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Kulkarni Group Handbook

Effective presentations

Table of contents

  1. Effective presentations
    1. Presentations
      1. Drafting
      2. Slides
      3. Speaking

Presentations

Effectively communicating your work is essential to being a productive researcher. Presentations are used to update the group, communicate with other groups, and play a central role in your future exams and interviews. The following guidelines focus on how to create clear, effective presentations. See the Prelim and QE pages for more details on these specific presentations. The Data Visualization page can help with formatting images in your presentation.

Drafting

  1. make an outline of your slides first

  2. Make a rough set of slides with a few images or some text describing what will be on the slide. If you can, run this draft by someone to get suggestions on the structure and flow of the presentation

  3. fill out your slides with more details and images until you could do almost all of a presentation in meeting with this rough draft. Present quickly in meeting and get feedback

  4. Perfect your presentatio, practice with others, and incorporate feedback.

Slides

  1. Keep your slides simple. Your audience will have a hard time absorbing a lot of text or data at once. It is better to break things up over multiple slides.

  2. Use fewer words. Most audience members do not read the words on the slide (myself included). It is better to use a few words or descriptive titles to note the main takaways and remind you what to discuss. For example, “Sn Zeolite -> Regioselectivity” is better than “Tin containing zeolite catalysts show higher regioselectivity”. If it is important for your audience to know, say it yourself, because the audience will not necessarily read the words.

  3. Use images. Well labeled images are the best way to explain your point. Oftentimes, a well labeled plot is the only thing you need on a slide to illustrate your point.

  4. Use an outline. Have a slide at the beginning of your talk going over the outline, remind the audience where you are in the outline at each step in the presentation.

  5. Use backup slides. Some students include a lot of background and justification in their slides in preparation for potential questions. This is not the best approach since the additional content can distract the audience. Instead, include slides designed to explain a particular concept or answer a question at the end of your presentation. That way, you can refer to these backup slides (if a question comes up) without distracting from your main point in the presentation.

  6. Include proper attributions and acknowledgements: Make sure to cite your sources, and acknowledge the people that helped you and your research.

You can look at old presentations on the group Box folder as a reference, pay attention to which slides are confusing and which are easy to understand.

Speaking

  1. Make sure to practice your presentation several times. It is helful to practice with the group, and with people outside the group to get different perspectives

  2. Anticipate questions. Ask many people for their potential questions on each slide and figure out what answer you would give to these questions during your actual presentation. Add backup slides as needed to answer questions.

  3. Work on any speaking difficulties you might have. If you find yourself saying ‘um’ and ‘uh’ a lot, practice pausing to gather your thoughts. If you find yourself having anxiety about your presentation, talk to some group members about how they dealt with it or look into resources for dealing with performance anxiety.