How to give a dynamic scientific presentation

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Marilynn Larkin

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Convey your ideas and enthusiasm – and avoid the pitfalls that put audiences to sleep

Joann Halpern, PhD, moderates a panel at the German Center for Research and
Innovation in New York. (Photo by Nathalie Schueller)

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Giving presentations is an important part of sharing your work and achieving recognition
in the larger medical and scientific communities. The ability to do so effectively can
contribute to career success.

However, instead of engaging audiences and conveying enthusiasm, many presentations

fall flat. Pitfalls include overly complicated content, monotone delivery and focusing on
what you want to say rather than what the audience is interested in hearing.

Effective presentations appeal to a wide range of audiences — those who work in your
area of interest or in related fields, as well as potential funders, the media and others who
may find your work interesting or useful.

There are two major facets to a presentation: the content and how you present it. Let’s
face it, no matter how great the content, no one will get it if they stop paying attention.
Here are some pointers on how to create clear, concise content for scientific
presentations – and how to deliver your message in a dynamic way.

Presentation pointers: content

Here are five tips for developing effective content for your presentation:

1. Know your audience. Gear your presentation to the knowledge level and needs of the
audience members. Are they colleagues? Researchers in a related field? Consumers
who want to understand the value of your work for the clinic (for example, stem cell
research that could open up a new avenue to treat a neurological disease)?

2. Tell audience members up front why they should care and what’s in it for
them. What problem will your work help solve? Is it a diagnostic test strategy that
reduces false positives? A new technology that will help them to do their own work faster,
better and less expensively? Will it help them get a new job or bring new skills to their
present job?

Dr. Marius Stan with Vince Gilligan, creator, producer and head writer for Breaking Bad.

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3. Convey your excitement. Tell a brief anecdote or describe the “aha” moment that
convinced you to get involved in your field of expertise. For example, Dr. Marius Stan, a
physicist and chemist known to the wider world as the carwash owner on Breaking
Bad, explained that mathematics has always been his passion, and the “explosion” of
computer hardware and software early in his career drove his interest to computational
science, which involves the use of mathematical models to solve scientific problems.
Personalizing makes your work come alive and helps audience members relate to it on
an emotional level.

4. Tell your story. A presentation is your story. It needs a beginning, a middle and an
end. For example, you could begin with the problem you set out to solve. What did you
discover by serendipity? What gap did you think your work could fill? For the middle, you
could describe what you did, succinctly and logically, and ideally building to your most
recent results. And the end could focus on where you are today and where you hope to
go.

Donald Ingber, MD, PhD, Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired
Engineering at Harvard University, gives a keynote address at the Society for Laboratory
Automation and Screening’s 2015 conference and exhibition in Washington, DC. (Photo
courtesy of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening)
Start with context. Cite research — by you and others — that brought you to this
point. Where does your work fit within this context? What is unique about it? While
presenting on organs-on-chips technology at a recent conference, Dr. Donald
Ingber, Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at
Harvard, described the pioneering work of others in the field, touched on its impact,
then went on to show his unique contributions to the field. He did not present his
work out of context, as though his group were the only one achieving results.

Frame the problem: “We couldn’t understand why our experiment wasn’t working so
we investigated further”; “We saw an opportunity to cut costs and speed things up.”

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Prof. Doris Rusch, PhD, talks about creating games to mimic the struggles of anorexia
and the anxiety of OCD, at the 12th Annual Games for Change Festival in New York City.
(Photo by Gabi Porter)
Provide highlights of what you did, tied to the audience’s expertise and/or reasons
for attending your presentation. Present the highlights in a logical order. Avoid going
into excruciating detail. If people are interested in steps you don’t cover, they’ll ask
and you can expand during the Q&A period. A meeting I covered on educational
gaming gave presenters just 10 minutes each to talk about their work. Most used
three to five slides, making sure to include a website address for more information
on each slide. Because these speakers were well prepared, they were able to
identify and communicate their key points in the short timeframe. They also made
sure attendees who wanted more information would be able to find it easily on their
websites. So don’t get bogged down in details — the what is often more important
than the how.

Conclude by summing up key points and acknowledging collaborators and mentors.

Give a peek into your next steps, especially if you’re interested in recruiting
partners. Include your contact details and Twitter handle.

5. Keep it simple. Every field has its jargon and acronyms, and science and medicine
are no exceptions. However, you don’t want audience members to get stuck on a
particular term and lose the thread of your talk. Even your fellow scientists will appreciate
brief definitions and explanations of terminology and processes, especially if you’re
working in a field like microfluidics, which includes collaborators in diverse disciplines,
such as engineering, biomedical research and computational biology.

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I’ve interviewed Nobel laureates who know how to have a conversation about their work
that most anyone can understand – even if it involves complex areas such as brain
chemistry or genomics. That’s because they’ve distilled their work to its essence, and can
then talk about it at the most basic level as well as the most complicated. Regardless of
the level of your talk, the goal should be to communicate, not obfuscate.

Presentation pointers: you

Here are 10 tips to help you present your scientific work and leave the audience wanting
more.

1. Set the stage. Get your equipment ready and run through your slides if possible (use
the “speaker ready” room if one is available). If you’ve never been in the venue, try
getting there early and walk the room. Make sure you have water available.

2. Get ready to perform. Every presentation is a performance. The most important part
is to know your lines and subject. Some people advocate memorizing your presentation,
but if you do so, you can end up sounding stilted or getting derailed by an interruption.
When you practice, focus on the key points you want to make (note them down if it helps)
and improvise different ways of communicating them.

It’s well known that a majority of people fear public speaking — and even those who enjoy
it may get stage fright. Fear of public speaking will diminish with experience. I’ve been
presenting and performing for many years but still get stage fright. Try these strategies to
manage the fear:

Breathe slowly and deeply for a few minutes before your talk.

Visualize yourself giving a relaxed talk to a receptive audience. This works best if
you can close your eyes for a few minutes. If you’re sitting in the audience waiting to
be introduced and can’t close your eyes, look up at the ceiling and try visualizing
that way.

Do affirmations. Tell yourself you are relaxed, confident — whatever works for you.
Whether affirmations are effective is a matter of debate, but you won’t know unless
you try.

Assume one or more “power poses,” developed by social psychologist and dancer
Dr. Amy Cuddy of the Harvard Business School, before giving your presentation.
She demonstrates them in this TED talk. Power poses are part of the emerging field
of embodiment research (see a comprehensive collection of articles related to this
research in the journal Frontiers in Psychology). Research on power poses has
yielded mixed results to date, but they’re worth a try.

3. Stride up to the podium. Seeing you walk energetically energizes the audience. They
expect you to engage them and you have their attention.

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4. Stand tall and keep your chest lifted. It’s more difficult to breathe and speak when
your shoulders are rolled forward and your chest caves in. Standing tall is also a way of
conveying authority. If you’re presenting from a sitting position, sit up in your seat, keep
your arms relaxed and away from your sides (i.e., don’t box yourself in by clasping your
arms or clasping your hands in your lap).

5. Smile. Not only will you appear more relaxed if you smile, but research has shown that
smiling — even when forced — reduces stress. Plus the audience enjoys watching and
listening to someone who’s smiling rather than being stern or overly serious, especially if
your topic is complicated.

One of the most enjoyable presentations I’ve covered was on animal versus human
cognition. It dealt with the evolution and activation of different parts of the brain. By
inserting anecdotes in with complex didactic information, presenter Dr. Onur Güntürkün,
Professor of Biological Psychology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, made the
topic accessible and compelling.

6. Speak up. The audience came to your talk so they really do want to hear what you
have to say. If a microphone is available, use it. I’ve seen countless presenters stand in
front of a microphone yet somehow manage not to talk into it. Talk from your diaphragm,
not your throat, to give your voice authority and resonance.

7. Take your time. A moment or two of silence as you gather your thoughts or move to a
new topic can actually make the audience pay attention. Don’t feel you have to talk
continuously, and avoid filler phrases, such as “you know.”

8. Talk to the audience, not the screen. Making eye contact with one or more friendly
faces can relax you and help you connect to the audience. It will also prevent you from
reading your slides, which you don’t want to do unless absolutely necessary (for example,
if you forget the statistics supporting a particular point).

9. Stick to your time frame. We’ve all done it, but it’s not fun to have to cycle rapidly
through your last 10 slides because the moderator has given you a two-minute warning
and you’re nowhere near the end. Try to pace yourself. When preparing your slides and
practicing (i.e., rehearsing for your performance), make a note on the slide you think you
should be discussing when you’re about midway through your talk. This gives you a
benchmark and lets you know if you need to speed up or slow down the rest of the
presentation.

10. Don’t drift off at the end. I’ve seen people read their summary slide, then nod and
walk away. Instead, say “That concludes my presentation. Thank you for your attention.” If
appropriate, ask if there are any questions or tell the audience they will have an
opportunity to ask questions later.

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Six dos and don’ts of PowerPoint slides

1. Less is more. Although there are no “rules,” I’ve found that 20-25 slides work well for a
one hour presentation. You’ll have a better idea what works for you if you time yourself
during a practice session.

2. Create sections. Use a title slide to start a new section or change the subject. This will
also help you organize your presentation and make sure it flows logically.

3. Avoid clutter. Stick to three to five bullet points per slide at most. Bullet points should
contain key words — not complete sentences. For examples of what not to do, see this
recent editorial in the Washington Post, which urges a ban on PowerPoint presentations.

4. Make it readable. Rule of thumb for fonts: 28-40 point for headlines; 18-28 for text; 12-
14 for references. Use sans serif fonts, and make sure you have a strong contrast
between the background and text (e.g., black or dark blue text on a white background;
white text on a blue background). Don’t use ALL CAPS; underscore a point by putting it in
italics or bold (underlining can make the text more difficult to read).

5. Use visuals. In a recent talk, presenters explained why biological image processing
and analysis is a hot field in laboratory R&D. The reason is simple: you can tell a lot more
about cells with an image versus a cell count. The same is true of your presentation: a

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single image of something particularly relevant to your work is more engaging and has
the potential to convey more information than words.

That said, it’s important to keep the visual simple — an image of a single cell or pathway,
for example. If you use graphs to show comparisons or results, indicate what the axes
represent and which variables (ideally, not more than two or three) you’re displaying.

Generally, steer clear of videos. One of the few effective videos I’ve seen was of a
Caledonian crow creating a tool to obtain food, which Dr. Güntürkün included in the
presentation referred to above. Videos of in vitro experiments and imaging results rarely
help support a point because the low resolution makes everything look grainy.

6. Check your spelling. Nothing takes away from credibility like misspelled words,
especially if they’re up on large screen for a minute or more — or worse, repeated
throughout your presentation. After you use spell check, proof your presentation yourself.
Let a day go by if possible; it’s easier to pick up errors after a break.

Elsevier Connect Contributor

Marilynn Larkin
Marilynn Larkin is an award-winning science writer and editor who develops content
for medical, scientific and consumer audiences. She was a contributing editor to The
Lancet and its affiliated medical journals for more than 10 years and a regular contributor
to the New York Academy of Sciences' publications and Reuters Health's professional
newsfeed. She also launched and served as editor for of Caring for the Ages, an official
publication of the American Medical Directors Association. Larkin's articles also have
appeared in Consumer Reports, Vogue, Woman's Dayand many other consumer
publications, and she is the author of five consumer health books.

As a consultant on postural awareness and confidence building, Larkin has presented to

corporations and nonprofits and at regional and national meetings of, among others, the
American Society on Aging and National Council on Aging, the American College of

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