Notes on giving effective presentations

[477150n]

At the MRS Spring meeting, I went to a session on how to give a scientific presentation by consultant Tim Miller, which I found quite valuable. Here's a summary of my notes from that session.

He gave six tips that he called a "first approximation" to the right way to give a talk. They were:

1. Stand still
   
2. Face the audience
   
3. Make eye contact
   
4. Speak

Comments

Totally!

[womaninphysics]

The worse is when people are not even facing the audience but looking at their projected slides. I did theater in HS, so maybe that is why it drives me particularly batty. Not only is it hard to hear them, it's hard to care what they are saying if you can't even see their face.

However, I guess I don't agree with the standing still thing. Sometimes I like to actually go to the projector and point things out and I also like to use lots of gestures. But maybe he is mostly talking to the fidgeters and the people who rock back and forth or something? Can you say aspergers?

Re: Totally!

[477150n]

Yeah, that's why he called the points a "first approximation." Basically, he made the point that if you're already a very good presenter and you have reasons for doing things differently, then that's great, but many scientists haven't yet mastered the basics of presenting.

I think gestures are a great thing when they're purposeful, but, for instance, I realized that I tend to make lots of meaningless motions with my hands when I'm giving a talk, simply because I'm nervous. Stopping that behavior made the talk much better.