Presenting Your Findings

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Presenting Your Findings

• Oral Poster Presentations

Frances L. Chumney, Summer 2005
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Oral PresentationsThings That Matter

• Contents (duh!)
• Graphs, Figures Images
• Visual Appeal
• Graphics Illustrations
• You

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Contents

• Title Slide
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• References

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Contents Title Slide

• Title of presentation, as reported in the program
  book or original submission
• Name of authors coauthors
• Institutional Affiliations
• Titles, such as Ph.D.

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Contents Abstract

• If you include one.

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Sample Abstract

• The present study extended the research of
  Zinser, et al. (2004) and Straub and Seaton
  (1993) in five tasks designed to compare the
  configurational knowledge of the U.S. states in
  men and women. For the site-name memory task,
  participants listed as many of the 50 states and
  25 largest cities as they could remember. For the
  site-name-with-map-aid task, an outline map of
  the U.S. was provided. For the map-labeling task,
  participants were required to write the name of
  the states and major cities on the maps. For the
  fragmented U.S. state maps task, participants
  wrote the names of the states and cities on
  cut-outs of each state. For the fifth task, the
  U.S. was shown divided into regions southeast,
  northeast, midwest, west, and southwest, and
  participants were asked to name and draw the
  outlines of each of the continental states within
  its appropriate region and to provide the names
  and locations of the 25 largest cities. A
  demographic questionnaire had the participants
  rate themselves on ability to visualize
  geographic locations, ability to recall state and
  city names with and without a map, and ability to
  give easy-to-follow directions, all before and
  after completing the map tasks. Men performed
  better on the cities of the site-name task, but
  no difference was found on the states measure no
  gender differences were found for the
  site-name-with-map-aid or the map reproduction
  tasks and men performed significantly better
  than did women on both the states and cities of
  the map labeling and the fragmented states
  labeling tasks. The gender difference from the
  fragmented states task suggested that men were
  superior in configurational knowledge of the
  outlines of the states. The ratings and
  experience data suggested that the gender
  differences in knowledge of the cities and states
  of the U. S. were a joint product of nature and
  nurture.

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Contents Abstracts

• Heres my abstract for the project.
• You dont read it.
• You click past it.
• Whats the point?

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Contents Introduction

• Literature Review
• Objectives
• Hypothesis(es)

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Introduction Literature Review

• Overview of primary articles
• Do not summarize each article
• Main points of each article, as they relate to
  your research project
• Combine like ideas integrate material from
  different articles
• Excerpt from paper, if written

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Sample Lit Review Slide

• Configurational knowledge is about shape,
  pattern, distribution of items in space, and
  associations with other objects in space
  (Golledge, 1992)
• When asked to indicate the locations of cities on
  an outline map with no state or regional
  indicators, women made more errors than men
  (Beatty Bruellman, 1987 Montello, et al.,
  1999)
• When required to label states or cities on an
  outline map of the U.S., a significant gender
  difference favoring men has been found for states
  (Straub and Seaton, 1993), and cities (Beatty and
  Bruellman, 1987 Beatty and Tröster, 1987)

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Introduction Objectives

• Good idea, but regarded as optional
• Objectives of the project, not of the
  presentation
• Why did you do the research?
• Potential impact of this line of research
• Supported by lit review presented

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Introduction Hypothesis(es)

• They deserve a slide
• Short and simple
• Elaborate orally
• Logical ordering on slide
• Usually, one per condition

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Sample Hypotheses Slide

• Site-name Memory No significant gender
  differences were expected
• Site-name with Map-aid A significant gender
  difference was expected for the states, but not
  for the cities portion of this task
• Map Labeling Men were expected to identify a
  significantly larger number of states and cities
• Fragmented U.S. States Will illustrate the
  effect of state shape or configuration on
  geographic knowledge A gender difference
  favoring men was expected
• Map Reproduction Will show the knowledge of and
  ability to reproduce configurational information
  about the relative shapes, sizes, and locations
  of U.S. states and cities men expected to
  perform better

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Contents Method

• Participants
• Materials
• Procedure

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Method Participants

• Sample size
• Where sample came from
• Distinguishing characteristics of the sample
• Breakdown of important demographic characteristics

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Method Materials/Measures

• List of materials/measures used
• Mention by name
• Present in order presented or in order consistent
  with rest of the presentation
• List of equipment
• Arrange by condition, if necessary

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Sample Materials Slide

• Fragmented U.S. States
• Participants were provided with pages containing
  the outlines of the fifty individual U.S. states
  separated from each other and organized in random
  order.
• The cities portion of this task consisted of the
  random arrangement of the states that included at
  least one of the twenty-five most highly
  populated cities, marked by large dots.
• Map Reproduction of U.S. States and Cities
• Participants were provided an outline of the U.
  S. with regional boundaries defining 5 major
  regions of the United States Southeast,
  Southwest, Northeast, West, and Midwest.
  Participants were asked to draw outlines and
  label the 48 contiguous states, and mark with a
  dot and label the 25 largest cities of the U.S.

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Sample Materials Slide, cont.
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Sample Materials Slide, cont.
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Method Procedure

• Order in which sections of study were completed
• Time or other limitations created by experimenter
• Scoring, if logical

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Contents Results

• Organize by hypothesis
• Say it in numbers, say it in words
• Relevant to the discussion you present
• Statistics to show what you did
• Tables or matrices, as needed

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Sample Results Slide
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Sample Results Slide, cont.

• Fragmented U. S. States
• Significant differences favoring men were found
  for both the states and cities tasks
• Self-Ratings Ratings for all four items
  decreased significantly for both men and women
• Map Reproduction
• Significant gender differences were not found on
  either the states or cities portion of this
  condition
• Self-Ratings Ratings for all four items
  decreased significantly for both men and women

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Sample Results Slide, cont.
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Contents Discussion

• Organize by hypothesis
• Interpret the results
• Elaborate on the possible implications of the
  results that you found
• Draw conclusions
• Future directions
• Include limitations

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Sample Discussion Slide

• Businessperson is a subgroup of White, and a
  subtype of Black and Latino Supported
• Data supported the hypothesis that welfare
  recipient is a subtype of White, and a subgroup
  of Black and Latino Supported
• High levels of prejudice will accompany attitudes
  that support the subgroup/subtype relationships
  Not Supported
• Low levels of privilege awareness will accompany
  attitudes that support the subgroup/subtype
  relationships Not Supported

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Contents References

• Here are citations for the key articles used for
  this project.
• Limit to introduction
• Compact, compact, compact

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Graphs, Figures, Images

• Good for clarification
• Keep simple
• Use as needed
• Neat and attractive
• Be prepared to explain and elaborate
• Use gridlines sparingly they almost never
  enhance the figure

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Sample Bad Graph/Chart
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Sample Good Graph/Chart
First Quarter
Second Quarter
Third Quarter
Fourth Quarter
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Visual Appeal

• Really, Visual Appeal?
• Text Size Crowding
• Slide Theme Background
• Using Color
• Uniformity

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Text Size Crowding

• At least 20-point font
• Simple fonts better for everyone
• Leave margins
• White Space
• Simple is GOOD

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Sample Bad Font Slide

• If you have to lean forward and squint from only
  five feet away, the font is too small!
• Freehand fonts are not appreciated in a
• professional presentation.
• Artsy fonts are not
• appropriate either.
• Shouldnt there be space between letters?

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Sample Good Font Slide

• Times New Roman is the most common.
• Arial is also very common.
• Some people prefer Courier.
• Tahoma is clean but subtly different.
• Narkism isnt too bad.

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Slide Theme Backgrounds

• Simple is good
• Too much pattern makes font hard to read
• If like busy pattern, give textbox solid
  background
• Contrast text color with background
• Create your own color scheme

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Sample Bad Background Slide
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Sample Better Background Slide
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Using Color

• Too much color is distracting
• Limit text colors to one or two
• High-contrast colors into graphs figures

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Uniformity

• Format all slides the same
• Do not mix-n-match fonts and backgrounds
• Presentations should not be eclectic.

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Graphics Illustrations

• Relevant material only
• Use conservatively
• Nothing controversial unless related
• Better to avoid

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Sample Bad Graphics Slide
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Hints Shortcuts

• Complete sentences not required
• If you wrote the paper, use it
• Do it rough, then fix it

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You, the Presenter

• Mannerisms
• Language
• Knowledge
• Aware of Audience

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Poster Presentations

• Similar to oral presentations
• Complete sentences often better
• Completely self-explanatory
• All other rules are the same!!!