Presentations

As the existing literature is vast and of high quality (see below), the tips and tricks on presentations are limited to major persistent pitfalls and some cool bonus items.

Story over slides

The main focus of any presentation should be the story. This relates to the mother of pitfalls in scientific presentations: Explaining slides instead of presenting a message. Hence, although it can be tempting to start playing around with PowerPoint from the start, try to put your PC aside and focus first on the message that you will try to convey. Slides are to support you, not the other way around...

Select key data

The second largest pitfall may be to (try to) include all your data/results in a short presentation. This may lead to a train weck of data reading in which your message will be surely lost. Instead, include the key data you need to prove your message or conclusion. This will make the story for you easier to tell and for others easier to follow.

Power of the pause

A useful trick for during presentations, and in discussions (and life) in general, is to use a pause. Using a pause in your speech enables you to think better and select the right words. After all, its better to speak well than to speak a lot...

Practice...

Although this one seems redundant, it is amazing how often it is forgotten to practice. A good presentation needs to be practiced in order to get the message delivering and timing right. Use your colleagues, friends, and family to try it out! You may even have some fun!

Slide numbers

A vital tip is to number your slides. This helps in answering questions of interested folks afterwards. They can simply name the slide number instead of ending up in tedious sessions of describing and searching for slides. In the latter scenario, you could use the trick to type 'g' in PowerPoint during the presentation: this enables to search more efficiently...

Slide look up

With the slide numbers in place, you can impress your audience by directly going the requested slide, instead of going through your entire slide deck. This can be achieved in PowerPoint by simply typing in the slide number followed by 'enter'. Try it out!

Presenter profiles

So many people, so many personalities. Hence, each person will tell a story in a different fashion, has different strengths, and may have to look out for different pitfalls. In each case, critically looking at yourself and asking feedback from others can help you to get the most out of yourself.

Car salesman

Although this type is less frequent in the scientific domain, you still encounter them: people that can deliver messages extremely well. This is of course a potential gift. However, this kind of profile has look out for overselling. Overselling may, especially within the scientific domain, lead to (undue or not) questioning of scientific strength.

Plain Jane

Especially junior scientist can be rather modest and reserved in the way they deliver their message. This is a shame as their beautiful results will not get the attention they deserve. The risk of giving a relatively dry presentation increases when too much data is shown. Here improvements can be made by focusing on the key data. In addition, highlighting the context and value of your results may help to excite your audience (and yourself!).

Nervous scientist

Nervousness is typical for many presenters and occurs frequently within the scientific domain. Here perfectionism can make a person even more nervous. For this kind of profile it is instrumental to practice the talk and to limit the data in order not to have to rush. For perfectionists, it helps to realize that you will never be able to please (the majority of) the crowd anyways...

Styles geographically

Within the international context, different presenter styles are present. For example, In the American domain the value and selling of the message is very strong. In Europe, the focus is more on the results, and underselling of data occurs frequently. Presenters from Asia can be more monotonous during their presentations. In some cases, one can adjust based on the audience location...

black or white the screen

A final tip: Using the letters 'b' or 'w' the screen in Powerpoint can be blacked or whited our completely. This may be of use before you start. Be aware that depending on the language these letters may be different.