Laboratory for the Physics of Life Thomas Gregor, Professor of Physics, Princeton University

MOL 410/510 Home | Syllabus | Reading material | Homework & solutions | Notes for Presentations

Recommended organization of presentation:

â?¢ Title

â?¢ Brief Outline

â?¢ (Optional – “Hook” e.g. an anecdote, picture, or thought provoking question that stimulates interest in the subject.)

â?¢ Introduction – What is the background and significance? Previous results. Try to lead in to the problem to be addressed. â?¢ Results – Describe what was done, and what was found.

â?¢ Discussion – What are the implication of the results?

â?¢ Summary – What was the problem, what were the main results, and their implications?
Style suggestions: â?¢ “Less is more” – To keep the audience’s attention, use pictures and graphs but very few words on slides. The audience will then not have too much to read, and will be able to pay attention to the speaker.

â?¢ Future Directions – The next steps, and longer range goals, if the project was to be continued.

â?¢ Try to have each slide make one essential point. A good organization is to have the topic of the slide, or a short take-home message, at the top.

â?¢ Motivation is key. Try to always motivate the next slide, and motivate the steps taken in the research. A well organized talk flows like a story.

â?¢ Only show what you will discuss, and only discuss what you show. No busy slides with lots of material that doesn’t get mentioned.

â?¢ The one exception to “only discuss what you show” is always answer a question when it’s asked. Nothing wakes people up like a question getting an immediate answer (even if brief).

â?¢ Avoid jargon, and keep any symbols as intuitive and consistent as possible.

â?¢ Know your audience. Is everyone in your audience an expert? Or are they non-experts, so you have to introduce the topic more slowly? Be sure to introduce technical terms before using them, and try not to overwhelm the audience with technical details.

â?¢ Practice out loud. This will help your time-management. If you are rushed, you may not be able to deliver your final punch-lines with optimal effect. Don’t try to say too many things. Make the essential points clearly, and leave out the rest.

â?¢ Start out slowly. The audience will space out if the speaker starts out too fast. So start out slowly – later on when the audience is involved it’s ok to speed up some.

â?¢ Interact with your audience â?? make eye contact when possible with audience members, turning from on to another.

â?¢ Try to keep a uniform visual style, e.g. consistent font and color scheme. Only use PowerPoint tricks when it serves an important purpose. e.g. for showing a picture layer by layer. So the default should be to let the audience see the whole slide from the beginning.

â?¢ Try not to distract attention from the topic by walking around or moving around, though relevant gestures or physical demonstrations are good (i.e. using your hands to show how something changes in time is good, nervously bouncing up and down is bad,). Similarly don’t wear distracting clothing – plain colors are good, funny hats are right out