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Guidelines for an effective an effective oral presentationoral presentation

Ahmed Alenezi, PhD, FASNC, DABSNMAhmed Alenezi, PhD, FASNC, DABSNM

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You do not only present content You do not only present content but also but also YOURSELFYOURSELF

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Objectives • To plan your talk: 1.Before the talk2.Right before the talk3.During the talk4.Right after the talk• To differentiate between good and bad

features of a presentation• Evaluate your presentation• Evaluate other’s presentation• Improve your presentation skills

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• When you are on the receiving end, hearing constructive, respectful criticism is the best way to improve your presentation skills.

• In a good talk, the speaker 1) understands his or her audience 2) the purpose for the talk. 3) The presentation is well organized,

delivered so all can understand, and accompanied by clear, supporting visuals.

How can I give a good presentation?

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• Planning the Content• What information will you include in your

presentation?• You will need to find out about the audience. • Who will be attending? How many people will be

there? • Will they be comfortable with the content and

style of the presentation? Will they be familiar with ideas, concepts and/or terminology in the presentation

What makes a successful presentation?

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• By becoming a more attentive listener• Learn from positive and negative examples• Draw conclusion of your own future presentation• Not only contents & slides important but also

style of presenting• Give your talk to friends(ask for evaluation)• Don’t be afraid: you are one among many other

speakers, and nobody is going to eat you.

Become a better speaker

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• Lectures: (researchers, scientists, professional people)• Conference talks (seminars): (researchers, scientists, professional people,

students)• Defend a Thesis, teaching, oral exam: (Postgraduate students)• Interview (post-doc, job)

Types of Scientific Presentation

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• Information about the venue and the time allocated is also important. Ask about:

• The location of the venue; • The size and layout of the venue, and the

kinds of facilities that it has (e.g. audiovisual); • How much time you will have; and • Whether there will be time for questions

during or after the presentation

Before the talk

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-Your aim: present your talk in a very convincing style-Audience: (know your audience) who? familiar with ideas,terminology in the presentation1- Specialists (highly scientific, discussion of details) 2- General audience (simple, interesting content) 3- Students (basic, didactics)4- Mixed (50% basics, 50% special result) difficult-Keep the audience interested in your presentation

How to plan a scientific presentation

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1- Introduction: (What? Why?)-importance of this talk2-Experimental: (How?)-make audience understand how you got your results3-Result & Discussion: (How to explain it?)-allow audience to understand your results4-Conclusion: (What is it good for?)-give a “take home message” [3 points]5-Acknowledgment: (What was the help?)-boss, grants, technical support

Presentation structurestell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them

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• Try to attract the attention of the audience with an introductory sentence

• Avoid too many statistics & charts or graphs

• Check for grammar & spelling errors • Avoid too many slides (1-2 min/slide)

Contents

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• Not too simple or complex • Avoid too crowded table, figure• “Slide that cannot be understood in 4

seconds, is a bad slide”• Avoid too many animations

Contents

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• Avoid speaking too fast (or slow)• Slow down when showing cine images• Simple and easily understandable English• Avoid wrong Pronunciation• Not too many nouns (more verbs= vital

talk)• Avoid filling words as “umm’s”,“aahh’s”

Delivery

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• Stand on the proper position • No blocking of the screen • Do not speak to the wall (should talk to the

audience, not to the projector nor screen), Eye contact with each section of the audience

• The talk should be presented rather than read as a prepared speech.

• Follow time limit

Delivery

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• Hands should be used for appropriate gesturing and definitely not left in the pocket.

• Direct contact to the audience

The presenter

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• Simple, clear, and precise “short words are better than long unfamiliar words”

• Do everything you can to improve your English skills

• Don’t use slang, especially if English is not your native language: very likely it means something else than what you think it means

English Language

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Analysis of negative features (51 speakers)

Negative features of ineffective lecturing

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• Tired audience: wake them up (jokes, stories,….)• Do not direct the laser pointer to people • Starting out is the hardest part of the talk • (Do not memorize the entire talk) just the first two lines: Hello I’m ????, The title of

my talk is ???• Be aware of-which message you want to send, and-what you want your audience to remember.• Each slide should have a title

Tips

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• Big enough (seen by everyone, back of the room)

• Main heading should be ≥ 24 points

• Sub-headlines should be ≥ 16 points

• Simple (avoiding too many lines/slide) ≤ 6 lines

Slides

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• Not too light or too dark

• Optimal color scheme (avoid red on green)

• Light, bright colors next to each other produces unpleasant effects

• Avoid multi-colored

(good contrast between the background and the text)

Slides

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• Title/author/affiliation (1 slide) • Forecast (1 slide)

What is the one idea you want people to leave with? • Outline (1 slide)

Give talk structure. • Background

– Motivation and Problem Statement (1-2 slides)(Why should anyone care?

– Related Work (0-1 slides)Cover superficially or omit

– Methods (1 slide)Cover quickly in short talks

• Results (4-6 slides)This is main body of the talk. (cover key result well. Do not just present numbers; interpret them to give insights).

• Summary (1 slide) • Future Work (0-1 slides)

Optionally give problems this research opens up. (20 min talk ~15 slides)

Total Number of slides (Conference talk)

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• Most good speakers average two minutes per slide (not counting title and outline slides)

• Prepare a speech that it will take up about 75-80% of the time allotted to you.

• This will allow for unexpected incidents during the actual presentation.

• It’s a good idea to make a time-map outline of your speech on a single sheet of paper.

• For a 20 minute presentation, your outline would look something like the following:

- Introduce myself (20 sec)- Introduce my topic (3 min)- Main body of my speech (10 min)- Conclusions (1-2 min)

Timing your speech

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Thank you Thank you

Tips

Thank you

``A picture = 10K words,'' but ``Pictures are for weak minds.''

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This(48),This(48),This(40),This(32),This(24),This(18),This(14)

Tips

This is not recommended

This is not recommended

This is not recommended

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• Do not forget to say “ Thank you, are there any questions?”

• Understand questions, Ask the listeners to repeat the questions if they are not clear

• Seek for additional explanation• Try to figure out appropriate answers while the

questions are being asked• Very technical question, discuss in the end

How to answer questions?

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• Answers by drawing upon your experiences.• Be honest and inform the audience that you do not

know and inform them that you will try to find the answers.

• If audience members offer their point of view or suggestion, express appreciation.

• New aspect, I will think about it.• Do not lose your temper.• “Stupid question” (kill the speaker)

Rules in handling questions

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• It is a basis for future improvement.• Several different kinds of evaluation during and

after your presentation.• Formal evaluation – Written feedback from

tutors, lecturers. • Informal evaluation – People’s body language;

Comments made during or after the presentation; Interaction between yourself and audience members, and the kinds of questions that are asked.

• Self-evaluation – Think about your presentation. What worked? What didn’t work?

Evaluation

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Formal Evaluation

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• Did you avoid reading from your notes? • Did you speak clearly? • Did you maintain eye-contact with your

audience? • Did you hold the audience's interest? • Did you allow the audience to ask

questions at the end?

Questions will help you evaluate your oral presentation

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• K.I.S.S Principle = KKeep IIt SShort and SSimple• Smile. Express that you are happy to give this talk• Do not give a talk like reading a paper• Speak clearly, loudly enough and pronounced• It’s silly, but... remember to spell-check your slides!• Aim of teaching = “ a student should become

better than his/her teacher”

Take home messages