Good Speaking Skills for Scientists

1
Good Speaking Skills for Scientists
2
Good Speaking Skills for Scientists

• Dr. David Schultz
• CIMMS and NOAA/National
• Severe Storms Laboratory
• Norman, Oklahoma
• http//www.cimms.ou.edu/schultz/communication.htm
  l
• Comments welcome david.schultz_at_noaa.gov

3
The Importance of Good Scientific Communication

• Disappoint your listeners at your peril. They
  might not throw tomatoes or rotten eggs, but they
  might dismiss you, might be willing to find out
  how good a researcher you really are---just
  because you put on a bad show. Peter
  Feibelman (A Ph.D. Is Not Enough)

4
Connecting With the Audience

• Know your audience and know how to engage them
  intellectually.
• Tailor your talk to your audiences concerns.
• Use humor, but sparingly and effectively. Do not
  put entertainment over substance.
• Do you combine stories and facts?
• Do you pack a surprise?
• Do you challenge them?

5
General Concepts

• People want to see you succeed.
• Show professional enthusiasm. It is usually
  contagious with your audience.
• You ought to be having fun giving your seminar.
  If you are not, reconsider what you might be
  doing wrong.
• Be mobile and vary your vocal intonations.
• Exude confidence. You are the expert in what you
  are presenting.
• Avoid self-deprecating comments.

6
More General Rules

• One major point per five minutes of talking.
• One transparency per minute of talking.
• 28 characters per bullet (5 words) TOUGH
• Supplement your overheads with color, but dont
  overdue backgrounds and photos in your electronic
  presentations.

7
More General Rules (Doswell)

• Learn to omit filler from your speaking you
  know, um, like, ahhh, well. . .
• Pause and concentrate on saying nothing.
• Maintain eye contact with your audience
• Do not read your transparencies aloud.

8
The Start of Your Talk

• The starts of talks are generally more difficult
  to do properly.
• Scripting the first few transparencies will ease
  you into the material and ensure your
  introductory remarks are said.
• If the person who introduces you says your name
  and the title of your talk, DO NOT repeat them to
  the audience again, unless there is a point you
  want to make.

9
The Start of Your Talk

• Presenting your Outline of your talk generally
  wastes time, loses the interest of the audience
  immediately, and is hackneyed.
• Give a well-thought-out discussion of the
  Purpose, Goals, or Motivation of your talk
  instead.

10
OUTLINE OF MY TALK

• Introduction
• Early Evolution
• Frontal evolution in northern Utah
• Precipitation distribution
• Conclusions

11
How do you get strong cold fronts in the
Intermountain West?

• In the central and eastern U.S., strong cold
  fronts usually result from arctic air from Canada
  moving equatorward.
• The Rockies prevent this air from reaching the
  Intermountain West by advection.
• So, if advection is not very effective, how can
  you produce a strong cold front?

12
Conference Presentations

• 12-minute oral presentations at conferences are
  typical.
• These are time-management problems. Treat them
  as such.
• The audience is usually bored and distracted
  (lunch, professional activities, meeting with
  colleagues).
• You must be interesting!

13
Problems

• Do not apologize for not having complete results.
  This is work in progress.
• Do not apologize for not having enough time to
  show everything you wanted to. (At a conference,
  everyone has the same 12 minutes you do.)
• Do not appear shaken if you are running low on
  time. Confidently decide what you are going to
  do and pretend you had it planned all the time.

14
More General Rules

• Rehearse! Rehearse! Rehearse!
• Almost everyone enjoys getting out a little early
  from a seminar. Few enjoy staying an extra 15
  minutes as you drone on about your work.
• If you give electronic presentations, carry a
  back-up set of overheads, especially for
  international conferences, job interviews, etc.

15
Figures and Tables

• Put as much descriptive (caption-like) material
  on the slide as possible. It will prevent you
  from having to spend time to explain the figure
  to the audience.
• Make sure figures are readable from back of the
  venue at which you will be speaking.

16
(No Transcript)
17
DOW Images 0100 UTC 15 Feb.
Great Salt Lake
Wasatch Mts.
10 km
PPI of radar reflectivity factor (dBZ)
RHI of radar reflectivity factor (dBZ)
18
NSSL4 time series
temperature drops nearly 8C in 8 minutes
pressure rises 20 minutes before temperature
drops wind changes direction in concert with
pressure rise RH increases after frontal
passage RH decreases and temperature rises two
hours after frontal passage
19
Concluding the Talk

• Prepare a well-considered Conclusion slide.
• Do not make extremely general statements that are
  obvious from your talk, but hit the highlights of
  your results in one or two slides.
• Avoid Future Work slides, unless you have
  something truly exciting to say here that you
  definitely plan on doing. (Calls for more data
  or more case studies dont really amount to a
  good use of your or the audiences time.)
• Do not have Thank you or Questions? slides.
  Leave the most important slide (i.e.,
  Conclusions) up on the screen so the audience can
  focus on that during the questions and answers.
• End with Thank you. It is a signal to the
  audience to applaud (even if you sucked).

20
Dealing with Questions (Doswell)

• You are the expert. No one knows more about your
  work than you. Do not let the audience
  intimidate you.
• Simple phrases to remember I dont know. If
  you are uncertain, admit it.
• Do not handwave! You will lessen your
  credibility if this is perceived to be true.
• Arguing off the top of your head is alright, if
  prefaced as such.

21
Dealing with Questions (Doswell)

• Some audience members might be on an ego trip.
  You are the speaker and you are in control, if
  the session chair or the host isnt. Excuse me,
  do you have a question, or are you just making a
  statement?
• If this persists, offer to discuss this later
  after the session.
• If the questioner wanted you to perform a
  particular analysis, feel free to address his/her
  concerns or explain why you didnt, but do not
  allow monopolization of the QA.

22
Dealing with Questions (Doswell)

• Sometimes the question is confusing. Asking them
  to rephrase the question is certainly acceptable.
• Or, If I understand your question, you are
  asking me. . . . Is this correct?
• Make sure you answer the question!
• Feel free to ask, Did this answer your
  question? at the end of your answer.

23
How to Dress

• Comfort
• Confidence
• Class (but no cleavage)

24
Tips for Electronic Presentations

• Use robust color schemes that will show up
  clearly in an exceptionally light or dark room.
  Avoid light colors on a light background.
• Use sans serif fonts to avoid pixelation of the
  serifs on Times or New York fonts. (Note This
  is also recommended for text in figures submitted
  to an AMS journal.)
• Embedded animations are great, but beware that
  moving the presentation from one machine to
  another may require you to redo them.
• Be wary of too many foofy Powerpoint wizardry
  tricks.
• Avoid bullet points that appear sequentially.

25
Using Powerpoint

• Use the spacebar to advance your presentation.
  Its the biggest and most unique key. Back arrow
  is the most obvious key to go backward easily.
• To jump to a different slide within your talk,
  type the number and then hit enter.
• Typing ltbgt will blank the screen.
• ltESCgt will exit you from slide-show mode.

26
Preparation

• Test the operation of the laser pointer BEFORE
  your presentation.
• Focus the overhead projector BEFORE your
  presentation.
• Place the microphone high on your body along the
  centerline (i.e., along your shirt buttons).
• Make controlled use of the laser pointer when you
  use it. Dont just wave it around wildly.
• DO NOT PUT YOUR TALK/POSTER IN YOUR CHECKED
  LUGGAGE!!!!!

27
Help to Avoid Being Nervous

• BE WELL-REHEARSED!!!!!!!!
• Be prepared.
• Script out your talk ahead of time. Dont read
  it.
• Visualize a successful talk.
• Remember that you are the expert.
• Consider your audience friendly. Ask them
  questions to engage them.
• Be proud to show off your research results to
  your peers and other scientists!
• Take a deep breath before starting.
• A little nervousness is good--some adrenaline
  helps you be enthusiastic.

28
Giving Presentations in a Foreign Country and/or
in Your Nonnative Language

• Talk slower.
• Reduce the number of slides in your talk.
• Put more words on your slides for the audience to
  follow you and as guides to you.
• If you are really nervous write out your talk, as
  if you were going to read it, but dont read it.
• Others?

29
What You Can Do To Improve

• Learn from positive and negative role models.
• A severe critic is your best friend in learning
  how to write well. - Chuck Doswell
• Attending and critiquing others presentations is
  good practice.
• Attend the department seminar series.
• Form student seminar group.
• The more you speak, the better you will get.