1. September1999 October 1999 Giving Effective Presentations Marie desJardins (mariedj@cs.umbc.edu)mariedj@cs.umbc.edu HONR 300 / CMSC 491 May 4, 2011

2. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 2 Sources u Robert L. Peters, Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or Ph.D. (Revised Edition). NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997. u Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science: The Art of Effective Communication, 2/e. London: Springer-Verlag, 2004. u Mark D. Hill, “Oral presentation advice” u Simon L. Peyton Jones, John Hughes, and John Launchbury, “How to give a good research talk” u Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics” u Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia”

3. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 3 Outline u Rules for presentations u General guidelines for preparing talks u Paper presentation guidelines for this class

4. September1999 October 1999 Rules for Presentations

5. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 5 Rule u Know what on earth you’re doing up there! u Rule #2: Know what you want to say u Rule #3: Know your audience u Rule #4: Know how long you have

6. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 6 Rule #2: Know What You Want to Say u Just giving a summary/recap of the research paper you wrote is not interesting to most people u You should give enough detail to get your interesting ideas and observations across (and to show that you’ve actually learned something interesting about the problem you were studying), but not enough to lose your audience u They want to hear what you learned that was cool and why they should care u Preferably, they’ll hear the above two points at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk u If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask questions (or, in the future when you’re presenting a published paper, read your paper!) u Whatever you do, don’t just read your slides!

7. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 7 Rule #3: Know Your Audience u Don’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience in your field  Your fellow students already know what parallelism, chaos, and tipping points are u Even for these people, you need to be sure you’re explaining each new concept clearly u On the other hand, you’ll lose people in a general audience if you don’t give the necessary background u In any case, the most important thing is to emphasize what you’ve discovered and why they should care!

8. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 8 Rule #4: Know How Long You Have u How long is the talk? Are questions included? u A good heuristic is 1-2 minutes per slide ...but it depends a lot on the content of those slides! u If you have too many slides, you’ll skip some or— worse—rush desperately to finish. Avoid this temptation!! u Almost by definition, you never have time to say everything about your topic, so don’t worry about skipping some things! u Unless you’re very experienced giving talks, you should practice your timing; ideally:  A couple of times on your own to get the general flow  At least one dry run to work out the kinks  A run-through on your own the night before the talk

9. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 9 Comments on Zobel / Peters u Zobel recommends one minute per slide  Unless you have very little information on each slide, this is a racing speed u Peters recommends writing out your presentation, word for word  This is a very bad idea for most people, and will lead to extremely stilted delivery  The only alternative, if you’re not an experienced public speaker, is to practice!

10. September1999 October 1999 General Presentation Guidelines

11. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 11 Organizing a Talk u Talks are linear:  Your audience can’t flip back to see what you said last  They can’t use the section headers as a guideline  → Help them keep track of where you are in the talk  → Don’t try to cover as much ground as you would in a research paper u Give an overview (& use it throughout) u Start with a slide or two on key ideas/contributions u Give a high-level summary (or simple example) before you dive down into (not too many) details u Recap at the end

12. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 12 Slideology 101 u Don’t just read your slides! u Use the minimum amount of text necessary u Use examples u Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format u Use color to emphasize important points, but avoid the excessive use of color u “Hiding” bullets like this is annoying (but sometimes effective), but… u Don’t fidget, and… u Don’t just read your slides! Abuseofanimationisacardinalsin!

13. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 13 How to Give a Bad Talk Advice from Dave Patterson, summarized by Mark Hill 1. Thou shalt not be neat 2. Thou shalt not waste space 3. Thou shalt not covet brevity 4. Thou shalt cover thy naked slides 5. Thou shalt not write large 6. Thou shalt not use color 7. Thou shalt not illustrate 8. Thou shalt not make eye contact 9. Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk 10. Thou shalt not practice

14. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 14 Handling Questions u Questions during the talk:  If your presentation will answer the question later, say so and move on  If your presentation won’t answer the question, either: n Give a brief answer n Defer the question to the end of the talk  Know how much time you have! u Make sure you understand the question first!  Ask for clarification if you need it  Restate the question, and ask whether you’ve gotten it right u Have backup slides for questions you can anticipate (but don’t have time for in the main presentation)

15. September1999 October 1999 Paper Summary Presentations

16. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 16 Goals of Research Paper Presentations u Convey why this is an important and/or interesting problem/domain u Review key ideas that you learned in your research u Discuss modeling approaches and sources of complexity u Relate these issues to relevant course topics u Critique the work that you discovered in your research u Stimulate discussion

17. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 17 Paper Presentations u Content: You should provide a well organized presentation of the key contributions and important ideas in the paper.  If you’re in CMSC 491, you should summarize your model and findings (e.g., with screenshots and/or graphs) u Timing: You should aim for an 8-minute presentation.  This works out to (roughly) six to eight slides  As in a conference or symposium talk, you will get 2-minute and time’s-up warnings from the session chair.  I will cut you off if you go too long!  There will be a few minutes after each talk for questions

18. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 18 Paper Presentations u Audience: Your audience consists of your fellow students. (I don’t count.)  Some are in your field, some are not  Most will not know much about your particular domain  You can’t assume a lot of existing knowledge  On the other hand, you only have ten minutes! Be selective!

19. September1999 October 1999 Possible Organization u (This is just a suggestion; you don’t have to use this structure!) u Title slide, followed by outline u System overview, perhaps with an illustrative picture u 1-2 slides: agents, interactions, and environment u 1-2 slides: complex behaviors of the system  Note that these slides should mention key published work u 1-2 slides: previous modeling approaches (if relevant) u (CMSC) Model design slide u (CMSC) Model behaviors slide u (CMSC) Model results slide (quantitative/qualitative) u Total: ~9 slides 5/4/11 19

20. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 20 Giving the Presentation u You must prepare your presentation in PowerPoint or as a PDF and email it to me no later than 8am on the day of your presentation u Draft slides can be sent to me for review, if you want feedback beforehand  I will only promise to review and comment on draft slides if they are sent at least 24 hours before your talk! u Practice your presentation, even if it’s just to yourself, to make sure your timing is correct u NOTE: If you’re presenting on Mon 5/9, you can turn in your participation portfolio on Wed 5/11

21. September1999 October 1999 5/4/11 21 Grading and Feedback u Students are required to fill out a short feedback form for each presentation u You will receive these forms u I will also give you written feedback u Your grade will be based on:  Your level of preparation  The clarity of your presentation  The timing of your presentation  Other students’ evaluation of your presentation  The ensuing discussion