Chattering too much during scientific presentations serves only to harm your overall message.Credit: Getty
I have a new mentor: my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson. Like many toddlers, he rambles continuously, with little concern as to whether anyone understands him. It struck me that, if a toddler uses language in this way, it’s no surprise that scientific presentations — which I focus on in my job as a presentation coach — can themselves be overly detailed and undecipherable. A toddler’s loquaciousness creeps into many scientific talks — perhaps it’s an instinct we don’t completely outgrow.
This might explain why making scientists aware of the problem isn’t enough to correct it. Many complain about excessive detail in colleagues’ presentations but fail to address the issue in their own. The desire to insert one more overly detailed slide seems irresistible. Presenters need specific steps that limit the scope of their talks and eliminate the instinct to ramble on.
Based on 20 years of experience teaching presentation techniques at many research institutions, I’ve developed some strategies to disrupt this tendency. These four steps will help scientists to create clearer, more-concise presentations.
Write a simple narrative first
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Before creating slides, write down the main points you hope to communicate. These might include an overarching question, the reason that question is important, your key results and any remaining issues. Try to connect the points into a smooth half-page narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Your narrative is the foundation on which you can develop talks of varying lengths. Longer talks might contain more supporting data and detail, but still need to be based on a few key points. Audiences are much more likely to ‘lose the flow’ during a lengthy, data-rich talk than a short one.
A tip for those who struggle with writing: you could use an abstract for a journal article as your starting point, then try to make it more conversational, with a continuous flow.
Whether you have a journal article or not, realize that the audience will remember few, if any, specific slides the day after your talk. So, when constructing your narrative, think about the two or three main ideas you hope they will remember. These can constitute the centrepiece of the narrative, supplemented with appropriate introductory and concluding material.
Practise with two types of listener
First, try out your narrative, without the slides, on someone who works in your field. They might identify issues that have not occurred to you.Then think about the breadth of your target audience and try the narrative out on a scientist in that audience whose speciality has the least amount of overlap with your own.
If these listeners express confusion, that is better than if they are polite and keep quiet. Don’t respond by chattering like a toddler. Instead, prod them to articulate what they don’t understand. It’s easier, more efficient and less intimidating to revise the organization of your talk before designing slides.
Build up, don’t cut down
Use your narrative to create a 5-minute presentation, with slides. Then ask, what extra slides would comprise a 10-minute session? Keep adding material in small increments until you reach the actual time allocated for your talk. Always use your narrative as the basis for deciding what to include and, more importantly, what not to include.
Build up your slides, too
Each slide should have an overarching message that explains an aspect of the narrative. The slide title should be that message or consist of words that help to convey it.
Work out the message and title first. Then include the minimum amount of information or data needed to validate the message. Consider adding detail if it strengthens the message and the slide remains comprehensible, but err on the side of simplicity. Audience members who want to know more can contact you subsequently.
For example, the initial draft of a slide could show a bar chart of numbers of clinical trials in each of the past ten years. After examining it, you might feel that the slide is simple enough to divide each bar into categories such as ‘cancer’, ‘heart disease’ and ‘stroke’. If not, then a later set of slides could show more-detailed information.
You might find it useful to sketch slides by hand initially. This helps to maintain focus on each slide’s overall purpose, rather than allowing yourself to be diverted by font sizes and other layout details, especially if you aren’t fluent in using presentation software. Coming up with purposeful slides is the top priority.
This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged.
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests.