As a researcher, one of the core chores you have to do in your academic journey is to deliver presentations. A presentation, whether it is for a workshop, conference, seminar, etc. can take you a while to compile. I remember some of my earlier talks took me quite a hefty amount of time to put together. Most of the time the challenge was how to structure the presentation in order to make it interesting for the attendees. In this article, I highlight the most important things that helped me organize a presentation and tips on how to create that in little time.
Creating an effective presentation
Similar to when organizing a manuscript, I tend to follow the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) formula to put together a presentation. Nonetheless, while it is important to mirror key parts of the corresponding paper; if it is a paper presentation; the scope is that of using the presentation to encourage the audience to read the article instead of regurgitating it. The model that I follow consists of 7 main points each corresponding to a slide heading or section to talk about. It starts with the title slide (point 1), followed by a body (point 2 – point 6), and ending with a closing slide (point 7). Hereunder is the model:
- Title: Title slide indicating the title of the talk and authors
- Agenda: Presenting the structure or outline of the presentation
- Introduction:
- Identify the research question, tested hypothesis, or research purpose
- Justify the importance of such work
- Materials and Methods:
- Indicate the equipment used and the experiment setup
- Highlight the sampling technique and analysis method performed
- Results and Discussion:
- Demonstrate through images, tables, or statements, the answer found to the research question or hypothesis
- Underscore the implications or relevance of the obtained results
- Final remarks:
- Reiterate the objectives and provide a general statement on the extent to which you have accomplished them
- Identify some avenues for future work
- Closing:
- Question and answer session slide with your contact information
This model is typically useful for a talk that is longer than 10 minutes. For a short presentation, it is rarely necessary to have such an explicit structure and to cover all that is mentioned therein. This is as there is usually only enough time to introduce the topic and to give a brief introduction to the method or results.
Then, when it comes to the actual compilation of the presentation, I tend to use a number of utilities; mostly on Mac; implemented in the workflow below:
- Use Skim to open the PDF paper
- Highlight sections (Note Type -> Highlight) that are relevant to the presented model
- Copy the highlighted statements from the ‘Notes pane’ and load them to Notes app as a new note
- Assign and group the statements under the different model headings
- Reorganize, rephrase, and shorten/expand some statements
- Launch PowerPoint and create new slides following the previous step
- Refine and embellish by introducing images or icons, e.g., through Google Images or that you draw for instance using draw.io.
Other general tips:
- Draw principles from real stories using specific data, anecdotes, or screenshots to back up the stories
- Have one main idea per slide and limiting to no more than about 4-5 major bullets per slide
- Use design templates for consistency
- Check spelling and grammar for accuracy
- Speak slowly, clearly, and loudly!
Take a look at some of my recent slides in Presentations.
Joseph Bugeja 