how to start a academic presentation

How to Give a Good Academic Paper Presentation

• Post author By Maria Angel Ferrero
• Post date August 17, 2020
• No Comments on How to Give a Good Academic Paper Presentation

The art of pitching your academic research

So, you’re about to present your first academic paper? You are preparing to defend your thesis? You are about to present your research to a bunch of experts?

But, you don’t know where to start? or, how to start?

That’s ok, you are in the right place.

In this short post, I’m going to show you how to do a good academic research presentation so that your audience actually understands and appreciates it.

The main goal of an academic research presentation — like any other type of presentation — is to carry your audience through a story and grab their attention during the whole story. But no matter how good a story is, if it’s not told properly it’ll lose its audience at the very first words.

And every good story needs a good structure, otherwise, your audience will get lost in a dead-end.

To avoid getting into that dead-end and losing your audience, you should structure your presentation around 5 main questions:

• Who are you and what’s your story about?
• Why should your audience — or anyone — care about your story, and why is it relevant to tell that story now?
• How did you get to write your story? Who are the main characters?
• What happens in the story? What happens to the characters?
• So, What? Why this ending is better? Why should I wait for a new episode?

The order in which these questions are answered throughout your presentation can vary. Good stories might also start at the end and crawl back to its beginnings. Play with the order and see what suits best your story, only you know better what works for your research.

So let’s go now through each of the questions, shall we?

Who are you and what’s your research about?

Introduce yourself — unless you have already been introduced. Sometimes we are so impatience to give our presentation that we forget the basics.

Many times when we choose a book to read we ask ourselves about the human that wrote the book. And, as any writer researchers should include a short biography of themselves in the presentation.

And this is not to brag about yourself or your experience, but to give a human touch to the research itself. Before anyone wants to hear your story — your research — you need to tell them why they should be listening to you.

A short introduction of 30 seconds will do, your name, your background, why you are here in this room presenting and anything else that might be relevant to the research you are doing.

Give a context to your story, a kind of foreword to your research. State your thesis clearly and tell your audience why the topic you are going to address is relevant. And why they should care.

Give a hook. Start with a kind of provocation to instill curiosity and need. Try to think out of the box and talk about something your audience will found interesting. Use analogies too much known or simpler things that everyone in the room would be able to understand. Don’t talk to the experts, they already know it.

To give you an example, this is how I started one of my papers on overconfidence and innovation:

If you had to choose between The Joker and Batman, who would you want to be?

My paper was nothing to do with superheroes — at least not in a common way — but I wanted to talk about the dual personality innovators have, thus The Joker vs Batman analogy.

Once you have given your hook and presented yourself, give your audience an idea of what you are going to talk about and what awaits them during the following minutes.

Give them a roadmap of the talk, even if it seems redundant to you. This doesn’t mean you have to list your table of contents, just a prelude of your story.

In total, one minute and one slide are enough.

Why should your audience care about your Research, and why is it relevant now?

The next 2 or 3 slides should introduce the subject to the audience. Very briefly. Usually, research presentations last between 10 to 15 minutes, but many are shifting to the startup pitch format of 3 to 5 minutes. So being concise and direct to point is quite important.

Telling your audience why the topic you are researching about is important and relevant it’s essential, but should not take all time. This is just the introduction, you need to save time for the main story.

There are mainly 6 elements that make a good introduction:

• Define the Problem:  Many speakers forget this simple point. No matter how difficult and technical the problem you are addressing is there is certainly a way to explain it concisely and clearly in less than one minute. Explain your problem as if your audience were 5 years old children, not because they are not smart or respectable, but because the simpler you get to explain a complex problem the more it shows your mastery and preparation. If the audience doesn’t understand the problem being attacked, then they won’t understand the rest of your talk, and you’ll lose them before you get to your great solution. For your slides, condense the problem into a very few carefully chosen words.  An example here again from my research: Is being extremely confident in ourselves good or bad for innovation?
• Motivate the Audience:  Explain why the problem is so important. How does the problem fit into the larger picture(e.g. entrepreneurship ecosystem, neuroscience,…)? What are its applications? What makes the problem nontrivial? If no one has done this research, why is it relevant now to do it? What are the circumstances that make it relevant now more than ever? Avoid broad statements such as  “Innovation is what drives economic growth, but there are few innovative individuals, so how can we encourage people to become innovators?”  Rather, focus on what really matters: “ universities are investing millions to develop entrepreneurship education program, still students graduating from these programs aren’t starting any venture.”
• Introduce Terminology:  scientific jargon is boring and complex, it should be kept to a minimum. However, sometimes is almost impossible not to refer to specific scientific terms. Any complex jargon should be introduced at the beginning of the presentation or when each term is introduced for the first time during the presentation. To avoid losing time tot his, you can prepare a short document with all the terms and definitions to hand out to the participants in the audience.
• Discuss Earlier Work: Do your research, you are not reinventing the wheel.  There is nothing more frustrating than listening to a talk that covers something that has already been published without making reference tot hose studies. It not only shows that you didn’t do your research and that you are underprepared, but it shows you don’t know how to conduct research. This doesn’t mean that you should have read and cited ALL the works and papers that talk about the topic of your research. This is only useful if you are doing a systematic review. But you have to be sure that you know, read and cite those that really matter. You have to explain why this work is different from past wor, or how you are improving or continuing the research.
• Emphasize the Contributions of the Paper:  Make sure that you explicitly and succinctly state the contributions made by your paper. That is the so what?. Give just a quick glimpse of your contributions and implications for the research and the practice. The audience wants to know this. Often it is the only thing that they carry away from the talk.
• Consider putting your Conclusion in the Introduction : Be bold. Let everyone know from the start where you are headed so that the audience can focus on what matters.

How did you get to your results? How did you conduct your study?

There should be 1 or 2 methods slides that allow the audience to understand how the research was conducted. You might include a flow chart describing the main ingredients of the methods used. Do not put too many details, just what it’s needed to understand the study. Many of the details are appropriate for the manuscript but not for the presentation. If the audience wants to have more details on the methods they can always read your full paper, or you can prepare backup slides with this information to share during the Q&As session. For example, you could just say:  “During 4 weeks we conducted semi-structured interviews with top managers and employees from different organizations. Our final sample was composed of 30 individuals, from which 10 were top managers and 15 were female and aged between 25 and 60 years.”  Further details are presented in backup slides or in the manuscript.

What did you find, what happened?

The next 3 slides should show the main results obtained with your research. If appropriate, it is nice to start with a slide showing the basic phenomena being studied (e.G. the process of innovation and how). It reminds your audience about the variables used and manipulated and the role they have in the situation being studied.

Next, show figures, pictures, or graphs that clearly illustrate the main results. Do not show charts and tables of raw data. No one is able to read an excel table on a presentation, if only it gives the creeps. So instead of putting large and ugly tables, no one is going to read, use beautiful and meaningful graphs and figures.

You can use free infographic apps to build awesome visual representations of your data. Apps like  Canva ,  Venngage , or  Piktochart  work great.

All figures should be clearly labeled. When showing figures, be sure to explain the figure axes before you talk about the data (e.g., “the X-axis shows time. The Y-axis shows economic profit).

When presenting the data try to be as simple as possible, this is the most complex part of your research. You might be an expert, but your audience probably is not and they need to understand your results if you want to convenience them with your research.

So, What? What are the outcomes, implications and future steps?

The last 2 slides are probably the most important section of your presentation. It’s the denouement of your story, and it should be good.

Nothing is more frustrating than reading or listening to a good story to arrive to a disappointing end. All the effort you did to tell the good story is lost if you don’t curate appropriately the ending.

Some people be distracted during the whole presentation and would only pay attention to your conclusions, so those conclusions better are good.

Before getting to your end, sum up what your study was about, your research questions and objectives, and then go to the conclusion. In this way, the lousy distracted audience will also get most of your research.

List the conclusions in clear, easy to understand language. You can read them to the audience. Also give one or two sentences about what this likely means — your interpretation — for the big picture, go back to the context and motives of your research. Explain how your results improve our understanding and contribute to theory and practice.

Don’t be afraid to talk about the flaws and limitations of your study. Not only this shows you are humble but that you are prepared enough and that you are aware that things can be improved. Remember that having contradictory results to what you expected is not a bad thing, they are still results, you need to find an explanation to this.

Once you know your limitations, tell your audience how can this be improved in future research. How can other scholars address the problems and flaws, what are the next steps, and what future research should focus on?

Your job as a presenter is to not only present the paper but also lead a discussion with your audience about your research. Talk about its strengths, weaknesses, and broader implications. To help focus the class discussion, end your presentation with a list of approximately three major questions/issues worthy of further discussion.

Please finalize your presentation with at least two or three major things that should be discussed. Discussion with the audience should be especially encouraged at this point, but you should be prepared to foster this by raising these issues.

So, when preparing your presentation think like one of the people in your audience. Think about what they would ask? What would they like to discuss further? What are the points that might trigger confusion or disagreement?

If you have these questions in mind you can prepare to give appropriate answers and be less stressed out by the uncertainty of your audience reaction. You can then prepare a couple of backup slides that will help you give responses to the questions being asked and that will help you make your point.

Final thoughts

Reading and understanding academic research papers can be a tough assignment, especially because it can be very specific and you might not know or understand many terms, methodologies, or even statistical models and analysis. So preparing a presentation of an academic paper, whether is yours or others’ work, takes time and must be taken seriously.

When you are preparing your draft for the presentation, keep in mind that your audience will rely on listening comprehension, not reading comprehension. That means that your ideas need to be clear and to the point, and organized in a way that makes it possible for your audience to follow you.

And since understanding was difficult for you who had the time to read and discuss the paper with your team, you can imagine how difficult it might be for an audience that hasn’t read the paper and moreover has no expertise (or not much) on the research topic you are presenting.

So you have to be very careful about how you present your article so that your audience understands what you are saying, feel involved and curious, and off course don’t sleep while you talk.

Scientific oral presentations are not simply readings of scientific manuscripts, so being in front of an audience reading scientific terms and statistical models and equations is out of the picture. You need to provoke curiosity and engagement so that at the end of your presentation people want to know more about your research.

Don’t forget that time is precious, and not everyone is ready to give their time to listen to things they don’t find amusing or intriguing. Being concise and simple is not an easy exercise, but is crucial for passing by a message.

Follow simple presentation rules:

• 1 slide takes 1 minute to present, so if you have 10 minutes to present don’t do more than 10 slides.
• Don’t use small size fonts, the minimum readable size is 20pt.
• Don’t use text when you don’t need it, the text should be only be used to highlight things that you want your audience to remember
• Use pictures whenever you can but don’t overuse them. Pictures have to be relevant to your speech.
• Be careful with grammar and errors. Read your slides thoroughly a couple of times before submitting them for a presentation. And ask someone else to read them also, they are more likely to find mistakes than you are as they are less biased and less attached to your topic.
• Finally, prepare, prepare, and prepare. Mastery is only possible through training. No matter how good you are at improvising, preparing for a presentation is key for succeeding at it.

And that’s it. Good luck!

• Tags Research , Research Paper , Science , Scientific Paper

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How to make a scientific presentation

Scientific presentation outlines

Questions to ask yourself before you write your talk, 1. how much time do you have, 2. who will you speak to, 3. what do you want the audience to learn from your talk, step 1: outline your presentation, step 2: plan your presentation slides, step 3: make the presentation slides, slide design, text elements, animations and transitions, step 4: practice your presentation, final thoughts, frequently asked questions about preparing scientific presentations, related articles.

A good scientific presentation achieves three things: you communicate the science clearly, your research leaves a lasting impression on your audience, and you enhance your reputation as a scientist.

But, what is the best way to prepare for a scientific presentation? How do you start writing a talk? What details do you include, and what do you leave out?

It’s tempting to launch into making lots of slides. But, starting with the slides can mean you neglect the narrative of your presentation, resulting in an overly detailed, boring talk.

The key to making an engaging scientific presentation is to prepare the narrative of your talk before beginning to construct your presentation slides. Planning your talk will ensure that you tell a clear, compelling scientific story that will engage the audience.

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to make a good oral scientific presentation, including:

• The different types of oral scientific presentations and how they are delivered;
• How to outline a scientific presentation;
• How to make slides for a scientific presentation.

Our advice results from delving into the literature on writing scientific talks and from our own experiences as scientists in giving and listening to presentations. We provide tips and best practices for giving scientific talks in a separate post.

There are two main types of scientific talks:

• Your talk focuses on a single study . Typically, you tell the story of a single scientific paper. This format is common for short talks at contributed sessions in conferences.
• Your talk describes multiple studies. You tell the story of multiple scientific papers. It is crucial to have a theme that unites the studies, for example, an overarching question or problem statement, with each study representing specific but different variations of the same theme. Typically, PhD defenses, invited seminars, lectures, or talks for a prospective employer (i.e., “job talks”) fall into this category.

➡️ Learn how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

The length of time you are allotted for your talk will determine whether you will discuss a single study or multiple studies, and which details to include in your story.

The background and interests of your audience will determine the narrative direction of your talk, and what devices you will use to get their attention. Will you be speaking to people specializing in your field, or will the audience also contain people from disciplines other than your own? To reach non-specialists, you will need to discuss the broader implications of your study outside your field.

The needs of the audience will also determine what technical details you will include, and the language you will use. For example, an undergraduate audience will have different needs than an audience of seasoned academics. Students will require a more comprehensive overview of background information and explanations of jargon but will need less technical methodological details.

Your goal is to speak to the majority. But, make your talk accessible to the least knowledgeable person in the room.

This is called the thesis statement, or simply the “take-home message”. Having listened to your talk, what message do you want the audience to take away from your presentation? Describe the main idea in one or two sentences. You want this theme to be present throughout your presentation. Again, the thesis statement will depend on the audience and the type of talk you are giving.

Your thesis statement will drive the narrative for your talk. By deciding the take-home message you want to convince the audience of as a result of listening to your talk, you decide how the story of your talk will flow and how you will navigate its twists and turns. The thesis statement tells you the results you need to show, which subsequently tells you the methods or studies you need to describe, which decides the angle you take in your introduction.

➡️ Learn how to write a thesis statement

The goal of your talk is that the audience leaves afterward with a clear understanding of the key take-away message of your research. To achieve that goal, you need to tell a coherent, logical story that conveys your thesis statement throughout the presentation. You can tell your story through careful preparation of your talk.

Preparation of a scientific presentation involves three separate stages: outlining the scientific narrative, preparing slides, and practicing your delivery. Making the slides of your talk without first planning what you are going to say is inefficient.

Here, we provide a 4 step guide to writing your scientific presentation:

• Outline your presentation
• Plan your presentation slides
• Make the presentation slides
• Practice your presentation

Writing an outline helps you consider the key pieces of your talk and how they fit together from the beginning, preventing you from forgetting any important details. It also means you avoid changing the order of your slides multiple times, saving you time.

Plan your talk as discrete sections. In the table below, we describe the sections for a single study talk vs. a talk discussing multiple studies:

The following tips apply when writing the outline of a single study talk. You can easily adapt this framework if you are writing a talk discussing multiple studies.

Introduction: Writing the introduction can be the hardest part of writing a talk. And when giving it, it’s the point where you might be at your most nervous. But preparing a good, concise introduction will settle your nerves.

The introduction tells the audience the story of why you studied your topic. A good introduction succinctly achieves four things, in the following order.

• It gives a broad perspective on the problem or topic for people in the audience who may be outside your discipline (i.e., it explains the big-picture problem motivating your study).
• It describes why you did the study, and why the audience should care.
• It gives a brief indication of how your study addressed the problem and provides the necessary background information that the audience needs to understand your work.
• It indicates what the audience will learn from the talk, and prepares them for what will come next.

A good introduction not only gives the big picture and motivations behind your study but also concisely sets the stage for what the audience will learn from the talk (e.g., the questions your work answers, and/or the hypotheses that your work tests). The end of the introduction will lead to a natural transition to the methods.

Give a broad perspective on the problem. The easiest way to start with the big picture is to think of a hook for the first slide of your presentation. A hook is an opening that gets the audience’s attention and gets them interested in your story. In science, this might take the form of a why, or a how question, or it could be a statement about a major problem or open question in your field. Other examples of hooks include quotes, short anecdotes, or interesting statistics.

Why should the audience care? Next, decide on the angle you are going to take on your hook that links to the thesis of your talk. In other words, you need to set the context, i.e., explain why the audience should care. For example, you may introduce an observation from nature, a pattern in experimental data, or a theory that you want to test. The audience must understand your motivations for the study.

Supplementary details. Once you have established the hook and angle, you need to include supplementary details to support them. For example, you might state your hypothesis. Then go into previous work and the current state of knowledge. Include citations of these studies. If you need to introduce some technical methodological details, theory, or jargon, do it here.

Conclude your introduction. The motivation for the work and background information should set the stage for the conclusion of the introduction, where you describe the goals of your study, and any hypotheses or predictions. Let the audience know what they are going to learn.

Methods: The audience will use your description of the methods to assess the approach you took in your study and to decide whether your findings are credible. Tell the story of your methods in chronological order. Use visuals to describe your methods as much as possible. If you have equations, make sure to take the time to explain them. Decide what methods to include and how you will show them. You need enough detail so that your audience will understand what you did and therefore can evaluate your approach, but avoid including superfluous details that do not support your main idea. You want to avoid the common mistake of including too much data, as the audience can read the paper(s) later.

Results: This is the evidence you present for your thesis. The audience will use the results to evaluate the support for your main idea. Choose the most important and interesting results—those that support your thesis. You don’t need to present all the results from your study (indeed, you most likely won’t have time to present them all). Break down complex results into digestible pieces, e.g., comparisons over multiple slides (more tips in the next section).

Summary: Summarize your main findings. Displaying your main findings through visuals can be effective. Emphasize the new contributions to scientific knowledge that your work makes.

Conclusion: Complete the circle by relating your conclusions to the big picture topic in your introduction—and your hook, if possible. It’s important to describe any alternative explanations for your findings. You might also speculate on future directions arising from your research. The slides that comprise your conclusion do not need to state “conclusion”. Rather, the concluding slide title should be a declarative sentence linking back to the big picture problem and your main idea.

It’s important to end well by planning a strong closure to your talk, after which you will thank the audience. Your closing statement should relate to your thesis, perhaps by stating it differently or memorably. Avoid ending awkwardly by memorizing your closing sentence.

By now, you have an outline of the story of your talk, which you can use to plan your slides. Your slides should complement and enhance what you will say. Use the following steps to prepare your slides.

• Write the slide titles to match your talk outline. These should be clear and informative declarative sentences that succinctly give the main idea of the slide (e.g., don’t use “Methods” as a slide title). Have one major idea per slide. In a YouTube talk on designing effective slides , researcher Michael Alley shows examples of instructive slide titles.
• Decide how you will convey the main idea of the slide (e.g., what figures, photographs, equations, statistics, references, or other elements you will need). The body of the slide should support the slide’s main idea.
• Under each slide title, outline what you want to say, in bullet points.

In sum, for each slide, prepare a title that summarizes its major idea, a list of visual elements, and a summary of the points you will make. Ensure each slide connects to your thesis. If it doesn’t, then you don’t need the slide.

Slides for scientific presentations have three major components: text (including labels and legends), graphics, and equations. Here, we give tips on how to present each of these components.

• Have an informative title slide. Include the names of all coauthors and their affiliations. Include an attractive image relating to your study.
• Make the foreground content of your slides “pop” by using an appropriate background. Slides that have white backgrounds with black text work well for small rooms, whereas slides with black backgrounds and white text are suitable for large rooms.
• The layout of your slides should be simple. Pay attention to how and where you lay the visual and text elements on each slide. It’s tempting to cram information, but you need lots of empty space. Retain space at the sides and bottom of your slides.
• Use sans serif fonts with a font size of at least 20 for text, and up to 40 for slide titles. Citations can be in 14 font and should be included at the bottom of the slide.
• Use bold or italics to emphasize words, not underlines or caps. Keep these effects to a minimum.
• Use concise text . You don’t need full sentences. Convey the essence of your message in as few words as possible. Write down what you’d like to say, and then shorten it for the slide. Remove unnecessary filler words.
• Text blocks should be limited to two lines. This will prevent you from crowding too much information on the slide.
• Include names of technical terms in your talk slides, especially if they are not familiar to everyone in the audience.
• Proofread your slides. Typos and grammatical errors are distracting for your audience.
• Include citations for the hypotheses or observations of other scientists.
• Good figures and graphics are essential to sustain audience interest. Use graphics and photographs to show the experiment or study system in action and to explain abstract concepts.
• Don’t use figures straight from your paper as they may be too detailed for your talk, and details like axes may be too small. Make new versions if necessary. Make them large enough to be visible from the back of the room.
• Use graphs to show your results, not tables. Tables are difficult for your audience to digest! If you must present a table, keep it simple.
• Label the axes of graphs and indicate the units. Label important components of graphics and photographs and include captions. Include sources for graphics that are not your own.
• Explain all the elements of a graph. This includes the axes, what the colors and markers mean, and patterns in the data.
• Use colors in figures and text in a meaningful, not random, way. For example, contrasting colors can be effective for pointing out comparisons and/or differences. Don’t use neon colors or pastels.
• Use thick lines in figures, and use color to create contrasts in the figures you present. Don’t use red/green or red/blue combinations, as color-blind audience members can’t distinguish between them.
• Arrows or circles can be effective for drawing attention to key details in graphs and equations. Add some text annotations along with them.
• Write your summary and conclusion slides using graphics, rather than showing a slide with a list of bullet points. Showing some of your results again can be helpful to remind the audience of your message.
• If your talk has equations, take time to explain them. Include text boxes to explain variables and mathematical terms, and put them under each term in the equation.
• Combine equations with a graphic that shows the scientific principle, or include a diagram of the mathematical model.
• Use animations judiciously. They are helpful to reveal complex ideas gradually, for example, if you need to make a comparison or contrast or to build a complicated argument or figure. For lists, reveal one bullet point at a time. New ideas appearing sequentially will help your audience follow your logic.
• Slide transitions should be simple. Silly ones distract from your message.
• Decide how you will make the transition as you move from one section of your talk to the next. For example, if you spend time talking through details, provide a summary afterward, especially in a long talk. Another common tactic is to have a “home slide” that you return to multiple times during the talk that reinforces your main idea or message. In her YouTube talk on designing effective scientific presentations , Stanford biologist Susan McConnell suggests using the approach of home slides to build a cohesive narrative.

To deliver a polished presentation, it is essential to practice it. Here are some tips.

• For your first run-through, practice alone. Pay attention to your narrative. Does your story flow naturally? Do you know how you will start and end? Are there any awkward transitions? Do animations help you tell your story? Do your slides help to convey what you are saying or are they missing components?
• Next, practice in front of your advisor, and/or your peers (e.g., your lab group). Ask someone to time your talk. Take note of their feedback and the questions that they ask you (you might be asked similar questions during your real talk).
• Edit your talk, taking into account the feedback you’ve received. Eliminate superfluous slides that don’t contribute to your takeaway message.
• Practice as many times as needed to memorize the order of your slides and the key transition points of your talk. However, don’t try to learn your talk word for word. Instead, memorize opening and closing statements, and sentences at key junctures in the presentation. Your presentation should resemble a serious but spontaneous conversation with the audience.
• Practicing multiple times also helps you hone the delivery of your talk. While rehearsing, pay attention to your vocal intonations and speed. Make sure to take pauses while you speak, and make eye contact with your imaginary audience.
• Make sure your talk finishes within the allotted time, and remember to leave time for questions. Conferences are particularly strict on run time.
• Anticipate questions and challenges from the audience, and clarify ambiguities within your slides and/or speech in response.
• If you anticipate that you could be asked questions about details but you don’t have time to include them, or they detract from the main message of your talk, you can prepare slides that address these questions and place them after the final slide of your talk.

➡️ More tips for giving scientific presentations

An organized presentation with a clear narrative will help you communicate your ideas effectively, which is essential for engaging your audience and conveying the importance of your work. Taking time to plan and outline your scientific presentation before writing the slides will help you manage your nerves and feel more confident during the presentation, which will improve your overall performance.

A good scientific presentation has an engaging scientific narrative with a memorable take-home message. It has clear, informative slides that enhance what the speaker says. You need to practice your talk many times to ensure you deliver a polished presentation.

First, consider who will attend your presentation, and what you want the audience to learn about your research. Tailor your content to their level of knowledge and interests. Second, create an outline for your presentation, including the key points you want to make and the evidence you will use to support those points. Finally, practice your presentation several times to ensure that it flows smoothly and that you are comfortable with the material.

Prepare an opening that immediately gets the audience’s attention. A common device is a why or a how question, or a statement of a major open problem in your field, but you could also start with a quote, interesting statistic, or case study from your field.

Scientific presentations typically either focus on a single study (e.g., a 15-minute conference presentation) or tell the story of multiple studies (e.g., a PhD defense or 50-minute conference keynote talk). For a single study talk, the structure follows the scientific paper format: Introduction, Methods, Results, Summary, and Conclusion, whereas the format of a talk discussing multiple studies is more complex, but a theme unifies the studies.

Ensure you have one major idea per slide, and convey that idea clearly (through images, equations, statistics, citations, video, etc.). The slide should include a title that summarizes the major point of the slide, should not contain too much text or too many graphics, and color should be used meaningfully.

Ten smart ways to ace your next academic presentation

Using examples and practical tips, Dorsa Amir explains the techniques that ensure your presentation communicates its message effectively – from slide design to structuring your talk

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Many presenters will add copious text or other elements to help themselves remember points they want to make. However, this is usually less helpful for the audience (most of this information belongs in presenter notes, and not on the slides). Think of yourself like a director of a movie. What do you want the audience to focus on at any given moment? What features on your slides will enhance the verbal point you are making and which will distract from it? Be intentional about what you include on your slides, and only include elements that serve a clear and helpful function for the audience.

2. Condense text to the main question or key points of the slide

It may be tempting to write out snippets of the script wholesale and add them to the slides, but this often results in PowerPoint karaoke, where the audience is simply watching you read the text out loud to them. While text is certainly useful for helping to concretise points or make slides more accessible, be judicious about what you include. Each slide should make one or two clear points. It’s better to have more slides with less content than fewer slides that are jam-packed. Of course, the amount of text you include will also be determined by the type of presentation you are giving. If students will be using your slides as a study aid, for example, you may want to include more information than if you are creating a research talk for a conference.

3. Avoid using too many colours, fonts or animations

Consider elements such as fonts, colours and animations as tools in your presentation toolkit. These elements should be used sparingly and only when they serve a clear purpose. I’m sure you’ve all attended a talk with colours bright enough to burn your retinas or crammed with “fun” fonts such as Comic Sans. Try to refrain from doing that. Animations that allow certain elements to appear or disappear along with your presentation — such as bullet points that appear as you say them — can help direct the attention of the audience. Colour contrasts are primarily helpful for visual segmentation or bringing attention to particular elements. Fonts, colours or flashy animations that are purely decorative are more distracting than helpful.

4. Avoid colour combinations that are hard to read

Be mindful of how colours interact with each other to either facilitate or inhibit comprehension. White text on black (or the reverse) is often a safe bet. Don’t overdecorate! (See above).

5.  If you’re showing a graph, orient the audience to the axes before plotting the data and make sure they can actually see all of it

I typically show the axes and labels first, making sure to orient everyone to the variables and how they are going to be visualised, and then I reveal the data. This ensures that everyone understands how to interpret the visualisation they are about to see. It is also helpful to restate the key prediction and tell the audience what they should expect to see if the prediction is true, and then plot the data. Use large sizes and clear fonts. I’ve heard way too many people say things like: “You probably can’t read this but…” To that, I want to say: “But you’re the one making the slide! You did this to us!” Don’t be that person.

6.  Use high-resolution images or videos

This is especially true for presentations that will be projected onto a larger surface. If it’s fuzzy on your computer screen, it will look even fuzzier when magnified and projected. Try to integrate high-resolution images and vector graphics to avoid this. When your images contain text, delete those portions and re-enter the text in text boxes that will scale up much more clearly when magnified.

7. When illustrating results, identify one or two key graphs to make your point

The temptation is often to show the audience every single result you found, but this dilutes the overall message you are trying to send. There’s no need to visualise everything: you should focus on the key graphs that tell most or all of the story. If you have built up the presentation in the right way, when the audience see your data visualisation, they will immediately understand what you found and whether it supports your hypothesis. That’s how clear and accessible the graph should be.

8.  Don’t overload the audience with unnecessary complex jargon or acronyms

Every time you introduce a new term or a brand new acronym (BNA), you are asking the audience to do you a favour and commit this new item to working memory. The audience doesn’t know your presentation; they don’t know what’s going to be important later and what isn’t. They’re trusting that you are only presenting information to them that is relevant and they’re doing their best to follow along. Make this process as easy and enjoyable as possible for them. Be judicious with what you ask them to remember or commit to memory. If you can explain a concept without jargon, avoid the jargon!

9. Enhance accessibility

The Web Accessibility Initiative has a great set of guidelines that I will summarise here. Use easy-to-read fonts in large sizes. Make sure there is enough contrast between colours to make them discernible. When giving virtual talks, consider turning on automatic closed captioning. If it’s feasible, provide annotated slide handouts. During the presentation itself, speak clearly and loudly, avoiding unnecessarily complex vocabulary or culturally specific idioms. Where possible, use a microphone. You should also try to verbally describe pertinent parts of visual information on your slides, such as graphics or videos.

10. Use outline slides and marker slides to segment information

Research shows that we understand and remember information better when it comes in bite-size pieces; think of chapters in a book. To incorporate this structure into your talk, break apart the presentation into smaller pieces. Always incorporate an outline slide that previews the structure of the talk and gives the audience a sense of what to expect. Also, use marker slides to communicate that a new section is beginning. And make sure to wrap up each section with a summary slide.

Dorsa Amir is a postdoc in the department of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

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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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Academic Module 3: Giving Academic Presentations

17 Giving Academic Presentations: Talks, Power Points, and Posters

As mentioned earlier, students enrolled in college courses, especially in the U.S., are often required to demonstrate their knowledge and perspectives on a given topic in the form of oral presentations. Before we look at the different formats these presentations may occur in, let’s first look at the tasks of preparing and giving presentations through the lens of audience, purpose, and parameters, or APP.

Audience, Purpose, and Parameters (APP)

Let’s start with the first criterion–the audience.

• When you present information orally, whether informally (e.g. while participating in a discussion in the class) or formally (e.g. a graded individual or group presentation on a topic assigned by the professor), who is the target audience? Generally, students present ideas and information to the members of the classroom community, which include both the professor and other students. In this case, you would again need to decide about the language(s) and the appropriate tone or register you would need to use. In other words, who your audience is informs what you say and what you write in a college course. Therefore, it is very helpful to identify clearly who the target audience is for any academic assignment, especially presentations.

Now, let’s look at the second criterion–the purpose.

• The purpose of a presentation, individual or group, may vary. Some presentations are informative, others are descriptive, and some tend to be persuasive. Some presentations combine all of these elements. The patterns that are used in composing an essay are used in oral presentations as well. To ensure that the presentation matches the assignment, read the assignment guidelines carefully to gauge what the purpose of the presentation is and then ensure that the information is appropriately crafted.

The final criterion of a good presentation is the parameters.

• As you read the guidelines of the presentation, make sure to note what the parameters are: what format are you required to use (speech, Power Point, poster, and so forth); what is the length allowed (how many minutes, for instance); what language(s) and register are you expected to use (e.g. academic English); and so on. In some presentations, there may be time set aside for questions and answers (Q&A) or discussion. Make sure to prepare for that as well, if required.

Common Presentation Formats

The three most common ways in which students formally present information in college courses are as talks/speeches, through Power Points, and with posters.

Talks and Speeches

Many students find the idea of giving a speech or a talk intimidating. That is understandable, but know that all good orators use certain skills and strategies to give interesting and relevant oral presentations. These skills and strategies may vary from one country/culture/context to another. As you adapt your presentation styles to the U.S. college context, think about how a ‘good talk’ is perceived as here.

Watch this video of Chris Anderson, the founder of TedTalk, as he explains how to give great talks. As you watch, try to take notes about strategies that you could use in your talks and presentations in this course and beyond.

Power Points

Students have to often given presentations using such tools as Power Point in college courses. Montgomery College’s Digital Learning Centers offer a helpful workshop titled ‘Power Point Basics’ multiple times in a year. [1]

Another format that is often used to give a presentation is with posters. In academic conferences, for instance, special times and spaces are regularly set aside for poster presentations. In college courses, students may have to work individually or in groups to create and present posters. Some workplaces, as well, may require these skills.  A well-organized poster presentation showcases the presenter’s deep understanding of the topic. Convincing facts are provided, and there are many details and explanations — both in the poster and in the presentation itself. A good poster also contains the right balance of graphics and text, and the presenter remains mindful of the audience, purpose, and parameters provided by the instructor.

• There are many other similar or more interactive formats available for giving presentations, such as Google Slides and Prezi. Explore these formats in your free time and become more familiar with them. They may come in handy in your future academic and professional presentations. ↵

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 Academic Presentations

Academic presentations are an integral part of university study and assessment. Academic presentations may be presented individually or as a group activity but both require the key skills of planning and structuring key information. The key difference between an academic presentation and a general presentation is that it is usually quite formal and includes academic research to evidence the ideas presented. The presentation will include references to credible sources and demonstrate clearly your knowledge and familiarity of the topic.

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Giving a good academic presentation

• Think about the aim of your presentation and what you want to achieve.
• Concentrate on your audience: who   they are and  what   they (want to) know.
• Choose the topic that interests you: involvement and motivation are key to confidence.
• Give your presentation a  clear   and  logical   organization so that everyone can follow.
• Present information  visually : this adds interest to your talk and makes it easier to follow.
• Practise giving your presentation until you are familiar with the key points; this way you may discover any potential problems and check the timing. Besides, practice will also make you feel more confident.

Basic outline / structure

• Introduction: introduce the topic, some basic background, thesis (your stance or argument).
• Outline: provide basic bullet points on the key parts of the presentation.
• Main body: divide the main body into sections.
• Evaluation: always include evaluation. This can be a separate section or part of the main body.
• Conclusion: summarise key points, restate the thesis and make a recommendation / suggestion / prediction.
• Reference list: create one slide with all your sources.
• Questions : be prepared to answer questions.
• Cope with nerves: breathe deeply; it calms you down and stops you from talking too quickly.
• Control your voice: speak clearly and try to sound interesting by changing intonation and rhythm.
• Watch your body language: try to give the impression that you are relaxed and confident.
• Maintain eye contact with your audience: it keeps them interested in what you are saying. For this reason, you should not read.
• Provide visual information, but do not give too many facts at a time. Give your audience enough time to take them in.
• Keep attention by asking rhetorical questions.

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How to Prepare and Give a Scholarly Oral Presentation

• First Online: 01 January 2013

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• Cheryl Gore-Felton Ph.D. 2  

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An important function of being an academic faculty member is building an academic reputation, and one of the best ways to build a reputation is by giving scholarly presentations, particularly those that are oral. Earning the reputation of someone who can give an excellent talk often results in being invited to give keynote addresses at regional and national conferences, which increases a faculty member’s visibility along with his or her area of research. Given the importance of oral presentations, it is surprising that few graduate or medical programs provide courses on how to give a talk. This is unfortunate because there are skills that can be learned and strategies that can be used to improve one’s ability to give an interesting, well-received oral presentation. To that end, the aim of this chapter is to provide faculty with best practices and tips on preparing and giving an academic oral presentation.

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Gore-Felton, C. (2013). How to Prepare and Give a Scholarly Oral Presentation. In: Roberts, L. (eds) The Academic Medicine Handbook. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5693-3_37

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Academic presentations: Structure

• Presentation Design
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“A solid structure is the foundation of a coherent presentation, and shows the relationship between the parts and whole.” Nancy Duarte,  Resonate

A presentation that has a strong, clear structure is a presentation that is easy to follow. Without structure, a presentation can be confusing to an audience. How do they know if you are going to cover what they need to know? How can they tell which slides contain the most important points? This page considers some ways that you can organise your slides to give shape to your presentation as a whole.

Basic presentation structure

Every presentation should flow like a good story. It should involve  the audience directly.

• The  beginning  section is where you hook them. Start with the general picture then explain the specific problem and how by listening to your presentation you can solve it for them.
• The  middle  section should contain the main detail of your presentation, and can be organised in a number of ways (two good ones are explained below).
• Finally your  end  section should summarise the presentation and lead the audience to the next step.

Design your slides so that these sections  look distinctive  and any  key points  stand out.

Beginning section

This section is all about drawing the audience in; giving them a reason to want to listen to the main part of your presentation.

You can include any or all of the following:

• A really well designed title slide that grabs the attention
• A slide that gives the audience the big picture
• A slide that shows what you will be focusing on
• A slide that uses the word 'you' or 'your' in the title to connect with the audience
• A slide that tells the audience what is to come in your presentation (its structure)

After your title slide, you need slides covering these areas

Middle section structure option 1 - key points

Several authors suggest using a structure that involves an introduction followed by a middle section containing key point slides (usually 3).

The ideas is that there is a  hierarchy  of slides so that after each key point you have other slides that explain or add detail to that key point.

Cliff Atkinson (writer of the book  Beyond Bullet Points ) suggested using a table in MSWord (similar to the one in the template that is available to download at the bottom of this page) to help you structure and plan your presentation before you even open PowerPoint. This means you can concentrate on your story before getting distracted by design and content issues. We have copy of the book in our library: Beyond Bullet Points:  Beyond Bullet Points .

Middle section option 2 - sparkline

For her book  Resonate  Nancy Duarte looked in detail at the structure of successful presentations throughout history (even back to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address). She discovered that many have the same structural form which she calls a 'sparkline'.

This structure makes a clear distinction between  what is  (the position before the presentation is seen and acted upon) and  what could be  (the position after the presentation is seen and acted upon). The audience is introduced to the what is  state at the beginning of the presentation and then switched back and forth between  what could be  and  what is  several times before ending in the  what could be  condition, which she calls  Reward:New Bliss .

Nancy explains this better here:  Sparkline Overview .

In terms of academic work the  what is  is the current level of knowledge or previous thinking on a subject and the  what could be  is the new knowledge or new thinking. The  new bliss  is what the audience could do or learn next now that they are aware of the change. 

End section

The end of your presentation is a very powerful part because it contains your final words, the ones that the audience will take away with them. After you have finished your middle section, have at least one slide that summarises your main points  and one slide that leaves the audience with  the most important point  of your presentation - the one you would like them to remember even if they forget everything else.

Include slides that show these in your end section

DO NOT  finish with a slide that says  Any Questions?  or  Thanks for Listening  as this a waste of your final slide and does not need a visual image to help the audience understand your words. This slide could potentially be viewed longer than any other slide (whilst you answer your questions or receive feedback) and so you want to make sure it contains something that is important to both you and the audience.

These slides are a waste of your last slide - use the final slide for your most important point not a throwaway.

Template for structuring an academic presentation

This MSWord document is a template for structuring a typical academic presentation, it can be adapted and changed if necessary depending on how long the presentation you need to give is. Try to fill it in using full sentences as these will become your slide titles .

The blue sections are optional. The NEED and TASK sections are most suited to research presentations.

This is designed for a presentation between 20-30 minutes long. Shorter presentations will have no explanatory points and longer presentations will need more explanatory points.

This is adapted from Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points template. See the link to the book above.

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February 20th, 2015

How to win at academic presentations: top tips on what to say and how to say it..

13 comments | 44 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

You really can’t escape presentations as a researcher. If you want to submit your work to a conference, then you’ll need to be willing to present (unless you only ever want to do posters. In which case what on earth is wrong with you?). Most job or training interviews will ask you to deliver a presentation. You’ll also quite often give less formal presentations as part of project meetings. And of course lots of researchers also ‘present’ when they’re teaching.

Despite this, how to give a good presentation is something you’re typically left to work out for yourself. It’s similar to ‘how to write well’ which you also just have to try to pick up as you go along. I do wonder if perhaps this explains why lots of academics are quite poor writers – and, yes, poor presenters. Both presenting and writing are skills, and mastering them takes time. But I do think there’s some general advice that can be helpful when thinking about presentations. This is developed both from my experience of presenting and also my experience of being in the audience, for both good and bad talks.

Image credit: Pixabay  binpage  CC0 Public Domain

Before I start though, I think any advice should come with two caveats:

1. Your best presentation style will be the one you’re most comfortable with.

This might mean that some of the advice below just doesn’t work for you. If you feel much more confident with text heavy slides and you struggle to make slides more visual without losing the flow of your argument, then by all means stick to this. What I would suggest is that it’s worth at least experimenting with the tips below. Volunteer for an internal presentation (journal or methods clubs are good for this) and have a go at presenting in a different way to usual.

2. All advice is easier said than done, and I’m sure I don’t follow my own recommendations half the time!

This is perhaps less a caveat than a confession. I really just want to acknowledge that presenting can be hard, that it’s not a skill we get a lot of explicit guidance on as researchers, and that often we’re just doing the best we can in the time available. The tips below are meant to be helpful suggestions, and not a critique of anyone who does things differently.

So, here’s my top tips for academic presentations:

What to say

• There are three things you must do: Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you’ve told them.
• Do not miss any of the above steps!
• The first part should be actually telling them something about the content – “I’m going to talk to you today about why we’re missing the potential of eHealth by ignoring user needs” for example. Not one of those slides that just reads “OVERVIEW: Introduction. Methods. Results. Conclusions.” That’s not actually telling them anything, and it’s dull dull dull.
• The recap is your chance to hammer your point (or what you hope is your point) home. What’s the take home titbit that you want the audience to remember? If they were to go up to their colleagues tomorrow and say “I saw an interesting talk yesterday that showed ….” – what do you want that last part to be?
• Talks, like research papers and essays, are not a detective novel. You don’t have to make the audience wait until the end to find out what the conclusion is. This is actually more true the shorter the presentation is. If you’ve only got 5 minutes, you need to give them the take home message really really soon.
• Only include data and diagrams you will explain. This goes for both qualitative and quantitative. If you are going to present huge tables of analyses, then at least be nice enough to highlight the bits you expect the audience to look at. Sometimes I get the impression people just stick these in to prove they did them. If you’re going to include big chunks of transcripts from interview data, then again make sure you highlight the main points.
• Don’t fill your talk with bits that are anticipated question rebuttals. I get this impression a lot in PhD student talks (though possibly the fault is their supervisors from over use of the “your reviewer will pick that up as a problem!!!” refrain). This is when people go into huge detail about a particular method or finding, or a very defensive justification of a theory or interpretation. If someone wants to critique you on these issues, let them do so in the Q&A (this doesn’t stop you preparing for them. You can still write notes for yourself about how to respond to possible comments, which can be very helpful). Don’t however mess up the flow of your talk or take time away from more interesting parts just because you want to nervously pre-empt someone picking a hole in your methodology.

How to say it

• Within the time limit! Lots of people seem to struggle with this (if the number of people going over time at conferences is anything to go by). I think sticking to time is less about it being a good talk (though probably the two correlate) and more about respecting both your audience and the other speakers whose time you’re cutting into. This is another good reason to use the “state the findings first” approach mentioned above, as then even if you have to skip your final slides you’ve already made your point.
• If you’re really fretting about the idea of skipping to your last slides to quickly summarise the conclusions, just think of it this way: you’re immediately making your Q&A part easier on yourself, as pretty much whatever someone asks you can say “Well actually that was something I was going to cover in slide 7” and then go back to that and discuss it. That’s kind of cheeky though, so don’t tell anyone I told you…
• Visual! The slide should not be your exact talk, in text form, while you stand and read it out. There should be some kind of added value of me coming to hear you speak, or at the very least you shouldn’t bore me to death by just reading word-for-word from a slide that I finished reading in 30 secs but you’ll be reading out loud for 3 minutes. Similarly, put as little text on as possible – just the headlines if you can. It can be hard in academic talks to go easy on the text, but you can try at least to split up the text heavy slides with a few images, and white space on the slides will make what you do include much easier to absorb!
• You don’t automatically have to use PowerPoint, though I’d probably advise caution until academic conferences catch up with the times and offer stable internet connections/ anything other than archaic laptops and projectors. I’ve seen quite a few presentations using  Prezi , and my issue in most cases has been Why are you using this instead of PowerPoint ? Specifically, Prezi enables non-linear presentations – and I can think of lots of great uses for this, such as showing a changing process, showing how certain things nest inside others, covering different spots before swooping out to the big picture and so on. But quite often people still do a standard linear presentation – they just give the audience mild motion sickness while doing so. Think about the platform you’re using and whether it adds anything. I’ve seen someone do a great presentation just using  Stich It  for example, which is a programme that stitches together different webpages into a slideshow. This worked because the format matched and aided the talk, which was going through different representations of work online.
• Watch this.  You Suck at Powerpoint: 5 Shocking Design Mistakes You Need To Avoid. It’s brilliant.

Finally, I think the most important thing I can say is “ You are a better speaker than you think you are, and no-one thinks you look nervous. ” Practically everyone I know has said at some point “ Oh that went really badly, I bet everyone could tell I was nervous ” and genuinely in not a single case has that been true. Remember you are far more aware of your body and any slight differences in your voice than anyone else in the audience. They are also far more interested in the talk and the slides than wondering if you look a bit peaky. And even if they do, if anything I think it can make them more sympathetic! We’ve all been there after all.

The other fear I know everyone has is that someone in the audience will make their life miserable during the Q&A. Again, most audiences I’ve known are friendly. Most conferences now have half a dozen parallel sessions competing for audience interest, so remember that if they’ve turned up to yours it’s because they are genuinely interested in what you have to present. Yes, they might ask hard questions, but because they really want to know the answer – they think the work you do is important and so we should ask important questions about it. There’s also nothing wrong with saying “I hadn’t thought about that.” Maybe follow with “That’s really useful to bring up thank you – could we perhaps a quick chat about it after the talk?” This stops you getting embroiled in a live debate on stage (if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy that!), will probably flatter the person asking the question, and best of all gives you an opportunity to have a proper discussion with someone who might be able to help you.

I guess it’s possible that there could be a conference where your boss’s worst enemy is there and deliberately attempting to trip you up or humiliate you. If this ever does happen though, be assured that the rest of the audience can spot it a mile off, and insolent people like me are probably already making disparaging comments about them on twitter.

This piece originally appeared on the author’s personal blog and is reposted with permission.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our  Comments Policy  if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.

About the Author

Sarah Knowles is a Research Fellow with the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. She currently works in the Centre for Primary Care at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on mental health, and she works on a variety of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and qualitative studies to evaluate mental health treatments. Her main research interests are e-health and mental health technologies, co-morbidity of mental and physical health problems, user-led design and patient and public involvement in research. She tweets @dr_know.

About the author

13 Comments

• Pingback: From my inbox, "How to win at academic presentations: top tips on what to say and how to say it" | patrick r. lowenthal
• Pingback: How to win at academic presentations: top tips on what to say and how to say it. | Nader Ale Ebrahim
• Pingback: How to win at academic presentations: top tips on what to say and how to say it. | MULD

Great presentation tips – as I also found the academic environment does not typically give good evaluative feedback on presentations. My other tip would be to join a local Toastmasters club – they are international. I found the club immensely helpful beyond just supporting my communication skills, they also have a leadership track.

• Pingback: 20 Tips for Top Academic Presentations | Jographies
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• Pingback: How to win at academic presentations: top tips on what to say and how to say it. | Erik Champion

Good summary. I would add a couple of things: Consider carefully beforehand who your audience is and what they need to know or (should) want to know about the topic. Don’t just tell people what you want to tell them, tell them something they need to know. In addition, think of your presentation in terms of a STORY. Tell a good story. This engages your audience. Part of the hard part of presentations is figuring out what the story really is, and again, why the audience needs to know this story. And go from there. I also recommend the book “Slideology” by Nancy Duarte. A must read for giving excellent presentations.

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Thank you Sarah, terrific blogpost! It has made me really love presenting for a change. Any advice on how to get around thinking you might forget something and freeze during the presentation because it wasn’t written on the slide??

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How to give a great academic presentation.

Read a summary or generate practice questions using the INOMICS AI tool

Whether you’re a graduate student giving a presentation for a course or a researcher presenting at a conference, being able to give an engaging and well-prepared presentation is a valuable skill for anyone in academia – in COVID times it is invaluable . Today, hardly a talk is given without an accompanying PowerPoint presentation full of flashy graphs, images, exploding sub-titles, and often far too many bullet points.

In this post, we will offer you specific tips on how to hone your presentation and sharpen your speech in order to give an interesting, memorable and overall successful academic presentation. Building on past blog articles including  Dress Code for Academic Conferences  and  How to Write a Cover Letter , this post will offer you advice that can be applied across a range of situations that you will face time and again throughout your career. So, without further ado.

1. Tailor your talk to your audience

Although you never want to underestimate the intelligence and experience of your audience, you also need to be aware of the specific crowd to which you are speaking. If you are at a highly technical conference for researchers in your subfield, going into great detail and skipping over any basic background research would be a good idea. If you are attending an interdisciplinary seminar the following month, however, simply adapting the same presentation is not a good idea.

Take the time to make sure your presentation reflects the education level, interests and general make-up of your audience, and your talk will necessarily have a better reception.

2. Keep text to a minimum

The idea of a visual aid is that it should accompany your presentation, not replace it. Thus, your slides should offer complementary information, rather than forcing your audience to try to simultaneously read and listen to you talk.

Always use a font that is easy to read and keep the size large enough so that even those at the back of the room or lecture hall can see every word. However, images and graphs are always better than words – a simple slide accompanied by a great verbal description is your best option. Check out more tips for designing a persuasive presentation .

3. Practice, practice, practice

Even if you feel completely confident in your presentation skills, it’s always a good idea to rehearse in order to give the best talk possible. Through practice you become more comfortable each element of your presentation and are less likely to forget small but important things such as an introduction of who you are and where you work or study.

By practicing you can make sure that your slides are organized in such a way as to create a good flow for your points, you become more comfortable with all of the transition points and you have the chance to make any necessary changes before you find yourself on stage.

4. Harness your nerves

Even if you’ve practiced like crazy, it’s normal to still feel nervous. If you make the conscious choice to channel that nervous energy into enthusiasm, you can actually boost your own performance and simultaneously build confidence. Taking long pauses and deep breaths are fine practices, and if done in a controlled manner they can add emphasis to specific points within your talk while also calming you down.

5. Respect your time limit

It is natural to get caught up in your talk and forget to keep track of time. A presentation that drags on forever invariably loses favor with the audience, however, so it’s important to keep to the schedule. Setting a watch or clock on the podium is one way to give yourself a physical reminder of the time without being too obvious about it.

Another option is to ask a friend or colleague to give you a reminder when you’ve hit the halfway point or when you only have five minutes remaining of your allotted time. If you choose to use a reminder, remember not to speed up or rush even if you feel like you’re running out of time and still have lots to say. Prepare for this scenario ahead of time and choose which slides you could skip if need be. Regardless of whether you’ve had to skip certain sections, always have a strong conclusion planned. People tend to remember the beginning and end of events the best, so going out strong is important. Finally, always thank your audience and your host before leaving the stage.

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How To: Give an Academic Presentation

As referenced in the topic on how to write a paper, the last phase of the usual process is actually presenting the work! But since the presentation is a required component for this class, I’m describing it now.

Why a presentation?

For conference papers, you submit the paper, have it accepted (hopefully), then show up to present it. But the paper is more comprehensive than the presentation. Why, then, have the presentation?

The answer to this question is actually very important to how you structure your presentation. The most common mistake I see people make in real academic presenting is that their presentation is basically just a section-by-section summary of the paper itself. That is not what a presentation of the paper needs to be.

To understand why we have a presentation, both in academia and in this class, it’s important to consider what the goal of the presentation is.

What is the goal of a presentation?

There are actually three potential goals of an academic presentation. Which goal you select for yourself will dictate how you structure your presentation.

The goals I generally notice are:

• Make the listener want to read the paper. A presentation is typically ~10 minutes (conferences can be longer, but 10 minutes is usually plenty), and the engagement from the audience is more passive: they just sit back and listen. Reading the paper probably takes closer to ~30 minutes, and it’s more active, deliberate engagement. In the 10 minutes in which you have a captive audience, you’re not going to cover everything that the paper covers. Instead, focus on covering enough so that the listener wants to go and read the full paper. Think of the presentation like a trailer: it advertises the full paper. Focus on the story and the results, and if they want to know more about the related work and methodology, they can go read about them.
• Help the listener decide if they want to read the paper. This is the slightly more honest version of the above. Instead of treating the presentation like a trailer, treat it like an abstract. There are people in the audience who won’t be interested in your work simply because it doesn’t align clearly with theirs. That’s fine. The focus of your presentation is on giving them the information they need to decide if they want to read more. Here, you’d focus more on the related work and the results: related work to help them connect their interests to yours (if such connections are present), and results to help them know if they care how you achieved those results.
• Seed the conversation. The other major difference with the presentation is that you have everyone in the room with you. They’re going to be there when you’re done. You’re going to chat over coffee and lunch. Your goal with your presentation is to give y’all something to talk about after the talk is done. If this is your focus, then you’ll emphasize more the kinds of feedback you want: you’ll ask direct questions about what you should do next, or what might explain the results that you have. Under this goal, you know that you already got the paper accepted: you don’t need to defend it anymore. Instead, here, you’re using the time to make your future work even better.

You’re welcome to choose any of these goals for how you orient your presentation in this class, of course. The main thing is: consider your listener. You’re not just checking off boxes on a rubric (we don’t have a rubric for assessing your presentation). Your goal is for the presentation to be interesting to the viewer.

What are some common mistakes?

So, what are the common mistakes people make? Here are five I’ve seen most often:

• Restate the paper. I referenced this above, but it’s worth repeating. You have only 10 minutes to talk about your work. Focus on your work. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on the related work section, or even the methodology unless it’s particularly novel. Those are the pieces of your work that get the paper accepted, but they’re not particularly crucial for the presentation itself.
• Stick to the original content exclusively. This one doesn’t really apply to this class’s papers, but it’s worth mentioning anyway. In academic publishing, there’s typically a long (5-10 month) lag time between when you submit a paper and when you present it. You do a lot of work in that time. I’ve seen a lot of presentations where the presenter will mention off-handedly, “Oh yes, since we submitted the paper, these things have changed.” If they’ve changed, include that in your presentation. Some of the best presentations I’ve seen have said, “The paper covers the Fall 2016 data, but I’m going to talk about the Spring 2017 data that wasn’t available at the time.” That keeps the presentation current.
• Under-rehearse. Few things are more painful than watching someone get up and present who isn’t familiar with what they’re presenting. Make an outline, make a loose script, run through it a couple times. You have even less excuse for this in this class because you get to record it: if your first version is under-rehearsed, then make that your rehearsal and record it again.
• Over-rehearse. This one is riskier in this class. Few things are more boring than listening to someone just read a script. If you’re just reading a script, you may as well just be sending the paper and putting it into a text-to-speech machine. The presentation ought to be a little more spontaneous and natural. The viewer wants to hear your excitement, your confusion, your frustration. This sort of context is what makes a presentation more dynamic than a paper: we see the human behind the work, not just the work. That’s a liability in the peer review process, but you’ve already passed that: now it’s an asset.
• Interpret questions/critiques as challenges. Again, less relevant in this class, but highly relevant in real presentations. One thing we see a lot, especially among first-time presenters, is a tendency to view questions as challenges. The natural response tends to be to defend the work. Most questions, however, are just that: questions. “Why dd you use methodology A instead of B?”, for example, can be interpreted as suggesting, “B is better”, but it more likely means, “There are probably interesting details of this work that led you to choose A, and I’m curious what they are.” Your audience knows your work is never done, and it’s totally fine to say “I don’t know” or “That’s next!”

For this Class

A lot of those details are for real academic publishing, which ideally we’re preparing you for. However, this presentation is also first and foremost a class assignment. So, more specifically, what function does it serve in  this class?

The final video is a chance to present your work in a more accessible, easily-consumable way. Papers can be hard to read, especially when they include a lot of detail (as papers in this class likely will). Presentations lends themselves to the more informal dialog and presentation style. So, in your presentations, you’re looking at about 5-10 minutes (for your mentor’s sanity, keep it under 10 minutes) to relatively quickly cover the motivation behind your work, what you decided to do, and how it turned out. The goal of this is to give an easier anchor for your classmates to be able to browse and consume what went on in this class this semester. The main focus of this is community-building.

The presentation should be organized, but it doesn’t have to be super-formal. You’re welcome to include a video demo, for example, and you don’t have to worry about editing in super-clean transitions — it’s fine, for example, to start off in a PowerPoint presentation and switch to a demo without editing out closing PowerPoint. Imagine you’re standing at a podium: we’d expect you to close PowerPoint and switch over to a browser, so that can be in your video as well.

Most importantly, the goals stated above still apply to this class. Maybe your goal is to get the viewer to read the paper. Maybe it’s just to give them the information necessary to decide if they should read the paper. Maybe it’s to spark good discussion and reviews, and to get you feedback for future work in this area. Selecting a goal will make your presentation far more engaging.

Remember, many of last semester’s presentations in the Files folder on Canvas. Check them out!

10 tips for academic talks

Giving a good academic talk takes effort.

I'm not a master public speaker, and I've met my quota of bad academic talks. But, I'm better than I was when I started. And, I improve every year.

Since my own students are starting to give talks now, I thought I'd share what I've learned (the hard way) over the years:

• The audience determines the talk.
• Practice almost makes perfect.
• Nervous energy is exploitable.
• Every talk should motivate a problem.
• An academic talk is about an idea, not a paper.
• Slides must not overwhelm the viewer.
• Images and diagrams are better than text.
• Math's benefit must outweigh the loss of attention.
• Style matters.
• Questions are not random.

Update : A few of my talks are available online: [ ICFP 2012 ] [ Stanford 2011 ]

The biggest mistake academics make is misjudging their audience.

I've been to (many) talks where the talk itself was presented to one or two people in a room of hundreds.

(Disclaimer: I've given my fair share of these talks too.)

When preparing a talk, glance at the program for the event, or ask your host what you should expect of the audience in terms of background knowledge.

Aim appropriately.

When we speak on favored topics, our instinct is to gloss over concepts and details that once took us the better part of grad school to understand.

It feels awkward, or even insulting, to recap "introductory" material.

There's also a negative feedback mechanism in academic culture.

When you present to a broader audience, experts in your own specialty will claim to be annoyed and chastise you in public Q & A to stroke their egos.

Don't listen to them. You're not presenting to just them.

Always ask:

• What needs to be understood to convey the big idea?
• What can I expect the audience to already know?

Practice is the key to a "natural" delivery.

I have to practice ten times before I hit diminishing returns.

Keep in mind that you're not trying to memorize a talk. You're rehearsing its presentation. Memorizing a talk would take too much practice.

The good news is that not all practice has to be in front of a small group.

Practice a talk alone a lot, and then once or twice with a group.

The advantage of practicing with a small group is that it's harder to speak to a small group than a large audience.

Concentrate practice on your opening, since a smooth opening sets up a successful talk. The shower is a great place to practice openings.

Consider recording later practice talks, and listen to them for awkward transitions, slides that run too long or inadequate explanations.

If the transition from one topic to another is awkward, add a slide in the middle to make it more gradual. (Keynote transition animations can signal how abrupt the transition is going to be.)

If a slide runs long (more than 30-60 seconds), break it into multiple slides.

If you feel you're not explaining a concept well, first consider whether the concept is essential. If it's not, just cut it out. Otherwise, lengthen the explanation and add more slides.

Public speaking is a common fear.

It is possible to eliminate that fear through extensive experience. But, until you get rid of it, you'll have to learn to exploit it.

Most folks get "nerves" or "the jitters" before a big talk because there is a natural fear of embarrassment.

The body misinterprets that fear as an existential crisis.

It releases adrenaline. Higher reasoning slows. Reactions go autonomic.

(That's why practice is critical: your talk must be instinct.)

Some adrenaline is good. Too much will leave you a chattering mess.

Understanding your biology allows you to take advantage of it.

You need to regulate and exploit your adrenaline.

Vigorous activity--I like doing push-ups--is an effective way to manage adrenaline. Even if you can't do many push-ups, you'll be able to crank them out right before you give a talk.

I once gave a TV interview on 45 minutes' notice. I hadn't shaved that day, and I needed to grab presentable clothes. I spent those 45 minutes literally running to get what I needed to go on camera.

When the reporter walked in, I felt exhausted.

When I saw the interview on TV, I was stunned: it was the most confident and natural-sounding TV interview I'd ever given.

If you're feeling nerves during the day of the talk, cut them off with music. I prefer "epic" music--the kind you find in soundtracks for battle scenes. Find music that works for you. If it has drums or bass that sync with a normal heartbeat, it can slow down a racing heart.

If you find your heart racing right before a talk, take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can. Exhale slowly and take another. Repeat until your heart slows down. (It has to slow down eventually.)

Over the past four years, I've given fifty public talks (and countless classroom lectures which don't count).

With each talk, my pre-talk nerves diminished.

As I was about to give the fourtieth talk, I noticed I didn't feel nervous.

After enough talks, the fear just goes away.

I say this as an introvert too shy to even call on the phone until college.

Every talk needs motivation: Why should the audience grant you attention?

Avoid the standard cliches that everyone has heard.

I opened a recent talk on automating a technique in my research with:

One of the best academic talks I have ever heard spent over half the alloted time motivating why something that was assumed to be a long-solved problem was not a solved problem.

None of the academic solutions had made a dent in practice.

I often have two motivations for my work--the "top-down" motivation and the "bottom-up" motivation.

A top-down motive is one that the taxpayer should care about: why some research ultimately solves a problem of societal importance.

These end with "safer software," "more efficient cars" and "cures cancer."

The bottom-up motive is an argument for the intellectual challenge of the problem or the elegance of its solution.

These motives sound like, "If we can do X via Y, and X is similar to Z, can we do Z via Y or something Y-like?" or "There are four possible combinations of two attributes, but so far we only have a name for three of those combinations; what is the fourth like?"

A bottom-up motivation situates the contribution to human knowledge.

Not every talk has to have both kinds of motivation, but thinking of a contribution in top-down and bottom-up terms helps find one to present to the target audience.

There's a misconception that an academic talk based on a paper has to be a lecture on what's in the paper.

It takes hours of thoughtful reading to digest the average paper in detail.

At best, a talk can catalyze that digestion; it cannot replace it.

The talk should present the same idea in the paper, but on its own terms.

After you've rehearsed your talk, ask the following questions:

• Could a listener remember the motivation?
• Could a listener state the main idea?
• Could a listener summarize the talk in three sentences?
• Could a motivated listener recreate the result in three weeks?
• Would a listener know when to consult the paper?

PowerPoint has kneecapped public speaking.

People no longer "deliver a speech "; they "present slides ."

PowerPoint encourages bad habits and even makes new ones possible.

Chief among them is visual infoglut.

In my earlier talks, I was no saint in this regard.

Sitting in the audience during other talks, I've realized that my brain shuts off when too much information is up on a slide.

Too much information means not much beyond three short bullet points.

I've since switched to a style where the majority of my slides contain at most a single line of text, or nothing but a diagram.

If I have to present a large diagram, I present it node by node and edge by edge, using the animation features of Keynote to avoid overwhelming.

I used to create slides like this:

These days, I would break this information into five or six slides.

Three years ago, I restricted my text to three short bullet points:

That's about as much information as I like to have on a slide.

But, the majority of my slides now contain only a single line; for example:

I'm not saying this is the only way to give a good talk, but I have found that constraining the information I have on a slide guarantees the audience can follow, and it forces me to structure the talk as a linear narrative.

It aids flow.

After you've rehearsed a talk, ask yourself:

• Was there a slide where I spent too much time talking?
• Was there a slide I could have done without?

Expand or cull as necessary.

One of the good things about modern presentation software is that it enables imagery and diagrams that were not possible not long ago.

Wherever an image suffices to convey an idea, I prefer it to text.

But, images and diagrams can also become too complex.

I build up diagrams node by node and edge by edge using the animation facilities provided by the software.

Even for the following diagram, I used four slides connected by animations:

I've heard from psychologists that a diagram with seven components is about as large as you can get before viewers can't keep the whole diagram in their head. That seems true in my experience.

Visual symmetry allows mental compression, doubling the size of diagrams that viewers can attend to. It even aids comprehension.

A Tuftean trick is to avoid needless embellishment on charts.

For instance, in many cases, the shape of a plot matters much more than the specific values on the plot; that is, what's of interest is whether some agent is growing exponentially, linearly, quadratically, etc.

Whenever that is the case, I omit axes, scales and tick marks: I draw just the lines or bars themselves.

The hardest part of giving a good technical talk is not using much math.

Mathematics is an expressive and precise language.

Even for experts, it takes time for a reader to parse and translate mathematics into internal mental concepts.

Because of the mental effort involved, reading mathematics disengages the reader from the speaker.

Mathematics must be used sparingly.

When I got to this slide in my first talk, I accidentally ended it:

Not only could I have defined the function "local-inlinable" in plain english (or with a diagram), the condition on thes slide takes minutes to unwind. I gave my audience 30 seconds.

Mentally, everyone abandoned ship.

These days, as a rule, I use animation to make sure that when I use math, I never introduce more than 4-7 symbols at a time.

Each equation receives its own slide.

Few people learn mathematics straight from formal definitions.

The mind is an engine for inferring the general from the specific.

Where possible, I define a concept in terms of a few examples, and let the reader's mind interpolate the general definition. It feels dirty, but it works!

I now ask the following questions of any math I use in a talk:

• Is understanding this math essential to the idea?
• Is there no way to use a diagram or analogy instead?
• Is there no way to use plain english instead?
• Is it infeasible to infer the concept with examples?

If the answer to all four questions is "Yes," I'll use math. If not, I don't.

I've found that I can cut out almost all of the mathematics from my talks.

The feedback from audiences has been positive.

Just to convince the audience that there is a formalism for the work, I sometimes have one slide at the end with most of the mathematics:

Something that's surprised me is the degree to which an audience will soak in style and polish.

The choice of font, the lack of gratuitous visual adornment, the balancing of whitespace, and the effort to use intuition-guiding animations affects the feedback I get from the audience after a talk.

The effect is so pronounced that I switched from LaTeX to Keynote for preparing slides.

As a researcher in programming languages, I tend to have a reductionist attitude about languages: every class of problem should be solved by creating an expressive language for describing solutions.

Presentations are a strong counter-example to my viewpoint. It's much easier to create high-quality presentations in Keynote than in LaTeX.

I think the slideshow package in Racket holds a lot of promise for the linguistic development of high-impact presentations, but it's not there yet.

Q & A handling improves with experience.

I've managed to get better by anticipating questions.

By giving practice talks to small groups, you'll find a core set of questions.

Some answers belong in your talk, but those that require lengthier or off-topic diversions can be reserved for a special slide.

Twice, I've managed to anticipate not only the questions asked but also the questioner that asked them. I even prepare an answer slide that includes the likely questioner's name.

For handling unanticipated questions, buy time by reformulating the question as you understand it.

If an exchange lasts long or becomes hostile, thank the questioner and ask to move the discussion after the talk.

Miscellaneous tips

• If you can open with short, clean, original and relevant humor, do it. I recently gave a public talk on information security and spoke after an FBI agent. The agent opened with a childhood story. I started my talk with, "I was also going to tell you a story about information security from my childhood, but I just realized I'm sitting next to an FBI agent, and I forgot to check the statute of limitations." Light-hearted self-deprecation usually works well.
• Never use humor you haven't tested on a practice audience.
• Video record your talks and watch them. It's painful but worth it.
• Never use Comic Sans in a technical talk. I am a Comic Sans bigot. There are others.
• Gesture with your whole body.
• Step away from the podium.
• Pay attention to what you like and don't like in other presentations.
• Code is the same as math in terms of mental effort. Use it sparingly.

Related posts

• The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
• Easy ways to fail a Ph.D.
• Recommended reading for grad students .
• Advice for thesis proposals .
• Productivity tips for academics .
• Academic job hunt advice .
• Successful Ph.D. students: Perseverance, tenacity and cogency .
• The CRAPL: An open source license for academics .

More resources

I recommend the following two short reads without hesitation:

Other academics have weighed in, too. I always recommend Simon Peyton-Jones's notes on how to give a talk .

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10 Essential Tips for a Successful Academic Presentation at Conferences and Events

Introduction

Academic conferences are an excellent opportunity for like-minded individuals to come together and share their interests with each other. These events provide attendees with a chance to learn and share experiences with others who have similar interests, all under one roof. Conferences are usually large in nature, bringing together people from across the country or even across the world.

If you're scheduled to present at an upcoming conference, it's important to remember that the stakes are high. With a lot of people in attendance, you want your presentation to go flawlessly when you have your moment to shine. That's why we've put together this in-depth blog post to help you master your conference presentation with some actionable tips.

As a researcher or academic, finding the right conference with the right audience and effectively sharing your latest research findings can boost your career and keep you updated on developments in your field.

Developing a conference presentation is similar to developing any other presentation - it requires proper preparation, consistency, and the ability to engage with your audience.

Presenting can be nerve-wracking, even for experienced speakers and performers. However, with practice, anyone can become a skilled presenter.

But, before creating your presentation, there are some other issues that will increase your presentation success that you should start considering well before creating your slides.

Here are some tips that you should keep in mind before starting to prepare your presentation.

• Know Your Audience:

Understanding the background, interests, and needs of your audience is essential to deliver an effective presentation. This will help you tailor your content, language, and delivery style to engage your audience and ensure they can easily understand and relate to your message.

• Define Your Objectives:

Before developing your presentation, you should define your objectives, such as what you want to achieve, what message you want to convey, and what action you want your audience to take. This will help you stay focused and make sure your presentation is clear and coherent.

• Develop a Clear and Concise Message:

Your presentation should have a clear and concise message that is easy to understand and remember. Avoid using jargon, complex language, or unnecessary details that could confuse or bore your audience.

• Create an Engaging Presentation:

An engaging presentation should be visually appealing, interactive, and informative. Use storytelling, humor, anecdotes, or case studies to keep your audience interested and involved.

• Use Visual Aids:

Visual aids such as slides, charts, graphs, or videos can enhance your presentation and help your audience understand complex information or data. However, make sure your visual aids are relevant, clear, and easy to read.

• Practice, Practice, Practice:

Practicing your presentation several times before the conference can help you gain confidence, improve your delivery, and identify areas that need improvement. Consider practicing in front of a mirror, recording yourself, or asking a friend to give you feedback.

• Time Yourself:

Keeping track of time during your presentation is crucial to ensure you don't run over or under the allocated time. This will also show your respect for your audience's time and demonstrate your professionalism.

• Prepare for Questions:

Anticipating and preparing for questions that your audience may have can help you deliver a more effective and engaging presentation. Be ready to provide evidence, examples, or references to support your arguments and handle any challenging or unexpected questions.

• Dress Appropriately:

Dressing appropriately for the conference and your presentation can help you make a good first impression, show your professionalism, and convey your respect for your audience and the event.

• Bring Business Cards:

Bringing business cards with your contact information can help you network with other attendees and potential collaborators or employers.

• Follow Up After the Conference:

Following up with your audience and fellow presenters after the conference can help you build relationships, gain feedback, and explore opportunities for future collaborations or publications.

What is an academic conference presentation?

First, let’s get an understanding of what an academic conference presentation is.

An academic conference presentation is a talk given by a researcher or scholar at an academic conference. The purpose of the presentation is to share the researcher's findings or ideas with other researchers and scholars in the same field. The presentation usually includes the researcher's research objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions. Academic conference presentations can be given in various formats, such as oral presentations, poster presentations, or panel discussions. The audience for academic conference presentations is typically composed of other researchers and scholars in the same field, as well as students and professionals interested in the topic.

How to deliver a presentation at an academic event?

An academic should pay attention to several main points while delivering a presentation at an academic conference:

• Start with a clear message:

Before creating your presentation, establish a clear message you want to convey to your audience. This will help you stay focused and deliver a presentation that is consistent and engaging.

• Keep it simple:

Avoid using complicated jargon or technical terms that your audience may not understand. Keep your presentation simple and clear.

• Use visuals:

Incorporate visuals such as graphs, charts, and images to support your presentation and help your audience understand your message.

• Engage your audience:

Engage your audience by asking questions, inviting participation, and making eye contact. This will keep them interested and attentive throughout your presentation.

• Pace yourself:

Keep a steady pace throughout your presentation, and don't rush through your slides. This will help you maintain your audience's attention and avoid losing them.

• Be enthusiastic:

Show your passion and enthusiasm for your research, and convey it to your audience. This will help keep them engaged and interested in your presentation.

• Be confident:

Believe in yourself and your research, and have confidence in your ability to deliver a great presentation.

• Use humor (if appropriate):

Humor can be a great way to break the ice and keep your audience engaged. Just make sure it's appropriate and relevant to your presentation.

• Manage nerves

Finally, don't let nerves get the better of you. Practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and visualization, and remind yourself that everyone gets nervous before a presentation.

How to prepare your presentation slides?

Preparing effective presentation slides is crucial for delivering a successful presentation. Here are some main rules of slide design that you should observe:

• Keep it simple

Avoid cluttering your slides with too much information. Stick to one main point per slide and use bullet points to highlight key information.

• Use visuals

Incorporate images, charts, and graphs to make your presentation more engaging and visually appealing. However, make sure that the visuals are relevant to your content and are not distracting.

• Use legible fonts

Use legible fonts such as Arial, Calibri, or Helvetica, and avoid decorative or fancy fonts. Also, make sure that the font size is large enough to be easily readable by the audience.

• Use contrasting colors

Choose colors that are easy on the eyes and have high contrast to make your text and visuals stand out. Avoid using too many colors or bright colors that can be distracting.

• Limit the amount of text

Avoid putting too much text on a slide. Use short phrases or bullet points to highlight key information. The audience should be able to understand the main message at a glance.

• Use animations and transitions sparingly

Animations and transitions can add interest to your presentation, but use them sparingly. Too much animation or transition can be distracting and take away from the content of your presentation.

• Keep a consistent design

Use a consistent design throughout your presentation, including fonts, colors, and layout. This will help your audience focus on the content and not get distracted by changing designs.

• Test your slides

Before the presentation, make sure to test your slides on the equipment you will be using. Check the font size, color contrast, and overall design to ensure that everything is visible and clear for the audience.

• The maximum number of words

There is no hard and fast rule for the maximum number of words or lines on a slide for optimal readability, as it depends on various factors such as font size, typeface, spacing, and the amount of information being presented. However, as a general guideline, it is recommended to keep the text on each slide concise and to the point, using bullet points rather than full sentences.

• Proportion and alignment

In terms of proportion-related issues, it is important to ensure that the text and any accompanying visuals on the slide are properly aligned and balanced. The use of white space or negative space can be effective in achieving this balance, allowing the eye to rest and making the slide easier to read. It is also important to use appropriate font sizes, making sure that the text is large enough to be easily read from a distance but not so large that it overwhelms the slide.

Managing the presentation time and allocating a Q&A Session at the end of the presentation?

Managing time and conducting a Q&A session at the end of a presentation is crucial to ensure that the audience can engage with the speaker and get their questions answered.

Here are some tips on how to manage time and conduct a successful Q&A session:

• Time Management

When preparing your presentation, be sure to allocate enough time for the Q&A session at the end. Plan to finish your presentation at least 5-10 minutes before the scheduled end time to allow enough time for questions. It's also important to stick to your allotted time during the presentation to ensure that you have enough time for the Q&A session.

• Encourage Questions

Encourage your audience to ask questions throughout your presentation, but also let them know that you will have a dedicated Q&A session at the end. This can help you avoid interruptions during your presentation and ensure that all questions are addressed during the Q&A session.

• Repeat Questions

When someone asks a question, repeat it back to the audience to ensure that everyone heard it and understands what is being asked. This can also help you clarify the question if it's not clear.

• Stay Focused

During the Q&A session, it's important to stay focused on the questions being asked and keep your responses concise. Avoid going off-topic or providing too much detail in your responses, as this can eat up valuable time and make it difficult to address all questions.

• Be Respectful

Be respectful of all questions, even if they are challenging or critical. Avoid getting defensive or dismissive, as this can create a negative atmosphere in the room.

• End on Time

Be sure to end the Q&A session on time, even if there are still unanswered questions. Let the audience know that you are happy to continue the conversation after the presentation and provide your contact information for further discussion.

By following these tips, you can effectively manage your time and conduct a successful Q&A session at the end of your presentation.

In conclusion, delivering a successful presentation at an academic conference requires thorough preparation, clear and concise messaging, engaging presentation design, and effective delivery skills. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can effectively manage your nerves, engage your audience, and communicate your research findings in a compelling way. Remember to practice, time yourself, and be prepared for questions. With these strategies in mind, you can confidently present your work and make a meaningful contribution to your field.

If you enjoyed this article, please do not forget to share it with your friends. And if you need to know how MeetingHand can assist you in planning great academic events, please visit our website or just BOOK A PERSONAL DEMO ith us.!

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Starting a presentation in english: methods and examples.

• By Jake Pool

If you’re going to make it in the professional world, most likely you’ll have to give a presentation in English at some point. No reason to get nervous!

Most of the work involved lies in the introduction. You may or may not need an English presentation PPT file, your topic, audience, or time limit may vary, but a strong opening is a must no matter what! Everything that follows can build from the opening outline you present to your audience.

Let’s look at some guidelines for starting a presentation in English. If you can master this part, you’ll never have to worry about the rest!

Opening in a Presentation in English

While it’s important to have your entire presentation organized and outlined, planning and organization are especially important in the introduction. This is what will guide you through a clear and concise beginning. Let’s look at how to start a presentation with well-organized thoughts .

Introduction Outline

• Introduce yourself and welcome everyone.
• State the purpose of your presentation
• Give a short overview of the presentation

As we say, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. (No need for a more detailed English presentation script!) Let’s examine the first step.

1. Introduce Yourself & Welcome Everyone

The self-introduction is your opportunity to make a good first impression. Be sure to open with a warm welcome and use language that is familiar and natural. Based on your audience, there are a few different expressions you can use to start your presentation.

If you’re presenting to coworkers who may already know you:

• Hello, [name] here. I would like to thank you all for your time. As you may know, I [describe what you do/your job title] I look forward to discussing [topic] today.
• Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone. Thank you for being here. For those who don’t know me, my name is [name], and for those who know me, hello again.

If you’re presenting to people you’ve never met:

• Hello everyone, it’s nice to meet you all. My name is [name] and I am the [job/title].
• Hello. Welcome to [event]. My name is [name] and I am the [job/title]. I’m glad you’re all here.

There are certainly more ways to make an introduction. However, it’s generally best to follow this format:

• Start with a polite welcome and state your name.
• Follow with your job title and/or the reason you’re qualified to speak on the topic being discussed.

2. State the Purpose of Your Presentation

Now that your audience knows who you are and your qualifications, you can state the purpose of your presentation. This is where you clarify to your audience what you’ll be talking about.

So, ask yourself, “ What do I want my audience to get from this presentation? ”

• Do you want your audience to be informed?
• Do you need something from your audience?
• Do you want them to purchase a product?
• Do you want them to do something for the community or your company?

With your goal in mind, you can create the next couple of lines of your presentation. Below are some examples of how to start.

• Let me share with you…
• I’d like to introduce you to [product or service]
• Today I want to discuss…
• I want to breakdown for you [topic]
• Let’s discuss…
• Today I will present the results of my research on [topic]
• By the end of this presentation, you’ll understand [topic]
• My goal is to explain…
• As you know, we’ll be talking about…

When talking about the purpose of your presentation, stick to your goals. You purpose statement should be only one to three sentences. That way, you can give your audience a clear sense of purpose that sets them up for the rest of the presentation.

3. A Short Overview of the Presentation

The final step in starting your presentation is to give a short outline of what you’ll be presenting. People like a map of what to expect from a presentation.

It helps them organize their thoughts and gives a sense of order. Also, it lets the audience know why they’re listening to you. This is what you’ll use to grab their attention, and help them stay focused throughout the presentation.

Here are some examples of how you can outline your presentation:

• Today, I’m going to cover… Then we’ll talk about… Lastly, I’ll close on…
• We’re going to be covering some key information you need to know, including…
• My aim with this presentation is to get you to… To do that we’ll be talking about…
• I’ve divided my presentation into [number] sections… [List the sections]
• Over the next [length of your presentation] I’m going to discuss…

That’s it! It’s as simple as 1-2-3. If you have a fear of public speaking or are not confident about presenting to a group of people, follow these three steps. It’s a simple structure that can get you off to a good start. With that in mind, there are other ways to bring your introduction to the next level too! Read on for bonus tips on how to really engage your audience, beyond the basics.

For a Strong Presentation in English, Engage your Audience

Presentations aren’t everyone’s strongest ability, and that’s OK. If you’re newer to presenting in English, the steps above are the basics to getting started. Once you’re more comfortable with presenting, though, you can go a step further with some extra tricks that can really wow your audience.

Mastering the skill of engaging an audience will take experience. Fortunately, there are many famous speakers out there you can model for capturing attention. Also, there are some common techniques that English-speakers use to gain an audience’s attention.

*How and when you use these techniques in your introduction is at your discretion, as long as you cover the 3 steps of the introduction outline that we discussed earlier.*

Do or say something shocking.

The purpose of shocking your audience is to immediately engage them. You can make a loud noise and somehow relate the noise to your presentation. Or, you can say, “ Did you know that… ” and follow with a shocking story or statistic. Either way, the objective is to create surprise to draw their attention.

Tell a story

Telling a story related to your presentation is a great way to get the audience listening to you.

You can start by saying, “ On my way to [location] the other day… ” or “ On my way here, I was reminded of… ” and then follow with a story. A good story can make your presentation memorable.

Ask your audience to take part

Sometimes a good introduction that captures attention will involve asking for help from the audience. You can ask the audience to play a quick game or solve a puzzle that’s related to your presentation. Also, you could engage the audience with a group exercise. This is a great way to get people involved in your presentation.

There are many more ways to engage the audience, so get creative and see what you can think up! Here are some resources that will help you get started.

Also, if you want to get better at public speaking (and help your English speaking too!), a great organization to know about is the Toastmasters . The organization is dedicated to helping you be a better speaker, and there are many local groups in America. They offer free lessons and events to help you master your English speaking, and also offer additional help to paying members.

The Takeaway

A presentation in English? No problem, as long as your introduction sets you up for success . Admittedly, this can be easier said than done. Native speakers and non-native speakers alike sometimes struggle with getting a good start on their English presentation. But the advice above can help you get the confidence you need to lay a good foundation for your next speech !

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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• How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on April 8, 2022 by Courtney Gahan and Jack Caulfield. Revised on June 1, 2023.

Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words. Paraphrasing a source involves changing the wording while preserving the original meaning.

Paraphrasing is an alternative to  quoting (copying someone’s exact words and putting them in quotation marks ). In academic writing, it’s usually better to integrate sources by paraphrasing instead of quoting. It shows that you have understood the source, reads more smoothly, and keeps your own voice front and center.

Every time you paraphrase, it’s important to cite the source . Also take care not to use wording that is too similar to the original. Otherwise, you could be at risk of committing plagiarism .

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Table of contents

How to paraphrase in five easy steps, how to paraphrase correctly, examples of paraphrasing, how to cite a paraphrase, paraphrasing vs. quoting, paraphrasing vs. summarizing, avoiding plagiarism when you paraphrase, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about paraphrasing.

If you’re struggling to get to grips with the process of paraphrasing, check out our easy step-by-step guide in the video below.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Putting an idea into your own words can be easier said than done. Let’s say you want to paraphrase the text below, about population decline in a particular species of sea snails.

Incorrect paraphrasing

You might make a first attempt to paraphrase it by swapping out a few words for  synonyms .

Like other sea creatures inhabiting the vicinity of highly populated coasts, horse conchs have lost substantial territory to advancement and contamination , including preferred breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf home is also heating up due to global warming , which scientists think further puts pressure on the creatures , predicated upon the harmful effects extra warmth has on other large mollusks (Barnett, 2022).

This attempt at paraphrasing doesn’t change the sentence structure or order of information, only some of the word choices. And the synonyms chosen are poor:

• “Advancement and contamination” doesn’t really convey the same meaning as “development and pollution.”
• Sometimes the changes make the tone less academic: “home” for “habitat” and “sea creatures” for “marine animals.”
• Adding phrases like “inhabiting the vicinity of” and “puts pressure on” makes the text needlessly long-winded.
• Global warming is related to climate change, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Because of this, the text reads awkwardly, is longer than it needs to be, and remains too close to the original phrasing. This means you risk being accused of plagiarism .

Correct paraphrasing

Let’s look at a more effective way of paraphrasing the same text.

Here, we’ve:

• Only included the information that’s relevant to our argument (note that the paraphrase is shorter than the original)
• Introduced the information with the signal phrase “Scientists believe that …”
• Retained key terms like “development and pollution,” since changing them could alter the meaning
• Structured sentences in our own way instead of copying the structure of the original
• Started from a different point, presenting information in a different order

Because of this, we’re able to clearly convey the relevant information from the source without sticking too close to the original phrasing.

Explore the tabs below to see examples of paraphrasing in action.

• Journal article
• Newspaper article
• Magazine article

Once you have your perfectly paraphrased text, you need to ensure you credit the original author. You’ll always paraphrase sources in the same way, but you’ll have to use a different type of in-text citation depending on what citation style you follow.

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It’s a good idea to paraphrase instead of quoting in most cases because:

• Paraphrasing shows that you fully understand the meaning of a text
• Your own voice remains dominant throughout your paper
• Quotes reduce the readability of your text

But that doesn’t mean you should never quote. Quotes are appropriate when:

• Giving a precise definition
• Saying something about the author’s language or style (e.g., in a literary analysis paper)
• Providing evidence in support of an argument
• Critiquing or analyzing a specific claim

A paraphrase puts a specific passage into your own words. It’s typically a similar length to the original text, or slightly shorter.

When you boil a longer piece of writing down to the key points, so that the result is a lot shorter than the original, this is called summarizing .

Paraphrasing and quoting are important tools for presenting specific information from sources. But if the information you want to include is more general (e.g., the overarching argument of a whole article), summarizing is more appropriate.

When paraphrasing, you have to be careful to avoid accidental plagiarism .

This can happen if the paraphrase is too similar to the original quote, with phrases or whole sentences that are identical (and should therefore be in quotation marks). It can also happen if you fail to properly cite the source.

Paraphrasing tools are widely used by students, and can be especially useful for non-native speakers who may find academic writing particularly challenging. While these can be helpful for a bit of extra inspiration, use these tools sparingly, keeping academic integrity in mind.

To make sure you’ve properly paraphrased and cited all your sources, you could elect to run a plagiarism check before submitting your paper. And of course, always be sure to read your source material yourself and take the first stab at paraphrasing on your own.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Critical thinking

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

To paraphrase effectively, don’t just take the original sentence and swap out some of the words for synonyms. Instead, try:

• Reformulating the sentence (e.g., change active to passive , or start from a different point)
• Combining information from multiple sentences into one
• Leaving out information from the original that isn’t relevant to your point
• Using synonyms where they don’t distort the meaning

The main point is to ensure you don’t just copy the structure of the original text, but instead reformulate the idea in your own words.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source .

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To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

• Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
• You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
• You’re presenting a precise definition
• You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

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Gahan, C. & Caulfield, J. (2023, June 01). How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/how-to-paraphrase/

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