Read The Craft of Research by Booth, Colomb, and Williams. It's full of excellent advice about how to present your work (in writing, which would also include presentation scripts).

The book is about research (obviously) and it may require a little mental translation if research is not what you do. But it is all about framing your text so that your audience will care. I think it would help you.

I can't say enough good things about the book! The same authors revised the most recent (seventh) edition of the Turabian style guide, so if that is cheaper or more easily accessible from a library, you will find most of the same ideas in its first half.

I am a PhD student and I’m also interested in improving my presentations. Unfortunately, I can’t do like Merlin and use a few beautiful simple slides, I have to show the tables and figures. On the other hand, I would like to replace those bullet points in the intro and discussion sections.

In his essay about the evils of PowerPoint, Edward Tufte (information visualization extrodonaire) recommends having paper print outs w/ all the data to back up your presentation. You could reference this data a few times during your narration, but not allow the dry data to interfere with your presentation. This way the data-heads in the room will have the information they need to listen and the everyone else will have the story they need to hear. Link: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp

If you have a chance, you should attend Ed Tufte's one-day seminar on "Presenting Data and Information." It's a *GREAT* seminar, isn't really expensive and includes a copy of all of his books, which makes it even a better value.

Out of all his books, "The Quantitative Display of Visual Information" is still the most useful to me.

Note: I have no affiliation with this seminar or Ed Tufte, but was very impressed by the seminar.

Craig is spot on, “But it is all about framing your text so that your audience will care.” I’m a Developmental Biologist so I’m fortunate to be able to tie things up into a bit of a story with less quantitative data. When I do need to include such data, such as statistics generated from microarray data, I always tell the audience how genes they know already are behaving in the statistical data. This gives them a comfortable framework on which to base a judgment on the new information I want to give them next. When I see someone try to bulldoze the audience with too much data and jargon, I come away with the idea that they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. If they can’t distill the data into knowledge, then they are not contributing to the field. It is just noisy chatter. Best of luck to you!!

After 35 years working in the aerospace industry I finally learned how to get through persuasive presentations.

If you are talking to your engineering peers to solve an engineering problem, use as much detail, graphs, etc as you can gather. There is nothing like real data to convince peers.

If you are talking to the engineering managers (akin to your customers?), present the problem and conclusion with succinct data from the peer data. If they ask question on the succinct data, link to the real data.

We had one real scary but good senior level technical manager who’s operational model was to scratch at the presenter as hard as possible until blood is drawn. If they cannot explain their conclusions clearly and succinctly, he threw them out of the room until they had the answer. Some were too stricken to ever return.

If your audience does not ask penetrating questions, I would question whether the audience knew what they were asking for. The more penetrating questions they ask, the better for you.

I agree with Artie’s suggestion. In the soft sciences and law, where I do most of my presentations, data is important, but audiences seem to be more open to the story-telling side.

In law, especially, where there are diverse backgrounds, a good mix of detailed paper or web backup and story-telling (story-showing?) slides seems to engage the heterogeneous audience pretty well. Perhaps there’s an analogy there to your situation?

I will note that doing these “good” presentations is much more time consuming (no surprise there). Tufte and Beyond Bullet Points are good resources.

This is the same back and fourth we went through when designing the yearly systems update presentation for staff. Do you demo and show everything ala Steve Jobs Keynote, or do you tell them and show them nothing.

The balance was to show screen grabs of some general stuff. Enough for them to see what is new, but not enough to actually train them. The staff goes away wanting to know more and they paid attention.

While your data is important you should consider the teaser approach. You show just enough for them to get the point and want more. You don’t bore with data but you show a couple graphs, refer to where more data is.

The technique is the same goal a car ad should have. You see why you want the new car, you know it gets better gas mileage and has these new features but you still want to come in for a test drive.

I don’t know if you have ever come across TED Talks web site, but the have some amazing speakers. The following link is presentation by Hans Rosling that I think is absolutely amazing. I have never seen so much data presented so clearly.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140

from his bio page: …What sets Rosling apart isn’t just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus…

You understand that your presentation style has to fit the norms of your field. But as I’ve seen from my wife’s (and her colleagues’) medical research presentations, changing the norm could do wonders for their presentations. Lots of great tips have been mentioned about story-telling styles, paper handout supplements, etc., so let me just add this.

Rather than overwhelm your audience with all of your data and figures, show the most interesting and insightful info. Data the audience doesn’t need to see can simply be summarized as part of the story. Focus on the data that provided significant meaning and make it look good. Use simple, clean graphs, charts and tables that use subtle modern design elements. Think of turning white, square-lined graphs on black backgrounds into the clean, bright and modern looking figures available in apps like Apple’s Numbers.

I have to say that the two posters (or more) who recommended both Edward Tufte and Hans Rosling are right on.

I would start by reading Tuftes first book – ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’. Even better, attend one of his seminars. He does a few each year around the country and with admission you get all of his works. I attended last year and learned a ton. For Hans, check out both of his TED Talks (search iTunes podcasts)

I am active in biotech research and routinely need to present reams of data and conclude with a nice succinct point. Combining the theories of both these guys has changed my life (really like suddenly becoming a Buddhist or naturist).

I have found The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers and The Chicago Guide to Writing about Multivariate Analysis to be invaluable at helping me to both write and present data better.

I also second the recommendation for Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - he provides a huge amount of insight into putting the most coherent information into a chart or graph.

Try out Garr Reynolds brilliant site PresentationZen. It covers a broad range of styles, storytelling as a concept etc. Also, check out the book Beyond Bulletpoints by Cliff Atkinson which is focusing on the storytelling aspect.

If you want a more visual approach, go to ted.com and look at some of the good presentations there. Play by heart here, finding what you like and find interresting, they will probably ring with others as well.

I’ve seen your style and it’s fine! I just came from a lecture by Professor Richard Wiseman (http://www.richardwiseman.com) who you’ll find examples from on YouTube - a very funny guy who gets across fascinating information on psychology and the paranormal using stories, tricks etc. I was thinking while watching him that his style is quite similar to mine - breaking up potentially boring talks with examples, audience participation etc.

In July I presented a paper at a cultural studies conference in London and sat through two days of people reading literally from their papers, rushing to get it all in, and using Powerpoint slides with tonnes of bullet points. I couldn’t understand a word but I got caught up in the idea that my presentation, on the Saturday, would not be taken seriously because I had animation, pictures and no script. So I spent Friday night writing my entire presentation down so I could read it out because that’s what everyone else was doing.

In the end I bottled and went with my original plan - and it worked. People were interested, paid attention, asked questions, followed things up later…

Now I put this down to two factors. I never went to university, but studied via distance learning, with key lectures delivered as radio and TV programmes. As a child I was also entranced by the annual Royal Institution lectures on TV every Christmas (a series of interconnected lectures on a scientific topic like quantum physics, plate tectonics, astronomy etc, all aimed at children but delivered by eminent professors using models, experiments, and audience members participating) and by the TV programmes of Johnny Ball, a children’s TV presenter who any Brits of a certain age will know. He presented two series called Think of a Number (about maths) and Think Again (about lots of things) and taught me more than I ever learned in school.

Using these as a model, and unencumbered by what I might have witnessed as an undergrad or by following a traditional academic career, I think I’ve developed a presentation style that says ‘a presentation/lecture is about telling a story, I have to make it interesting, I can leave the minutae, the facts and figures, for handouts and PDFs or for a reading list. My job is to make you interested enough that you leave asking questions and following them up. It’s not to tell you everything you need to know so you leave never wanting to know anything else’.

So use your own style - it’s why people might hire you (content’s important too, mind…)

I remember a research paper I read about - can’t recall the reference, sorry - in which a lecturer did a tour of US colleges presenting the same talk but in an ‘interesting’ way. Student retention of facts was tested afterwards and found to be equally as high among the students who weren’t studying the subject as among those who were, and overall far higher than for a more traditional lecture.

The difference was the ‘interesting’ lecturer was actually an actor with no specialist knowledge. The point being that style of delivery is key to engagement. Specialist knowledge is important for follow-up questions, tutorials, seminars etc, so no one’s suggesting replacing lecturers with actors(!) but it’s surely preferable to develop experts’ delivery skills.

I would recommend Robert R. H. Anholt’s “Dazzle ‘em with Style”, a great book with advice on planning, writing, practicing and giving solid scientific presentations. It is very practical, with concrete suggestions and examples, and has been very useful for me.

I agree with the previous recommendations to read Tufte and to go to his seminar. I have used his advice in several important documents and presentations and I usually get positive feedback about my presentation style.

I second and third Jonathan’s comments. I happen to be an actor, and also an academic, and am mindful that the skills I possess as a performer are very, very useful in presenting to an audience … for entertainment, learning, whatever … .

What I do know is that whatever approach you use (and reading slides is NEVER a good approach, neither are lots of bullet points and little fonts) the human presence, your energy and dynamic is the most important element in the entire communication process. Tell the story, be engaged with your material, reach out and communicate, people. This is what will be remembered, and hopefully get your audience to want to learn more.

At the end of your slide presentation, insert one extra slide that is all black (or has your contact details). End on this. But after that last slide create an appendix of additional slides. This will duplicate information that may appear in your handout but not in your main presentation. Bring up this information if someone asks specifically about it. Feel reassured it is there even if doesn’t get mentioned. If you are presenting the same information several times, you can anticipate what questions come up frequently and have the appendix ready. The appendix can have more detailed information than what appears in the main preso.

I just attend Tufte’s one day seminar and agree with “new”. Take the day - Tufte will not waste your time. I have been a fan of Tufte for a while, and think his concepts should be kept in mind when designing a presentation. That said, I also publish on the use of Powerpoint (and will not pull a Dvorak [www.dvorak.com/blog], if you want any info just email me). Any presentation tool can be used effectively, it is just a matter of design. I do not buy into the “shock and awe” mentallity. I am a PhD student by day, and find that the audience is much more engaged when I take the time to tell a story. I work in signal transduction (not the most interesting field to some), and the best compliment I have every gotten after a talk is, “wow, that was the first signal transduction talk I could follow”. My advisor stresses, “keep the story in mind”. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Your audience will always ask, “Why I am here? Is it worth it? Is this individual actually telling me what he is saying he is telling me?”

When I design my talks I swtich back-and-forth between conceptual models and data to back up those models. If you tell a story and provide various forms of waypoints (models, data, etc), then you should meet the learning style of the majority of your audience.

Breakdown your presentation down into:

Planning & Prep:

A few questions:

Why are you being asked to present?

What is the specific purpose?

What are the audience expecting?

What do you want the audience to do after the presentation?

What will determine whether the presentation is a success?

Visual aids and props:

They can really make a speech come alive. But remember, they adversely can ‘kill’ a speech, as well, if there is no connection between the visual aids/props and the presentation content. I would strongly recommend using props – they really can work. But keep them simple.

Content:

One of the techniques I have picked is that audiences like to hear about ‘real things’ which have happened or analogies – you could call them ‘stories’. Stories about your own experience, stories about your customers, stories about your service, stories you read about in the papers, etc. Great public speakers are great storytellers. But make sure the story supports your message.

Delivery:

Whatever the subject is you have been asked to present, be passionate. Your audience will see that passion and believe in you and the subject. If there is no passion or entertainment no matter how good the content the speech will not be great.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

I had to work up some presentation tips for research undergraduates last summer. So sticking with the same basic themes as everyone else above:

Always address three basic questions:

• “What’s the problem?”

• “Who cares?”

• “What’s my solution?”

PGP –- on every topic, move from the particular to the general back to the particular.

Take care with the Q&A section: people will judge you by how you answer their questions as much as how you present to the group.

Practice with a video camera. Playing the footage back normally, without sound, with only sound, at half speed, and at double speed will highlight various nervous habits you have.

Sites I pulled the above from:

• PowerPoint: shot with its own bullets

• Absolute Powerpoint

• The Craig Web Experience: Presentation Tips

• Edward Tufte doesn’t hate PowerPoint, he hates the culture that spawned it

• Does PowerPoint make you stupid?

I think that most of the advice in this thread is very valuable. However, you can get caught up in a great deal of details, trying to shoehorn your talk into a style not your own.

I am a developmental biologist, and I find that when giving a talk, I benefit by trying to distill the story that underlies all of the work. I can’t tell you how many talks describing amazing work (describing work in papers from Nature, Science, Cell, etc.) become occasions for a nap! It’s a PI trying to several stories at once, or a post-doc or student who has seen the data a few too many times, and is bored herself. Stick to one story and show your enthusiasm!

Regarding data presentation, I cannot improve on advice from Tufte. Don’t waste any space for useless text, logos, titles, etc. Show great data as large as you can.

If you don’t have great data, get better data. :)

I make no claims to being a great presenter, but after sitting through many colloquia in an academic department with several rather different subfields squished into one program, I had several thoughts:

• When you’re getting up in front of a room of smart people to give a presentation, unless you’re reeeeeeeeally secure, somewhere in there is some anxiety about looking like a dumbass. The tendency, often, is to err on the side of aiming high; assuming your audience is well-versed in all but the specifics of your area of research. I think this mostly isn’t true - all of those smart people are also insecure humans trying to look smart for the other smart people, and whether they’d admit it or not, they’d probably get more out of your talk if you lowered your estimation of what they already know. Even if they’re brilliant, they’re still sitting in the dark listening to a projector fan whirl, trying to stay awake, and they might secretly appreciate a little hand-holding.

• When you show graphs of your data, walk the audience through what they’re seeing. They’ll have to divert attention away from you anyway just to read the axis labels and make sense of what they’re seeing, so you might as well go there with them - describe how the graph works (axis labels, etc) and the story you’re claiming it tells.

• I’m sure not everyone will agree with this, but: I HATE text on slides. If you’re talking about data and at the same time putting up bullet points that say the same thing, then the visual presentation is competing with the oral presentation. If you supply the text with your mouth, and the pictures with your slides, then you’re not competing with yourself for your audience’s attention.

• If your data doesn’t supply a knock-out narrative all by itself, making it a personal narrative often works. A la, we were trying to find out this, so we did that, and we got this answer, but wait, we went down a garden path because then this other thing happened, and whattya know, it all comes together when you add this last little piece… etc. Being able to include a wrong conclusion you made helps throw a little plot twist into your narrative.

Hi, first of all, thanks for the presentation you made at google, I discovered you there, and since, I always keep my inbox clean (also, I’ve read GTD - a book I wasn’t even aware of, because my primary langage is french). so I think your style of presentation is good, (since you had an influence on me).

But still, I want to introduce you to a book which I discovered on lifehack.org ( http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/book-discussion-chip-and-dan-heaths-made-to-stick.html ) which can help you make you ideas more “sticky” (I can’t find a better word). After reading that book, I thought that the principles discussed in this book should be teached in school.

This book is named “Made to Stick”, and I just hope so much you will read it. http://www.madetostick.com/

Regards

Thanks to everyone for the great comments. I’ve sent out for some books, and I’m going to do my best to attend a seminar by Tufte. I’ll be testing these recommendations out next week at a seminar. I’ll be putting a lot of thought into how to frame my story, and my data and algorithms, and hopefully this discussion will help me train my focus.

(Also, as a note, I think some people here may have confused me with someone whose name I share. I’m a graduate student in the physical sciences, preparing for the job application cycle next year. :)

Matt,

The single best thing I ever did was to learn how many “slides per minute” I speak at, and they stick to that number of slides (or less) no matter what.

I also like to use lots of figures, some tables, and short bits of text to remind me of the key points that I want to make.

and we are all suckers for a crime show.

They first create a knowledge gap in the minds of the audience. They create a puzzle that the audience needs solved. What happened? Who is responsible? What explains this unusual situation?

The narrative builds the audience’s investment in the result and brings them along until the mystery is solved.

In the case of a presentation the puzzle might be “How can I empty my Inbox?” or “If the previous models fail to explain this observed data then how do we explain this data and how do we fix these models?” or “How is a presentation like a crime show?”

I’ll strongly second the previous suggestion to read the book ‘Made to Stick’. (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/book-discussion-chip-and-dan-heaths-made-to-stick.html) Because, these are academic presentations, you will have less leeway to incorporate all the suggestions or make drastic changes to the traditional format. However, consider each section of the book and how you might creatively apply each idea to your work.

Here is another suggestion from that book that comes to mind: During your presentation, you may want to pick some representative data points and explain their story. Politicians don’t just say “X% of children are living without health care”, they also say, “Yesterday, I spoke with Brenda Jones from Spokane who couldn’t afford to pay for her four-year-old son’s medication…”.

To highlight a single point of data in this manner may seem unscientific. Well it is. Yet, people are not robots. You need to connect with them. You need them to understand and remember your message. So make your message a simple, unexpected, concrete, emotional story.