COMP80122 Giving a good academic talk Carole Goble | Uli Sattler - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Giving a good academic talk

Carole Goble | Uli Sattler

School of Computer Science University of Manchester

COMP80122

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Good Presentations

Are clear and interesting (and fun)!

• so, simply be clear,

interesting, and fun...
 Remember

• no rule fits everybody

and

• we need a lot of

practice

• so in the rest of

COMP80122, we practice

Don’t be Dull

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Presentation Preparation

Think about

• who is your audience?
• who are you?
• how much time do you have?
• what technical devices do you have/need?
• What do you want them to take

home? What is the message?

– New result? New technique? You are smart?

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Presentation Structure

• Try not to
• verwhelm with

information

• 3 point sermon
• 3 part structure

– Beginning, middle and end

• 3 point repeat

– Tell them, and again and again

• Narrative and

signposting

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What is the story arc?

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A typical presentation

• 1. Title slide (title, authors,

affiliation, etc.)

• 2. The Take Home message?
• 3. Outline? Perhaps not:

– costs valuable time – can be boring – is superfluous and redundant for short talks

• 4. Background
• 1. motivation, start using

running example

• 2. related work, continue using

running example

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A typical presentation

• 4. Results
• summary of results
• sketch of techniques

used to obtain these results

• further use of the

running example

• 5. Summary/Outlook/

Future Work

• The Take Home Message

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Presentation Preparation

• Prepare good slides

– Expect to throw away two thirds of your slides. – Use slides to deal with complexity

• Think visual and high bandwidth info delivery

– Analogies – Minimize words and maximize pictures.

• 2 ways of saying the same thing
• Long in advance: you need to

– do some (practice;change)n, with n > 2 – have a friend/stranger listen/check – a good talk takes way, way, way longer to write than you think: 1 minute:1 hour rule.

• Plan for whiteboard blindness

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How does a clockwork clock work? “It tells the time, mechanically”

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Before the presentation
 Get Situated.

• Practice in

the room

• Practice with

the set up

• Preferably

attend other presentations

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Giving a presentation

Be clear in:

• what it is about

– don’t make assumptions about what audience knows

• the way you talk/present:

– speak clearly, good tempo – speak loud enough – check faces of audience whether they can follow – practice with friends or a teddy bear

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Giving a presentation

• Speak to your

audience, not your laptop or shoes

• Read your audience
• Don’t read out slides
• r notes
• Listen to yourself
• Don’t be cool.
• Cool = bored
• Don’t apologize
• Be enthused
• Mark start and end
• Breathe

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Cope with your nerves

• (almost) everybody is nervous

when giving a talk, but

• we can use adrenaline to

make talk more “sparkling”

• we can find “tricks” to help...

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Being Nervous. 
 What doesn’t help

• pretending the audience isn’t there
• holding (and clicking!) a ball-pen
• playing with the change in your

pocket

• using manuscript or presenter-

cards

• getting drunk
• learning everything by heart

– careful: you need to know what you want to say, but don’t recite

• things you have seen?

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Being Nervous.
 What can help.

• Being well prepared
• Pre-prepared a good mental

picture of yourself in the presentation

• Not being late
• Breathing/drinking water
• Pretending the audience is really

friendly & interested

• Knowing that it is o.k. to be

nervous

• things you have seen?

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Handling Questions

• Repeat the question
• Rephrase the question
• Admit if you don’t know the

answer

• Ask for suggestions (review

interview)|

• Beware getting trapped in a

dialogue (research presentation)

• Other thoughts?

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On the fly adapting

• The previous

speaker has made your introduction.

• Another speaker

has presented work close to yours.

• Not to acknowledge

this gives a poor impression.

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Gestures and 
 Dress Code can matter

• Check what is the dress

code for your discipline/ audience

– Smart for Medicine / Scruffy for Maths 

• Ladies – where something

that can carry a microphone

• Gestures are great for

clarifying messages and animating the talk

• But check the cultural

taboos of gestures!

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Your COMP80122 presentation

• 15 minutes, about your research
• including background, motivation, hypothesis,

aims, etc.

• in small groups, with lots of feedback

Useful Reading

• http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-

talk.html

• http://www.to-done.com/2005/07/how-to-

give-a-great-presentation/

• http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/speaking.html

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The Take Home Message

What is your Take Home Message to the particular audience?