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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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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!

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

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10 Keys to an Engaging Scientific Presentation

• May 31, 2018

What makes an engaging scientific presentation? Georgia Tech Professor Will Ratcliff uses a method based on the style of nature documentary presenter David Attenborough. Ratcliff’s approach looks to capture an audience’s natural curiosity by using engaging visuals and simple storytelling techniques. Here are his 10 keys to an engaging scientific presentation: 1) Be an Entertainer First: […]

What makes an engaging scientific presentation? Georgia Tech Professor Will Ratcliff  uses a method based on the style of nature documentary presenter David Attenborough. Ratcliff’s approach looks to capture an audience’s natural curiosity by using engaging visuals and simple storytelling techniques.

Here are his 10 keys to an engaging scientific presentation:

1) Be an Entertainer First : Before your science can wow your audience, they have to understand it. Before they can understand it, you must engage them with what you’re saying. Look at your presentation from your audience’s perspective and think about how they’ll relate to your material. Focus on presenting your science in a way that engages and entertains as it explains.

2) Be a Storyteller, Not a Lecturer : Don’t assume that your audience knows your field. Tell the story of your science: identify the big picture backdrop, your specific research questions, how you answer those questions, and how it affects the way we now think about the big picture.

3) Prioritize Clarity : If the audience doesn’t understand every word you use, they’ll stop paying attention, and you may never win them back. Your goal is to never lose their attention in the first place, so make an effort to be clear and have a simple narrative arc to your talk.

4) Mind Your Transitions: The easiest place to lose your audience’s focus is when you move from one slide to another. Practice the transitions in your talk to make sure the link between the ideas of one slide and the next remains clear.

5) Keep Complete Sentences Out of Your Slides: Keep the text in your slides to a minimum. Instead, use compelling visual to hold your audience’s attention while you speak.

6) Animations Are Your Friend: You can use animations to reveal new details on your slide as they become relevant to what you are saying. That way you get to control what your audience is seeing, minimizing distraction and putting laser pointers out of a job. Note: never use silly and unnecessary animations, like spinning or scrolling text, this will just annoy your audience.

7) Get Excited: If you’re not excited and energetic about your work, your audience won’t be either.

8) Look at the Audience: Don’t stare at the floor, the ceiling, or your slides while you’re presenting. Look directly at your audience, or if you’re nervous, toward the back of the lecture hall. This will help you connect with your audience.

9) Be Wary of Jokes: Scientific talks are serious by nature and you have more to lose than to gain. If a joke is poorly timed or if you misjudge an audience, you risk alienating them. Play it safe and find other ways to be entertaining unless you know your audience well.

10) Leave the Laser Pointer at Home: Laser pointers are distracting. If you feel you need one to guide your audience through a slide, that’s a sign your slide is too cluttered.

Want More Tips on Giving an Engaging Scientific Presentation? Check Out: 3 Elements of a Great Scientific Talk

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Reference management. Clean and simple.

5 tips for giving a good scientific presentation

What is a scientific presentation?

What is the objective of a scientific presentation, why is giving scientific presentations necessary, how to give a scientific presentation, tip 1: prepare during the days leading up to your talk, tip 2: deal with presentation nerves by practicing simple exercises, tip 3: deliver your talk with intention, tip 4: be adaptable and willing to adjust your presentation, tip 5: conclude your talk and manage questions confidently, concluding thoughts, other sources to help you give a good scientific presentation, frequently asked questions about giving scientific presentations, related articles.

You have made the slides for your scientific presentation. Now, you need to prepare to deliver your talk. But, giving an oral scientific presentation can be nerve-wracking. How do you ensure that you deliver your talk well, and leave a good impression on the audience?

Mastering the skill of giving a good scientific presentation will stand you in good stead for the rest of your career, as it may lead to new collaborations or even new employment opportunities.

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

• Why giving scientific presentations is important for your career;
• How to prepare before giving a scientific presentation;
• How to keep the audience engaged and deliver your talk with confidence.

The following tips are a product of our research into the literature on giving scientific presentations as well as our own experiences as scientists in giving and attending talks. We advise on how to make a scientific presentation in another post.

A scientific presentation is a talk or poster where you describe the findings of your research to others. An oral presentation usually involves presenting slides to an audience. You may give an oral scientific presentation at a conference, give an invited seminar at another institution, or give a talk as part of an interview. A PhD thesis defense is one type of scientific presentation.

➡️ Read about how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

The objective of a scientific presentation is to communicate the science such that the audience:

• Learns something new;
• Leaves with a clear understanding of the key message of your research;
• Has confidence in you and your work;
• Remembers you afterward for the right reasons.

As a scientist, one of your responsibilities is disseminating your scientific knowledge by giving presentations. Communicating your research to others is an altruistic act, as it is an opportunity to teach others about your research findings, and the knowledge you have gained while researching your topic.

Giving scientific presentations confers many career benefits , such as:

• Having the opportunity to share your ideas and to have insightful conversations with other scientists. For example, a thoughtful question may create a new direction for your research.
• Gaining recognition for your work and generating excitement for your research program can help you to forge new collaborations and to obtain more citations of your papers. It's your chance to impress some of the biggest names in your field, build your reputation as a scientist, and get more people interested in your work.
• Improving your future employment prospects by getting presentation experience in high-stakes settings and by having talks listed on your academic CV.

➡️ Learn how to write an academic CV

You might have just 10 minutes for your talk. But those 10 minutes are your golden ticket. To make them shine, you'll need to put in some homework. You need to think about the story you want to tell , create engaging slides , and practice how you're going to deliver it.

Why all this effort? Because the rewards are potentially huge. Imagine speaking to the top names in your field, boosting your visibility, and getting more eyes on your work. It's more than just a talk; it's your chance to showcase who you are and what you do.

Here we share 5 tips for giving effective scientific presentations.

• Prepare adequately for your talk on the days leading up to it
• Deal with presentation nerves
• Deliver your talk with intention
• Be adaptable
• Conclude your talk with confidence

You should prepare for your talk with the seriousness it deserves and recognize the potential it holds for your career advancement. Here are our suggestions:

• Rehearse your talk multiple times to ensure smooth flow. Know the order of your slides and key transitions without memorizing every word. Practice your speech as though you are discussing with friendly and attentive listeners.
• Record your speech and listen back to yourself giving your talk while doing household chores or while going for a walk. This will help you remember the important points of your talk and feel more comfortable with the flow of it on the day.
• Anticipate potential questions that may arise during your talk, write down your responses to those questions, and practice them aloud.
• Back up your presentation in cloud storage and on a USB key. Bring your laptop with you on the day of your talk, if needed.
• Know the time and location of your talk. Familiarize yourself with the room, if you can. Introduce yourself to the moderator before the session begins.
• Giving a talk is a performance, so preparing yourself physically and mentally is essential. Prioritize good sleep and hydration, and eat healthy, nourishing food on the day of your talk. Plan your attire to be both professional and comfortable.

It’s natural to feel nervous before your talk, but you want to harness that energy to present your work with confidence. Here are some ways to manage your stress levels:

• Remember that your audience want to listen to you and learn from you. Believe that your audience will be kind, friendly, and interested, rather than bored and skeptical.
• Breathing slow and deep before your talk calms the mind and nervous system. Psychologist Amy Cuddy recommends practicing open, confident postures while sitting and standing to help you get into a positive frame of mind.
• Fight off impostor syndrome with positive affirmations. You’ve got this! Remember that you know more about your research than anyone else in the room and you are giving your talk to teach others about it.

Giving your talk with confidence is crucial for your credibility as a scientist. Focusing on your delivery helps ensure that your audience remembers and believes what you say. Here are some techniques to try:

• Before beginning, remember your professional goals and the benefits of giving your presentation. Start with a smile and exhale deeply.
• Memorize a simple opening. After the moderator introduces you, pause and take a breath. Welcome the audience, thank them for coming, and introduce yourself. You don’t need to read the title of your talk. But briefly, say something like, “today I’m going to talk to you about why [topic] is important and [what I hope you will learn from this talk]” in 1-2 sentences. Preparing your opening will settle your nerves and prevent you from starting your talk on a tangential topic, ensuring you stay on time.
• Project confidence outwardly, even if you feel nervous. Stand up tall with your shoulders back and make eye contact with individuals in the audience. Move your focus around the room, so everyone in the audience feels included.
• Maintain open body language and face the audience as much as possible, not your slides.
• Project your voice as much as you can so that people at the back of the room can hear you. Enunciate your words, avoid mumbling, and don’t trail off awkwardly.
• Varying your vocal delivery and intonation will make your talk more interesting and help the audience pay attention, particularly when you want to emphasize key points or transitions.
• Pausing for dramatic effect at crucial moments can help you relax and remember your message, as well as being an effective engagement device.
• A laser pointer can be off-putting for the audience if you are prone to having a shaky hand when nervous. Use a laser pointer only to emphasize information on the slide while providing an explanation. If you design your slides thoughtfully , you won’t need to use a laser pointer.

Not all parts of your talk may go according to plan. Here are some ways to adapt to hitches during your talk:

• Handle talk disruptions gracefully. If you make a mistake, or a technical issue occurs during your talk, remember that it’s okay to skip something and move on without apologizing.
• If you forget to mention something but the audience hasn’t noticed, don’t point it out! They don’t need to know.
• As you give your talk, be time-conscious, and watch the moderator for signals that the time is about to expire. If you realize you won’t have time to discuss all your slides, skip the less important ones. Adjust your presentation on the fly to finish on time, prioritizing content as needed.
• If you run out of time completely, just stop. You don’t have to give a conclusion, but you do need to stop on time! Practicing your talk should prevent this situation.

The ending of your talk is important for emphasizing your key message and ensuring the audience leave with a positive impression of you and your work. Here are some pointers.

• Conclude your talk with a memorized closing statement that summarizes the key take-home message of your research. After making your closing statement, end your talk with a simple “Thank you”. Then pause and wait for the applause. You don’t need to ask if the audience has questions because the moderator will call for questions on your behalf.
• When you receive a question, pause, then repeat the question. This ensures the whole audience understands the question and gives you time to calmly consider your answer.
• In a talk on attaining confidence in your scientific presentations, Michael Alley suggests that if you don’t know the answer to the question, then emphasize what you do know. Say something like, “Although I can’t fully answer your question, I can say [this about the topic].”
• Approach the Q&A with interest rather than anxiety by reframing it as an opportunity to further share your knowledge. Being curious, instead of feeling fearful, can help you shine during what might be the most stressful part of your presentation.

Communicating your research effectively is a key skill for early career scientists to learn. Taking ample time to prepare and practice your presentation is an investment in your scientific development.

But here's the good part: all that effort pays off. Think of your talk as not just a presentation, but as a way to show off what you and your research are all about. Giving a compelling scientific presentation will raise your professional profile as a scientist, lead to more citations of your work, and may even help you obtain a future academic job.

But most importantly of all, giving talks contributes to science, and sharing your knowledge is an act of generosity to the scientific community.

➡️ Questions to ask yourself before you make your talk

➡️ How to give a great scientific talk

1) Have a positive mindset. To help with nerves, breathe deeply and keep in mind that you are an authority on your topic. 2) Be prepared. Have a short list of points for each slide and know the key transition points of your talk. Practice your talk to ensure it flows smoothly. 3) Be well-rested before your talk and eat a light meal on the day of your presentation. A talk is a performance. 4) Project your voice and vary your vocal intonation and pitch to retain the interest of the audience. Take pauses at key moments, for emphasis. 5) Anticipate questions that audience members could ask, and prepare answers for them.

The goal of a scientific presentation is that the audience remembers the key outcomes of your research and that they leave with a good impression of you and your science.

Take a moment to exhale deeply and collect your thoughts after the moderator has introduced you. Don’t read your talk's title. Instead, introduce yourself, thank the audience for attending, and provide a warm welcome. Then say something along the lines of, "Today I'm going to talk to you about why [topic] is important and [what I hope you will learn from this presentation].” A rehearsed opening will ensure that you start your talk on a confident note.

Prepare a memorable closing statement that emphasizes the key message of your talk. Then end with a simple “Thank you”.

Preparation is key. Practice many times to familiarize yourself with the content of your presentation. Before giving your talk, breathe slowly and deeply, and remind yourself that you are the expert on your topic. When giving your talk, stand up tall and use open body language. Remember to project your voice, and make eye contact with members of the audience.

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• CAREER GUIDE
• 01 December 2021

How to tell a compelling story in scientific presentations

• Bruce Kirchoff 0

Bruce Kirchoff is a botanist and storyteller at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in North Carolina, USA. His new book is Presenting Science Concisely .

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

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Structuring your presentations with care can help you to clearly communicate to your audience. Credit: Getty

Scientific presentations are too often boring and ineffective. Their focus on techniques and data do not make it easy for the audience to understand the main point of the research.

If you want to reach beyond the narrow group of scientists who work in your specific area, you need to tell your audience members why they should be interested. Three things can help you to be engaging and convey the importance of your research to a wide audience. I had been teaching scientific communication for several years when I was approached to write a book about improving scientific presentations 1 . These are my three most important tips.

State your main finding in your title

The best titles get straight to the point. They tell the audience what you found, and they let them know what your talk will be about. Throughout this article, I will use titles from Nature papers published in the past two years as examples that will stand in for presentation titles. This is because Nature articles have a similar goal of attempting to make discipline-specific research available to a broader audience of scientists. Take, for example: ‘Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks’ 2 .

A great title tells the reader exactly what’s new and precisely conveys the main result, as this one demonstrates. A more conventional title would have been ‘Effect of supply chain diversity on food shocks’, which omits the direction of the effect — so mainly scientists who are interested in your research area will be attracted to the talk. Others will wonder whether the talk will be a waste of time: maybe there was no effect at all.

Collection: Careers toolkit

Another example of a good title is: ‘Organic management promotes natural pest control through altered plant resistance to insects’ 3 .

This title ensures that the audience members know that the talk will be about the beneficial effects of organic crop management before they hear it. They also know that organic management increases plant resistance to insects. This title is much better than one such as: ‘Effects of organic pest management on plant insect resistance’. This title tells the audience the general area of the talk but does not give them the main result.

Finally, look at: ‘A highly magnetized and rapidly rotating white dwarf as small as the Moon’ 4 .

Good titles can just as easily be written for descriptive work as for experimental results. All you need to do is tell your audience what you found. Be as specific as possible. Compare this title with a more conventional one for the same work: ‘Use of the Zwicky Transient Facility to search for short period objects below the main white dwarf cooling sequence’. This title might be of interest to astronomers interested in using this facility, but is unlikely to attract anyone beyond them.

‘But’ is good — use it for dramatic effect

The contradiction implied by the word ‘but’ is one of the most powerful tools a scientist can use 5 . Contradictions introduce problems and provide dramatic effect, tension and a reason to keep listening.

Without such contradictions, the talk will consist of a bunch of results strung together in a seemingly endless and mind-numbing list. We can think of this list as a series of ‘and’ statements: “We did this and this and ran this experiment and found this result and . . . and . . . and.”

Contrast this with a structure that begins with a few important facts, tethered by ands, and then introduces the problem to be solved. Finally, ‘therefore’ can introduce results or subsequent actions. That structure would look like this: ‘X is the current state of knowledge, and we know Y. But Z problem remains. Therefore, we carried out ABC research.’ The introduction of even one contradiction wakes up people in the audience and helps them to focus on the results.

Collection: Conferences

A paper published earlier this year on SARS-CoV-2 and host protein synthesis provides an excellent example of the narrative form using ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘therefore’ 6 . In the example below, I have shortened the abstract and simplified the transitions, but maintained the authors’ original structure 6 . Although they did not use ‘but’ or ‘therefore’ in their abstract, the existence of these terms is clearly implied. I have made them explicit in the following rendition.

“Coronaviruses have developed a variety of mechanisms to repress host messenger RNA translation and to allow the translation of viral mRNA and block the cellular immune response. But a comprehensive picture of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on cellular gene expression is lacking. Therefore, we combine RNA sequencing, ribosome profiling and metabolic labelling of newly synthesized RNA to comprehensively define the mechanisms that are used by SARS-CoV-2 to shut off cellular protein synthesis.”

In this example, background information is given in the first sentence, linked by a series of conjunctions. Then the problem is introduced — this is the contradiction that comes with ‘but’. The solution to this problem is given in the next sentence (and introduced by using ‘therefore’). This structure makes the text interesting. It will do the same for your presentations.

Use repeated problems and solutions to create a story

Use the power of contradiction to maintain audience engagement throughout your talk. You can string together a series of problems and solutions (buts and therefores) to create a story that leads to your main result. The result highlighted in your title will help you to focus your talk so that the solutions you present lead to this overarching result.

Here is the general pattern:

1. Present the first part of your results.

2. Introduce a problem that remains.

3. Provide a solution to this problem by presenting more results.

4. Introduce the next problem.

5. Present the results that address this problem.

6. Continue this ‘problem and solution’ process through your presentation.

7. End by restating your main finding and summarize how it arises from your intermediate results.

The SARS-CoV-2 abstract 6 uses this pattern of repeated problems (buts) and solutions (therefores). I have modified the wording to clarify these sections.

1. Result 1: SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to a global reduction in translation, but we found that viral transcripts are not preferentially translated.

2. Problem 1: How then does viral mRNA comes to dominate the mRNA pool?

3. Solution 1: Accelerated degradation of cytosolic cellular mRNAs facilitates viral takeover of the mRNA pool in infected cells.

4. Problem 2: How is the translation of induced transcripts affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection?

5. Solution 2: The translation of induced transcripts (including innate immune genes) is impaired.

6. Problem 3: How is translation impaired? What is the mechanism?

7. Solution 3: Impairment is probably mediated by inhibiting the export of nuclear mRNA from the nucleus, which prevents newly transcribed cellular mRNA from accessing ribosomes.

8. Final summary: Our results demonstrate a multipronged strategy used by SARS-CoV-2 to take over the translation machinery and suppress host defences.

Using these three basic tips, you can create engaging presentations that will hold the attention of your audience and help them to remember you. For young scientists, especially, that is the most important thing the audience can take away from your talk.

Nature 600 , S88-S89 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03603-2

This article is part of Nature Events Guide , an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Kirchoff, B. Presenting Science Concisely (CABI, 2021).

Google Scholar  

Gomez, M., Mejia, A., Ruddell, B. L. & Rushforth, R. R. Nature 595 , 250–254 (2021).

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Blundell, R. et al. Nature Plants 6 , 483–491 (2020).

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Competing Interests

B.K. receives royalties for his book, which this article is based on.

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How to Create an Engaging Science Presentation: A Quick Guide

We’ve all been there – rushing to put slides together for an upcoming talk, filling them with bullet points and text that we want to remember to cover. We aren’t sure exactly what the audience will want to know or how much detail to include, so we default to putting ALL the details in that might be needed. But such efforts often result in presentations that are too long, too confusing, and difficult for both ourselves and our audiences to navigate.

Today I gave a workshop to public health graduate students about how to create more engaging science presentations and talks. I’ve summarized the main takeaways below. I hope this quick guide will be useful to you as you prepare for your next science talk or presentation!

The best science talks start with a process of simplifying – peeling back the layers of information and detail to get at the one core idea that you want to communicate. Over the course of your talk, you may present 2-3 key messages that relate to, demonstrate, provide examples of or underpin this idea. (Three is a nice round number of messages or takeaways that your audience will be able to remember!) But stick to one big idea. Trying to communicate too much in a presentation or talk will overwhelm your audience, and they may walk away without a good memory of any of the ideas you presented.

Once you’ve settled on your one big idea, you can develop a theme that will pervade every aspect of your talk. This theme might be a defining element of your big idea and something that can tie all of your data or talking points together.  Your theme should inform the examples, anecdotes and analogies that you use to make the science concepts you present more accessible. It should also inform your slides’ very design – the colors, visuals, layout and content flow.

If you have trouble identifying your big idea and your theme, you can try using what scientist and science author Randy Olson calls the “Dobzhansky Template.” Fill in the blanks of this statement: “ Nothing in [your talk topic, research topic or big idea] makes sense, except in the light of [your theme!] .”

Here’s an example for you: “Nothing in the creation of engaging science talks makes sense except in the light of people’s need for personal connection .” With this statement, I’m identifying a key aspect, a unifying theme, for my talk (or blog post) on how to create engaging science talks. We all crave personal connection. Yes, even to the speakers of science talks we listen to! What does this mean in terms of what we want or expect from these speakers? It means we want storytelling . We want to hear their stories, know their background, hear about their struggles and triumphs! We want to be able to step into their shoes and see what they saw. We want to interact with them.

Tell a Story

Narratives engage more than facts. By telling a story , using suspense and characters to pull people through your presentation, you will capture and keep their attention for longer. People also remember information presented in a story format better than they do information presented as disparate facts or bullet points.

“Story is a pull strategy. If your story is good enough, people—of their own free will—come to the conclusion they can trust you and the message you bring.” – Annette Simmons

Storytelling is a powerful science communication tool. In storytelling, both the storyteller and the listener or reader contribute to the story’s meaning through their interpretations, feelings and emotions. Liz Neeley, former executive director of The Story Collider, once said: “Science communicators frequently fail to understand that a feeling is almost never conquered with a fact.”

Stories are exciting. They elicit emotions. They help foster a personal connection between the storyteller and the listener, and a connection between the listener and the topic, characters or ideas presented in the story.

But what IS a story? As humans, we excel at recognizing a story when we hear one, but defining a story’s key characteristics is more difficult than you might think. If you ask anyone to explain what makes for a good story, they likely will have a hard time explaining it.

In her fantastic book Wired for Story , Lisa Cron starts by explaining what a story is NOT.

It is not plot – that is just what happens in the story.

It is not characters , although characters are critical components of storytelling, even if they are not human or even alive. Cells and molecules could be the characters of your next science talk!

It is not suspense or conflict , although these elements get us closer to what defines a good story. But just because your talk builds suspense does not necessarily make it an engaging story. What if we don’t identify with your characters?

The truth is that the key defining element of story is internal change . Think of how every Aesop’s fable communicates a moral or lesson that the main character learned from some journey. As Lisa Cron writes, “A story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.” The key here is the part about “how he or she changes.” A great story calls characters to a great adventure, but the adventure doesn’t leave them just as they were before. The adventure – like a scientific discovery that took years of experimentation (and failure) in the lab – leads to an internal change, in perspective or knowledge or behavior, as a result of conflicts overcome.

This is the secret of storytelling. A story asks characters to change and grow, and so the scientists in our stories must change and grow, discover new things about themselves and overcome challenges that force them to adopt new perspectives. So if you are giving a science talk about your own research, this might look like telling stories about your own struggles, growths and changes in perspective as you made your journey to discovery!

How can you bring a story of internal change to your next science presentation or talk?

What is one of the most common mistakes people make when creating slides to accompany a science talk? They use WAY too much text, and they use visuals as an afterthought. Worse yet, they use visuals that are copyrighted without attribution. They use stock imagery that reinforces stereotypes. They use visuals pasted from a Google search that don’t help the viewer understand or interpret what is said or written on the slides.

Visuals can be a powerful tool to advance audience learning or engagement during your science talks. You can use visuals to provide concrete examples of concepts you are talking about. You can use imagery that sparks thought or emotion. You can use visuals that reinforce your BIG idea or the theme of your talk, in a way that will make your talk more memorable for them. Yes, you might need to use a scientific figure, graph, chart or data visualization here and there if you are giving a more technical scientific talk, and that’s ok as long as you also talk the audience through this visual. Don’t assume they can listen to you talk about something different while also taking the time to interpret the message in this graphic or visualization – they can’t.

The same goes for text. You are demanding way too much brainpower of your audience to expect them to listen to you while also reading your slides. And if you are saying the same things as are written on your slides, they will grow bored. Simple visual aids used the right way, however, can delight your audience and help them better understand what you are saying.

Consider working with a professional artist or designer to create visuals for the slides of your next science talk!  They excel at creating visuals that capture people’s attention, curiosity and emotions. And if you do this, your visuals will perfectly match what you are trying to communicate in words, boosting learning and understanding.

Foster Interaction

A good science talk or presentation gives the audience opportunities to interact with you! This could be through questions, activities, discussions or thought experiments. Let the audience explore your data or interpretations with you. They will be more engaged and likely trust you more as a result, because they felt heard .

Personalize!

Most great science speakers make themselves vulnerable in a way – they tell personal stories of struggles, growth and discovery. Personal stories are engaging. They also help the audience care about what the speaker has to say.

It can be scary to talk about yourself, especially for a scientist who has been trained to focus solely on the data. But the humans listening to your talk or presentation crave human connection. They will also grab hold of anything that helps them better relate to you. Give them that in the form of personal stories of obstacles overcome, of personal lessons learned, of work-life balance, of your fears and passions. Better yet, tell personal stories that reinforce your theme and show the power of your big idea!

Do you have other strategies for how you make your science talks and presentations more engaging? Let me know in the comments below!

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About the author: paige jarreau.

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How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

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

More is more

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

Less is more

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

Limit the scope of your presentation

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

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

Craft a compelling research narrative

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

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

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

• Methods (rising action)

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

• Results (climax)

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

• Discussion (falling action)

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

• Conclusion (denouement)

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

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

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

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

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

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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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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How to give a scientific presentation

By Manisha Lalloo 2017-09-20T13:27:00+01:00

Five tips to keep an audience engaged without using cat pictures

Whether lecturing, presenting results at a conference or applying for a research proposal, giving presentations are a way of life for any chemist. But what are the best ways to get your point across while keeping your audience interested?

Think about your audience and remember that they want you to succeed

Jacquie Robson, is an associate professor of teaching at Durham University, UK, while Paul Bader is creative director at Screenhouse, an organisation which regularly trains scientists on how to develop better presentation skills. Here are their top tips.

Think about your audience

Whether presenting to colleagues or the general public, remember not everyone in your audience will be specialists. A common mistake scientists make is to assume others know as much as them when – more often than not – they are the expert in the room.

Even if your audience is well versed in the topic – for example, if you are presenting to a funding committee – do not start off with complex details. ‘If one person on the panel is outside the field, then you’ve lost them at the beginning,’ says Bader. Remember to give the big picture: it’s a good way in and a great way to make an impact.

Tell a story

‘Stories are easy to listen to and easy to tell,’ says Bader, who believes one of the most common mistakes is to cram too much information into just one talk. Structuring your talk in this way will help you to be selective.

Robson and Bader advise against learning a script by rote or reading a sheet of prose aloud. Written text is often more formal than convoluted than speech and sounds unnatural. Instead, have a set of key points on cue cards or use your slides as aide-mémoires. With a strong narrative, one point will lead to the next, making your talk more logical to follow and simpler to remember.

Robson also suggests telling your audience what you are going to speak about at the beginning of your talk and finishing off with a summary. That way your audience hears your main points three times – at the beginning, middle and end.

Visual aids are key

While PowerPoint is almost a given in today’s scientific presentations, try not to rely on it too much. ‘Slides should be clear, uncluttered and readable,’ says Robson. ‘Use diagrams rather than text.’

Slides should be used to highlight key points, not replicate your talk in written form. And remember never to turn your back on the audience – otherwise will be giving your presentation to the screen instead.

Don’t forget body language

‘Think about how you present yourself,’ says Robson. Have an open stance, smile, maintain eye contact, speak to the back of the room and at a good volume. ‘If you act confidently, they won’t know you’re feeling nervous.’

One of Robson’s pet peeves is a speaker who distracts the audience, for example by chewing gum or overusing laser pointers. Try to identify any habits you have while speaking that might take your audience’s attention away from your talk.

If you are feeling anxious, Robson advises against holding pieces of paper, which might shake in your hands. Bader suggests taking a moment to breathe. And both say the best technique is to ignore your nerves. The audience doesn’t want you to fail, and often won’t notice slip-ups. If you do make a big mistake, just correct yourself and carry on.

Practice, practice, practice

Perhaps the most important tip is to go through your presentation out loud before delivering it on the day.

‘People spend a lot of time writing their presentation or working on their slides but often the first time in public is the first time [they] do it,’ says Bader. By practising in advance and timing your run-throughs, you can discover if your talk is too long or too complicated.

There are many ways to practice, and it’s important to find the technique that works for you: you could video yourself on a phone and play it back, speak to yourself in front of a mirror or get somebody to listen to a rehearsal. According to Bader, the best way is to deliver your talk to a colleague or friend as you can see which parts they are engaged with (or not). ‘[But] any of the above is better than doing nothing,’ he adds.

And what about the dreaded questions at the end? ‘You can’t prepare for questions, so don’t fret,’ says Robson. ‘It’s not a spot exam, it’s a discussion. Make it into a conversation and don’t be afraid of saying “I don’t know the answer”.’

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Emily Lakdawalla • Feb 06, 2018

Speak your science: How to give a better conference talk

Bad presentation often gets in the way of good science. It's a shame, because science is awesome. So if you're a scientist who's interested in improving how you present your science, read on.

This post is a revised and updated version of one I wrote in 2013.  Here's a recording of me giving this talk at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona on February 5, 2018 .  

I can summarize my advice in three words:

Respect your audience.

Each one of the people in your audience is another person, like you. Their time is as valuable as yours. Work to deliver them a presentation that is designed for them, to inform and interest them in your work, and to leave them pleased that they spent that 5, 10, or 50 minutes of their valuable time listening to you.

Here are some questions to guide you in preparing a good talk.

To whom are you speaking?

Think carefully about your audience. Who are they, and what can you assume about what they already know about your topic? Is it an audience of your peers within your subspecialty? Is it space scientists more generally? Is it scientists and engineers? Is it a funding body? If it's the public, do they come to the room knowing a lot about space? Or is it a general audience?

The wider an audience you are addressing, the more context you will need to provide to them. If you do not provide the people in your audience with the information that they require in order to understand you, it is the same as telling them that you do not care if they understand you or not.

For a scientific conference, I suggest targeting your talks at an audience that is familiar with the scientific process but whose subspecialty is entirely different from yours. Are you an astronomer? Pitch your talk to a geologist. An experimenter? Pitch your talk to a theoretician.

Really good speakers are ones who manage to communicate something to everybody in the room, no matter who they are or how much they already know. To the relatively uninformed, you should at least answer: What is the question behind your work, and why is it important? What did you learn, and why does it matter? At the same time, to the well-informed, you should convey how your work has added to, broadened, or contradicted what has come before it.

Identifying your audience allows you to identify what words are jargon and what are not. Words are wonderful things, and our subspecialties have a lot of vocabulary that is dense with information. But if a word is not familiar to your audience, it will confuse rather than clarify. Sometimes, a jargon word is unavoidable; it may be the focus of your presentation. In that case, take care to define it more than once through the course of your presentation, and reinforce your teaching of the jargon word with context.

Acronyms and initialisms are a special class of jargon. It's easy to fall into a bad habit of using acronyms. They are often the most important nouns in your presentation. But unlike in a paper where you can define it, and people can look back if they forget what it means, there is no way to "look back" in a talk. I have attended many talks in which a TLA* is defined in the first moment, and if you miss it you are lost for the rest of the talk. Really, it often takes no more time to speak the words than to speak the letters.

(*TLA = Three Letter Acronym)

What do you want your audience to learn?

It amazes me that people prepare talks without ever asking themselves this question, but they appear to. A lot of people spend too much time describing their research methods -- what they did and what their data look like. It's easy to understand why people make that mistake. What you did is, after all, what you spent most of your time doing. But the whole point of your research effort was to learn something that you could then communicate to others. There's no need to force your audience to endure the same tedium. You can save your audience all that work by telling them what it was you learned.

Here's an exercise that I highly recommend: Compose a tweet summarizing your talk. It doesn't need to have perfect grammar, but it needs to be a sensible statement. In that limited space, you are not likely to say a whole lot about your methods! "I mapped clay minerals on Mars” describes what you did, but not why, or what you learned from it. "Large areas of Mars experienced rainfall over tens of thousands of years." Cool.

Make that tweet your conclusion slide. Make sure that your talk builds to that conclusion. How are you going to do that? Well....

What is your story?

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of narrative in a talk. Standing up in front of an audience, you are telling a story in which you are the principal character. Stories are fun. If you tell a good story, you hook your audience, and then they will willingly follow you even into the dark corners of your subspecialty.

Stories are also functional, especially for people in the audience who may be struggling to follow you on that journey. If, for example, you have managed to tell your audience that this is a crime story, pretty much everybody in the room should be able to understand what the crime was at the beginning of your talk. Then, if you lose them while you're talking about evidence gathering, you still have a chance of picking them back up again when you tell them: that was the evidence, and this piece of evidence led me to the perpetrator. Even if an audience doesn't get spectroscopy or understand what a general circulation model is, they probably get how crime stories work.

Maybe you are not solving a mystery, but are instead an intrepid explorer who has gone to a place no one has gone before. Maybe you have fought a pitched battle with a legendary monster of a data set. (This is a great framework for a presentation about a null result; you get to be the tragic hero.)

Narrative is not just helpful to your audience; it's helpful to you, too. It provides a structure for your talk and helps you determine what is crucial to conveying your message and what is not. This is very important when you consider the following question:

How long do you have to speak?

You cannot say all the same things in a 15-minute talk slot as in a 1-hour colloquium. You just can't. Don't even try. However, you can tell the same story, which is why I put "story" before "time limit" in this blog post. Do you have a favorite novel that's been made into both a miniseries and a movie, and maybe even a 1-hour show? Think about the differences in story among these. As you go from longer to shorter versions, you see reductions in characters, in settings, in subplots, and finally, in the main plot line itself. Yet the story (usually) remains recognizable. Exactly the same process is necessary to go from a scientific paper to a colloquium to a long conference talk to a short conference talk.

It is especially important for very short talks to practice your talk and then, if it is too long, cut out information that is not needed to tell your story. Think of the poor audience, especially the undercaffeinated, the jet-lagged, the many people in our highly international community who are interpreting your spoken words as a second language. You cannot solve the problem of a too-long talk by talking faster. Simplify the story that you are trying to tell.

Some people solve the problem of a too-long talk by running over time. Do not do this. It is incredibly disrespectful to your audience.

If you talk through the time intended for discussion, the message to the audience is: I am here to talk to you, not hear from you. I do not care whether you understood my talk.

If you run into the next person's time, the message is worse: I believe myself to be more important than the next speaker. I also believe myself to be more important than the entire audience's opinion about which talk they intended to be watching during the time slot I am usurping.

It is only now, once you have identified your audience, your take-home message, and the shape of your story, that you should begin to think about making a PowerPoint presentation.

What visuals will serve to amplify your story?

I've observed that a lot of people use the phrase "prepare a talk" as though it is synonymous with "compose a PowerPoint presentation." Don't do that. The purpose of slides is to emphasize or amplify points that you, the speaker, are making with your voice and your body language. No matter what, your slides should serve to enhance your presentation, not to distract from it.

In fact, you should be capable of delivering your entire talk without any slides at all, because I promise you it will happen sooner or later that an A/V disaster will require you to. (I once gave a half-hour talk about amazing Solar System photos without being able to show a single photo.)

The number one error that almost everyone makes with PowerPoint presentations: There are too many words on your slides. People do this as insurance against forgetting their words, but it is bad for a conference presentation.

We use the same parts of our brains to process spoken language and written language. If you show me a slide containing more than a few words, I must choose between reading your slides and listening to you speak. I am physically incapable of doing both at the same time. Instead, I jump between reading some text and listening to some speech and then I miss things and I get lost. If your entire talk is written out on your slides, why the heck are you even talking to me? I read faster than I hear. You could just stand up there silently and advance your slides periodically. Instead, of course, what you do is turn your back to the audience in order to read your slides aloud, which is, again, an act of disrespect, even if you don’t intend it as such.

When I first wrote this article, I strongly advocated putting no words on slides . I still advocate that position for public talks. But commenters made several good points about why some words are useful, so I've adjusted my advice. Titles on slides are valuable as signposts through talks, especially for people who don't share your language. Writing out jargon or otherwise unfamiliar words helps you teach those words to your audience. In every case, though, the text on the slide should serve to emphasize or underline the points you make with your speech. They should enhance or clarify, not distract from, the words issuing from your mouth.

One advantage of having few words on slides is that if you find you have misjudged the pacing of your talk, it's not obvious to your audience when you are skipping material or slowing down in order to return to the right pace!

Graphs are a challenge in talks. Used well, they can make a scientific point clearly and succinctly. Used poorly, they can be a distraction. Graphs that are good for scientific papers are typically lousy for talks. It's not just a matter of font size and color. Good paper graphs have high information density, so throwing a fully developed graph on a slide is worse than presenting your audience with a paragraph of text. 

Sometimes, you don't need a visual to emphasize a point. In those cases, consider not having one. Put up a blank slide and watch the entire audience suddenly make eye contact with you. I like to put blank slides in places where I am making transitions in talks. It is a reminder to me to remind the audience where we came from and inform them where we are going. I can look them in the eye and check in with them to see if they are still with me, and let them know that the story is about to shift.

Your final slide is a special slide. It may be the one that the audience sees the longest. Do not have a slide that says only "Questions?" Instead, put your tweet-length conclusion on it. Write your name and some kind of contact information on it for the benefit of people who want to discuss your work with you. And then thank the audience for the gift of their attention, and invite them to ask questions.

Try to anticipate the questions your audience will have about your talk. You might have some backup slides prepared after your conclusion slide. This is a good place for the graph from your paper or to paste in some text on your methods because they may be useful tools in your response to a persnickety question. With a little luck, you can look like a genius for having just the right backup slide in your deck. If no one asks a question, one of these slides can serve as an opportunity to say just a little bit more about your work, or to advertise your collaborators' presentations.

Preparing to give your talk

Practice . I'm not just talking about practicing the specific talk. I mean, practice speaking about your science. Talk to your coworkers, your friends, your roommates, your family, your hairstylist, your cab driver. My plumber loves visiting my house because he loves to talk with me about space. Take advantage of any opportunity to speak to people about science. Practice is important because speaking is a different skill from writing.

Regardless of who is in your audience, you must use less jargon in a spoken talk than in a written paper. In a paper, if I come across a term whose meaning I don't recall, I can look it up. In a talk, I can't do that. The words you speak may not be as precise, but more people will understand your meaning, and remember, that's the goal.

Relatedly: Simplify your sentences . In a technical paper, a single sentence can span a whole paragraph. It's a way to armor sentences against criticism. But in speech, if I lose track of which statement your lengthy list of clauses is modifying, I lose the whole sentence. Complete a thought before moving to the next. Avoid passive voice. Give your sentences clear subjects, verbs, and objects. If a point is important, repeat it. Repetition is like verbal underlining.

If you tend to talk fast when you are nervous, then practice speaking more slowly and carefully, enunciating your words. Don't be afraid of silences -- you don’t need to fill every moment with sound.

Other random tips that didn't fit

Color blindness is more common than you might think. What this means: never, ever use a color spectrum to represent a continuously varying property. Vischeck is a super website to use to ascertain whether your graphics will be incomprehensible to the color-blind.

Your slides will almost certainly not be able to serve as a stand-alone record of your presentation. If your slides could stand alone, then your presence wouldn't be necessary. Regrettably, many institutions use PowerPoints as documents of record. For that, either prepare a second version of your slides that has the text you intend to say as fine print, or include your talk notes as a backup slide after the end of your presentation.

DO put your name on your slides. If you want people to be interested in your work beyond the few minutes of your talk, especially if you are a relatively obscure person in your field (say, a student), consider putting your name in the corner of every slide. If nothing else, make sure to put your name and contact information on your conclusion slide.

A word on the number of your slides. It's a commonly cited rule of thumb that you should have about one slide per minute. That assumes that people (or you) will be reading your slides. This one-per-minute rule of thumb doesn't work as well if your slides aren't word-heavy. And it makes the PowerPoint presentation drive your talk organization, rather than the other way around. So, I don't find that rule of thumb particularly useful. Focus, first, on what you want to say. Have slides at appropriate places to emphasize what you are saying. If you can't say what you need to say in your allotted time, you need to say less. Eliminate slides or slide content that are no longer needed to support what you are no longer saying.

A word on animations. If your presentation contains an animation (and they can be awesome visuals), make sure you have tested that your animation works. If you do not have an opportunity to test using the exact system that is employed in the conference hall, have a backup plan that does not involve berating the A/V setup. I like animated GIFs in PowerPoint presentations because they always seem to work. If you know you will have control of the clicker, an even easier way to do a not-very-many-frame animation is just to put one frame per slide and advance them manually. That will work even if your PowerPoint is turned into a PDF.

A word on anxiety about forgetting your talk. I think a lot of people write their entire talk on their slides because they're afraid they'll stand up in front of all of those people and forget what they want to say. I have a lousy memory and have no hope of memorizing an entire speech. Here's a method I use instead. I try to memorize the first sentence I intend to say about each slide or sequence of slides. When I advance the slide, I glance at it, and that triggers the sentence I intended to say when I advanced that slide. If I have words on slides, they are usually just titles; those titles also serve as cues to help me get my intended first sentence out.

How to be more expressive when you speak?  If you're not naturally expressive, speaking at conferences isn't going to be good enough training. Try getting some experience elsewhere -- whatever suits you. Take an acting or improv class. Go out and speak to children. The younger the children, the more expressive you'll have to be to retain their interest. Volunteer to read to kids at a library.

Let’s Go Beyond The Horizon

Every success in space exploration is the result of the community of space enthusiasts, like you, who believe it is important. You can help usher in the next great era of space exploration with your gift today.

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How to Present a Science Project

Last Updated: August 17, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Meredith Juncker, PhD . Meredith Juncker is a PhD candidate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Her studies are focused on proteins and neurodegenerative diseases. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 53,649 times.

After creating a science project , you’ll likely have to present your work to your class or at a science fair. Try to give yourself a few weeks to plan and put together your presentation. Outline your main points, make note cards, and practice ahead of time. Make a clear, neat display board or PowerPoint presentation. When it comes time to present, relax, speak clearly and loudly, and avoid reading your presentation word for word.

Putting Together Your Presentation

• Finish up your experiment, research, and other aspects of your project.
• Get the materials you’ll need for your display board.
• Start to imagine how you’ll organize your information.

• An introduction to your topic or the problem you’ve addressed.
• How the problem impacts the real world (such as how a better understanding of the issue can impact humans).
• Your hypothesis, or what you expected to learn about through your experiment.
• The research you did to learn more about your topic.
• The Materials that you used in your project.
• Each step of your experiment’s procedure.
• The results of your experiment.
• Your conclusion, including what you learned and whether your data supports your hypothesis.

• When writing your speech, try to keep it simple, and avoid using phrases that are more complicated than necessary. Try to tailor the presentation to your audience: will you be presenting to your class, judges, a higher grade than yours, or to an honors class?
• Writing out your presentation can also help you manage your time. For example, if you’re supposed to talk for less than five minutes, shoot for less than two pages.

• For example, if you've made a volcano, make sure you know the exact mix of chemicals that will create the eruption.

Creating Your Display Board

• When you purchase your board, you should also acquire other materials, like a glue stick, construction paper, a pencil, markers, and a ruler.

• Consider using the top left corner for your topic introduction, the section under that for your hypothesis, and the bottom left section to discuss your research.
• Use the top right corner to outline your experiment’s procedure. List your results underneath, and finally, put the section with your conclusion under the results.

• Be sure to use a dark font color that’s easy to see from a distance.
• You can also write everything out by hand. Draft your lettering in pencil before using a pen or marker, and use a ruler to make sure everything is straight.

• Before gluing anything, make sure you plan out each section’s position and are sure everything will fit without looking cluttered. Use rulers to make sure everything is positioned evenly.

• Consider including 1 slide for each section, like 1 for the title of your project, 1 for your hypothesis, and 1 that outlines each main point of your research. If a slide becomes too dense, break it down by concept.
• Limit the text to 1 line and include a visual aid, like an image or a graph, that demonstrates the concept or explains the data. [6] X Research source

Giving a Great Presentation

• Take the time to iron your clothes and tuck your shirt in to avoid looking sloppy.

• It’s a good idea to use the restroom before you have to present your project.

• It can be really hard to resist, but try to avoid saying “um” or “uh” during your presentation.
• Speaking when you have a dry mouth can be difficult, so it’s a good idea to keep a water bottle handy.

• Remember it’s better to be honest if you don't know how to answer a question instead of making something up. Ask the person who asked the question to repeat or rephrase it, or say something like, "That's certainly an area I can explore in more detail in the future."

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/teacher-resources/science-fair-projects/#sciencefairpresentation
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KVTLT6QeTE
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHXidlH-dBw
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3hT6Ocf39w
• ↑ https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/judging-tips-to-prepare-science-fair

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How to make a great presentation

Stressed about an upcoming presentation? These talks are full of helpful tips on how to get up in front of an audience and make a lasting impression.

The secret structure of great talks

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14 Practical Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills

• The Speaker Lab
• May 11, 2024

Table of Contents

Ever felt complete dread and fear at the thought of stepping up to deliver a presentation? If so, you’re not alone. The fear of public speaking is more common than you might think, but with the right presentation skills , it’s a hurdle that can be overcome.

In this article, we’ll help you master basic confidence-building techniques and conquer advanced communication strategies for engaging presentations. We’ll explore how body language and eye contact can make or break your connection with your audience; delve into preparation techniques like dealing with filler words and nervous habits; discuss tailoring content for different audiences; and much more.

Whether you’re prepping for job interviews or gearing up for big presentations, being prepared is key. With adequate practice and the proper attitude, you can crush your speech or presentation!

Mastering the Basics of Presentation Skills

Presentation skills are not just about speaking in front of a crowd. It’s also about effective communication, audience engagement, and clarity. Mastering these skills can be transformative for everyone, from students to corporate trainers.

Building Confidence in Presentations

Becoming confident when presenting is no small feat. But fear not. Even those who feel jittery at the mere thought of public speaking can become masters with practice and patience. Just remember: stage fright is common and overcoming it is part of the process towards becoming an effective presenter.

Taking deep breaths before you start helps calm nerves while visualizing success aids in building confidence. Also, know that nobody minds if you take a moment to gather your thoughts during your presentation—everybody minds more if they cannot understand what you’re saying because you’re rushing.

The Role of Practice in Enhancing Presentation Skills

In line with old wisdom, practice indeed makes perfect, especially when improving presentation skills. Consistent rehearsals allow us to fine-tune our delivery methods like maintaining eye contact or controlling body language effectively.

You’ll learn better control over filler words through repeated drills. Plus, the extra practice can help you troubleshoot any technical glitches beforehand, saving you the sudden panic during your actual presentations.

Remember that great presenters were once beginners too. Continuous effort will get you there sooner rather than later.

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Body Language and Eye Contact in Presentations

The effectiveness of your presentation can hinge on more than just the words you say. Just as important is your body language .

Impact of Posture on Presentations

Your posture speaks volumes before you utter a word. Standing tall exudes confidence while slouching could signal nervousness or lack of preparation.

If there’s one lesson to take away from our YouTube channel , it’s this: good presenters know their message but great ones feel it through every fiber (or muscle) of their being. The audience can sense that energy when they see open body language rather than crossed arms.

Maintaining Eye Contact During Your Presentation

Eyes are often called windows to the soul for a reason. They’re communication powerhouses. Making eye contact helps build trust with your audience members and keeps them engaged throughout your speech.

Avoid staring at note cards or visual aids too much as this might give an impression that you’re unprepared or uncertain about your chosen topic. Instead, aim to maintain eye contact between 50% of the time during presentations. This commonly accepted “50/70 rule” will help you exhibit adequate confidence to your audience.

If stage fright has gotten a hold on you, take deep breaths before you start speaking in order to stay calm. Make sure that fear doesn’t disrupt your ability to maintain eye-contact during presentations.

If body language and eye contact still feel like a lot to manage during your big presentation, remember our golden rule: nobody minds small mistakes. It’s how you handle questions or mishaps that truly makes a difference—so stay positive and enthusiastic.

Preparation Techniques for Successful Presentations

Presentation skills are like a craft that requires meticulous preparation and practice. Aspects like visual aids and time management contribute to the overall effectiveness of your delivery.

The first step towards delivering an impactful presentation is research and organization. The content should be well-researched, structured logically, and presented in simple language. This will make sure you deliver clear messages without any room for misinterpretation.

Dealing with Filler Words and Nervous Habits

Nervous habits such as excessive use of filler words can distract from your message. Luckily, there are plenty of strategies that can address these issues. For instance, try taking deep breaths before speaking or using note cards until fluency is achieved. In addition, practice regularly to work on eliminating these verbal stumbling blocks.

Avoiding Distractions During Presentations

In a digital age where distractions abound, maintaining focus during presentations has become an even more crucial part of the preparation process. This video by motivational speaker Brain Tracy provides insights on how one could achieve this level of focus required for effective presentations.

Maintaining Confidence Throughout Your Presentation

Confidence comes from thorough understanding of the chosen topic combined with regular practice sessions before the big day arrives. Make use of note cards or cue cards as needed but avoid reading from them verbatim.

Taking control over stage fright starts by arriving early at the venue so that you familiarize yourself with the surroundings, which generally calms nerves down considerably. So next time you feel nervous before a big presentation, remember—thorough preparation can make all the difference.

Engaging Your Audience During Presentations

Connecting with your audience during presentations is an art, and mastering it can take your presentation skills to the next level. Making the message conveyed reach an emotional level is essential, not just conveying facts.

Understanding Your Target Audience

The first step towards engaging your audience is understanding them. Tailor the content of your presentation to their needs and interests. Speak in their language—whether that be professional jargon or everyday slang—to establish rapport and ensure comprehension.

An effective presenter understands who they’re speaking to, what those individuals care about, and how best to communicate complex ideas understandably.

Making Complex Information Understandable

Dense data or complicated concepts can lose even the most interested listener if presented ineffectively. Breaking your key points down into manageable chunks helps maintain attention while promoting retention. Analogies are especially useful for this purpose as they make unfamiliar topics more relatable.

Audience Participation & Questions: A Two-Way Street

Incorporating opportunities for audience participation encourages engagement at another level. It allows listeners to become active participants rather than passive receivers of knowledge.

Consider techniques like live polls or interactive Q&A sessions where you invite questions from attendees mid-presentation instead of saving all queries until the end.

This gives you a chance not only engage but also address any misunderstandings right on spot.

• Treat each question asked as an opportunity—it’s evidence someone has been paying attention. Even challenging questions should be welcomed as they demonstrate an engaged, thoughtful audience.
• Encourage participation. It can be as simple as a show of hands or the use of interactive technologies for live polling during your presentation. This keeps your audience active and invested in the content.

Remember, your presentation isn’t just about putting on a show—it’s about meaningful interaction.

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Presentation Skills in Specific Contexts

Whether you’re nailing your next job interview, presenting an exciting marketing campaign, or delivering insightful educational content, the context matters. Let’s take a look.

The Art of Job Interviews

A successful job interview often hinges on effective communication and confidence. Here, the target audience is usually small but holds significant influence over your future prospects. Body language plays a crucial role; maintain eye contact to show sincerity and interest while open body language communicates approachability.

Bullet points summarizing key experiences are also helpful for quick recall under pressure. This allows you to present your chosen topic with clarity and positive enthusiasm without relying heavily on note or cue cards.

Pitching in Public Relations & Marketing

In public relations (PR) and marketing contexts, presentations need to capture attention quickly yet hold it long enough to deliver key messages effectively. Visual aids are valuable tools here—they help emphasize points while keeping the audience engaged.

Your aim should be highlighting presentation benefits that resonate with potential clients or partners, making them feel as though ignoring such opportunities would mean missing out big time.

Educational Presentations

An educational setting demands its own unique set of presentation skills where deep understanding trumps flashy visuals. You must make complex information understandable without oversimplifying essential details—the use of analogies can be beneficial here.

Keeping the audience’s attention is critical. Encourage questions and participation to foster a more interactive environment, enhancing learning outcomes for all audience members.

Tips for Becoming a Great Presenter

No single method is suitable for everyone when it comes to speaking in public. However, incorporating continuous improvement and practice into your routine can make you an exceptional presenter.

Tailor Your Presentation to Your Audience

Becoming an excellent speaker isn’t just about delivering information; it’s also about making a connection with the audience. So make sure that you’re taking setting, audience, and topic into consideration when crafting your presentation. What works for one audience may not work for another, so be sure to adapt your presentation styles according to the occasion in order to be truly effective.

The Power of Practice

The art of mastering public speaking skills requires practice —and lots of it . To become a great presenter, focus on improving communication skills through practice and feedback from peers or mentors. Try to seek feedback on every speech delivered and incorporate those pointers in your future presentations. Over time, this cycle of delivery-feedback-improvement significantly enhances your ability to connect with audiences and convey ideas effectively.

If you’re looking for examples of good speakers, our speech breakdowns on YouTube provide excellent examples of experienced presenters who masterfully utilize speaking techniques. Analyzing their strategies could give you great ideas for enhancing your own style.

Finding Your Style

A crucial part of captivating any audience lies in how you deliver the message rather than the message itself. Developing a unique presentation style lets you stand out as an engaging speaker who commands attention throughout their talk. Through — you guessed it — practice, you can develop a personal presentation style that resonates with listeners while showcasing your expertise on the chosen topic.

Your body language plays a pivotal role here: open gestures communicate confidence and enthusiasm towards your subject matter, two qualities essential for keeping audiences hooked. Similarly, using vocal variety adds dynamism to speeches by emphasizing points when needed or creating suspense during storytelling parts of your talk.

Cultivating Passion & Enthusiasm

Showcasing genuine passion for the subject helps keep listeners engaged throughout even lengthy presentations. Sharing stories related to the topic or expressing excitement about sharing knowledge tends to draw people in more than mere data recitation ever could.

Recognize that everybody is distinctive; don’t expect identical results from every speaker. The path to becoming a great presenter involves recognizing your strengths and working tirelessly on areas that need improvement.

FAQs on Presentation Skills

What are good presentation skills.

Good presentation skills include a clear message, confident delivery, engaging body language, audience understanding, and interaction. They also involve effective preparation and practice.

What are the 5 steps of presentation skills?

The five steps of presenting include: planning your content, preparing visual aids if needed, practicing the delivery aloud, performing it with confidence, and finally post-presentation reflection for improvements.

What are the 5 P’s of presentation skills?

The five P’s stand for Preparation (researching your topic), Practice (rehearsing your talk), Performance (delivering with confidence), Posture (standing tall), and Projection (using a strong voice).

What are your presentation skills?

Your personal set of abilities to deliver information effectively is what we call your presentation skill. It can encompass public speaking ability, clarity in speech or writing as well as visual communication talent.

Mastering presentation skills isn’t an overnight process, but practice and perseverance will put you well on your way to becoming an effective speaker.

You’ve learned that confidence plays a crucial role in effective presentations, so take deep breaths, make eye contact, and keep your body language open. As always, preparation is key. Tackle filler words head-on and get comfortable with visual aids for impactful storytelling.

Remember the importance of audience engagement — it’s all about understanding their needs and tailoring your content accordingly. This way, complex information turns into digestible insights.

Above all else: practice! After all, nothing beats experience when it comes to improving public speaking abilities.

• Last Updated: May 9, 2024

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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Science Projects > Science Fair Projects > Science Fair Tips  

Science Fair Tips

So, you’re entering a science fair. Now what? These six simple science fair tips will take you from picking your project to nailing your presentation. And who knows — you may even have some fun along the way!

Science Fair Tip #1

Science Fair Tip #2

Don’t reinvent the wheel with your science fair topic . A good topic can have revolutionary ideas, but more importantly, judges will want to know what you learned (and if you used the scientific method ) . Hint: It’s OK to take an existing science project and use it as your own! Just modify the variables you test to make your project unique.

Topics that relate to current issues and concerns in society tend to score high points in science fairs. However, you still need to thoroughly think it through and research well to score high. Such topics usually relate to how we can improve or maintain our health, welfare, and/or way of life. We suggest avoiding politically charged topics, if necessary. It is hard to stay neutral, and it is usually hard, if not impossible, to scientifically test your theory.

Science Fair Tip #3

Do your own work . Judges will evaluate what you know about your project and what you learned during the process of your project — from start to finish. If your parent, brother or sister, friend, or classmate does all your work, you won’t learn anything. Where’s the fun in that? 

Science Fair Tip #4

Make sure your project is a science project . To be considered a science fair project , your project must use the scientific method and answer a question . So, you must collect and analyze data in order to conclude whether or not your hypothesis was correct. Demonstrating how something works is not a science project. For example, demonstrating a collection of magic eye tricks does not constitute a science project because no data was collected.

However, if you compare how long it takes specific groups of people (such as children and adults, boys and girls) to see the magic eye tricks, then you have a science project. Why? Because you are collecting data and you can use that data to draw conclusions. (Although elementary science fairs have permitted observation/demonstration projects in the past, more and more science fairs also want elementary students to use the scientific method and collect data. Therefore, it’s best to cover your bases and avoid doing a simple observation/demonstration project.)

Science Fair Tip #5

Keep your project simple . Try to test only one variable or one hypothesis in your project. The more experiments in the project, the harder it is to keep track of all the factors that influence your science project. After all, there is always next year to expand on this year’s project. Consult our Science Fair Guide for more information on c om pleting a science fair project.

Science Fair Tip #6

Relax during the interview when presenting your project . The judges aren’t there to torment you or pick apart your project. Instead, they want to see that you did your own work (based on how well you understand your project), that your project addresses all parts of the scientific method, that you did the steps correctly, and that you identified any factors that may have caused inaccurate results. Many judges want to know how you can improve your science project, or what you would change to correct inaccuracies. The best advice we can offer you for the interview is this: know your project inside and out.

Armed with these science fair tips, the scientific method, and our science fair guide , you might be bummed that science fair only comes once a year!

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10 Tips for a Persuasive Presentation

Powerful presentation is persuasion. here's how to elevate your impact..

Posted May 11, 2024 | Reviewed by Ray Parker

• Presentations aim to effect change. It's essential to be clear about what change you want to see.
• Powerful presenters embrace and extend empathy to seek first to understand their audience.
• Substance and style both matter to create an audience-informed communication experience.
• Persuasive presentations are relevant, reasoned, real, and resonant.

How many of us realize that giving a presentation or making a speech is all about persuasion , influence, and emotional intelligence ? Impactful presenters understand the power of empathy to understand and engage their audience, the efficiency and kindness of having a clear objective and message, and the importance of substance and style—all as a way to connect in a way that engages and inspires.

Much has been written on the power and behavioral science of persuasion, not least by expert Robert Cialdini. His bestselling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion explains seven research-based universal principles of influence .

From my experience as a leadership coach working with thousands of people worldwide, I have compiled a list of ten essentials to elevate our presentation.

1. Maintain an "other" focus. What do you know about your audience and how can you find out more? Ask yourself what kind of a speaker will appeal to your audience, what arguments are likely to resonate with them, and what feelings you want to inspire so the audience will positively respond to your ask.

If your audience is predominantly data-driven, you may want to use more evidence-based arguments. If the audience is mixed, a combination of data, authority, and storytelling may be more appropriate. Extend Daniel Goleman’s three types of empathy to gather intelligence , understand your audience, and tailor your intervention to connect more profoundly.

2. Determine a specific objective. Presentations aim to effect change in some way. What change do you want to see in your audience?

For instance, gaining their approval for a certain investment, soliciting their buy-in for a change, or creating a sense of enthusiasm for an idea or initiative. The purpose of a presentation is to bring about change so make sure you are clear on what kind of change you want to bring about.

3. Design a grabber. Our attention spans have shrunk as we have more and more competing demands on our attention . If you want to get someone’s attention, you need to grab it at the outset and try and hold on.

You can do this in several different ways. Throw out a question that demands a response from the audience. Give a surprising fact or statistic, or quote from a well-known figure. Tell a story or an anecdote. A good grabber captures the attention of everyone there and makes them focus on what you have to say.

4. Crystalize your message and construct your arguments. Your message is the heart of your speech. Craft a brief phrase that clearly defines your proposal in 10-12 words—for example, “This post is about crafting presentations that inspire and engage others to elevate their presentations.”

Make it memorable by choosing inspiring words, symbols, catchy expressions, something that will remain in the audience's mind. As Brené Brown says: “Clear is kind,” and a clear message provides a path to develop your ideas.

When you have a clear and concise message, it helps you formulate your arguments. Think of developing your arguments using the rule of three —three compelling arguments to convince but not overwhelm your audience.

5. Prepare a call to action. Remember, we want to change our audience in some way, so we need to make our ask clearly and concretely. Consider your call to action in terms of what you want your audience to think/feel/do:

• Think: “I want you to think about how you can improve your presentations.”
• Feel: “I want you to feel enthusiastic and motivated so that you can elevate your power to persuade.”
• Do: “I want you to try out some of these tips and tools for yourself.”

6. Craft a memorable closing. Close the speech in an elegant and memorable way. We need people to remember what we've told them, so prepare it well.

This is not the time to improvise. Try to connect your closing to your opening grabber, which makes the presentation more memorable. Good preparation means preparing everything to the very end—finish well.

7. Plan your delivery. A dynamic speaker draws listeners in by using vocal variety (tone, intonation, speed, volume, pace, pauses, silence) and body language (posture, gestures, expression, and movement) to highlight important points and hold the audience’s attention. Be intentional: How will you use your voice and your body to emphasize a thought or idea? Think about it: If you increased the time you spent on style or delivery by 20 percent, what would it mean for the impact you make?

8. Think about how you will engage your audience. You want the audience to feel considered throughout. Include pauses so they can process what’s being said; connect with individuals throughout the room and make deliberate eye contact while speaking, especially when delivering key points. Read and respond to the audience by changing how you deliver as you go based on the audience’s nonverbal communication .

9. Rehearse and practice. Practice is one of the most crucial elements of presenting—and probably the most neglected one. If this is new to you, start by reading your presentation in front of a mirror to get comfortable speaking your presentation.

Next, video yourself and watch out for nervous or distracting habits to eliminate them and identify any areas where you can improve your delivery. If you are feeling brave, practice in front of an audience and ask for feedback.

10. Prepare your success rituals and mantra. Public speaking and/or stage fright can feel debilitating for some. Have your calm-down ritual prepared and ready to go before you start your presentation. This might be a certain gesture, a power pose, breathwork, or a mantra.

Try this tip: Identify three adjectives to describe how you would like to show up during this presentation. This sets an intention and helps focus our cognitive and emotional resources on success.

Powerful presenters embrace and extend empathy to seek first to understand their audience. They use this intelligence to carefully make choices about substance and style to create an audience-informed communication experience that feels relevant, reasoned, real, and resonant and creates a pathway for change.

Palena Neale, Ph.D. , is a women’s leadership coach, lecturer, and founder of unabridged, a boutique leadership development practice.

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