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Handy Presentation Tips

jzarnett:

In 2009, I attended a research conference in Calcutta (Kolkata), I admit I learned a great deal about presenting from the other delegates. 

1) Make sure your slides are very dense and have reams of text on them. Every slide needs at least five bullet points on it. Presentations are a bullet-point delivery device. Profreading optoinal.

2) Accordingly, the best way to deliver the information on the slides, is to read them word-for-word to your audience.

3) Make sure to mumble in monotone and race through each slide - your audience is much less likely to ask difficult questions if they spend their time struggling to understand what your talk is about.

4) It almost goes without saying, but bears repeating: Do not make eye contact with your audience. That gesture can be misunderstood. To demonstrate your humility and politeness, make sure to look away from the audience - at the screen, at the computer, or, if all else fails, at the floor. 

5) Figures and images are undesirable and should be kept very small so that the audience can’t make them out. Alternatively, use a lot of words to describe your concept instead of using a picture. Tell, don’t show. 

6) Tables, however, are very desirable, and make sure to cover a few slides in dense tables. Audiences hate excerpts, summaries, and graphs, because they don’t see the full picture or raw data. 

7) Animations - any slide that does not have at least one animation is lacking its most important component. More is, of course, better. Bonus points if the slide template draws brightly-coloured borders around each and every slide.

8) Take all the time you want - your assigned speaking time may safely be ignored. Nobody will call you on it. Your talk is very important - much more so than the other talks scheduled on that day. 

9) The slides “THANK YOU!!!” and “QUESTIONS???” at the end of your talk are very important. The more exclamation marks after the Thank You, the more favourably the audience will remember your talk. Likewise, the more question marks after the Questions, the higher the quality of questions you will receive. 

10) Under no circumstances practice your talk. Practice shows, and you want it to seem natural and not rehearsed.

11) Never move from the podium and/or the computer. You may need to change the currently-displayed slide at any time. You just never know.

12) Audiences love laser pointers. Make sure to move the red dot around the screen wildly while you read the slides. Never use your hands to point at anything.

13) When asked questions, be sure to give a long, vague, rambling answer. That will teach the asker. He or she won’t do that again.

14) Most importantly - remember that the slides are the most important part of what’s going on. Your only purpose is to provide an excuse to show the slides on the screen. Nobody’s really paying attention to your voice.