Presenting Professional Talks
J. Ellen Marsden
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural ResourcesUniversity of Vermont
http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/nr385proskills/
Preparing for the talk
Know your audience- public, or scientists?- what type of introductory material is needed?
- context, context, context!!
Preparing for the talk
Know your audienceKnow your venue (time limit, facilities)
- leave time for questions, discussion- how big is the room (size of screen)?- what ‘tools’ will you need (computer, pointer?)- is there a clock available?
Preparing for the talk
Know your audienceKnow your venueKnow your message
- keep it simple- have the flow and ‘story’ by heart
Preparing for the talk
Know your audienceKnow your venueKnow your message Know yourself
- dress appropriately, look confident (balance professional dress with comfort)
General tips for giving talks
• Use slides as your ‘cue-cards’ to remember what to say next, BUT– anticipate your slides
– do not read or describe slides
– slides illustrate points, they are not THE point
General tips for giving talks
• Avoid jargon, acronyms• Use useful names
– not ‘Orconectes virilis’ or ‘green crayfish’ if ‘first invader’ is relevant point
The point of slides:
To emphasize, not provide, the message
To convey visually what words cannot do effectively
- get away from slides to refocus attention on you
(don’t hide behind your slides)
- try giving the talk with no slides
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience• Typographical erors in your Slides
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience• Typographical erors in your Slides• Being ‘surprised’ by a slide when it appears (not
knowing all your slides by heart)
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience• Typographical erors in your Slides• Being ‘surprised’ by a slide when it appears (not
knowing all your slides by heart)• Too much text or unreadable text on a slide
TheThe
UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY
ofof VERMONTVERMONT
The Rubenstein Schoolof Environment and Natural Resources
“c
Ecology andEnvironmental Science
EcosystemSustainabilityand Planning
HumanDimensions
Spatial Analysisand Modeling
Water and Lake Studies
Forest Ecosystems Health
Landscape Ecology and Biodiversity
Ecological Economics and Design
Sustainable Forestry
Ecological Planning
Watershed Science and Planning
Environmental Policy
Tourism and Recreation
Environmental Thought
Landscape Mapping
Land Use Change Analysis
Dynamic Simulation Modeling
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience• Typographical erors in your Slides• Being ‘surprised’ by a slide when it appears (not
knowing all your slides by heart)• Too much text or unreadable text on a slide• Apologizing
The seven deadly sins of giving talks
• Reading from a script/’reciting’ your talk• Talking to the screen, not the audience• Typographical erors in your Slides• Being ‘surprised’ by a slide when it appears (not
knowing all your slides by heart)• Too much text or unreadable text on a slide• Apologizing• Too much content for the allotted time
Slide content
Any time you use a text slide with complete sentences the audience attention is distracted from speaker as people read all of the words while the speaker is talking and trying to convey something useful
Slide content
• attention focuses first on a new visual
Slide content
• attention focuses first on a new visual
• complex visuals distract from verbal message
Slide content
• attention focuses first on a new visual
• complex visuals distract from verbal message
• guide audience attention by highlighting the focal point(s)
Slide content
• attention focuses first on a new visual
• complex visuals distract from verbal message
• guide audience attention by highlighting the focal point(s)
• … or by reducing emphasis on previous points
Content
• attention focused on new visuals• avoid complex visuals• guide audience attention• highlight focal point(s)
….fewer words is better!!
General organization
Title slide
J. Ellen MarsdenUniversity of Vermont
Additional authorsother institutions
Funded by(in cooperation with):
FONTS Minimum font sizes
Title Font (36 pt) Subtitle font (28 pt) Text font (24 pt)
Sans Serif fonts are recommendedExamples: Tahoma Arial
Serif fonts are not recommendedExamples: Palatino Times New Roman
Format
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
Organization of my talk:
(yawn!)
Introduction
Include enough information so the audience understands why this study is important:
context!
Objectives
short list of bulleted objectives, each with an action verb:
• identify lake trout spawning locations
• quantify egg density
• determine fate of post-emergent fry
Methods
Statolith preparation:• sagittal otoliths dissected in a Class-100 clean room
• sonicated for 5 min in Milli-Q ultrapure water in ULTRAsonik cleaner
• transferred to clean Petri dish, rinsed three times in Milli-Q water
• mounted with double-sided tape on a petrographic microscope slide
• dried under laminar-flow hood for 24-48 h
• analyzed using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (LA-ICPMS)
• laser power set to 1.10 Kvolts
Methods
Statolith microchemistry analyzed with laser ablation ICPMS
Methods
Statolith microchemistry: laser ablation ICPMS
Results
• Know the ‘rules’ for graphing data• Keep the graphs “clean”
focus on datareduce stray ‘ink’avoid fancy stuff (e.g., 3-D graphs)
• Describe the axes before discussing data
Mortality
Mortality
1
10
100
1,000
10,000
0 5 10 15 20
Nu
mb
er
Age (years)
Comparison
Lethal Removal Preparation Cost Data quality
Scales No Easy Easy Cheap Low
Otoliths Yes Difficult Difficult $$$ High
Spines Could be Easy Difficult $$$ High
Fin rays No Easy Difficult $$$ Moderate
Opercles Yes Easy Easy Cheap ???
Vertebrae Yes Difficult Difficult $$$ Moderate
Comparison
Lethal Removal Preparation Cost Data quality
Scales No Easy Easy Cheap Low
Otoliths Yes Difficult Difficult $$$ High
Spines No Easy Difficult $$$ High
Fin rays No Easy Difficult $$$ Moderate
Opercles Yes Easy Easy Cheap ???
Vertebrae Yes Difficult Difficult $$$ Moderate
Summary
summarize major points, conclusions, or findings; bullets will generally echo your objectives:
• lake trout spawn lake-wide
• egg density is sufficient for population stability
• post-emergent fry sampling unsuccessful
Conclusions
a summing-up of your study (optional; often combined with summary):
• Lake trout spawning is sufficient for restoration,
BUT
• Fate of post-emergent fry is unknown
Acknowledgements
Funding Cooperators
- Great Lakes Fishery Trust - USFWS
- VTDFW
Assistants– Joel Brown - Anne Warwick– Mary O’Connor - John Smith– Pete Swashbuckler - Susan Spey– Fred Black - many others
Acknowledgements
Funding Cooperators
…and the field crews!
Questions?
Format tips and ideas
• Slide space is under-used (graph should be bigger)• Graph space is under-used (legend should be moved)• Remove outline• Remove gridlines (distracting)• Y-axis numbers are too long – remove decimals, add commas• Add axis label
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921
Ha
rve
st x
1,0
00
lb
s cisco
lake trout
lake herring
Commercial harvest of salmonids in Lake Superior
Format
• Use visuals to illustrate points (a picture DOES say a thousand words)– but be sure to include credits on photos
Credit: Wes Tibbets, Oneonta College
Format
• Many options exist for transitions between slides
Format
• Many options exist for transitions between slides
• some can be cute…
Format
• Many options exist for transitions between slides
• some can be cute…
• too much can be distracting
Format
• Many options exist for transitions between slides
• some can be cute…
• too much can be distracting
• … or they can be really annoying!
use slide space well
Format
Large, bold text can be too overwhelming (and margins need to be used efficiently)
Framing images can be effective
Backgrounds
• White or yellow on blue provides high contrast
Backgrounds
• White or yellow on blue provides high contrast
• use different colors to highlight different levels of slide (title, bullets)
Backgrounds
A change of pace can be refreshing…
Backgrounds
• White on black is useful in well-lit room …but can be hard on the eyes in a dark room
Backgrounds
• Fade-out backgrounds are attractive…
• but the text can get hard to see…
• …. as you go down the slide
Backgrounds
• Be careful of low-contrast colors
• … and jarring contrasts
Backgrounds
• Remember that ~ 20% of males have some degree of color blindness!
Backgrounds
readability is reduced, audience is distracted, information transfer is damaged
Attractive but unreadablewith background
Better use ofbackground
Even better use ofbackground
Interesting background effect – in a dark room, slide content appears alone, without apparent ‘framing’ of slide
In Excel, set back-ground and border of graph to ‘none’
Interesting background effect – in a dark room, slide content appears alone, without apparent ‘framing’ of slide
In Excel, set back-ground and border of graph to ‘none’
Take the data a piece at a time….
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921
Har
vest
x 1
,000
lbs cisco
lake trout
lake herring
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921
Har
vest
x 1
,000
lbs cisco
lake trout
lake herring
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921
Ha
rve
st x
1,0
00
lb
s cisco
lake trout
lake herring
Year
Habitat Survival Migration Return Breeding
1990 Juvenile 30,089 4,147 0.14 1.28
Sub-adult 374 150 0.40 0.02
Adult 42,279 871 0.02 1.84
1999 Juvenile 54,075
1,311 0.024 5.02
Sub-adult 24,503
1,427 0.058 1.93
Adult 78,578 2,738 0.035 3.35
2000 Juvenile 74,865
3,500 0.047 6.95
Sub-adult 41,897
1,499 0.036 3.30
Adult 116,762 4,999 0.043 4.98
The problem of too much data….
Year
Habitat Survival Migration Return Breeding
1990 Juvenile 30,089 4,147 0.14 1.28
Sub-adult 374 150 0.40 0.02
Adult 42,279 871 0.02 1.84
1999 Juvenile 54,075
1,311
0.024 5.02
Sub-adult 24,503
1,427 0.058 1.93
Adult 78,578 2,738 0.035 3.35
2000 Juvenile 74,865
3,500
0.047 6.95
Sub-adult 41,897
1,499 0.036 3.30
Adullt 116,762 4,999 0.043 4.98
Maximize size (within reason) ….
Year
Habitat Survival Migration Return Breeding
1990 Juvenile 30,089 4,147 0.14 1.28
Sub-adult 374 150 0.40 0.02
Adult 42,279 871 0.02 1.84
1999 Juvenile 54,075
1,311
0.024 5.02
Sub-adult 24,503
1,427 0.058 1.93
Adult 78,578 2,738 0.035 3.35
2000 Juvenile 74,865
3,500
0.047 6.95
Sub-adult 41,897
1,499 0.036 3.30
Adult 116,762 4,999 0.043 4.98
Emphasize focal data points….
Year
Habitat Survival Migration Return Breeding
1990 Juvenile 30,089 4,147 0.14 1.28
Sub-adult 374 150 0.40 0.02
Adult 42,279 871 0.02 1.84
1999 Juvenile 54,075
1,311
0.024 5.02
Sub-adult 24,503
1,427 0.058 1.93
Adult 78,578 2,738 0.035 3.35
2000 Juvenile 74,865
3,500
0.047 6.95
Sub-adult 41,897
1,499 0.036 3.30
Adult 116,762 4,999 0.043 4.98
Or highlight important data….
Year
Habitat Survival Migration Return Breeding
1990 Juvenile 30,089 4,147 0.14 1.28
Sub-adult 374 150 0.40 0.02
Adult 42,279 871 0.02 1.84
1999 Juvenile 54,075
1,311
0.024 5.02
Sub-adult 24,503
1,427 0.058 1.93
Adult 78,578 2,738 0.035 3.35
2000 Juvenile 74,865
3,500
0.047 6.95
Sub-adult 41,897
1,499 0.036 3.30
Adult 116,762 4,999 0.043 4.98
Or highlight important data….