1. Presentation tips and other topics (by popular demand) Daniel J. Jacob May 2016

2. Presentation tips – content of your presentation Target the lowest common denominator of your audience. The people most remote from your field in the audience must 1.Be able to understand everything that you say 2.Appreciate its importance Your audience wants to be educated. Emphasize the fundamentals. Be pedagogical. No one will remember the technical details of your talk. If they learn something basic that contributes to their scientific education they will be grateful. Keep technical details for one-on-one discussions with your colleagues. Non-chemist audiences are scared to death of chemistry. One slide on chemistry is one slide too many unless absolutely totally dumbed down. And then it can work – if they learn something basic about chemistry they will be grateful. Chemist audiences are scared to death of math. See above: “One slide on math is one slide too many…” All slides have to be (1) attractive, (2) clear, (3) self-contained, (4) with a punch line. Don’t try to say that your model is great. Audience doesn’t care about your model. Your model is whatever it is. Use it to learn something. When you show someone else’s data make sure to give credit, orally (if you can remember) and on the slide (in case you don’t).

3. Presentation tips - style Take great pains to recognize people in the audience – give them credit for work they’ve done. Make your talk a conversation – engage the audience. Tell jokes, tell stories. Don’t be tense. Make the audience relax. Combine education and entertainment. Look the audience in the eye. Never read your slides. A talk should never go overtime (audience will be very resentful) and it must not feel rushed (audience will be uncomfortable). Don’t have too many slides. Know your comfort level. General rule is 1 slide per minute for a short talk, 1 slide per 2 minutes for a 1-h talk. You may be thrown off your timing by a late start, equipment malfunction, or people asking questions during your talk. It’s your responsibility to correct your timing accordingly. If you feel that questions during the talk are preventing you from getting to your message or are otherwise distracting just ask audience to postpone questions to the end –you’re in control.

4. Presentation tips – dealing with questions Nothing looks worse than a slick presenter who falls apart when asked questions. Avoid this with strong preparation. For each of your slide, agonize over what questions could be asked. Have your understanding be deeper than what you actually present. Repeating the question for the audience is a good idea – they might not have understood the question, it gives you an opportunity to state what you understand the question to be, and it gives you a bit of extra time to think. Nothing looks worse than a presenter who doesn’t understand the question. Never ask for the question to be repeated (audience doesn’t have time for that). Instead, see above about repeating the question. Nothing looks worse than a presenter who folds when asked a question or who admits not having thought about that – fine to give credit to the questioner but put your own spin and take the opportunity to add something you didn’t say. Keep your responses to questions short and to the point, don’t meander. …and finally: Learn to ask questions as an audience member. It’s part of the dynamic of the talk and it’s the polite thing to do. Nothing pleases a speaker more than a forest of hands going up after the talk. Asking questions during a talk is appropriate for important points of clarification (to understand what is being shown, such as missing axis label?) or for an informal talk (group meeting). Otherwise it’s kind of rude.

5. Developing your teaching skills/how to put together a class Be selective about the classes you teach so that they’re useful for your research; they should be in your area of research or “upstream”. For an atmospheric chemist, upstream: atm sci, chemistry, applied math,… downstream or sidestream: physics, env chem, env engineering, policy,…. You have to understand the topic that you teach in and out from a fundamental perspective Knock it around in your head, ask your own questions – try to challenge what you know. Have no complacency for your own ignorance – if there’s something you don’t understand, hit the textbooks or talk to your colleagues or don’t teach it. Recognize that understanding and information are two very different things Understanding is what you want to convey Information is often needed to motivate understanding – use it that way.

6. Networking and building collaborations There are many reasons for networking and building collaborations: Leverage skills, learn from others Get new ideas Achieve more impact by being part of a team Be recognized for your work Enjoy social interaction But don’t obsess about networking because the most important thing is for you to do and publish your work– that will get people to want to network with you Go to conferences but only to give a talk (or poster) – that makes people notice you and want to talk to you. At conferences, ask questions – don’t be a wallflower. Again, it makes people notice you, and gives you an opportunity to follow up with the speaker (who will be grateful that you asked a question) Meet with visitors at Harvard to practice your “elevator speech”. 30 minutes is usually too long – meet as a group? Be open in sharing what you do – you’ll take in more than you let out. Show respect by knowing, appreciating, and recognizing publicly what your colleagues do. But earn their respect by challenging them – don’t be obsequious.

7. Gender biases Women have an edge in getting jobs, promotions, honors from institutions that need gender balance (which is to say most). Women have a harder time getting their work noticed and respected, because (1) they’re not as self-promotional as men, (2) scholarship/authority is associated traditionally with men. Women advisors/teachers tend to be viewed as less scary, more accessible, less dominating – that has pluses and minuses. Women tend to be overburdened by committee and other peripheral work that doesn’t advance their interests or careers – that’s because committees need women and because women often don’t say no. Learn to say no. Impostor syndrome is a common affliction among young scientists – and seems more prevalent in women. Use it as a positive force to push you to excel.

8. Working happily and efficiently Most important is to work happily: see “How to balance work and play”“How to balance work and play” Some tips for working efficiently: Know your brain clock. There are times when you work more efficiently than others. We all have things we hate that interfere with our enjoyment/efficiency of work. For me it’s (1) deadlines, (2) an accumulating inbox, (3) wasteful meetings, (4) faculty affairs. Recognize what you hate and avoid it. Refuse make-work. Learn to say no. Do only work that’s important for you, your team, or your advisor (and then only if it seems right) Remember that the important is the fundamental. Focus your work on what you see as contributing to new knowledge or to society. Not everything that you do has to be perfect. Recognize when something is good enough for its purpose.

9. Dealing with stress and frustration in research Research is hard and takes a special kind. Recognize that some things are incredibly common, happen to everyone, and are built into the time for research: 1.The bug that can’t be found. Spending a week trying to find a bug may seem like wasted time but is incredibly common. Enjoy cloud nine when you’ve found it! 2.The work that doesn’t pan out. Again very common. Recognize when it doesn’t pan out and cut your losses. 3.The mistake that crept into your model and that you realize at submission time. Try to avoid it by always being critical of your results and the data you use. Don’t view criticism as personal or challenging your ability to do science. 1.Science is built on criticizing each other’s work at the bleeding edge of knowledge – if your work isn’t criticized it means people don’t care. 2.Most proposals and applications get rejected. It’s a crapshoot. Just bounce back. Take a lesson from baseball players – batting.300 is great! Be assertive about getting credit for your work (publish and plant the flag), but don’t get too bothered if you don’t think you’re getting all the credit you deserve. 1.Ownership of ideas is often blurry. 2.Your perception of credit due to you is generally different than others’ 3.You will always be recognized “some” but don’t be bitter if you’re not recognized more.