>> From: Mary Kate Alexander <mca at princeton.edu>
>>>> Subject: Public Speaking
>>>> Date: 9 Jul 1998 06:35:35 -0700
>>>>>> All this talk lately of preparing students/postdocs for aggressive
>> questioners at seminars is making me a bit nervous. I'll be giving a
>> talk for the first time in about three weeks, at a very large meeting
>> (Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology, at University of Maryland). So
>> far, my public speaking has been limited to presentations within my own
>> department. In addition, this will be my first time attending a
>> scientific meeting. Do any of you have some words of wisdom for
>> beginning speakers?
> Mary Kate,
A couple of hints from my experience speaking in ballrooms or seminar halls.
1. As so many have mentioned here, PRACTICE...a lot and try to field
questions from friendly people before you go.
2. Make your talk comfortably fit in the time alloted without having to
speak at warp speed. Nothing is more annoying than people who run overtime.
Know what few slides could be skipped in case the projector blows a bulb or
someone in the audience has a heart attack, etc. As my old advisor used to
say, "I know your data is precious to you, but you don't have to present
every single thing you did. Think "big picture"
3. Make the fonts on your slides large, simple and readable. Not too much
data per slide. Do not succumb to the temptation of graphics arts whizzy
bang silliness. You are in science, not advertising. Get used to pointing
towards columns of data as you speak about them to direct the audience.
4. One of my particular pet peeves is the assumption that everyone in the
audience is privy to the peculiarities of your line of research. There may
be people in the audience from other subdisciplines trying to learn
something new and many presenters seem to feel that an adequate
introduction is redundant and that cutting to the data immediately is more
important. A very brief introduction should include your particular
problem, the entity that you are working on preferably with a diagraham,
and why I should care.
5. Explain your specific methodology in a few sentences, possilbly using a
diagram that is easy to understand.
6. Present each set of data as a discreet unit and end each experiment with
a conclusive statement. Summarize the experimental conclusions at the end
of the talk.
7. As others have mentioned, use your slides to guide your talk. Have notes
for security's sake and if you suddenly go blank, BUT YOU SHOULD NOT READ
YOUR TALK! For starters it makes you seem like you do not know your own
data well enough to chat about it. Presumably you have spent untold hours
producing these data and you should be as familiar with it as the back of
your hand. The other reason not to read your talk is that you do not speak
the same way as you write. I have often written these wonderfully masterful
compound and complex scientific sentences which sound completely absurd
coming out of my mouth. Think "What is the most straight forward way I can
say this?" I have often had key sentences that I write out and sort of
memorize, but it never seems as though I am reading them.
8. Remember where your microphone is at all times. Many people come in and
out of hearing range as they swing their head from side to side. Kind of
like that scene in "Singing in the Rain" with the bad actress.
9. On the lighter side, always remember to disconnect a snap-on microphone
after your talk is over. I once did a platform presentation when I was a
3rd year grad student. I was predictably very nervous, but the talk went
just find and did a respectable job fielding questions. However, when it
was over, I gathered my notes and had begun to walk off the stage when the
moderator started waving frantically at me to go back. I couldn't
understand what I had done when I suddenly realized I had not disconneted
my microphone from my lapel and was about a foot short of ripping the
microphone off the podium or pulling the podium over entirely. Fortunately
not too many people noticed, but they would have had I pulled the podium
over. Not quite the kind of impression you want to make!
Dianna L. Bourke
Penn State Hazleton
