Oral Presentations what makes a good talk Computer Science Research Practicum Fall 2012 Andrew Rosenberg

Oral Presentations Who is the audience? What is the purpose? How to deliver a talk? What should you put in a talk? 1

Who is the audience for an oral presentation? Family and friends A boss Other administrators A potential client A potential funding agency A professor/advisor A colleague 2

Venues for Oral Presentations Research Conferences Lab Talks Invited Talks Job Talks Keynote Presentations (Guest Lecturing in) Courses 3

You are television. 4

What is not the purpose of your talk Complete and thorough understanding of the material. –Even if you are teaching. To show how smart you are. –from Liang’s slides 5

What is the purpose of your talk Convey enough information –to give an accurate impression and intuition –to convince them that they want to know more Share your perspective on this topic. Inspire 6

Content – What goes in your talk? Motivation Expectations Use of Humor Technical Detail Examples, Examples, Examples Be visual –or at least simple 7

Presenting a Talk “You walk in, plant yourself squarely on both feet, look the other fella in the eye and tell the truth.” – James Cagney 8

Presenting a Talk You will be nervous You will feel more nerves than you show. 9

Presenting a Talk Your experience of time is different than your audience. 20 minutes will feel like a blink. 1 minute can feel like an hour. 10

How much material? Maximum 1 slide per minute. 11 RULE OF THUMB

How much material? Have extra slides ready for questions. 12

Presenting a Talk Know what your next slide is. 13

Presenting a Talk Intonation Matters. 14

Presenting a Talk Be on time. “should I go on?” –The answer is NO. –but no one will say it. (Thanks Liang) 15

Be ready for questions Be gracious Be prepared Do NOT be afraid to say “I don’t know” –Being wrong will make you look worse. 16

Use of humor Tell jokes. –If you are funny. –Not too many. –They must be topical. Liang says 3 –One at the start to engage the audience –One in the middle to bring them back –One at the end to leave them happy 17

What goes on a slide? Structure for you and your audience Text Notes Visual Aids Data 18

Notes for yourself Avoid the easy practice of writing down exactly what you want to say. This will lead to a boring talk. Your audience will read along with you, or sometimes ahead of you. They will not listen to what you are saying. It is better to give yourself a couple of high level notes that remind you and your audience where you are. This is enough. If it is not enough, you are not prepared. Also, slides like this are visual overload on your audience. It looks like a big block of text. 19

Impression is not a lack of Detail Be specific about the contribution. Even if people won’t completely get it by the time the talk is over. Don’t be vague or overly broad. What did you do and Why do I care? 20

Visual Aids Flow charts. Examples. Animations. –sparingly 21 Text Documents Feature Extraction Classifier Training Gather Feedback from Users

Data Only include data that you want to talk about. 22 BaselineMy System 61%80%

Data Only include data that you want to talk about. 23

Charts and Graphs Column/Bar Charts = Categorical X axis Line Charts = Continuous X axis 24 weight (lbs)

Charts and Graphs Column/Bar Charts = Categorical X axis Line Charts = Continuous X axis 25 weight (lbs)

Example Talk Title Slide – 1 slide Problem Statement – 1* slide Outline Motivation of your Approach – 1-2 slides Describe your Approach – 1+ slides Experimental Results – 1+ slides Discussion – 1+ slides Conclusion - 1 Slide Future Work - 1 Slide Thanks and Questions – 1 Slide 26

Example (bad) Outline (20 min talk) The problem. Why Algorithm is important. My Algorithm Experimental Results Discussion Conclusion Future Work 27

Example Outline (3 hr talk) Preliminary Material [30] Techniques for Prosodic Analysis [75] AuToBI for Prosodic Analysis [30] Applications of Prosodic Analysis [45] 28

Practice Take opportunities to give more talks. –(Even though you hate it) Go to more talks –(Even though you don’t know about the topic) Recognize what you like about good talks –and steal it! 29

Practice Then practice more. 30

Thanks Questions? 31