| Research MethodsAssignment 1 |
| Presenting |
| How to prepare and deliver research to a range of audiences. Including aural presentations, poster presentations, and the use of video and software demos. |
| Overview |
| • Essentials • Presentation – Content, Format • Delivery • Types of presentation – Aural, poster, software, video |
| Essentials |
Objective of a Research Presentation
• Not to;
–Impress the
audience
–Tell them all you
know about a
subject
–Present every little
detail of your
work
• Is to;
–Give the audience
a sense of what
your idea/work is
–Make them want
to read your paper
–Get feedback on
your work
Know your audience
Know your audience
• Who will be there?
– Scientists expert in your field
– Scientists not expert in your field
– Students
– Non experts
– General public
Know your audience
• Who will be there?
– Most likely a mix so its better to have something
for everyone.
Know your audience
• Keep in mind
– They might be tired
– They can read
– They are thinking “Why should I listen to this?”
– Non-experts will tune off within 2 minutes
– Experts after 5 minutes
• So, what can you do?
What not to do
• Read from notes
• Read from your slides
• Face your slides
• Say too many words
• Um or ah (its ok to pause)
• Fidget
• Cover your face
• Apologize, say what you
should’ve done
• Be arrogant or aggressive
Nerves
• Stressful situation
– Fight
– Flight
– Freeze
Nerves
• Stressful situation
– Fight
– Flight
– Freeze
• Just a presentation
– Rationalize
– Build rapport
Posture
• Arms out (friendly), not crossed (defensive)
• Eyes to the front
• Eye-contact (or look at forehead)
• Steady movements
• Confident and honest
Speaking
• Stand up, don’t sit down (breathing)
• Have a bottle of water ready, but don’t hold it
all the time (dry throat)
• Take your time to speak clearly
• Pause if you like
• Speak to the guy at the back
What to do
• State your motivation early – at the beginning
of your talk motivate your research with easy
to understand examples
• Get to the point– State your results early and
in simple terms.
• Visuals – Illustrate your idea with images and
diagrams
• Maintain eye contact and open body
language.
What to do
• Video example, Steve Ballmer.
What to do
• Video example, Hans Rosling.
| Presentation Content |
Leave them with these thoughts
• I understood what the problem was and why
it was important.
• I have an idea of what her solution was and
how it was different/better than others.
• She knows the literature (i.e. quoted my work
) and we might collaborate on this aspect of
her research.
• I want to read her paper.
Use Examples
Examples are your weapon to
– Motivate your work
– Illustrate the basic intuition
– Show your solution in action (baby problem)
– Highlight extreme cases or shortcomings
If you are running out of time cut the general
case not the example
Where were you?
• People will get lost during your talk, even
those who are listening
– have a running outline of the main steps of your
idea (more than the talk itself)
– use visual clue to highlight where you are in the
process
– present it at the beginning of each step
Related work
• Be familiar with all related work
• Don’t list each paper you read
• Mainly talk about results that are immediately
related to what you did
• References at the end of the talk or better in
the paper itself
• Acknowledge co-authors (title slide)
Technical details: in or out?
A fine line
– Present specific aspect that show the “meat” of
your work
– Leave the rest out. If you were convincing they will
read your paper
– Don’t fill up your slides with lots of equations
– Prepare back-up slides to answer questions. Leave
them at the end of the presentation
| Presentation Format |
The skeleton
• What is the problem
• Motivation and goals
• Relevant state of the art
• What is your key idea/contribution
• Why is your approach good/better
• What I just said and what I want to do next
Preparing the presentation
• Less is more. Fill in with narration not words
(tell a story)
• Use animation sparingly
• Use color to emphasize some points but limit
to 2 or 3
• Be consistent! In the choice and use of color
font size/type etc
• Use slide real estate appropriately
Slide layout – Bad
• This page contains too many words for a
presentation slide. It is not written in point
form, making it difficult both for your
audience to read and for you to present each
point. Although there are exactly the same
number of points on this slide as the previous
slide, it looks much more complicated. In
short, your audience will spend too much time
trying to read this paragraph instead of
listening to you
Slide layout – Good
• Show one point at a time:
– Will help audience concentrate on what you are
saying
– Will prevent audience from reading ahead
– Will help you keep your presentation focused
Fonts – Good
• Use a decent font size
• Use different size fonts for main points and
secondary points
– this font is 24-point, the main point font is 32-
point, and the title font is 44-point
• Use a standard font like Times New Roman or
Arial
Fonts – Bad
• If you use a small font, your audience won’t be able to read what you have written
• CAPITALIZE ONLY WHEN NECESSARY. IT IS
DIFFICULT TO READ
• Don’t use a complicated font
Color – Good
• Use font color that contrasts sharply with the
background
• Blue font on white background
• Use color to reinforce the logic of your
structure
• Ex: light blue title and dark blue text
• Use color to emphasize a point
• But only use this occasionally
Color – Bad
• Using a font color that does not contrast with
the background color is hard to read
• Using color for decoration is distracting and
annoying.
• Using a different color for each point is
unnecessary
• Same for secondary points
• Trying to be creative can also be bad
Background – Good
• Use backgrounds such as this one that are
attractive but simple
• Use backgrounds which are light
• Use the same background consistently
throughout your presentation
Background – Bad
• Avoid backgrounds that are distracting or
difficult to read from
• Always be consistent with the background
that you use
Graphs – Good
• Use graphs rather than just charts and words
– Data in graphs is easier to comprehend & retain
than is raw data
– Trends are easier to visualize in graph form
• Always title your graphs
Graphs – Bad
January February March April
Blue Balls 20.4 27.4 90 20.4
Red Balls 30.6 38.6 34.6 31.6
Graphs – Good
Items Sold in First Quarter of 2002
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
January February March April
Blue Balls
Red Balls
Graphs – Bad
20.4
27.4
90
20.4
30.6
38.6
34.6
31.6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
January February March April
Blue Balls
Red Balls
Graphs – Bad
• Minor gridlines are unnecessary
• Font is too small
• Colors are illogical
• Title is missing
• Shading is distracting
Preparing the presentation
• Prepare the slides in advance
• Show them to friends
• When you think you are done read them again
• Check all animations with the sound on
Preparing the presentation
• Practice, practice, practice
– Give a practice talk to a general audience
– Give a practice talk to an audience of expert
– Time your presentation (allow for speed up effect
caused by nervousness)
• Always assume technology will fail you. Have
backups.
– Software demo -> Video -> Images
| Delivering the talk |
Delivering the talk
• Be enthusiastic! If you aren’t why should the
audience be?
• Make eye contact with the audience
• Identify a few “nodders” and speak to them
• Watch for questions. Be prepare to digress or
brush off when irrelevant
Delivering the talk
• Point at the screen not the computer
• Do not read directly from the PPT or your
notes
• Have the “spill” for the first couple of slides
memorized in case you go blank
• Finish in time
Handling questions
• Different types – handle accordingly
– Need clarification
– Suggest something helpful
– Want to engage in research dialog
– Show that he/she is better than you
• Anticipate questions (additional slides)
• Don’t let them highjack the talk (postpone)
How can I get better?
• Practice every chance you can
• Observe others
– Steal good presentation ideas
– Notice all the things that turned you off
• Seek comments from friends and mentors
| Types of Presentation |
| • Power-point • Prezi • Poster • Software and video |
PowerPoint
• Everyone uses power-point (almost)
• Using PowerPoint doesn’t mean that your
presentation will be good
• There are some bad habits associated with
PowerPoint
– (your lecturers are all guilty of these)
• Can be a substitution for a presentation rather
than an aid
• Format over content?
Conceptual Presentation
• Convert all slides into an informative graphic.
– Easier to remember
– Forces you to speak
– Forces you to think about what your presenting
Conceptual Presentation
• Visual Elements
– Abstract geometric figures
• Triangles
• Arrows for movement, implication, connection and
direction.
• Circles for cycle, closure, group or periodicity.
– Visual Metaphors
• familiar figures that transmit an idea
Prezi
• Cloud based presentation software
• Zooming User Interface
• Follows path
• More engaging
Poster Presentations
Poster Planning
• What is the objective of the investigation?
• Has someone done the work before?
• How have I gone about with the study?
• Why did I follow this particular route of
investigation?
• What are the principles governing the
technique that I am using?
…
Poster Planning
… •
What assumptions did I make and what were
my justifications?
• What problems did I encounter?
• What results did I obtain?
• Have I solved the problem?
• What have I found out?
• Are the analyses sound?
Poster Content
• What are you trying to achieve by presenting the
posters?
– sell a product
– tell people what you have done
– tell people of a new discovery
– to convince people that one product or technique is
better than another
• Who will be attending the presentation?
– technical people
– level of knowledge of your subject area
Poster Design
• Keep the material simple
– make full use of the space, but do not cramp a
page full of information as the result can often
appear messy
– be concise and do not waffle. Use only pertinent
information to convey your message
– be selective when showing results. Present only
those that illustrate the main findings of the
project. (keep other results handy so that you may
refer to them when asked)
Poster Design
• Use colours sparingly and with taste
• Do not use more than 2 font types
– too many font types distracts, especially when
they appear on the same sentence
– fonts that are easy on the eyes are Times-Roman
and Arial.
Poster Design
• Titles and headings should appear larger than
other text, but not too large. The text should
also be legible from a distance, say from 1.5m
to 2m.
• Do not use UPPER CASE type in your posters.
– IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO READ
• A picture is worth a thousand words …
Poster Design
• Check your spelling
– there is nothing more amusing or annoying than
spelling mistakes on public display, especially if
they are on the title page.
– spelling mistakes give the impression that you
have not put in the effort; careless; not bothered;
not worthy of high assessment scores.
Poster Design
• Maintain a consistent style
– inconsistent styles give the impression of disharmony and
can interrupt the fluency and flow of your messages.
– headings on the different pages of the poster should
appear in the same position on all pages.
– graphs should be of the same size and scale especially if
they are to be compared.
– if bold lettering is used for emphasis on one page, then do
not use italics on others.
– captions for graphs, drawings and tables should either be
positioned at the top or at the bottom of the figure.
Poster Design
• Review, review and review
– make draft versions of your poster sections and
check them for
• mistakes
• legibility and
• inconsistency in style
– try different layout arrangements
– ask your partner, friends, colleagues or supervisor
for their ‘honest’ opinions
– be critical
Software Demos, Video
• Good idea if your software is portable
– Try and bring your own laptop
– Have a backup, video grab (cam studio) and slides
– Have a script prepared beforehand
• Video
– Know how long the video will run
– Test beforehand
– Have a backup
Video annotation
• E.g. active presenter
• Great for online versions..
Summary
• How to do a presentation
– Body language
– Speaking
– Slides (colour, graphics etc)
– Images
– Content (what you want to say)
• Types of presentation
– powerpoint, prezi, software etc
Resources
• Ted talks
• Youtube
• Youku
• Software
– CamStudio
– Active Presenter
– Prezi