Why Speak?
Speech remains the ultimately flexible, adaptable, mutable, spontaneous medium. Information can be transmitted more rapidly and with greater ease than any fixed communication medium. No other medium comes close!
Speaking shifts one's work from the private to the public realm. It is the universally accepted professional's way of professing something.
Organizations and research institutions are represented through their leaders' public speaking. Because speech is generally a two-way medium, it opens the window to accountability and interaction. It offers an ear to the world, as well as a voice.
By allowing a public audience to ask questions, the lecture hall becomes a laboratory of ideas. Issues are resolved publicly and new questions raised. The very best presentations provide a synergistic and vibrant exchange of ideas.
Types of Oral Presentations
"To read or not to read, that is the question..."
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Advantages
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Disadvantages
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Prepared speech: |
Provides maximum preparation: content, length, pacing and tone can all be double-checked for thoroughness before presentation is given. Can be practiced until perfected. Best cure for stage fright. Speech can be entered into official record (if any). |
Lengthy preparation required. If visuals are used, these must be cued carefully to speech. Loss of eye contact and audience rapport. More rigid format; presentation may lack spontaneity. Pacing and continuity may suffer from audience questioning. |
| Outlined speech: "talking points" used to guide presentation of memorized information. |
Enhanced flexibility, adaptability and spontaneity: presentation can be quickly altered for situation. Enhanced eye contact and audience rapport. Allows for better integration of audience questioning without loss of pacing and tone. |
Requires more experience and confidence. Situational adaptations may overlook crucial points and content. |
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Extemporaneous speech: NOTE: Don't do this in Writing 109ST! |
Maximum flexibility and spontaneity; can be adapted to suit any situation on the spur of the moment. Maximum eye contact and audience rapport. Lends presenter enhanced charisma and status. |
Requires tremendous expertise and subject knowledge. Plenty of ways to mess up! Not recommended for those with extreme stage fright. |
Basic Stuff to Remember
Giving an oral presentation does not mean reading your paper!
The oral presentation is meant to introduce and support—not replace—the paper. Audience needs are different and must be addressed. Your objective: to encourage audience to read your paper in its entirety and engage your work.
Know your audience!
You do not give the same speech to a group of NSF referees that you give to a group of twelve year-olds. Your presentation should be tailored to the specific needs of your audience.
Before preparing, ask yourself the following:
§ What does my audience already know?
§ What does my audience not know?
§ What does my audience need? (Cf., What does my audience want? They may not be the same things!)
Monitor your pace.
Different presentations address different attention spans and levels of excitement. What does your audience need? If you bog down, your audience will hate you, lose interest and fall asleep. Keep your presentation interesting by changing slides frequently, inviting questions, and involving the audience. In extreme cases, you can use ice-breakers: jokes, questions, introductions, etc. to keep your audience engaged.
Organize your presentation into "chunks."
Your presentation should "move like a freight train!" Ideas should be cohesive, flowing logically and naturally to the next. Each idea 'pulls' and reinforces the previous idea behind it, and 'pushes'/previews the idea ahead of it.
Practice!
There is no substitute for practice. Rehearse your speech aloud with a roommate or friend, or goldfish. You will think of things during practice that simply never occur to you in any other way.
Don'ts
Don't use slides with lots of tiny, impossible-to-read text or overly detailed drawings. Your audience can't see it!
§ Use 14-point or larger font size on projected slides.
§ Stick to just 1-2 points per slide.
§ Distill data into key correlatives and trends. Don't show them all the data!
Don't speak in a monotone; it puts people to sleep and bores them to death.
§ Vary the tone and pace of your voice. Remember, this is a "performance" of sorts!
§ Use drinks to keep your throat from drying out.
Don't mumble, bog or race.
§ Speak slowly and clearly, but...not...too...slooowly.
§ Maximum of 45 seconds per slide.
§ Be award of the needs of foreign audiences: speak more clearly and slowly, explain terms, invite more questions, use more graphics, etc.
§ Most of us have a tendancy to lose track of pace, either racing or bogging. Use a watch if necessary to stay on schedule.
A "Typical" Oral Presentation for Writing 109ST
Below is a listing of the kinds of slides that might be found during an oral presentation for a primary/secondary research topic. Please note that your needs will almost certainly vary somewhat. (For example, you may need more than one slide to explain your methods.) Use this list only as a rough guide. For layperson presentations, the "Related Work," "Methods," and "Results" would be substituted with other segments such as "Applications," "How it Works," "Technological Evolution," etc.
Title Slide (1 slide)
§ Your name and title of presentation
§ Institutional affiliation.
Overview (1–2 slides)
NOTE: The overview of your presentation corresponds somewhat to the abstract
of your paper.
§ Topic and scope.
§ Preview of main points.
§ Structure of presentation and what to do with questions (E.g., "After I present our research and findings, I will take any questions you might have.")
Background (2+ slides)
§ Brief history.
§ Current state of the topic and research.
§ Relevance of topic to audience
Related Work (1+ slides)
Methods(1+ slide)
Results(1+ slides)
§ NOTE: If you are presenting primary research, this is main body of the talk. Its internal structure varies greatly as a function of the researcher's contribution.
§ Present key results and insights, future direction of research.
§ Do not superficially cover all results; cover the most important result thoroughly.
§ Do not just present numbers and huge tables of data; interpret them to give insights.
Summary (1+ slide)
Q&A Backup Slides (2+ slides)
§ These may be repeated from your main presentation, or new slides. Use them to answer the types of questions you expect to be asked.
§ Likely questions include: skimmed ideas, shortcomings of methods or results, future directions for additional research.
REMEMBER: Practice your presentation before you deliver it! Try to keep your presentation moving, never stopping at one slide for more than 45 seconds. You have only 15 minutes to complete your entire presentation, including questions from the audience; therefore, do not stall or bog down on fine details. If you have important details that demand more time to present, put them into a separate brochure and make it available to your audience or, better yet, offer them copies of your paper. Don't try to cram too many details into your oral presentation; it will only work against you. It is far better to skim the most important points and let your audience delve into the details via print.
Copyright © 2015 by Norman Douglas Bradley