Preparing Effective
Presentations
• The purpose of a presentation is to communicate the main ideas from
your research.
• Effective presentations make learning more likely. They also enhance the
perception of the presenter in the eyes of the professional community.
Boring, ineffective, or overly long presentations are quickly forgotten.
• When you have prepared your presentation, practice it as many times as
possible, and practice at least once in front of friends or
family. Practicing will make you comfortable with your material so you
don’t have to consult your notes as much, and you will know exactly how
long each part takes. It will also help you refine your content so that you
emphasize the most important points.
Length
• Academic presentations at conferences are typically limited to 15-20
minutes with 5 minutes allowed for questions, but this changes from
conference to conference so you should make sure to check.
Presentations at the Celebration of Undergraduate Research, for
example, are 10 minutes long with 3 minutes for questions.
• You will need to carefully budget your time and practice to ensure that
you can complete your presentation within the time allotted. Practicing
your presentation with a timer will help make sure you can consistently
stick to the allotted time.
• On average, you should plan on spending 1-2 minutes per slide.
Changing slides frequently will help you avoid spending too long on any
one part of your presentation and will keep your listeners engaged.
Content
Usually a presentation is like a very short version of a research paper. It should
include:
• Title and Who you are and who else helped with the project (co-researchers,
funding sources, advisors).
• Ouline of contents
• What problem or issue you studied and why it matters (introduction, the last
slide is the aim of the work)
• What you do for solving the problem (experimental work)
• The most important things you found out. Briefly include how you got your
results but don’t go into too much detail. This is often where people include too
much detail that is only of interest to those working on a similar project, so keep
it to 1-2 sentences.(results only)
• What’s next? How could someone else use this information, what else should be
done on the subject, or how could these results be applied to other work?It often
helps to start by answering these questions as though you were talking to a
friend before you try to write a presentation. This will help you keep to the most
important points (conclusion and recommendation)
Delivery
• Poor delivery can ruin an otherwise well planned presentation.
Practicing in front of a mirror or recording yourself with your
phone or computer camera can help you catch problems
before you present publicly.
Good presenters:
• Stand up straight and remember not to fold their arms across their
chests.
• Speak slowly, clearly, and loudly.
• Make eye contact with the audience or even interact with those present.
• Use simple words and short sentences to make their presentations easy
to follow.
• Use stories or examples when possible.
• Avoid jargon or unnecessary vocabulary that only those in the field
understand (optional)
• Make and use notes, but don’t read directly from them word for word.
Good speakers do not just read their slides out loud!
• Don’t apologize for images, text, or content of the presentation. The
audience knows all research is ongoing so there is no need to apologize
for there being further steps or more research to do. Apologizing for bad
or incorrect content on the slides, on the other hand, suggests that the
speaker has not prepared.
Visuals (optional)
• Most presenters accompany their presentation with a handout
. These allow you to include more details and to provide
visuals or data that support your research. However, often
presenters try to include too much. A good or handout should
not substitute for the presentation, so it should not repeat
information that you say aloud and you should not read
directly from it.
To make a good PowerPoint:
• Use large fonts so people sitting at the back of a room can read it. 20-point font,
in a simple style like Arial or another sans-serif type, is a good choice. If you
can’t read it from 10 feet away when it’s on your laptop, there’s a good chance
someone sitting at the back of a conference room can’t either.
• Limit the text to 8 lines per slide; try to use images or diagrams wherever
possible in place of text.
• Keep graphs, charts and tables simple and legible – highlight the most relevant
data using colors or cut the rest out. Avoid equations! They are usually not
necessary to understand the results and you won’t have time to explain them.
• Use contrasting colors: either light-colored text on a dark background or the
reverse. Even if the colors contrast a lot, using two similarly saturated colors
will strain people’s eyes.
• Avoid including content on the edges of the slide. Many screens cut off the
top, bottom, or one edge of a slide because the projector is not angled
perfectly.
• Keep it simple. You know your material, but it is all new to your listeners.
Avoid decorations and cute effects that distract from your key points.
• If you need to discuss the same slide at two different points, put a copy of
the slide in at both points in the talk. Do not try to skip around in your
slides. This is confusing to you and to your audience.
• Preview your slides carefully on the biggest screen you have access to. Some
things will jump out at you on a large screen that you never noticed sitting in
front of your laptop. It’s a good idea to have a friend look at it too.