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Rethinking Scientific Presentations: Slide Design and Delivery

Part 1: Rethinking Scientific Presentations: The Assertion-Evidence Approach

00:00:08.13 As a research scientist,
00:00:11.03 think about how little time you spend presenting
00:00:16.20 against how much time you spend
00:00:19.11 working in the lab or on your computations.
00:00:24.08 You might give one presentation at a conference
00:00:29.18 for 20 minutes,
00:00:31.22 or you might give a colloquium at your institution
00:00:34.13 for 50 minutes.
00:00:37.28 The question comes:
00:00:40.03 how do you make that time as effective as possible
00:00:44.04 to represent all the work that you've done?
00:00:47.25 This film focuses on that question.
00:00:51.08 And in particular, this film pays a lot of attention
00:00:55.09 to the slides that you create for that presentation.
00:01:00.09 Now, you might ask, why?
00:01:02.02 And one thing that I have found
00:01:05.14 in my 30 years of researching scientific presentations
00:01:10.14 is that slides make more of a difference for the success
00:01:14.20 -- and I would say more often the downfall --
00:01:18.10 of scientific presentations
00:01:21.11 than people realize.
00:01:23.08 First, when you're creating slides,
00:01:25.26 you make important decisions:
00:01:28.02 what information you're going to include,
00:01:30.23 and equally important,
00:01:33.22 what information you're going to leave out.
00:01:36.07 And of that information that you include,
00:01:38.07 you also make decisions...
00:01:40.16 what am I going to emphasize,
00:01:42.19 perhaps by putting on the slide,
00:01:44.13 and what am I going to de-emphasize
00:01:47.25 by folding into your speech?
00:01:50.20 A second way that slides affect a presentation's success
00:01:56.04 occurs in the delivery.
00:01:58.18 Sadly, many presenters use PowerPoint's defaults
00:02:05.14 and spend so much of their delivery
00:02:09.01 turning, reading or paraphrasing a bullet on the slide,
00:02:13.24 turning back to the audience,
00:02:16.12 then turning, reading or paraphrasing,
00:02:19.06 then turning back.
00:02:21.03 And that rhythm
00:02:24.05 -- what a lot of people call a death by PowerPoint rhythm --
00:02:26.27 pulls down a presentation.
00:02:28.20 The best presenters, however...
00:02:30.24 they speak from what they know,
00:02:34.03 and their visual aids are in fact aids for the audience
00:02:39.13 rather than notes for them.
00:02:42.15 Yet a third way that slides
00:02:45.05 affect a presentation's success
00:02:47.05 occurs with how much the audience
00:02:50.20 understands from them.
00:02:52.20 Our research has found
00:02:55.28 that challenging PowerPoint's defaults
00:02:58.08 and using a different approach,
00:03:00.14 such as what you're gonna learn in this film,
00:03:04.01 actually increases the amount of comprehension by the audience
00:03:11.05 in a statistically significant way.
00:03:16.05 So, I've had a number of people
00:03:18.20 who have used this approach.
00:03:20.15 The woman in the upper left, Katie Kirsch...
00:03:24.10 while she was getting her PhD,
00:03:28.25 she used this approach in all her conference presentations,
00:03:31.04 and she won best presentation at the conference
00:03:35.01 three times.
00:03:37.22 The gentlemen at the bottom,
00:03:40.01 professor Are Magnus Bruaset from Simula Research Laboratory
00:03:43.26 and University of Oslo in Norway...
00:03:47.04 he uses this approach, and his colleagues use this approach,
00:03:51.12 in all their presentations
00:03:54.14 that they make to industry to present their research.
00:03:57.27 And the woman... scientist in the upper right,
00:04:01.24 Dr. Barbara Bekins from the US Geological Survey...
00:04:06.06 she had to give a lecture
00:04:09.08 to 40 different places across the country,
00:04:11.27 and she decided to use this approach
00:04:16.03 for that lecture
00:04:18.01 because so many people
00:04:21.01 were going to see her work presented in that fashion.
00:04:25.24 We've had research groups
00:04:28.16 use the assertion-evidence approach,
00:04:30.10 and what you see here on the screen
00:04:32.13 is a large gas turbine research group
00:04:35.20 at Penn State.
00:04:37.02 We've had courses adopt the approach,
00:04:40.08 and here you see a law design course
00:04:43.19 at Penn State.
00:04:45.21 And this... and the approach was used by both the professors
00:04:48.11 who taught the class
00:04:50.15 and by the students who reported on their designs.
00:04:53.20 We've even had one national organization,
00:04:57.05 the Engineering Ambassadors Network,
00:04:59.27 adopt the approach for all the presentations
00:05:02.22 that they use in high school
00:05:05.03 to recruit STEM students.
00:05:08.18 Now, one assumption that I'm going to make
00:05:12.10 in this presentation
00:05:15.04 is that the goals for your research presentations
00:05:17.26 are that they are understood,
00:05:21.04 that your presentations are remembered,
00:05:23.10 and that your presentations are believed.
00:05:27.00 I'm also gonna have another assumption
00:05:28.28 that on a personal level
00:05:31.09 you have a goal of wanting to feel
00:05:36.09 and project more confidence.
00:05:38.03 So, where do we start?
00:05:41.12 Where I would like to start is
00:05:44.08 I would like you to think about
00:05:47.00 when you watch scientific presentations
00:05:49.18 and you see the slides,
00:05:51.24 what are the biggest problems that you see with those slides?
00:05:56.05 I've asked this question
00:05:59.00 to hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world,
00:06:03.05 and the number one answer
00:06:05.12 -- and it's not even close --
00:06:07.15 is too many words.
00:06:09.14 And no doubt,
00:06:11.27 you see many examples of that weekly
00:06:15.27 in presentations that are given at conferences, in seminars,
00:06:20.26 in classrooms that are...
00:06:24.17 that include slides.
00:06:26.01 And you... and that particular problem
00:06:29.11 is not one that actually is so surprising.
00:06:34.20 In the mid-1980s, some research came out,
00:06:39.06 and that research points to why
00:06:43.00 having too many words is a problem.
00:06:47.09 So, let's say you have a speaker and you have an audience.
00:06:49.09 Now, we've known forever
00:06:51.25 that the speaker's spoken words...
00:06:54.19 those are gonna be taken in through the ears.
00:06:57.06 And if the speaker has any written words,
00:07:00.13 those are gonna be taken in through the eyes.
00:07:03.05 But it wasn't until the mid-1980s
00:07:07.16 that a Canadian psychology researcher
00:07:10.02 by the name of Allan Paivio
00:07:12.13 found that those written words and spoken words
00:07:17.26 are processed in the same part of the brain.
00:07:20.26 And another researcher,
00:07:24.12 this one from Australia, John Sweller...
00:07:27.14 he thought about Paivio's research
00:07:30.11 and he asked this question:
00:07:32.02 if written words and spoken words
00:07:34.02 are processed in the same part of the brain,
00:07:36.06 could that part of the brain become overloaded,
00:07:39.27 much as a central processing unit
00:07:43.00 can become overloaded
00:07:45.17 when it tries to do too many tasks?
00:07:47.14 And so Sweller... he did experiments.
00:07:49.11 He had one room where people just read,
00:07:51.23 one room where people just listened,
00:07:53.20 and another room where people read and listened.
00:07:57.29 And when there weren't too many words,
00:08:00.04 in the comprehension tests that he gave after those presentations,
00:08:04.16 the room where they read and listened,
00:08:09.01 they did the best.
00:08:10.28 But what he found is...
00:08:13.00 that when there were too many words projected,
00:08:16.12 that what happened is that room
00:08:20.04 that was both reading and listening
00:08:23.08 went from first to worst.
00:08:25.28 And so, Sweller came up with this theory
00:08:28.26 that if audiences try to process
00:08:31.08 too many words,
00:08:33.12 this cognitive overload occurs,
00:08:37.04 and that is what happens in many presentations.
00:08:41.19 Now, scientists and engineers
00:08:43.16 will also talk about a couple of other problems.
00:08:46.10 I mean, they'll actually talk about a lot of problems,
00:08:48.28 but there are three that stand out.
00:08:51.08 So, too many words is number one.
00:08:53.00 A second one is that the slides are cluttered.
00:08:57.21 And by cluttered, they mean that the...
00:09:01.00 that the audience isn't sure where to look.
00:09:03.22 And so, you have a slide,
00:09:05.28 and maybe what you want to do is you want to look at a graph on the slide
00:09:09.05 because you think the graph contains the most important things...
00:09:12.06 but there's text and arrows
00:09:16.13 and other things that are impinging on that graph,
00:09:19.00 and your eye gets pulled away.
00:09:22.05 A third problem is that many people
00:09:26.07 find that much of the text on slides is not readable.
00:09:29.17 And you can see in this graph
00:09:33.17 that even though maybe you can see the curves,
00:09:36.09 what you cannot read are the axes.
00:09:38.05 And if you can't read the axis of a...
00:09:40.23 axes of a graph,
00:09:43.08 then the value of that graph plummets.
00:09:47.03 A big takeaway is that
00:09:51.08 because so many people -- something like 95% --
00:09:55.05 use PowerPoint,
00:09:58.19 that then PowerPoint's defaults become important.
00:10:02.00 And what we realize is PowerPoint
00:10:06.20 came out about the same time that Paivio
00:10:09.00 was coming out with his research.
00:10:11.07 And the two gentlemen who created that program,
00:10:15.26 Robert Gaskins, who was an entrepreneur,
00:10:18.00 and Dennis Austin, who was a computer scientist...
00:10:21.22 they were not aware of Paivio's research.
00:10:25.00 Now, they ended up, I think, doing the best they could
00:10:28.24 with the computer architecture of the day.
00:10:31.01 But a problem is that the defaults
00:10:35.09 were not based on any research.
00:10:38.18 Worse yet, and maybe the big tragedy,
00:10:42.08 is that PowerPoint's defaults have not changed significantly.
00:10:46.08 Yeah, in 2003 they changed from Times New Roman to Arial,
00:10:50.03 and in 2007 they changed from Arial typeface to Calibri,
00:10:53.22 and they threw in Microsoft's little artistic insert...
00:11:01.23 but... but nothing actually changed here.
00:11:04.27 So, one thing that I want you to realize
00:11:11.16 is that PowerPoint's defaults run counter to how people learn.
00:11:15.11 That text box in the body
00:11:18.12 that has all those nested bullets...
00:11:20.12 that leads people to create too many written words.
00:11:25.07 As John Sweller says,
00:11:27.02 it is a disaster how many words
00:11:31.04 people will put on slides.
00:11:33.01 That textbox also consumes valuable space
00:11:35.13 that could be used for images,
00:11:38.20 which makes the slides cluttered.
00:11:41.22 And then one last thing,
00:11:43.15 and something that I've been paying a lot of attention to,
00:11:45.15 is that that headline
00:11:50.09 leads scientists and engineers to write phrase headlines.
00:11:54.23 On the surface, that sounds like a good idea,
00:11:57.27 but a problem is that a phrase headline
00:12:00.15 does not filter noise.
00:12:03.06 And as you can remember
00:12:05.09 from when we first talked about why slides are important,
00:12:09.01 it's important for us to have a filter
00:12:13.18 on what to include and what not to include.
00:12:16.01 I'm gonna give you one quotation,
00:12:20.05 because we can do better.
00:12:21.24 I'm gonna give you one quotation...
00:12:23.19 and I could have chosen a lot,
00:12:25.17 but I'm gonna choose this one.
00:12:27.08 "The real mystery to me
00:12:29.29 is why PowerPoint's default style has been adopted so widely.
00:12:34.11 Why do medical researchers use the PowerPoint style
00:12:38.23 at academic conferences?
00:12:40.23 Why do engineers use the PowerPoint style
00:12:42.29 for technical discussions?
00:12:45.24 And the reason I like this quotation
00:12:48.28 as a criticism of PowerPoint
00:12:51.11 is that it was said by none other than Robert Gaskins,
00:12:57.15 the creator of PowerPoint.
00:12:59.18 I mean, if Gaskins himself
00:13:03.14 challenges the defaults,
00:13:05.08 then you should as well.
00:13:07.05 So, the question comes, what should we do?
00:13:09.09 But before we do that,
00:13:11.08 I have yet another assumption I want you to have.
00:13:12.26 And that is,
00:13:14.25 you should not have slides
00:13:18.01 if slides do not support the presentation.
00:13:22.24 In other words, if sl...
00:13:25.03 if slides do not help the audience
00:13:28.14 understand, remember, or believe the content.
00:13:31.28 And someone who was very astute
00:13:34.29 at that particular point,
00:13:36.28 and did not include slides if they weren't needed,
00:13:40.16 was Steve Jobs.
00:13:43.04 Steve Jobs thought about his presentations,
00:13:45.19 in a sense, as a story,
00:13:47.22 and then each slide or blank screen...
00:13:50.05 that was a scene.
00:13:52.09 And so, if you don't need a slide,
00:13:55.02 press the B on the control panel of your...
00:13:59.09 of your computer,
00:14:01.10 or use your advancer to blank the screen,
00:14:04.23 or better yet, insert a black slide
00:14:07.23 so that then the audience knows to focus on you.
00:14:13.23 And while that focus might seem frightening at first,
00:14:18.24 that focus is important
00:14:21.14 because, as Faraday said,
00:14:23.18 for your presentation to be a success,
00:14:25.21 the audience has to believe in you.
00:14:29.08 You have to show ownership of the information.
00:14:32.23 Now, maybe you won't have a blank screen
00:14:35.05 at a conference presentation
00:14:37.20 because those are so compressed.
00:14:39.12 But in a symposium that's 50 minutes,
00:14:41.20 think about having at least one scene
00:14:43.22 where there is no slide
00:14:46.04 and you move to a part of the room
00:14:48.26 where no one typically stands.
00:14:51.27 That will command attention.
00:14:53.15 Okay, now we're ready.
00:14:55.16 So then, what should we do?
00:14:57.26 And my first piece of advice to you is,
00:15:01.04 build your talk on messages, not on topics.
00:15:06.15 Most scientists and engineers in research
00:15:09.11 build their presentations on topics:
00:15:12.22 introduction, methods, results, discussion.
00:15:16.04 You can do better than that.
00:15:19.19 So, what often happens is...
00:15:21.21 let's say you're putting together a presentation,
00:15:23.29 and you're at a particular scene
00:15:26.17 and you decide... mmm... electron acceptors,
00:15:29.07 that's what I'm gonna be talking about here.
00:15:31.07 And so you write "electron acceptors"
00:15:34.00 in your biggest typeface up at the top,
00:15:36.06 and then you write down all the things you want to say...
00:15:40.02 you write those down below.
00:15:42.00 And then, if... and you put those in this bulleted list.
00:15:44.20 And then, if there's any room,
00:15:46.24 then you include an image.
00:15:50.02 What I'm telling you here is
00:15:53.02 go back to step one and stop there.
00:15:56.00 You can do better.
00:15:58.01 Build your talk on messages.
00:16:00.08 And so, Dr. Barbara Bekins,
00:16:02.01 when she was putting together her presentation
00:16:05.08 on the effect of hydrology
00:16:10.04 on the 25-year degradation of a crude oil spill...
00:16:18.01 on this particular scene,
00:16:20.23 she thought deeply about what she wanted the audience
00:16:24.01 to walk out the door with.
00:16:26.04 And then she wrote this sentence:
00:16:28.17 a succession of electron acceptors occurs
00:16:31.17 when an aquifer becomes contaminated with oil.
00:16:36.14 And then, she took that sentence,
00:16:39.28 tightened it as much as she could,
00:16:41.29 and put that at the top of a slide.
00:16:44.11 And once she had that,
00:16:46.19 then she had a filter.
00:16:48.17 And then she created visual evidence
00:16:51.00 to support that.
00:16:53.00 And so, when you've got an oil spill
00:16:56.18 that occurs in an aerobic aquifer,
00:17:01.09 what depletes first is the oxygen.
00:17:07.27 And so, what you see here is that this oxygen...
00:17:12.13 this becomes depleted in this outer band of the plume.
00:17:16.18 And once that is depleted,
00:17:19.08 then you get these bands of other types of depletions.
00:17:25.20 You get a reduction of nitrate and manganese,
00:17:29.10 and then you get a reduction of iron,
00:17:32.14 and then there's a reduction of sulfate.
00:17:36.29 So, what she has done
00:17:40.24 is she has stated her assertion up at the top
00:17:43.08 and then supported that assertion visually.
00:17:47.22 That's principle number one.
00:17:51.14 Principle number two
00:17:54.04 is to support your messages with visual evidence
00:17:57.04 -- not a bullet list.
00:18:00.00 It could be photographs, drawings,
00:18:03.05 diagrams, graphs.
00:18:05.17 It could be an equation. It could be a film. It could be a short table.
00:18:10.07 And then what you are to do is...
00:18:14.18 by creating that, you allow the audience
00:18:19.27 to focus on the visual evidence
00:18:23.14 and then what it is you're saying.
00:18:25.07 You avoid that cognitive overload.
00:18:27.29 So, let's go back to Paivio.
00:18:30.05 And if you remember,
00:18:32.27 Paivio found that written words and spoken words...
00:18:35.16 they're processed in the same part of the brain.
00:18:38.10 But his research also found
00:18:42.09 that images are processed in a different part of the brain.
00:18:46.01 And another researcher, professor Richard Mayer
00:18:49.19 from UC Santa Barbara...
00:18:52.05 what he did is he really ran with the question of,
00:18:55.27 what is the effect of using images in a presentation?
00:19:00.25 What is the effect on the learning
00:19:04.23 that the audience has?
00:19:06.20 And so, he's done a number of experiments,
00:19:08.22 and what his big takeaway
00:19:12.06 is that people learn much more deeply
00:19:14.05 from words and relevant images
00:19:17.10 than from words alone.
00:19:19.28 So, let's take a look at an example,
00:19:22.07 and I'm gonna choose a PhD graduate student, Jacob Snyder,
00:19:25.02 who's presenting a scene from
00:19:29.00 one of his conference presentations and from his PhD defense.
00:19:32.20 And so, in this scene
00:19:36.05 he's talking about the effect of using additive manufacturing,
00:19:40.18 or 3D printing,
00:19:42.25 on some really small channels.
00:19:47.09 And so, he begins the scene
00:19:51.04 by showing a channel that is built in the vertical direction,
00:19:55.10 much as a smokestack is.
00:19:57.09 And what you can see
00:19:59.18 -- and what he points out --
00:20:01.26 is the variation that occurs in that 3D printed channel.
00:20:05.27 And then, once he has set that up,
00:20:09.14 then what he does is he shows a channel
00:20:12.24 that was built as a pipeline.
00:20:15.10 And what you see is that there's much more variation
00:20:20.12 in that particular channel,
00:20:22.19 that parts of it actually almost cave in.
00:20:26.11 And so, you might think, ohh, well, it's obvious
00:20:30.02 -- we would go with the vertical one.
00:20:32.10 Except that these channels... they are...
00:20:36.09 serve to produce heat transfer of these very hot gases.
00:20:40.22 And so, as it turns out,
00:20:43.03 having that roughness can be an asset.
00:20:47.03 And then he went on to show another channel
00:20:51.12 -- this one at 45 degrees --
00:20:53.20 and he made the point that manufacturers
00:20:57.10 could choose different angles
00:21:01.24 to balance having the overall shape that they want
00:21:04.18 with increased roughness.
00:21:07.17 Now, we've looked at an assertion-evidence slide here.
00:21:12.01 Let's take it apart.
00:21:14.15 And the slide began with the assertion headline.
00:21:18.11 Now, some of you might say,
00:21:20.23 you know, I... I bet if I had seen Jacob Snyder give that talk,
00:21:25.28 I would understand exactly what was going on
00:21:29.05 and I would not have read that sentence.
00:21:31.15 And what I would say is, fantastic.
00:21:33.28 You were on your game as a listener
00:21:36.06 and then Jacob was on his game as a speaker.
00:21:40.09 But that sentence at a conference or in a symposium...
00:21:44.15 that sentence serves as a safety rope for the audience
00:21:50.04 in case they zone out, they get tired,
00:21:53.21 they receive a text, or whatever...
00:21:56.07 that allows them to stay in the presentation.
00:22:02.06 A couple of other things about the sentence headline:
00:22:05.10 keep it to one or two lines.
00:22:07.26 If it goes more than two lines,
00:22:09.22 our focus groups find that people won't read it...
00:22:12.28 perhaps it's just too much time away from the speaker.
00:22:16.13 Capitalize it the way you would a sentence.
00:22:19.09 It's just easier for people to read a sentence
00:22:22.08 that's capitalized as a sentence.
00:22:24.10 Also, don't center it; left justify it.
00:22:27.12 It's an easier read for the audience.
00:22:32.09 And the period... do you need a period?
00:22:36.14 Because it's a standalone sentence,
00:22:38.21 a period isn't required.
00:22:40.17 However, if you hear the voice of your fifth grade teacher
00:22:43.29 to put a period there and it haunts you at night,
00:22:47.22 put the period.
00:22:49.16 It's not that big of a deal.
00:22:52.16 So, that's the sentence.
00:22:54.12 What about the visual evidence?
00:22:56.11 With the visual evidence, I'd say the big thing is to avoid clutter.
00:22:59.07 In other words, try to have the slide breathe.
00:23:01.19 And I think Jacob Snyder did a really good job here
00:23:04.10 with the positioning of the three contour plots
00:23:08.20 and not allowing them to crowd the headline.
00:23:15.08 Leave some space there -- very nice.
00:23:17.17 And one last thing is, think about how you're gonna tell the story of the scene.
00:23:22.29 So, in this case, Jacob Snyder
00:23:25.28 discussed the one contour plot
00:23:28.13 and then animated in the second one,
00:23:30.23 when he was ready and when the audience was ready,
00:23:33.16 and then animated in the third,
00:23:36.22 again when the audience was ready.
00:23:39.13 So, we've talked about two of the principles
00:23:43.05 of the assertion-evidence approach:
00:23:45.28 build your talk on messages, not on topics,
00:23:48.01 and support those messages with visual evidence
00:23:51.01 not bullet lists.
00:23:53.15 The third principle of the assertion-evidence approach
00:23:56.15 is that when you present that visual evidence
00:24:00.04 fashion sentences on the spot.
00:24:02.18 In other words, show that you own the information.
00:24:06.20 Now, many of you might be
00:24:09.14 afraid of this particular principle.
00:24:11.25 You think, oh, I don't think I can do it.
00:24:14.01 I need those bullet lists for me to know what to say.
00:24:16.20 And what I would say is, you don't.
00:24:19.16 It is your research.
00:24:21.29 If you choose visual evidence
00:24:25.10 that is from your work,
00:24:28.05 you can present it.
00:24:29.29 You don't need those bullet lists.
00:24:32.14 As a research scientist or a research engineer,
00:24:35.04 be an experimentalist.
00:24:37.02 Try this approach.
00:24:39.19 And in trying this approach,
00:24:42.02 rather than starting with PowerPoint's defaults,
00:24:44.06 go to our website -- www.assertion-evidence.com --
00:24:47.07 and download one of our PowerPoint templates.
00:24:50.00 They're free. It doesn't cost you anything.
00:24:53.02 But it's gonna save you a lot of time.
00:24:55.02 You'll also find some example presentations
00:24:57.13 by people such as Jacob Snyder and Katie Kirsch,
00:25:01.13 whom I had mentioned earlier.
00:25:04.08 So, what we've done here is that
00:25:10.04 I have shown you a different approach
00:25:12.23 to give a scientific research presentation.
00:25:16.05 And I hope that you'll be an experimentalist
00:25:18.23 and try this approach.
00:25:21.13 In a second film that's coming up,
00:25:23.22 we're going to walk through
00:25:27.11 a research presentation
00:25:30.03 -- title slide, mapping slide, the body slides, conclusion slide --
00:25:33.16 to show some best examples on what it is that you can do.
00:25:38.00 Thank you.

Part 2: Assertion-Evidence Slides for a Research Talk

00:00:08.07 This film is a second part
00:00:11.24 in a three-part series for iBiology
00:00:15.18 on creating effective scientific research presentations.
00:00:22.05 Now, in the first part,
00:00:25.12 I introduced the assertion-evidence approach.
00:00:28.23 And the assertion-evidence approach has three main principles:
00:00:33.06 number one, build your talk on messages not on topics;
00:00:37.27 number two, support those messages with visual evidence not bullet lists;
00:00:42.13 and then number three is, when explaining that visual evidence,
00:00:46.18 fashion sentences on the spot.
00:00:50.14 Whereas you might have just one sentence written on the slide,
00:00:54.26 you will say six, seven, eight, or nine sentences
00:01:00.14 in your talk.
00:01:03.01 This second film does two things.
00:01:06.15 This first is this film
00:01:10.27 presents evidence showing that the assertion-evidence approach
00:01:14.14 is more effective.
00:01:16.21 After all, this approach requires quite a bit more work.
00:01:20.16 You have to think deeply about what those message headlines are.
00:01:23.19 You have to create that visual evidence.
00:01:26.13 And then you have to practice enough
00:01:29.08 that you can fashion sentences on the spot.
00:01:32.15 The second part of the talk
00:01:36.02 is to walk through a research presentation
00:01:38.07 and show you what I consider some of my greatest hits:
00:01:42.09 slides that students have created
00:01:45.14 for various research talks.
00:01:48.20 So, why the assertion-evidence approach?
00:01:52.20 Why should we use it?
00:01:54.27 At Penn State, we've done some tests
00:01:58.09 in which we've found that the assertion-evidence approach
00:02:02.14 is more effective than a typical presentation slide,
00:02:07.13 such as what you see on the screen.
00:02:10.00 So, we created a presentation...
00:02:12.16 this one happens to be on magnetic resonance imaging...
00:02:15.23 and we first created it as a typical traditional talk
00:02:22.29 that follows PowerPoint's defaults.
00:02:25.12 In fact, we looked at a lot of presentations
00:02:29.17 that were on magnetic resonance imaging,
00:02:32.06 and we patterned it after that.
00:02:34.20 Then we created a set of slides
00:02:38.01 for the exact same words that would be spoken,
00:02:42.26 but then followed the assertion-evidence approach.
00:02:45.22 So, we've got 50-60 participants in a room.
00:02:51.10 They see slides that follow the traditional approach.
00:02:56.14 Then we've got 50-60 students in another room.
00:03:00.07 They see slides that follow the assertion-evidence approach.
00:03:05.00 And after the presentation,
00:03:08.00 both sets of participants...
00:03:10.08 they essentially tried to explain,
00:03:13.26 how does magnetic resonance imaging work?
00:03:16.21 And then we had scorers who scored each of those attempts.
00:03:22.09 But the scorers, or the raters,
00:03:25.09 they didn't know from which group that they came.
00:03:29.02 But what the raters found is...
00:03:32.18 they found that the traditional approach...
00:03:35.14 they scored on average about 42%
00:03:38.05 in terms of how much they understood.
00:03:41.23 Whereas the people who viewed the assertion-evidence approach,
00:03:45.28 they found 50...
00:03:48.21 they scored that 59%.
00:03:51.01 And the statistical difference between those two
00:03:53.21 -- at these levels, 50-60 participants --
00:03:57.16 is about... less than 0.01.
00:04:02.08 And so, what we were left to conclude
00:04:04.26 is the assertion-evidence slides
00:04:07.17 led to better comprehension and recall of information,
00:04:12.19 and that increase in comprehension and recall
00:04:16.29 is statistically significant.
00:04:19.14 One thing that we also found
00:04:23.13 is that the misconceptions that participants had
00:04:27.12 in the traditional approach,
00:04:29.27 with traditional PowerPoint slides,
00:04:32.22 is about 10 times higher
00:04:36.06 than for the assertion-evidence group -- ten times.
00:04:39.18 And what we think is happening there
00:04:42.13 is that the participants...
00:04:45.13 they're reading a bullet or something
00:04:49.23 while the speaker is talking about something else.
00:04:52.24 Those are two reasons
00:04:57.11 for you to think about using these slides
00:05:00.01 to present your research:
00:05:02.18 to increase comprehension and recall,
00:05:04.29 and to reduce number of misconceptions
00:05:08.21 that people have about your work.
00:05:11.08 So, that's a reason for doing the assertion-evidence approach.
00:05:14.14 How do you... how do you apply it
00:05:18.02 in a research presentation?
00:05:20.14 And so, what I'd like to do is walk through some common scenes,
00:05:23.18 sometimes talking about what's typically done,
00:05:27.08 and then show you what's done in the assertion-evidence approach.
00:05:30.17 Okay. So, here we go.
00:05:31.29 The first scene is typically a title slide.
00:05:34.29 And at so many research conferences,
00:05:38.10 or at symposiums and seminars,
00:05:41.00 you'll see people have a slide such as the following.
00:05:44.14 Hello. My name is Stuart Apple.
00:05:46.20 I'm workin' with Kerry Cho and Dale Gray,
00:05:49.03 and we are from the Environmental Science Department
00:05:52.14 at such and such a university.
00:05:54.19 And what we are going to present today is
00:05:58.02 Atmospheric Mercury Depletion Events
00:06:00.18 in Polar Regions During Arctic Spring.
00:06:03.25 And then that slide is gone.
00:06:06.05 And in those few nanoseconds
00:06:09.04 between that slide and the next slide,
00:06:11.27 think about how you're feeling as an audience member.
00:06:15.14 Are you... are you confident
00:06:18.09 that you're gonna learn a lot in this talk?
00:06:20.19 Do you feel as if the train has left the station,
00:06:22.27 and yet you're not really clear on what the talk is about
00:06:28.29 or what the title means?
00:06:33.27 I think that's what many people have...
00:06:35.09 or, the state that they're in in a research talk.
00:06:37.27 We can do better than that.
00:06:40.05 And now, you kind of look at this slide
00:06:42.21 and you wonder... gosh, I see a lot of slides like that.
00:06:45.17 Maybe they've got different decoration.
00:06:47.23 But why?
00:06:49.28 Why do so many slides have this title on the top,
00:06:52.05 and then just the name and the affiliation beneath,
00:06:55.05 and maybe just some decoration?
00:06:57.19 And you know why.
00:07:00.02 I mean, the reason is that people are just following PowerPoint's defaults.
00:07:03.05 PowerPoint tells them to do that.
00:07:05.10 And so, they'll put their title and then they'll put their affiliation.
00:07:08.07 And what we're saying is,
00:07:10.03 you can do better than that.
00:07:12.01 You can do better than that.
00:07:14.10 So, what can we do?
00:07:16.27 So, I'd like to look at... actually, this research
00:07:20.06 was done by a young researcher at the University of Oslo,
00:07:25.02 a chemistry student by the name of Katrine Aspmo.
00:07:27.24 And she was gonna give her first research presentation.
00:07:31.18 And she was a little nervous about that.
00:07:34.18 Moreover, the presentation was gonna occur in Portland, Oregon,
00:07:38.21 and so the people were gonna be speaking in English
00:07:43.14 -- not her native Norwegian.
00:07:45.27 But her English is good.
00:07:48.02 Still, that's just one more thing for her to consider.
00:07:50.25 But before this talk,
00:07:53.20 she went to her advisor and she asked her advisor,
00:07:57.22 how many people will be in the audience?
00:07:59.23 And her advisor said, well, it'll be about 50.
00:08:02.07 She said, whoa.
00:08:04.19 And then she said, how many of them know
00:08:05.20 what an atmospheric mercury depletion event is?
00:08:08.21 And her advisor said, hmm... I'd say five.
00:08:11.15 You're one. I'm another one.
00:08:14.20 Our collaborator, Grethe -- she's a third.
00:08:17.08 And so, that kind of gave her this idea that...
00:08:20.23 whoa... you know...
00:08:23.11 for her to orient that audience,
00:08:25.20 she's gonna have to spend some time on that initial scene.
00:08:29.05 And so, here's what she came up with.
00:08:33.12 Hello, my name is Katrine Aspmo,
00:08:36.00 and I'm working with Torunn Berg
00:08:38.21 at the Norwegian Institute of Air Research,
00:08:40.22 and I'm also working with Professor Grethe Wibetoe
00:08:42.23 from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oslo.
00:08:46.00 And what we're trying to determine
00:08:48.20 is where atmospheric mercury goes
00:08:54.03 when it depletes or falls out of the atmosphere.
00:08:59.03 Now, one thing you may not realize
00:09:02.08 is that in this atmosphere -- in this room right here --
00:09:03.29 there's a certain amount of mercury.
00:09:06.16 It's not much. It's about 1.5 nanograms per liter.
00:09:09.16 And here, in this room,
00:09:11.16 it remains in the atmosphere.
00:09:13.15 Even when we breathe it in, we breathe it out.
00:09:15.24 It still stays in that gaseous state.
00:09:18.19 But for some reason
00:09:21.09 -- and scientists aren't exactly sure why --
00:09:24.14 in the polar regions of the world,
00:09:26.24 such as this beautiful Ny-Alesund region,
00:09:29.00 that you see here of Norway,
00:09:32.04 there are these events where that level of mercury
00:09:36.23 will drop to zero.
00:09:39.20 And the question comes...
00:09:41.27 where does that mercury go?
00:09:43.28 So, these events... they've got this fancy name,
00:09:47.10 atmospheric mercury depletion events.
00:09:49.16 But where does that mercury go?
00:09:51.20 Now, while you may not have realized
00:09:53.21 that mercury is in the atmosphere,
00:09:55.14 I think everyone in the room knows
00:09:58.03 that mercury is toxic.
00:09:59.29 And at high enough levels,
00:10:02.07 it can cause paralysis and even death for mammals.
00:10:04.29 And so, for the polar bears in the region,
00:10:08.01 for the arctic foxes,
00:10:10.01 for the stray Norwegians who wander through there,
00:10:14.23 how... where is that mercury?
00:10:17.03 What and... and... and how does...
00:10:20.03 how does it get to that particular spot?
00:10:22.19 That is, a... you know, a research question.
00:10:26.17 And so, what we did is... you may not be able to see,
00:10:29.02 but in this one corner here is a cabin.
00:10:32.27 And we stayed in that cabin for two months.
00:10:37.00 And what we did is
00:10:39.20 we made simultaneous measurements of the amount of mercury
00:10:42.29 that's in the atmosphere
00:10:44.24 with the amount of mercury that's in the surface snow
00:10:47.06 to test our hypothesis.
00:10:49.21 That is in fact where that mercury goes.
00:10:54.15 Wow. I remember seeing this talk at...
00:10:57.19 seeing the beginning of this talk
00:11:00.03 at the University of Oslo in 2004.
00:11:02.03 And I thought to myself, you know,
00:11:04.15 I'm not an environmental scientist,
00:11:06.17 but I am lucky.
00:11:08.18 I am lucky to be here
00:11:10.26 because I'm gonna learn something in this talk.
00:11:12.20 I have already learned something in this talk.
00:11:14.20 And that's something that I would suggest to you:
00:11:17.08 in that first scene, give the audience something.
00:11:21.02 You know at the beginning of a scientific presentation,
00:11:23.28 there are certain things
00:11:26.27 that you want to accomplish before you get to the middle.
00:11:29.05 One thing is you want to show the importance of the research.
00:11:31.15 You want to present background
00:11:33.15 that the audience needs.
00:11:35.11 You also want to present background
00:11:37.20 about yourself to build credibility.
00:11:39.09 And you want to give your research question.
00:11:41.14 Katrine did all of those...
00:11:44.13 all of those on that title slide.
00:11:47.07 Wow -- that's effective.
00:11:49.11 So, we've talked about one scene here.
00:11:54.18 Another scene that often occurs
00:11:58.24 also happens at the beginning, before you get to the middle,
00:12:00.14 and it's something people call an outline slide.
00:12:02.10 I like to call it kind of a mapping slide.
00:12:04.17 Sadly, many people's slide looks like the following.
00:12:08.18 You've got this detailed list
00:12:10.24 of every single thing they're gonna do
00:12:13.00 -- things they've already done, actually,
00:12:14.27 in the talk by the time they give it --
00:12:16.24 and then things that you already know were gonna come.
00:12:19.06 And then they will dutifully read through that list.
00:12:21.20 You know, they'll get to... you know,
00:12:23.29 almost all the way through,
00:12:25.24 and then they'll realize they misspelled a word like acknowledgments,
00:12:28.06 and they'll apologize for it...
00:12:30.14 and then they will finish,
00:12:32.05 and then they will move on.
00:12:34.00 And when they move on,
00:12:35.25 then the audience is, to themselves,
00:12:38.08 thinking, well, he gave me all these things,
00:12:41.14 or she gave me all these things,
00:12:43.13 and I've forgotten them already.
00:12:45.11 You can do better than that.
00:12:47.20 One thing is, remember,
00:12:51.04 people feel comfortable with lists of two's, three's, and four's.
00:12:54.01 So, a list, here, of eleven is not very good.
00:12:57.19 Another thing is you don't need to give them some things:
00:13:00.01 introduction -- they know the talk has an introduction;
00:13:02.08 background -- you've already given the background
00:13:04.05 before you do this mapping;
00:13:06.04 conclusions; acknowledgments; questions.
00:13:08.02 They know that's happening.
00:13:09.28 It's the stuff in the middle.
00:13:11.24 And you don't have to give the sub-levels.
00:13:13.22 I mean, that's not what's so important.
00:13:15.13 It's the main things that you need to give.
00:13:17.16 So, let's look at what Katrine Aspmo did.
00:13:19.20 I thought she did an excellent job.
00:13:22.00 So, in her talk, she divided it into three parts.
00:13:25.22 One is this theory for mercury cycling.
00:13:28.21 And then she talked ab...
00:13:30.18 mentioned that she was gonna, you know, talk about that.
00:13:33.06 And then she had another part,
00:13:35.16 where she had those measurements from that station...
00:13:37.29 actually, on those two types of mercury measurements:
00:13:41.24 in the atmosphere and then in the surface snow.
00:13:46.03 And then, her third part of the talk
00:13:49.00 was environmental implications,
00:13:51.05 and she showed this particular picture.
00:13:53.00 And the polar bear is not there in a gratuitous fashion.
00:13:55.18 Actually, a lot of the data
00:13:58.05 on the effects of these mercury depletion events
00:14:00.08 occurs through studying polar bear carcasses,
00:14:04.02 and so that is what she went over.
00:14:06.20 But whoa... what a great mapping scene.
00:14:09.20 And I have seen people sometimes take those images
00:14:12.20 and put those as icons in the corners of all the slides
00:14:17.05 that were from that particular section.
00:14:19.05 That's just another thing, here,
00:14:21.05 that you could do that doesn't clutter a slide
00:14:24.04 or take up too much space
00:14:25.29 or too much time for the audience's attention.
00:14:28.15 Yeah.
00:14:30.07 But that's the kind of mapping that you want to do.
00:14:32.19 Let's try... let's think about literature review.
00:14:35.02 So, literature view... oh my gosh.
00:14:36.27 This is often one of the most boring parts.
00:14:38.13 People walk through all the...
00:14:40.08 all the major work that's been done.
00:14:42.15 You'll get a bullet list slide,
00:14:44.06 and they'll talk about everything that they've done.
00:14:46.07 And I'd like you to rethink that.
00:14:48.29 You know, what are you doing in the literature review?
00:14:51.11 You're trying to show that there's a gap in the work,
00:14:56.04 and that... and that your research question...
00:14:58.21 your research hypothesis...
00:15:00.06 your research fills that gap.
00:15:03.12 And so, you're trying to show that gap exists.
00:15:05.14 So, here's one that Jacob Snyder did on his.
00:15:09.23 And so, what he did is...
00:15:12.01 he wanted to make it clear
00:15:14.23 that there are a number of people
00:15:17.09 -- not a lot of people, but a number of people --
00:15:19.09 who have tried to use additive manufacturing
00:15:22.18 to create these heat transfer devices
00:15:25.24 for these gas turbine engines.
00:15:27.28 And so, he showed a couple of images
00:15:30.21 right at the beginning:
00:15:32.06 one from the work of Kirsch and Thole,
00:15:34.03 another one from the work Collins.
00:15:35.24 Then it talked a little bit about what they had done.
00:15:38.14 Then he brought in the work of Ferster
00:15:40.26 and the work of somebody else.
00:15:42.17 Then he brought in the work of Siemens,
00:15:44.17 that they... and he talked about what they had done.
00:15:46.21 But then he made it clear that there was a gap
00:15:50.24 between what they've done and what still could be done.
00:15:53.04 Wow.
00:15:54.26 That's something that people can follow.
00:15:56.29 Really, really nice.
00:15:58.18 And it's thinking about what details are essential
00:16:00.29 and then what details are secondary.
00:16:06.20 So, we've looked at a literature review.
00:16:08.26 Let's talk a little bit about methods.
00:16:11.00 So, with methods...
00:16:13.07 I'll show you one that's more from an experimental talk.
00:16:17.19 And so, here, rather than having, again,
00:16:21.19 a bullet list with all these details,
00:16:23.09 what Nick Cardwell did in this one is
00:16:26.13 he started with an image of his experiment.
00:16:29.08 So, he's got this recirculating wind tunnel.
00:16:31.19 And then he shows this one particular part
00:16:34.28 of that wind tunnel
00:16:36.19 where they split the flow.
00:16:38.26 And so, the flow there splits.
00:16:42.02 You see some of it goes in the blue part
00:16:44.08 and some of it goes in that white part.
00:16:46.04 And then, in that... in that center part, or that white part,
00:16:48.17 what happens is they heat some of that flow.
00:16:51.00 So, you've got... now, you've got two flows:
00:16:53.14 the secondary flow in the flu... in the blue part,
00:16:58.00 and then the primary flow, but the primary flow is heated.
00:17:01.00 And then they bring that secondary flow
00:17:03.22 back in to try to cool the surfaces after...
00:17:09.20 after the heated flow has occurred.
00:17:11.12 And so, they're simulating what goes on in a jet engine,
00:17:14.08 where they try to cool the parts
00:17:16.28 downstream of the combustor.
00:17:18.23 But... really nice.
00:17:21.01 Now, Nick Cardwell... he knows a lot of the numbers
00:17:24.03 on flow rates and temperatures,
00:17:25.29 and so he was just able to say those.
00:17:27.27 What you could do, if you're...
00:17:30.21 don't have the confidence you could remember those,
00:17:33.23 you could animate them into that white space,
00:17:36.02 but then I would animate them out
00:17:38.08 when they're not needed.
00:17:40.02 Don't let those clutter the slide.
00:17:42.14 But remember, the audience will have your paper.
00:17:45.20 They can go back and refer to what things are.
00:17:49.16 You definitely want to have those details,
00:17:51.19 and you want to know them
00:17:53.12 and be able to respond to questions,
00:17:55.08 but you don't need to put everything on the slide
00:17:58.13 as so many people do.
00:18:02.07 Let's look at a second method slide.
00:18:04.06 And on this one,
00:18:07.08 the speaker didn't have images
00:18:09.19 such as the last one had.
00:18:11.26 So, let's see how he handled it.
00:18:14.19 So, this particular work was done by Jimmy Webber.
00:18:18.06 And in a sense,
00:18:20.03 what he's trying to do in this part of the methods section
00:18:22.27 is just talk about how he is going
00:18:27.14 to characterize this pollution of 53 streams
00:18:30.15 in the Northeast.
00:18:32.08 And so, he introduces these six criteria
00:18:34.21 that he will use to characterize that pollution.
00:18:39.19 And then the second thing that he does
00:18:42.15 is he says, as a reference,
00:18:44.06 he's gonna compare the pollution of those streams
00:18:47.03 versus the pollution
00:18:49.15 -- or those same criteria --
00:18:51.09 of 12 reference streams.
00:18:54.03 And then he gives a teaser
00:18:58.16 on a couple of results from his work,
00:19:01.19 and I thought that was interesting that he did so.
00:19:03.29 And what he did is he showed
00:19:06.19 that the sulfate levels were beyond that reference point,
00:19:11.10 on average, for the 53 streams.
00:19:14.20 Not to a place where it's dangerous
00:19:16.26 for the plants or wildlife,
00:19:18.26 but certainly beyond the reference.
00:19:21.12 And then he also showed that the chloride levels...
00:19:24.28 those were in fact at the impaired level.
00:19:29.13 I love this scene.
00:19:31.02 I love how he tells this part of his methods
00:19:36.09 as a story.
00:19:38.06 And I love the imagination.
00:19:40.09 Somebody else would have just had a bulleted list,
00:19:42.27 and we would have slept through it.
00:19:44.25 But here, he has essentially told us a story
00:19:49.08 that we can remember.
00:19:52.10 And that is so important.
00:19:54.15 It's not just that people understand our work;
00:19:56.19 we want them to remember our work.
00:19:59.20 So, here... this part of the talk
00:20:01.26 is where you have to...
00:20:03.16 you're making some of your best arguments.
00:20:07.12 And I just want to show an example, here,
00:20:10.23 that comes from some work
00:20:14.11 that's being done in Norway
00:20:17.11 by this... Siri Larsen.
00:20:19.12 And so, what Siri is doing is
00:20:24.26 she's looking at satellite images
00:20:27.00 and kind of looking at them in interesting ways,
00:20:28.26 with different filters,
00:20:30.23 to extract some valuable information.
00:20:32.20 And so, these images
00:20:36.08 happen to come from parts of Norway
00:20:38.10 where there might be avalanches.
00:20:40.18 And that's important because
00:20:42.27 if you have an avalanche...
00:20:44.24 you know... or if...
00:20:46.25 if a place is susceptible to one avalanche,
00:20:49.23 then more could occur,
00:20:51.20 and you want to keep people away
00:20:54.22 from that particular area.
00:20:56.12 But the problem is when you look at the satellite images,
00:20:58.23 sometimes it's hard to distinguish
00:21:01.16 an avalanche from a sparse forest. And so, what she has done is
00:21:08.01 she's applied these filters
00:21:10.11 that kind of helped her make that distinguishing.
00:21:12.23 And so, one of the filters is this aspect direction,
00:21:15.18 and she would talk about how she applied that
00:21:18.24 and what she would find.
00:21:20.08 Another one, then, is of the vertical direction
00:21:22.27 -- how she applied that and what they have found.
00:21:25.19 But I like, again,
00:21:28.08 how she tells that scene, tells it as a story.
00:21:31.12 So, that's an example of results that has images.
00:21:35.24 Another kind of result would be a graph,
00:21:38.06 and so here's... here's a graph that Steve Weaver
00:21:40.26 put together in one of his talks.
00:21:43.24 And so, in this particular graph,
00:21:47.02 what he is doing is he's trying
00:21:51.20 to examine the roughness in this heat transfer channel.
00:21:55.20 And so, one way to determine that
00:21:59.14 is by this particular graph,
00:22:02.20 where you graph friction factor, f,
00:22:06.00 on the y axis
00:22:07.24 versus Reynolds number on the x axis.
00:22:10.08 And so, the first thing that Weaver did
00:22:15.06 is he has that straight line.
00:22:17.06 And so, that would be a perfectly smooth pipe.
00:22:19.23 That would be the theoretical explanation,
00:22:23.12 so... from Blasius in 1894.
00:22:25.10 And then, here... then, the dots...
00:22:29.23 those are his experiments showing that
00:22:34.23 within experimental error he matches the curve of Blasius.
00:22:36.28 But then he's gonna roughen up these surfaces,
00:22:40.07 and so he roughened them up in different ways,
00:22:42.09 and so... different colors...
00:22:44.08 red is not as rough as blue,
00:22:46.05 which is not as rough as green.
00:22:48.05 So, what's the effect of roughening the surface?
00:22:50.27 What effect does it have on the friction factor?
00:22:53.08 And then he animates in what that effect is,
00:22:57.18 and then he shows that it's actually...
00:22:59.12 it increases that friction factor in all of those cases.
00:23:04.03 A couple of things here that I liked...
00:23:06.18 one is I liked that he told things as a story.
00:23:08.24 Another thing I liked is that, here,
00:23:13.04 he was giving his most important result,
00:23:15.24 and he didn't start with the assertion at the beginning
00:23:18.06 because he knew there would be some people
00:23:20.20 who would be skeptical about that result,
00:23:23.12 and he knew there would be others that,
00:23:25.08 if he gave that assertion at the beginning,
00:23:27.07 it would be too much for them
00:23:29.20 -- they would be... they would be overwhelmed.
00:23:31.19 So, he started with a question that they understood.
00:23:34.23 And then, when he was ready,
00:23:36.20 then he brought in his assertion.
00:23:40.01 And so, in a way, I think of this kind of scene
00:23:43.27 as evidence-assertion.
00:23:45.09 Evidence comes first, and then,
00:23:47.08 when the audience is ready,
00:23:49.05 then you bring the assertion.
00:23:51.06 And in real persuasive types of situations,
00:23:53.06 that's a good thing to do.
00:23:55.14 So, let's move on to our last scene.
00:23:59.08 And our last scene is the scene that you show at the end.
00:24:02.09 And interestingly, the most common scene that I see people show
00:24:08.13 as their last slide is something that looks like that.
00:24:11.01 Oh my gosh.
00:24:13.04 Let's think about this.
00:24:14.19 Let's just think about this scene for just a second.
00:24:16.01 What are we trying to do here?
00:24:18.01 What we're trying to do here is...
00:24:19.11 we have presented our work to the world
00:24:21.28 and now we want the world's response.
00:24:24.04 And so, people are seeing our research, here,
00:24:28.19 for the first time.
00:24:30.18 And so that... maybe they're spending a minute and a half
00:24:34.15 or two minutes on a graph,
00:24:36.05 but now they're trying to formulate questions.
00:24:38.09 How does this slide help them formulate questions
00:24:40.19 about research that they've never seen before?
00:24:44.10 And the fact is it doesn't.
00:24:46.08 This is a terrible scene.
00:24:48.04 You can do so much better.
00:24:49.28 Don't do that -- please.
00:24:51.27 I mean think about it.
00:24:53.18 Think about it from the audience's perspective.
00:24:56.01 Your best scene to end with
00:24:58.22 is a scene that shows your conclusion,
00:25:01.28 that shows really what your main takeaways are.
00:25:05.16 And that's what Danielle Lesso
00:25:08.02 did in this particular scene.
00:25:09.22 So, she had three main points
00:25:12.09 that she had made in her talk
00:25:14.26 to show that Miscanthus
00:25:17.14 could be a promising fuel crop
00:25:20.10 for the northeastern part of the United States.
00:25:22.20 And the first one is that Miscanthus
00:25:25.06 is able to have a cold tolerance
00:25:29.00 down to 6 degrees Celsius,
00:25:30.24 which is important in the Northeast.
00:25:32.15 Another thing is that the root depth
00:25:35.10 goes down to 2 meters,
00:25:37.21 which is important because a lot of the Northeast,
00:25:39.25 as she pointed out in her talk,
00:25:41.18 is on hilly surfaces,
00:25:43.15 and so the plant could be washed away
00:25:45.19 if it doesn't have sufficient root depth.
00:25:48.14 And then in the third part, she showed this energy ratio,
00:25:52.02 which the National Academy of Sciences had found,
00:25:55.00 that for every BTU of energy that you put in to
00:26:02.08 planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and transporting Miscanthus,
00:26:07.11 you get 6 BTUs out of energy
00:26:10.00 -- a ratio was 6 to 1.
00:26:13.21 And at this point, she gave her closure to her talk.
00:26:17.04 And then, when she was ready,
00:26:19.28 then she asked for questions.
00:26:22.08 Now, the audience has something
00:26:25.06 in which they can ask.
00:26:28.01 They've got words up here to help them formulate questions.
00:26:33.25 So, what have we done today?
00:26:36.14 We've talked about why the assertion-evidence approach...
00:26:39.01 why it is worth
00:26:42.27 at least an experiment on your part,
00:26:44.27 for you to try the gains
00:26:48.09 that we have in audience comprehension.
00:26:50.23 And then we walked through various scenes
00:26:53.00 to give you ideas
00:26:55.09 on how you might design your title slide,
00:26:57.18 a mapping slide,
00:27:00.02 a slide on your literature review,
00:27:01.12 talk about your methods, your results,
00:27:03.19 and then finally your conclusion.
00:27:07.04 So, this particular talk has focused
00:27:09.26 on how we might design slides for a research talk.
00:27:14.13 The third part of the series talks
00:27:17.28 about how you would deliver those slides
00:27:19.24 and, in particular,
00:27:22.11 how you would deliver those slides with confidence.

Part 3: Attaining Confidence in Your Scientific Presentations

00:00:08.02 This film is the third of a three-part series for iBiology
00:00:14.17 on improving your scientific presentations.
00:00:17.14 The first two films introduced a different approach,
00:00:20.28 the assertion-evidence approach,
00:00:23.04 for presentations,
00:00:25.24 what it is, why to use it,
00:00:28.19 and then how to incorporate it
00:00:31.17 into a research presentation.
00:00:33.17 This third film focuses on an important aspect of presentations,
00:00:39.15 and that is delivery.
00:00:41.07 And in particular,
00:00:43.22 how do you exude confidence in your delivery?
00:00:49.10 Now, I have had the fortune of teaching scientific presentations
00:00:54.13 over the past 30 years
00:00:58.10 on 4 continents, 17 countries,
00:01:02.17 and more than 100 institutions --
00:01:08.00 laboratories, companies, universities, and agencies.
00:01:12.28 And by far, the number one question
00:01:16.05 that young scientists and engineers asked me is,
00:01:21.09 how do I handle nervousness?
00:01:24.08 Now, they don't ask this question in front of the big crowd.
00:01:27.11 Rather, they catch me in the hallway and they ask.
00:01:31.01 And to that question, I have the same answer.
00:01:35.00 In the days before the presentation,
00:01:38.14 think positively.
00:01:40.13 Just as a professional tennis player
00:01:43.00 will imagine a shot going in a certain spot,
00:01:46.15 you too, in your presentations,
00:01:49.25 should imagine success --
00:01:53.22 the audience understanding your results, for instance.
00:01:57.19 On that day of the presentation,
00:02:00.27 arrive early.
00:02:04.10 I cannot tell you how many times arriving early
00:02:08.08 has saved me from embarrassment.
00:02:12.03 Learning that my computer
00:02:15.09 doesn't hook up with their particular projector,
00:02:18.19 finding that chairs are not where they should be...
00:02:22.27 arrive early.
00:02:25.11 That way, you can remove one of the biggest sources of nervousness,
00:02:29.23 and that is that your presentation slides will not work.
00:02:36.11 And then, just before you speak,
00:02:40.28 think about some advice that Mark Twain
00:02:43.24 shared with a nervous presenter backstage.
00:02:47.20 Don't worry -- they're not expecting much.
00:02:51.15 So, those are the three things
00:02:54.10 that I generally tell people
00:02:57.01 on how to handle nervousness
00:02:59.12 before a scientific presentation.
00:03:01.09 And I have to say, I've chosen those three
00:03:03.28 because those three things have helped me.
00:03:06.14 But what I would also say is "how do I handle nervousness?"
00:03:11.04 is not your best question.
00:03:13.24 The better question to ask is,
00:03:16.07 how do I attain confidence when I present?
00:03:20.13 And I'm talking about the confidence of the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor
00:03:25.03 or the physicist Brian Cox.
00:03:29.19 So, this question's a little bit different.
00:03:31.23 And if you think about confidence,
00:03:35.19 there are really two types of confidence.
00:03:38.09 There's that confidence that you feel inside,
00:03:41.03 the internal confidence.
00:03:44.17 And then there's that confidence
00:03:47.20 that you project to the audience.
00:03:50.02 Even though inside you might be hurting,
00:03:52.16 to the audience you can still project
00:03:55.18 that you at least seem confident.
00:03:58.28 So, I'd like to talk about those two.
00:04:01.21 And I'll start first with the internal confidence.
00:04:05.15 And I'd like to draw upon my interviews
00:04:08.29 with a number of scientists and engineers
00:04:12.21 who've given excellent presentations
00:04:15.02 to large audiences,
00:04:16.29 such as Jill Bolte Taylor or Brian Cox.
00:04:23.01 And one of the key ingredients for that internal confidence
00:04:29.09 is having strong content.
00:04:32.15 If you have tested or vetted that content of yours
00:04:37.24 before audiences whom you respect,
00:04:41.12 and that content has withstood those audiences,
00:04:45.20 and in fact received positive responses
00:04:49.16 from those audiences,
00:04:51.16 that will help you with your internal confidence.
00:04:57.00 A second ingredient comes from a short interview
00:05:02.01 I had with Jane Goodall.
00:05:04.18 I happened to meet her at an airport,
00:05:06.27 and I didn't have much time to speak with her,
00:05:10.21 but I mentioned that I have this opportunity
00:05:14.08 to talk about presentations
00:05:16.25 to many young scientists and engineers
00:05:20.00 around the world,
00:05:22.05 and what piece of advice would she give them?
00:05:25.22 And her demeanor changed.
00:05:29.22 She kind of took on a harsh demeanor,
00:05:31.26 and she said,
00:05:34.00 well, it certainly wouldn't be the same piece of advice
00:05:37.09 that someone gave me.
00:05:39.26 And I had this sense that
00:05:43.05 I had just ripped the Band-Aid off an old wound.
00:05:45.13 She said that before her first presentation
00:05:49.13 someone had told her to just go up there.
00:05:52.16 You're the expert.
00:05:54.18 And she said that was horrible advice.
00:05:57.17 And then she went on to tell me
00:05:59.29 that she was here touring the United States,
00:06:02.14 and she was giving essentially
00:06:06.12 the same talk at ten different places.
00:06:09.12 And at each of those places,
00:06:13.26 before the talk,
00:06:16.25 she insisted on having 45 minutes by herself
00:06:21.00 so that she could walk through that talk
00:06:24.02 and imagine herself giving it to the crowd.
00:06:28.20 And I thought to myself, my gosh.
00:06:31.24 Someone who is that seasoned...
00:06:34.05 if she still needs that amount of preparation,
00:06:40.01 what about the rest of us?
00:06:43.11 Preparation -- that I would say is the second ingredient.
00:06:47.28 And then the third ingredient came from the world health statistician
00:06:52.29 Hans Rosling.
00:06:55.03 And Hans Rosling told me that, for him,
00:07:01.02 an important part of internal confidence was focus.
00:07:09.20 What Rosling said is before an important talk
00:07:12.07 he didn't want to...
00:07:15.12 in the minutes before, he didn't want to really speak to anybody.
00:07:17.27 He just wanted to be by himself.
00:07:21.11 And his best analogy for it
00:07:24.20 was to be like a downhill slalom skier
00:07:28.17 up at the top, just before you take off.
00:07:33.11 And a downhill slalom speak...
00:07:35.16 skier thinks about going here, going here,
00:07:39.03 going here, or going here.
00:07:42.01 And he said, for him, that was the same thing,
00:07:45.14 that he wanted to think about exactly
00:07:47.27 where he was going to go.
00:07:51.06 This idea of focus was also one
00:07:55.06 that a young presenter communicated to me --
00:07:59.13 Sheila Patek, before one of her first presentations,
00:08:04.16 which was to more than 800 people.
00:08:08.16 And what she said is...
00:08:12.05 she said, if I had thought about the 800+ people
00:08:16.07 in the room that day,
00:08:18.19 I never could have done it.
00:08:21.05 Instead, I thought about the science
00:08:23.23 and my passion for the ideas,
00:08:25.28 and I let that carry me.
00:08:30.18 Strong content, preparation, focus.
00:08:36.23 If you will work on those three things,
00:08:39.22 you will bolster your internal confidence.
00:08:44.12 Now, I'm not saying that before a talk
00:08:47.23 you're not going to feel nervous.
00:08:50.29 There will be audiences and there will be situations
00:08:55.07 in which you will.
00:08:57.24 But... and I think something to realize
00:09:01.23 is that the internal confidence
00:09:04.12 is not an on/off switch.
00:09:06.29 A better analogy is that it's a bucket.
00:09:10.20 And the more that you work on those three,
00:09:13.18 the more fluid that is in that bucket.
00:09:18.00 And that... the nervousness that you will have
00:09:23.13 is not as much as if you had not done the strong content,
00:09:29.06 the preparation,
00:09:31.03 the focus.
00:09:33.21 So, that was a little bit about internal confidence.
00:09:37.01 How about projected confidence?
00:09:40.26 One thing that has amazed me
00:09:43.28 is that I have had students
00:09:46.19 who have given a presentation
00:09:49.09 -- former students --
00:09:51.12 and I have watched them,
00:09:53.08 and I have thought, oh my gosh,
00:09:56.06 these students are doing great.
00:09:58.10 And then I think to myself,
00:10:00.24 I must be a really good teacher,
00:10:03.12 that my former students are presenting so well.
00:10:07.07 But then afterwards, I will talk to these students,
00:10:11.11 and they will tell me how nervous they were.
00:10:14.17 And I will think to myself,
00:10:16.21 I must not be a very good teacher,
00:10:19.07 because I couldn't see their nervousness.
00:10:22.22 But one thing that I've realized is that
00:10:27.07 even though inside you are hurting,
00:10:30.16 you can mask that discomfort
00:10:36.28 in certain ways and with certain steps that you can take.
00:10:40.04 And so, I'd like to come back to Twain
00:10:43.20 and talk about another quotation that he has.
00:10:45.23 And for the moment, disregard the religious implications
00:10:48.22 of this quotation.
00:10:50.24 But Twain talked about
00:10:54.04 the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
00:10:58.04 And I think as a presenter,
00:11:01.09 there are four aces that you can play in a presentation
00:11:05.02 to project more confidence.
00:11:07.27 The ace of spades: start strong.
00:11:13.06 On the day of the presentation, arrive early.
00:11:17.04 Make sure that all the equipment is working.
00:11:21.20 And not just your computer and projector,
00:11:25.08 but make sure that the clicker is working
00:11:27.27 so that you are ready to go.
00:11:31.03 One thing that is important to realize is that
00:11:36.10 different rooms have different ghosts.
00:11:38.05 And crazy things that will happen in one room
00:11:41.12 will not happen in another.
00:11:43.16 But in that other room,
00:11:46.05 something else crazy could happen.
00:11:48.17 Be prepared -- arrive early.
00:11:50.27 And then, when you've gotten everything ready to go,
00:11:54.28 don't hide out in the bathroom.
00:11:56.25 Rather, meet your audience.
00:12:00.21 Try to find out something from them
00:12:03.07 that you can incorporate into your talk.
00:12:06.29 I see speakers do that.
00:12:09.13 And even though I know exactly what it is that they're doing,
00:12:13.25 I'm always amazed at that particular move
00:12:17.21 that they make.
00:12:20.03 Just meet your audience,
00:12:22.20 try to find out something about them.
00:12:24.14 Even if you don't incorporate it,
00:12:27.01 you have strengthened your hand
00:12:29.18 by meeting that person,
00:12:31.23 becoming in a sense that person's friend
00:12:35.01 or that person becoming your ally.
00:12:38.18 And then, when it's time for you to go up,
00:12:43.18 move up to the stage, stand tall.
00:12:47.09 I like to feel the muscles in the backs of my calves and thighs.
00:12:50.28 I like to feel myself stand as tall as I can
00:12:55.11 in front of the audience.
00:12:57.23 Don't necessarily say anything for a moment.
00:13:00.29 Smile.
00:13:03.04 Smiling is a great thing to do
00:13:06.10 because what happens is the audience will smile back,
00:13:08.29 and that's a good feedback loop for you.
00:13:12.17 And then, when you're ready to speak,
00:13:15.11 make sure that the first syllable that you say
00:13:20.08 is not uh.
00:13:22.12 Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how many times
00:13:26.01 people have undercut such a wonderful moment
00:13:28.19 with an uh or um.
00:13:32.16 Know what you're going to say first.
00:13:35.24 I don't memorize much,
00:13:38.18 but I often have the first sentence committed to memory.
00:13:42.15 And when I say it,
00:13:45.00 I will pause somewhere in the middle at a natural place.
00:13:49.22 And when you pause
00:13:52.06 -- and this might sound odd --
00:13:54.11 listen for the HVAC sound in the room
00:13:57.21 -- the heating, ventilation, and cooling sound of the room --
00:14:00.29 and love that sound.
00:14:04.01
00:14:06.05 Embrace that sound. Feel comfortable with that sound
00:14:08.22 so that you don't have this urge
00:14:12.03 to fill that sound with uh or um.
00:14:16.25 And then, when you show that first slide,
00:14:19.28 know that first slide.
00:14:22.09 Don't turn to the slide
00:14:24.20 and read what the title is.
00:14:29.16 And for heaven's sake,
00:14:32.04 don't turn to the slide
00:14:35.24 when you say your name.
00:14:37.25 You ought to know your name.
00:14:39.18 Know that first slide.
00:14:41.22 Now, on that slide, you should have some kind of image
00:14:45.13 or a sequence of images
00:14:47.25 that orient the audience.
00:14:50.03 And turning to that image...
00:14:52.14 that's a natural turn,
00:14:54.19 because you want the audience to turn toward that image.
00:14:59.12 Ace of spades -- start strong.
00:15:03.07 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides.
00:15:08.21 And so, don't follow PowerPoint's defaults
00:15:11.23 and have all these bullets.
00:15:14.09 Rather, use an approach
00:15:16.22 such as the assertion-evidence approach
00:15:19.03 that tries to minimize the text on slides
00:15:21.24 to just the essence of the argument
00:15:24.14 that you are giving.
00:15:26.22 Build your talk on messages,
00:15:28.25 not on topics.
00:15:31.01 Support your messages with visual evidence,
00:15:33.14 not bullet lists.
00:15:35.17 And that visual evidence could be photographs, drawings,
00:15:40.00 diagrams, graphs.
00:15:42.18 It could be a film, could be an equation,
00:15:44.25 could be a short table.
00:15:47.00 But reduce that text on slides
00:15:49.09 so that when you are speaking,
00:15:52.03 the words clearly come from you.
00:15:57.22 You show ownership of your research.
00:16:02.16 Ace of hearts -- reduce the text on slides.
00:16:06.16 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next.
00:16:10.09 Now, for me, when I'm at a conference
00:16:15.17 that I'm the second speaker or third speaker
00:16:18.28 in a session,
00:16:20.26 I really don't have the confidence
00:16:23.18 to listen to the previous speakers
00:16:25.21 and to ask them questions.
00:16:28.03 I'm always amazed at those people who do.
00:16:30.16 But for me, I am sitting here
00:16:34.02 thinking about my own presentation.
00:16:36.11 And one thing that I like to do
00:16:38.22 -- and it's similar to what Rosling said --
00:16:41.24 is that I like to think about each scene.
00:16:45.11 And so, I'll often take a blank sheet of paper
00:16:48.05 and I will sketch thumbnails of the slides,
00:16:52.14 and then the next slide, and then the next slide,
00:16:56.14 and the slide after that,
00:16:58.21 so that I know what comes next.
00:17:01.08 Because if I know what comes next
00:17:04.03 before I click to that slide,
00:17:07.01 I can make a transition to that scene.
00:17:11.26 And that making of a transition...
00:17:15.11 that projects confidence.
00:17:18.21 Ace of diamonds -- know what comes next.
00:17:22.28 Ace of clubs -- finish strong.
00:17:26.04 When you're at the end of your talk,
00:17:29.10 have a strong scene on which to end,
00:17:32.25 one that states your main conclusions
00:17:36.01 and then has images of your main arguments
00:17:41.15 to support that conclusion.
00:17:43.29 And then go through those arguments
00:17:48.00 in an efficient manner.
00:17:50.06 And when you get to the end of those arguments
00:17:53.18 and then you may your closure
00:17:55.27 to end the talk, pause.
00:18:01.08 And before you ask for questions,
00:18:05.29 say the word thank you.
00:18:10.23 Or if you're in Germany, danke schön.
00:18:13.23 Or if you're in China, xièxiè.
00:18:16.02 But give that audience
00:18:19.11 an opportunity to clap.
00:18:22.00 I find that in conference presentations
00:18:25.16 and research symposiums,
00:18:27.16 it's a coin flip.
00:18:29.10 The speaker might give the audience
00:18:31.17 a chance to clap.
00:18:33.25 But a lot of times, the speaker will just rush
00:18:36.08 and ask for questions.
00:18:38.12 And then the audience doesn't know what to do --
00:18:41.01 do I clap, or do I ask a question?
00:18:43.02 And so, what you end up with is
00:18:46.25 you end up with some tepid applause as well as then
00:18:49.08 some people may be trying to voice a question.
00:18:52.22 Don't go there.
00:18:54.21 You want to receive the applause.
00:18:56.26 And in fact, I think it's important
00:18:59.10 that those people who are
00:19:03.14 perhaps not in your field
00:19:05.18 see the experts in your field...
00:19:07.22 see them applaud.
00:19:09.24 Say thank you.
00:19:11.19 And then, when that applause is dying down,
00:19:15.27 that's when you want to ask for questions.
00:19:19.14 And when you receive questions,
00:19:21.23 know that there are gonna be some questions
00:19:24.27 that you cannot fully answer.
00:19:27.21 And so, a lot of young scientists and engineers...
00:19:31.17 they will rush that answer
00:19:34.08 and say what it is that they know.
00:19:37.13 But then they'll have a big but.
00:19:41.10 And then they'll end that answer
00:19:44.15 with some negative news.
00:19:46.25 A better way to handle it is to pause
00:19:49.18 and start your answer with although.
00:19:53.04 Although I cannot answer everything
00:19:55.28 about the question that you asked,
00:19:57.22 I can say...
00:20:01.00 and then finish strong with what it is you do know.
00:20:05.07 Ace of clubs -- finish strong.
00:20:10.26 If you'll play those four aces in your presentation,
00:20:16.01 you will project confidence.
00:20:21.19 Thank you.

Videos in this Talk
  • Part 1: Rethinking Scientific Presentations: The Assertion-Evidence Approach
    Part 1: Rethinking Scientific Presentations: The Assertion-Evidence Approach
    Audience:
    • Student
    • Researcher
    • Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
    • Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
  • Part 2: Assertion-Evidence Slides for a Research Talk
    Part 2: Assertion-Evidence Slides for a Research Talk
    Audience:
    • Student
    • Researcher
    • Educators
    • Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
    • Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
  • Part 3: Attaining Confidence in Your Scientific Presentations
    Part 3: Attaining Confidence in Your Scientific Presentations
    Audience:
    • Student
    • Researcher
    • Educators
    • Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
    • Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Speaker: Michael Alley
Total Duration: 1:14:18
Recorded: February 2020
All Talks in Professional Development

Talk Overview

Michael Alley has been teaching scientists and engineers how to design presentation slides and deliver effective scientific talks for over three decades. In this three-part lecture, you will learn (a) how to design your PowerPoint or Keynote slides, (b) how to organize your talk, and (c) how to confidently deliver your research seminar. This series will help trainees and research scientists alike improve their presentation skills.

Speaker Bio

Michael Alley

Michael Alley

Michael Alley holds a master of science in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University and a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Alabama. Alley is a teaching professor of Engineering Communication at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of three popular textbooks: The Craft of Scientific Presentations (2013), The Craft… Continue Reading

Playlist: Tips for Science Trainees

Related Resources

Michael P Alley, 2013, The Craft of Scientific Presentations, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA, pp. 286

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2016, Slide structure can influence the presenter’s understanding of the presentation’s content, International Journal of Engineering Education, 32, (1A), pp. 39-54

J K Garner and Michael P Alley, 2013, How the design of presentation slides affects audience comprehension: A case for the assertion-evidence approach, International Journal of Engineering Education 26 (6), pp. 1564-1579

PowerPoint templates for Assertion-evidence slides

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Rick Salatino says

    In the early 2010s, I was a scientific training manager, a molecular biologist and learning professional, for a medium-sized biotechnology company. I tried to influence and train our R&D scientists to use Michael Alley’s Assertion-Evidence approach to improve slide design for better knowledge acquisition and retention. While scientists theoretically accepted the approach, they practically rejected it. Powerpoint defaults were the comfortable default for most scientific research presentations and, I suspect, they still are today.

    Reply

  3. Craig Hadden says

    Thanks for sharing these videos, which offer a great way to improve the standard of fact-based presentations!

    If you’re interested, I’ve summarised this approach in a short post – including a 5-minute video. (The post also discusses “hacking” the assertion-evidence approach, to make your slides more varied.)

    Reply

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