The document provides guidance on giving academic presentations. It discusses presenting research to an expert audience within a 20 minute time limit. Presenters should describe their own work and contribution, balancing a rehearsed presentation with audience engagement. When preparing, talk to a mentor about content and structure, and rehearse multiple times. During the presentation, maintain a good pace and engage the audience through voice, body language and eye contact. Common pitfalls to avoid include including too much information, talking too fast or quietly, and running out of time. When answering questions, take time to think and clarify or elaborate when needed. Effective presentation software uses large fonts, white space, and images or charts to stress key points without excessive text.

1. Presentations 101:
Get Your Point Across
Dr. Cressida J. Heyes

2. I. The academic presentation

3. Purpose
• To convey your contribution to research and
knowledge.
• To a relatively expert audience with at least
some shared interests.
• In the time allotted.
• Emphasizing your own work and ideas, not
only the “literature” or “what we did.”

4. Form
• Typically 20 minutes
• Speaking from Powerpoint slides or other
presentation software, or
• Reading from a script (with or without slides
as backup)
• Need to balance giving a rehearsed
presentation with engaging your audience

5. What is your project?

6. Content
Describe your research

7. General advice
• Talk to a mentor about what to include, how
to structure, what your punchline is. If
possible rehearse before a fake audience that
includes your mentor and some peers.
• Rehearse again
• Think carefully about HOW MUCH you can say
in the time allotted. Less is more.
• Foreground your own contribution.

8. Write down a one paragraph
description of your research project

9. Style

10. General advice
• Voice
• Body language
• Pace
• Engage your audience

11. Deliver your paragraph to a
partner

12. II: Pitfalls

13. Pacing
• Too much material
• Belabouring things everyone in the audience
already knows
• Skipping over important material to get to the
best part
• Running out of time before saying the best
part
• Too many slides; too much on each slide

14. Style
• Talking too fast
• Talking too quietly
• Apologizing or making excuses or being
excessively self-deprecating
• Dealing with nerves

15. III: Answering questions

16. Positive advice
• Take a deep breath
• Take a moment to think
• Answer step-wise
• Separate and stress your most important
point(s)

17. Negative advice
• Say you don’t know and you’ll have to think about it
more
• Say you haven’t read a text or author the questioner is
referring to
• Ask for clarification or elaboration if you don’t
understand the question
• Clear up a misunderstanding if you think the
questioner has missed some part of your paper
• Explain that you’re using a paradigm or approach that
might be unfamiliar to the questioner
• Offer to give a fuller response later in a private
conversation

18. Modelling Q&A

19. IV: Using presentation software

20. Graphic presentation
Mainly black and white
High contrast
Lots of white space
Little or no animation or sounds

21. Graphic presentation
Large fonts
Not much text
Key points only

22. Lots and lots of irrelevant text that you can’t read anyway
because the background is horrible
STUFF! HAPPENING! A picture! Unrelated!
• A point I’m telling you
• Another way of saying the
point I’m telling you
• A paragraph randomly lifted
from my paper and put on the
screen so you are trying to
read as I say it.
• A reference to an article I’m
not currently talking about
• This font colour actually makes
me feel ill

23. Cognitive purpose
Stressing key points
An image, graph, or chart that supports
your case
Showing a structure for the
presentation

24. Questions?

25. Presentations 101:
Get Your Point Across
Dr. Cressida J. Heyes