Proofread your slides for typos, errors, and inconsistencies.
• Ensure all visuals are clear, high-quality, and properly labeled.

Step 6. Save and share:

• Save your presentation and ensure compatibility with the equipment you’ll be using.
• If necessary, share a copy of your presentation with the audience.

By following these steps, you can create a well-organized and visually appealing research paper presentation PowerPoint that effectively conveys your research findings to the audience.

What to include and what not to include in your presentation

In addition to the must-know PowerPoint presentation recommendations, which we’ll cover later in this article, consider the following do’s and don’ts when you’re putting together your research paper presentation:

• Focus on the topic.
• Be brief and to the point.
• Attract the audience’s attention and highlight interesting details.
• Use only relevant visuals (maps, charts, pictures, graphs, etc.).
• Use numbers and bullet points to structure the content.
• Make clear statements regarding the essence and results of your research.

Don’ts:

• Don’t write down the whole outline of your paper and nothing else.
• Don’t put long, full sentences on your slides; split them into smaller ones.
• Don’t use distracting patterns, colors, pictures, and other visuals on your slides; the simpler, the better.
• Don’t use too complicated graphs or charts; only the ones that are easy to understand.
• Now that we’ve discussed the basics, let’s move on to the top tips for making a powerful presentation of your research paper.

8 tips on how to make research paper presentation that achieves its goals

You’ve probably been to a presentation where the presenter reads word for word from their PowerPoint outline. Or where the presentation is cluttered, chaotic, or contains too much data. The simple tips below will help you summarize a 10 to 15-page paper for a 15 to 20-minute talk and succeed, so read on!

Tip #1: Less is more

You want to provide enough information to make your audience want to know more. Including details but not too many and avoiding technical jargon, formulas, and long sentences are always good ways to achieve this.

Tip #2: Be professional

Avoid using too many colors, font changes, distracting backgrounds, animations, etc. Bullet points with a few words to highlight the important information are preferable to lengthy paragraphs. Additionally, include slide numbers on all PowerPoint slides except for the title slide, and make sure it is followed by a table of contents, offering a brief overview of the entire research paper.

Tip #3: Strive for balance

PowerPoint slides have limited space, so use it carefully. Typically, one to two points per slide or 5 lines for 5 words in a sentence are enough to present your ideas.

Tip #4: Use proper fonts and text size

The font you use should be easy to read and consistent throughout the slides. You can go with Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, or a combination of these three. An ideal text size is 32 points, while a heading size is 44.

Tip #5: Concentrate on the visual side

A PowerPoint presentation is one of the best tools for presenting information visually. Use graphs instead of tables and topic-relevant illustrations instead of walls of text. Keep your visuals as clean and professional as the content of your presentation.

Tip #6: Practice your delivery

Always go through your presentation when you’re done to ensure a smooth and confident delivery and time yourself to stay within the allotted limit.

Tip #7: Get ready for questions

Anticipate potential questions from your audience and prepare thoughtful responses. Also, be ready to engage in discussions about your research.

Tip #8: Don’t be afraid to utilize professional help

If the mere thought of designing a presentation overwhelms you or you’re pressed for time, consider leveraging professional PowerPoint redesign services . A dedicated design team can transform your content or old presentation into effective slides, ensuring your message is communicated clearly and captivates your audience. This way, you can focus on refining your delivery and preparing for the presentation.

Lastly, remember that even experienced presenters get nervous before delivering research paper PowerPoint presentations in front of the audience. You cannot know everything; some things can be beyond your control, which is completely fine. You are at the event not only to share what you know but also to learn from others. So, no matter what, dress appropriately, look straight into the audience’s eyes, try to speak and move naturally, present your information enthusiastically, and have fun!

If you need help with slide design, get in touch with our dedicated design team and let qualified professionals turn your research findings into a visually appealing, polished presentation that leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Our experienced designers specialize in creating engaging layouts, incorporating compelling graphics, and ensuring a cohesive visual narrative that complements content on any subject.

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How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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RESEARCH REPORT PREPARATION AND PRESENTATION

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Home Blog Presentation Ideas How to Create and Deliver a Research Presentation

How to Create and Deliver a Research Presentation

Every research endeavor ends up with the communication of its findings. Graduate-level research culminates in a thesis defense , while many academic and scientific disciplines are published in peer-reviewed journals. In a business context, PowerPoint research presentation is the default format for reporting the findings to stakeholders.

Condensing months of work into a few slides can prove to be challenging. It requires particular skills to create and deliver a research presentation that promotes informed decisions and drives long-term projects forward.

Table of Contents

What is a Research Presentation

Key slides for creating a research presentation, tips when delivering a research presentation, how to present sources in a research presentation, recommended templates to create a research presentation.

A research presentation is the communication of research findings, typically delivered to an audience of peers, colleagues, students, or professionals. In the academe, it is meant to showcase the importance of the research paper , state the findings and the analysis of those findings, and seek feedback that could further the research.

The presentation of research becomes even more critical in the business world as the insights derived from it are the basis of strategic decisions of organizations. Information from this type of report can aid companies in maximizing the sales and profit of their business. Major projects such as research and development (R&D) in a new field, the launch of a new product or service, or even corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives will require the presentation of research findings to prove their feasibility.

Market research and technical research are examples of business-type research presentations you will commonly encounter.

In this article, we’ve compiled all the essential tips, including some examples and templates, to get you started with creating and delivering a stellar research presentation tailored specifically for the business context.

Various research suggests that the average attention span of adults during presentations is around 20 minutes, with a notable drop in an engagement at the 10-minute mark . Beyond that, you might see your audience doing other things.

How can you avoid such a mistake? The answer lies in the adage “keep it simple, stupid” or KISS. We don’t mean dumbing down your content but rather presenting it in a way that is easily digestible and accessible to your audience. One way you can do this is by organizing your research presentation using a clear structure.

Here are the slides you should prioritize when creating your research presentation PowerPoint.

1.  Title Page

The title page is the first thing your audience will see during your presentation, so put extra effort into it to make an impression. Of course, writing presentation titles and title pages will vary depending on the type of presentation you are to deliver. In the case of a research presentation, you want a formal and academic-sounding one. It should include:

• The full title of the report
• The date of the report
• The name of the researchers or department in charge of the report
• The name of the organization for which the presentation is intended

When writing the title of your research presentation, it should reflect the topic and objective of the report. Focus only on the subject and avoid adding redundant phrases like “A research on” or “A study on.” However, you may use phrases like “Market Analysis” or “Feasibility Study” because they help identify the purpose of the presentation. Doing so also serves a long-term purpose for the filing and later retrieving of the document.

Here’s a sample title page for a hypothetical market research presentation from Gillette .

2. Executive Summary Slide

The executive summary marks the beginning of the body of the presentation, briefly summarizing the key discussion points of the research. Specifically, the summary may state the following:

• The purpose of the investigation and its significance within the organization’s goals
• The methods used for the investigation
• The major findings of the investigation
• The conclusions and recommendations after the investigation

Although the executive summary encompasses the entry of the research presentation, it should not dive into all the details of the work on which the findings, conclusions, and recommendations were based. Creating the executive summary requires a focus on clarity and brevity, especially when translating it to a PowerPoint document where space is limited.

Each point should be presented in a clear and visually engaging manner to capture the audience’s attention and set the stage for the rest of the presentation. Use visuals, bullet points, and minimal text to convey information efficiently.

3. Introduction/ Project Description Slides

In this section, your goal is to provide your audience with the information that will help them understand the details of the presentation. Provide a detailed description of the project, including its goals, objectives, scope, and methods for gathering and analyzing data.

You want to answer these fundamental questions:

• What specific questions are you trying to answer, problems you aim to solve, or opportunities you seek to explore?
• Why is this project important, and what prompted it?
• What are the boundaries of your research or initiative? 
• How were the data gathered?

Important: The introduction should exclude specific findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

4. Data Presentation and Analyses Slides

This is the longest section of a research presentation, as you’ll present the data you’ve gathered and provide a thorough analysis of that data to draw meaningful conclusions. The format and components of this section can vary widely, tailored to the specific nature of your research.

For example, if you are doing market research, you may include the market potential estimate, competitor analysis, and pricing analysis. These elements will help your organization determine the actual viability of a market opportunity.

Visual aids like charts, graphs, tables, and diagrams are potent tools to convey your key findings effectively. These materials may be numbered and sequenced (Figure 1, Figure 2, and so forth), accompanied by text to make sense of the insights.

5. Conclusions

The conclusion of a research presentation is where you pull together the ideas derived from your data presentation and analyses in light of the purpose of the research. For example, if the objective is to assess the market of a new product, the conclusion should determine the requirements of the market in question and tell whether there is a product-market fit.

Designing your conclusion slide should be straightforward and focused on conveying the key takeaways from your research. Keep the text concise and to the point. Present it in bullet points or numbered lists to make the content easily scannable.

6. Recommendations

The findings of your research might reveal elements that may not align with your initial vision or expectations. These deviations are addressed in the recommendations section of your presentation, which outlines the best course of action based on the result of the research.

What emerging markets should we target next? Do we need to rethink our pricing strategies? Which professionals should we hire for this special project? — these are some of the questions that may arise when coming up with this part of the research.

Recommendations may be combined with the conclusion, but presenting them separately to reinforce their urgency. In the end, the decision-makers in the organization or your clients will make the final call on whether to accept or decline the recommendations.

7. Questions Slide

Members of your audience are not involved in carrying out your research activity, which means there’s a lot they don’t know about its details. By offering an opportunity for questions, you can invite them to bridge that gap, seek clarification, and engage in a dialogue that enhances their understanding.

If your research is more business-oriented, facilitating a question and answer after your presentation becomes imperative as it’s your final appeal to encourage buy-in for your recommendations.

A simple “Ask us anything” slide can indicate that you are ready to accept questions.

1. Focus on the Most Important Findings

The truth about presenting research findings is that your audience doesn’t need to know everything. Instead, they should receive a distilled, clear, and meaningful overview that focuses on the most critical aspects.

You will likely have to squeeze in the oral presentation of your research into a 10 to 20-minute presentation, so you have to make the most out of the time given to you. In the presentation, don’t soak in the less important elements like historical backgrounds. Decision-makers might even ask you to skip these portions and focus on sharing the findings.

2. Do Not Read Word-per-word

Reading word-for-word from your presentation slides intensifies the danger of losing your audience’s interest. Its effect can be detrimental, especially if the purpose of your research presentation is to gain approval from the audience. So, how can you avoid this mistake?

• Make a conscious design decision to keep the text on your slides minimal. Your slides should serve as visual cues to guide your presentation.
• Structure your presentation as a narrative or story. Stories are more engaging and memorable than dry, factual information.
• Prepare speaker notes with the key points of your research. Glance at it when needed.
• Engage with the audience by maintaining eye contact and asking rhetorical questions.

3. Don’t Go Without Handouts

Handouts are paper copies of your presentation slides that you distribute to your audience. They typically contain the summary of your key points, but they may also provide supplementary information supporting data presented through tables and graphs.

The purpose of distributing presentation handouts is to easily retain the key points you presented as they become good references in the future. Distributing handouts in advance allows your audience to review the material and come prepared with questions or points for discussion during the presentation.

4. Actively Listen

An equally important skill that a presenter must possess aside from speaking is the ability to listen. We are not just talking about listening to what the audience is saying but also considering their reactions and nonverbal cues. If you sense disinterest or confusion, you can adapt your approach on the fly to re-engage them.

For example, if some members of your audience are exchanging glances, they may be skeptical of the research findings you are presenting. This is the best time to reassure them of the validity of your data and provide a concise overview of how it came to be. You may also encourage them to seek clarification.

5. Be Confident

Anxiety can strike before a presentation – it’s a common reaction whenever someone has to speak in front of others. If you can’t eliminate your stress, try to manage it.

People hate public speaking not because they simply hate it. Most of the time, it arises from one’s belief in themselves. You don’t have to take our word for it. Take Maslow’s theory that says a threat to one’s self-esteem is a source of distress among an individual.

Now, how can you master this feeling? You’ve spent a lot of time on your research, so there is no question about your topic knowledge. Perhaps you just need to rehearse your research presentation. If you know what you will say and how to say it, you will gain confidence in presenting your work.

All sources you use in creating your research presentation should be given proper credit. The APA Style is the most widely used citation style in formal research.

In-text citation

Add references within the text of your presentation slide by giving the author’s last name, year of publication, and page number (if applicable) in parentheses after direct quotations or paraphrased materials. As in:

The alarming rate at which global temperatures rise directly impacts biodiversity (Smith, 2020, p. 27).

If the author’s name and year of publication are mentioned in the text, add only the page number in parentheses after the quotations or paraphrased materials. As in:

According to Smith (2020), the alarming rate at which global temperatures rise directly impacts biodiversity (p. 27).

Image citation

All images from the web, including photos, graphs, and tables, used in your slides should be credited using the format below.

Creator’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of Image.” Website Name, Day Mo. Year, URL. Accessed Day Mo. Year.

Work cited page

A work cited page or reference list should follow after the last slide of your presentation. The list should be alphabetized by the author’s last name and initials followed by the year of publication, the title of the book or article, the place of publication, and the publisher. As in:

Smith, J. A. (2020). Climate Change and Biodiversity: A Comprehensive Study. New York, NY: ABC Publications.

When citing a document from a website, add the source URL after the title of the book or article instead of the place of publication and the publisher. As in:

Smith, J. A. (2020). Climate Change and Biodiversity: A Comprehensive Study. Retrieved from https://www.smith.com/climate-change-and-biodiversity.

1. Research Project Presentation PowerPoint Template

A slide deck containing 18 different slides intended to take off the weight of how to make a research presentation. With tons of visual aids, presenters can reference existing research on similar projects to this one – or link another research presentation example – provide an accurate data analysis, disclose the methodology used, and much more.

Use This Template

2. Research Presentation Scientific Method Diagram PowerPoint Template

Whenever you intend to raise questions, expose the methodology you used for your research, or even suggest a scientific method approach for future analysis, this circular wheel diagram is a perfect fit for any presentation study.

Customize all of its elements to suit the demands of your presentation in just minutes.

3. Thesis Research Presentation PowerPoint Template

If your research presentation project belongs to academia, then this is the slide deck to pair that presentation. With a formal aesthetic and minimalistic style, this research presentation template focuses only on exposing your information as clearly as possible.

Use its included bar charts and graphs to introduce data, change the background of each slide to suit the topic of your presentation, and customize each of its elements to meet the requirements of your project with ease.

4. Animated Research Cards PowerPoint Template

Visualize ideas and their connection points with the help of this research card template for PowerPoint. This slide deck, for example, can help speakers talk about alternative concepts to what they are currently managing and its possible outcomes, among different other usages this versatile PPT template has. Zoom Animation effects make a smooth transition between cards (or ideas).

5. Research Presentation Slide Deck for PowerPoint

With a distinctive professional style, this research presentation PPT template helps business professionals and academics alike to introduce the findings of their work to team members or investors.

By accessing this template, you get the following slides:

• Introduction
• Problem Statement
• Research Questions
• Conceptual Research Framework (Concepts, Theories, Actors, & Constructs)
• Study design and methods
• Population & Sampling
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis

Check it out today and craft a powerful research presentation out of it!

A successful research presentation in business is not just about presenting data; it’s about persuasion to take meaningful action. It’s the bridge that connects your research efforts to the strategic initiatives of your organization. To embark on this journey successfully, planning your presentation thoroughly is paramount, from designing your PowerPoint to the delivery.

Take a look and get inspiration from the sample research presentation slides above, put our tips to heart, and transform your research findings into a compelling call to action.

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Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Public Health Genomics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

• Kristen M. Naegle

Published: December 2, 2021

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554
• Reader Comments

Citation: Naegle KM (2021) Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides. PLoS Comput Biol 17(12): e1009554. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554

Copyright: © 2021 Kristen M. Naegle. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The author has declared no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The “presentation slide” is the building block of all academic presentations, whether they are journal clubs, thesis committee meetings, short conference talks, or hour-long seminars. A slide is a single page projected on a screen, usually built on the premise of a title, body, and figures or tables and includes both what is shown and what is spoken about that slide. Multiple slides are strung together to tell the larger story of the presentation. While there have been excellent 10 simple rules on giving entire presentations [ 1 , 2 ], there was an absence in the fine details of how to design a slide for optimal effect—such as the design elements that allow slides to convey meaningful information, to keep the audience engaged and informed, and to deliver the information intended and in the time frame allowed. As all research presentations seek to teach, effective slide design borrows from the same principles as effective teaching, including the consideration of cognitive processing your audience is relying on to organize, process, and retain information. This is written for anyone who needs to prepare slides from any length scale and for most purposes of conveying research to broad audiences. The rules are broken into 3 primary areas. Rules 1 to 5 are about optimizing the scope of each slide. Rules 6 to 8 are about principles around designing elements of the slide. Rules 9 to 10 are about preparing for your presentation, with the slides as the central focus of that preparation.

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

Each slide should have one central objective to deliver—the main idea or question [ 3 – 5 ]. Often, this means breaking complex ideas down into manageable pieces (see Fig 1 , where “background” information has been split into 2 key concepts). In another example, if you are presenting a complex computational approach in a large flow diagram, introduce it in smaller units, building it up until you finish with the entire diagram. The progressive buildup of complex information means that audiences are prepared to understand the whole picture, once you have dedicated time to each of the parts. You can accomplish the buildup of components in several ways—for example, using presentation software to cover/uncover information. Personally, I choose to create separate slides for each piece of information content I introduce—where the final slide has the entire diagram, and I use cropping or a cover on duplicated slides that come before to hide what I’m not yet ready to include. I use this method in order to ensure that each slide in my deck truly presents one specific idea (the new content) and the amount of the new information on that slide can be described in 1 minute (Rule 2), but it comes with the trade-off—a change to the format of one of the slides in the series often means changes to all slides.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Top left: A background slide that describes the background material on a project from my lab. The slide was created using a PowerPoint Design Template, which had to be modified to increase default text sizes for this figure (i.e., the default text sizes are even worse than shown here). Bottom row: The 2 new slides that break up the content into 2 explicit ideas about the background, using a central graphic. In the first slide, the graphic is an explicit example of the SH2 domain of PI3-kinase interacting with a phosphorylation site (Y754) on the PDGFR to describe the important details of what an SH2 domain and phosphotyrosine ligand are and how they interact. I use that same graphic in the second slide to generalize all binding events and include redundant text to drive home the central message (a lot of possible interactions might occur in the human proteome, more than we can currently measure). Top right highlights which rules were used to move from the original slide to the new slide. Specific changes as highlighted by Rule 7 include increasing contrast by changing the background color, increasing font size, changing to sans serif fonts, and removing all capital text and underlining (using bold to draw attention). PDGFR, platelet-derived growth factor receptor.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009554.g001

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

When you present your slide in the talk, it should take 1 minute or less to discuss. This rule is really helpful for planning purposes—a 20-minute presentation should have somewhere around 20 slides. Also, frequently giving your audience new information to feast on helps keep them engaged. During practice, if you find yourself spending more than a minute on a slide, there’s too much for that one slide—it’s time to break up the content into multiple slides or even remove information that is not wholly central to the story you are trying to tell. Reduce, reduce, reduce, until you get to a single message, clearly described, which takes less than 1 minute to present.

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

When each slide conveys only one message, use the heading of that slide to write exactly the message you are trying to deliver. Instead of titling the slide “Results,” try “CTNND1 is central to metastasis” or “False-positive rates are highly sample specific.” Use this landmark signpost to ensure that all the content on that slide is related exactly to the heading and only the heading. Think of the slide heading as the introductory or concluding sentence of a paragraph and the slide content the rest of the paragraph that supports the main point of the paragraph. An audience member should be able to follow along with you in the “paragraph” and come to the same conclusion sentence as your header at the end of the slide.

Rule 4: Include only essential points

While you are speaking, audience members’ eyes and minds will be wandering over your slide. If you have a comment, detail, or figure on a slide, have a plan to explicitly identify and talk about it. If you don’t think it’s important enough to spend time on, then don’t have it on your slide. This is especially important when faculty are present. I often tell students that thesis committee members are like cats: If you put a shiny bauble in front of them, they’ll go after it. Be sure to only put the shiny baubles on slides that you want them to focus on. Putting together a thesis meeting for only faculty is really an exercise in herding cats (if you have cats, you know this is no easy feat). Clear and concise slide design will go a long way in helping you corral those easily distracted faculty members.

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

An exception to Rule 4 is to include proper citations or references to work on your slide. When adding citations, names of other researchers, or other types of credit, use a consistent style and method for adding this information to your slides. Your audience will then be able to easily partition this information from the other content. A common mistake people make is to think “I’ll add that reference later,” but I highly recommend you put the proper reference on the slide at the time you make it, before you forget where it came from. Finally, in certain kinds of presentations, credits can make it clear who did the work. For the faculty members heading labs, it is an effective way to connect your audience with the personnel in the lab who did the work, which is a great career booster for that person. For graduate students, it is an effective way to delineate your contribution to the work, especially in meetings where the goal is to establish your credentials for meeting the rigors of a PhD checkpoint.

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

As a rule, you should almost never have slides that only contain text. Build your slides around good visualizations. It is a visual presentation after all, and as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, on the flip side, don’t muddy the point of the slide by putting too many complex graphics on a single slide. A multipanel figure that you might include in a manuscript should often be broken into 1 panel per slide (see Rule 1 ). One way to ensure that you use the graphics effectively is to make a point to introduce the figure and its elements to the audience verbally, especially for data figures. For example, you might say the following: “This graph here shows the measured false-positive rate for an experiment and each point is a replicate of the experiment, the graph demonstrates …” If you have put too much on one slide to present in 1 minute (see Rule 2 ), then the complexity or number of the visualizations is too much for just one slide.

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

The type of slide elements, the number of them, and how you present them all impact the ability for the audience to intake, organize, and remember the content. For example, a frequent mistake in slide design is to include full sentences, but reading and verbal processing use the same cognitive channels—therefore, an audience member can either read the slide, listen to you, or do some part of both (each poorly), as a result of cognitive overload [ 4 ]. The visual channel is separate, allowing images/videos to be processed with auditory information without cognitive overload [ 6 ] (Rule 6). As presentations are an exercise in listening, and not reading, do what you can to optimize the ability of the audience to listen. Use words sparingly as “guide posts” to you and the audience about major points of the slide. In fact, you can add short text fragments, redundant with the verbal component of the presentation, which has been shown to improve retention [ 7 ] (see Fig 1 for an example of redundant text that avoids cognitive overload). Be careful in the selection of a slide template to minimize accidentally adding elements that the audience must process, but are unimportant. David JP Phillips argues (and effectively demonstrates in his TEDx talk [ 5 ]) that the human brain can easily interpret 6 elements and more than that requires a 500% increase in human cognition load—so keep the total number of elements on the slide to 6 or less. Finally, in addition to the use of short text, white space, and the effective use of graphics/images, you can improve ease of cognitive processing further by considering color choices and font type and size. Here are a few suggestions for improving the experience for your audience, highlighting the importance of these elements for some specific groups:

• Use high contrast colors and simple backgrounds with low to no color—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment.
• Use sans serif fonts and large font sizes (including figure legends), avoid italics, underlining (use bold font instead for emphasis), and all capital letters—for persons with dyslexia or visual impairment [ 8 ].
• Use color combinations and palettes that can be understood by those with different forms of color blindness [ 9 ]. There are excellent tools available to identify colors to use and ways to simulate your presentation or figures as they might be seen by a person with color blindness (easily found by a web search).
• In this increasing world of virtual presentation tools, consider practicing your talk with a closed captioning system capture your words. Use this to identify how to improve your speaking pace, volume, and annunciation to improve understanding by all members of your audience, but especially those with a hearing impairment.

Rule 8: Design the slide so that a distracted person gets the main takeaway

It is very difficult to stay focused on a presentation, especially if it is long or if it is part of a longer series of talks at a conference. Audience members may get distracted by an important email, or they may start dreaming of lunch. So, it’s important to look at your slide and ask “If they heard nothing I said, will they understand the key concept of this slide?” The other rules are set up to help with this, including clarity of the single point of the slide (Rule 1), titling it with a major conclusion (Rule 3), and the use of figures (Rule 6) and short text redundant to your verbal description (Rule 7). However, with each slide, step back and ask whether its main conclusion is conveyed, even if someone didn’t hear your accompanying dialog. Importantly, ask if the information on the slide is at the right level of abstraction. For example, do you have too many details about the experiment, which hides the conclusion of the experiment (i.e., breaking Rule 1)? If you are worried about not having enough details, keep a slide at the end of your slide deck (after your conclusions and acknowledgments) with the more detailed information that you can refer to during a question and answer period.

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

Well-designed slides that follow the first 8 rules are intended to help you deliver the message you intend and in the amount of time you intend to deliver it in. The best way to ensure that you nailed slide design for your presentation is to practice, typically a lot. The most important aspects of practicing a new presentation, with an eye toward slide design, are the following 2 key points: (1) practice to ensure that you hit, each time through, the most important points (for example, the text guide posts you left yourself and the title of the slide); and (2) practice to ensure that as you conclude the end of one slide, it leads directly to the next slide. Slide transitions, what you say as you end one slide and begin the next, are important to keeping the flow of the “story.” Practice is when I discover that the order of my presentation is poor or that I left myself too few guideposts to remember what was coming next. Additionally, during practice, the most frequent things I have to improve relate to Rule 2 (the slide takes too long to present, usually because I broke Rule 1, and I’m delivering too much information for one slide), Rule 4 (I have a nonessential detail on the slide), and Rule 5 (I forgot to give a key reference). The very best type of practice is in front of an audience (for example, your lab or peers), where, with fresh perspectives, they can help you identify places for improving slide content, design, and connections across the entirety of your talk.

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

The real presentation almost never goes as we planned in our heads or during our practice. Maybe the speaker before you went over time and now you need to adjust. Maybe the computer the organizer is having you use won’t show your video. Maybe your internet is poor on the day you are giving a virtual presentation at a conference. Technical problems are routinely part of the practice of sharing your work through presentations. Hence, you can design your slides to limit the impact certain kinds of technical disasters create and also prepare alternate approaches. Here are just a few examples of the preparation you can do that will take you a long way toward avoiding a complete fiasco:

• Save your presentation as a PDF—if the version of Keynote or PowerPoint on a host computer cause issues, you still have a functional copy that has a higher guarantee of compatibility.
• In using videos, create a backup slide with screen shots of key results. For example, if I have a video of cell migration, I’ll be sure to have a copy of the start and end of the video, in case the video doesn’t play. Even if the video worked, you can pause on this backup slide and take the time to highlight the key results in words if someone could not see or understand the video.
• Avoid animations, such as figures or text that flash/fly-in/etc. Surveys suggest that no one likes movement in presentations [ 3 , 4 ]. There is likely a cognitive underpinning to the almost universal distaste of pointless animations that relates to the idea proposed by Kosslyn and colleagues that animations are salient perceptual units that captures direct attention [ 4 ]. Although perceptual salience can be used to draw attention to and improve retention of specific points, if you use this approach for unnecessary/unimportant things (like animation of your bullet point text, fly-ins of figures, etc.), then you will distract your audience from the important content. Finally, animations cause additional processing burdens for people with visual impairments [ 10 ] and create opportunities for technical disasters if the software on the host system is not compatible with your planned animation.

Conclusions

These rules are just a start in creating more engaging presentations that increase audience retention of your material. However, there are wonderful resources on continuing on the journey of becoming an amazing public speaker, which includes understanding the psychology and neuroscience behind human perception and learning. For example, as highlighted in Rule 7, David JP Phillips has a wonderful TEDx talk on the subject [ 5 ], and “PowerPoint presentation flaws and failures: A psychological analysis,” by Kosslyn and colleagues is deeply detailed about a number of aspects of human cognition and presentation style [ 4 ]. There are many books on the topic, including the popular “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds [ 11 ]. Finally, although briefly touched on here, the visualization of data is an entire topic of its own that is worth perfecting for both written and oral presentations of work, with fantastic resources like Edward Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” [ 12 ] or the article “Visualization of Biomedical Data” by O’Donoghue and colleagues [ 13 ].

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the countless presenters, colleagues, students, and mentors from which I have learned a great deal from on effective presentations. Also, a thank you to the wonderful resources published by organizations on how to increase inclusivity. A special thanks to Dr. Jason Papin and Dr. Michael Guertin on early feedback of this editorial.

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• 3. Teaching VUC for Making Better PowerPoint Presentations. n.d. Available from: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/making-better-powerpoint-presentations/#baddeley .
• 8. Creating a dyslexia friendly workplace. Dyslexia friendly style guide. nd. Available from: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendly-workplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide .
• 9. Cravit R. How to Use Color Blind Friendly Palettes to Make Your Charts Accessible. 2019. Available from: https://venngage.com/blog/color-blind-friendly-palette/ .
• 10. Making your conference presentation more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. n.d. Available from: https://vocaleyes.co.uk/services/resources/guidelines-for-making-your-conference-presentation-more-accessible-to-blind-and-partially-sighted-people/ .
• 11. Reynolds G. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. 2nd ed. New Riders Pub; 2011.
• 12. Tufte ER. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Graphics Press; 2001.

Writing a Research Report

Aug 06, 2014

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Writing a Research Report. If research was not “written up,” did it really occur?. Writing a Research Report. Academic sociologists conduct research to discover facts, truths, and explanations about the social world. They write research reports to convey theirs and others’ research findings.

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Presentation Transcript

Writing a Research Report If research was not “written up,” did it really occur?

Writing a Research Report • Academic sociologists conduct research to discover facts, truths, and explanations about the social world. • They write research reports to convey theirs and others’ research findings. • Types of Research: Library research refers to gathering information that others have generated. Primary research refers to generating information through data collection, analysis, and reporting findings.

Writing a Research Report • Sociologists’ articles, papers, or research reports come in different forms: • Literature Review: Library research that organizes facts and/or theories others in the sociological community generated (Rarely published) • Research Article or Book: One’s own findings generated by a primary research project that builds on previous research by the sociological community. (Findings from basic research, most common.) • Applied Research Report: One’s findings from a primary research project that evaluates a program without drawing much from previous sociological research. (Findings from applied research, rarely published.) • This class focuses on writing Research Articles.

Writing a Research Report • A sociological article, paper, or report generally covers only one important topic of interest and conveys evidence and interpretations of evidence. • Research reports are NOT creative writing, opinion pieces, poems, novels, letters, musings, memoirs, or interesting to read.

Writing a Research Report • A sociological article, paper, or report about primary research generally takes a structure or form that seems difficult but is intended to help make reading it or using it for research quick and efficient. • A research report has seven components: • Abstract or Summary • Introduction • Review of Literature • Methods • Results • Conclusions and Discussion • References • Note: • Qualitative research reports will vary from what is presented here. • Applied research reports may vary from what is presented here.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Abstract or Summary The abstract or summary tells the reader very briefly what the main points and findings of the paper are. • This allows the reader to decide whether the paper is useful to them. • Get into the habit of reading only abstracts while searching for papers that are relevant to your research. • Read the body of a paper only when you think it will be useful to you.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • 1. Abstract or Summary—an example

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Introduction • The introduction tells the reader: • what the topic of the paper is in general terms, • why the topic is important • what to expect in the paper. • Introductions should: • funnel from general ideas to the specific topic of the paper • justify the research that will be presented later • Introductions are sometimes folded into literature reviews

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • 2. Introduction—an example

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature The literature review tells the reader what other researchers have discovered about the paper’s topic or tells the reader about other research that is relevant to the topic. Often what students call a “research paper” is merely a literature review. • A literature review should shape the way readers think about a topic—it educates readers about what the community of scholars says about a topic and its surrounding issues. • Along the way it states facts and ideas about the social world and supports those facts and ideas with evidence for from where they came (empiricism).

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • Literature reviews have parenthetical citations running throughout. These are part of a systematic way to document where facts and ideas came from, allowing the skeptical reader to look up anything that is questionable. • Parenthetical citation is our way of substantiating the claims in our paper, without breaking our flow. • Each citation directs the reader to the references where complete details on sources can be found. Therefore, information such as authors’ first names or titles of works do not need to be written into the text.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • Citations consist of authors’ last names and the year of publication. One finds complete information on sources by looking up last names and dates in alphabetized references—so there’s no need to put all that information in the text. • We have conventions that allow the reader to figure out from where information is coming . Here are some examples of the conventions for citing in text of the literature review: Just pointing out where info came from: • Form: blah blah (Author Year) • Example: … the gays are different (Lee 2004). • More than one article in the same year: • Form: blah blah (Author Yeara) and also blah blah (Author yearb) • Example: …are different (Lee 2004a), but are more pickled (Lee 2004b)

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • We have conventions that allow the reader to figure out from where information is coming . Here are some examples of the conventions for citing in text of the literature review: Where a researcher is quoted: • Form: blah, “Quote quote” (Author Year: Pages) • Example: reveals that “the gays are different.” (Lee 2004: 340). More than one source: • Form: blah blah (Author Year; Author Year) • Example: …bi’s are more adept (Lee 2004; Seymour & Hewitt 1997).

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • We have conventions that allow the reader to figure out from where information is coming . Here are some examples of the conventions for citing in text of the literature review: Using the author’s name in a sentence: • Form: Author (Year) says that… • Example: Lee (2004) claims that girls will rule the world… Quoting a person and using their name: • Form: Author (Year: Pages) says, “Quote quote…” • Example: Lee (2004: 341) says, “Girls are more likely to rule the world…”

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • 3. Review of Literature—examples of citing

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • If an idea is used, but cannot be substantiated by the community of sociologists, the literature review clearly shows that the author is speculating and details the logic of the speculation. • Do NOT discuss irrelevant information. • For example, a paper on attitudes about marijuana attitudes should not detail the multiple uses of hemp such as in clothing, rope, hemp oil and so forth. • The literature review has is written in the author’s voice. The sources of information are not extensively quoted or “copied and pasted.” Instead, the author puts facts and ideas into his or her own words while pointing out from where the information came. • Analogously, if you were discussing the exciting things you learned in a sociology course at a cocktail party, you would use your own words. You would NOT pull out a book or lecture notes and quote these word for word.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • Note: Explaining why social events occur as they do requires use (and testing) of explanations that have worked before. THESE EXPLANATIONS ARE CALLED THEORIES. • Most academic literature reviews have a guiding theory that is used to: • Frame (or help us understand) facts in the literature. • Establish expectations (or hypotheses) for the research. • Justify speculation when no evidence to justify an idea specific to a topic exists in the literature. • Sometimes the whole point of a research project is to: • Determine whether a theory works • Pit two or more theories against each other to see which works better • You will most likely not refer to theories in your papers

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Review of Literature • Quantitative literature reviews typically end with: • Focused declarations of the particular issues the research activity is addressing—ideas about a topic that will be tested with quantitative methods • Research hypotheses Hypotheses are statements of the expected relationship(s) between two (or more) variables For example: “Men will have higher investment income than women.” “Older Americans are more likely to oppose abortion for a woman who doesn’t want her baby because she is poor.”

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • 3. Review of Literature—examples of hypotheses Hypothesis 1. In a new social context, girls will be more sociable than boys—getting more involved with others (interactional commitments) and forming more emotionally close relationships (affective commitments)—across activity domains. Hypothesis 2. Given that commitments to new relationships positively determine identity prominence, and identity prominence positively determines behaviors, if girls are more sociable with newer persons, their identities and behaviors will change more across activity domains. Hypothesis 3. However, girls and boys will experience the same identity processes, meaning that girls and boys with the same sociability in new relationships will have equal identity and behavior changes.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Methods A METHODS SECTION MUST CONTAIN: • Descriptions of Data (Think in terms of: “Who, What, When, Where, Why and How?”) Report: • The Target Population • The Ways Data were Collected: • Sampling • Delivery Methods • Response Rates • Sample sizes resulting from various decisions Such as: • eliminating non-Christians from the sample • using only white respondents

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Methods A METHODS SECTION MUST CONTAIN: • Descriptions of Variables First for dependent, then for independent variables, report: • Names for the variables—make them intuitive! (Do not use GSS variable names.) • Word for word description of the questions. (sociology differs from psychology and medicine) • Final coding scheme—the numbers you assigned to responses.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Methods A METHODS SECTION MUST CONTAIN: • Manipulations of the variables or data For example: • recoding income from 23 uneven intervals to five equivalent categories • removing non-citizens if studying voting patterns • Reflection on ability of data to generalize to the target population • Limitations of Data (omitted cases, biases, etc.) • Analyses that bolster claims that the data are appropriate • Statistical techniques that will be used to test your hypotheses and the statistics program used.

Writing a Research Report 4. Methods

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Results The results section chronicles the outcome of the statistical analyses, assessing whether your hypotheses were correct and why or why not.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Results The results section includes: • Narrative describing most relevant findings • Professional tables showing descriptive and inferential statistics • Tables must be numbered and have a descriptive title • There are conventions for formatting For example: • Asterisks are used to highlight results that are statistically important • All numbers in a column are aligned on decimals

Writing a Research Report 5. Results

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Results The narrative and tables are complementary. • The narrative discusses ONLY VERY IMPORTANT Results and leaves details for tables. • As different outcomes are described in the narrative, reference is made to where the detailed information can be found in the tables. • The tables contain almost all statistical information so that the author does not have to write a narrative for every detail in the analysis.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Results The narrative highlights: • Evaluations of the hypotheses. Were the research hypotheses supported? • Statements about new discoveries or surprises encountered in the analyses

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Conclusions and Discussion This section assesses how one’s research findings relate to what the community of sociologists have accepted as facts. Things that should be done: • Summarize the most salient points of your research (tell the reader what you found out about your topic). • Discuss the general significance of your topic and findings.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • Conclusions and Discussion • Discuss the shortcomings of your study and how these might affect your findings. • Discuss things future researchers should investigate about your topic to advance knowledge about it. • Help the reader gain the knowledge that you think he or she ought to have about the topic. You spent a lot of time exploring the, you should share your expertise.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • References The references are just as important as any other part of your paper. References are the empirical support for claims in a paper that are not directly observed in the research. They are needed for researchers to remain empirical in their descriptions of topics.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • References: Link the paper to the community of scholars, permitting readers to assess the worthiness claims in a paper. Make the research process much more efficient because they make it very easy to look up sources of facts and ideas.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • References Style: Hanging indented Alphabetical on author’s last name (by increasing year within same author) Invert only first author’s name Information within source in an order determined by type of source Article: Last Name, first name, first name last name, and first name last name. Year. “Article title.” Journal Name Volume(number): 1st Page- Last Page. Lee, James Daniel. 2005. “Do Girls Change More than Boys? Gender Differences and Similarities in the Impact of New Relationships on Identities and Behaviors.” Self and Identity 4:131-47. Multiple authors… Kroska, Amy and Sarah K. Harkness. 2008. “Exploring the Role of Diagnosis in the Modified Labeling Theory of Mental Illness.” Social Psychology Quarterly 71:193-208

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • References Book Chapter: Last Name, first name. Year. “Chapter Name.” Pages in the book in Book Name, edited by first name last name. City of Publisher: Publisher. Bianciardi, Roberto. 1997. "Growing Up Italian in New York City." Pp.179-213 in Adult Narratives of Immigrant Childhoods, edited byAna Relles.  Rose Hill, PA: Narrative Press. Book: Last name, first name. Year. Book Name. City of Publisher: Publisher. Stryker, Sheldon. 1980. Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • References General Social Survey: Davis, James Allan and Smith, Tom W.: General Social Surveys, 1972-2008. [machine-readable data file]. Principal Investigator, James A. Davis; Director and Co-Principal Investigator, Tom W. Smith; Co-Principal Investigator, Peter V. Marsden, NORC ed. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, producer, 2005; Storrs, CT: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, distributor. 1 data file (53,043 logical records) and 1 codebook (2,656 pp). Website: Last Name (if available), first name. Year (if available). “Article or web page title.” Journal or Report Name Volume (if available). Retrieved date (http://address). Markowitz, Robin. 1991. “Canonizing the Popular.” Cultural Studies Central. Retrieved October 31, 2001 (http://culturalstudies.net/canon.htm). Note: Do your best to replicate this style in the case of missing information. If there is no author, use the title in that position. Always have a retrieved date and website address.

Writing a Research Report • A research report has seven components: • 7. References—an example

Writing a Research Report Some General Points • Make accurate sociological claims in your paper. Stake out positions—a kind of, “I think I have the answer to this issue,” position. • Cite facts to support your sociological claims. • If you can, use theories to support your sociological claims. • Every declaration or “fact claim” must be cited or overtly posed as speculation.

Writing a Research Report Some General Points • Anticipate your reader’s questions as you write: • help the reader understand why your topic is important • demonstrate to the reader that you adequately investigated your topic • help them anticipate what you’ll say next—everything you say should seem reasonable to say • While writing, keep thinking “The point is to: (1) establish hypotheses (2) describe how to test the hypotheses (3) give results of tests, and (4) discuss what the reader should believe about the world.”

Writing a Research Report Some General Points • There is no right answer in a research paper—Just approximate representations of the truth that are closer or further away from that truth. • The truth is: • From “Community of Scholars”: What they said about your topic in the journals, books, and other publications • From you: What your methods and analyses revealed about the topic.

Writing a Research Report Finally…Avoiding Plagiarism • What is it? • All knowledge in your head has either been copied from some place or originally discovered by you. • Most knowledge was copied. • This is true in most settings. General knowledge is copied. Most teachers’ lectures are copied knowledge. • Human culture would not exist without our keen ability to copy! • Humans are natural copiers, but that is not what is meant by the term “plagiarism.”

Writing a Research Report • The Elements of Style endorses imitation as a way for a writer to achieve his own style: • The use of language begins with imitation . . . The imitative life continues long after the writer is on his own in the language, for it is almost impossible to avoid imitating what one admires. Never imitate consciously, but do not worry about being an imitator; take pains instead to admire what is good. Then when you write in a way that comes naturally, you will echo the halloos that bear repeating. Copied from: http://www.answers.com/topic/writing-style-1

Writing a Research Report Finally…Avoiding Plagiarism • What is it? • Among other things, plagiarism refers to taking others’ work and representing it as if it were your own. • In academics this is bad because with plagiarism: • One cannot assess students’ development accurately • The person who makes his or her livelihood by scholarly pursuit is being robbed of credit • It masks the lineage of ideas and facts. “Plagiarism is to academics as Enron-accounting is to corporate America.”

Writing a Research Report Finally…Avoiding Plagiarism Lineage of Ideas: • Original sources of research are all the proof we have for some facts. Without the “paper trail” of academic thought: • People could pass incorrect ideas off as facts • We would have to keep “re-proving” things. • The contexts that generated facts and ideas get lost. • Research becomes highly inefficient as it becomes incredibly difficult to find “full information” on a topic.

Writing a Research Report Finally…Avoiding Plagiarism • To avoid plagiarism: • Document every source for information that is not “general knowledge”—this includes facts and ideas. • Cite every time a fact or idea is used unless it is clear that one citation is referring to a group of facts or ideas. • If you quote material, put quotation marks around the quoted stuff and include a page number within the citation. • It is alright to paraphrase material, but you still have to cite from where the paraphrased material came. • When in doubt, cite the source. Improper citing is grounds for failure on the course paper.

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[Guide] How to Present Qualitative Research Findings in PowerPoint?

By: Author Shrot Katewa

As a researcher, it is quite pointless to do the research if we are unable to share the findings with our audience appropriately! Using PowerPoint is one of the best ways to present research outcomes. But, how does one present qualitative research findings using PowerPoint?

In order to present the qualitative research findings using PowerPoint, you need to create a robust structure for your presentation, make it engaging and visually appealing, present the patterns with explanations for it and highlight the conclusion of your research findings.

In this article, we will help you understand the structure of your presentation. Plus, we’ll share some handy tips that will make your qualitative research presentation really effective!

How to Create a Structure for your Qualitative Research Presentation?

Creating the right structure for your presentation is key to ensuring that it is correctly understood by your audience.

The structure of your Research Presentation not only makes it easier for you to create the document, it also makes it simple for the audience to understand what all will be covered in the presentation at the time of presenting it to your audience.

Furthermore, having a robust structure is a great way to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of the points while working on creating the presentation.

But, what structure should one follow?

Creating a good structure can be tricky for some. Thus, I’m sharing what has worked well for me during my previous research projects.

NOTE – It is important to note that although the following structure is highly effective for most research findings presentation, it has been generalized in order to serve a wide range of research projects. You may want to take a look at points that are very specific to the nature of your research project and include them at your discretion.

Here’s my recommended structure to create your Research Findings presentation –

1. Objective of the Research

A great way to start your presentation is to highlight the objective of your research project.

It is important to remember that merely sharing the objective may sometimes not be enough. A short backstory along with the purpose of your research project can pack a powerful punch ! It not only validates the reasoning for your project but also subtly establishes trust with your audience.

However, do make sure that you’re not reading the backstory from the slide. Let it flow naturally when you are delivering the presentation. Keep the presentation as minimalistic as possible.

2. Key Parameters Considered for Measurement

Once you’ve established the objective, the next thing that you may want to do is perhaps share the key parameters considered for the success of your project.

Every research project, including qualitative research, needs to have a few key parameters to measure against the objective of the research.

For example – If the goal of your project is to gather the sentiments of a certain group of people for a particular product, you may need to measure their feelings. Are they happy or unhappy using the product? How do they perceive the branding of the product? Is it affordable?

Make sure that you list down all such key parameters that were considered while conducting the qualitative research.

In general, laying these out before sharing the outcome can help your audience think from your perspective and look at the findings from the correct lens.

3. Research Methodology Adopted

The next thing that you may want to include in your presentation is the methodology that you adopted for conducting the research.

By knowing your approach, the audience can be better prepared for the outcome of your project. Ensure that you provide sound reasoning for the chosen methodology.

This section of your presentation can also showcase some pictures of the research being conducted. If you have captured a video, include that. Doing this provides further validation of your project.

4. Research Outcomes (Presenting Descriptive Analysis)

This is the section that will constitute the bulk of the your presentation.

Use the slides in this section to describe the observations, and the resulting outcomes on each of the key parameters that were considered for the research project.

It is usually a good idea to dedicate at least 1 or more slides for each parameter . Make sure that you present data wherever possible. However, ensure that the data presented can be easily comprehended.

Provide key learnings from the data, highlight any outliers, and possible reasoning for it. Try not to go too in-depth with the stats as this can overwhelm the audience. Remember, a presentation is most helpful when it is used to provide key highlights of the research !

Apart from using the data, make sure that you also include a few quotes from the participants.

5. Summary and Learnings from the Research

Once you’ve taken the audience through the core part of your research findings, it is a good practice to summarize the key learnings from each of the section of your project.

Make sure your touch upon some of the key learnings covered in the research outcome of your presentation.

Furthermore, include any additional observations and key points that you may have had which were previously not covered.

The summary slide also often acts as “Key Takeaways” from the research for your audience. Thus, make sure that you maintain brevity and highlight only the points that you want your audience to remember even after the presentation.

6. Inclusions and Exclusions (if any)

While this can be an optional section for some of the researchers.

However, dedicating a section on inclusions and exclusions in your presentation can be a great value add! This section helps your audience understand the key factors that were excluded (or included) on purpose!

Moreover, it creates a sense of thoroughness in the minds of your audience.

7. Conclusion of the Research

The purpose of the conclusion slide of your research findings presentation is to revisit the objective, and present a conclusion.

A conclusion may simply validate or nullify the objective. It may sometimes do neither. Nevertheless, having a conclusion slide makes your presentation come a full circle. It creates this sense of completion in the minds of your audience.

8. Questions

Finally, since your audience did not spend as much time as you did on the research project, people are bound to have a few questions.

Thus, the last part of your presentation structure should be dedicated to allowing your audience to ask questions.

Tips for Effectively Presenting Qualitative Research Findings using PowerPoint

For a presentation to be effective, it is important that the presentation is not only well structured but also that it is well created and nicely delivered!

While we have already covered the structure, let me share with you some tips that you can help you create and deliver the presentation effectively.

Tip 1 – Use Visuals

Using visuals in your presentation is a great way to keep the presentations engaging!

Visual aids not only help make the presentation less boring, but it also helps your audience in retaining the information better!

So, use images and videos of the actual research wherever possible. If these do not suffice or do not give a professional feel, there are a number of resources online from where you can source royalty-free images.

My recommendation for high-quality royalty-free images would be either Unsplash or Pexels . Both are really good. The only downside is that they often do not provide the perfect image that can be used. That said, it can get the job done for at least half the time.

If you are unable to find the perfect free image, I recommend checking out Dreamstime . They have a huge library of images and are much cheaper than most of the other image banks. I personally use Dreamstime for my presentation projects!

Tip 2 – Tell a Story (Don’t Show Just Data!)

I cannot stress enough on how important it is to give your presentation a human touch. Delivering a presentation in the form of a story does just that! Furthermore, storytelling is also a great tool for visualization .

Data can be hard-hitting, whereas a touching story can tickle the emotions of your audience on various levels!

One of the best ways to present a story with your research project is to start with the backstory of the objective. We’ve already talked about this in the earlier part of this article.

Start with why is this research project is so important. Follow a story arc that provides an exciting experience of the beginning, the middle, and a progression towards a climax; much like a plot of a soap opera.

Tip 3 – Include Quotes of the Participants

Including quotes of the participants in your research findings presentation not only provides evidence but also demonstrates authenticity!

Quotes function as a platform to include the voice of the target group and provide a peek into the mindset of the target audience.

When using quotes, keep these things in mind –

1. Use Quotes in their Unedited Form

When using quotes in your presentation, make sure that you use them in their raw unedited form.

The need to edit quotes should be only restricted to aid comprehension and sometimes coherence.

Furthermore, when editing the quotes, make sure that you use brackets to insert clarifying words. The standard format for using the brackets is to use square brackets for clarifying words and normal brackets for adding a missing explanation.

2. How to Decide which Quotes to Consider?

It is important to know which quotes to include in your presentation. I use the following 3 criteria when selecting the quote –

• Relevance – Consider the quotes that are relevant, and trying to convey the point that you want to establish.
• Length – an ideal quote should be not more than 1-2 sentences long.
• Choose quotes that are well-expressed and striking in nature.

3. Preserve Identity of the Participant

It is important to preserve and protect the identity of the participant. This can be done by maintaining confidentiality and anonymity.

Thus, refrain from using the name of the participant. An alternative could be using codes, using pseudonyms (made up names) or simply using other general non-identifiable parameters.

Do note, when using pseudonyms, remember to highlight it in the presentation.

If, however, you do need to use the name of the respondent, make sure that the participant is okay with it and you have adequate permissions to use their name.

Tip 4 – Make your Presentation Visually Appealing and Engaging

It is quite obvious for most of us that we need to create a visually appealing presentation. But, making it pleasing to the eye can be a bit challenging.

Fortunately, we wrote a detailed blog post with tips on how to make your presentation attractive. It provides you with easy and effective tips that you can use even as a beginner! Make sure you check that article.

7 EASY tips that ALWAYS make your PPT presentation attractive (even for beginners)

In addition to the tips mentioned in the article, let me share a few things that you can do which are specific to research outcome presentations.

4.1 Use a Simple Color Scheme

Using the right colors are key to make a presentation look good.

One of the most common mistakes that people make is use too many colors in their presentation!

My recommendation would be to go with a monochromatic color scheme in PowerPoint .

4.2 Make the Data Tables Simple and Visually Appealing

When making a presentation on research outcomes, you are bound to present some data.

But, when data is not presented in a proper manner, it can easily and quickly make your presentation look displeasing! The video below can be a good starting point.

Using neat looking tables can simply transform the way your presentation looks. So don’t just dump the data from excel on your PowerPoint presentation. Spend a few minutes on fixing it!

4.3 Use Graphs and Charts (wherever necessary)

When presenting data, my recommendation would be that graphs and charts should be your first preference.

Using graphs or charts make it easier to read the data, takes less time for the audience to comprehend, and it also helps to identify a trend.

However, make sure that the correct chart type is used when representing the data. The last thing that you want is to poorly represent a key piece of information.

4.4 Use Icons instead of Bullet Points

Consider the following example –

This slide could have been created just as easily using bullet points. However, using icons and representing the information in a different format makes the slide pleasing on the eye.

Thus, always try to use icons wherever possible instead of bullet points.

Tip 5 – Include the Outliers

Many times, as a research project manager, we tend to focus on the trends extracted from a data set.

While it is important to identify patterns in the data and provide an adequate explanation for the pattern, it is equally important sometimes to highlight the outliers prominently.

It is easy to forget that there may be hidden learnings even in the outliers. At times, the data trend may be re-iterating the common wisdom. However, upon analyzing the outlier data points, you may get insight into how a few participants are doing things successfully despite not following the common knowledge.

That said, not every outlier will reveal hidden information. So, do verify what to include and what to exclude.

Tip 6 – Take Inspiration from other Presentations

I admit, making any presentation can be a tough ask let alone making a presentation for showcasing qualitative research findings. This is especially hard when we don’t have the necessary skills for creating a presentation.

One quick way to overcome this challenge could be take inspiration from other similar presentations that we may have liked.

There is no shame in being inspired from others. If you don’t have any handy references, you can surely Google it to find a few examples.

One trick that almost always works for me is using Pinterest .

But, don’t just directly search for a research presentation. You will have little to no success with it. The key is to look for specific examples for inspiration. For eg. search for Title Slide examples, or Image Layout Examples in Presentation.

Tip 7 – Ask Others to Critic your Presentation

The last tip that I would want to provide is to make sure that you share the presentation with supportive colleagues or mentors to attain feedback.

This step can be critical to iron out the chinks in the armor. As research project manager, it is common for you to get a bit too involved with the project. This can lead to possibilities wherein you miss out on things.

A good way to overcome this challenge is to get a fresh perspective on your project and the presentation once it has been prepared.

Taking critical feedback before your final presentation can also prepare you to handle tough questions in an adept manner.

Final Thoughts

It is quite important to ensure that we get it right when working on a presentation that showcases the findings of our research project. After all, we don’t want to be in a situation wherein we put in all the hard-work in the project, but we fail to deliver the outcome appropriately.

I hope you will find the aforementioned tips and structure useful, and if you do, make sure that you bookmark this page and spread the word. Wishing you all the very best for your project!