How to give
a great
presentation
Part II
Tips, tricks, & tools
Dr. Tomáš Glomb
Dr. Martin Lang
Stress
management
• Stress is good!
Stress
management
• Imposter syndrome
• BUT, remember, audience is your friend!
Stress
management
“The audience is your friend. They want you to give a
good talk. This is because most people are kind, and also
because a good talk is in their own interests.
They want to spend the next 20 or 30 or 60 minutes being
informed, challenged, amused, and so on—and hope very
much you will succeed at doing this.
If they feel like you are working towards that end, that you
want this too and are trying your best, they will forgive
your slip-ups and cheer on your successes.”
https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net/p/how-to-give-a-better-
than-average
Stress
management
• Sometimes admitting that you are stressed at
the beginning of your presentation can make
other people more sympathetic and they will
try to help you
• You can joke about your nervosity
• Credit people in the room
Stress
management
• You are most important to...you!
• Spotlight effect
• “when you find yourself mortified or overly worried about the
impression you'll make, remember that other people simply don't pay
as much attention to you as you think they do”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/are-we-born-
racist/201206/the-spotlight-effect
Stress
management
• But there are more practical things you can
do..
• Be prepared – train at home and be confident
you know what you want to say
• Sleep enough, avoid caffeine
• Wear comfortable cloths
• Be early at the presentation spot, familiarize
yourself with technology
• Before presentation – breathing exercises,
visualizations
Presentation visual
Software
• Many out there – we
“recommend” PowerPoint
(sometimes required)
• We have license, a lot of
advice online
• Pretty simple, actually
• But may be disciplinary
specific!
• Show how to record
General advice
• Slides are for audience, not
you (you have notes – how to
use them?)
• For each illustration, think
why it is there (support or
distract?)
• Each illustration should be
legible – especially graphs and
text
• Key points rather than full
sentences (“PowerPoint
karaoke”)
• “Less is more”
Specific advice
• Where to get illustrations? Be
aware of copyright! (Picture
banks, AI, Clipart)
• When explaining graphs,
describe Y and X axes – focus
on key graphs
• Be mindful of accessibility –
color contrasts, font size
Structure
• “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell
them. Tell them what you’ve told them.”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/02/20/ho
w-to-win-at-academic-presentations/
Structure I
Greet, thank
organizers/who
introduced you
First slide – title of
the talk, name, event,
year, affiliation logos
Introduce you/your
team and your
research question –
hook the audience
Show structure of the
presentation (how
you will tackle the
research question)
Introduction to what
has been done –
5min? (show you did
your reading)
HOWEVER moment –
show the gap – this is
where your
contribution comes in
Structure II
Methods
(participants, questions,
experimental designs,
data sets)
Results
(ideally present in a
visual way –
graphs/table)
Tie results back to your
research question –
interpretation of the
data/what it means for
theory
Conclusion – remind
what you set out to do,
what you found, and
what the audience
should remember
Last slide – thank co-
authors/whoever
helped, funders, links to
your web/publications
Handling
discussions
• You can prepare answers to expected
questions
• Not understanding question: “I am not sure I
follow, could you please re-state your
question?”
• Not knowing what to answer: “I hadn’t
thought about that, that’s really useful. Could
we perhaps discuss this during the coffee
break?”
• More of a comment than a question
• Offensive question/criticism – “I believe that
this is orthogonal to our discussion here and
would be happy to discuss more over coffee”
• Sometimes nobody asks
Chairing
sessions
• Introduce each speaker – look up their
websites, or at least their affiliation and title of
the talk in the book of abstracts
• Check time, give 5 min warnings and when
someone is overtime, perhaps passive
agrressive
• Give people time to think about questions
• Prefer underrepresented groups (JM research)
• Have a question prepared in case there are no
questions
Elevator
pitch
• 30-60 secs
• Who you are, what you do, and what you want
to do
• share your expertise and credentials quickly
and effectively
• Should be shaped based on whom you talk
and what you may want
• Be positive (about things you want to do)
• Practice, practice, practice