Presentations

Advice for your project presentation

1 Preparing for your talk: checklist

  1. Think about exactly what you want to convey
  • tell a story
  • keep it simple
  • keep the number of results you show small (≈3-4) and the message from each clear
  1. Prepare figures for your slides (the “backbone” of your talk)
Tip

The figures for your slides will rarely, if ever, be exactly the same figures you present in your thesis. You cannot convey as much information in a slide, so you should simplify figures for your talk such that they can be easily understood by your audience.

Presenting too much data on a single slide can be overwhelming and your audience may disengage or read the slide instead of listening to you.

  1. Introduction: think about what your audience needs to know (context) to understand your work
  • what didn’t you know, at the beginning of your project?
  • keep it simple: the minimum to contextualise your story
  1. For each experiment, explain (in this order):
    1. what you were trying to do (aim)
    1. how you did it (method)
    1. what you found (results)
    1. what your results mean (significance)
  1. Finish with your conclusions/significance of your work
  • what have you learned?
  • how have you contributed to the field?
  • what would you do as the next step?

  1. Go back through your talk and make sure it “flows” in a logical order

  2. Edit, proofread, improve your slides.

  • ask other students in the group for feedback and incorporate it.
  1. Practice, practice, practice!
  • get your timing right (it always takes longer than you think)
  1. Repeat steps 7 and 8 iteratively until you are happy with your presentation and feel confident in your delivery.

2 Some presentation guides/resources

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