In the Southern hemisphere, conference season is just a week or two away. Graduate students south of the equator are beginning to get that sinking feeling. They’ve been dreading it for weeks, and their data only came through the day before. Yes, it’s the thing a student fears most: the conference talk.
Do I need to stress that your conference talk is very important? When you give a scientific presentation, you present yourself as well as your results. If it goes well, potential post-doctoral supervisors in the audience will take note. If it goes really well, it will put you in the running for the prize for best student talk. If it goes really, really well, your supervisor will think of you when they realise that the all-expenses paid plenary talk in Hawaii they said yes to six months ago, falls on the day of their daughter’s first ballet recital.
Now that you are relaxed (no pressure), here are my top ten tips for a great first scientific talk:
- Enthusiam. Let your enthusiasm for your subject come through. I’ve put this tip first for a reason – your audience will forgive many faults if you can infect them with your excitement for your topic.
- Interaction. Interact with your audience (although not by forgetting the laser pointer is on and dazzling the audience with it). Make eye contact with people around the room from the outset and keep it – you are talking to the audience, so don’t read from your slides. Avoid referring to notes. Pitch your voice so that those in the back of the room can hear; if necessary, ask whether you can be heard at the back right at the start.
- Ownership. Take ownership of your work. Acknowledge the contribution of your colleagues as appropriate, but don’t motivate your work by saying your supervisor told you to do it!
- Audience. Think about your audience and remember that they have come to your talk to learn something. Make sure what you say is clear and understandable. Even the experts in the room will be impressed by an authoritative introduction to the topic. Leave your audience with a key message or two that will trigger their memories in six months’ time.
- Timing. Finish your talk within the time allocated, leaving time for questions. Your audience may need to change sessions or find the toilet between talks. Give them a fighting chance.
- Preparation. Practise your talk a couple of times, but remember that adrenalin will make it faster on the day. Turn up before your session starts to make sure you know how everything works. If you have your own laptop, practise making the transition in the auditorium, although this does not always guarantee it will work in the heat of the moment – best to have it on a memory stick just in case. Consider preloading your talk onto the in-house machine (but check the fonts) or even another speaker’s laptop.
- Slides. Use strong, dark colours on a white background. Better to give people a picture or a graphic before you launch into the detail, rather than after. The text on your slides should be sufficiently concise to be self-explanatory, but no more. Don’t go overboard with in-slide animations, they distract the audience and you will regret it as you wile away the time toggling through them.
- Equations. You should always talk through the terms in any equation you present, so a slide packed with equations will eat lot of time and bore your audience. Presenting an unfamiliar equation without defining the variables for the audience is pointless, but remember it will take time to define these in the first place. In other words, think carefully about your use of equations.
- Check your slides. Use a spell checker! You’ll find it disconcerting (and potentially embarrassing) to spot mistakes when you are presenting. It’s also worthwhile discovering the correct pronunciation of the name of the professor who wrote the seminal paper in your field – you will thank me when you learn she’s chairing your session.
- Questions. Everyone in the audience will sympathise when that awkward question comes up – we’ve all been there – so it’s OK to confess your ignorance or deflect (e.g. “Lets talk about that in the break”). Nine times out of ten, your “awkward” questioner will have the wrong end of the stick – a chat with them after the talk can be a much better way of finding this out than a lengthy exchange in the auditorium.
Good luck! And yes, it does get easier.
These are great. You can give endless recommendations for talks… here’s a one more idea:
The “acknowledgements” slide is traditionally the last, but I’ve seen too many first-time speakers (even a few experienced speakers) get to the last slide of the content of the talk and completely forget to show the acknowledgements. My solution is to (also) put the acknowledgements on the first slide. It also shows you are a “team player” from the onset.