Presenting Scientific Work: Seminars and Powerpoints.

Presenting Scientific Work:Seminars and Powerpoints

First problem?

At some point in your careerYou will have to present scientific information

before a crowd that can be large or small

What to do if you’re nervous!

* Read it

* Don't look at audience

* Rush through it

* Skip portions of my talk

* Tell myself it'll be over soon

* Imagine audience in their underwear

* Cough, pretend to have a sore throat

* Use a lot of slides

* Clench fists beneath lectern

* Keep swallowing, to make sure I can drink fluids

* Let a colleague do most of the talking

* Wear my lucky shirt

What to do if you’re nervous!

1) Know your subject

2) Practice to know the sequence of what you’re going to say but don’t ‘over-practice’

3) Understand that the audience is on your side

4) Understand that you will make mistakes

5) Understand that it’s OK to say “I don’t know”

Be yourself!

Other tricks for a smooth seminar:

1. Know the room

2. Use a presenter/laser properly

3. Use a microphone properly

A Seminar

How to put one together

Some general considerations

1. You have a restricted amount of time

2. No one is especially interested in what you are saying You have to interest them!

3. You have to get acrossa. why you’re doing what you’re doingb. what you gotc. what you think it means

4. Tell a story.

Presentation Mistakes!!!

1. Overdoing the features of Powerpoint



Colour



Background Colour



Background Effects



Special Effects

X-axis

Y-axis



Cute graphics

Number of

calls/min

Frog density

Themes

Proportion of infected birds

Locality

Vancouver Toronto Halifax New York Dallas

This is a ‘bar graph’

Proportion of infected birds

Locality

Vancouver Toronto Halifax New York Dallas

This is a ‘grouped bar graph’

2003

2005

2007

Avoid too much information


2. Too Much Information

Avoid tables that are more than about 3 x 3



Overly complex figures

!



Overly complex figures


3. Slides as notes


3. Slides as notes

1) Know your subject

2) Practice to know the sequence of what you’re going to say but don’t ‘over-practice’

3) Understand that the audience is on your side

4) Understand that you will make mistakes

5) Understand that it’s OK to say “I don’t know”

Presentation Mistakes!!!4. And specific to Mt. A. Biology Honours PresentationsLiterature Cited Aerts, L.A.M. 1994. Seasonal distribution of nudibranchs in the southern Delta area, S.W. Netherlands. Journal of Molluscan Studies 60: 129-139. Baur, B. 1992. Random mating by size in the simultaneously hermaphroditic land snail Arianta arbustorum: experiments and an explanation. Animal Behaviour 43: 511 - 518 Bleakney, J.S. 1996. Sea slugs of Atlantic Canada and the Gulf of Maine. Nimbus Publishing/Nova Scotia Museum. Halifax. viii + 216 pp. Braams, W.G. and H.F.M. Geelen. 1953. The preference of some nudibranchs for certain coelenterates. Archives Néerlandaises de Zoologie 10: 242-264. Clark, K.B. 1975. Nudibranch life cycles in the northwest Atlantic and their relationship to the ecology of fouling communities. Helgoländer Wissenschaftliche Meeresuntersuchungen 27: 28-69. Franz, D.R. 1970. Zoogeography of northwest Atlantic opisthobranch molluscs. Marine Biology 7: 171-180 Garlo, E. V. 1977. Opisthobranchs found off Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey, with notes on three species new to the state. The Nautilus 91:23-28. Gionet, L., & R. B. Aiken. 1992. Freeze tolerance in the intertidal nudibranch, Dendronotus frondosus (Opisthobranchia: Dendronotidae). Journal of Molluscan Studies 58:341-343. Logan, A., A.A. Mackay, and J.P.A. Noble. 1983. Sublittoral hard substrates. Pp 119-139 in M.L.H. Thomas (ed.), Marine and coastal systems of the Quoddy region, New Brunswick. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 64: Ottawa x +306 pp Loveland, R.E., G. Hendler and G. Newkirk. 1969. New records of nudibranchs from New Jersey. The Veliger 11: 418 - 420 MacFarland, F.M. 1966. Studies of opisthobranchiate mollusks of the Pacific coast of North America. Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences 6: 1-544. McDonald, G. R. and J. W. Nybakken. 1979. Additional notes on the food of some California nudibranchs with a summary of known food habits of California species. The Veliger 21:110-118. Meyer, K.B. 1974. Distribution and zoogeography of fourteen species of nudibranchs of northern New England and Nova Scotia. The Veliger 14: 137 - 152 Miller, M.C. 1960. Distribution and food of the nudibranchiate Mollusca of the south of the Isle of Man. Journal of Animal Ecology 30: 95 -116. Miller, M.C. 1962. Annual cycles of some Manx nudibranchs, with a discussion of the problem of migration. Journal of Animal Ecology 31: 545-569. Nybakken, J. 1974. A phenology of the smaller dendronotacean, arminacean and aeolidacean nudibranchs at Asilomar State Beach over a twenty-seven month period. The Veliger 16: 370-373. Robilliard, G.H. 1970. The systematics and some aspects of the ecology of the genus Dendronotus (Gastropoda: Nudibranchia). The Veliger 12: 433 - 479. Sisson, C.G. 2002. Dichotomous life history patterns for the nudibranch Dendronotus frondosus (Ascanius 1774) in the Gulf of Maine. The Veliger (in press). Swennen, C. 1961. Data on the distribution, reproduction and ecology of the nudibranchiate molluscs occurring in the Netherlands. Netherlands Journal of Sea Research 1/2: 191-240. Thomas, M.L.H., D. C. Arnold and A.R.A. Taylor. 1983. Rocky intertidal communities. Pp 35 -73 in M.L.H. Thomas (ed.), Marine and coastal systems of the Quoddy region, New Brunswick. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 64: Ottawa x +306 pp. Thompson, T.E. 1964. Grazing and the life cycles of British nudibranchs. Symposia of the British Ecological Society 4: 275-297.

CRITIQUE TIME!

Purpose and Hypotheses• To relate wave exposure to

diversity• To measure range and

abundance as related to wave exposure

• Moderate exposure= Most diversity

Materials and Methods

Sample

• 1 M2 Quadrat• Every 1/10• Noted Species and

Abundance per Quadrat• Barnacles at high density

extrapolated from 10cm2 region

• Unknown Species Collected

At the Lab...

Identified Unknown Species

Calculated Simpson’s Diversity D= 0-1 (high to low diversity)

n= count of particular speciesN= Total count of all species

S.D.I.= 1-D

Total Abundance

Littorina spp. Barnacles

Mytilus edulis Gammarus spp

HydrozoansLimpets

Total Abundance

Littorina spp. Gammarus spp

Mytilus edulis Hydrozoans

Limpets

Species Ranges

Mytilus edulisFound Lower

Semibalanus balanoidesFound Higher

Balanus balanusFound Throughout

Gammarus spp.Found Throughout

Sertularia pumilaFound Mid-

Littorina spp. Found Throughout

Acamaea testudinalesFound Lower


Annoying Mannerisms

• Um’s or other fillers

• Pacing (some is OK)

• Trailing voice - sounds like you’re very unsure

• Uplifted voice - sounds like you’re always asking a question

• Jargon - scientific or bureaucratic

• Jokes - they work so rarely that its not worth it

• Not maintaining eye contact


2. Annoying Mannerisms

THE WORD ‘LIKE’ IS OFFICIALLY BANNED!!!!

Dealing with questions

Dealing with questions

1. Don’t assume that the questioner is “out to get me”.

2. If questioning gets aggressive, keep your cool. Such questioning always reflects worse on the questioner!

3. Don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know.

4. Listen to the question before you start thinking of an answer.

Ending a seminar

Thank the audience for their attention

End it!!

Presenting Scientific Work: Seminars and Powerpoints.

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Transcript of Presenting Scientific Work: Seminars and Powerpoints.