Effective Technical Presentations

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Cite presentations just like documents.

DISCLAIMER: Slides 7-12 of this presentation come from Virginia Tech’s “The Craft of Scientific Presentation” (a product of the Virginia Tech Engineering Education Department). These slides are marked with an icon in their lower right-hand corner and are used with permission. The presentation’s internet link is http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/ handbook/presvisuals.html.

Overview of Topics

1. Speakers’ obvious knowledge of content

2. Noticeable enthusiasm

3. Eye contact

4. Logical organization

5. Useful, attractive slide designs

6. Suitably formal speech

Always include an overview/outline! ↑

Effective speakers must know their content.

Structure andSpeech

Delivery

•This means study & practice.

•Your knowledge should be apparent.

•Experts should be gracious.

•No one knows everything – “I don’t know...”

Be noticeably enthusiastic!

What do you achieve by being enthusiastic?

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1. Capture attention

2. Instill confidence

3. Convey confidence

4. Increase retention

What do you communicate with eye contact?

1. Confidence

2. Preparation

3. Trustworthiness

4. Authority

Your eyes can also gauge your audience.

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Organize logically.1. Beginning

2. Middle

3. Ending

1. Introduction

2. Body

3. Conclusion

Organize logically (cont.).

1. Overview

2. Introduction

3. Theory

4. Equipment & Setup

5. Data / Results

6. Conclusions

…and so on…

Readers expect beginning, middle, & end – anticipate & use this.

Choose a format that is easy to read.

Arial

BOOK ANTIQUA

Choose legible type

Choose a helpful layoutwordswordswordswords

wordswordswords

words

Color can distinguisha presentation.

Color affects how fastthe audience can read.

The color combination that is read most quickly is black on yellow.

Color affects how fastthe audience can read.

What is important is that the combination has contrast—the one on this slide fails to do so.

Color affects how fastthe audience can read.

Combinations of red, green, and brown are difficult for many people to read.

Color affects the emotionsof the audience.

Avoid having a hot color such as red or orange as your background color.

What font sizes are effective for slides?12-point

16-point

20-point

24-point

28-point

32-point

36-point

40-point

44-point

48-point

52-point

56-point

???

How should you fix this?Table 3: Total Purchase Cost of

EquipmentTable 3: Total Purchase Cost of

EquipmentTable 3: Total Purchase Cost of

Equipment

Avoid certain excesses in slide design.

1. Avoid using too much animation.

2. Avoid putting too much text on one slide (just make more slides).

3. Avoid changing fonts, sizes, and colors inconsistently or without reason.

Strive for professional diction and delivery.

“uh…”

•Use concrete words.

•Be as specific as possible.

•Avoid slang, nonfluencies, & multiple interpretations.

Why do we say uh?

Strive for professional diction and delivery (cont.).

•Enunciate – open your mouth.

•Be loud enough.

•Avoid monotone – be polytone.

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Miscellaneous closing advice

•Provide smooth, audible transitions between speakers (“And now Stacy will discuss the experiment itself.”).

•If you have a clicker, let each speaker control it; if not, work out an efficient system to advance slides before your talk.

Miscellaneous closing advice (cont.)

•Handouts and other tactile visual aids can help tremendously with attention and retention.

•Avoid blocking any part of the screen or any audience member’s line of sight.

•In engineering, using notes/note cards is often considered unprofessional.

Miscellaneous closing advice (cont.)

•No matter what happens – verbal mistake, memory lapse, teammate breakdown, power outage – find a way to keep the presentation moving ahead.

Questions?

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