: : In article <344E9BC4.2FEA at geocities.com>, arreola at geocities.com wrote:
: : > I going to be giving a workshop to undergrads & grad students on how to
: : > give a poster/paper. Can you please tell me the top 5 pieces of advice
: : > that you give friends or students about giving a great presentation?
: : > This will most likely be given to students who have little presentation
: : > experience.
: : >
: : > Thanks!
:
Talk:
1) Practice. Everyone can learn this skill, and practicing is
the way to do it. Practice in front of other people, as many other
people, as will listen to you. Small groups can be good, because
people will be more free to give feedback, especially junior
people. Practice in front of senior people; practice in front of
your mother; practice in front of no audience at all.
2) Before switching to the next slide, always, always, give
your audience the motivation for what you are going to show
them. Why are you showing the figure? That has to be answered
before you ask people to look at it.
3) Find someone you feel gives good talks and ask them how
they put their talks together.
4) Avoid extraneous decoration on slides. I, for example, can
recognize every powerpoint background there is. If you put
one on the screen, I'm thinking "Is that azure-blue number
3?"
5) Recognize the prevailing style in your subfield, and
work within it. Mathematicians & physicists use overheads,
for example. Biophysicists use black/white slides with
relatively complicated figures on each slide. Physicians
use simple slides, and like to have hypotheses & experimental
designs stated in text slides.
6) Don't read your talk. For short talks (i.e. 10-15 slide
presentations at the big meetings) you may have to know
your talk word for word, but it is much more difficult to
listen to talks that someone is reading. Some people
can get away with this, because they are so practiced
at reading a performance, but I've never seen a junior
person succeed at reading a talk effectively.
7) If the moderator doesn't repeat audience questions over
the microphone, do so yourself.
8) If you are new at giving talks, have all the extraneous
things taken care of ahead of time -- when going to a
university to give a long format talk, if you can manage it,
have your slides pre-loaded in a slide tray. Take your own
pointer. These things will help you be less nervous. They
are probably unnecessary when you're giving your 50th talk,
but your first one might well be scary.
9) Accept the flow of the talk in the particular group you
are talking to. If the style in the group is to interrupt
speakers with questions, answer the questions when they're
asked. Try to keep extraneous digressions from occurring, but
don't seem insensitive to what your audience wants to know.
--
Bharathi Jagadeesh/bjag at ln.nimh.nih.gov
Lab of Neuropsychology, NIMH
Building 49, Room 1b80
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
(312) 496-5625 x270
