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Another presentation style

Last Wednesday, I gave a presentation about my research. Usually, I follow the same consecutive steps in my presentation (overview – background/ literature review – experiments – results  – conclusions), just as I would build up a paper.
This time, however, I opted for a different style, and I think it also worked towards bringing a coherent story. I tried to follow the logic of a mathematical proof (theorem – proof – consequences) this time. Here’s a brief overview of how I structured my talk:

1. Overview
I still start my presentations with an overview slide – maybe one day I’ll also drop that and find a more natural way to start. I’d love to hear suggestions for that.


2. Recommendations
After the introduction, I immediately summed up the recommendations we’ve developed based on my research; and I treated this as the theorem to be proven.



3. Tools we used
As a background, I briefly introduced the experimental setup and the database from the literature I’ve compiled. These are the key elements to my proof, and in all further slides I heavily leaned on proof and data pulled from the experimental results and the database.


4. Proof for the recommendations
 This part was the largest chunk of the presentation. I took the audience by the hand (or at least, tried to do so) and walked them through the evidence for my recommendations.


5. Consequences
In one of the final stages, I showed the implications of the recommendations; and the results for 8 cases of solid slab bridges.

6. Outlook
Which questions are still open? What are we working on now? In a final slide, I pointed towards the future.

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This Post Has 6 Comments
  1. I was just wondering what would be the best way to bring my story. Usually, I start from an old presentation, keep some slides, throw out some and add some. This time, I started with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, and I asked myself: 'What is my message\”, and \”How would I tell this to someone\”. That's how I ended up trying it out in a different way. And yes, I like changing things around and trying out what works best.Also, I think the audience (a technical committee) received it well – at least, I got very useful questions and had some good conversations afterwards as well (which made me feel very inspired).

  2. Yes it was one of your best presentations that i have attended. I really liked it and the whole time i was thinking that this is completely new style – It was very engaging 🙂

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