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Improving Academic Presentation Style

I give a lot of talks, and I've been trying to improve my presentation style, but I'm not sure how to do it in the context of my field. I am in a fairly quantitative science. I have to give presentations where I present results; I am 'selling' the result to the audience, but not in the same way, I think, that one would sell a product, or an idea, or a concept. I'm attempting to convince them that it's right, and that I was diligent in pursuing the result.

One common technique is to simply overwhelm the audience with lots of facts and charts and bullet points. Obviously this is a bad idea -- but on the other hand, if you don't give enough 'serious-looking' plots, you run the risk of being dismissed by members of the audience.

So how do I strike a balance? How do I keep my presentations in the manner of a good narrative, with appropriate display methods, when constrained by an audience that has a certain expectation of a larger number of quantitative figures and numbers?

lucasjw's picture

Showcase the best, skim the rest

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.

 
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