Concluding Remarks

‘Giving a talk’, to colleagues, to peers or to the general public, is an important part of our professional duties as scientists. Whatever the context, we have a duty to make sure that the science is communicated clearly, and that the audience is able to understand the science at an appropriate level. Communication of science and about science is becoming more important, for many reasons. Science is becoming more expensive—the simple (that is, cheap) experiments have been done. Science, and the technology that results from it, has brought great benefits to society, but science has also given society cause for concern. Science should be dispassionate, the results independent of cultural background and beliefs of the individual scientist; but science can also be controversial, especially when it challenges generally accepted beliefs or attitudes. We believe that there are no absolute rules governing what makes a good slide, or how to assemble a series of good slides into a good talk. Even if there were such a recipe, how a talk is received depends upon many other things—the subject, the speaker, the venue, the size (and the mood) of the audience. There is never enough time to discuss all the details, and so we always have to make choices about what to include and what to omit. How we make these choices depends upon many things— what might be highly appropriate in one context could be completely inappropriate in another. Nevertheless, we can think of a few principles that should help you, which have underpinned the approach taken in this book. • Understand the scope of your talk—where do you start, what is the key point, how will you conclude, what is the message? • Understand your hosts—why did they invite you to give the talk or, if you invited yourself, why did they agree? • Understand your audience—why have they come to hear you, what do they know already, what do they expect to learn and what do they need to learn? • Be professional—understand and be master of the technology of the presentation.

Identifying the Context of the Presentation

The context of a presentation determines, or should determine, how you approach its preparation. The context includes many things, the audience, the purpose of the presentation, the occasion, what precedes the presentation and what follows from it. It will define what you expect from the audience, and will influence how you prepare yourself for the talk. A simple example. Suppose that you have been invited to give a series of lectures at a summer school. What more do you need to know, other than the topic? Here are a few of the questions that you need to have answered before you can start planning the course. 1. Is it an introductory course aimed at graduate students in their first year, or is it an advanced course more suited to graduates in their final year and young postdoctoral researchers? 2. Are the participants expected to ask questions during the lecture, or wait until the end? 3. Will there be any problem classes or discussion sessions? 4. Will lecture notes be handed out to participants before or after the lecture? 5. Will the proceedings be published, and if so, when? 6. What are the other lecture courses going to cover? 7. Will the basic theory already have been covered, or are they expected to know it already, or should you spend half of the first lecture going over it, just in case some have not seen it before? 8. If it is your job to give the basic introductory lectures, should you follow the standard approach in the usual text books, or should you assume that they have already covered that ground and try to give them more insight into the subject? 9. Will any of the lectures that come later in the school make any assumptions about what they have learned in your lectures? 10. Is there a social programme? If so, are you expected to participate in the activities and discuss the subject informally with the participants (which, from our experience, is always much appreciated), or can you spend most of the time in your room writing the next lecture?

Preparatory Work

It is impossible to overstate the importance of good preparation for a talk. Even when the subject is very familiar, the preparation time is likely to be at least ten times the length of the talk, and if it is a major presentation, you should be ready to spend even longer. It is only with the third or fourth time that you give the same talk (or effectively the same talk) that the preparation time might take less time than giving the talk. It is important to know your audience. Even if some of the slides are the same, the talk will be very different depending upon whether it is given to your professional colleagues (for example in a colloquium or seminar), to a general audience (for example a lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science) or to a group of school pupils. You will need to know how big the audience is likely to be, whether there are any special guests (should you begin ‘Your Majesty’), and if there is any special connection between the audience or institution and the topic of your talk (was your host an author on the key ‘discovery’ paper). What do you expect the audience to know about the subject in advance? In general, the more ‘public’ the audience, the less you should assume they know. However, beware of assuming that the professional audience knows a great deal about your special subject. One useful trick for colloquia in university departments is to say to the organizer or Head of Department something like ‘I have prepared a few introductory slides for the benefit of the graduate students—do you think that I should show them?’ The response is usually something like ‘Ah yes, the graduate students—I think that it might be a good idea to show them!’ As well as knowing who your audience is, it is necessary to know why they have invited you to give the talk, or why they have taken the time and trouble to come along to listen to you. Until you know this, it is difficult to see how you can set about meeting their expectations.

Style

The style of the talk should be chosen such that it supports the message, the occasion and your personality. The guiding rule should always be that the chosen style should not make the slides hard to read or distract the attention of the audience from the message. For example having an animation on the slide which runs all the time will most certainly catch the eye of the audience, because our eyes are programmed to look at moving objects. But this will make it impossible for the listener to follow your discussion on the rest of your slide while this animation is running. You can have different styles for different occasions. Figure 5.1 shows an example of a slide style for a working group meeting and in Fig. 5.2 for an invited seminar talk on the same topic. Style features which are important are the font style, the slide background and border, colours, plots, tables, pictures and animation. We will cover each of these in the sections below. The choice of the font should be a conscious decision and should not be just guided by your aesthetic feelings or the system default. There are several choices to be made under the font banner, and all are important. • Style: Serif or Sans Serif, • Appearance: normal, bold, italic, underlined or combined, • Size: small (8 pt), medium (12 pt), large (16 pt), huge (20 pt), vast (24 pt), • Colour: foreground (text) and background. Colour theory is quite complex, and beyond the scope of this book. However, a few simple ideas should help avoid most problems. The colour of the font and the colour of the background need to be considered together; it is better to choose colours that are readily distinguishable, with high contrast. A yellow (black) text on a white (dark) background is nearly invisible. Remember that your presentation may be printed on a black and white printer and colour-coded information may be lost if there is low contrast, and that between 5% and 8% of males and less than 1% of females are colour blind.

Structure of the Presentation

Just as a house consists of a harmonious arrangement of some common elements (door, hall, kitchen, lounge, bedroom, bathroom, garage), so a presentation consists of a set of standard components (title, outline, introduction, message, conclusion) arranged in such a way that the audience can be informed, educated and entertained. The structure of the talk is important in keeping the audience engaged—a poorly structured talk leaves the audience confused and disorientated. And just as with architecture, there are some conventions. In a house, the main door is usually near the front of the house, the bathrooms tucked away at the side, the kitchen somewhere near the dining room, the lounge leading to a pleasant garden, the bedrooms upstairs and so on. Similarly, a talk usually starts with a title slide, follows with an outline, continues with the introduction, delivers the main message and reaches some conclusions. But sometimes, as with architecture, you may wish to depart, perhaps radically, from this conventional structure—for example, starting with the conclusions because you want the audience to know where you are taking them. However, as with architecture, you need to be sure that this departure from convention serves a purpose—to help the audience understand your message. Failure to structure the talk properly risks reducing your message to a pile of rubble—unattractive, unappreciated and soon forgotten. If the structure of the talk as a whole is like the architecture of a building, the structure of the slides is like the interior decoration of the rooms. Each room, and each slide, is different, but all usually share some common features. In general, slides should have a title which tells the audience what the slide is about, just as, for example, it is often useful to label the bathroom as the bathroom—obvious but, if you are new to it, helpful. The body of the slide contains your message; a figure or figures, lists, tables, pictures, etc. We will discuss the design of the slides in Chapter 5. We note here that the structure of the slides and the structure of the talk must be harmonious.

Introduction

‘Giving a talk’ is part of everyday life for the working scientist—it is one of the most important ways in which we communicate our research and our ideas to others. The ‘talk’, of course, covers an enormously wide range, from a 10-minute briefing on progress to a handful of colleagues at the regular Monday afternoon group meeting to a keynote address to a major international conference with more than a thousand delegates. However, whatever the occasion, the aim of the talk is the same—to get your message across to your audience clearly and effectively. Members of an audience usually appreciate a good talk. Often, someone will come up afterwards and say something like ‘Thank you very much for that talk; I really enjoyed it and I learnt a lot.’ When that happens, you have achieved at least some of your goals; you have informed, you have educated and you have entertained. Presentational skills are becoming more important in all walks of life. Presenting science, professionally to other scientists and to a wider public, has particular issues that need to be addressed. Our aim in this short book is to equip you, the reader (undergraduate, postgraduate, professional researcher, junior academic . . .) with the basic skills needed to make a good presentation. Our approach is essentially pragmatic and not dogmatic, with emphasis on four essential points: 1. The goal is to communicate the science to the audience. 2. The speaker is responsible for everything that appears, and does not appear, on each slide. 3. The structure and appearance of the presentation, as well as the content, are part of the communication process. 4. There is no standard way of doing things—each slide, and each presentation, is different, and must be tailored to the needs of the audience. Before you read further, we need to make one thing clear—we do not pretend to be able to give you ‘Five Simple Steps to the Perfect Presentation’, and we are somewhat sceptical about any such approach. There are several reasons why we take this stance.

Preparation and Presentation

Horace was clearly being critical. We need to ensure that we take our audience with us on the journey. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the ways in which you can try to achieve that happy outcome, once you have mastered your brief and mustered your material. Presenting scientific results is a serious business, but this does not mean that it has to be dull and boring. Of course, a lot depends upon personality; not everyone is outgoing and extrovert, or witty and erudite, and it can be quite difficult to follow someone who is. Nevertheless, like many things, it is a skill that can be acquired with practice. The point is that presenting scientific results is one of your professional duties, and it should be done professionally. It is likely to be some time in the development of your career before you are invited to give a major address to a large audience at a major event, which is when all of your oratorical and theatrical skills will be needed, but it is a good idea to start to practise them sooner rather than later. There is a trend towards giving younger scientists an opportunity to present their work at a major conference—if you are offered the chance, take it, but prepare well. In any case, many wise group leaders know that an enthusiastic graduate student or postdoc always makes a very good impression on visiting committees and suchlike, and so you might find yourself giving a keynote presentation quite early in your career. This is where self-awareness is vital. You need to assess your own strengths and weaknesses. Are you extroverted or introverted? Are you confident or timid? Is your voice strong, projecting well to the back of the hall, or do you speak with quiet authority? Are your nerves steady, or do you perspire and shake? In reality, most of us are somewhere in the middle most of the time. Even an experienced communicator is likely to be a little nervous if there are several Nobel Laureates in the audience.