While I was at AAS, I attended a professional development workshop about giving effective oral presentations. The instructor was Jean-luc Doumont, author of the book Trees, Maps and Theorems: Effective Communication for Rational Minds, and an engineer who has a PhD in applied physics from Stanford. He went over how to structure your talks, how to get your message across, how to construct a good powerpoint, how to build confidence, and how to answer difficult questions. Giving effective oral presentations is something that many people, including myself, struggle with. I wanted to share some of the tips he gave; I found them extremely useful, and I am actually excited to give an oral presentation so I can put these tips into action!
The “What” vs. the “So What”: Doumont stressed the idea of getting across your message. He differentiated the message from the information. The information can be thought of as the “what”. The message is therefore the “so what”. One of the most useful things he said was to “maximize what the audience gets out of the presentation, not the information you put it.” I think it can be really tempting to put as much information into your presentation as possible, but it is more effective to parse out unnecessary information and concentrate on the “so what”, the motivation for your work. Your talks should always have a message.
The three rules of communication:
- Adapt to the audience: You need to be aware of who your audience is. Understand who you are addressing – is it a group of people in your field or a group outside your field?
- Maximize the “signal to noise” ratio: You want to maximize your message and get rid of noise. Noise can be things like fidgeting, cluttered powerpoints, too many “likes” or “ums”, or unnecessary graphics.
- Use effective redundancy (verbal and nonverbal): Don’t be afraid to make the same point a few times. In all likelihood, this will drive the point home, and not seem unnecessarily repetitive. Use both verbal and nonverbal methods to drive home your main message. Nonverbal methods includes writing it on your powerpoint, showing graphs, etc.
Steps to constructing a presentation:
- Planning: Gather your thoughts. Ask yourself the following questions. Why – What is the purpose of my presentation? Who – Who is my audience? When/Where - What are my time/space constraints? What – What did I do/What is the content of my presentation?
- Designing: Define the structure of your presentation. Start with an attention getter, i.e. something funny but relevant, an anecdote, picture, question. Tell the audience the motivation for your work up front. If they recognize the importance/the need for your work, they’ll be more likely to pay attention. Tell the audience what you did to address this need. Then put in the main message, the one sentence you want your audience to remember. This way, they will be aware of what they should be getting out of the presentation and will keep it in mind throughout your powerpoint.
- Creating your slides: Make slides for the audience, not for yourself. Only put one message per slide. A bad slide is worse than no slides; if it is a last minute presentation, forget the slides. Show stand alone slides, so that someone deaf could get the point. At the same time, speak a stand alone text, so that someone blind could get the point. Rehearse everything without slides. Make sure that you include the message for slides with graphs (i.e. why is this graph important?). Be concise.
- Delivery: Master all channels – verbal, vocal, and visual. Memorize the outline, but not the wording. Verbal - Eradicate filler words, and learn to value silences. Don’t be afraid to pause to gather your thoughts. Vocal - Adjust your tone, rate, and volume. Modulate to convey meaning, complexity, and importance. Visual – Project confidence by controlling your body. Ensure presence through strong eye contact.
- Questions: When taking questions, do not rush. Listen, repeat/rephrase, think, then answer. Be honest – if you don’t know the answer, say so. Also be helpful – tell them you will try to find the answer. If you get an aggressive question, take a pause to quiet the atmosphere. Then acknowledge their concern, but disagree with the opinion at the intellectual level.
Nervousness: Accept nervousness as a good thing! The adrenaline rush can actually make for a better presentation, since you are more aware. Nervousness comes from a fear of the unknown, so try to eliminate as many unknowns as possible. Make a connection with someone in the audience. Familiarize yourself with the room before presenting. Focus during the presentation – pace yourself, and breathe slowly. Finally, have a positive attitude, and visualize yourself succeeding!
I hope you guys find these tips as useful as I did! There are some online references on Jean-luc Doumont’s website, including webcasts, videos, slides, and handouts.
