Presenting Science

Molly S. Costanza-Robinson, Ph.D.Middlebury College

Caveman Chemistry FYSE 1329

Spring 2011

Outline

Presenting Using power point to present Presenting science

Outline

Presenting Using power point to present Presenting science

Presenting

Enunciate and project your voice Make eye contact with your audience Avoid nervous habits Reading is not presenting

2 notecards are allowed. Use none? Short, bulleted phrases keep you on track

Rehearse: It helps you…

Organize your talk Is the order of your slides logical? Do you know what comes next?

Stay within time constraints Is your 15 min talk really 25 min? Can you say what you mean concisely?

Stay calm and confident interruptions won’t throw you off allows for spontaneous thoughts

Consider your audience

What do they already know? What are you excited to teach them? What will they be interested to learn?

Consider your purpose

Convey your scientific understanding Teach your classmates something new

& interesting When possible, link your new science

to science that has become familiar

Hourglass Organization

Start broad overview/history of technology

Get more specific science, examples, your experiment

Broaden out again Summary, “take-home message”

Outline

Presenting Using power point to present Presenting science

Slide rules

Spend at least 1-2 min. per slide Use <5 bullets per slide Use 24 pt font or larger

http://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/engineering/engineer05/images/sliderule20.jpg

Color Choices: contrast Color Choices: contrast is good!is good!

BLACK

BLUE

GREEN

RED

Don’t use light colors like YELLOW

white on black

white on blue

yellow on blue

Don’t use PASTELSM.A. Daugherty

Avoid too many words

If you have very long sentences being projected on the board, I can guarantee that no one will be listening to the words that you are actually speaking. They will be reading, and your emphasis will be lost.

Keep it short Use phrases Force people to listen to you

Avoid distractions

Although this is cool it distracts from the science

Just enough “design” to be pleasing

Powerpoint advantage: visuals

Photos Diagrams Colors

http://www.blog37.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/technology_stockxpertcom_id1218361_size1.jpg; http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Tz3ncmsbBIA/S9EfgLVziyI/AAAAAAAAADs/x-2jyD3BxFU/s1600/95171_Technology.jpg

Outline

Presenting Using power point to present Presenting science

(Scientific) Conventions

Appropriate units Specific & quantitative Appropriate conventions

Symbols (m), subscripts (NO3), superscripts (people/km2), arrows

Citations in small font (<18) at the bottom of the slide

Final Slides

Acknowledgments (help, $) Further Reading Questions

Questions?