How to present research

Why to Present Research?
 To achieve recognition among Scientific communities
 To take feedback from colleagues
 To defend thesis or dissertation
 The greatest ideas are worthless if you keep them to yourself

Purpose of research Talk
Is not to:
Impress the audience
Tell them all you know about a
subject
Present every little detail of
your work
Is to:
 Give the audience a sense of
what your idea/work is
Make them want to read your
paper
Get feedback on your work

Parts of a presentation
Two major parts of presentation
I. Content
II. How to present

To Develop Good Content
 Know your audience
 Who they are
 What is their prior knowledge on your topic
 Why they are likely to be interested in your research
 What are their needs and how can you help them

For Thesis defence
 The audience will be your thesis examiners and colleagues
 In this case your knowledge of topic would be greater than
audience
Why would they be their???
 To be convinced that your thesis makes contribution to
research

For Conference Presentation
 Audience would probably the academics with same interest
 In this case audience would be knowledgeable, may be the
expert of field
Why will they be their???
 To gain knowledge, which will help their on work and to build a
network

“Never overestimate your
audience's knowledge;
never underestimate their
intelligence."
(C.P. Scott, former editor of the Manchester Guardian.)

Preparing the slides
 simplicity and clarity lead to good design
 Do not use a number of animations, it will invert the focus of
audience from the topic
 Create sections, use a title slide to start a new section
 Avoid clutter, 3-5 bullets are sufficient on a slide
 Use images to explain

Outline
 Make 1st or second slide of your presentation as an outline
Follow the order of your outline for the rest of the presentation
Only place main points on the outline slide
Ex: Use the titles of each slide as main points

Structure of Slide
 Do not write complete sentences
 Write in points
 A slide should not consist more than 5 bullets
 Do not paste whole paragraphs in the slide

Cont…
 Show one point at a time
 It will help audience to focus that point
 Otherwise they will continue to read whole the slide
Will help you to keep your presentation focused

Fonts style and size
 Use at least an 18-point font
Use different size fonts for main points and secondary points
this font is 24-point, the main point font is 28-point, and the title font is
32-point
Use a standard font like Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri

Bad Fonts
 If you use a small font, your audience won’t be able to read what you have written
CAPITALIZE ONLY WHEN NECESSARY. IT IS DIFFICULT TO
READ
Don’t use a complicated font

Color
 Use a colour of font that contrasts sharply with the background
Ex: blue font on white background
Use colour to reinforce the logic of your structure
Ex: light blue title and dark blue text
Use colour to emphasize a point
But only use this occasionally

Bad colours
Using a font colour that does not contrast with the background
colour is hard to read
Using colour for decoration is distracting and annoying.
Using a different colour for each point is unnecessary
Using a different colour for secondary points is also unnecessary
Trying to be creative can also be bad

Spelling and Grammar
Proof your slides for:
speling mistakes
the use of of repeated words
grammatical errors you might have make
If English is not your first language, please have someone else
check your presentation!

Preparing the presentation
 Prepare the slides in advance
 Show them to friends
 When you think you are done read them again
 Check all animations with the sound on 

Preparing the presentation
 Practice, practice, practice
Give a practice talk to a general audience
Give a practice talk to an audience of expert
Time your presentation (allow for speed up effect caused by
nervousness)
 Always assume technology will fail you. Have backups.

Delivering the talk
 Be enthusiastic! If you aren’t why should the audience be?
 Make eye contact with the audience
Watch for questions. Be prepare to digress or brush off when
irrelevant

Delivering the talk
Point at the screen not the computer
Do not read directly from the PPT or your notes
Have the “spill” for the first couple of slides memorized in case
you go blank
Finish in time

How can I get better?
 Practice every chance you can
 Observe others
Steal good presentation ideas
Notice all the things that turned you off
 Seek comments from friends and mentors

References
http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/research/guides/management/research_
presentation.htm
http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/research/guides/research_presentation.
htm?part=3
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-to-give-a-dynamic-scientific-presentation
https://www.aje.com/arc/writing-slides-for-your-research-presentation/
http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/giving-a-talk/writing-a-paper-
slides.pdf

References
http://wit.tuwien.ac.at/research/tips/good_research_talk_slides.pdf
http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/giving-a-talk/giving-a-
talk-html.html
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howtowrite.html
http://www.iasted.org/conferences/formatting/Presentations-Tips.ppt
https://www.slideshare.net/chandramouligl/presentation-of-research-
work

How to present research

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