1. Control the attention of your audience

During a presentation, you want the audience to pay close attention to what you say. In those few minutes, you have complete control over what your audience hears and sees. However, you may also use this time to influence what your audience thinks.

• Tell a story. Even adults love to hear stories that have a beginning, middle, and an end. In the beginning, story-tellers introduce their characters (the issue), they give us some general information about the characters and their situation (background about the issue), and include foreshadowing that lets us know where the story is going (thesis statement or scientific question). In the middle, the story-teller brings these characters into a new situation that involves action and consequence (experimental design, evidence, data, arguments). In the end, the story-teller resolves the situation and tells us what happens to the characters in the future (solutions, what do we do from here).

• Give your audience a clear synopsis of your points at the beginning, at each transition, and at the end. Many people cannot retain lots of new information at once. In order to make your points more effectively, make sure you repeat your main points at least three times. As a general rule,

Tell your audience what you are going to tell them (beginning),
Tell them (middle),
Then tell your audience again what you told them (end).

• Practice your transitions. Story-tellers lead you to the next scene with anticipation and suspense, which allows your mind time to consider the possibilities before giving them away. Think about putting a blank or picture slide in between major sections of your talk during your transition, or leave the last slide up while you transition into the next section. Don't let your visual aids tell you where you are going next. Avoid putting up the first slide of your next section before you've fully introduced the section to your audience. Invariably, your audience will begin to read/interpret/analyze the slide before you are ready for them to do so.

• Maximize eye contact. Eye contact suggests confidence, and confident people have a great influence on people's opinions. When someone thinks that you are speaking to them individually, s/he will pay more attention to what you are saying.

• Speak with authority. Before your presentation, make sure to identify the places where you are unsure and focus your preparations there. During your presentation, tell the audience what you want them to understand (don’t ask them), and don't downplay or oversell your knowledge. Someone who speaks with authority often convinces people that their words are correct even if they are not.

• If you use a Powerpoint presentation (or equivalent computer-based presentation), keep it very simple and straightforward. Animation and multiple colors is fun, but often distracting -- you want the audience to focus on the meaning of your slides, not the slides themselves.

• Wear non-distracting clothing. You want the audience to remember you for what you said, not for what you looked like.

• A picture/figure is worth one thousand words. Reduce the number of words you have on each slide. Do not use complete sentences -- instead, use bullets with a word or two to give the audience a general guideline to follow as they listen to your words with their ears. As a general rule, 50% of all of your visuals should be word slides (e.g. of a presentation of 40 slides, less than 20 should be pure word slides).

2. Entertain your audience -- give them a reason to stay

• Be excited! Your audience will remember much more of what you say if they are having fun during your presentation! Show your audience WHY your data are important!

• Don't read your script. Audiences will lose attention rapidly if you do this. You will lose their support.

• Talk to your audience, not to your slide. Your voice needs to project to the back of the room – if you are talking to the slide, then your audience may not hear you (and will get bored).

• Practice your talk to colleagues, friends, family. Get the timing right. Good presenters are also good entertainers. Make sure your presentation is lively, organized, and interesting.

•. Multimedia presentations work best. Diversity your presentation with visual aids in addition your words. Like kids, people in your audience will enjoy looking at different types of visual aids in addition to hearing your interpretation of them.

3. Allow your audience to easily understand you

•. Speak loud enough so the back of the audience can hear you. If you have any doubt about this, make sure to ask the folks in the back -- they will appreciate your concern!

• Speak slow enough so that your audience has time to understand what you are saying.

• In preparing your slides, use light text on dark background. Avoid putting red and green together so that those red-green color-blind folks in your audience can follow you!

•. Explain all of your legends, scales, and axes in your figures FIRST before you make your point.

• Minimize Ums, You Knows, and Likes. These get annoying over time.

This page last updated: March 8, 2002