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How to Prepare Your Scientific Presentation

Since the dawn of time, humans were eager to find explanations for the world around them. At first, our scientific method was very simplistic and somewhat naive. We observed and reflected. But with the progressive evolution of research methods and thinking paradigms, we arrived into the modern era of enlightenment and science. So what represents the modern scientific method and how can you accurately share and present your research findings to others? These are the two fundamental questions we attempt to answer in this post. 

What is the Scientific Method?

To better understand the concept, let’s start with this scientific method definition from the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography :

The scientific method is a way of conducting research, based on theory construction, the generation of testable hypotheses, their empirical testing, and the revision of theory if the hypothesis is rejected. 

Essentially, a scientific method is a cumulative term, used to describe the process any scientist uses to objectively interpret the world (and specific phenomenon) around them. 

The scientific method is the opposite of beliefs and cognitive biases — mostly irrational, often unconscious, interpretations of different occurrences that we lean on as a mental shortcut. 

The scientific method in research, on the contrary, forces the thinker to holistically assess and test our approaches to interpreting data. So that they could gain consistent and non-arbitrary results. 

The common scientific method examples are:

• Systematic observation 
• Experimentation
• Inductive and deductive reasoning
• Formation and testing of hypotheses and theories

All of the above are used by both scientists and businesses to make better sense of the data and/or phenomenon at hand. 

The Evolution of the Scientific Method 

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle are believed to be the forefathers of the scientific method. They were among the first to try to justify and refine their thought process using the scientific method experiments and deductive reasoning. 

Both developed specific systems for knowledge acquisition and processing. For example, the Platonic way of knowledge emphasized reasoning as the main method for learning but downplayed the importance of observation. The Aristotelian corpus of knowledge, on the contrary, said that we must carefully observe the natural world to discover its fundamental principles. 

In medieval times, thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Andreas Vesalius among many others worked on further clarifying how we can obtain proven knowledge through observation and induction. 

The 16th–18th centuries are believed to have given the greatest advances in terms of scientific method application. We, humans, learned to better interpret the world around us from mechanical, biological, economic, political, and medical perspectives. Thinkers such as Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and their followers also increasingly switched to a tradition of explaining everything through mathematics, geometry, and numbers. 

Up till today, mathematical and mechanical explanations remain the core parts of the scientific method. 

Why is the Scientific Method Important Today? 

Because our ancestors didn’t have as much data as we do. We now live in the era of paramount data accessibility and connectivity, where over 2.5 quintillions of data are produced each day. This has tremendously accelerated knowledge creation.

But, at the same time, such overwhelming exposure to data made us more prone to external influences, biases, and false beliefs. These can jeopardize the objectivity of any research you are conducting. 

Scientific findings need to remain objective, verifiable, accurate, and consistent. Diligent usage of scientific methods in modern business and science helps ensure proper data interpretation, results replication, and undisputable validity. 

6 Steps of the Scientific Method

Over the course of history, the scientific method underwent many interactions. Yet, it still carries some of the integral steps our ancestors used to analyze the world such as observation and inductive reasoning. However, the modern scientific method steps differ a bit. 

1. Make an Observation 

An observation serves as a baseline for your research. There are two important characteristics for a good research observation:

• It must be objective, not subjective. 
• It must be verifiable, meaning others can say it’s true or false with this. 

For example, This apple is red (objective/verifiable observation). This apple is delicious (subjective, harder-to-verify observation).

2. Develop a Hypothesis

Observations tell us about the present or past. But the goal of science is to glean in the future. A scientific hypothesis is based on prior knowledge and produced through reasoning as an attempt to descriptive a future event.

Here are characteristics of a good scientific hypothesis: 

• General and tentative idea
• Agrees with all available observations
• Testable and potentially falsifiable

Remember: If we state our hypothesis to indicate there is no effect, our hypothesis is a cause-and-effect relationship . A hypothesis, which asserts no effect, is called a null hypothesis. 

3. Make a Prediction 

A hypothesis is a mental “launchpad” for predicting the existence of other phenomena or quantitative results of new observations.

Going back to an earlier example here’s how to turn it into a hypothesis and a potential prediction for proving it. For example: If this apple is red, other apples of this type should be red too. 

Your goal is then to decide which variables can help you prove or disprove your hypothesis and prepare to test these. 

4. Perform an Experiment 

Collect all the information around variables that will help you prove or disprove your prediction. According to the scientific method, a hypothesis has to be discarded or modified if its predictions are clearly and repeatedly incompatible with experimental results.

Yes, you may come up with an elegant theory. However, if your hypothetical predictions cannot be backed by experimental results, you cannot use them as a valid explanation of the phenomenon. 

5. Analyze the Results of the Experiment

To come up with proof for your hypothesis, use different statistical analysis methods to interpret the meaning behind your data.

Remember to stay objective and emotionally unattached to your results. If 95 apples turned red, but 5 were yellow, does it disprove your hypothesis? Not entirely. It may mean that you didn’t account for all variables and must adapt the parameters of your experiment. 

Here are some common data analysis techniques, used as a part of a scientific method: 

• Statistical analysis
• Cause and effect analysis (see cause and effect analysis slides )
• Regression analysis
• Factor analysis
• Cluster analysis
• Time series analysis
• Diagnostic analysis
• Root cause analysis (see root cause analysis slides )

6. Draw a Conclusion 

Every experiment has two possible outcomes:

• The results correspond to the prediction
• The results disprove the prediction 

If that’s the latter, as a scientist you must discard the prediction then and most likely also rework the hypothesis based on it. 

How to Give a Scientific Presentation to Showcase Your Methods

Whether you are doing a poster session, conference talk, or follow-up presentation on a recently published journal article, most of your peers need to know how you’ve arrived at the presented conclusions.

In other words, they will probe your scientific method for gaps to ensure that your results are fair and possible to replicate. So that they could incorporate your theories in their research too. Thus your scientific presentation must be sharp, on-point, and focus clearly on your research approaches. 

Below we propose a quick framework for creating a compelling scientific presentation in PowerPoint (+ some helpful templates!). 

1. Open with a Research Question 

Here’s how to start a scientific presentation with ease: share your research question. On the first slide, briefly recap how your thought process went. Briefly state what was the underlying aim of your research: Share your main hypothesis, mention if you could prove or disprove them. 

It might be tempting to pack a lot of ideas into your first slide but don’t. Keep the opening of your presentation short to pique the audience’s initial interest and set the stage for the follow-up narrative.

2. Disclose Your Methods

Whether you are doing a science poster presentation or conference talk, many audience members would be curious to understand how you arrived at your results. Deliver this information at the beginning of your presentation to avoid any ambiguities. 

Here’s how to organize your science methods on a presentation: 

• Do not use bullet points or full sentences. Use diagrams and structured images to list the methods
• Use visuals and iconography to use metaphors where possible.
• Organize your methods by groups e.g. quantifiable and non-quantifiable

Finally, when you work on visuals for your presentation — charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. — think from the perspective of a subject novice. Does the image really convey the key information around the subject? Does it help break down complex ideas?

3. Spotlight the Results 

Obviously, the research results will be your biggest bragging right. However, don’t over-pack your presentation with a long-winded discussion of your findings and how revolutionary these may be for the community. 

Rather than writing a wall of text, do this instead:

• Use graphs with large axis values/numbers to showcase the findings in great detail
• Prioritize formats that are known to everybody (e.g. odds ratios, Kaplan Meier curves, etc.)
• Do not include more than 5 lines of plain text per slide 

Overall, when you feel that the results slide gets too cramped, it’s best to move the data to a new one. 

Also, as you work on organizing data on your scientific presentation PowerPoint template , think if there are obvious limitations and gaps. If yes, make sure you acknowledge them during your speech.

4. Mention Study Limitations 

The scientific method mandates objectivity. That’s why every researcher must clearly state what was excluded from their study. Remember: no piece of scientific research is truly universal and has certain boundaries. However, when you fail to personally state those, others might struggle to draw the line themselves and replicate your results. Then, if they fail to do so, they’d question the viability of your research.

5. Conclude with a Memorable Takeaway Message 

Every experienced speaker will tell you that the audience best retains the information they hear first and last. Most people will attend more than one scientific presentation during the day. 

So if you want the audience to better remember your talk, brainstorm a take-home message for the last slide of your presentation. Think of your last slide texts as an elevator pitch — a short, concluding message, summarizing your research.

To Conclude

Today we have no shortage of research and scientific methods for testing and proving our hypothesis. However, unlike our ancestors, most scientists experience deeper scrutiny when it comes to presenting and explaining their findings to others. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your scientific presentation clearly relays the aim, vector, and thought process behind your research.

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Presentation Guru

Rethinking final slides.

All good things must come to an end, but how? As your presentation draws to a close, how should you wrap it all up so that you end with a bang, and not a fizzle?  In John’s earlier post, Rethinking Title Slides , he considered the options available when opening your presentation. Now he turns his attention to the ending.

In a previous post, I offered a few ways to think differently about the title slide in your PowerPoint presentations. Contrary to what many people think, a title slide is not always necessary. And, if you have one, there is no rule that says that it has to be the first slide that you show.

Well, if we have looked at the title slide, it only seems right that we look at final slides as well.

Thanks but No Thanks!

Perhaps the most common final slide that you see is the one that thanks the audience. Here are some of the standard variations:

You get the idea. And they are all bad options.

Many clients are genuinely surprised when I tell them never to use a “Thank you” slide again. But there are two solid reasons for not doing so.

First, in many cases, you should not thank your audience. Imagine Martin Luther King as he brought his inimitable I Have a Dream speech to close. Imagine if he had added a “Thank you” to the ending:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! Thank you very much!”

Something powerful, something fundamental would have been lost. “Thank God Almighty” that King was smarter than that. He knew that leaving the audience with rousing oratory to inspire them was the only way to end that speech.

In situations where you are presenting your vision to the company, or exhorting your audience to take some kind of action, dispensing with “Thank you” is the best option. Instead, leave them with something that sticks long after they have left the auditorium. Some hypothetical examples are below:

And I know, that if we work together, we will succeed!

You know what you have to do. Now, go out there and do it!

The journey will be long and the journey will be hard, but there is no turning back. I am confident we will reach our destination.

Second, if you would like to thank your audience and it is appropriate to do so, is having a slide that says “Thank you”, which you typed out two days (or two hours) before really the best way? Of course not!

If you want to thank your audience, look them in the eye and thank them from the heart, not the screen. They will appreciate the connection and your thanks will be much more authentic and therefore much more meaningful.

Without Question

Another bad slide on which to end is the following:

Does your audience need a slide to know that you are moving to a Q&A session? Of course not. If you want to have a Q&A session, have a black slide and then open the floor up for questions.

As an aside, I believe that, when speakers have control over the situation, they should not end with a Q&A. Why not? Because you never know whether the questions are going to be on point or interest only to a few people. There is a risk that many people in the audience will reach for their smartphones and that is how your presentation will end: with a fizzle, not a bang.

So I always recommend that speakers cover everything they want to cover and then announce that they will take questions for however many minutes they like before they conclude. That way, the speaker controls the conclusion.

6 Good Closing Slides

So, if slides like “Thank you” and “Questions?” and, worst of all, “Thank you! Questions?” are out, what should you have for a final slide?

There is no hard and fast rule, and the final slide that you choose will depend on things like the audience and your message. But here are some good options:

1) A powerful image

Use an image that relates to your talk and that captures the feeling or message that you are trying to convey.

2) A summary of your key points

You can use a subtle animation such as “Fade” (PowerPoint) or “Dissolve” (Keynote) to bring your points in one by one, emphasizing each as you go.

3) A call to action

Inspire your audience and move them to action.

For example, let’s imagine that a company has been having trouble invoicing its customers on time. The problem has been traced to a lack of communication between the sales team and the accounting department. A final slide for such a presentation could list what is expected from Sales, what is expected from Accounting and what is expected from both.

Use a quote that relates to your message, perhaps with an image of the person who first said it. This slide could be doubly powerful if you opened the presentation with the quote (not using a slide) and then returned to it at the end of the presentation to reinforce the idea.

5) Your contact details

This is especially useful when speaking to large audiences whom you do not know. But keep the information simple and easy to write down. An email, a phone number and a website address are good options, individually or in combination.

6) A black slide

Yes, a black slide can be a good option, for example if you want to end your presentation with a powerful story. By turning the screen black, you refocus the audience’s attention on you. Never forget that the slides are not the presentation; the speaker is the presentation and the slides are there to support the speaker.

As I mentioned in my previous post, psychologists frequently talk about the learning principles of primacy and recency . People tend to remember the first thing they hear or see and the last thing they hear or see.

So don’t waste your final slide on something as banal as “Thank you” or “Questions?”. You can do much better than that. Your presentation will have a polished ending and your audience will appreciate it.

If you have any thoughts on this subject or think I’ve missed any good final slide ideas, please feel free to share them with us in the Comment section below.

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John Zimmer

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rohit aggarwal

15th April 2019 at 8:42 am

thanks for the information

23rd April 2019 at 10:42 am

Thank you, Rohit. Glad you found it helpful.

10th November 2023 at 8:54 am

Such an insightful read! The final slide often lingers the longest in our audience’s memory—it’s where we leave a lasting impression. Rethinking this crucial part of the presentation might just be the key to leaving a more impactful message.

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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.

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Blog Marketing How To End A Presentation & Leave A Lasting Impression

How To End A Presentation & Leave A Lasting Impression

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 09, 2023

So you’ve got an exciting presentation ready to wow your audience and you’re left with the final brushstroke — how to end your presentation with a bang. 

Just as a captivating opening draws your audience in, creating a well-crafted presentation closing has the power to leave a profound and lasting impression that resonates long after the lights dim and the audience disperses.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the art of crafting an impactful conclusion that resonates with 10 effective techniques and ideas along with real-life examples to inspire your next presentation. Alternatively, you could always jump right into creating your slides by customizing our professionally designed presentation templates . They’re fully customizable and require no design experience at all! 

Click to jump ahead:

Why is it important to have an impactful ending for your presentation?

10 effective presentation closing techniques to leave a lasting impression, 7 things to put on a conclusion slide.

• 5 real-life exceptional examples of how to end a presentation

6 mistakes to avoid in concluding a presentation

Faqs on how to end a presentation, how to create a memorable presentation with venngage.

People tend to remember the beginning and end of a presentation more vividly than the middle, making the final moments your last chance to make a lasting impression. 

An ending that leaves a lasting impact doesn’t merely mark the end of a presentation; it opens doors to further exploration. A strong conclusion is vital because it:

• Leaves a lasting impression on the audience.
• Reinforces key points and takeaways.
• Motivates action and implementation of ideas.
• Creates an emotional connection with the audience.
• Fosters engagement, curiosity and reflection.

Just like the final scene of a movie, your presentation’s ending has the potential to linger in your audience’s minds long after they’ve left the room. From summarizing key points to engaging the audience in unexpected ways, make a lasting impression with these 10 ways to end a presentation:

1. The summary

Wrap up your entire presentation with a concise and impactful summary, recapping the key points and main takeaways. By doing so, you reinforce the essential aspects and ensure the audience leaves with a crystal-clear understanding of your core message.

2. The reverse story

Here’s a cool one: start with the end result and then surprise the audience with the journey that led you to where you are. Share the challenges you conquered and the lessons you learned, making it a memorable and unique conclusion that drives home your key takeaways.

Alternatively, customize one of our cool presentation templates to capture the attention of your audience and deliver your message in an engaging and memorable way

3. The metaphorical prop

For an added visual touch, bring a symbolic prop that represents your message. Explain its significance in relation to your content, leaving the audience with a tangible and unforgettable visual representation that reinforces your key concepts.

4. The audience engagement challenge

Get the audience involved by throwing them a challenge related to your informational presentation. Encourage active participation and promise to share the results later, fostering their involvement and motivating them to take action.

5. The memorable statistic showcase

Spice things up with a series of surprising or intriguing statistics, presented with attention-grabbing visual aids. Summarize your main points using these impactful stats to ensure the audience remembers and grasps the significance of your data, especially when delivering a business presentation or pitch deck presentation .

Transform your data-heavy presentations into engaging presentations using data visualization tools. Venngage’s chart and graph tools help you present information in a digestible and visually appealing manner. Infographics and diagrams can simplify complex concepts while images add a relatable dimension to your presentation. 

6. The interactive story creation

How about a collaborative story? Work with the audience to create an impromptu tale together. Let them contribute elements and build the story with you. Then, cleverly tie it back to your core message with a creative presentation conclusion.

7. The unexpected guest speaker

Introduce an unexpected guest who shares a unique perspective related to your presentation’s theme. If their story aligns with your message, it’ll surely amp up the audience’s interest and engagement.

8. The thought-provoking prompt

Leave your audience pondering with a thought-provoking question or prompt related to your topic. Encourage reflection and curiosity, sparking a desire to explore the subject further and dig deeper into your message.

9. The empowering call-to-action

Time to inspire action! Craft a powerful call to action that motivates the audience to make a difference. Provide practical steps and resources to support their involvement, empowering them to take part in something meaningful.

10. The heartfelt expression

End on a warm note by expressing genuine gratitude and appreciation for the audience’s time and attention. Acknowledge their presence and thank them sincerely, leaving a lasting impression of professionalism and warmth.

Not sure where to start? These 12 presentation software might come in handy for creating a good presentation that stands out. 

Remember, your closing slides for the presentation is your final opportunity to make a strong impact on your audience. However, the question remains — what exactly should be on the last slide of your presentation? Here are 7 conclusion slide examples to conclude with a high note:

1. Key takeaways

Highlight the main points or key takeaways from your presentation. This reinforces the essential information you want the audience to remember, ensuring they leave with a clear understanding of your message with a well summarized and simple presentation .

2. Closing statement

Craft a strong closing statement that summarizes the overall message of your presentation and leaves a positive final impression. This concluding remark should be impactful and memorable.

3. Call-to-action

Don’t forget to include a compelling call to action in your final message that motivates the audience to take specific steps after the presentation. Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, trying a product or conducting further research, a clear call to action can encourage engagement.

4. Contact information

Provide your contact details, such as email address or social media handles. That way, the audience can easily reach out for further inquiries or discussions. Building connections with your audience enhances engagement and opens doors for future opportunities.

Use impactful visuals or graphics to deliver your presentation effectively and make the conclusion slide visually appealing. Engaging visuals can captivate the audience and help solidify your key points.

Visuals are powerful tools for retention. Use Venngage’s library of icons, images and charts to complement your text. You can easily upload and incorporate your own images or choose from Venngage’s library of stock photos to add depth and relevance to your visuals.

6. Next steps

Outline the recommended next steps for the audience to take after the presentation, guiding them on what actions to pursue. This can be a practical roadmap for implementing your ideas and recommendations.

7. Inspirational quote

To leave a lasting impression, consider including a powerful and relevant quote that resonates with the main message of your presentation. Thoughtful quotes can inspire and reinforce the significance of your key points.

Whether you’re giving an in-person or virtual presentation , a strong wrap-up can boost persuasiveness and ensure that your message resonates and motivates action effectively. Check out our gallery of professional presentation templates to get started.

5 real-life exceptional examples of how to end a presentation 

When we talk about crafting an exceptional closing for a presentation, I’m sure you’ll have a million questions — like how do you end a presentation, what do you say at the end of a presentation or even how to say thank you after a presentation. 

To get a better idea of how to end a presentation with style — let’s delve into five remarkable real-life examples that offer valuable insights into crafting a conclusion that truly seals the deal: 

1. Sheryl Sandberg 

In her TED Talk titled “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” Sheryl Sandberg concluded with an impactful call to action, urging men and women to lean in and support gender equality in the workplace. This motivational ending inspired the audience to take action toward a more inclusive world.

2. Elon Musk

Elon Musk often concludes with his vision for the future and how his companies are working towards groundbreaking advancements. His passion and enthusiasm for pushing the boundaries of technology leave the audience inspired and eager to witness the future unfold.

3. Barack Obama

President Obama’s farewell address concluded with an emotional and heartfelt expression of gratitude to the American people. He thanked the audience for their support and encouraged them to stay engaged and uphold the values that define the nation.

4. Brené Brown 

In her TED Talk on vulnerability, Brené Brown ended with a powerful quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” This quote reinforced her message about the importance of embracing vulnerability and taking risks in life.

5. Malala Yousafzai

In her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Malala Yousafzai ended with a moving call to action for education and girls’ rights. She inspired the audience to stand up against injustice and to work towards a world where every child has access to education.

For more innovative presentation ideas , turn ordinary slides into captivating experiences with these 15 interactive presentation ideas that will leave your audience begging for more.

So, we talked about how a good presentation usually ends. As you approach the conclusion of your presentation, let’s go through some of the common pitfalls you should avoid that will undermine the impact of your closing:

1. Abrupt endings

To deliver persuasive presentations, don’t leave your audience hanging with an abrupt conclusion. Instead, ensure a smooth transition by providing a clear closing statement or summarizing the key points to leave a lasting impression.

2. New information

You may be wondering — can I introduce new information or ideas in the closing? The answer is no. Resist the urge to introduce new data or facts in the conclusion and stick to reinforcing the main content presented earlier. By introducing new content at the end, you risk overshadowing your main message.

3. Ending with a Q&A session

While Q&A sessions are valuable , don’t conclude your presentation with them. Opt for a strong closing statement or call-to-action instead, leaving the audience with a clear takeaway.

4. Overloading your final slide

Avoid cluttering your final slide with too much information or excessive visuals. Keep it clean, concise and impactful to reinforce your key messages effectively.

5. Forgetting the call-to-action

Most presentations fail to include a compelling call-to-action which can diminish the overall impact of your presentation. To deliver a persuasive presentation, encourage your audience to take specific steps after the talk, driving engagement and follow-through.

6. Ignoring the audience

Make your conclusion audience-centric by connecting with their needs and interests. Avoid making it solely about yourself or your achievements. Instead, focus on how your message benefits the audience.

What should be the last slide of a presentation?

The last slide of a presentation should be a conclusion slide, summarizing key takeaways, delivering a strong closing statement and possibly including a call to action.

How do I begin a presentation?

Grabbing the audience’s attention at the very beginning with a compelling opening such as a relevant story, surprising statistic or thought-provoking question. You can even create a game presentation to boost interactivity with your audience. Check out this blog for more ideas on how to start a presentation . 

How can I ensure a smooth transition from the body of the presentation to the closing? 

To ensure a smooth transition, summarize key points from the body, use transition phrases like “In conclusion,” and revisit the main message introduced at the beginning. Bridge the content discussed to the themes of the closing and consider adjusting tone and pace to signal the transition.

How long should the conclusion of a presentation be?

The conclusion of a presentation should typically be around 5-10% of the total presentation time, keeping it concise and impactful.

Should you say thank you at the end of a presentation?

Yes, saying thank you at the end of a PowerPoint presentation is a courteous way to show appreciation for the audience’s time and attention.

Should I use presentation slides in the concluding part of my talk? 

Yes, using presentation slides in the concluding part of your talk can be effective. Use concise slides to summarize key takeaways, reinforce your main points and deliver a strong closing statement. A final presentation slide can enhance the impact of your conclusion and help the audience remember your message.

Should I include a Q&A session at the end of the presentation?

Avoid Q&A sessions in certain situations to ensure a well-structured and impactful conclusion. It helps prevent potential time constraints and disruptions to your carefully crafted ending, ensuring your core message remains the focus without the risk of unanswered or off-topic questions diluting the presentation’s impact.

Is it appropriate to use humor in the closing of a presentation?

Using humor in the closing of a presentation can be appropriate if it aligns with your content and audience as it can leave a positive and memorable impression. However, it’s essential to use humor carefully and avoid inappropriate or offensive jokes.

How do I manage nervousness during the closing of a presentation?

To manage nervousness during the closing, focus on your key points and the main message you want to convey. Take deep breaths to calm your nerves, maintain eye contact and remind yourself that you’re sharing valuable insights to enhance your presentation skills.

Creating a memorable presentation is a blend of engaging content and visually captivating design. With Venngage, you can transform your ideas into a dynamic and unforgettable presentation in just 5 easy steps: 

• Choose a template from Venngage’s library: Pick a visually appealing template that fits your presentation’s theme and audience, making it easy to get started with a professional look.
• Craft a compelling story or outline: Organize your content into a clear and coherent narrative or outline the key points to engage your audience and make the information easy to follow.
• Customize design and visuals: Tailor the template with your brand colors, fonts and captivating visuals like images and icons, enhancing your presentation’s visual appeal and uniqueness. You can also use an eye-catching presentation background to elevate your visual content. 
• Incorporate impactful quotes or inspiring elements: Include powerful quotes or elements that resonate with your message, evoking emotions and leaving a lasting impression on your audience members
• Utilize data visualization for clarity: Present data and statistics effectively with Venngage’s charts, graphs and infographics, simplifying complex information for better comprehension.

Additionally, Venngage’s real-time collaboration tools allow you to seamlessly collaborate with team members to elevate your presentation creation process to a whole new level. Use comments and annotations to provide feedback on each other’s work and refine ideas as a group, ensuring a comprehensive and well-rounded presentation.

Well, there you have it—the secrets of how to conclude a presentation. From summarizing your key message to delivering a compelling call to action, you’re now armed with a toolkit of techniques that’ll leave your audience in awe.

Now go ahead, wrap it up like a pro and leave that lasting impression that sets you apart as a presenter who knows how to captivate, inspire and truly make a mark.

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Scientific Presentation Guide: How to Create an Engaging Research Talk

Creating an effective scientific presentation requires developing clear talking points and slide designs that highlight your most important research results..

Scientific presentations are detailed talks that showcase a research project or analysis results. This comprehensive guide reviews everything you need to know to give an engaging presentation for scientific conferences, lab meetings, and PhD thesis talks. From creating your presentation outline to designing effective slides, the tips in this article will give you the tools you need to impress your scientific peers and superiors.

Step 1. Create a Presentation Outline

The first step to giving a good scientific talk is to create a presentation outline that engages the audience at the start of the talk, highlights only 3-5 main points of your research, and then ends with a clear take-home message. Creating an outline ensures that the overall talk storyline is clear and will save you time when you start to design your slides.

Engage Your Audience

The first part of your presentation outline should contain slide ideas that will gain your audience's attention. Below are a few recommendations for slides that engage your audience at the start of the talk:

• Create a slide that makes connects your data or presentation information to a shared purpose, such as relevance to solving a medical problem or fundamental question in your field of research
• Create slides that ask and invite questions
• Use humor or entertainment

Identify Clear Main Points

After writing down your engagement ideas, the next step is to list the main points that will become the outline slide for your presentation. A great way to accomplish this is to set a timer for five minutes and write down all of the main points and results or your research that you want to discuss in the talk. When the time is up, review the points and select no more than three to five main points that create your talk outline. Limiting the amount of information you share goes a long way in maintaining audience engagement and understanding. 

Create a Take-Home Message

And finally, you should brainstorm a single take-home message that makes the most important main point stand out. This is the one idea that you want people to remember or to take action on after your talk. This can be your core research discovery or the next steps that will move the project forward.

Step 2. Choose a Professional Slide Theme

After you have a good presentation outline, the next step is to choose your slide colors and create a theme. Good slide themes use between two to four main colors that are accessible to people with color vision deficiencies. Read this article to learn more about choosing the best scientific color palettes .

You can also choose templates that already have an accessible color scheme. However, be aware that many PowerPoint templates that are available online are too cheesy for a scientific audience. Below options to download professional scientific slide templates that are designed specifically for academic conferences, research talks, and graduate thesis defenses.

Step 3. Design Your Slides

Designing good slides is essential to maintaining audience interest during your scientific talk. Follow these four best practices for designing your slides:

• Keep it simple: limit the amount of information you show on each slide
• Use images and illustrations that clearly show the main points with very little text. 
• Read this article to see research slide example designs for inspiration
• When you are using text, try to reduce the scientific jargon that is unnecessary. Text on research talk slides needs to be much more simple than the text used in scientific publications (see example below).
• Use appear/disappear animations to break up the details into smaller digestible bites
• Sign up for the free presentation design course to learn PowerPoint animation tricks

Scientific Presentation Design Summary

All of the examples and tips described in this article will help you create impressive scientific presentations. Below is the summary of how to give an engaging talk that will earn respect from your scientific community. 

Step 1. Draft Presentation Outline. Create a presentation outline that clearly highlights the main point of your research. Make sure to start your talk outline with ideas to engage your audience and end your talk with a clear take-home message.

Step 2. Choose Slide Theme. Use a slide template or theme that looks professional, best represents your data, and matches your audience's expectations. Do not use slides that are too plain or too cheesy.

Step 3. Design Engaging Slides. Effective presentation slide designs use clear data visualizations and limits the amount of information that is added to each slide. 

And a final tip is to practice your presentation so that you can refine your talking points. This way you will also know how long it will take you to cover the most essential information on your slides. Thank you for choosing Simplified Science Publishing as your science communication resource and good luck with your presentations!

Interested in free design templates and training?

Explore scientific illustration templates and courses by creating a Simplified Science Publishing Log In. Whether you are new to data visualization design or have some experience, these resources will improve your ability to use both basic and advanced design tools.

Interested in reading more articles on scientific design? Learn more below:

Data Storytelling Techniques: How to Tell a Great Data Story in 4 Steps

Best Science PowerPoint Templates and Slide Design Examples

Free Research Poster Templates and Tutorials

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Tips for Preparing A Scientific Presentation

The  introduction  should introduce your audience to the problem you’re trying to solve. By the end of it, your audience should know what the problem is and be convinced that it’s an important problem worthy of your time and effort. Establish what you hope to accomplish.

After the introduction comes the  method . You should describe your approach to the problem, describing not only what you did but how it differs from other approaches. If your method has any caveats, be honest.

Now that the audience is familiar with your approach, discuss your  results . The amount of time you spend on a particular result should be proportional to how important you believe the result to be.

Finally, the  conclusion  briefly summarizes your results and discusses the wider implications of your results. Be sure to distinguish between conclusions and speculations. How do your results contribute to solving that problem you talked about in your introduction?

2. Tell 'em what you are going to tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you told 'em.

Give your audience guidance. Do not assume that your audience is with you at every step - repetition of key points at a high level is essential.

3. Talks are written with the audience in mind.

Take your audience’s level of interest and experience into account when dialing in the breadth and depth of the talk. Likewise, be sure that (for any audience) you’re not casually using acronyms or concepts two slides before you actually explain them.

4. Every slide needs a segue.

The end of every slide should flow naturally into the beginning of the next. The last thing you say on slide (n) should suggest the content on slide (n+1).

For example, if you’re delivering a slide comparing existing approaches to embiggening, and your next slide discusses your new approach to embiggening, you might say something like:

“Approach A is too expensive, Approach B has a high failure rate, while Approach C is prohibitively explosive. What is required is an embiggening procedure which is low-cost, reliable, and safe.” [Click to next slide] “My approach to embiggening is...”

“As you can see, the field strength is linear, but this equation assumes that the viscosity of the luminiferous aether is negligible.” [Click to next slide] “As you can see, the results are very different when the viscosity of the luminiferous aether is considered.”

5. If the text is only there to remind you of what to say, cut it.

The slides are there for your audience, not for you. If they’re reading the slide, they’re not paying attention to what you’re saying.

6. If there is a diagram, chart, or equation on a slide that you don’t plan to walk the audience through, cut it.

There’s a natural tendency to throw everything you’ve done into a talk. Resist it. If it’s not important enough to spend thirty seconds of your presentation time on, it doesn’t belong there.

7. Avoid the following common mistakes .

-  Using more significant figures than you have.  2.35689745632 +/- 0.3659487652 g/mL should be 2.3 +/- 0.4 g/mL. All of the numbers smaller than the error are meaningless.

-  Using a table when a graph will do . Graphs are almost always easier for the audience to parse.

-  Graphs with unreadable text.  Excel tends to default to extremely small text that is indecipherable in a presentation.

-  Graphs that don’t know if they’re constructed from measured data or an equation.  Measured data should be shown as symbols (like ▵,╳, ▢, or ◯) while the use of a line generally implies an equation (even if that equation is just a fit to the data).

-  Inappropriate use of statistics.  When in doubt, consult an expert.

8. Plan to use a laser pointer sparingly, if at all.

Nine times out of ten, using an animation to make elements on the slide appear is more effective and less distracting than using a laser pointer.

9. Get a presentation remote.

Otherwise you’re stuck hiding behind your laptop.

10. Practice the talk.

No, seriously. Practice the talk, in front of a small group if possible. Everybody plans to; few succeed.

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 20 November 2020

Why your scientific presentation should not be adapted from a journal article

• David Rubenson 0

David Rubenson is the director of the scientific-communications firm No Bad Slides ( nobadslides.com ) in Los Angeles, California.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

In 20 years of coaching biomedical researchers on presentation techniques, I have continually been frustrated by scientists trying to make presentations as comprehensive as journal articles. Their thinking is understandable: “Better too much than too little, and more detail will demonstrate rigour and reliability.” But the usual result is a confused audience, befuddled by rapid-fire speaking, too much data and too many opaque slides.

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Bringing the World's Best Biology to You

Rethinking Scientific Presentations: Slide Design and Delivery

Part 1: rethinking scientific presentations: the assertion-evidence approach.

• Duration: 00:25:56

00:00:08.13 As a research scientist, 00:00:11.03 think about how little time you spend presenting 00:00:16.20 against how much time you spend 00:00:19.11 working in the lab or on your computations. 00:00:24.08 You might give one presentation at a conference 00:00:29.18 for 20 minutes, 00:00:31.22 or you might give a colloquium at your institution 00:00:34.13 for 50 minutes. 00:00:37.28 The question comes: 00:00:40.03 how do you make that time as effective as possible 00:00:44.04 to represent all the work that you've done? 00:00:47.25 This film focuses on that question. 00:00:51.08 And in particular, this film pays a lot of attention 00:00:55.09 to the slides that you create for that presentation. 00:01:00.09 Now, you might ask, why? 00:01:02.02 And one thing that I have found 00:01:05.14 in my 30 years of researching scientific presentations 00:01:10.14 is that slides make more of a difference for the success 00:01:14.20 -- and I would say more often the downfall -- 00:01:18.10 of scientific presentations 00:01:21.11 than people realize. 00:01:23.08 First, when you're creating slides, 00:01:25.26 you make important decisions: 00:01:28.02 what information you're going to include, 00:01:30.23 and equally important, 00:01:33.22 what information you're going to leave out. 00:01:36.07 And of that information that you include, 00:01:38.07 you also make decisions... 00:01:40.16 what am I going to emphasize, 00:01:42.19 perhaps by putting on the slide, 00:01:44.13 and what am I going to de-emphasize 00:01:47.25 by folding into your speech? 00:01:50.20 A second way that slides affect a presentation's success 00:01:56.04 occurs in the delivery. 00:01:58.18 Sadly, many presenters use PowerPoint's defaults 00:02:05.14 and spend so much of their delivery 00:02:09.01 turning, reading or paraphrasing a bullet on the slide, 00:02:13.24 turning back to the audience, 00:02:16.12 then turning, reading or paraphrasing, 00:02:19.06 then turning back. 00:02:21.03 And that rhythm 00:02:24.05 -- what a lot of people call a death by PowerPoint rhythm -- 00:02:26.27 pulls down a presentation. 00:02:28.20 The best presenters, however... 00:02:30.24 they speak from what they know, 00:02:34.03 and their visual aids are in fact aids for the audience 00:02:39.13 rather than notes for them. 00:02:42.15 Yet a third way that slides 00:02:45.05 affect a presentation's success 00:02:47.05 occurs with how much the audience 00:02:50.20 understands from them. 00:02:52.20 Our research has found 00:02:55.28 that challenging PowerPoint's defaults 00:02:58.08 and using a different approach, 00:03:00.14 such as what you're gonna learn in this film, 00:03:04.01 actually increases the amount of comprehension by the audience 00:03:11.05 in a statistically significant way. 00:03:16.05 So, I've had a number of people 00:03:18.20 who have used this approach. 00:03:20.15 The woman in the upper left, Katie Kirsch... 00:03:24.10 while she was getting her PhD, 00:03:28.25 she used this approach in all her conference presentations, 00:03:31.04 and she won best presentation at the conference 00:03:35.01 three times. 00:03:37.22 The gentlemen at the bottom, 00:03:40.01 professor Are Magnus Bruaset from Simula Research Laboratory 00:03:43.26 and University of Oslo in Norway... 00:03:47.04 he uses this approach, and his colleagues use this approach, 00:03:51.12 in all their presentations 00:03:54.14 that they make to industry to present their research. 00:03:57.27 And the woman... scientist in the upper right, 00:04:01.24 Dr. Barbara Bekins from the US Geological Survey... 00:04:06.06 she had to give a lecture 00:04:09.08 to 40 different places across the country, 00:04:11.27 and she decided to use this approach 00:04:16.03 for that lecture 00:04:18.01 because so many people 00:04:21.01 were going to see her work presented in that fashion. 00:04:25.24 We've had research groups 00:04:28.16 use the assertion-evidence approach, 00:04:30.10 and what you see here on the screen 00:04:32.13 is a large gas turbine research group 00:04:35.20 at Penn State. 00:04:37.02 We've had courses adopt the approach, 00:04:40.08 and here you see a law design course 00:04:43.19 at Penn State. 00:04:45.21 And this... and the approach was used by both the professors 00:04:48.11 who taught the class 00:04:50.15 and by the students who reported on their designs. 00:04:53.20 We've even had one national organization, 00:04:57.05 the Engineering Ambassadors Network, 00:04:59.27 adopt the approach for all the presentations 00:05:02.22 that they use in high school 00:05:05.03 to recruit STEM students. 00:05:08.18 Now, one assumption that I'm going to make 00:05:12.10 in this presentation 00:05:15.04 is that the goals for your research presentations 00:05:17.26 are that they are understood, 00:05:21.04 that your presentations are remembered, 00:05:23.10 and that your presentations are believed. 00:05:27.00 I'm also gonna have another assumption 00:05:28.28 that on a personal level 00:05:31.09 you have a goal of wanting to feel 00:05:36.09 and project more confidence. 00:05:38.03 So, where do we start? 00:05:41.12 Where I would like to start is 00:05:44.08 I would like you to think about 00:05:47.00 when you watch scientific presentations 00:05:49.18 and you see the slides, 00:05:51.24 what are the biggest problems that you see with those slides? 00:05:56.05 I've asked this question 00:05:59.00 to hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world, 00:06:03.05 and the number one answer 00:06:05.12 -- and it's not even close -- 00:06:07.15 is too many words. 00:06:09.14 And no doubt, 00:06:11.27 you see many examples of that weekly 00:06:15.27 in presentations that are given at conferences, in seminars, 00:06:20.26 in classrooms that are... 00:06:24.17 that include slides. 00:06:26.01 And you... and that particular problem 00:06:29.11 is not one that actually is so surprising. 00:06:34.20 In the mid-1980s, some research came out, 00:06:39.06 and that research points to why 00:06:43.00 having too many words is a problem. 00:06:47.09 So, let's say you have a speaker and you have an audience. 00:06:49.09 Now, we've known forever 00:06:51.25 that the speaker's spoken words... 00:06:54.19 those are gonna be taken in through the ears. 00:06:57.06 And if the speaker has any written words, 00:07:00.13 those are gonna be taken in through the eyes. 00:07:03.05 But it wasn't until the mid-1980s 00:07:07.16 that a Canadian psychology researcher 00:07:10.02 by the name of Allan Paivio 00:07:12.13 found that those written words and spoken words 00:07:17.26 are processed in the same part of the brain. 00:07:20.26 And another researcher, 00:07:24.12 this one from Australia, John Sweller... 00:07:27.14 he thought about Paivio's research 00:07:30.11 and he asked this question: 00:07:32.02 if written words and spoken words 00:07:34.02 are processed in the same part of the brain, 00:07:36.06 could that part of the brain become overloaded, 00:07:39.27 much as a central processing unit 00:07:43.00 can become overloaded 00:07:45.17 when it tries to do too many tasks? 00:07:47.14 And so Sweller... he did experiments. 00:07:49.11 He had one room where people just read, 00:07:51.23 one room where people just listened, 00:07:53.20 and another room where people read and listened. 00:07:57.29 And when there weren't too many words, 00:08:00.04 in the comprehension tests that he gave after those presentations, 00:08:04.16 the room where they read and listened, 00:08:09.01 they did the best. 00:08:10.28 But what he found is... 00:08:13.00 that when there were too many words projected, 00:08:16.12 that what happened is that room 00:08:20.04 that was both reading and listening 00:08:23.08 went from first to worst. 00:08:25.28 And so, Sweller came up with this theory 00:08:28.26 that if audiences try to process 00:08:31.08 too many words, 00:08:33.12 this cognitive overload occurs, 00:08:37.04 and that is what happens in many presentations. 00:08:41.19 Now, scientists and engineers 00:08:43.16 will also talk about a couple of other problems. 00:08:46.10 I mean, they'll actually talk about a lot of problems, 00:08:48.28 but there are three that stand out. 00:08:51.08 So, too many words is number one. 00:08:53.00 A second one is that the slides are cluttered. 00:08:57.21 And by cluttered, they mean that the... 00:09:01.00 that the audience isn't sure where to look. 00:09:03.22 And so, you have a slide, 00:09:05.28 and maybe what you want to do is you want to look at a graph on the slide 00:09:09.05 because you think the graph contains the most important things... 00:09:12.06 but there's text and arrows 00:09:16.13 and other things that are impinging on that graph, 00:09:19.00 and your eye gets pulled away. 00:09:22.05 A third problem is that many people 00:09:26.07 find that much of the text on slides is not readable. 00:09:29.17 And you can see in this graph 00:09:33.17 that even though maybe you can see the curves, 00:09:36.09 what you cannot read are the axes. 00:09:38.05 And if you can't read the axis of a... 00:09:40.23 axes of a graph, 00:09:43.08 then the value of that graph plummets. 00:09:47.03 A big takeaway is that 00:09:51.08 because so many people -- something like 95% -- 00:09:55.05 use PowerPoint, 00:09:58.19 that then PowerPoint's defaults become important. 00:10:02.00 And what we realize is PowerPoint 00:10:06.20 came out about the same time that Paivio 00:10:09.00 was coming out with his research. 00:10:11.07 And the two gentlemen who created that program, 00:10:15.26 Robert Gaskins, who was an entrepreneur, 00:10:18.00 and Dennis Austin, who was a computer scientist... 00:10:21.22 they were not aware of Paivio's research. 00:10:25.00 Now, they ended up, I think, doing the best they could 00:10:28.24 with the computer architecture of the day. 00:10:31.01 But a problem is that the defaults 00:10:35.09 were not based on any research. 00:10:38.18 Worse yet, and maybe the big tragedy, 00:10:42.08 is that PowerPoint's defaults have not changed significantly. 00:10:46.08 Yeah, in 2003 they changed from Times New Roman to Arial, 00:10:50.03 and in 2007 they changed from Arial typeface to Calibri, 00:10:53.22 and they threw in Microsoft's little artistic insert... 00:11:01.23 but... but nothing actually changed here. 00:11:04.27 So, one thing that I want you to realize 00:11:11.16 is that PowerPoint's defaults run counter to how people learn. 00:11:15.11 That text box in the body 00:11:18.12 that has all those nested bullets... 00:11:20.12 that leads people to create too many written words. 00:11:25.07 As John Sweller says, 00:11:27.02 it is a disaster how many words 00:11:31.04 people will put on slides. 00:11:33.01 That textbox also consumes valuable space 00:11:35.13 that could be used for images, 00:11:38.20 which makes the slides cluttered. 00:11:41.22 And then one last thing, 00:11:43.15 and something that I've been paying a lot of attention to, 00:11:45.15 is that that headline 00:11:50.09 leads scientists and engineers to write phrase headlines. 00:11:54.23 On the surface, that sounds like a good idea, 00:11:57.27 but a problem is that a phrase headline 00:12:00.15 does not filter noise. 00:12:03.06 And as you can remember 00:12:05.09 from when we first talked about why slides are important, 00:12:09.01 it's important for us to have a filter 00:12:13.18 on what to include and what not to include. 00:12:16.01 I'm gonna give you one quotation, 00:12:20.05 because we can do better. 00:12:21.24 I'm gonna give you one quotation... 00:12:23.19 and I could have chosen a lot, 00:12:25.17 but I'm gonna choose this one. 00:12:27.08 "The real mystery to me 00:12:29.29 is why PowerPoint's default style has been adopted so widely. 00:12:34.11 Why do medical researchers use the PowerPoint style 00:12:38.23 at academic conferences? 00:12:40.23 Why do engineers use the PowerPoint style 00:12:42.29 for technical discussions? 00:12:45.24 And the reason I like this quotation 00:12:48.28 as a criticism of PowerPoint 00:12:51.11 is that it was said by none other than Robert Gaskins, 00:12:57.15 the creator of PowerPoint. 00:12:59.18 I mean, if Gaskins himself 00:13:03.14 challenges the defaults, 00:13:05.08 then you should as well. 00:13:07.05 So, the question comes, what should we do? 00:13:09.09 But before we do that, 00:13:11.08 I have yet another assumption I want you to have. 00:13:12.26 And that is, 00:13:14.25 you should not have slides 00:13:18.01 if slides do not support the presentation. 00:13:22.24 In other words, if sl... 00:13:25.03 if slides do not help the audience 00:13:28.14 understand, remember, or believe the content. 00:13:31.28 And someone who was very astute 00:13:34.29 at that particular point, 00:13:36.28 and did not include slides if they weren't needed, 00:13:40.16 was Steve Jobs. 00:13:43.04 Steve Jobs thought about his presentations, 00:13:45.19 in a sense, as a story, 00:13:47.22 and then each slide or blank screen... 00:13:50.05 that was a scene. 00:13:52.09 And so, if you don't need a slide, 00:13:55.02 press the B on the control panel of your... 00:13:59.09 of your computer, 00:14:01.10 or use your advancer to blank the screen, 00:14:04.23 or better yet, insert a black slide 00:14:07.23 so that then the audience knows to focus on you. 00:14:13.23 And while that focus might seem frightening at first, 00:14:18.24 that focus is important 00:14:21.14 because, as Faraday said, 00:14:23.18 for your presentation to be a success, 00:14:25.21 the audience has to believe in you. 00:14:29.08 You have to show ownership of the information. 00:14:32.23 Now, maybe you won't have a blank screen 00:14:35.05 at a conference presentation 00:14:37.20 because those are so compressed. 00:14:39.12 But in a symposium that's 50 minutes, 00:14:41.20 think about having at least one scene 00:14:43.22 where there is no slide 00:14:46.04 and you move to a part of the room 00:14:48.26 where no one typically stands. 00:14:51.27 That will command attention. 00:14:53.15 Okay, now we're ready. 00:14:55.16 So then, what should we do? 00:14:57.26 And my first piece of advice to you is, 00:15:01.04 build your talk on messages, not on topics. 00:15:06.15 Most scientists and engineers in research 00:15:09.11 build their presentations on topics: 00:15:12.22 introduction, methods, results, discussion. 00:15:16.04 You can do better than that. 00:15:19.19 So, what often happens is... 00:15:21.21 let's say you're putting together a presentation, 00:15:23.29 and you're at a particular scene 00:15:26.17 and you decide... mmm... electron acceptors, 00:15:29.07 that's what I'm gonna be talking about here. 00:15:31.07 And so you write "electron acceptors" 00:15:34.00 in your biggest typeface up at the top, 00:15:36.06 and then you write down all the things you want to say... 00:15:40.02 you write those down below. 00:15:42.00 And then, if... and you put those in this bulleted list. 00:15:44.20 And then, if there's any room, 00:15:46.24 then you include an image. 00:15:50.02 What I'm telling you here is 00:15:53.02 go back to step one and stop there. 00:15:56.00 You can do better. 00:15:58.01 Build your talk on messages. 00:16:00.08 And so, Dr. Barbara Bekins, 00:16:02.01 when she was putting together her presentation 00:16:05.08 on the effect of hydrology 00:16:10.04 on the 25-year degradation of a crude oil spill... 00:16:18.01 on this particular scene, 00:16:20.23 she thought deeply about what she wanted the audience 00:16:24.01 to walk out the door with. 00:16:26.04 And then she wrote this sentence: 00:16:28.17 a succession of electron acceptors occurs 00:16:31.17 when an aquifer becomes contaminated with oil. 00:16:36.14 And then, she took that sentence, 00:16:39.28 tightened it as much as she could, 00:16:41.29 and put that at the top of a slide. 00:16:44.11 And once she had that, 00:16:46.19 then she had a filter. 00:16:48.17 And then she created visual evidence 00:16:51.00 to support that. 00:16:53.00 And so, when you've got an oil spill 00:16:56.18 that occurs in an aerobic aquifer, 00:17:01.09 what depletes first is the oxygen. 00:17:07.27 And so, what you see here is that this oxygen... 00:17:12.13 this becomes depleted in this outer band of the plume. 00:17:16.18 And once that is depleted, 00:17:19.08 then you get these bands of other types of depletions. 00:17:25.20 You get a reduction of nitrate and manganese, 00:17:29.10 and then you get a reduction of iron, 00:17:32.14 and then there's a reduction of sulfate. 00:17:36.29 So, what she has done 00:17:40.24 is she has stated her assertion up at the top 00:17:43.08 and then supported that assertion visually. 00:17:47.22 That's principle number one. 00:17:51.14 Principle number two 00:17:54.04 is to support your messages with visual evidence 00:17:57.04 -- not a bullet list. 00:18:00.00 It could be photographs, drawings, 00:18:03.05 diagrams, graphs. 00:18:05.17 It could be an equation. It could be a film. It could be a short table. 00:18:10.07 And then what you are to do is... 00:18:14.18 by creating that, you allow the audience 00:18:19.27 to focus on the visual evidence 00:18:23.14 and then what it is you're saying. 00:18:25.07 You avoid that cognitive overload. 00:18:27.29 So, let's go back to Paivio. 00:18:30.05 And if you remember, 00:18:32.27 Paivio found that written words and spoken words... 00:18:35.16 they're processed in the same part of the brain. 00:18:38.10 But his research also found 00:18:42.09 that images are processed in a different part of the brain. 00:18:46.01 And another researcher, professor Richard Mayer 00:18:49.19 from UC Santa Barbara... 00:18:52.05 what he did is he really ran with the question of, 00:18:55.27 what is the effect of using images in a presentation? 00:19:00.25 What is the effect on the learning 00:19:04.23 that the audience has? 00:19:06.20 And so, he's done a number of experiments, 00:19:08.22 and what his big takeaway 00:19:12.06 is that people learn much more deeply 00:19:14.05 from words and relevant images 00:19:17.10 than from words alone. 00:19:19.28 So, let's take a look at an example, 00:19:22.07 and I'm gonna choose a PhD graduate student, Jacob Snyder, 00:19:25.02 who's presenting a scene from 00:19:29.00 one of his conference presentations and from his PhD defense. 00:19:32.20 And so, in this scene 00:19:36.05 he's talking about the effect of using additive manufacturing, 00:19:40.18 or 3D printing, 00:19:42.25 on some really small channels. 00:19:47.09 And so, he begins the scene 00:19:51.04 by showing a channel that is built in the vertical direction, 00:19:55.10 much as a smokestack is. 00:19:57.09 And what you can see 00:19:59.18 -- and what he points out -- 00:20:01.26 is the variation that occurs in that 3D printed channel. 00:20:05.27 And then, once he has set that up, 00:20:09.14 then what he does is he shows a channel 00:20:12.24 that was built as a pipeline. 00:20:15.10 And what you see is that there's much more variation 00:20:20.12 in that particular channel, 00:20:22.19 that parts of it actually almost cave in. 00:20:26.11 And so, you might think, ohh, well, it's obvious 00:20:30.02 -- we would go with the vertical one. 00:20:32.10 Except that these channels... they are... 00:20:36.09 serve to produce heat transfer of these very hot gases. 00:20:40.22 And so, as it turns out, 00:20:43.03 having that roughness can be an asset. 00:20:47.03 And then he went on to show another channel 00:20:51.12 -- this one at 45 degrees -- 00:20:53.20 and he made the point that manufacturers 00:20:57.10 could choose different angles 00:21:01.24 to balance having the overall shape that they want 00:21:04.18 with increased roughness. 00:21:07.17 Now, we've looked at an assertion-evidence slide here. 00:21:12.01 Let's take it apart. 00:21:14.15 And the slide began with the assertion headline. 00:21:18.11 Now, some of you might say, 00:21:20.23 you know, I... I bet if I had seen Jacob Snyder give that talk, 00:21:25.28 I would understand exactly what was going on 00:21:29.05 and I would not have read that sentence. 00:21:31.15 And what I would say is, fantastic. 00:21:33.28 You were on your game as a listener 00:21:36.06 and then Jacob was on his game as a speaker. 00:21:40.09 But that sentence at a conference or in a symposium... 00:21:44.15 that sentence serves as a safety rope for the audience 00:21:50.04 in case they zone out, they get tired, 00:21:53.21 they receive a text, or whatever... 00:21:56.07 that allows them to stay in the presentation. 00:22:02.06 A couple of other things about the sentence headline: 00:22:05.10 keep it to one or two lines. 00:22:07.26 If it goes more than two lines, 00:22:09.22 our focus groups find that people won't read it... 00:22:12.28 perhaps it's just too much time away from the speaker. 00:22:16.13 Capitalize it the way you would a sentence. 00:22:19.09 It's just easier for people to read a sentence 00:22:22.08 that's capitalized as a sentence. 00:22:24.10 Also, don't center it; left justify it. 00:22:27.12 It's an easier read for the audience. 00:22:32.09 And the period... do you need a period? 00:22:36.14 Because it's a standalone sentence, 00:22:38.21 a period isn't required. 00:22:40.17 However, if you hear the voice of your fifth grade teacher 00:22:43.29 to put a period there and it haunts you at night, 00:22:47.22 put the period. 00:22:49.16 It's not that big of a deal. 00:22:52.16 So, that's the sentence. 00:22:54.12 What about the visual evidence? 00:22:56.11 With the visual evidence, I'd say the big thing is to avoid clutter. 00:22:59.07 In other words, try to have the slide breathe. 00:23:01.19 And I think Jacob Snyder did a really good job here 00:23:04.10 with the positioning of the three contour plots 00:23:08.20 and not allowing them to crowd the headline. 00:23:15.08 Leave some space there -- very nice. 00:23:17.17 And one last thing is, think about how you're gonna tell the story of the scene. 00:23:22.29 So, in this case, Jacob Snyder 00:23:25.28 discussed the one contour plot 00:23:28.13 and then animated in the second one, 00:23:30.23 when he was ready and when the audience was ready, 00:23:33.16 and then animated in the third, 00:23:36.22 again when the audience was ready. 00:23:39.13 So, we've talked about two of the principles 00:23:43.05 of the assertion-evidence approach: 00:23:45.28 build your talk on messages, not on topics, 00:23:48.01 and support those messages with visual evidence 00:23:51.01 not bullet lists. 00:23:53.15 The third principle of the assertion-evidence approach 00:23:56.15 is that when you present that visual evidence 00:24:00.04 fashion sentences on the spot. 00:24:02.18 In other words, show that you own the information. 00:24:06.20 Now, many of you might be 00:24:09.14 afraid of this particular principle. 00:24:11.25 You think, oh, I don't think I can do it. 00:24:14.01 I need those bullet lists for me to know what to say. 00:24:16.20 And what I would say is, you don't. 00:24:19.16 It is your research. 00:24:21.29 If you choose visual evidence 00:24:25.10 that is from your work, 00:24:28.05 you can present it. 00:24:29.29 You don't need those bullet lists. 00:24:32.14 As a research scientist or a research engineer, 00:24:35.04 be an experimentalist. 00:24:37.02 Try this approach. 00:24:39.19 And in trying this approach, 00:24:42.02 rather than starting with PowerPoint's defaults, 00:24:44.06 go to our website -- www.assertion-evidence.com -- 00:24:47.07 and download one of our PowerPoint templates. 00:24:50.00 They're free. It doesn't cost you anything. 00:24:53.02 But it's gonna save you a lot of time. 00:24:55.02 You'll also find some example presentations 00:24:57.13 by people such as Jacob Snyder and Katie Kirsch, 00:25:01.13 whom I had mentioned earlier. 00:25:04.08 So, what we've done here is that 00:25:10.04 I have shown you a different approach 00:25:12.23 to give a scientific research presentation. 00:25:16.05 And I hope that you'll be an experimentalist 00:25:18.23 and try this approach. 00:25:21.13 In a second film that's coming up, 00:25:23.22 we're going to walk through 00:25:27.11 a research presentation 00:25:30.03 -- title slide, mapping slide, the body slides, conclusion slide -- 00:25:33.16 to show some best examples on what it is that you can do. 00:25:38.00 Thank you.

Part 2: Assertion-Evidence Slides for a Research Talk

• Duration: 00:27:42

00:00:08.07 This film is a second part 00:00:11.24 in a three-part series for iBiology 00:00:15.18 on creating effective scientific research presentations. 00:00:22.05 Now, in the first part, 00:00:25.12 I introduced the assertion-evidence approach. 00:00:28.23 And the assertion-evidence approach has three main principles: 00:00:33.06 number one, build your talk on messages not on topics; 00:00:37.27 number two, support those messages with visual evidence not bullet lists; 00:00:42.13 and then number three is, when explaining that visual evidence, 00:00:46.18 fashion sentences on the spot. 00:00:50.14 Whereas you might have just one sentence written on the slide, 00:00:54.26 you will say six, seven, eight, or nine sentences 00:01:00.14 in your talk. 00:01:03.01 This second film does two things. 00:01:06.15 This first is this film 00:01:10.27 presents evidence showing that the assertion-evidence approach 00:01:14.14 is more effective. 00:01:16.21 After all, this approach requires quite a bit more work. 00:01:20.16 You have to think deeply about what those message headlines are. 00:01:23.19 You have to create that visual evidence. 00:01:26.13 And then you have to practice enough 00:01:29.08 that you can fashion sentences on the spot. 00:01:32.15 The second part of the talk 00:01:36.02 is to walk through a research presentation 00:01:38.07 and show you what I consider some of my greatest hits: 00:01:42.09 slides that students have created 00:01:45.14 for various research talks. 00:01:48.20 So, why the assertion-evidence approach? 00:01:52.20 Why should we use it? 00:01:54.27 At Penn State, we've done some tests 00:01:58.09 in which we've found that the assertion-evidence approach 00:02:02.14 is more effective than a typical presentation slide, 00:02:07.13 such as what you see on the screen. 00:02:10.00 So, we created a presentation... 00:02:12.16 this one happens to be on magnetic resonance imaging... 00:02:15.23 and we first created it as a typical traditional talk 00:02:22.29 that follows PowerPoint's defaults. 00:02:25.12 In fact, we looked at a lot of presentations 00:02:29.17 that were on magnetic resonance imaging, 00:02:32.06 and we patterned it after that. 00:02:34.20 Then we created a set of slides 00:02:38.01 for the exact same words that would be spoken, 00:02:42.26 but then followed the assertion-evidence approach. 00:02:45.22 So, we've got 50-60 participants in a room. 00:02:51.10 They see slides that follow the traditional approach. 00:02:56.14 Then we've got 50-60 students in another room. 00:03:00.07 They see slides that follow the assertion-evidence approach. 00:03:05.00 And after the presentation, 00:03:08.00 both sets of participants... 00:03:10.08 they essentially tried to explain, 00:03:13.26 how does magnetic resonance imaging work? 00:03:16.21 And then we had scorers who scored each of those attempts. 00:03:22.09 But the scorers, or the raters, 00:03:25.09 they didn't know from which group that they came. 00:03:29.02 But what the raters found is... 00:03:32.18 they found that the traditional approach... 00:03:35.14 they scored on average about 42% 00:03:38.05 in terms of how much they understood. 00:03:41.23 Whereas the people who viewed the assertion-evidence approach, 00:03:45.28 they found 50... 00:03:48.21 they scored that 59%. 00:03:51.01 And the statistical difference between those two 00:03:53.21 -- at these levels, 50-60 participants -- 00:03:57.16 is about... less than 0.01. 00:04:02.08 And so, what we were left to conclude 00:04:04.26 is the assertion-evidence slides 00:04:07.17 led to better comprehension and recall of information, 00:04:12.19 and that increase in comprehension and recall 00:04:16.29 is statistically significant. 00:04:19.14 One thing that we also found 00:04:23.13 is that the misconceptions that participants had 00:04:27.12 in the traditional approach, 00:04:29.27 with traditional PowerPoint slides, 00:04:32.22 is about 10 times higher 00:04:36.06 than for the assertion-evidence group -- ten times. 00:04:39.18 And what we think is happening there 00:04:42.13 is that the participants... 00:04:45.13 they're reading a bullet or something 00:04:49.23 while the speaker is talking about something else. 00:04:52.24 Those are two reasons 00:04:57.11 for you to think about using these slides 00:05:00.01 to present your research: 00:05:02.18 to increase comprehension and recall, 00:05:04.29 and to reduce number of misconceptions 00:05:08.21 that people have about your work. 00:05:11.08 So, that's a reason for doing the assertion-evidence approach. 00:05:14.14 How do you... how do you apply it 00:05:18.02 in a research presentation? 00:05:20.14 And so, what I'd like to do is walk through some common scenes, 00:05:23.18 sometimes talking about what's typically done, 00:05:27.08 and then show you what's done in the assertion-evidence approach. 00:05:30.17 Okay. So, here we go. 00:05:31.29 The first scene is typically a title slide. 00:05:34.29 And at so many research conferences, 00:05:38.10 or at symposiums and seminars, 00:05:41.00 you'll see people have a slide such as the following. 00:05:44.14 Hello. My name is Stuart Apple. 00:05:46.20 I'm workin' with Kerry Cho and Dale Gray, 00:05:49.03 and we are from the Environmental Science Department 00:05:52.14 at such and such a university. 00:05:54.19 And what we are going to present today is 00:05:58.02 Atmospheric Mercury Depletion Events 00:06:00.18 in Polar Regions During Arctic Spring. 00:06:03.25 And then that slide is gone. 00:06:06.05 And in those few nanoseconds 00:06:09.04 between that slide and the next slide, 00:06:11.27 think about how you're feeling as an audience member. 00:06:15.14 Are you... are you confident 00:06:18.09 that you're gonna learn a lot in this talk? 00:06:20.19 Do you feel as if the train has left the station, 00:06:22.27 and yet you're not really clear on what the talk is about 00:06:28.29 or what the title means? 00:06:33.27 I think that's what many people have... 00:06:35.09 or, the state that they're in in a research talk. 00:06:37.27 We can do better than that. 00:06:40.05 And now, you kind of look at this slide 00:06:42.21 and you wonder... gosh, I see a lot of slides like that. 00:06:45.17 Maybe they've got different decoration. 00:06:47.23 But why? 00:06:49.28 Why do so many slides have this title on the top, 00:06:52.05 and then just the name and the affiliation beneath, 00:06:55.05 and maybe just some decoration? 00:06:57.19 And you know why. 00:07:00.02 I mean, the reason is that people are just following PowerPoint's defaults. 00:07:03.05 PowerPoint tells them to do that. 00:07:05.10 And so, they'll put their title and then they'll put their affiliation. 00:07:08.07 And what we're saying is, 00:07:10.03 you can do better than that. 00:07:12.01 You can do better than that. 00:07:14.10 So, what can we do? 00:07:16.27 So, I'd like to look at... actually, this research 00:07:20.06 was done by a young researcher at the University of Oslo, 00:07:25.02 a chemistry student by the name of Katrine Aspmo. 00:07:27.24 And she was gonna give her first research presentation. 00:07:31.18 And she was a little nervous about that. 00:07:34.18 Moreover, the presentation was gonna occur in Portland, Oregon, 00:07:38.21 and so the people were gonna be speaking in English 00:07:43.14 -- not her native Norwegian. 00:07:45.27 But her English is good. 00:07:48.02 Still, that's just one more thing for her to consider. 00:07:50.25 But before this talk, 00:07:53.20 she went to her advisor and she asked her advisor, 00:07:57.22 how many people will be in the audience? 00:07:59.23 And her advisor said, well, it'll be about 50. 00:08:02.07 She said, whoa. 00:08:04.19 And then she said, how many of them know 00:08:05.20 what an atmospheric mercury depletion event is? 00:08:08.21 And her advisor said, hmm... I'd say five. 00:08:11.15 You're one. I'm another one. 00:08:14.20 Our collaborator, Grethe -- she's a third. 00:08:17.08 And so, that kind of gave her this idea that... 00:08:20.23 whoa... you know... 00:08:23.11 for her to orient that audience, 00:08:25.20 she's gonna have to spend some time on that initial scene. 00:08:29.05 And so, here's what she came up with. 00:08:33.12 Hello, my name is Katrine Aspmo, 00:08:36.00 and I'm working with Torunn Berg 00:08:38.21 at the Norwegian Institute of Air Research, 00:08:40.22 and I'm also working with Professor Grethe Wibetoe 00:08:42.23 from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oslo. 00:08:46.00 And what we're trying to determine 00:08:48.20 is where atmospheric mercury goes 00:08:54.03 when it depletes or falls out of the atmosphere. 00:08:59.03 Now, one thing you may not realize 00:09:02.08 is that in this atmosphere -- in this room right here -- 00:09:03.29 there's a certain amount of mercury. 00:09:06.16 It's not much. It's about 1.5 nanograms per liter. 00:09:09.16 And here, in this room, 00:09:11.16 it remains in the atmosphere. 00:09:13.15 Even when we breathe it in, we breathe it out. 00:09:15.24 It still stays in that gaseous state. 00:09:18.19 But for some reason 00:09:21.09 -- and scientists aren't exactly sure why -- 00:09:24.14 in the polar regions of the world, 00:09:26.24 such as this beautiful Ny-Alesund region, 00:09:29.00 that you see here of Norway, 00:09:32.04 there are these events where that level of mercury 00:09:36.23 will drop to zero. 00:09:39.20 And the question comes... 00:09:41.27 where does that mercury go? 00:09:43.28 So, these events... they've got this fancy name, 00:09:47.10 atmospheric mercury depletion events. 00:09:49.16 But where does that mercury go? 00:09:51.20 Now, while you may not have realized 00:09:53.21 that mercury is in the atmosphere, 00:09:55.14 I think everyone in the room knows 00:09:58.03 that mercury is toxic. 00:09:59.29 And at high enough levels, 00:10:02.07 it can cause paralysis and even death for mammals. 00:10:04.29 And so, for the polar bears in the region, 00:10:08.01 for the arctic foxes, 00:10:10.01 for the stray Norwegians who wander through there, 00:10:14.23 how... where is that mercury? 00:10:17.03 What and... and... and how does... 00:10:20.03 how does it get to that particular spot? 00:10:22.19 That is, a... you know, a research question. 00:10:26.17 And so, what we did is... you may not be able to see, 00:10:29.02 but in this one corner here is a cabin. 00:10:32.27 And we stayed in that cabin for two months. 00:10:37.00 And what we did is 00:10:39.20 we made simultaneous measurements of the amount of mercury 00:10:42.29 that's in the atmosphere 00:10:44.24 with the amount of mercury that's in the surface snow 00:10:47.06 to test our hypothesis. 00:10:49.21 That is in fact where that mercury goes. 00:10:54.15 Wow. I remember seeing this talk at... 00:10:57.19 seeing the beginning of this talk 00:11:00.03 at the University of Oslo in 2004. 00:11:02.03 And I thought to myself, you know, 00:11:04.15 I'm not an environmental scientist, 00:11:06.17 but I am lucky. 00:11:08.18 I am lucky to be here 00:11:10.26 because I'm gonna learn something in this talk. 00:11:12.20 I have already learned something in this talk. 00:11:14.20 And that's something that I would suggest to you: 00:11:17.08 in that first scene, give the audience something. 00:11:21.02 You know at the beginning of a scientific presentation, 00:11:23.28 there are certain things 00:11:26.27 that you want to accomplish before you get to the middle. 00:11:29.05 One thing is you want to show the importance of the research. 00:11:31.15 You want to present background 00:11:33.15 that the audience needs. 00:11:35.11 You also want to present background 00:11:37.20 about yourself to build credibility. 00:11:39.09 And you want to give your research question. 00:11:41.14 Katrine did all of those... 00:11:44.13 all of those on that title slide. 00:11:47.07 Wow -- that's effective. 00:11:49.11 So, we've talked about one scene here. 00:11:54.18 Another scene that often occurs 00:11:58.24 also happens at the beginning, before you get to the middle, 00:12:00.14 and it's something people call an outline slide. 00:12:02.10 I like to call it kind of a mapping slide. 00:12:04.17 Sadly, many people's slide looks like the following. 00:12:08.18 You've got this detailed list 00:12:10.24 of every single thing they're gonna do 00:12:13.00 -- things they've already done, actually, 00:12:14.27 in the talk by the time they give it -- 00:12:16.24 and then things that you already know were gonna come. 00:12:19.06 And then they will dutifully read through that list. 00:12:21.20 You know, they'll get to... you know, 00:12:23.29 almost all the way through, 00:12:25.24 and then they'll realize they misspelled a word like acknowledgments, 00:12:28.06 and they'll apologize for it... 00:12:30.14 and then they will finish, 00:12:32.05 and then they will move on. 00:12:34.00 And when they move on, 00:12:35.25 then the audience is, to themselves, 00:12:38.08 thinking, well, he gave me all these things, 00:12:41.14 or she gave me all these things, 00:12:43.13 and I've forgotten them already. 00:12:45.11 You can do better than that. 00:12:47.20 One thing is, remember, 00:12:51.04 people feel comfortable with lists of two's, three's, and four's. 00:12:54.01 So, a list, here, of eleven is not very good. 00:12:57.19 Another thing is you don't need to give them some things: 00:13:00.01 introduction -- they know the talk has an introduction; 00:13:02.08 background -- you've already given the background 00:13:04.05 before you do this mapping; 00:13:06.04 conclusions; acknowledgments; questions. 00:13:08.02 They know that's happening. 00:13:09.28 It's the stuff in the middle. 00:13:11.24 And you don't have to give the sub-levels. 00:13:13.22 I mean, that's not what's so important. 00:13:15.13 It's the main things that you need to give. 00:13:17.16 So, let's look at what Katrine Aspmo did. 00:13:19.20 I thought she did an excellent job. 00:13:22.00 So, in her talk, she divided it into three parts. 00:13:25.22 One is this theory for mercury cycling. 00:13:28.21 And then she talked ab... 00:13:30.18 mentioned that she was gonna, you know, talk about that. 00:13:33.06 And then she had another part, 00:13:35.16 where she had those measurements from that station... 00:13:37.29 actually, on those two types of mercury measurements: 00:13:41.24 in the atmosphere and then in the surface snow. 00:13:46.03 And then, her third part of the talk 00:13:49.00 was environmental implications, 00:13:51.05 and she showed this particular picture. 00:13:53.00 And the polar bear is not there in a gratuitous fashion. 00:13:55.18 Actually, a lot of the data 00:13:58.05 on the effects of these mercury depletion events 00:14:00.08 occurs through studying polar bear carcasses, 00:14:04.02 and so that is what she went over. 00:14:06.20 But whoa... what a great mapping scene. 00:14:09.20 And I have seen people sometimes take those images 00:14:12.20 and put those as icons in the corners of all the slides 00:14:17.05 that were from that particular section. 00:14:19.05 That's just another thing, here, 00:14:21.05 that you could do that doesn't clutter a slide 00:14:24.04 or take up too much space 00:14:25.29 or too much time for the audience's attention. 00:14:28.15 Yeah. 00:14:30.07 But that's the kind of mapping that you want to do. 00:14:32.19 Let's try... let's think about literature review. 00:14:35.02 So, literature view... oh my gosh. 00:14:36.27 This is often one of the most boring parts. 00:14:38.13 People walk through all the... 00:14:40.08 all the major work that's been done. 00:14:42.15 You'll get a bullet list slide, 00:14:44.06 and they'll talk about everything that they've done. 00:14:46.07 And I'd like you to rethink that. 00:14:48.29 You know, what are you doing in the literature review? 00:14:51.11 You're trying to show that there's a gap in the work, 00:14:56.04 and that... and that your research question... 00:14:58.21 your research hypothesis... 00:15:00.06 your research fills that gap. 00:15:03.12 And so, you're trying to show that gap exists. 00:15:05.14 So, here's one that Jacob Snyder did on his. 00:15:09.23 And so, what he did is... 00:15:12.01 he wanted to make it clear 00:15:14.23 that there are a number of people 00:15:17.09 -- not a lot of people, but a number of people -- 00:15:19.09 who have tried to use additive manufacturing 00:15:22.18 to create these heat transfer devices 00:15:25.24 for these gas turbine engines. 00:15:27.28 And so, he showed a couple of images 00:15:30.21 right at the beginning: 00:15:32.06 one from the work of Kirsch and Thole, 00:15:34.03 another one from the work Collins. 00:15:35.24 Then it talked a little bit about what they had done. 00:15:38.14 Then he brought in the work of Ferster 00:15:40.26 and the work of somebody else. 00:15:42.17 Then he brought in the work of Siemens, 00:15:44.17 that they... and he talked about what they had done. 00:15:46.21 But then he made it clear that there was a gap 00:15:50.24 between what they've done and what still could be done. 00:15:53.04 Wow. 00:15:54.26 That's something that people can follow. 00:15:56.29 Really, really nice. 00:15:58.18 And it's thinking about what details are essential 00:16:00.29 and then what details are secondary. 00:16:06.20 So, we've looked at a literature review. 00:16:08.26 Let's talk a little bit about methods. 00:16:11.00 So, with methods... 00:16:13.07 I'll show you one that's more from an experimental talk. 00:16:17.19 And so, here, rather than having, again, 00:16:21.19 a bullet list with all these details, 00:16:23.09 what Nick Cardwell did in this one is 00:16:26.13 he started with an image of his experiment. 00:16:29.08 So, he's got this recirculating wind tunnel. 00:16:31.19 And then he shows this one particular part 00:16:34.28 of that wind tunnel 00:16:36.19 where they split the flow. 00:16:38.26 And so, the flow there splits. 00:16:42.02 You see some of it goes in the blue part 00:16:44.08 and some of it goes in that white part. 00:16:46.04 And then, in that... in that center part, or that white part, 00:16:48.17 what happens is they heat some of that flow. 00:16:51.00 So, you've got... now, you've got two flows: 00:16:53.14 the secondary flow in the flu... in the blue part, 00:16:58.00 and then the primary flow, but the primary flow is heated. 00:17:01.00 And then they bring that secondary flow 00:17:03.22 back in to try to cool the surfaces after... 00:17:09.20 after the heated flow has occurred. 00:17:11.12 And so, they're simulating what goes on in a jet engine, 00:17:14.08 where they try to cool the parts 00:17:16.28 downstream of the combustor. 00:17:18.23 But... really nice. 00:17:21.01 Now, Nick Cardwell... he knows a lot of the numbers 00:17:24.03 on flow rates and temperatures, 00:17:25.29 and so he was just able to say those. 00:17:27.27 What you could do, if you're... 00:17:30.21 don't have the confidence you could remember those, 00:17:33.23 you could animate them into that white space, 00:17:36.02 but then I would animate them out 00:17:38.08 when they're not needed. 00:17:40.02 Don't let those clutter the slide. 00:17:42.14 But remember, the audience will have your paper. 00:17:45.20 They can go back and refer to what things are. 00:17:49.16 You definitely want to have those details, 00:17:51.19 and you want to know them 00:17:53.12 and be able to respond to questions, 00:17:55.08 but you don't need to put everything on the slide 00:17:58.13 as so many people do. 00:18:02.07 Let's look at a second method slide. 00:18:04.06 And on this one, 00:18:07.08 the speaker didn't have images 00:18:09.19 such as the last one had. 00:18:11.26 So, let's see how he handled it. 00:18:14.19 So, this particular work was done by Jimmy Webber. 00:18:18.06 And in a sense, 00:18:20.03 what he's trying to do in this part of the methods section 00:18:22.27 is just talk about how he is going 00:18:27.14 to characterize this pollution of 53 streams 00:18:30.15 in the Northeast. 00:18:32.08 And so, he introduces these six criteria 00:18:34.21 that he will use to characterize that pollution. 00:18:39.19 And then the second thing that he does 00:18:42.15 is he says, as a reference, 00:18:44.06 he's gonna compare the pollution of those streams 00:18:47.03 versus the pollution 00:18:49.15 -- or those same criteria -- 00:18:51.09 of 12 reference streams. 00:18:54.03 And then he gives a teaser 00:18:58.16 on a couple of results from his work, 00:19:01.19 and I thought that was interesting that he did so. 00:19:03.29 And what he did is he showed 00:19:06.19 that the sulfate levels were beyond that reference point, 00:19:11.10 on average, for the 53 streams. 00:19:14.20 Not to a place where it's dangerous 00:19:16.26 for the plants or wildlife, 00:19:18.26 but certainly beyond the reference. 00:19:21.12 And then he also showed that the chloride levels... 00:19:24.28 those were in fact at the impaired level. 00:19:29.13 I love this scene. 00:19:31.02 I love how he tells this part of his methods 00:19:36.09 as a story. 00:19:38.06 And I love the imagination. 00:19:40.09 Somebody else would have just had a bulleted list, 00:19:42.27 and we would have slept through it. 00:19:44.25 But here, he has essentially told us a story 00:19:49.08 that we can remember. 00:19:52.10 And that is so important. 00:19:54.15 It's not just that people understand our work; 00:19:56.19 we want them to remember our work. 00:19:59.20 So, here... this part of the talk 00:20:01.26 is where you have to... 00:20:03.16 you're making some of your best arguments. 00:20:07.12 And I just want to show an example, here, 00:20:10.23 that comes from some work 00:20:14.11 that's being done in Norway 00:20:17.11 by this... Siri Larsen. 00:20:19.12 And so, what Siri is doing is 00:20:24.26 she's looking at satellite images 00:20:27.00 and kind of looking at them in interesting ways, 00:20:28.26 with different filters, 00:20:30.23 to extract some valuable information. 00:20:32.20 And so, these images 00:20:36.08 happen to come from parts of Norway 00:20:38.10 where there might be avalanches. 00:20:40.18 And that's important because 00:20:42.27 if you have an avalanche... 00:20:44.24 you know... or if... 00:20:46.25 if a place is susceptible to one avalanche, 00:20:49.23 then more could occur, 00:20:51.20 and you want to keep people away 00:20:54.22 from that particular area. 00:20:56.12 But the problem is when you look at the satellite images, 00:20:58.23 sometimes it's hard to distinguish 00:21:01.16 an avalanche from a sparse forest. And so, what she has done is 00:21:08.01 she's applied these filters 00:21:10.11 that kind of helped her make that distinguishing. 00:21:12.23 And so, one of the filters is this aspect direction, 00:21:15.18 and she would talk about how she applied that 00:21:18.24 and what she would find. 00:21:20.08 Another one, then, is of the vertical direction 00:21:22.27 -- how she applied that and what they have found. 00:21:25.19 But I like, again, 00:21:28.08 how she tells that scene, tells it as a story. 00:21:31.12 So, that's an example of results that has images. 00:21:35.24 Another kind of result would be a graph, 00:21:38.06 and so here's... here's a graph that Steve Weaver 00:21:40.26 put together in one of his talks. 00:21:43.24 And so, in this particular graph, 00:21:47.02 what he is doing is he's trying 00:21:51.20 to examine the roughness in this heat transfer channel. 00:21:55.20 And so, one way to determine that 00:21:59.14 is by this particular graph, 00:22:02.20 where you graph friction factor, f, 00:22:06.00 on the y axis 00:22:07.24 versus Reynolds number on the x axis. 00:22:10.08 And so, the first thing that Weaver did 00:22:15.06 is he has that straight line. 00:22:17.06 And so, that would be a perfectly smooth pipe. 00:22:19.23 That would be the theoretical explanation, 00:22:23.12 so... from Blasius in 1894. 00:22:25.10 And then, here... then, the dots... 00:22:29.23 those are his experiments showing that 00:22:34.23 within experimental error he matches the curve of Blasius. 00:22:36.28 But then he's gonna roughen up these surfaces, 00:22:40.07 and so he roughened them up in different ways, 00:22:42.09 and so... different colors... 00:22:44.08 red is not as rough as blue, 00:22:46.05 which is not as rough as green. 00:22:48.05 So, what's the effect of roughening the surface? 00:22:50.27 What effect does it have on the friction factor? 00:22:53.08 And then he animates in what that effect is, 00:22:57.18 and then he shows that it's actually... 00:22:59.12 it increases that friction factor in all of those cases. 00:23:04.03 A couple of things here that I liked... 00:23:06.18 one is I liked that he told things as a story. 00:23:08.24 Another thing I liked is that, here, 00:23:13.04 he was giving his most important result, 00:23:15.24 and he didn't start with the assertion at the beginning 00:23:18.06 because he knew there would be some people 00:23:20.20 who would be skeptical about that result, 00:23:23.12 and he knew there would be others that, 00:23:25.08 if he gave that assertion at the beginning, 00:23:27.07 it would be too much for them 00:23:29.20 -- they would be... they would be overwhelmed. 00:23:31.19 So, he started with a question that they understood. 00:23:34.23 And then, when he was ready, 00:23:36.20 then he brought in his assertion. 00:23:40.01 And so, in a way, I think of this kind of scene 00:23:43.27 as evidence-assertion. 00:23:45.09 Evidence comes first, and then, 00:23:47.08 when the audience is ready, 00:23:49.05 then you bring the assertion. 00:23:51.06 And in real persuasive types of situations, 00:23:53.06 that's a good thing to do. 00:23:55.14 So, let's move on to our last scene. 00:23:59.08 And our last scene is the scene that you show at the end. 00:24:02.09 And interestingly, the most common scene that I see people show 00:24:08.13 as their last slide is something that looks like that. 00:24:11.01 Oh my gosh. 00:24:13.04 Let's think about this. 00:24:14.19 Let's just think about this scene for just a second. 00:24:16.01 What are we trying to do here? 00:24:18.01 What we're trying to do here is... 00:24:19.11 we have presented our work to the world 00:24:21.28 and now we want the world's response. 00:24:24.04 And so, people are seeing our research, here, 00:24:28.19 for the first time. 00:24:30.18 And so that... maybe they're spending a minute and a half 00:24:34.15 or two minutes on a graph, 00:24:36.05 but now they're trying to formulate questions. 00:24:38.09 How does this slide help them formulate questions 00:24:40.19 about research that they've never seen before? 00:24:44.10 And the fact is it doesn't. 00:24:46.08 This is a terrible scene. 00:24:48.04 You can do so much better. 00:24:49.28 Don't do that -- please. 00:24:51.27 I mean think about it. 00:24:53.18 Think about it from the audience's perspective. 00:24:56.01 Your best scene to end with 00:24:58.22 is a scene that shows your conclusion, 00:25:01.28 that shows really what your main takeaways are. 00:25:05.16 And that's what Danielle Lesso 00:25:08.02 did in this particular scene. 00:25:09.22 So, she had three main points 00:25:12.09 that she had made in her talk 00:25:14.26 to show that Miscanthus 00:25:17.14 could be a promising fuel crop 00:25:20.10 for the northeastern part of the United States. 00:25:22.20 And the first one is that Miscanthus 00:25:25.06 is able to have a cold tolerance 00:25:29.00 down to 6 degrees Celsius, 00:25:30.24 which is important in the Northeast. 00:25:32.15 Another thing is that the root depth 00:25:35.10 goes down to 2 meters, 00:25:37.21 which is important because a lot of the Northeast, 00:25:39.25 as she pointed out in her talk, 00:25:41.18 is on hilly surfaces, 00:25:43.15 and so the plant could be washed away 00:25:45.19 if it doesn't have sufficient root depth. 00:25:48.14 And then in the third part, she showed this energy ratio, 00:25:52.02 which the National Academy of Sciences had found, 00:25:55.00 that for every BTU of energy that you put in to 00:26:02.08 planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and transporting Miscanthus, 00:26:07.11 you get 6 BTUs out of energy 00:26:10.00 -- a ratio was 6 to 1. 00:26:13.21 And at this point, she gave her closure to her talk. 00:26:17.04 And then, when she was ready, 00:26:19.28 then she asked for questions. 00:26:22.08 Now, the audience has something 00:26:25.06 in which they can ask. 00:26:28.01 They've got words up here to help them formulate questions. 00:26:33.25 So, what have we done today? 00:26:36.14 We've talked about why the assertion-evidence approach... 00:26:39.01 why it is worth 00:26:42.27 at least an experiment on your part, 00:26:44.27 for you to try the gains 00:26:48.09 that we have in audience comprehension. 00:26:50.23 And then we walked through various scenes 00:26:53.00 to give you ideas 00:26:55.09 on how you might design your title slide, 00:26:57.18 a mapping slide, 00:27:00.02 a slide on your literature review, 00:27:01.12 talk about your methods, your results, 00:27:03.19 and then finally your conclusion. 00:27:07.04 So, this particular talk has focused 00:27:09.26 on how we might design slides for a research talk. 00:27:14.13 The third part of the series talks 00:27:17.28 about how you would deliver those slides 00:27:19.24 and, in particular, 00:27:22.11 how you would deliver those slides with confidence.

Part 3: Attaining Confidence in Your Scientific Presentations

• Duration: 00:20:40

00:00:08.02 This film is the third of a three-part series for iBiology 00:00:14.17 on improving your scientific presentations. 00:00:17.14 The first two films introduced a different approach, 00:00:20.28 the assertion-evidence approach, 00:00:23.04 for presentations, 00:00:25.24 what it is, why to use it, 00:00:28.19 and then how to incorporate it 00:00:31.17 into a research presentation. 00:00:33.17 This third film focuses on an important aspect of presentations, 00:00:39.15 and that is delivery. 00:00:41.07 And in particular, 00:00:43.22 how do you exude confidence in your delivery? 00:00:49.10 Now, I have had the fortune of teaching scientific presentations 00:00:54.13 over the past 30 years 00:00:58.10 on 4 continents, 17 countries, 00:01:02.17 and more than 100 institutions -- 00:01:08.00 laboratories, companies, universities, and agencies. 00:01:12.28 And by far, the number one question 00:01:16.05 that young scientists and engineers asked me is, 00:01:21.09 how do I handle nervousness? 00:01:24.08 Now, they don't ask this question in front of the big crowd. 00:01:27.11 Rather, they catch me in the hallway and they ask. 00:01:31.01 And to that question, I have the same answer. 00:01:35.00 In the days before the presentation, 00:01:38.14 think positively. 00:01:40.13 Just as a professional tennis player 00:01:43.00 will imagine a shot going in a certain spot, 00:01:46.15 you too, in your presentations, 00:01:49.25 should imagine success -- 00:01:53.22 the audience understanding your results, for instance. 00:01:57.19 On that day of the presentation, 00:02:00.27 arrive early. 00:02:04.10 I cannot tell you how many times arriving early 00:02:08.08 has saved me from embarrassment. 00:02:12.03 Learning that my computer 00:02:15.09 doesn't hook up with their particular projector, 00:02:18.19 finding that chairs are not where they should be... 00:02:22.27 arrive early. 00:02:25.11 That way, you can remove one of the biggest sources of nervousness, 00:02:29.23 and that is that your presentation slides will not work. 00:02:36.11 And then, just before you speak, 00:02:40.28 think about some advice that Mark Twain 00:02:43.24 shared with a nervous presenter backstage. 00:02:47.20 Don't worry -- they're not expecting much. 00:02:51.15 So, those are the three things 00:02:54.10 that I generally tell people 00:02:57.01 on how to handle nervousness 00:02:59.12 before a scientific presentation. 00:03:01.09 And I have to say, I've chosen those three 00:03:03.28 because those three things have helped me. 00:03:06.14 But what I would also say is "how do I handle nervousness?" 00:03:11.04 is not your best question. 00:03:13.24 The better question to ask is, 00:03:16.07 how do I attain confidence when I present? 00:03:20.13 And I'm talking about the confidence of the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor 00:03:25.03 or the physicist Brian Cox. 00:03:29.19 So, this question's a little bit different. 00:03:31.23 And if you think about confidence, 00:03:35.19 there are really two types of confidence. 00:03:38.09 There's that confidence that you feel inside, 00:03:41.03 the internal confidence. 00:03:44.17 And then there's that confidence 00:03:47.20 that you project to the audience. 00:03:50.02 Even though inside you might be hurting, 00:03:52.16 to the audience you can still project 00:03:55.18 that you at least seem confident. 00:03:58.28 So, I'd like to talk about those two. 00:04:01.21 And I'll start first with the internal confidence. 00:04:05.15 And I'd like to draw upon my interviews 00:04:08.29 with a number of scientists and engineers 00:04:12.21 who've given excellent presentations 00:04:15.02 to large audiences, 00:04:16.29 such as Jill Bolte Taylor or Brian Cox. 00:04:23.01 And one of the key ingredients for that internal confidence 00:04:29.09 is having strong content. 00:04:32.15 If you have tested or vetted that content of yours 00:04:37.24 before audiences whom you respect, 00:04:41.12 and that content has withstood those audiences, 00:04:45.20 and in fact received positive responses 00:04:49.16 from those audiences, 00:04:51.16 that will help you with your internal confidence. 00:04:57.00 A second ingredient comes from a short interview 00:05:02.01 I had with Jane Goodall. 00:05:04.18 I happened to meet her at an airport, 00:05:06.27 and I didn't have much time to speak with her, 00:05:10.21 but I mentioned that I have this opportunity 00:05:14.08 to talk about presentations 00:05:16.25 to many young scientists and engineers 00:05:20.00 around the world, 00:05:22.05 and what piece of advice would she give them? 00:05:25.22 And her demeanor changed. 00:05:29.22 She kind of took on a harsh demeanor, 00:05:31.26 and she said, 00:05:34.00 well, it certainly wouldn't be the same piece of advice 00:05:37.09 that someone gave me. 00:05:39.26 And I had this sense that 00:05:43.05 I had just ripped the Band-Aid off an old wound. 00:05:45.13 She said that before her first presentation 00:05:49.13 someone had told her to just go up there. 00:05:52.16 You're the expert. 00:05:54.18 And she said that was horrible advice. 00:05:57.17 And then she went on to tell me 00:05:59.29 that she was here touring the United States, 00:06:02.14 and she was giving essentially 00:06:06.12 the same talk at ten different places. 00:06:09.12 And at each of those places, 00:06:13.26 before the talk, 00:06:16.25 she insisted on having 45 minutes by herself 00:06:21.00 so that she could walk through that talk 00:06:24.02 and imagine herself giving it to the crowd. 00:06:28.20 And I thought to myself, my gosh. 00:06:31.24 Someone who is that seasoned... 00:06:34.05 if she still needs that amount of preparation, 00:06:40.01 what about the rest of us? 00:06:43.11 Preparation -- that I would say is the second ingredient. 00:06:47.28 And then the third ingredient came from the world health statistician 00:06:52.29 Hans Rosling. 00:06:55.03 And Hans Rosling told me that, for him, 00:07:01.02 an important part of internal confidence was focus. 00:07:09.20 What Rosling said is before an important talk 00:07:12.07 he didn't want to... 00:07:15.12 in the minutes before, he didn't want to really speak to anybody. 00:07:17.27 He just wanted to be by himself. 00:07:21.11 And his best analogy for it 00:07:24.20 was to be like a downhill slalom skier 00:07:28.17 up at the top, just before you take off. 00:07:33.11 And a downhill slalom speak... 00:07:35.16 skier thinks about going here, going here, 00:07:39.03 going here, or going here. 00:07:42.01 And he said, for him, that was the same thing, 00:07:45.14 that he wanted to think about exactly 00:07:47.27 where he was going to go. 00:07:51.06 This idea of focus was also one 00:07:55.06 that a young presenter communicated to me -- 00:07:59.13 Sheila Patek, before one of her first presentations, 00:08:04.16 which was to more than 800 people. 00:08:08.16 And what she said is... 00:08:12.05 she said, if I had thought about the 800+ people 00:08:16.07 in the room that day, 00:08:18.19 I never could have done it. 00:08:21.05 Instead, I thought about the science 00:08:23.23 and my passion for the ideas, 00:08:25.28 and I let that carry me. 00:08:30.18 Strong content, preparation, focus. 00:08:36.23 If you will work on those three things, 00:08:39.22 you will bolster your internal confidence. 00:08:44.12 Now, I'm not saying that before a talk 00:08:47.23 you're not going to feel nervous. 00:08:50.29 There will be audiences and there will be situations 00:08:55.07 in which you will. 00:08:57.24 But... and I think something to realize 00:09:01.23 is that the internal confidence 00:09:04.12 is not an on/off switch. 00:09:06.29 A better analogy is that it's a bucket. 00:09:10.20 And the more that you work on those three, 00:09:13.18 the more fluid that is in that bucket. 00:09:18.00 And that... the nervousness that you will have 00:09:23.13 is not as much as if you had not done the strong content, 00:09:29.06 the preparation, 00:09:31.03 the focus. 00:09:33.21 So, that was a little bit about internal confidence. 00:09:37.01 How about projected confidence? 00:09:40.26 One thing that has amazed me 00:09:43.28 is that I have had students 00:09:46.19 who have given a presentation 00:09:49.09 -- former students -- 00:09:51.12 and I have watched them, 00:09:53.08 and I have thought, oh my gosh, 00:09:56.06 these students are doing great. 00:09:58.10 And then I think to myself, 00:10:00.24 I must be a really good teacher, 00:10:03.12 that my former students are presenting so well. 00:10:07.07 But then afterwards, I will talk to these students, 00:10:11.11 and they will tell me how nervous they were. 00:10:14.17 And I will think to myself, 00:10:16.21 I must not be a very good teacher, 00:10:19.07 because I couldn't see their nervousness. 00:10:22.22 But one thing that I've realized is that 00:10:27.07 even though inside you are hurting, 00:10:30.16 you can mask that discomfort 00:10:36.28 in certain ways and with certain steps that you can take. 00:10:40.04 And so, I'd like to come back to Twain 00:10:43.20 and talk about another quotation that he has. 00:10:45.23 And for the moment, disregard the religious implications 00:10:48.22 of this quotation. 00:10:50.24 But Twain talked about 00:10:54.04 the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces. 00:10:58.04 And I think as a presenter, 00:11:01.09 there are four aces that you can play in a presentation 00:11:05.02 to project more confidence. 00:11:07.27 The ace of spades: start strong. 00:11:13.06 On the day of the presentation, arrive early. 00:11:17.04 Make sure that all the equipment is working. 00:11:21.20 And not just your computer and projector, 00:11:25.08 but make sure that the clicker is working 00:11:27.27 so that you are ready to go. 00:11:31.03 One thing that is important to realize is that 00:11:36.10 different rooms have different ghosts. 00:11:38.05 And crazy things that will happen in one room 00:11:41.12 will not happen in another. 00:11:43.16 But in that other room, 00:11:46.05 something else crazy could happen. 00:11:48.17 Be prepared -- arrive early. 00:11:50.27 And then, when you've gotten everything ready to go, 00:11:54.28 don't hide out in the bathroom. 00:11:56.25 Rather, meet your audience. 00:12:00.21 Try to find out something from them 00:12:03.07 that you can incorporate into your talk. 00:12:06.29 I see speakers do that. 00:12:09.13 And even though I know exactly what it is that they're doing, 00:12:13.25 I'm always amazed at that particular move 00:12:17.21 that they make. 00:12:20.03 Just meet your audience, 00:12:22.20 try to find out something about them. 00:12:24.14 Even if you don't incorporate it, 00:12:27.01 you have strengthened your hand 00:12:29.18 by meeting that person, 00:12:31.23 becoming in a sense that person's friend 00:12:35.01 or that person becoming your ally. 00:12:38.18 And then, when it's time for you to go up, 00:12:43.18 move up to the stage, stand tall. 00:12:47.09 I like to feel the muscles in the backs of my calves and thighs. 00:12:50.28 I like to feel myself stand as tall as I can 00:12:55.11 in front of the audience. 00:12:57.23 Don't necessarily say anything for a moment. 00:13:00.29 Smile. 00:13:03.04 Smiling is a great thing to do 00:13:06.10 because what happens is the audience will smile back, 00:13:08.29 and that's a good feedback loop for you. 00:13:12.17 And then, when you're ready to speak, 00:13:15.11 make sure that the first syllable that you say 00:13:20.08 is not uh. 00:13:22.12 Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how many times 00:13:26.01 people have undercut such a wonderful moment 00:13:28.19 with an uh or um. 00:13:32.16 Know what you're going to say first. 00:13:35.24 I don't memorize much, 00:13:38.18 but I often have the first sentence committed to memory. 00:13:42.15 And when I say it, 00:13:45.00 I will pause somewhere in the middle at a natural place. 00:13:49.22 And when you pause 00:13:52.06 -- and this might sound odd -- 00:13:54.11 listen for the HVAC sound in the room 00:13:57.21 -- the heating, ventilation, and cooling sound of the room -- 00:14:00.29 and love that sound. 00:14:04.01 00:14:06.05 Embrace that sound. Feel comfortable with that sound 00:14:08.22 so that you don't have this urge 00:14:12.03 to fill that sound with uh or um. 00:14:16.25 And then, when you show that first slide, 00:14:19.28 know that first slide. 00:14:22.09 Don't turn to the slide 00:14:24.20 and read what the title is. 00:14:29.16 And for heaven's sake, 00:14:32.04 don't turn to the slide 00:14:35.24 when you say your name. 00:14:37.25 You ought to know your name. 00:14:39.18 Know that first slide. 00:14:41.22 Now, on that slide, you should have some kind of image 00:14:45.13 or a sequence of images 00:14:47.25 that orient the audience. 00:14:50.03 And turning to that image... 00:14:52.14 that's a natural turn, 00:14:54.19 because you want the audience to turn toward that image. 00:14:59.12 Ace of spades -- start strong. 00:15:03.07 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides. 00:15:08.21 And so, don't follow PowerPoint's defaults 00:15:11.23 and have all these bullets. 00:15:14.09 Rather, use an approach 00:15:16.22 such as the assertion-evidence approach 00:15:19.03 that tries to minimize the text on slides 00:15:21.24 to just the essence of the argument 00:15:24.14 that you are giving. 00:15:26.22 Build your talk on messages, 00:15:28.25 not on topics. 00:15:31.01 Support your messages with visual evidence, 00:15:33.14 not bullet lists. 00:15:35.17 And that visual evidence could be photographs, drawings, 00:15:40.00 diagrams, graphs. 00:15:42.18 It could be a film, could be an equation, 00:15:44.25 could be a short table. 00:15:47.00 But reduce that text on slides 00:15:49.09 so that when you are speaking, 00:15:52.03 the words clearly come from you. 00:15:57.22 You show ownership of your research. 00:16:02.16 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides. 00:16:06.16 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next. 00:16:10.09 Now, for me, when I'm at a conference 00:16:15.17 that I'm the second speaker or third speaker 00:16:18.28 in a session, 00:16:20.26 I really don't have the confidence 00:16:23.18 to listen to the previous speakers 00:16:25.21 and to ask them questions. 00:16:28.03 I'm always amazed at those people who do. 00:16:30.16 But for me, I am sitting here 00:16:34.02 thinking about my own presentation. 00:16:36.11 And one thing that I like to do 00:16:38.22 -- and it's similar to what Rosling said -- 00:16:41.24 is that I like to think about each scene. 00:16:45.11 And so, I'll often take a blank sheet of paper 00:16:48.05 and I will sketch thumbnails of the slides, 00:16:52.14 and then the next slide, and then the next slide, 00:16:56.14 and the slide after that, 00:16:58.21 so that I know what comes next. 00:17:01.08 Because if I know what comes next 00:17:04.03 before I click to that slide, 00:17:07.01 I can make a transition to that scene. 00:17:11.26 And that making of a transition... 00:17:15.11 that projects confidence. 00:17:18.21 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next. 00:17:22.28 Ace of clubs -- finish strong. 00:17:26.04 When you're at the end of your talk, 00:17:29.10 have a strong scene on which to end, 00:17:32.25 one that states your main conclusions 00:17:36.01 and then has images of your main arguments 00:17:41.15 to support that conclusion. 00:17:43.29 And then go through those arguments 00:17:48.00 in an efficient manner. 00:17:50.06 And when you get to the end of those arguments 00:17:53.18 and then you may your closure 00:17:55.27 to end the talk, pause. 00:18:01.08 And before you ask for questions, 00:18:05.29 say the word thank you. 00:18:10.23 Or if you're in Germany, danke schön. 00:18:13.23 Or if you're in China, xièxiè. 00:18:16.02 But give that audience 00:18:19.11 an opportunity to clap. 00:18:22.00 I find that in conference presentations 00:18:25.16 and research symposiums, 00:18:27.16 it's a coin flip. 00:18:29.10 The speaker might give the audience 00:18:31.17 a chance to clap. 00:18:33.25 But a lot of times, the speaker will just rush 00:18:36.08 and ask for questions. 00:18:38.12 And then the audience doesn't know what to do -- 00:18:41.01 do I clap, or do I ask a question? 00:18:43.02 And so, what you end up with is 00:18:46.25 you end up with some tepid applause as well as then 00:18:49.08 some people may be trying to voice a question. 00:18:52.22 Don't go there. 00:18:54.21 You want to receive the applause. 00:18:56.26 And in fact, I think it's important 00:18:59.10 that those people who are 00:19:03.14 perhaps not in your field 00:19:05.18 see the experts in your field... 00:19:07.22 see them applaud. 00:19:09.24 Say thank you. 00:19:11.19 And then, when that applause is dying down, 00:19:15.27 that's when you want to ask for questions. 00:19:19.14 And when you receive questions, 00:19:21.23 know that there are gonna be some questions 00:19:24.27 that you cannot fully answer. 00:19:27.21 And so, a lot of young scientists and engineers... 00:19:31.17 they will rush that answer 00:19:34.08 and say what it is that they know. 00:19:37.13 But then they'll have a big but. 00:19:41.10 And then they'll end that answer 00:19:44.15 with some negative news. 00:19:46.25 A better way to handle it is to pause 00:19:49.18 and start your answer with although. 00:19:53.04 Although I cannot answer everything 00:19:55.28 about the question that you asked, 00:19:57.22 I can say... 00:20:01.00 and then finish strong with what it is you do know. 00:20:05.07 Ace of clubs -- finish strong. 00:20:10.26 If you'll play those four aces in your presentation, 00:20:16.01 you will project confidence. 00:20:21.19 Thank you.

• Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
• Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad

Talk Overview

Michael Alley has been teaching scientists and engineers how to design presentation slides and deliver effective scientific talks for over three decades. In this three-part lecture, you will learn (a) how to design your PowerPoint or Keynote slides, (b) how to organize your talk, and (c) how to confidently deliver your research seminar. This series will help trainees and research scientists alike improve their presentation skills.

Speaker Bio

Michael alley.

Michael Alley holds a master of science in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University and a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Alabama. Alley is a teaching professor of Engineering Communication at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of three popular textbooks: The Craft of Scientific Presentations (2013), The Craft… Continue Reading

Playlist: Tips for Science Trainees

Related Resources

Michael P Alley, 2013, The Craft of Scientific Presentations, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA, pp. 286

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2016, Slide structure can influence the presenter’s understanding of the presentation’s content , International Journal of Engineering Education, 32, (1A), pp. 39-54

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2013, How the design of presentation slides affects audience comprehension: A case for the assertion-evidence approach , International Journal of Engineering Education 26 (6), pp. 1564-1579

PowerPoint templates for Assertion-evidence slides

Reader Interactions

Itizaz says

September 25, 2020 at 12:18 pm

Thank you sir i was really looking for this information…keep it up

Rick Salatino says

May 11, 2021 at 3:39 pm

In the early 2010s, I was a scientific training manager, a molecular biologist and learning professional, for a medium-sized biotechnology company. I tried to influence and train our R&D scientists to use Michael Alley’s Assertion-Evidence approach to improve slide design for better knowledge acquisition and retention. While scientists theoretically accepted the approach, they practically rejected it. Powerpoint defaults were the comfortable default for most scientific research presentations and, I suspect, they still are today.

Craig Hadden says

April 17, 2024 at 5:23 am

Thanks for sharing these videos, which offer a great way to improve the standard of fact-based presentations!

If you’re interested, I’ve summarised this approach in a short post – including a 5-minute video. (The post also discusses “hacking” the assertion-evidence approach, to make your slides more varied.)

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Open Access

Ten simple rules for effective presentation slides

* E-mail: [email protected]

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

• Kristen M. Naegle

Published: December 2, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction

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

Rule 1: Include only one idea per slide

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

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

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

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

Rule 2: Spend only 1 minute per slide

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

Rule 3: Make use of your heading

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

Rule 4: Include only essential points

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

Rule 5: Give credit, where credit is due

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

Rule 6: Use graphics effectively

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

Rule 7: Design to avoid cognitive overload

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

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

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

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

Rule 9: Iteratively improve slide design through practice

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

Rule 10: Design to mitigate the impact of technical disasters

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

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

Conclusions

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

Acknowledgments

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

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

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Creating a 10-15 Minute Scientific Presentation

In the course of your career as a scientist, you will be asked to give brief presentations -- to colleagues, lab groups, and in other venues. We have put together a series of short videos to help you organize and deliver a crisp 10-15 minute scientific presentation.

First is a two part set of videos that walks you through organizing a presentation.

Part 1 - Creating an Introduction for a 10-15 Minute Scientfic Presentation

Part 2 - Creating the Body of a 10-15 Minute Presentation: Design/Methods; Data Results, Conclusions

Two additional videos should prove useful:

Designing PowerPoint Slides for a Scientific Presentation walks you through the key principles in designing powerful, easy to read slides.

Delivering a Presentation provides tips and approaches to help you put your best foot forward when you stand up in front of a group.

Other resources include:

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Preparing a scientific presentation? Read this first.

by ikumikayama | Feb 27, 2013 | Uncategorized | 8 comments

PowerPoint Tips for the Scientist

If you feel like everyone is taking naps when you speak, these tips are for you.

Almost everyone is a little bit guilty of taking a power nap during a PowerPoint presentation. If you are the one on the podium, though, that’s demoralizing. After all, you spent months writing abstracts and proposals, setting up experiments, gathering data, analyzing data, generating enough material to submit for an oral presentation slot, being accepted, and staying late to put together your PowerPoint presentation.

So why are they napping during your presentation? Didn’t they personally made the decision to come to hear you speak? Consider your slides. Did you put any  thought into designing them? Or did you just use the default, or whatever design everyone else is using?

Take a minute and think back to the last presentation you attended. What do you remember about it? Most likely, there were lots of numbers and some graphs on the slides. The presenter might have used rainbow colors. The last slide showed a sunset, which was memorable because that slide stayed on the screen throughout the Q&A.

I know, because I regularly attend scientific conferences and presentations. Seminars, workshops, you name them. I even take notes during the talk (but I doodle from time to time) and keep seeing the presenters make the same mistakes over and over.  These mistakes are so obnoxious that attendees will talk about how awful it was for years. The talks are supposed to be interesting and informative, right?

Why Design is Important

Presentation slides are visual tools incorporating words and images that are created and developed to accompany a speaker. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words. The question is, is your picture expressing the right 1000 words?

When your slides don’t deliver the right message, your audience tends to become uninterested, confused, or bored. And they won’t remember your presentation if they are uninterested, confused, or bored.

The good news is that it’s not hard to create memorable and effective slides! With just a few simple design fixes, you can set yourself apart and make a memorable presentation that is sure to gain more attention.

Here are the 10 most common design mistakes that ruin a PowerPoint presentation… and the things you can do to avoid them![bra_divider height=’40’]

Mistake #1: Poor Color Choices

So why are the blue/yellow slides all over the place? If you know why, let me know in the comments. What I do know is that PowerPoint was made by computer programmers in the 1980’s. Lots of improvements have been made, but for some reason, blue/yellow presentations have stayed. Unless they are the school colors, I don’t see why people stick with them.  Sure,people don’t like it when things are different, but if you’re presenting something new and exciting, don’t put it on an over-used default!

Here’s my theory on why the blue/yellow Powerpoints are so rampant. In the most basic sense of color psychology and marketing, colors “represent” certain emotions. For example, Red makes you feel energetic and hungry. That’s why many food-related companies use red as part of their logos.

Blue represents calmness and focus. It also has a soothing effect.

Yellow represents openness, promotes communication and brainstorming new ideas.

So here’s what I think happened. I wasn’t there, but my best guess is this: someone looked at this color psychology list and said, “When people are listening to your talk, they need to focus on the speaker and be open-minded.” boom! Out comes a blue/yellow powerpoint slide.

What’s missing from this concept is that while colors do make people feel a certain way, just putting colors together does not make it good. Next time, do this: Pick one central color for your presentation, and create slides around that central color.

Ready for more tips to make your presentation be the most memorable and talked about? It’s easy because 99% of your colleagues don’t know how to do this. Access the reference pdf by signing up today.

Blue (especially dark blue) with yellow text is the most readable combination. Eye fatigue is worse with black text on white.

Hi, thank you for the comment! I learned that Blue/Yellow combo was the go-to color combination for slide projectors for the contrast reasons as well. Blue/yellow slides have quite a history. I am looking forward to more research on the slide projector colors.

I generally advise against them because though the blue/yellow have good contrast, from a color theory perspective they are not the best colors to be seen together. Also when using images/photos, the blue background usually clashes with the images.

Thanks again for your input. I really appreciate it! let me know what you think.

i think blue and yellow are great together in presentations (or art) its just how the color is used plus composition plays a key role.

Thanks for the note and your input! I agree that blue and yellow can look pretty, as long as they are used properly. All colors are subjective, and everyone has different preferences.

The problem is that blue/yellow presentations usually clash colors with added graphics/photos within the presentation.

Also, after I see 3-4 blue/yellow presentations at a meeting, I start mixing the presentations in my mind. That’s no way to stand out. I compare this to picking out one classic Scooby Doo cartoon from the pool of very similar stories.

Again, thanks for taking your time to leave a note!

I agree with you about blue-yellow contrast. But the title of this post is “10” tips about powerpoint, and the first image says there are downloadable tips somewhere… But there’s only #1 and no #2~#10.

Sorry! Bad link. I fixed it.

Dear IKUMIKAYAMA, you are totally right, the blue background with yellow typography is obsolete and comes from the age of slides.

A couple of points for the above fans of blue/yellow: – Only people that started with slides are still presenting to audiences with this combination, merely because they eventually digitised their old slides into images and still recycle them. I am not saying is wrong, but in the same way fonts have change a great deal over the 20th century, the way of communicating has totally changed in the 21st. You look old, you like it or not. – Eye fatigue comes from reading a zillion slides containing BLOCKS of text in tiny size to squeeze what you do not want to memorise. No matter the colors, you kill the audience with text. It is not a BOOK is a MULTIMEDIA presentation, so exploit graphs, images and icons, use little text with 24 points size and you will see how people engages more with what you say.

Hey, Whilst you are creating a PowerPoint Presentation, colours plays a vital function. it is able to impact the way your target audience perspectives your presentation and how much statistics they may be capable of draw close. How unique shades engage with one another and how you operate them could have a massive impact on the appearance of your presentation.

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• Resources: Graphic Design Tips | Beyond the Written Word: - […] PowerPoint design mistakes and how to fix them […]

Business Insider

5 key strategies for getting and negotiating brand deals as a college athlete, including how to price sponsored posts

Posted: May 8, 2024 | Last updated: May 8, 2024

• Rachel Maeng Brown is a former NCAA rower who now works with student-athletes at her firm Gen Agency.
• The agency has provided NIL education and consulting to college athletes, collectives, and schools.
• Brown shared a presentation with five strategies to help athletes price and negotiate brand deals.

Knowing your worth is a struggle many college athletes face now that they can make money from their name, image, and likeness, known as NIL.

To help athletes understand their value, influencer-marketing-and-production company Gen Agency has been educating and consulting college athletes on NIL.

"Our big focus is creating a sustainable NIL marketplace at each university," Rachel Maeng Brown, the founder and CEO of Gen agency, told Business Insider.

Brown, a former NCAA rower, said the NIL side of Gen Agency educates universities to help them build curriculums. The agency also offers athletes on-site and virtual workshops about NIL marketing.

In April, Gen Agency hosted its first NIL-educational summit for University of Michigan influencers in partnership with Reach , a student-driven organization helping content creators grow their platforms and connect with brands. The presentation, which was shared with BI, covered how athletes can understand their audience, price sponsored content, post properly on social media, and protect themselves with a contract.

The summit also featured a panel of guest speakers, including former NFL player Isaiah Johnson . Johnson told BI that social-media followers and engagement are more important to brands who work with athletes than on-field performance.

"Followers, everyone wants to know how many people are following you and then two, just how genuine you are," he said. "If you are genuinely using a product, this could be a wonderful fit."

Johnson said athletes with the best media presence are natural and real with their followers. He said sports fans love behind-the-scenes footage they can not get from somewhere else, like athletes' day-in-the-life videos.

Here are five key slides from Gen Agency's NIL presentation on how athletes can brand themselves and negotiate fair pay:

Learn about your audience

Brown said knowing your target audience is key to working with brands. It helps companies understand who they can reach by recruiting you. 

During the summit, Brown showed athletes where to find key stats on their Instagram audiences, including follower count and growth, location, age, and gender.

A formula athletes can use to estimate the price of a brand deal

The presentation offered a formula student-athletes can use to calculate how much to charge brands for a sponsored post. It's based on a $10 CPM, which refers to the cost per every 1,000 impressions, though CPMs can vary.

To calculate what to charge per post, take the average number of views over the last 30 days and divide it by 1,000. Then take that figure and multiply it by the CPM.

Using that math, an athlete with 600,000 average views over the last days would charge $6,000 per post, based on a $10 CPM, per the presentation's example.

Know your copyright rules

Athletes, like other influencers, need to comply with brand, platform, and regulatory guidelines for social-media posts and ads, such as copyright rules and what kind of content is permitted on a platform.

Student-athletes also need to abide by NCAA rules because posting inappropriate content can result in losing scholarships, eligibility, and future career opportunities, according to the NCAA .

Brown said college athletes should also exercise caution and not include other brands or anything illegal in a sponsored post. She advised double-checking the spelling before posting, too.

Dos and don'ts for sponsored posts

The agency also emphasized the importance of double-checking disclosures for paid ads, partnerships, and more so athletes do not have to delete or redo sponsored videos.

"This is really important to student-athletes as well as smaller influencers because a lot of brands will try to bully them," said Brown, "to say, 'You don't need to put hashtag. You don't need to disclose that we're sponsored.' But it's actually illegal across social media."

She said failing to disclose a sponsored post could result in an athlete's account being banned or messing up their average views and algorithm.

Things to know about payment

Brown also talked about contracts and W-9s, which are tax forms for independent contractors. The presentation emphasized in capital letters that athletes need a contract to make sure they get paid for their work.

They should also be mindful of terms such as "usage" and "ownership" because it could mean their videos could be posted on any social-media channel or site.

Brown said brands are not going to protect the athletes, so they need to look out for themselves.

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