20150627 Edanz Shinshu

Trevor Lane Ayli Chong

Effectively Presenting Your Research

Shinshu University

27 June 2015

What are your goals?

When to present your work

Impressive presentations

Present professionally

Interact with your peers

You need to be an effective communicator of your research

Articles Presentations

Importance of presenting your work

Section 1

What are your goals?

When to present your work

Impressive poster presentations

Logical oral presentations

Clear and effective slides

You need to be an effective communicator of your research

Presentations

Customer Service Presenting your work

Why important to present?

Share your published and unpublished findings

Identify trends in the field

Network and form collaborations

Customer Service Presenting your work Where to present?

Lab meetings

Journal clubs

Meetings/conferences

Lab meetings

Customer Service Presenting your work Lab meetings

Content will be different from meetings/conferences

Share your work with colleagues

Get help/advice

Plan future experiments

Lab meetings – preparation

Identify successes and problems

Logically organize your data

Scan all non-digital images

Prepare PowerPoint

Print out slides as handouts

Bring paper and pen for notes!

Lab meetings – what to present

Background information

Successful experiments

Difficult experiments

Failed experiments

Future directions

“Why didn’t it work?” “It didn’t work.”

Lab meetings – Getting feedback

Helps you to improve your experiments and results

Helps you retain focus

Encourage discussion with questions Do not rush through your slides, give your

colleagues time to think

Journal clubs

Customer Service Presenting your work Journal clubs

Stay up-to-date on published research

Learn to critically review research

Learn from your colleagues

Organization

• Group of 8–12 people with similar interests • Meet every 2–4 weeks • One person presents a recently published article

Objective: Critically review article

Appropriate study design/methods?

Scientifically relevant topic?

Logical interpretations?

Significant results?

Benefits

• Learn to identify good articles

• Learn to write better manuscripts

• Learn to discuss other’s research

• Prepare you to become an effective peer reviewer

Meetings and conferences

Customer Service Presenting your work Meetings & conferences

Usually organized by societies, institutes, or publishers

Some are small and focused • Good for right before writing and after

publishing your work

Others are very large and broad • Good when beginning a new project or want

new ideas

Types of meetings

When should you present your work?

Before you publish?

After you publish?

Presenting before you publish

Advantages

Identify new trends Meet similar researchers

Get advice Identify problems

Customer Service Presenting your work Identifying trends

Small meetings usually focus on a narrow topic important for the field

Customer Service Presenting your work Identifying trends

Large meetings usually have smaller symposia focused on important topics

Customer Service Presenting your work Meet similar researchers

Talk to the ‘big names’ in your field

Meet the researchers in those labs

Meet new researchers

Establish collaborations

Customer Service Presenting your work Get advice

At others’ presentations

During/after your presentation

• Talk directly to the researchers doing the experiments

• Technical details and ‘data not shown’

• Are they familiar with your techniques?

• Are there any problems/gaps?

Customer Service Presenting your work Identify problems early

Unclear aims Methodological

problems

Unclear figures Missing data

Unclear relevance

Lack of interest

“Why is this important for the field?”

Lack of interest in your published article

Presenting after you publish

Advantages

Actively promote your article

Advice on future directions

Networking with researchers

Networking with journal editors

Poster presentations

Section 2

Benefits of poster presentations

Gives you the opportunity to interact with other researchers in your field

Allows you to share pre-published results with your peers

Allows you to discuss one-on-one with other researchers about your study

• More interactive than oral presentations • Improve discussing your research in English • Help build international collaborations

Poster presentations Poster layout

Poster size and layout can change depending on the conference

Can be either landscape or portrait (usually A0)

Organize sections based on a grid layout

Organize in columns, not rows (easier to read in a crowd)

Put important information at eye level

Logo Short Descriptive Title of Your Research

Authors and Affiliations

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Results

Methods References

Discussion Results

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 3 Fig. 6

Poster layout

What’s wrong with this poster?

Title and Authors

Asymmetrical & Too Much Text Not practical for reading Not esthetic (pleasing to the eye,美的)

Poster layout – Symmetry

Title and Authors

Asymmetry

Title and Authors

Horizontal symmetry

Title and Authors

Horizontal & vertical symmetry

Title and Authors

Diagonal symmetry

Poster presentations Poster formatting

Colors

• 2–3 colors maximum • Light background with dark letters

• Title: 85 pt • Authors: 50 pt • Headings: 36–44 pt • Text: 24–34 pt

• Read from 1.5 m • Use sans serif font

(Arial, Calibri)

Poster presentations Preparing your poster

Important points to include

Not necessary

Brief introduction General methodology

Results Brief Discussion

Abstract Detailed methods Many references

Poster presentations Brief introduction

Why your work should be done

Current state of the field Identify knowledge gaps

State your objectives

Keep it short 2–3 paragraphs 200–300 words

Illustrations Use schematics or models to help

explain your hypothesis

Poster presentations General methodology

Briefly describe techniques in logical order

Don’t include specific details (e.g. what concentration buffer was used)

Use flow charts and illustrations for clarity

Poster presentations Results

Most of your poster

Large and clearly labeled figures

Figure legends Should explain technical details as

well as factually explain results

Image quality 300 dpi vs 72 ppi

CMYK vs RGB

Poster presentations Image quality

ppi (dpi): pixels per inch (dots per inch)

For printing, use 300 dpi

Most images are 72 ppi, so you need to change it to 300 ppi (e.g., Photoshop)

http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/gta/3c_Final_artwork.pdf

CMYK Colors used for printing

RGB → CMYK can be unclear

RGB Primary colors of light

Used in monitors

Image quality

CMYK Colors used for printing

RGB → CMYK can be unclear

RGB Primary colors of light

Used in monitors

Check image quality (Photoshop, Ctrl+Y for CMYK preview)

Image quality

Poster presentations Figures

Clear figure legend

Kindlin-2 knockdown and focal adhesion localization. Confocal immunofluorescent microscopy with anti-β1 integrin and anti-paxillin on C2C12 cells transfected with RNAi and then changed to differentiation media for 2 days. Control cells show linear staining consistent with localization to costameres (arrows), as well as punctate focal contact staining (arrowheads). Focal contact proteins in the kindlin-2 RNAi cells fail to form linear structures and instead are concentrated in unusual appearing puncta (*). (Scale bar = 20 μM).

Dowling et al. (2008) BMC Cell Biol 9:36.

Clear indicators

Title of the experiment

Brief methodology

Key findings

Data aligned and formatted

Table formatting

Muñoz et al. New Engl J Med. 2003;348:518−527.

Clear and concise table caption

Abbreviations defined

NO lines!

Poster presentations Is this a good table?

Alignment and formatting problems

Alignment of text

Alignment of parentheses

Alignment of decimals

Data similarity

Tumor size (mm3) before treatment Mean (±SD)

Tumor size (mm3) after treatment

Mean (±SD)

% decrease

Treatment time

Group 1 423.2 (6.23) 232.8 (3.18) 44.99 4 months

Group 2 286.43 (4.8) 157.32 (2.29) 45.08 14 weeks

Group 3 342.7 (6.88) 218.4 (5.2) 36.27 3.5 months

Group 4 404 (3) 302 (4.21) 25.247 90 days

Poster presentations Making a good table

Tumor size (mm3) before

treatment Mean (±SD)

Mean (±SD)

% decrease

Treatment time

(weeks)

Group 1 423.20 (6.23) 232.80 (3.18) 44.99 16

Group 2 286.43 (4.80) 157.32 (2.29) 45.08 14

Group 3 342.70 (6.88) 218.40 (5.20) 36.27 14

Group 4 404.00 (3.00) 302.00 (4.21) 25.25 12

Tumor size (mm3) before treatment Mean (±SD)

Mean (±SD)

% decrease

Treatment time

Group 1 423.2 (6.23) 232.8 (3.18) 44.99 4 months

Group 2 286.43 (4.8) 157.32 (2.29) 45.08 14 weeks

Group 3 342.7 (6.88) 218.4 (5.2) 36.27 3.5 months

Group 4 404 (3) 302 (4.21) 25.247 90 days

Poster presentations Graphs

0 1 h 2 h 3 h 4 h 5 h 6 h

Drug A

Drug Bng

0 1 h 2 h 3 h 4 h 5 h 6 h

Use high contrasting colors Clearly label axes Clear legends

Drug A

Drug B

2 h3 h

4 h5 h

NEVER use 3-D graphs for 2-D data

Graphs

Poster presentations Conclusions

Summarize important points

Use bullet points for emphasis

Illustrate your model with a schematic

Do not place too low on the poster

Additional tips

Export your poster as a PDF to ensure there are no formatting issues at the printer (make sure A0 size)

Print out A4-sized copies of your poster for distribution

Put your contact information on your poster

Prepare a 30-second speech to get people’s attention

Be able to present your poster in 3–5 min

Encourage discussion

• Ask them questions about their research • Pause between figures to give them time to ask questions

Any questions?

Follow us on Twitter

@EdanzEditing

Like us on Facebook

facebook.com/EdanzEditing

Download and further reading edanzediting.co.jp/shinshu150627

Your colleague has prepared three different posters, but he is unsure which one is the best for presenting at a conference he is attending next month. Please review each of the three posters and give advice on how he can improve readability.

Activity 1: Posters

Too much text!

Introduction is too long

Methods should be

more graphic

Figure legends are too long

Figures are too small

Conclusions should be

bullet points, with model

No contact information

Activity 1: Poster 1

Font has low readability

Methods should be

more graphic

Figure legends are too short

bullet points

Unclear title

Figures are too large

No: • Methods • References • Acknowledgments • Contact info

bullet points, not placed at the bottom

Clear title

Concise Introduction

Schematics

Graphical Methods

Large figures with clear

figure legends

Bullet point Conclusions with model

Contact info

Activity 1: Good poster

Presenting posters

Section 3

Presenting posters

Start positive and get their attention early

You will have 30 seconds to convince people to stay at your poster

Photo used with permission from Dr. Pascal Wallisch

Presenting posters

You will have 30 seconds to convince people to stay at your poster

Polite greeting

Study implications

Smile, “Good afternoon…”

Why your poster is important to them

“In our study, we found that [main conclusion]. This suggests that [implication].”

Start positive and get their attention early

Presenting posters

You should be able to present your poster <5 minutes

Presenting your poster

Other posters Be respectful, attendees want to see other posters too

Other attendees Be efficient, you want to present to many attendees

Limited attention

Be aware, many distractions and attendees may be tired

Presenting posters

Briefly introduce your study

Introduction

Background and research problem

Objectives and methodology

“Currently, it is thought that...” “However, it is not clear…”

“To address this issue, we used [methodology] to determine [aims].”

Useful to ask the background of your audience

• What are your aims to address the problem?

• Briefly describe the general methodology

Presenting posters

Figures – Guide the audience

Describing data/figures

Introduce the figures

Talking about the data

State specific implications

“First, we [describe experiment].”

“Here, you can see...” “It was clear that…”

“This result suggests that...” “To address this, we next…”

Ask for your audience’s opinions!

Presenting posters

Finishing your presentation

Conclusions

Main conclusions

Next steps

“Together, these results suggest that...”

“Currently, we are investigating...”

“Do you have any questions or suggestions?”

Invite questions Get advice to improve

your study

Presenting posters Additional poster tips

Don’t block your poster

There will likely be more than one person reading it

Don’t make them read it!

Bring 50 A4-sized copies of your poster (with contact details) to distribute

Present your poster to them

Any questions?

@EdanzEditing

Like us on Facebook

Section 4

Oral presentations

Coverage and Staffing Plan

Oral presentations

Comparing articles and presentations

Flow of information

Not limited Readers can take

their time

Limited Limited attention

No control Readers can skip

sections

Control Audience has to

listen to everything

Articles Presentation

Oral presentations

Types of oral presentations

Lab meetings Seminars/Jour

nal clubs

Short talks Full talks

Local presentations

Conference presentations

30–60 min 30–60 min

5–15 min 20–45 min

Estimate 1.5–2 minutes per slide

Oral presentations

Keep your audience in mind

What do they want to know?

What do you want to tell them?

What will be interesting for them?

What will keep their attention?

Keep it simple!

Oral presentations

What do they want to know?

What do you want to tell them?

Tissue engineering of liver

Device development Drug toxicity testing

Bioengineers Life/health science

Oral presentations

Younger/ Broader

• More introduction • More graphics (e.g., methodology) • Simpler explanation of results • Clearer/broader implications

Experienced/ Specialized

• Less introduction • More data and figures • Clear implications • Future directions

Experience level and area of expertise

Oral presentations Telling a story

Beginning Why your study

needs to be done

Middle What you found

End How your study

advances the field

Logical flow

Oral presentations

Use the same principle in your presentations!

In writing, you should link the end of one sentence with the beginning of another.

Transitions within and between slides

The budget is tight, but you deserve a raise. Your salary

will increase at the beginning of next year.

Oral presentations

• Point 1 • Point 2 • Point 3 • Point 4

Benefits Easier to understand

Easier to present

Oral presentations

Figure 1: Initial findings

• Gene expressed in heart – Human and mouse

• Expressed higher in embryonic tissue

Figure 2: Development

• Peak expression at E10

• Expressed in migrating neural crest cells

When expressed?

Which stage of development?

Formation of outflow tract

Oral presentations Always be prepared!

• Person before you spoke too long • Ask you to finish early • Technical difficulties • Many questions during your talk • Dogs

Only essential information on your slides

Can adjust your timing based on your talking points

Activity 2: Slide organization

Organize the slides into a logical order. Identify anything else that can improve the logical flow of this presentation.

Remarkable Changes in Behavior and Physiology of Laboratory Mice after the

Massive 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan

Shuichi Yanai, Yuki Semba, & Shogo Endo

PLOS ONE 2012;7:e44475

• How earthquakes affect behavior is not known

• In humans, earthquakes correlate with increase in psychiatric disorders

• Effect on laboratory animal behavior not clear

Slide titles?Introduction 1,

• March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred in Tohoku region of Japan

• Tokyo (300 km from the epicenter) experienced seismic activity during the earthquake and aftershocks months after

• Food intake: mice were fed ad libitum for 4 h, food weighed before and after

• Water maze: test spatial memory

• Fear conditioning: pair tone and shock

• Serum levels of corticosterone were measured Where are these

In this study, we measured:

Number of earthquakes and its intensity in Tokyo in March and April 2011

Earthquake-experienced mice experienced one strong earthquake during testing

Food consumption before and after earthquake

Body weight of naive vs. earthquake-experienced mice

Food Consumption and Body Weight

Food consumption increased by ~50% after the earthquake

Body weight did not increase after the earthquake

Number of trials for mice to learn where is the platform

Time spent swimming in quadrants after platform removed

Water Maze

Earthquake-experienced mice learned where the platform

was located more quickly

Both groups of mice remembered where the

platform was located ANOVA, p<0.05

Fear Conditioning

1 h after conditioning

24 h after conditioning

Earthquake-experienced mice learned conditioned fear better than naive mice

Pain Sensitivity

Earthquake-experienced felt pain similarly as naïve mice

Hotplate test

Earthquake-experienced Naïve

Is this important?

Earthquake-experienced mice were found to have:

• Increased food intake

• No weight gain

• Faster spatial learning

• Enhanced fear conditioning

• Increased food consumption without body-weight gain also seen in 2008 China earthquake

– Reduced glucose uptake in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue

• Earthquakes might affect metabolic activity

Better to combine with previous slide?

Earthquake-experienced mice were found to have:

• Increased food intake, but no weight gain – Also seen in 2008 in China (ref)

– Earthquakes might affect metabolic activity

• Faster spatial learning

• Enhanced fear conditioning

• Mice suffering from natural disaster might reflect animal model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Knockout mice might identify key genes and pathways in this disorder

• Researchers should be careful of using mice after a natural disaster

Thank you!

Questions?

Any questions?

@EdanzEditing

Like us on Facebook

Section 5

Preparing slides

Preparing slides Effective titles

Which conference has clearer

titles?

You know exactly what these presentations are about before you attend

1. http://www.frontiersinpolymerscience.com/resources/downloads/POLY2015_oral_programme_final.pdf 2. http://www.ispac-conferences.org/Data/Sites/1/ISPAC%20documents/ISPAC-Scientific-Program.pdf

Preparing slides

Important points

Summarize key finding Contains key words Less than 20 words

Effective titles

Your title should be a concise summary of your most important finding

Questions Describing methods Abbreviations “Study of…” “New” or “novel”

Preparing slides Beginning

Brief introduction

Background information

Aims of your study

Use pictures and diagrams

Preparing slides Example

• Lumenal structures (bile canaliculi, BC) between hepatocytes are difficult to maintain in vitro

• Sandwich culture configurations promote BC maturation

• Intracellular mechanisms unclear

AIM: Determine if intracellular tension promotes or maintains BC maturation in vitro

Actomyosin activity

• Lumenal structures (bile canaliculi, BC) between hepatocytes are difficult to maintain in vitro

• Sandwich culture configurations promote BC maturation

• Intracellular mechanisms unclear

AIM: Determine if intracellular tension promotes or maintains BC maturation in vitro

Actomyosin activity

What is known

What is not known

What are the aims

Preparing slides Middle

Methods

Flow chart or schematic

Figures

Important results

Seed primary rat hepatocytes (d1)

Collagen overlay (d2)

Treat cells with inhibitors (d3)

Fix cells (d4)

Confocal microscopy

Preparing slides Figures

Main limitation? Space!

Only choose most important data

Organize clearly

Preparing slides Selecting important data

Want et al. BMC Cell Biol. 2011;12:49.

Colocalization of tyrosine phosphorylated cortactin and active Src at focal adhesions

Localization at focal adhesions

Localization at the leading edge

Preparing slides

Colocalization of tyrosine phosphorylated cortactin and active Src at focal adhesions

Localization at the leading edge

Selecting important data

Preparing slides Black and white images

Often helpful to display images on a screen

Go et al. New Engl J Med. 2004;351:1296.

Kidney disease

Not cardiovascular

Modified from: Go et al. New Engl J Med. 2004;351:1296.

Characteristic Total Cohort (N=1,120,295)

≥ 60 ml/min/1.73 m2

(N=924,136)

< 60 ml/min/1.73 m2

(N=196,159)*

Age (yr) 52.2 ± 16.3 49.1 ± 15.1 66.6 ± 13.0

Female sex (%) 54.6 53.4 60.2

Ethnic group

White 50.90 47.20 68.60

Black 7.4 7.2 5.3

Hispanic 5.9 6.3 4.1

Asian 8.1 8.5 6.7

Mixed 2.4 2.4 2.8

Other 25.30 28.40 12.50

Medical history

Coronary heart disease

6.3 4.5 17.80

Stroke 2.6 1.7 8.3

Peripheral arterial disease

1.8 1.1 6.7

Chronic heart failure

2.1 1.0 19.80 * estimations

Important

Preparing slides Often graphs are better than tables

Modified from: Go et al. New Engl J Med. 2014;351:1296.

Coronary heartdisease

Stroke Peripheralarterial disease

Chronic heartfailure

Healthy

Kidney disease

Readable axes!

Preparing slides End

Conclusions

Summary and implications

Future directions

How is this being further developed?

Preparing slides Slide layout

• Sans serif (e.g., Arial, not serif) • 40 pt for titles • 30+ pt for headings • 24+ pt for main text

Layout • Limit 8 lines of text per slide • Use bullet points, not sentences • Organize and align clearly

Well-designed slides show that you care about the presentation

Preparing slides

You should never write complete sentences like this on your slides. Therefore, try to use bullet points

instead to communicate your ideas to your audience. Bullet points are also a great way to list the main

points for your audience on the slide. However, it can also be boring for them as well. If this happens, you

can quickly lose the attention of your audience. As we discussed earlier, once you lose the attention of

your audience, your presentation is essentially over and you have not communicated the significance or

relevance of your work to them. Another problem with bullet points is that it might suggest hierarchy in

the list that you are sharing with your audience, which can be misleading for your audience. They may

assume that the first point is more important that the last point, when this may not necessarily be the case.

Lastly, having one large block of text to read takes more time for your audience and can be more difficult,

especially for non-native English attendees.

Serif font style (Times New Roman)

Font is too small (18 point)

Full sentences (unnecessary text)

Bullet points