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Understanding your purpose
Understanding your purpose
Present the most current information on your research in a short timespan by:
Engaging your audience immediately.
Making the information accessible to all.
Supplementing visually when needed (oral presentations).
Being the person MOST excited about your work.
Understanding your content
Understanding your content
What is the problem and why is it a problem?
What has been done about it before?
What are you doing (or have done) about it?
What additional value does your approach provide?
Where do we go from here?
Understanding your audience
Understanding your audience
ORAL PRESENTATION
ORAL PRESENTATION
Varied knowledge & interest in your topic.
Is seated and focused.
Can hear the context to understand the research better.
Will ask questions (hopefully!).
POSTER PRESENTATION
POSTER PRESENTATION
Varied knowledge & interest in your topic.
Passes by and stops (limited focus).
Will engage visually more than auditorily.
Needs visual guidance to move from context to content.
Will ask questions (hopefully!).
Your role as a public speaker
Your role as a public speaker
Eliminate your distractions: pronunciation of key terms, spelling on slides, issues in the room (lighting, etc.).
Know yourself under pressure.
Do you hold your breath?
Do your shoulders go up?
Does your mouth get dry?
Practice in front of a mirror, or better yet, record yourself and play it back. You'll often be thinking about your speech when you're presenting, and rightfully so, but knowing how you look when you do it can always help.
Dress comfortably yet professionally.
This helps your body language.
Be confident and don’t apologize.
The audience is a fan club!
Maximizing your time
Maximizing your time
Get the audience hooked. Place them and/or you in the context.
Think of the “narrative” or story of the work.
Use connective devices as you speak (for contrast, concession, examples, to transition among ideas) to guide the audience.
Keep concepts simple, and be aware of your breadth and depth: try to strike a balance.
Have a meaningful “takeaway” idea to end on.
Maximizing your slide presentation
Maximizing your slide presentation
Simplicity is best, both in terms of style and design as well as animation and background.
Choose color and font wisely, and avoid distracting content, including gratuitous transitions and animation.
Keep graphics high-quality and use graphs and charts to reinforce the key ideas of your presentation.
Maximizing your poster
Maximizing your poster
Be Simple! Use the poster to emphasize results and conclusions. YOU are there for the details.
Format text with bullets to make ideas clearer and sections more readable, and keep the font large, as the content should be legible from 4-6 feet away.
Work with color for consistency and emphasis.
Present data in clear, interpretable graphics, and avoid tables.
Trend lines (through line and bar graphs) can help present data in a memorable and effective way.
Keep all headings and labels horizontal.
Responding to questions
Responding to questions
Repeat the question back to the person to be sure you understand it well.
Answer longer questions one piece at a time.
As much as you can, keep your answers short.
Offer to correspond later if necessary.
This webpage is based on articles from the Undergraduate Research Center, UC Davis, written by Kelly Crosby, University Writing Program.
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