1. Presentation Tips HST Summer Institute Summer 2003 Mya Poe (myapoe@mit.edu)

2.  General Information Overview Planning Tips Formatting Tips Practice Tips Presentation Tips  Creating Content: How to translate research findings into an oral presentation Complete your project Plan the presentation Draft the presentation  Results, Methods, Discussion, Introduction, Title Edit the Show Prepare for Q&A

3. Overview: Technical Presentations  Primary goal is to explain.  Slides provide visual reinforcement of the spoken message.  Bad slides can distract the audience by being irrelevant, confusing, or inconsistent.  Best way to improve? Improve your content.

4. Planning Tips  Consider the point of your presentation What’s the punch-line?  Who is your audience? What do they know? Why are they at your talk? What kind of talk are they expecting?  Dialog  Formal presentation  PowerPoint or other medium  How flashy

5. Planning Tips  Storyboard your ideas  Introductions make the first impression Introduce yourself with credentials Have a purpose Don’t apologize Give background  Conclusions Know where you are going and get there Restate key points Provide resources for further info Do not introduce new ideas

6. Formatting Tips  Length: 6 slides for 10 minute presentation  Font Size: Title44 pt Subtitles28 pt Other text20 pt  Fonts: Consistent style

7. Formatting Tips, cont’d  Visual Elements: Should not interfere with text Use animation sparingly Understandable at a glance  Color Scheme Use a light background with dark text if the lighting is dim Keep colors consistent

8. Practice Tips  Make sure that you meet the time limit  Practice speaking slowly and clearly  Know your quirks  Make eye contact  Use visuals as cues, not note cards  Know how to use the equipment

9. Presentation Tips: The big day  Arrive early  Check equipment  Check voice projection How loudly do you need to speak? Check with audience in the back.  Have a printed copy of your presentation + backup  If you get lost, stop and regroup.

10. How to translate research findings into an oral presentation

11. Step 1: Complete your project  Organize your data  Locate trends in your data and isolate specific results  Distill information to key points Very similar to preparing a written report!

12. Step 2: Plan the presentation  Who is the audience?  How much time do you have? Budget under time  Equipment or room constraints?

13. Step 3: Draft the presentation  Sketch candidate slides  Combine slides to create story- board  Develop 2-3 bullet points for each slide  Add slides to fill in gaps, remove slides to eliminate redundancy

14. Results Develop 2-3 relevant figures Distill information about each figure into 2-3 bullet points Include key words in figures to remind yourself (and audience) of each bullet point Figure should allow listener to fill in gaps due to lapses in attention

17. Methods Distill Methods to key procedures Numbered list is fine Do not show equations (unless they are extremely simple and friendly)

19. Discussion Limit discussion points to most important details (related to Results)

21. Introduction Explains the goals and purpose of the project Ideally, these goals and purpose relate to the Discussion points

23. Title Slide  Titles Informative Specific Understandable at a glance  Your name and partner’s name  Date

24. Step 4: Edit the Slide Show  Edit slides for coherence  Check for balance and coherency in story-board  Spell-check and proofread

25. Step 5: Prepare for Q&A  Anticipate questions not covered in the presentation  Brainstorm, considering: Audience Scope  OK to acknowledge gaps in knowledge