Ten Tips for Presenting Science

By Bob Murray, PhD, FACSM

After more than 30 years of giving and listening to scientific presentations, I’ve developed a half-decent sense for what separates a good presentation from a bad one. This short list of presentation tips is based upon the mistakes I’ve made over the years and those I’ve witnessed others make.

After more than 30 years of giving and listening to scientific presentations, I’ve developed a half-decent sense for what separates a good presentation from a bad one. This short list of presentation tips is based upon the mistakes I’ve made over the years and those I’ve witnessed others make. These tips apply regardless of the scientific sophistication of the audience.

1. Stay left. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but if you have the choice, plant yourself on the left side of the screen (the audience’s left) so that the audience’s eyes can easily move left to right – from you to your slide content.
2. Stay put. Your slide content should be the center of the audience’s attention, not you. Speakers who fidget in one spot or pace the stage distract the audience’s attention from their slides. It’s fine to change positions from time to time, but once you move, stay put for at least five minutes. “Stay put” means just that: plant your feet and don’t move them.
3. State your conclusions up front (and at the end.) There’s useful wisdom in the old adage about presentations: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, then tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” Scientific presentations – even short ones – need not follow the same format as research articles where the conclusions are unveiled toward the end of the paper. Audiences appreciate knowing where you’re heading right from the start so that they can continually judge for themselves if the scientific evidence you present supports your conclusions.
4. Your presentation should tell a story. The presenter’s job is to lead the audience by the figurative hand from the beginning of the presentation to its logical end. Each audience contains a few people who are inherently interested because they’re familiar with the topic. Your presentation isn’t for those people; it’s for the majority of the audience who are sitting there thinking, “Why should I care about this topic?” Your job is to explain why they should care. Begin your talk with a clear explanation of its relevance and build a coherent narrative from there, using your slides to complement the story.
5. Put why before how. In explaining the results of research projects, tell the audience why you did the project the way you did it before you tell them how you did it. Otherwise, the audience will jump to conclusions about why they think you used the experimental approach you chose.
6. Know your audience. Science-speak is appropriate at scientific meetings where your audience has similar backgrounds and interests to yours. In fact, it’s ofteneasier to rely on science-speak than it is to find ways to communicate scientific concepts in simpler, yet still accurate language. However, throughout the careers of most scientists, there are likely to be more occasions that require the latter than the former, so spend time finding ways to avoid complexity in favor of simplicity. When speaking to an audience with mixed backgrounds – some more scientifically sophisticated than others – shoot for the middle ground. Learn ahead of time about the professional backgrounds of the audience and weave into your talk examples they find relevant.
7. Build from simple to complex. A scientific presentation isn’t an excuse for a brain dump to show people how smart you are. Sure, scientific presentations contain slides with complicated information, but help the audience understand the complexity by starting simple and building from there. This advice holds even when presenting research results at a scientific meeting. Your audience will be interested in the answers to very simple questions: Why did you conduct this research? What was your hypothesis? How did you test the hypothesis? What are the results and how did you interpret them?
8. Simplify your slides. Your slides are as important to the audience as you are, so make your slides come alive by conveying critical content in simple ways, using your remarks to fill in the blanks. Five suggestions to keep in mind:
   1. One clear photo on a slide usually beats multiple photos, regardless of how cool you think a group of photos looks.
   2. One graph is typically superior to multiple graphs when the latter can be avoided. When it can’t, do what you can to simplify the content.
   3. Avoid tables like the plague; tables are difficult to follow under the best of circumstances.
   4. Make it easy for the audience to understand the important aspects of complicated slides by highlighting the key message as a short phrase at the top of the slide.
   5. Keep text – and particularly sentences – to a minimum.
   6. For text slides, don’t read the slide content; your audience is capable ofdoing that for themselves. Your job is to provide a voiceover that complements the slide content with related information.
9. Drop the laser pointer. Even people seated in the first few rows have a difficult time tracking the movement of a herky-jerky laser pointer that scoots around the screen, appearing and disappearing like a demented lightening bug. Use the many options PowerPoint provides to highlight key elements of the slide and keep those highlights consistent throughout your presentation. In other words, if you use a yellow oval to highlight a key section of a slide, stick with yellow ovals throughout so that the audience quickly becomes accustomed to that convention.
10. Keep an eye on the audience. Look at different sections of the audience throughout your talk for at least 15 seconds before turning your gaze elsewhere. Basic stuff, but it’s important to maintain a connection with the audience so that you can gauge their level of attention and alter your talk accordingly.