Presentation Post-Mordem

I liked the page Lee linked to so much that I decided to evaluate my presentation using these guidelines.

Slides

"A slide with more than 12 words on it is usually counterproductive."

I had 18 slides - 9 with text, 9 with graphs (and a title). The average words per text slide was 23.6, and only one slide had fewer than 12 words. So my slides were definitely too text-dense by this standard.

I admit, some of my favorite presentations of the past have been ones that included a title slide and graph slides, but that required me to be super-extremely comfortable with my research and my audience.

"Resort to text only where illustrations fail you."

I have never attempted to use (nor have I heard recommended) illustrations in place of text. I'm not sure what illustration would say something like "attitude certainty" to either me or my audience. Hmm. This might be a hard one to follow, but it would be fun to try it and see how far I can take it.

"Examine your unconscious belief that the purpose of slides is to remind you what to say."

I have to disagree vehemently with him here - there is nothing unconscious about this belief for me. Several of my slides got text added when I realized I just didn't have time/energy to remember as much as I'd hoped I would. I knew it was "bad" but did it anyway because I felt I needed the crutch. I do wish we could get back to using index cards as prompts, but I have no idea how that would come off because I've never seen anyone do it.

I also am skeptical about the idea that "some presentation programs let you write notes that appear only on your laptop screen" is helpful during the presentation. In my experience, Powerpoint shows the same thing on your laptop as it does on the projected display, so while the notes can help you when practicing, I don't think it helps when presenting - am I wrong about this? (Later he says not to look at your laptop screen when talking anyway, so what's the deal?)

My text was also smaller than recommended and had serifs. But I did make pretty good use of the space on the slide, though it could be better.

Organization

"What is the one big idea that you want people to leave your talk with?"

My first version of this presentation to my research group made it clear that people did not fully understand how crazy and counter-intuitive one set of results were, nor how very surprisingly well the other set of results provided evidence for the novel underlying mechanism. I think I did a good job of making these points clear in the final version of the talk.

The Talk

I practiced as much as I could, and I think it was basically enough, but I was not prepared to be thrown off a bit by the time-keeper's indication that I had reached the 10 minute mark just as I was bringing up a series of complicated slides that I had changed around at the last minute. That part could have been better, though I was able to fall back on a reasonably well-developed ability to talk myself through it.

"I really, truly despise laser pointers, but this is because most people use them badly."

I hate using them and just refuse to do so. Wrong or not, I prefer to just point at things with this old-fashioned technology called "my finger."

"Another way speakers make themselves look goofy is by staring at their laptops' screens while speaking."

After putting those extra words on the screen to remind myself what to say, I only looked at the slides with text on them when the new slide came up. I talked to the audience, except when I needed to look at the graphs and point things out. I think that worked pretty well.

"If the talk is important enough (e.g. a job talk), have your spiel memorized for the first few slides, so you get a smooth start no matter how flustered and tired you are."

I did this and am glad that I did. I don't think I recited my prepared words verbatim, but having practiced saying the same basic thing on the first two slides more times kept me calm because I knew I wouldn't freeze, allowed me to talk directly to the audience, and ensured that I made a fluent series of connections that was important for understanding what the hell I was doing.

"Any thought regarding whether the audience approves of you or not is the worst place to put your mental focus. It's like beseeching God to make you a loser."

Hah, yes, I did refuse to view the presentation as an opportunity to be judged, and I think it was an excellent idea.

"Perhaps the best place to focus your attention is on the sensations in your own body."

I'm not sure I agree with this advice. I can see the argument he's making, but I can also see it back-firing for someone who is experiencing anxiety as they get started.

This being said, I do like to practice my presentations at least once in front of a full-length mirror, and I did that the day of this presentation in my bedroom, after I got my full kit on. However, I did not really focus on myself physically during the presentation at all. It's hard to say where my attention was, actually. It seems like I just talked to people and did physically whatever seemed natural.

After the presentation, one of my fellow students asked me, "So, how did you feel up there?" Not knowing where she was going with this, I thought a moment and said, "I felt fine." "I ask that because you looked really relaxed," she said. I am going to take that as a good thing.

"Never meta-comment on your speaking."

I didn't do this, but I can see how easily it could happen. This is a good piece of advice to remember for future talks.

"Always end your talk by saying “Thank you.” It is not pretentious—you are doing the audience a favor. If you do not cue the audience so they know when to applaud, they will be confused and irritated."

We were encouraged to have a concluding thank you slide where we list people we'd like to acknowledge, so everyone did the thanks-applause ritual.

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Now that the presentation is over, I do look forward to seeing the feedback from the professors in the audience. I felt like the talk went well, but it's hard to gauge whether I was really making sense to everyone, avoided distracting idiosyncratic body language, etc.