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7 Websites with free scientific illustrations

Are you looking for nice illustrations for your scientific presentations ? Do you need some cool science art figures to better explain your work in the next poster ? 

If that is the case, and you don’t want to spend time creating them, searching on Google images may seem the obvious thing to do. However, you may find yourself lost among a lot of uninteresting images, most of which probably won’t be free to use.

Don’t worry, there is an alternative. You can make your life easier by searching on repositories with professional illustrations to use free of charge in your figures, PowerPoint presentations and posters. 

Below you will find a selection of 7 cool websites from which you can download for free science illustrations to use in your work. 

Just remember to always check the terms and conditions for each illustration. Some repositories have different types of licenses depending on the illustration. 

If your idea is to use some already made illustrations to create a figure for a publication, always check the journal’s policy on graphical abstracts and figures. Some journals may require all the work to be 100% original.

1. Pixabay  

Pixabay is a huge repository of images, illustrations, and vector graphics in which you can even find videos and music. 

By searching for vectors, you will find illustrations in SVG format , which can be edited later in Illustrator or PowerPoint, to better adapt them to your presentation or poster. 

Pixabay is meant as a general resource, not specialized in science topics, so if you are looking for something very specific, you probably won’t find it here. However, it can be really useful to represent more generic elements , such as a microscope or other laboratory stuff. 

2. Smart servier 

In Smart servier you will find 3000 free medical images to use in publications and scientific presentations provided by Les Laboratoires Servier. 

These illustrations can be downloaded individually as PNG, or you can download the entire set of illustrations from one specific category . In this case, you will obtain a PowerPoint presentation with all the drawings, which can be further edited later on. 

Note that all the illustrations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License . So, accordingly, you are free to use them, but you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. 

3. Vecteezy

Vecteezy is a website from which you can download free vector art, stock photos and videos. In this website you will find a nice collection of science related illustrations .

The website allows you to use filters to optimize the search . For instance, you can select what colors you prefer the illustrations to be or their orientation. If you look for vectors, you will also be able to later edit the file on Illustrator or PowerPoint.

Vecteeze has images under different license types , so you can also choose to see only the ones under a free license. Remember to always check the license specifications, since in this case, free files have some usage limitations, and you must attribute Vecteezy in your work.

SciDraw is a free repository of scientific illustrations created by Federico Claudi and Alex Harston , where the drawings are made by and for scientists . 

In this website, you can find drawings of different animal models and other scientific setups to use in your scientific presentations, posters, grant proposals, etc. You can also contribute to this repository by uploading your own creations. 

All the illustrations are under the Creative Commons 4.0 license , so you are free to download, use, modify and distribute the images, even commercially, as long as proper credit is given.

Freepik is a website with lots of different assets such as vectors, illustrations, photos, and icons, similar to Pixabay or Vecteeze. 

When searching for illustrations, remember to check for vector drawings under a free license. You can do so by selecting this options in the browser. Thus, you will be able to download EPS files that can be further edited later one in a design program such as Illustrator or PowerPoint. 

In this case, the free license allows you to use the drawings for both personal and commercial work and to modify them, but you have to credit the author . Remember to check the license specifications for any illustrations, just to be sure you will use them properly. 

6. Innovative Genomics glossary

In the glossary of the Innovative Genomics Institute , you will find different science concepts explained and illustrated. The great thing is that you can download all the illustrations in PNG and SVG format!

The drawings were created by Christine Liu and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Therefore, you can use and adapt the illustrations for non-commercial, educational purposes and must give appropriate credit. Remember to check all the license specifications before using the drawings!

Blush is a completely different repository of illustrations. No, in this website you won’t found lots of drawings of science related elements, but is an excellent place to find characters from all walks of life . 

You can use these characters to represent patients affected by a specific disease or to illustrate the population that has participated in your study.  

Another cool thing about Blush is that, once you have selected an illustration, you can customize different characteristics of the character , such as the hair, the skin tone or the stance. 

Blush offers both a free plan and a pro plan that costs $12 per month. But don’t worry, you won’t need to pay to download the illustrations. With the free version, you can download them for free in a small PNG format with a transparent background, which can be more than enough for a scientific presentation. 

According to Blush license , you can use, copy and modify the illustrations for free for commercial and non-commercial purposes, without permission from the illustrator or Blush. Remember to check the license for further details. 

Hope you can find the perfect free illustration for your figure, scientific poster or presentation among these selected websites.  

However, if you don’t want to waste time browsing these websites; or if you need to illustrate something very specific and want it to be unique, contact us! 

We will be happy to help you with your scientific illustration! Have a look at  our portfolio to see what we can do for you!

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• TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
• 08 May 2020

The software that powers scientific illustration

• Jeffrey M. Perkel

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Illustration by The Project Twins

Like many researchers, Rita Sattler is trained to conduct science, not to draw it. But papers still need writing — and illustrating. So, when the time came to document what her team had done for a journal article, Sattler did what her colleagues frequently do: she fired up PowerPoint.

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Home Blog Education How to Prepare Your Scientific Presentation

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 make a scientific presentation

Scientific presentation outlines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two main types of scientific talks:

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

➡️ Learn how to prepare an excellent thesis defense

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

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

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

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

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

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

➡️ Learn how to write a thesis statement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

➡️ More tips for giving scientific presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Highlights and images for 9 May 2024

UN Headquarters, New York

• Negotiations
• UN Forum on Forests – UNFF

19th Session of the UNFF

Top officials discussed the importance of forests in combatting climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and otherwise helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in an all-day High-Level Segment (HLS). Meanwhile negotiators continued to toil unsuccessfully behind closed doors to finalize texts of the High-Level Declaration in time for it to be endorsed by the top officials at the end of Thursday, and the omnibus resolution due to be adopted by the 19th session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF19) on Friday. The declaration is intended to signal high-level commitment to forests going forward, while the resolution would set the mandate for specific future actions by the UNFF and its stakeholders.

Want to dig deeper? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.

UNFF19 Chair Zéphyrin Maniratanga tried to set the tone for the HLS with a call to action on behalf of forests, particularly to halt and turn back deforestation, stating that "deforestation is not just a crime against nature, it's a betrayal of our collective future." All of the speakers who provided opening remarks urged the HLS to adopt an action-oriented declaration that can guide future forest policy, with UN Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua and UN Economic and Social Council Vice President Ivan Šimonović both urging adoption of a declaration that provides inspiration for the ongoing negotiations on a “Pact for the Future” which is expected to be adopted at the UN’s Summit of the Future in September.

Qu Dongyu , Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)

Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the UN FAO, in his role as Chair of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), cautioned that while progress has been made since the UN Strategic Plan on Forests was adopted, only six years remain for the Plan to realize the ambitious goal of increasing forest cover by 3% by 2030. He called on UNFF to work together with CPF to produce tangible outcomes by 2030.

Dennis Francis , 78th President of the General Assembly

ECOSOC Vice President Ivan Šimonović

UNFF19 Vice-Chair  Ismael Belen  (Türkiye), and  Ziad Mahmassani , United Nations Forum on Forests

Li Junhua , UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs

After opening remarks, a high-level “roundtable” was held on the theme of “Forest-based solutions to the triple planetary crises: A focus on people, science, technology, and finance,” wherein Ministers and others in the room made brief statements in response to guiding questions posed by the moderators.

Zhimin Wu , Director, Forestry Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, and  Aurélie Flora Koumba-Pambo , Gabon

In the afternoon a “dialogue” was held on the theme “Achieving globally agreed goals on forests, climate change, and biodiversity.” It featured brief statements by representatives of several CPF member organizations, as well as a Brazilian Supreme Court judge and representatives of Major Groups, the International Sustainable Forest Coalition, and the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization. Member States then made a series of brief interventions.

The informal group tackling the draft declaration met in the morning in parallel to the HLS and again in the afternoon after the HLS finished. The group was unable to finalize the text in time for adoption on Thursday. Some issues still in contention are the insufficiency of financial resources, the need for predictable resources, and whether technology transfer must be voluntary. Deliberations will continue on Friday morning.

UNFF 19 Vice-Chair  Javad Momeni  (Iran), and  Ziad Mahmassani , UNFF Secretariat

For its part, the informal group working on the omnibus resolution met before the HLS in the early morning to try to break logjams on issues such as new and additional financial resources for forests, gender, resources for the UNFF Secretariat, linkages to other environmental agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the use of unilateral coercive measures. The group will meet again on Friday morning in hopes of finalizing the resolution for adoption by the Forum plenary on Friday afternoon.

High Level Segment

Barna Tánczos , Minister of Environment, Water, and Forests, Romania

Balarabe Abbas Lawal , Minister of Environment, Nigeria

Collin Croa l, Minister of Housing and Water, Guyana

Nik Nazmi Ahmad , Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, Malaysia

Asein Isaev , First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kyrgyzstan

Alue Dohong , Deputy Minister of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia

Ève Bazaiba , Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Environment, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Vladimir Dmitriev , Federal Forestry Agency, Russian Federation

Carlos Faroppa , Director General Forestal, Uruguay

Khaled Alabdulkader , CEO, National Center for Vegetation Cover and Combating Desertification, Saudi Arabia

Claudia Müller , Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Germany

Ibrahim Yüzer , Deputy Director, General Directorate of Forestry, Türkiye

Jorge Mario Rodríguez Zúñiga , Costa Rica

Liana Giorgadze , Georgia

Wenche Westberg , State Secretary, Norway

Maurice Ntossui Allogo , Minister of Water and Forests, Gabon

Nizomiddin Bakirov , Director of the Forestry Agency, Uzbekistan

UNFF19 Chair Zéphyrin Maniratanga (Burundi)

Dialogue with CPF Heads and UNFF partners

John Parrotta , President, International Union of Forest Research Organizations

Ivonne Higuero , Secretary General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and CPF Vice-Chair

Christian Peter , Global Manager for Environment and Forests, World Bank

Mia Crawford , Forest Director, EU and International Affairs, and Head of Delegation of the World Farmers Organisation to UNFF19

Robert Nasi , Director General, Center for International Forestry Research, and Chief Operating Officer, Center for International Forestry Research-World Agroforestry Centre

Zhimin Wu , Director, Forestry Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN

Sunpil Jin , Vice Executive Director, Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO)

David Brand , Convening Chair, International Sustainable Forest Coalition

Sheam Satkuru , ITTO Executive Director

Adriana Rivera-Brusatin , Colombia

Olivier Richard , France

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Iufro side event at unff19: presentation of report by iufro’s science-policy programme on international forest governance, 66th meeting of the gef council, 59th session of the international tropical timber council.