Notes by David Proffitt

1. Preparing
   • What do you want to say?
     • Big issue being addressed
     • Specific question under discussion
       • What you did
       • What you found
       • What it means
       • Narrow topic, not all about you!
   • Who are you talking to?
     • For cog lunch, it would be a non-specialist
     • Don’t assume your professors are specialists, it’s okay to talk to them
   • Make slides
     • Good order for slides
       • Title
       • Issue
       • Background
       • Research question
         • What’s missing from the background. This is your research question.
         • Give the answer up front: the research I’ve done is going to show that $X$. That way the audience can determine whether it actually supports it throughout the presentation.
           • This is highly debated, even in this talk.
       • Design and Methods
       • Results
       • Conclusions and Implications
       • Questions
     • He suggests only using black text on white background. White on black is really white on gray when projected.
       • “Will annoy any visual scientist in any talk” if you use use anything other than black on white.
       • Don’t decorate your slides (logos of your lab, etc)
       • Purpose of the slide is to be legible
       • Only use color to highlight certain aspects
     • Font sizes
       • Don’t use anything smaller than 24pt.
       • The eyes don’t age very well
     • Avoid too uch bulleted text
       • Reading is obligatory (as an adult, you can’t avoid reading). See the Stroop Test.
       • Don’t put your lecture notes in your slides!
       • Don’t put text in your slides that you’re not going to say aloud. It produces cognitive fatigue (audience is struggling to decide between reading your slide and listening to what you’re saying).
       • What to do with bulletted text
         • Great for creating initial drafts, but then replace it with pictures, charts, etc.
         • Flowcharts and tables are great replacements for bullets
     • Data slides
       • Label Axes
       • Include Error bars
       • Then, when you are talking about it, describe what everything means. (axes)
     • Tie your future directions to your talk
     • The last slide should be a question motivator. You want people to ask questions, so don’t show your collaborators.
       • Put something up that helps them think of questions
       • If no one thinks of questions, try to come up with a softball questions to get other people going asking questions
   • Practice
     • Present to a friendly audience (familiarity, timing)
     • Present to a group in another lab (that don’t know what you’ve alread done)
     • Take your talk for a walk: find a park or somewhere quiet, and walk for hours before the talk and rehearse while walking.
       • Know the talk cold
     • Don’t write your whole talk and read it. It might help to write the first paragraph just in case.
       • People can tell if you’re reading
       • After the first paragraph, you’ll be into it
2. Presentation
   • Know your audience
     • They might be preoccupied, inattentive, unfamiliar with your project, easily bored, easily amused.
     • At any given time, 1/3 of your audience isn’t listening
       • For important concepts, say it more than once
   • Face your audience, not your slides
     • Don’t use a laser pointer if you’re prone to nervousness (the dot will be moving as you shake, which is distracting)
     • Look into eyes, not behind them
   • Watch your audience for signs of life. Are they getting too bored or getting lost?
     • Do this when you teach. If you’re losing them, go back and ask if you need to go over it again.
   • Be yourself!
   • Don’t use cartoons, but if you do, walk the audience through it and laugh at it yourself
   • Questions
     • When someone asks a question, listen to the question
     • Understand (rephrase and repeat the question back, or ask the person to repeat it)
     • Answer the question
     • Not knowing the answer is okay. The ones that you don’t know are probably not directly related to your talk, but only tangentially related.
       • Take this as an opportunity to throw the question back at the person, “how do you think that would play out?” Let them develop the implications
3. Evaluation
   • Get feedback on your talk
   • Pay attention to what works in other people’s talks as well as your own
   • Go to every job talk that you can, and don’t make the same mistakes
   • Steal ideas whenever possible
     • Analyze and emulate other people who give talks that you admire, but BE YOURSELF!
     • Find people who you feel empathy with, and steal those