How to Give an Oral Presentation CURO Symposium Workshop

Outline Basic Rules of 15-Minute Presentation Purpose and Audience Content and Organization Visual Presentation Oral Presentation PRACTICE

Basic Rules of 15-Minute Presentation 15 minutes per speaker  2 minutes for convener/faculty to introduce  10 minutes for presentation  3 minutes for questions Average 1 slide per minute, for a total of about 10 slides

Purpose and Audience SURP/CURO Purpose: Multidisciplinary forum to share research YOUR Purpose: To share your research in this forum To achieve YOUR purpose, you must convey your research to the multidisciplinary forum (general audience)

Content and Organization Hypothesis Methodology - Picture, Diagram, Schematic Results - Graph, Picture, Chart, Table Conclusions and Future Directions Introduction and Background

Introduction  State of the field OR context of topic  Terminology and vocabulary  Questions addressed by research Background  All relevant information needed to understand questions  Purpose and significance of research

Hypothesis or Thesis Central point around which your presentation pivots Clear and concise statement  “If…then” statements  Question  Topic/comment

Methodology Present as few experiments at a time as possible Clear description of the methods used to obtain results

Methodology All pertinent information to experimental procedure is given  Purpose  Controls  Independent/dependent variables  Unimportant conditions or variables are excluded Diagrams/flow charts/graphics are better than text

Protocol: Pathogen and normal flora cultures were grown in appropriate media ml of cell suspension was mixed with 0.1-1ml amounts of stock psoralen to give final psoralen concentrations of 1,3,5,7, and 10 mg/L. Mixtures were allowed to sit for 10min and placed under UVA lamp. Number of surviving cells were determined at 20s intervals by removing 0.1ml with a Gibson pipette and preparing serial dilutions in MRD. After last extraction, survival of the cells was calculated using n/n o x 100.  n=number recovered at time t  n o =initial number Bad Method Slide Example

The Efficacy of Psoralen Assay Good Method Slide Example

Results Concise description of results/discussion Graphical/visual representation with appropriate labels End with the summary of results

Conclusions and Future Directions Answer questions asked in introduction Relate results/conclusions with hypothesis Identify new questions created by your research

…In a nutshell Tell them what you’re going to tell them Tell them Tell them what you told them

Visual Representation No more than 6 lines of text per slide  Bullet points, not sentences Font no smaller than 20 Use as many figures, diagrams, and illustrations as possible Keep slides simple and clear REMEMBER TO CITE when appropriate

Oral Presentation Project voice Pace Enunciate Body control, placement, and language Eye contact Laser pointer usage

Practice, Practice, Practice! Check equipment Backups of presentation Check slides for errors and formatting Practice with live audience  Get feedback  Answer questions Practice in room of presentation if possible

Things to remember… You are the expert on your research. It’s okay to say “I don’t know.” It’s okay to postulate as long as you make it clear you are doing so. Special thanks to:  Patrick Curtis  Anita DeRouen  Emily DeCrescenzo Henriksen  Ivy Holliman  Cynthia McMeekin  Marie Milward