Suggestions for preparing your presentation Do not expect the ...

Suggestions for preparing your presentation
Do not expect the audience to know anything about your project.
You need to give the information necessary in the introduction so that anyone can understand
what you are doing.
What is the question you are investigating?
The research objective is not just the experiments you performed.
Think about the big picture and how your work fits into it.
Make your research objective concise and understandable to anyone, even people not
knowledgeable about your field.
Make sure the research objective can get the attention of your audience and make them want to
listen to your presentation.
Know the difference between a technique and an experimental question.
The title of you slide should be the take home message or conclusion of the slide. Don’t use slide titles
such as “Introduction, Methods, or Results”.
Think of your presentation as a story that you are telling the audience. Don’t move from one slide to
the next without a transition.
Explain not only what you did but also why you did it. If you want the audience to follow your
presentation don’t make them spend time guessing why you are doing the experiments. Remember it
is your job to teach the audience about your topic.
Never show a result without interpreting the data. Don’t expect the audience to figure out what the
results mean without you telling them.
Cartoons and models are more informative than a slide full of text. Always used a model or cartoon
with the text.
Know the difference between a summary of your results and the conclusions that can be drawn from
the results.
Choose a color scheme that is easy to see. Avoid using yellow on a white background and red on a
blue background. Your slide will look different when projected than when you look at them on your
computer screen.
Use fonts that are easy to read such as Arial and other similar fonts. Don’t make it hard for your
audience to read your text.
Label your figures clearly. Make the font of the text large enough to be seen in the back of the room.
If the figure it too complicated the audience will not understand. Make several simple figures instead
of one complicated figure.

SCBC606 Research Seminar Course
Some things to consider when preparing your seminar
Try to tell a story not just report your data.
Sometimes this will mean presenting the results in a different order than you did the experiments.
Give enough background so people unfamiliar with your field of study can understand not only
what you are doing but why. The rationale for the experiments is very important.
Explain clearly what the questions you are going to address in your presentation.
If you are using techniques that are complicated or difficult for people unfamiliar with the
technique to understand make sure you teach people about the technique first. Don’t give the
intricate details of the experimental protocol but explain in general what information you will get
out of the experiment and a little about how the experiment was performed.
Do not put too much data into the presentation. If you do not have time to give a good
explanation about the results then do not include them. Also if the results do not fit with your
story you may want to leave them out.
It is okay to have a couple of sections. If all of your results don’t fit a single story tell them both
but separately. But try to tie them together at the end.
Figures for publications are not always good for presentations. The audience will have a short
time to look at the figure and it should be simple enough that the audience can understand it in a
short time. Too much information on a slide generally results in very little information being
conveyed to the audience.
Organization
INTRODUCTION
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (results alone are not informative you need to tell the audience
what the results mean and what you learned)
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS (these are not the same, you can briefly summarize your
results but then you need to tell the audience how your results fit into the big picture)
FUTURE DIRECTIONS (what you plan to do and hope to learn, again try to make this a general
idea and not be too specific about experimental details)