Giving Scientific Presentations

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Giving Scientific Presentations
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Giving a Research Talk the Basics

• SPUR Symposia
• General Presentation Dos Donts
• Research Presentation Skills

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Giving a Research Talk the Basics.
SPUR Symposia Two Sessions, one each during
weeks of August 2nd 16th 15 minute
presentations 12-13 minute talks 2-3 minutes
for questions PowerPoint or overheads OK.
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Presentation Dos Donts
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Do

• Dress Appropriately
• Know your material
• Prepare for the unexpected
• equipment breaks!!!

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Do
Practice! Practice! Practice!
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Do
Practice! Alone
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Do
Practice! Friend or Small group
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Do
Practice! Lab members
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Do
Give Constructive Criticism
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Do
Outline Use Notes
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Dont

• Memorize a Speech
• Talk in Jargon or acronyms
• Mutter mumble, use inappropriate language

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Guiding Principles
Know Human Nature Know your Audience
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Know Human Nature
Attention Spans are Short
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Know Human Nature
Attention Spans are Short
Choose three or four points that you REALLY
want the audience to get. Minimize detail
and information content Only present
information that is DIRECTLY relevant to your
major points. Repetition of key points is
GOOD! Tell them what the important and
interesting points are.
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Know Human Nature
Visual vs Auditory Learning cater to both
modes
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Know Human Nature
Visual vs Auditory Learning cater to both
modes
Write AND Say all important points Use words
on slides, but be sparing. (dont want your
audience to be reading lots of text while you are
speaking) LARGE FONT! This is 20 pt. Use
clear, simple diagrams one good diagram is often
better than 5 minutes of explanation.
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Know Human Nature
Someone who is lost is someone who is bored keep
em with you
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Know Human Nature

• carefully describe the motivation and logic
  underlying each experiment.
• use the simplest language that will get your
  points across
• define terms that may be unfamiliar to your
  audience (or avoid them, if possible)
• avoid jargon- field and lab-specific slang.
  
• repetition of important points
• important info presented BOTH visually and
  orally
• KEEP IT SIMPLE!

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Know Human Nature
Attention Spans are Short Visual vs Auditory
Learning cater to both modes Someone who is
lost is someone who is bored- keep em with
you
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Know Your Audience

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Know Your Audience

Hint They arent all white men in lab coats
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Know Your Audience

• What are their interests?
• Aim to engage them early in the talk!
• Once you lose their interest, you wont get them
  back.
• Aim to identify hooks that might work for the
  specific audience.
• e.g. different for an audience of MDs vs high
  school science teachers, vs researchers.
• What do they know and what dont they know?
• Avoid terms that will be unfamiliar to the
  majority of your audience.
• Define any unfamiliar terms you absolutely must
  use.

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Some Practical Issues Dont Count on your
Memory! put cues/text for all important points
ON YOUR SLIDES! it is OK to use notes!
For a 13 minute talk, 9-12 slides would be
reasonable.
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Scientific Presentations
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What do you want to achieve with your talk???

• Educate your audience about the general issues in
  your area of research.
• Get your audience excited about and
  intellectually engaged in your area of research.
• Demonstrate how your experiments pushed
  understanding in the area forward.
• Clarify own thoughts about the research.

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Outline of a Scientific Talk Title Introduction
Experiments Conclusions Acknowledgements
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Title
Make it meaningful to your audience! This is
your first chance to get them interested try to
exploit it!
Poor title Interactions between CRS2/CAF2
complexes and group II introns. Better titles
Cooperation between proteins and RNA during the
splicing of self-splicing introns. Can
protein and RNA both contribute functional groups
to the same active site? (good hook for a
chemically-savvy audience)
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Introduction VERY IMPORANT! If you dont
succeed in grabbing attention here, audience is
unlikely to get much out of the talk. 13 minute
talk- spend 5-6 minutes and 3-5 slides on the
Introduction. Target it to your audience- what
are their interests and what is their background?
Carefully choose the key background info that
puts your experiments into a larger context that
will have meaning for your audience. SPUR
SYMPOSIA AUDIENCE VERY DIVERSE! Aim to make
the big picture accessible to everyone. It is
unrealistic to make the nitty-gritty of your
experiments accessible to such a broad audience-
target the data discussion to others who work in
your general discipline (e.g. molecular biology,
or psychology)
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Sample Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic
pathogen that produces a diverse array of
virulence factors and causes a correspondingly
diverse array of infections. Our long-term goal
is to elucidate the regulatory mechanisms
controlling expression of these virulence factors
as a necessary prerequisite to the development of
therapeutic protocols capable of attenuating the
disease process.
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• Experiments
• Make the logical flow of your experiments clear
  to your audience
• -State explicitly the question addressed by each
  experiment.
• describe the experimental approach
• walk audience through the data, explaining
  everything that is shown
• (if you dont want to talk about it, leave it
  off the slide)
• - State explicitly the conclusion of each
  experiment
• - state how each result leads to the next
  experiment.

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Experiments

• Show data very selectively
• Avoid the temptation to show all of your data.
• Show representative data for each type of
  experiment, and then consider using summary
  diagrams/ charts to summarize other results using
  similar assays.

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Make your slides CLEAR and SIMPLE
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A POOR SLIDE
Cellular Mitosis

• Stage Status Activity
• RNA replication (cHra 660) 50
• 1a DNA assembly (cHra B12) 40
• Chromosome separation -30
• Spindle termination 20
• 3a Spindle conjunction 15
• 4 Final stage formatio (cHra 30) 0

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Cellular Mitosis

• Stage 1 DNA replication begins
• Stage 2 Chromosomes separate
• Stage 3 Spindles pinch cell wall
• Stage 4 Daughter cells form

1
2
3
4
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Conclusions
Tell them what the important and interesting
points are- dont expect them to figure that out
for themselves. Use bulleted lists and summary
diagrams to restate all important
conclusions. Put the conclusions back into the
context of the larger issues being
explored. State new questions raised by results/
future directions of the research.
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Conclusions
Tell them what the important and interesting
points are- dont expect them to figure that out
for themselves. Use bulleted lists and summary
diagrams to restate all important
conclusions. Put the conclusions back into the
context of the larger issues being
explored. State new questions raised by results/
future directions of the research. An example
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Biochemical Roles of Group II Intron Splicing
Factors
CAF2
CRS2
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Acknowledgements It is VERY important to
generously acknowledge everyone who has made
contributions to your project.
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• Preparing for your talk
• Now is the time to make sure you understand the
  goals and background of your project.
• talk with people in your lab describe to them
  what you think the context and goals of your
  project are, and get feedback.
• - start to think about how to distill the essence
  of your project down to make it comprehensible to
  the SPUR audience.
• Practice on each other and give honest,
  constructive feedback.
• - Practice your talk in front of your lab, and
  get feedback!

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Conclusions

• Scientists are seeking Fame Fortune
• You need Presentation skills to get FF
• Know Human Nature
• Know Your Audience

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Conclusions

• Know what you want to Achieve

Educate Excite Innovate Clarify
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Conclusions

• Presentation Outline

Title Introduction Experiments Conclusions Acknowl
edgements
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Three elements for a successful presentation

• Know what you do
• Enjoy what you do
• Know your audience