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Giving Good Presentations: Jonathan I Maletic, Ph.D. Department of Computer Science Kent State University

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This document provides guidance on giving effective presentations. It emphasizes that the goal is to communicate a clear message to the audience. The audience should be considered, including their background and preconceptions. The presentation style should engage the audience through eye contact, questions, and walking around. Slides should be simple and highlight key points, while the presenter speaks to the audience, not the slides. The content should use a top-down approach, repeating and emphasizing the most important ideas. Thorough preparation and practice are also recommended.

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Giving Good Presentations: Jonathan I Maletic, Ph.D. Department of Computer Science Kent State University

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md5464
34 views8 pages
This document provides guidance on giving effective presentations. It emphasizes that the goal is to communicate a clear message to the audience. The audience should be considered, including their background and preconceptions. The presentation style should engage the audience through eye contact, questions, and walking around. Slides should be simple and highlight key points, while the presenter speaks to the audience, not the slides. The content should use a top-down approach, repeating and emphasizing the most important ideas. Thorough preparation and practice are also recommended.

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This document provides guidance on giving effective presentations. It emphasizes that the goal is to communicate a clear message to the audience. The audience should be considered, including their background and preconceptions. The presentation style should engage the audience through eye contact, questions, and walking around. Slides should be simple and highlight key points, while the presenter speaks to the audience, not the slides. The content should use a top-down approach, repeating and emphasizing the most important ideas. Thorough preparation and practice are also recommended.

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34 views8 pages

Giving Good Presentations: Jonathan I Maletic, Ph.D. Department of Computer Science Kent State University

Uploaded by

md5464
This document provides guidance on giving effective presentations. It emphasizes that the goal is to communicate a clear message to the audience. The audience should be considered, including their background and preconceptions. The presentation style should engage the audience through eye contact, questions, and walking around. Slides should be simple and highlight key points, while the presenter speaks to the audience, not the slides. The content should use a top-down approach, repeating and emphasizing the most important ideas. Thorough preparation and practice are also recommended.

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You are on page 1/ 8

Giving Good Presentations

Jonathan I Maletic, Ph.D.


Department of Computer Science
Kent State University

Goals of a Presentation
• Why are you presenting?
– To communicate some idea, concept, or
method to an audience
• Communication is two way
– Speaker (giver)
– Audience (receiver)

• Goal: Communicate a message

Importance of the Skill


• We make presentations for:
– Thesis and Dissertation defense
– Conference talks
– Course lectures
– Interview talks
– Presentations to employer
• You will be judged by your ability to
communicate
– If they don’t get it – it’s not their fault!

1
The Basics
• Know your audience

• Prepare well

• Define your message

The Audience
• Listening is difficult
• Your job is to make it easier by continually
asking yourself if they get it.
• As such
– Give the audience time to think
– Don’t talk nonstop
– The don’t know the material as well as you
– Figures and equations need time to digest
– New terminology and definition need to be repeated
– Remind the audience of key facts, definitions, etc.

Know the Audience


• Expert, knowledgeable, novice, student,
general public?
• A talk to your peers should be different
then talking to a more general audience
• Find out who will be in the audience
• However, do not under estimate
• An audience may have very preconceived
notions about the topic (or terminology)

2
Engage the Audience
• Ask real and rhetorical questions to keep
people’s minds active and engaged
– This is a clue to their understanding
– What if they don’t respond?
• Make eye contact
• Don’t just talk to one person
• Walk towards a person who asks, or response,
to a question – look at them directly
• Try to make examples interesting and
compelling

Verbal Presentation Style


• Speak clearly
• Slowly and loud enough to be heard
• This is especially needed for non-native
speakers
• Speak to the audience not to the screen,
white board, or computer!!
• Point to the screen (NOT to the computer)
• Walk over, emphasize, and point

Slides
• Do NOT over do PowerPoint!
• Slides should be simple without distractions
• Moderate use of color
• High contrast between lettering and background
• Appropriate font size

• Each slide should be:


– Terse (i.e., not verbose)
– Highlight key points
– Have a meaningful title - not Introduction(5)
– Be focused

3
The Good
• Large simple font
• Very simple animation

Good colors

The Ugly
• Small odd font

Odd Colors

Message
• What do you want to communicate?
– Use a top-down approach
– Give big picture first – the what and why
– Then go into detail – referring back to the big
picture
• State the message in three levels:
– One or two sentences
– One or two paragraphs
– The complete details

4
General Organization
1. Tell them what you are going to tell them
2. Tell them
3. Tell them what you told them

• Summarize at the beginning and end


• Use this for each major section of the
presentation

Emphasize the Important


• Typically, much of the material you
present is well known or obvious
• As such, the new and important material
can get lost
• Clearly highlight the important part by:
– Physical – Tone of voice, body language
– Visual – Good sides
– Verbal - Tell them!
– Mental - Related it to what they already know

Repetition
• Repeat the important parts:
– 20% or more of the audience are thinking
about something else at any given time
– Again, they have not thought about this as
much as you (hopefully)
• Emphasize main message repeatedly
• Remind audience each time a new term is
seen
• Again, listening is difficult

5
Know Your Material
• There may be someone who knows the
material as well (or better) as you in the
audience
• Do not includes slides/material that you
can’t explain
• Anticipate questions (give them leads)

Practice
• Practice
• Practice
• Practice

• In the mirror
• To friends
• To your advisor

General Outline
• Introduction
• Body
• Technicalities/evaluation/experiment
• Conclusion

6
Introduction
• Define problem
• Motivate the audience
• Introduce terminology
• Discuss prior work
• Emphasize contributions
• Provide a roadmap

• Outline slide (bad or good?)

Body
• Abstract the major results
• Explain the significance of the results
• Sketch the evaluation method, experiment,
proof, supporting argument for your results

Technicalities
• Present methods of evaluation,
experimental setup, or lemmas
• Present details

7
Conclusion
• Refer back to previous sections and
results by summarizing
• Emphasize contribution or major result
• Give open problems and future work
• Questions?

Summary
• Presentations are about communication – not just talking
• Listening is hard work and your job is to make it easier
• Give the audience a chance to think and digest the
material
• Speak clearly and TO the audience
• Use a top-down approach – what is the message
• Repeat, repeat, repeat
• Engage the audience
• Summarize
• Practice, practice, practice

Resources
• Google “giving presentations computer
science”
• Frank Kschischang at:
www.comm.utoronto.ca/frank/guide/guide0
.html
• Adapted from slides of Matthew Turk at
UCSB

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