How to give a good talk - some remarks on preparation and content of a scientific presentation -...

How to give a good talk- some remarks on preparation and content

of a scientific presentation -

Abbe School of PhotonicsDipl.-Phys. Ulf Zastrau

IOQ, X-ray Optics Group

november 6th, 2009 1APS , Zastrau

Contents of my talk

• Purpose of the talk• Organization of a talk• How to present a transparency content• Time estimation• Practise your talk• Discussion of the talk

• Summary

november 6th, 2009 APS , Zastrau 2

Purpose of the talk

• Master Thesis defense: long talk (30-60min), scientific discussion on details, is like an oral examination

• Seminar talk: medium duration (15-45min), to inform your colleagues about a topic and to show your teacher that you can present results.

• Conference talk: short (15-30min), general audience, make sure you are very focused and adress everybody in the audience.


Organization

• Contents• Motivation – why is this interesting?• Brief introduction into to physics needed• Present your results – MAIN PART• Summary• Thank your colleagues and co-workers


How to present a tranparency…

• Headline should give a summary• everything should be written in a single

language• Write everything down and check if the

transparency makes sense without a speaker• Do NOT read word-by-word the transparency,

describe what the audience is supposed to see.


How to present a tranparency…

• Do speak freely, do NOT use notes.

YOUR NOTE IS THE TRANSPARENCY if you are afraid of missing an important

point, write it down on the transparency.

• Speak to the audience most of the time. Look at your laptop screen to see the transparency.


Graphs• Make sure your axes numbers are large

enough (standard size of often to small).


[Rogers & Iglesias, Science 263,50 (1994); Da Silva et al., PRL 69, 438 (1992)]

P0 (days)

P 1 / P

0

0.74

0.70

0.72OPAL

Cox Tabor

6M

5M

4M4M 5M 6M

7MObservations

Log T(K)

Log

k R (c

m2 /

g)

Fe M shell

Fe L shell andC, O, Ne K shell

HHe+

H,He

Los Alamos, Z = 0.02OPAL, Z = 0.00

OPAL, Z = 0.02

Ar, Fe K shell

2

1

0

-11 3 5 74 5 6 7 8

Illustration• A picture helps the audience to understand.


Element formation in stars

The Big BangPlanetary system formation

Forming Earth-like planets

Chemistry of life

[http://www.nas.edu/bpa/reports/cpu/index.html]

Picture of your setup


Full ApertureBackscatter

Diagnostic Instrument Manipulator (DIM)

Diagnostic Instrument Manipulator (DIM)

X-ray imager

Streaked x-ray detector

VISAR

Velocity Measurements

Static x-rayimager

FFLEX

Hard x-ray spectrometer

Near Backscatter Imager

DANTE

Soft x-ray temperature

Diagnostic Alignment System

Cross Timing System

Courtesy of R. Body, NIF, USA

Step-by-step presentation

• Using fade-in, your can…

• … present your results and graphs…

• …step by step and thus keep the audience…

• …focused to the important things.


Time estimation• Time for talk = T minutesT * 2/3 = number of all transparencies.

Or: if you have a presentation and want toknow how much time is needed: # transparencies * 3/2.

30 min time = max. 20 transparemcies Take your amount of time small for a discussion!

A long talk is boring to the audience.


Practise your talk

• Practise alone with your laptop, speak loud.• Measure the time you needTransparencies which you have to skip (!) put

at the end of the talk for the discussion, do NOT delete them.

Ask friends to listen to your talk AFTER you tried it yourself.


Discussion• Before the presentation, thing of possible questions.

Prepare slides which illustrate the answer (even off-topic).

• Try to identify with a member of the audience.

• Always be very polite, „thank you for your question…“ or „this is indeed a very interesting question. Let me answers it by…“

• and explain even stupid questions very detailed… • „There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers“.


Summary

• The summary shold again stress only the outstanding results in a very brief way.

• It is useless to present too much text here, because nobody will read it at the end of a long presentation. BE QUICK AND PRECISE.

Thank you – looking forward to a discussion.


How to give a good talk - some remarks on preparation and content of a scientific presentation -...

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