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.
Interesting – what was the reaction from the audience?
That is interesting. What made you decide to change your presentation style? It's always exciting trying new things. Do you think you'll do it this way again?
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).
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 🙂
Thank you 🙂 🙂
When writing a press release about research we go through a similar process, by reversing the order of the scientific paper: we start with the conclusions and work our way back from there. In our line of work, the 'so what'-question is most important, maybe this blog (Dutch) has some pointers for presentations as well:http://roymeijer.weblog.tudelft.nl/2011/01/29/nou-en