Instructions and Suggestions for an Effective Scientific Presentation

Time: Length of your oral presentation will be 10 min and additional 5 min for questions. In general

10 to 25 slides would fit to this time window, depending on your style and fluency of your

presentation.

General Format

Title slide: Includes the name of the project, your name, advisors name, address as “Department of

Chemistry, University of Sri Jayewardenepura”, and date. The title should be in large

font, descriptive, but concise.

* There is no need of having a slide with the outline of your talk.

Introduction: You should clearly state the problem that you tried to solve, or the new ideas,

methods or any new chemistry that you tried to discover, or the proofs that you

tried to establish. You should note the background work that has led up to the

current status of your research. The background should then lead to declarations of

your specific project aims and objectives.

Theory or Methods: Explains the basis of the techniques that you are using or the procedures that

you have adopted in your study. You should also state and justify any

assumptions, so that your results can be viewed in the proper context.

Results: Show illustrative examples of the main results and/or products of your work.

* Depending on the nature of your research project, you may integrate the method and results

together.

Conclusions: Discusses the main findings of your investigation and their value.

Future Work: Contains your recommendations and thoughts about how the work could be

continued. What are possible long-term goals or outcomes?

Acknowledgments: Make it brief.

Planning and Preparation of Slides

Plan!..Plan!!....Plan!!!

In planning, think about the what, why, and how of the work that you have done. The approach

that you have taken and the results that you have obtained.

Organize your results. Elaborate or trim your experiments, results, and findings as appropriate

for a better flow of logic. Properly link the facts, ideas in sections and making transitions from

one section to the next without interrupting the flow.

It is OK to leave some information and results out of the presentation to preserve the integrity of

your presentation, but not to mislead the audience. Keep the supporting information handy (at

the end of your presentation or as a separate presentation or hyperlinked to the relevant slides

of your presentation), because you may refer to them when asked.

Create your presentation to be appropriate to the audience. You don’t have to describe the very

basics of your chemistry.

Use a simple background template that doesn’t distract the content of the slide.

Don’t use flashy background colors or font colors. Do not use colors just to impress.

Try to use one template throughout the presentation. Careful with selecting templates with side

or title bar, because they limit the free space for your presentation content.

Choose background and foreground color combinations that have high contrast and

complement each other. It is better to keep the background light, as people are used to it

(newspapers and books). Never change the background color from black to light during the

presentation which strongly distracts the audience.

Include appropriate title to each slide. If the same title continues for several slides, you can

include “Contd” after the title.

Keep the titles and headings in title case.

Always try to lineup the information in bulleted phrases. If it is impossible to use point form,

then use very short sentences.

Use large enough fonts (text, 20-24 pts; subheadings, 24-28 pts; headings, 28-32 pts would be

appropriate for the span of C3 lecture theater) so that back of the audience can clearly see the

content.

Use eye friendly font style. (i.e. Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic Book, Gill Sans MT)

Times New Roman is not a good eye friendly font for presentations. Do not use more than two

font types.

As you know picture tells thousand words, always try to use highly relevant as well as

professional looking pictures, diagrams, tables, and graphs to elaborate your slides. However,

do not overcrowd the slides with phrases, sentences and pictures. Also, especially in results, do

not overload the slides with information, which is hard to follow and confuse the audience.

Graphs, tables and figures requires caption in addition to the slide title.

Selection of the appropriate type of graph for your data is very important. Annotations should

be large enough, and the lines of line-graphs should be thick enough to view from a distance.

Use contrasting colored lines or different line styles to distinguish between different lines in

multi-line graphs. Multi-line plots or plots with more than one variable should have a legend

relating the plotted variable to the color or style of the line.

Clipart should only be used if they add interest to the display and complement the subject

matter. Otherwise, all they do is distract attention from the focus of the presentation.

Equations should be kept to a minimum. Present only the necessary and important equations.

If you want to highlight or emphasize some information you can either use bold letters, different

font color (restrict to one (or two colors to emphasize and differentiate at the same time)

distinctly different color(s)), or underline as appropriate to the context. Do not use a different

font or UPPERCASE to highlight important information.

Be very careful about using fancy slide-transition and animations. It is a good idea not to use

slide transitions unless it is very necessary. For the most part, they do not add value or

excitement to your presentation, but distract the audience. Mindfully customize the animations

to improve the quality of your talk. But be simple. Slow and fancy animations waste your time

and disturb the focus of the audience.

Always include relevant references (one or two) at the bottom of each slide (standard ACS

format with maximum of two authors, font size 16-20, center aligned). It is not a good practice

to include a long list of references at the end of the presentation. No one pays attention on it.

You must follow standard scientific conventions such as SI units, correct number of significant

figures, biological and IUPAC names, etc. Refer to the dissertation writing guidelines.

It is extremely important not to have any mistakes of any kind in your slides. These mistakes

make you nonprofessional and seriously affect your project evaluation. Therefore check and

proofread your slides as many times as possible for grammatical, spelling (careful about MS

office autocorrect), data, and technical term errors.

Maintain the consistency in each slide; i.e. font size, font color, font style, table style, figure

style, line color, line size, auto shape, alignment, line spacing etc. Inconsistent styles interrupt

the fluency of your presentation.

E.g Use the same font style, size, color, alignment for the titles in each slide.

Include the slide number in the footer of the slides. This will enable audience to locate question

points.

Review!..Review!!....Review!!!

When Preparing for the Presentation

Practice!.. Practice!!.... Practice!!!

Take your location from where you can see the slides as well as the audience. Do not interrupt

the slide show projection or the slides from the audience.

Greet the audience saying like, good morning ladies and gentlemen (at the beginning), thank

you for your attention (at the end) etc.

Keep eye contact with the maximum span of the audience as possible. This makes audience feel

that you are very confident.

Introduce the subject. Clearly state the subject (title) of your presentation and introduce your

presentation in few main points. But, do not read the list off a slide.

Do not give your presentation to the screen, to ceiling of the room, or to the stage. At least

about 75% of time of your presentation, you must face to the audience. Never show your back

to the audience.

Do not read what’s in the slides. Let the audience read the slides (that’s why they are there)

and you deliver your presentation by using what in the slides as a guide and also you guide the

audience on what they have to focus in the slides.

Explain graphs, tables and figures. Again, draw attention of the audience to the key points,

trends, and comparisons etc.

Be clear and concrete. To show this skill, use phrases like; what is very significant is that..., what

is important to remember..., I'd like to emphasize the fact that..., let's take an example, as we

saw in slide xx..., what I've tried to show in this part..., what I tried to bring out..., what you need

to focus on...

Speak up. Speak loud and clear to propagate your voice toward far corners of the room.

Transitions between sections must be clear. Take a short pause, relax, and have some

refreshment (a sip of water). If your research comprised of two or more discrete areas of

research or you followed distinctly different approaches to achieve the same research goal, keep

the audience informed at the transition.

Manage your time. Do not spend too much time on introduction. Spend only 20-30 % of

allocated time on introduction. And the rest is for the actual research. Spend one or two

minutes to revise and conclude the presentation.

It is extremely important to restrict to your presentation within ±1 min of given time.

Manage your body language. This includes eye contact, facial expressions, posture, movements,

gesture etc. Be very enthusiastic and energetic. Body language is very important to maintain

the interest of the audience, to emphasize your point and to regulate your presentation and to

show your confidence to the audience.

Dress appropriately with a formal attire to give you a professional look.

Be serious of yourself and ask your friends, colleagues, and advisor for their honest and critical

opinions.

Ultimately, the design of your oral presentations is a personal matter and different individuals will

have different views on how to best present certain information. Nevertheless, take these

generalized instructions to guide you towards a successful scientific research presentation.

Have fun showing off your good work!!!