Presenting your work orally is much easier than writing a research paper for publication in a journal. When presenting an oral report it is important to realize that the audience cannot digest material in the same way they can when reading a report. There will be no time for them to re-read a sentence or paragraph, or to study a table or figure. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the speaker to emphasize the important points.

About 80% of the work comes before the presentation – the actual talk is only about 20% of the work - but it cannot go well if the preparation is missing. If you don't properly prepare your presentation, you're shortchanging yourself, as well as your audience. They will know whether the preparation is there.

Giving a successful talk takes a lot of effort, and more than a bit of experience. Here are some guidelines to help you give a better presentation and feel confident and comfortable during the presentation. Most of these were compiled from sources found on the Internet, though I have taken considerable license with most of those sources to fit the needs and expectations of this class.
 

Planning Your Presentation

If you need to motivate your audience or change their attitudes (or get a job), start with information and concepts they will agree with, then show how these relate to what you are presenting. We have all had the experience of seeing good (and bad) presentations and invariably an enthusiastic speaker gives and gets more from the presentation. Concentrate on common interests and avoid long, dry sequences of facts.

Know Your Audience

What is your audience interested in and what are their key measures? The audience likes a pay-off too; they may be there because they have to be, but you don't have to make it even more onerous for them. Pitching the talk too high or too low means it's all a waste of time. What do the audience expect? Asking yourself this kind of question will organize your thoughts more coherently and help you to avoid the common errors.

What Is The Time And Place Of The Presentation?

What time of day will it be? People tend to be more alert in the morning and mid- afternoon - though there isn't very much you can do about this. What are the physical characteristics of the presentation room? Will you be able to use the computer to present your talk or are you restricted to using slides? Overheads? Are handouts worth considering?

Familiarizing yourself with the surroundings will help to ease your anxieties and maybe give you an opening friendly line (e.g. "Beautiful view of the slag heap from this room but now it's time to get down to business...").

How Long Will The Presentation Be?

If there's a strict time limit, ensure that you stick to it; otherwise people may start to get fidgety, or even worse, you may (will!!) get cut off before you are able to make your most important points.

Will you be the only presenter, or will you need to compete for attention? It's a jungle out there and being the loudest speaker is not necessarily the best way to gain attention.

How Will You Get Your Message Across?

Saying the same thing in a variety of ways is often a good idea, using analogies, metaphors etc., but not necessarily anything too wacky which would obscure your main message.

What Media Will You Use To Present Your Ideas?

Try to employ the most appropriate media to illustrate what you are talking about. It can be very difficult to try to understand a very complex experiment just by listening to a prose description when you know that a simple piece of video footage would make it all clear. Will you be able to pass visual aids around to individuals?
 

General Principles for the Presentation
 

Place Yourself In Your Audience's Position

Your audience is most interested in the ideas you present which can be applied to their work. Try to ask yourself what kind of a talk you would expect, based on the title of your session and the title of your paper, if you were in the audience. For example, suppose you were giving a talk entitled ``Optimizing Batch Sizes in a Mixed-Product Sawmill'' in a session entitled ``Application of Simulation to Scheduling Problems.'' In order to establish a frame of reference for your audience, you would have to explain some of the peculiarities of sawing logs. However, if you took ten minutes to explain all the difficulties of slicing logs lengthwise and five minutes to explain all the difficulties of cutting logs to length, you would bore your audience to tears. With such an unusual topic, you could reasonably expect that no one in your audience would be concerned with an identical problem. On the other hand, your audience might contain persons concerned with simulating the scheduling of painting batches of similarly colored automobiles, or refining batches of petroleum-based products. These scheduling problems might have something in common with sawmill scheduling. The keys to success in giving a good presentation in such a session are (1) establishing a frame of reference for the audience, and (2) treating the subject broadly enough to encompass the range of interests of attendees that could be expected at such a session.

Relate Your Work To The Work Of Others if Possible

The human mind organizes facts by noting similarities and differences. The insights you communicate to your audience will be maximized if you can emphasize similarities with, and differences from, ideas with which they are already familiar. In tutorial sessions, for example, your audience may have an inadequate knowledge base to which it can relate your presentation. If you feel this is possible, take time to build a frame of reference for them. Give them references they can consult if they wish to learn more. Finally, bear in mind that if there are no other speakers to reinforce or challenge what you say, you have the solitary responsibility to assure the balance of your presentation.

A Presentation Must Summarize

You will have 15-20 minutes to give your presentation (in a two-paper session like those in CHEM 465). It probably took days or weeks to write the paper upon which your presentation is based. Furthermore, the work upon which that paper is based may have taken weeks, months, or even years to perform. The preparation will take some of your time and you will need to "buy in" to the work to present it well. However, don't let your interest in the work lead you into thinking that your audience must absorb each and every detail of the work you report. If you try to present too many details in a short period of time, your audience will quickly tire. Try to stress concepts, methods, approaches, and conclusions, and use details to illustrate or underscore these ideas. Try to approach your presentation as a marketing effort: a good summary should convince your audience of the merit of your ideas and entice them to further explore the details presented.

If Your Presentation Is Well-Structured, A Reporter With No Technical Knowledge Of Your Subject Could Accurately Report What You Say

One good way to measure the structure of your presentation is to ask yourself how a technically unknowledgeable reporter would report what you say. What headline would the reporter choose? If he wrote a one-paragraph summary, what would he say? If he wrote several paragraphs, would he say the most important things? If your presentation is well-structured, he would. A well-structured presentation should be like a Mozart concerto, providing structure which is evident and pleasing to the average listener, but simultaneously containing nuances which can be appreciated by the expert.

Allocate Time Spent On Each Topic In Direct Proportion To Its Importance

Make a list of the major ideas you plan to present, and assign a weight from 1 to 10 to each idea. Add up the total weights, and calculate the percentage of the total to be devoted to each idea. Multiply your total presentation time by each percentage to get the amount of time to be spent on each idea. In the sawmill example above, above, you might conclude that you should spend 20 percent of your time describing the technical details of sawing logs. If you are giving a 15-minute presentation, this means you should spend at most 3 minutes presenting this information.

Qualitative Insights Are More Important Than Quantitative Results

Suppose you are presenting a paper that explores two different strategies for reduction of variance in simulation outputs. Consider the following hypothetical presentation of results:

In situations of type X, we found that strategy A was, on the average, twice as effective as strategy B; however, in situations of type Y, strategy A was 3.5 times as effective as strategy B. Over all the situations we studied, we found that strategy A was never less than 1.5 times as effective as strategy B. Therefore, we recommend the use of strategy A.

Your Audience's Interest Level Will Be Highest At The Beginning And The End Of Your Presentation

A GOOD INTRODUCTION AND A GOOD SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS ARE OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE.

There's a time-honored formula for giving a good talk:

Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em.
Tell 'em.
Tell 'em what you told 'em.

Use Your Visual Aids To Visually Reinforce Your Spoken Words

At any given point in time, your audience will have two senses with which to absorb your presentation: sight and sound. Touch, taste, and smell won't come into play. (At least, we certainly hope not.) Don't overemphasize the importance of the spoken word; give equal importance to visual aids. One good criterion for measuring the quality of your visual aids is to go through them in sequence and ask whether your major themes are readily apparent with no spoken words. Similarly, a good criterion for measuring the quality of your spoken words is to try your talk with no transparencies or computer projection. These are harsh tests, because neither the spoken word nor your transparencies are adequate alone. If your spoken words and visual aids are both strong individually, then all that remains is to be sure they are properly coordinated, and this is very easy to do.

Have A Good Reason For Showing Each And Every Transparency You Use

For each transparency you use, ask yourself ``Why am I showing this transparency?'' Having done so, ask yourself whether the transparency achieves your objective in the best possible manner. For example, if your reason for showing a table of results is to illustrate several key values, you may find that you have to point out these values, in order to distinguish them from values of little or no interest in the table. If so, you would be much better off if you designed a transparency which shows only the important values and reinforces the spoken words you would use to describe the significance of the results.

Space Your Transparencies Evenly Over Time

For a typical presentation, the average time per transparency should be 1-2 minutes. If you flip transparencies too frequently, there's not enough time for ideas to ``sink in.'' Your delivery can be extremely frustrating for your audience if you do this, and they will "turn off.". On the other hand, if you talk about a single transparency for more than several minutes, you strain the attention span of the audience. Practice your presentation. If you find that you spend more than several minutes on a single transparency, consider making several more transparencies to parcel out the details evenly.

Transparencies Must Be Readable. Don't Flout The Laws Of Optics

If you are using 8 1/2 -by- 11-inch transparencies, letters less than 1/4 inch high on the sheet will be difficult to read in the FRONT of the room. Unenlarged 10- or 12-point computer output is impossible to read from anywhere in the room. There's no justifiable reason for trying to show unenlarged computer output. If enlarging the output would make it too big to fit on a single transparency, you're trying to put too much information onto the transparency. Summarize! Present qualitative conclusions.

Transparencies Must Be Comprehensible. Say Only What's Important

A transparency can be optically readable, but still be incomprehensible. Complicated mathematical formulae can be too difficult to be absorbed in the 1-2 minute interval in which a transparency is shown. It is much better to say:

A closed-form solution for problems of type X, first determined by Jones in 1970, can be implemented as a simple subroutine in most languages, allowing us to easily compute the needed values.

Here we see the well-known closed-form solution due to Jones.

Producing the Audio-Visual Materials

Slides and Transparencies

When designing your graphics, keep all information on slides or transparencies within the "safe area." The safe area compensates for the overlap from a slide or overhead mount. As a rule of thumb,  keep all graphics at least 1/2" in from the edge of the image.

Color Overheads

The overhead ratio is 3:4 in the horizontal format. Make sure, when setting up your graphics, that you have selected the "overhead" option in "Slide Setup" (or Page Setup) of PowerPoint, Word or another program. Remember to leave the "safe area".

Remember, some older (and by far the most common) overhead projectors can only display a 10"x10" image. If you select the "overhead" option in "Slide Setup" you will avoid having an image that is larger than the projection area of your overhead projector. If you select "Letter Paper," you may end up with an image that is over 10 inches.

On-screen

Computer-based screen shows are also in a 3:4 ratio. These are now common with programs such as PowerPoint and though the amount of work needed to generate the presentation may put you off at first having the compter presentation will make your life a lot easier in the long run, because you can modify or enhance the presentation at the last minute if needed. These preseentations can be used either with appropriate hardware to play them through TV monitors or by using an LCD projector overlay to display them on screen.

Backgrounds

If you are using 35mm slides for your presentation, use bright colors on a dark background. Enhance your slides with a graduated background (i.e. from blue to black) for added impact. Avoid large light colored areas, as they tend to be annoyingly bright when projected. For overheads, use medium to medium-light backgrounds with bright colors and dark text. This combination works well, especially in situations where you can expect to have high levels of ambient light. For on-screen presentations, follow the same guidelines as for overheads. This combination will allow for high ambient light situations and weak projectors. If you're not familiar with the room you'll be presenting in, it's best to assume there will be a lot of ambient light and a weak projector.

Using Color in Presentations

While the use of color can increase the impact of your presentation, too much color can be distracting. Resist the temptation to decorate your slides with many different colors. Use color as a communications tool, keeping the following guidelines in mind: Limit the variety of colors you use. Five colors is the maximum for graphs and charts. For word charts, limit yourself to two main colors with a third for highlighting. Use color to show relationships between the elements on the visuals. Keep colors consistent throughout the presentation. If you used blue for 1996 and green for 1997, don't switch them halfway through your presentation. Warm colors advance to the foreground. Use bright, warm colors like orange and yellow to emphasize information. Do not use these colors for backgrounds. Cool colors recede to the background. Use colors like blue and green for less important elements (subdues) or large areas. Since these colors are considered more conservative, they are ideal for backgrounds. Dark blues and blacks are safe background colors because they do not detract from text or data in the foreground. On a dark background, yellow and white make text, bullets and numbers easy to read. Don't assume your audience has the same visual acuity you do. Select colors that have distinct differences, rather than colors that have subtle differences. Keep color contrast high. This helps your audience differentiate between the elements in your visuals. Establish a background and a set of colors, and use them consistently. This will serve to unify your presentation and give it a professional look. Avoid red and green combinations: 4% of males are red-green color blind and cannot distinguish between the two colors.

Design Considerations

Parsimony

Strive for simplicity. Simplify text, charts and concepts. Break up complex charts and concepts into smaller, more digestible segments. Keep the number of visual elements and special effects to a minimum to avoid distracting your audience. Focus on one point with each visual. Do not mix topics. Keep colors to a minimum--too many will distract the viewer from the message.

Legibility

There's no excuse for slides that can't be read. Be sure to select background and foreground colors with enough contrast to make charts easily readable. There's no point in having the slide or transparency in the first place if no one can read it! Avoid white or light backgrounds. Also avoid using shades of the same color for background and foreground. Be sure the text and graphics are large enough to be visible in the situation in which you will make your presentation. Spacing between lines of text should be open to enhance readability. Use traditional orientation--make visuals read from left to right, top to bottom.

Consistency and Harmony

Use a consistent background and color scheme throughout the presentation. If you wish to use some variety, simply vary color combinations to create "modules." Use modules to segment the presentation much as chapters or sections divide a book. Use common graphic and color symbolism to avoid confusion or distraction. To make the presentation hold together, keep all major graphic elements, such as placement of title and logos consistent. Use only one font family (i.e. Helvetica, Helvetica Bold, Italic and Bold Italic) throughout your presentation. Also keep the number of sizes you use to three or less. Any more will simply confuse your audience.

General Guidelines for Text Slides

Use "Initial Capitals" or "Upper lower" rather than ALL CAPITALS. ALL CAPITAL LETTERS are hard to read, and ALL CAPS is the written equivalent of shouting. Keep text sizes 24pt (24 point) or above for on-screen shows. Anything smaller, and your audience may not be able to read it, preferably above 16pt for overheads. Avoid rotated and curved text for on-screen shows. While this is often a nice touch with slides and presentations, the computer projector or screen is a fairly low resolution device compared to a film recorder or a printer. The text may break up and be unreadable when used in an on-screen show. Use build sequences for complex topics. By adding one item at a time, you control the pace of the presentation. This will better give your audience time to absorb the information. Use key phrases where possible. Eliminate words such as verbs (action words) and articles (a, an, the) that are not essential to the message.

General Guidelines for Charts and Graphs

Keep graphs simple. The audience should be able to absorb the point at a glance. If you show too many bars, slices, or lines, the audience will be forced to spend excess time deciphering data. This is time spent not listening to you. Make your point in the title. Eliminate graph elements such as grids and decimal values except where absolutely necessary. Keep line weights fairly heavy and text as large as possible. Round off numbers in titles, graph labels, and axis labels. Start all axis values at 0 to avoid confusion -- if this is not practicable then make sure that in your presentation you make a big thing of pointing this out. Keep axis labeling as simple as possible--do not overdo the number of tick marks. Be prudent with 3D charts and graphs, especially line plots. Yes, they look nice, but if they confuse your audience, they may not be a good idea. Choose vertical axis values carefully. Decreasing the scale can decrease the impact of an otherwise dramatic change in data. Likewise, increasing the scale can increase the impact of an insignificant change.

Text on Overheads/Slides

Use text on slides to highlight points, stress important concepts and underpin what you are saying. Don't recreate your script word-for-word on overheads or slides as (a) it's a waste of time, and (b) people just switch off listening! Use key words and phrases as visual stimulation and reinforcement. Order your points by order of importance – the most important should come first.

Tables, Charts and Graphs

For an experimental talk, you usually don't need or want to communicate raw data but you do want to show relationships. Tables, charts and graphs give you an opportunity to show these relationships graphically which easier to describe and comprehend. Decide which chart types to use based upon the data you need to present - they don't have to look lovely (although that helps) but they do have to be accurate and comprehensible.

Rehearsal

Proper preparation of your presentation can make all the difference. Use the following sections as guidelines to help you give a successful presentation. DO NOT give a presentation that you haven't run through out loud! I know it feels odd talking out loud to an empty room (although preferably you should have some friends there) but it is the only accurate way to work out the timing and to ensure you don't stumble over your words.

Preview your visuals, speaking the verbal presentation as you go. This will ensure that all elements work together. If possible, rehearse the final presentation with the actual visuals under the conditions in which you will give the real presentation. Go through at least two dress rehearsals. Have someone critique one, if possible. Create speaking notes in outline form, or on cards if you like. Do not create a complete script though--you will be tempted to read it to your audience. Just jot down the key points and concepts. If you practice you talk too much, or read or memorize your presentation, all spontaneity is lost, and your presentation will be boring. A presentation is not a speech or an oration, but rather, a talk with your audience. Practice your presentation only to the point at which you can give it without notes. (Well-designed transparencies should eliminate the need for notes.)
 
 

Making the Presentation

Take Care with the Mechanics of the Presentation

First, dress appropriately. If you dress too casually, it sends a non-verbal statement to the audience that you don’t care. They won't either. Your clothes should fit the occasion.

Be careful not to block the view of a portion of the audience. If someone else is changing your transparencies, stay back next to the screen. If you are changing your own transparencies, step back away from the projector after making the change.

Always face the audience. Speak clearly, enunciate carefully, avoid audible pauses, and project your voice. Do not just read the slides. If you are using overheads, you can look at the transparency on the projector rather than turning toward the screen. If you have to look at the screen, take a quick glance and then turn back to the audience. Punctuate your delivery by varying your speaking style and volume. Maintain eye contact with your audience. Know your presentation well enough that you do not have to spend much time looking at the charts or at any speaker notes.

Use gestures and body language to make your points. Ask questions to maintain an active connection with the audience; to make them think; and to get feedback on how your message is coming across. Pay attention to the non-verbal signals your audience is giving you and adjust your presentation accordingly.

Try to avoid the following nervous habits: chewing gum, playing with the pointer or something in your pocket, rocking from side to side, "prosecutorial" pacing to and fro in front of the room, or giggling. Approach the oral report with confidence and a firm belief in your abilities and your work.

Do Whatever You Can To Be Comfortable

Do not start a conversation with anyone who is not supportive before the presentation. Immediately before your presentation, take a few deep breaths and yawn. (This is easier to do if you are not in the presentation room.) If you do not want to be interrupted with questions during the presentation, tell the audience so. And, if they still interrupt, politely tell them that you will be answering that question later. Assume that everything is going to go well.

Being Nervous Is Normal - Harness Your Nervous Energy

Even the most veteran speakers worry a little bit about giving a presentation. Therefore, if you're new to this sort of thing, it's perfectly normal to be worried. There are two kinds of worry, however: productive and counterproductive. The following are examples of counterproductive worry:

1. My talk may run too long. (Solution: practice!)

2. I may forget to say something important. (Solution: stick to the game plan you've laid out in your collection of transparencies.)

3. The audience may laugh at me. (Solution: Plan the talk and fit it to you and your audience. A well-presented talk on a simple subject is infinitely preferable to a poorly presented talk on a sophisticated subject.)

The following are examples of productive worry:

1. I've got to remember to evenly space my transparencies, as I practiced.
2. I can't let myself get bogged down in the details of my results transparencies, at the expense of communicating ideas.

Counterproductive worry makes a bad performance more probable. Productive worry gets the adrenaline flowing and assures a good performance.

Give An Excuse-Free Presentation

A single excuse can be the kiss of death for an otherwise good presentation. For example, if you say ``I know that you probably can't read all the data on this transparency, but ...,'' you're telling your audience that preparing a readable transparency wasn't important to you. Your audience will be ``turned off'' by excuses, and rightfully so. Take the time to prepare an excuse-free presentation.

Don't Let Down for the Question and Answer Period

Always repeat the question asked if speaking to a large group. Admit it when you do not know the answer, but try to give any relevant partial answer that you have. Most people only ask a question because they do not know the answer, either. Try to be responsive, not evasive. And prepare for Q & A by imagining the questions that will be asked.
 
 

Summary:  There's no magic to giving a good presentation. A first-time speaker can give a good presentation by simply paying careful attention to the guidelines given above.
 
 

The Discussant's Role

In the series of seminars given during Spring semester's Chem 465, each seminar will have a student discussant who will help lead the question and answer period. The discussant has a duty to understand the presentation and to encourage questions. Generally, the discussant runs the session and selects the questioners. If no questions are forthcoming from the audience, the discussant provides questions for the speaker as necessary.

For the series of research seminars given in Spring semester's Chem 465, this week's discussant is (usually) next week's speaker (i.e., the discussant for talk 1 is the person scheduled to give talk 1 next week.) The final two talks have as the discussants the first two speakers in the class.

As a discussant, your task is to comment briefly (1 minute or less!) on the assigned presentation with constructive feedback and to lead the questions from the audience. Under no circumstances should an author/presenter be verbally attacked or demeaned in the eyes of the audience! Areas of agreement or contrasting viewpoints among the presentations in your session are valuable, when appropriate, as are indications of how you believe a presentation makes a contribution to a broader stream of literature/research emerging in the field or how the paper provides new perspectives. You may want to avoid overly detailed or specific points of contention which may be of interest (e.g., methodological or theoretical) but key points where questions arise should be indicated. Above all, your remarks should be designed to stimulate the audience interest in the subject. Your score as a discussant will reflect how well you achieve this goal.

To be able to lead the discussion, you should have a hard copy of the presentation to work from. If you have not received a copy of the presentation you have been assigned to discuss by Monday of the week where you are scheduled, contact the presenter or the instructor directly -- do not wait until you arrive at the class to obtain a copy of the presentations
 
 

Further Reading