Presentation

Entry Point for Discussion:

The point of these questions: make people reflect on their specific problems and find out their current approach.

• What is your attitude toward presentations? (Why? Good/ bad/ funny experiences?)
• What does this mean for your presentations today? 

Time: 

Respect the time (and attention span) of listeners.

• Know how many slides are adequate for your topic, animation style, and speed of talking, and don’t put in more (generally: not more than two slides/ minute).
• Time yourself at least once before the graded presentation.
• Look at a timer during your presentation and adjust speed/ content accordingly.
• You don’t gain anything from going over time; you lose the audience’s attention as everyone is just looking at their watch and hoping you finish soon. Instead, decide beforehand what is important enough that it must be mentioned within the time you have, rather than determining on-the-fly what won’t fit.

Audience: 

Think about the audience of the presentation.

• Presenting = communicating, having a conversation.
• Adjust to group size, roles/ goals/ background knowledge of the audience members.

Story: 

A coherent story (“roter Faden”) needs to connect the whole presentation.

• Thinking about the story is a basis for creating a suitable set of slides.
• It consists of the beginning, middle, and end → the first and last few sentences you say are the most important ones!
• Make it a literal story: use metaphors, pictures, and examples. This is how the audience really remembers what you are saying.
• How you tell the story (what kind of metaphor you use, if you integrate, e.g., some jokes) depends on your presentation style (what you feel comfortable with) and the audience.

Story - The Beginning:

Start with the gold nugget.

• Know the first 3-5 sentences by heart. They should be personal (= adapted to your presentation style), relevant for the audience, and presented high-energy, with presence.
• They contain the gold nugget: the most important message, an appetizer for the content.
  • What is the topic, and what is your perspective on it?
  • Why exactly is this relevant?
  • What should the audience remember (gold nugget)?
  • You don’t start a paper with the background section, don’t start your presentation with it! 
  • Don’t skip over the title slide so fast that nobody has a chance to realize the content and who you are, while mumbling the title.
  • After the gold nugget: introduction.
  • Content of introduction: what? Why? Who?

Story - The Middle:

The content.

• What exactly? Why? How?
• Table of contents (if necessary), some background (if necessary), methods, results (if applicable). 

Story - The End:

End with the gold nugget.

• What? Why?
• Conclusion: should directly relate to the introduction.
• The last slide you show (that will also be shown during the discussion, at least when no specific slide is discussed) should not be something like “thank you for listening” or the references. You can indicate that you have the references by quickly showing them and then going back to the concluding slide.
  • The concluding slide contains the gold nugget (“take-home message”), which should also be the content of your last sentences, known by heart, like the first few sentences.
  • Like the first 3-5 sentences, deliver the last sentences personally, clearly, relevant for the audience, and with energy/ presence.
  • The last few sentences are what the audience remembers!

Visual Presentation:

Support the oral presentation.

• Basics
  • Use available templates.

• Align elements.
• No low-resolution pictures.
• Don’t scale pictures unevenly.
• Don’t make the text too small (adjust to presentation conditions).
• Think about color blindness: don’t make something ONLY identifiable by hue (especially not red/ green!).
• Keep to a scheme for shapes and colors (e.g., a process is always a rounded rectangle → much easier to understand!)

• Have one message per slide.
• Not too much text on slides; they should only support your presentation → no one can effectively listen to you talk and read at the same time, and space can also give you structure.
• Don’t put in entire results tables and pages of plots, where one then effectively has .01 seconds to read an entry. This is something for backup slides (a good place to put more detailed/ complete results in general). If someone is really interested in something, they can ask about your report/ paper.
• Animations help you lead the audience's attention (which your slides should support).
• References: don’t put four lines of reference description directly on the slide. It should contain just enough information to quickly identify it (e.g., first author, year, title). The complete information for all references can be on a separate slide at the very end. Some people also only number the references on the slides, but that gives minimal information gain to the audience during the presentation.

Awareness of your body language:

Body language is much more critical to getting your point across than many think. It will be much harder to convince the audience if you don’t look convinced by your ideas. [No reference, but: Communication is 55% body language, 38% voice, and 7% what is said.]

• First step: become aware of your body language. The only way of doing this is by recording yourself presenting anything.
• Next step: analyze the video yourself and with a partner. Try to find the most important points regarding your body language. This can be:
  • Body
    • Gestures: emphasize important points with gestures (not the entire time or not at all)
    • Face: friendly expression
    • Confident stance, standing/ sitting up straight (can be improved by moving your body a little bit before the presentation, e.g., by doing some light stretching and some jumping jacks, or as an at-home exercise: try taking up space in the room going from a little ball in the corner under your desk to strutting around the room confidently)
    • looking at the audience/ camera
  • Voice
    • Articulation (clear vs. words smushed together)
    • Volume (high enough? even, or sometimes very loud/ silent?)
    • Pitch (many people speak in a too high pitch when they are nervous. Consciously trying to lower your pitch and trying to relax your throat will, however, in turn, also help to combat nervousness! You can do some exercises to train this).
    • Speed (even speed, not too high or slow)
    • Are you leaving enough breaks between thoughts/ logical divisions? This can be especially difficult, as not saying something sometimes feels like an eternity when you are the presenter.
    • Variation (not to monotone in speed/ intonation)
• Then: try to address the most critical point(s), videotape yourself again, and see the difference!

A note on virtual presentations:

Small changes can make a significant difference in the delivery of your message.

• Stand up (standing desk/ stack of stuff to put your laptop on).
• Set the camera at your eye level.
• Be careful to light your face well! In almost all situations, you can improve your appearance by lighting your face better. Use a desk light or sit in front of a window.
• Don’t wear too dark clothes/ if you do, be especially mindful of the lighting.
• Be aware of your background (it should at least be clean).
• [10 principles to look better on camera]