Making a Presentation

AD140 Brendan Rapple

27 April, 2005 College of Advancing Studies

When?

For a job interview

For an academic course

Advertising your work

Applying for funding

Preparation

No one is a born speaker.

Important to practice as much as possible.

Prepare a script.

Good idea to practice in front of a mirror.

Preparation (cont.)

Check out the venue and equipment in advance.

If possible, send the PowerPoint to the teacher (organizer, convener etc.) in advance

Preparation (cont.)

Find out how much time has been allotted to you?

Do you leave extra time for questions & answers?

Who is the audience?

Should you provide hard copies of your presentation?

Audience

Know precisely who your audience is.

What level of knowledge do they have?

Say something to capture their attention straightaway.

Talk to the audience (not the visual aid).

What do you want your audience to believe and to remember?

Introduction

Who are you? Say who you are. Give your credentials. How are you qualified to speak on this topic?

Say what your topic is straightaway – define your objective.

Specify what you will cover in your talk.

Structure

Your talk should have A beginning A middle An end

Omit anything from your presentation that you are unsure about.

Important that the audience remembers your ending – it should have impact.

An Old Teaching Strategy

Tell the audience what you are going to tell them.

Then, tell them.

Finish by telling them what you’ve just said.

The KISS Principle

Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Visual Aspect (if using PowerPoint)

If you are not using PowerPoint or another visual aid, keep notes/outline handy.

But if you are a visual aid . . . . . .

Make sure the presentation is loaded and that it works!!

Simplicity is usually best – too many animation effects can be distracting and alienating.

Carefully choose background, layout, fonts, colors.

Pictures, diagrams, links to web can add attraction.

Keep slides relatively spare – don’t crowd them.

Don’t read the text word for word.

Don’t use all capitals.

Must be a logical, coherent flow between slides.

Bad Slide It’s a study that seeks to understand the mysteries of existence and reality.

It tries to discover the nature of truth and knowledge and to find what is of basic value and importance in life.

Philosophy is thus a form of inquiry.

It’s a process of analysis, criticism, interpretation, and speculation.

The term philosophy itself comes from the Greek philosophia, which means love of wisdom.

Ancient Greeks were the first known western philosophers -- about 500 bc.

They sought answers about the nature of the world and “reality”.

Formerly, people had largely relied on magic, superstition, religion, tradition, or authority. Non-Western Philosophy: long history in China and India.

Western philosophy generally developed independently of Eastern philosophy.

Political PhilosophyExamines the nature and possible arguments for various competing forms of political organization, such as:

laissez-faire capitalism, welfare democracy (capitalistic and socialistic), anarchism, communism, fascism, etc.

Business EthicsExplores such questions as

how moral obligations may conflict with the profit motive and how these conflicts may be resolved.

the nature and scope of the social responsibilities of corporations, their rights in a free society, and their relations to other institutions.

Another Bad Slide

Libraries hold much more than just books: Digital resources, journals, sound and video recordings,

newspapers, maps, government documents, DVD’s, etc.

Point the user to the world of global information Not limited to what is physically in the building Online resources help open up access to the global world

Libraries acquire, organize and make accessible information in traditional and digital formats

Collections can often be accessed remotely

More Bad Slides

The following seven slides have been borrowed from:

www.stanford.edu/class/bio44/IP/IP%20Week%202.ppt

The above presentation has a lot of good tips.

This is a BAD slide….

A little better?

How’s this?

Diagram 1: Life cycle of the Frog

And how about now?

Diagram 1: Life cycle of Xenopus sp.

How do you like this overhead?

Results

Caffeine Dose (mg) Average Test Score

Standard Deviation

P-value

0 70 2.4

50 74 4.3 0.175

100 68 1.2 0.429

150 63 2.7 0.024

200 59 3.4 0.005

What about this table?

Isn’t this better?

Note: Red indicates data with a significant p-value

Caffeine Dose (mg) Average Test Score

Standard Deviation

P-value

0 70 2.4

50 74 4.3 0.175

100 68 1.2 0.429

150 63 2.7 0.024

200 59 3.4 0.005

Effects of Caffeine on Test Scores

Final Points Be entertaining!

Voice and body language can be as important as content.

Keep the audience engaged.

Appear confident and professional.

Be enthusiastic.

Nervousness is good! Makes one prepare better.

Always keep within the allotted time.

Make sure that your conclusions are conveyed.

Avoid excessive detail, complexity.

Give credit when appropriate.