Tutoring and Demonstrating - Presenting Your Research

Presenting Your Research

If you are a graduate student, it is likely that you will have opportunities to present the results of your research to colleagues while you are employed as a tutor or demonstrator at this University. Such presentations offer a number of benefits, so don't feel shy about accepting - or seeking - the opportunity. Apart from invaluable feedback on your research, they offer very useful experience for the development of presentation skills and the skills of handling questioning and challenge.

Presentation skills are valuable in many areas of employment, but particularly in an academic career, which requires the ability to hold the interest of large groups of students for an hour in the standard lecture format. It is even possible that you will be invited to give lectures to students on your research area while you are a tutor.

Skills in presenting a paper or lecture are obviously different from the kind of skills associated with the successful management of small groups. They are closely related to the personality of the presenter and are developed partly by growing confidence and maturity. You would know from your own experience that there is no single formula for successful presentations, that a wide variety of styles can be successful when matched to the needs of the audiences, and that memorable presentations are sometimes highly idiosyncratic.

It is possible nonetheless to suggest some general guidelines which allow room for individual styles. You may find these useful as a starting point, but draw also on your own experience: as a seasoned 'consumer' of lectures and conference papers, you should have some strong ideas about what works and what doesn't. But remember that a lecture to undergraduate students is very different from a presentation of your research at a conference.

Guidelines for effective presentations

Interaction with the audience

Be aware of your audience, both in preparing your paper and in making the presentation. It is vital to pitch your talk at the appropriate intellectual level, to understand what kind of tone is suitable for a given audience and how much background information you need to give.

Watch your audience all the time you are speaking. Look at body language: it is usually easy to tell when people are interested or bored, and even when they have not followed a point. In most audiences, there are several individuals with very expressive faces, who will helpfully wrinkle a forehead or raise an eyebrow when they don't follow or disagree with something. If people do not understand a point, you need to circle back and try to clarify it, explaining in different terms or giving illustrations. If they disagree, this is nothing to worry about. In fact, it can be an encouraging sign that your presentation has really engaged their interest. But you may want to draw attention to the contentious nature of something you are arguing and acknowledge opposing views.

While using certain people as a reference point, don't confine your eye contact to a few individuals or one section of your audience. Make a conscious effort to move your eyes regularly to all parts of the room.

It follows inescapably from the previous points that your presentation should not be based on a full written script. You cannot have the necessary contact with your audience if you are reading every word of a paper written as if it were a journal article. The two forms are very different and a failure to recognise this is one of the most common mistakes in giving oral presentations. Apart from the fact that a presenter cannot gauge the audience reaction if she/he is reading a paper, the delivery tends to be more stilted and monotonous than if one is speaking from notes, and can become boring and alienating. You may wish to read selected sections of a written paper, but do so sparingly. Only very experienced presenters can read without appearing to do so. Most people can't.

Planning and structuring

The need to speak directly to your audience does not mean that presentations should be given 'off the cuff'. Some exceptional people can give brilliant performances with little direct preparation, usually after many years experience, but most of us require a lot of careful planning. In many ways, to give a presentation from notes requires more structuring than reading a paper, because you must have a very clear idea of the logical shape of what you are doing. This is what prevents you from 'drying up': a strong sense of the territory you are covering and exactly where everything fits. You need to think in terms of key concepts, principles and issues, and the relationship between them. The idea of a skeleton is a useful metaphor for the structure of a presentation; you have the bare bones and a firm grasp of how they all fit together. You put the flesh on the bones in the delivery.

Once you have the structure of your presentation clear, consider how you can share this structure with your audience. It can guide the way they listen very effectively. One of the most useful overhead transparencies in any presentation - for you and for the audience - is an initial outline of what you plan to cover. At various points you can indicate where you are in this scheme, helping your audience to orient themselves. It is also helpful to use numbers to clarify structure. For example: 'There are three problems with this theory. The first is . . . The second is . . . The third is . . . '. If your discussion of the first problem is then quite lengthy and takes you off at a tangent, you bring your audience back with a reference to the second problem. This kind of sign-posting is particularly beneficial for students; you need somewhat less of it with colleagues, who may become irritated if they feel you are labouring the point.

Stimulating interest and engagement

Try to be provocative and stimulating in your presentation. Throw up interesting issues, hypotheses, debates, problems. Don't get bogged down in minutiae: oral presentations are not the place for a great deal of detail. If you have information essential to your case, put it on paper, explain what the information is, draw attention to particular points which you want to discuss, and allow people to study the material later.

Think of your audience as active participants in the session. It is often claimed that audiences in lectures or conference presentations are 'passive' if they don't actually speak. Any good lecturer knows that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of intellectual activity. The most important activity for thinkers is to think. Of course, if we never had the opportunity to articulate, test and modify our thoughts with others, it would be very hard, perhaps impossible, to develop them. But we shouldn't assume that a one-way presentation is delivered to an inert mind that is just soaking up the words. Even in less impressive lectures, people are likely to be thinking independent thoughts, like 'This is unclear' or 'This is repetitive'.

During good presentations, the audience can be working very hard indeed: considering new ideas, thinking of objections, constructing counter-arguments, pursuing for themselves extensions of what is being argued, engaging in a 'silent' debate with the speaker. The secret of effective delivery is to stimulate as much of this sort of intellectual activity in the listeners as possible. The advantage of conference presentations over most undergraduate lectures is that this activity can develop into lively discussion and debate at the end of the talk. But students, of course, have tutorials to fulfil this function.

Audio-visual materials

Plan the use of audio-visual aids carefully. These can be an invaluable resource or a source of irritation and disruption. You must be familiar with equipment and have tested it before the presentation. Make sure that your visuals are legible and your sound audible to all. This means trying out the equipment and your presentation materials well beforehand in the allocated room. If this is impossible (preparing conference presentations, for example) play it safe and make any print or reproductions very large. Probably the most annoying statement from paper-givers, still heard frequently, is the apology: 'Now you mightn't be able to see this, but I'll tell you what it says' (often spoken as a table with hundreds of figures goes up on the overhead projector screen).

In some areas, it is now expected that papers will be presented with sophisticated visual materials. Many presenters use software packages to prepare a series of slides on which they base their talks. When used properly, this approach is very effective, but remember that you must have access to the necessary equipment: a computer and a compatible projector. Remember also that you place yourself at the mercy of equipment reliability. Be careful: managing the technology can easily distract you from your main task, engaging the audience. Don't get carried away by the graphic effects which are possible - elaborate colour schemes, fades, and so on. These are not only time-consuming, but can actually divert attention from the substance of your presentation and can irritate some members of your audience who are suspicious of 'glitz'. There seem to be differences here between disciplines, so take your cue from your colleagues' approaches, at least at first.

Time management

Stick strictly to your allocated time: audiences and chairpeople can get angry with people who ignore time limits and anger is not conducive to constructive discussion of your paper. If you see that you are running out of time, don't be afraid to pause for a few seconds to review which remaining points are most important and which will have to be jettisoned.

Humour

You have probably heard many times that humour is an important element of good lectures and talks. This is probably true, but requires some skill and thought. Some people thinks this means that they have to 'tell a joke' at a few points in an otherwise sober lecture. It is much more successful if the humour is related to the material and in the form of amusing anecdotes or reflections, sometimes just an ironic aside. It shouldn't be forced, but should come naturally. If your personality doesn't lend itself to this approach, there is no point in trying to turn yourself into a stand-up comic.

Professional development opportunities

Conditions of employment

Next chapter: Chapter 10. A guide for self-evaluation

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